Coping Mechanisms, ADHD, & Me

Complex love, shameful guilt and popcorn

Photo by Nijwam Swargiary on Unsplash

Trigger warning: this article discusses suicide, depression, anxiety, and ADHD topics in depth. I understand if some of these topics are too heavy for you, and you decide not to read. In that case, I hope to see you in the next post. ❤

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It’s March 2020 - the first lockdown is in full flow. I wince as the first sign of affection from my mum dovetails on me like a bomb from the other side of the phone call. It had been years since we hugged or expressed affection to each other, let alone me share how I’m really doing.

How are you?

It’s an innocent question that yields an honest response. How am I really doing? It’s more of a formality in the U.K., rife in professional and personal environments (think work socials, seeing a mate, seeing your parents). Yet for me, my mum saying these words, accompanied by ‘I do love you Jordan, I worry about you’ broke, repulsed and warmed my heart all at the same time.

This article is about coping mechanisms, their interaction with ADHD, and how they’ve affected me personally. Our crutches are a mix of helpful, not so helpful, and grey. I’d personally say not being able to accept love from those close to me is somewhere in between. I’ll dive into this more shortly, but first let’s define what coping habits are…

What are coping mechanisms?

Here’s the official definition according to the Collins Dictionary.

“an adaptation to environmental stress that is based on conscious or unconscious choice and that enhances control over behaviour or gives psychological comfort.”

An adaptation to stress. Much like millions of years of evolution have optimised living species to adapt to their environments and survive, those of us that use coping strategies do it to survive in the harshest of psychological stress. Think of a time you’ve been anxious in a social setting. What did you do?

• Check your phone more to look busy

• Take more breaks outside to get some fresh air

• Sit in the corner and stay quiet

• Take on your fears and say one sentence to someone

• Leave

All of the above are micro-evolutions to help us adapt to a self-perceived stressful situation. I’ve done all of these multiple times. These can be helpful.

Other times you may check your phone because you can’t stand being alone with your thoughts. I do this. You may resort to extreme comfort thoughts of suicide at the presence of a minor inconvenience. These can be not-so-helpful.

However, coping mechanisms aren’t just restricted to physical, tangible situations. Deep rooted emotional triggers pop up out of seemingly nowhere. Our mental safety net has been breached, and learned response behaviours are initiated. These ones can be somewhere in between (grey).

How do they interact with ADHD?

Supercharging coping mechanisms with ADHD can be a recipe for obsession and destruction, but it can also be helpful. It all depends on the habit and the type of ADHD. I tend to be more ADHD inattentive dominant, and I check my phone a lot naturally, so when I feel anxious I go into overdrive and try to double focus on my phone to keep myself from having to socialise or talk to people. This isn’t helpful for me. Let’s talk more about my specific coping mechanisms below.

What are my coping habits?

Helpful

• Gym: This is my safe space where nothing else matters. I’ve also started Muay Thai which helps clear my head when I’m feeling overwhelmed with life - be that work, personal or anything else.

• Positive Self-talk: This helps when I’m feeling low or even nervous before a work meeting. Next time you’re in a similar situation, try to think of just 1 thing you:

  • Are grateful for (a sunny day, a friend, your partner)

  • Are looking forward to (a holiday, writing an article)

  • Have achieved (10k steps, writing 20+ blog posts, etc.)

The little jolts of positivity will breed some confidence in you.

Photo by Georgia Vagim on Unsplash

Not-so-helpful

Self talk

• There are 2 sides to my self talk. Think of it like popcorn. Once I think of one bad thing, or feel guilt in response to not achieving something, more bad thoughts appear. They multiply like popcorn. The self-inflicted melancholy is strangely addictive. Feeling sorry for and viewing myself as the wounded protagonist of the story is temporarily soothing, but destructive in the long term. Self-talk is tricky. I have to catch it before it veers off into a path of toxicity, and readjust to a positive lens before it’s too late.

