Putting the Hyper in Hypersensitive (Rebroadcast)

0:00Welcome to Hacking Your ADHD, I'm your host, William Curb, and I have ADHD. On this podcast, I dig into the tools, tactics, and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain. With ADHD, we often have trouble filtering things out. We can't ignore the hum of an air conditioner. We can't ignore that scratchy tag on the back of our shirt, and we can't ignore the fact that it seems like the lady standing next to us in line may have been marinating herself in perfume.

0:31We don't want to pay attention to these things, but we can't always get our brains to focus on what we want in the best of times. So how do we expect them to when something is calling for our attention so urgently? Many people with ADHD are hypersensitive, or also sometimes called being a highly sensitive person, which means that they are simply more sensitive to things that stimulate our senses, anything from touch, taste, smell, sound, or things we see.

0:57We can also find ourselves overwhelmed with emotions or too much information. In today's episode, we're going to be exploring hypersensitivity and some of the things that we can do about it. If you'd like to follow along on the show notes page, you can find that at hackingyouradhd.com/hypersensitivity. All right. With that, keep on listening to find out what it means to be a highly sensitive person While it might seem like paying attention to what we're sensitive to is simply a matter of preference, there are actually plenty of practical considerations to make as well.

1:38It's not just that we feel uncomfortable, but also that these sensitivities serve as additional distractions for us. When we're highly sensitive to something, it's a lot easier for us to get overwhelmed by it. As I've said many times before, it doesn't take a whole lot to derail me, so I've got to focus on limiting those things that are gonna take me off the rails. Because as I keep adjusting my shirt to get that tag to stop itching me in that one spot I really can't stretch to, eventually I'm going to want to just take my shirt off.

2:11Most of the time, that really isn't an option, and so I just have to live with this feeling. But that's also not a great option, and that's gonna lead me to feeling completely overwhelmed by the situation. While just ignoring these stimuli might seem like an ideal solution, it hardly ever works that way with our ADHD. Unless we can really refocus our attention, we're not actually ignoring these things. We're just building up that pressure until we explode.

2:38Let's just imagine a ticking clock. This is one of my biggest pet peeves and is one of those things that always sets me off. I go, "No, it'll be okay. I can handle this. I'm an adult. It's just ticking. I can ignore it. Okay, ignoring it. Yeah, it's just a clock, not a big deal. I can just click my pen in time with it, then I won't hear it. Okay, it's not stopping." I mean, I know it's not going to stop. It's a clock. That's what they do. They serve as my sworn enemy And then at this point, I'll get up from my chair and attempt to throw the clock across the room.

3:19And then I'll jump back into thinking about how I should just have been able to ignore it, and at that point, I'm completely off the rails. In our heads, we should be above having these distractions derail us, but what I've learned in life is that we have to accept things as they are. It doesn't matter how much I wish things were different somehow, how much I wish that my brain could filter these things out. Perhaps with enough training, that might be possible, or it could just be an exercise in futility.

3:48Instead, I find it's better to always just try and meet myself where I am, and for this, that means limiting my exposure to these distractions. But that's easier said than done, right? One of the most common complaints of sensitive people are that of clothing tags, especially those in the back of your shirt, and that has to have been come up by someone who was especially sadistic. Why would you put the tag in the middle of the back of the shirt? How am I supposed to effectively adjust it?

4:15Every time I move, it moves, too. In the last few years, I have found my perfect T-shirt for myself, which are just the black Costco 32 Degree brand athletic shirts. Tagless, and the fit is right, so most days I don't really notice them. But shirts are just one piece of it. I mean, Winnie-the-Pooh can get away with just wearing a T-shirt, but I'm not so lucky. We've also got to find comfortable leg prisons, or, I mean pants, and socks that aren't going to need to be constantly adjusted, underwear that doesn't chafe or get too sweaty.

4:48Also, we need more pockets, because if we don't carry our stuff on us, we're probably gonna forget it. And where else am I gonna put that cool rock I just found? Unfortunately, most of this is something you've just got to figure out on your own, because what's comfortable for me may not work for you. Beyond Clothing, we also want to try and limit anything else that can overstimulate us. I know that when I'm in large crowds, it often becomes completely overwhelming to me.

5:12All the visual movement and the press of people and the sound of so many people talking, it's not exactly agoraphobia, but it certainly isn't comfortable, and it, it doesn't even have to be super crowded. I can get those uncomfortable feelings at something like a busy grocery store. Amazingly, I have found one of the best tricks here is just to wear my noise-canceling headphones when I'm shopping. By dropping just one of those stimuli, it really improves the whole experience.

5:38And of course, those noise-canceling headphones are great in terms of work as well. When I'm in my office, I'm almost always wearing them so I don't notice the noise from people talking outside or walking down the hallway. Although, I can still usually pick up on the vibrations in the floor. What can I say? We notice things. By cutting off one of those major sources of stimulus, it really improves my working experience. One less thing to distract me.

6:02Additionally, in my office, I make sure to have good lighting so that I'm not straining my eyes while I'm working. There is some research that fluorescent lighting can be especially difficult with ADHD because of the harshness of the light and its invisible flicker. Even beyond that, I always remember at school when I was in a classroom with those buzzing fluorescent lights and how that noise was just so distracting. There are also other areas where the sensitivity can crop up.

