Dr. Alex George

with this part of the brain that will latch on and think and think and think and think and think it's uh it's a painful combination of time so i'm really careful with people if i think that i'm going to overthink this i'll say can you just give me clarity even if we don't talk about it now i just need to know what the conversation is because i can deal with that and exactly that scenario it ended up being something positive you know the thing you thought it was wasn't even not as bad as a bloody good thing and you've like it's not her fault but you've been sent in a sense self-sabotage the situation out of nothing

Definitely.

I mean, I think I've definitely had moments where I've had very dark thoughts off the back of it.

You know, an offensive fear is often a situation where you're getting rejected about a sensitivity about a possible event that might happen, usually more so than something's actually happened.

You know, which is the things you can feel rejected about something that hasn't actually happened.

You've just imagined it.

And so, yeah, that can send you into a state of panic and desperation because, of course, again, to go to that point, when you have high emotional state, your logical brain is becoming depowered.

So, when you're highly emotional, the ability to rational and think actually taking my own life in this situation isn't proportional to what this is.

becomes weaker and weaker, and the voice becomes louder and louder of, this is terrible, you're terrible, it's awful, your life's ruined, everything's terrible, what's the point anymore?

And it's a frightening state of being, especially if you have a situation where someone's already depressed, or in a vulnerable state, or has coexisting OCD, for example.

You know, there's compounding risk factors for those situations.

So,

you know rejection sensitivity is for it isn't just about being a bit sensitive i think it is a risk to life and certainly a risk to health i mean to that example turning to alcohol you know a very very common coping mechanism for many adhd traits but certainly for rejection sensitivity because actually it hurts less when you drink and that's the reality in the long run it doesn't hurt a hell of a lot more but in the moment it hurts less it creates a delay between experience and yeah the situations happen the experience of pain

I've always felt very different, and there's some things that I think can be explained by ADHD, and there are other things that I think aren't necessarily so.

For example, on the sensory side of things.

So since the age of probably six or seven, I've used a hairdryer sound to soothe.

So my mum said as a baby I was very restless, and when I used to dry her hair, I'd kind of really calm and go to sleep.

And I think from a very young age, I realized that I felt most calm when the hairdryer was on.

So from literally like seven or eight, I'd go downstairs in the morning before school and put the hairdryer on for half an hour and sit with it on the sofa just with the hairdryer held like this.

And I do that before school and after school.