Casual suicidal ideation

• I sometimes have an extreme automatic coping response to adversity. Didn’t get a job I wanted? Messed up a social situation? Didn’t go to the gym? Despite these seeming like minor to medium inconveniences, I’ve built the idea of suicide as an escape route if things get too hard. Now, I won’t act on these in the moment, but it’s a dangerous path. Just like the popcorn bubbling up, a suicidal ideation can lead me on to darker & dangerous thoughts that my mind may warrant as a greater threat. The threat to myself then increases. I theorise that this automatic response is through years of battling depression, anxiety & ADHD, and viewing it as a get out clause in case it all gets too much.

• My emotional compass can be wildly off. The dial is near earths core and is spinning uncontrollably. What next on this? Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve dealt with this automatic response for so long that I feel I have a good enough handle on it. Typically I’ll go for a walk, talk to a friend (I’ve done this recently) or go to the gym. The feeling then subsides.

• There is a taboo around suicide as an all of nothing term, but it isn’t. There are grey areas with most things, suicide included. Ideation, whilst dangerous, is earlier in the decision tree than action. For me, my best course of action is:

  • Noticing it in the first place. This is key. Awareness of me thinking such an extreme reaction to a seemingly minor challenge helps illustrate the absurdity of it (although I don’t berate myself for feeling that way)

  • Accepting it. Sometimes these thoughts pop up. But they’re just thoughts. If I don’t feed the beast, the popcorn will stop multiplying.

  • Distractive action:

    • Go for a 15 min walk

    • ‘Delay’ my thoughts and agree with myself to think about this in an hour. The thought usually disappears, or I even forgot think about it!

    • Ring a friend / family

    • Go to the gym

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Rejecting love, a grey area

Let’s pick up where we left off.

‘I do love you Jordan, I worry about you’

I cringed inside. The coping mechanism was trying to protect me from the feeling of losing my childhood and my mum to an overzealous, but well meaning, religious way of life. As I spoke about in my article ADHD & Me, my mum became a Jehovah’s Witness when I was 9. My life was a loveless desert for about 6 or 7 years following this. Little did I know, my brain decided to build some mental infrastructure to prevent me from feeling that way again, but it had malfunctioned.

Fast forward 20 years later. Whenever I receive kindness from family or friends, I reject it outright. I believe this is down to moments of affection triggering the inner child in me, who had built these coping mechanisms to live without love. Now there’s a bug in the system, that wants to hug me?! I must squash it!

Much like you’d install anti-virus software to clean up a laptop, I’ve been trying to cleanse my coping mechanism hard drive of deep rooted viruses that made my mind their nest literally decades ago.

‘I love you too mum. Actually, I’ve been struggling lately. My depression is quite bad because of the lockdown at the moment.’

The coping mechanism is fighting for its life, determined to protect me. I don’t hate it, Jesus, I even appreciate it. I think it’s both quietly tragic but also amazingly self-sacrificing for my brain to be putting up walls. I understand it. It’s just…. not the way I need to go anymore. I wipe a tear from my face, in the realisation of the love I have for my 9 year old brain, still clinging on to save me from that desperate loneliness.

I feel a sense of grief as I part ways with this piece of myself, but also a deep gratitude and relief as I quietly rock that part of my neurochemistry to a restful and permanent slumber.

‘We’ve moved on now. Let’s try and accept love. We have to.’

As that compartment of my brain dials down, I turn my attention back to my mum.

‘I want to be open with you. I said I’m struggling, and I.. tried to take my life over the last few years. I’m sorry.’

‘Please don’t be sorry. Obviously it’s hard for me to hear, and I know we haven’t seen the same on all things before, but I’m glad you told me, and I’m here for you. I love you.’

Sometimes we need to understand why coping mechanisms crop up, get to know them, talk to them, and appreciate them. And slowly write a letter of love before moving onto a new evolution of yourself.

Your future self will be grateful.

‘I love you too mum’.

*All of the above is based on my personal experience and is not official medical advice*