Do any other #audhd folx have or suspect they have #avpd? I could use some coping skills before I do irreversible damage to the tenuous social structures I have in place. Or maybe I will anyway, who knows  

@violet no AVPD here but Ive had some neurospicy stuff over the years and had to cope , frequently unmedicated...

My advice, in wall of text format :

Emotions are never WRONG - that's a category error, like saying GREEN is wrong. It just IS , it exists, you didn't pick it and can't control it , so it's not your fault. You're allowed to feel it no matter what feeling it is and it's normal and ok . (This sounds easy but is really fucking hard for me to remember). The only thing you're responsible for is how you react/respond/behave in response to that emotion.

Remembering this has really helped me with my anxiety . It like, gives me permission to feel what I'm feeling without trying to short-circuit and shame myself for feeling and all that

@eg0n you're right of course, I simply mean to call to mind the experience of having been angry and realized later it was unjustified, or that with a slightly different set of circumstances I would have been fine. That said, it's always easier for me to remember this for others than it is for me to apply it to myself. I have the brain barrier in the way which isn't tempered by outside perspective

@violet yeah it's always easier looking back or for others , anything easier as long as it isn't YOURSELF and IN THE MOMENT... I hear you there.

I'd add that what you said, that's exactly what I mean - thinking about justifying anger isn't always helpful because the anger itself can be ok. You're allowed to feel it, and even thinking about needing to justify it at all (even afterwards ) is potentially harmful.

It's easy for me to say since like we said, I'm not feeling it right now, but it is never wrong to feel anything , and you never have to justify a feeling. There's no requirement to have supporting rationale for feelings. Own em, feel em, share em.

Behavior in response to the feelings? Oh yeah i gotta justify that shit.
But the feelings themselves, no apologies! :)

@eg0n Yeah well... it may take a little time for me to figure that out, but I'll try. I might as well have a degree in regulating others' emotions for them (thanks trauma), and not being hypervigilant at all times of what may or may not be reasonable is nigh unthinkable to me. Because no matter what, if I'm feeling something its bound to make 'them' angry (whoever them is in a given context).

I suppose its no wonder I identify very little with organics, I so despise all this feeling

@violet yeah you being up a good point .

People ("them") will see you feel a certain way and react some way - they will either help you feel better or not. Either way, they reveal something about how much they care for you. People who really REALLY care for you will create a safe space for you to feel your emotions.

Also, 🫂