6:30Are there bad smells around? Is it too hot, too cold? These are all things we have to think about when we're trying to set up our ideal environments, and the solutions aren't always obvious ones. I know that I find a lot of the smells in typical air fresheners to be particularly unpleasant, which for a long time boggled my mind. Like, why are people trying to cover up awful smells with these other awful smells? I remember as a kid, I thought my dad's cologne was the worst smell in the world.

6:57Like, I'd actively avoid being around him in the morning after he put it on, or even in the area of the house he'd put it on. I can just see little me running through the front hall, holding my breath so I wouldn't have to breathe it in. Thank goodness my mom was usually the one to drive me to school. And this all makes a lot more sense when I realized that it wasn't that other people are ignoring these smells. It was just that I'm a lot more sensitive to them than they are.

7:20Smells are also interesting because they're one of the things we're most likely to notice when they've changed, but are also something we can quickly get used to. Yeah, we absolutely notice when someone cooks fish in the office microwave, but we also have almost no sense of what our house really smells like. We can quickly go nose blind to the scents we're constantly exposed to. It's just our brain going, "Oh, yeah, this. We don't need to pay attention to this. We already know what that smell is."

7:45But this also leads to new smells being especially easy to pick up on our radar because they're so novel. If you are having problems with smells, a good option here is something like a scent diffuser that isn't too intense. Although I do want to note here, there are a ton of claims about essential oils and aromatherapy for ADHD that aren't scientifically validated. All I'm advocating for here is that your environment can be improved if it smells nice.

8:08Just be cautious that some of these can trigger allergies or asthma in some people, and as highly sensitive people, we're more prone to allergies. It's no fun to completely diffuse your house with a scent that gives you a headache. That's how I learned we can't use lemon glass as a cleaner in my house. Yeah. Yikes. The point here is that we're going to have to experiment with a lot of these things because there's no one-size-fits-all solution. But we don't always have to start from scratch.

8:33We can start by looking at those tagless options, the noise-reduction headphones, and looking for those cleaners with low or no-scent options can really save a lot of time and hassle as we find what works for us. For some of us, being called sensitive is, well, a sensitive issue. When you're a sensitive person, there are those who will tease you about it or just tell you to toughen up. And since we are sensitive, well, that actually affects us. We don't want to take offense to it, but the thoughts still linger in our heads.

9:05As I mentioned in the top of the show, this sensitivity can show up in our emotions as well. Depending on where you live, emotional dysregulation might not be part of an ADHD diagnosis. While it is considered one of the six fundamental features used for diagnosis in the European Union, it isn't even considered a symptom in the United States, and it isn't included in the DSM-V. Now, I'll say my ADHD affects all areas of my life, including my emotions.

9:32My impulsivity and ability to focus are both affected by my emotions, and my emotions affect them. I can't imagine how something as brain-based as ADHD wouldn't have an effect on my emotions. Part of the reason that it's often overlooked is that it's really hard to measure emotions, and so we kind of just sweep them under the rug. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have a big effect on our lives. One of the manifestations of emotional dysregulation is rejection sensitive dysphoria, which is also commonly referred to as RSD.

10:04Now, it's important for me to mention here that there isn't a lot of research on RSD yet, and as I mentioned above, it's not part of a formal diagnosis. However, RSD is something that a lot of ADHDers find incredibly validating. But that doesn't really explain what rejection sensitive dysphoria really is, although I'm sure many of you perked up at the words. For many of us, we've always felt that we were particularly sensitive to rejection, that we are so sensitive to even the idea of getting rejected by someone or something that we stop putting ourselves out there.

10:37RSD is characterized by emotional outbursts after criticism or rejection. Perceived or real, doesn't really matter. Low self-esteem, rumination and overthinking, withdrawal and avoidance of social situations, and it's usually accompanied by intense feelings that can be, well, excruciating. Now, let me be clear here. No one really enjoys failing, and no one wants to be rejected. I mean, if you're putting yourself out there, it's because you're going after something that you want, so it's gonna feel bad when you don't get it.

11:09But with RSD, these feelings are far more intense. It can feel like you've been hollowed out or even like a punch to the gut. Because of these feelings, we find ourselves avoiding social situations where we might get rejected, which really is pretty much all of them. This does not, however, mean that we are doomed to always feel this way. There are ways to crawl out of the pits of RSD. One of the biggest factors from RSD is simply the fear of feeling it.

11:37We know how it's gonna feel, and so we actively avoid situations that can trigger it. Worse than the actual experience of the symptom is our fear of experiencing it. So while avoidance of social situations can be effective at reducing the symptoms, that seriously puts a damper on our lives. One method to work on this is some exposure therapy to rejection. In the book Rejection Proof, Jia Jiang goes on a journey to experience a hundred rejections to get him over his fear of rejection.

12:06While Jiang didn't suffer from RSD, he certainly had an incredible fear of rejection before he started his journey. I'm not sure I'd recommend this exact approach here, but going out and trying to get rejected makes it so the rejection doesn't really sting as much. I mean, you accomplish what you were trying to do, and experience rejection in low-stakes situations can help your brain get past the barriers that are holding you back. Additionally, what Jiang found on his journey was that people were way more likely to accept his requests than he ever expected, and that's something we absolutely have to be cognizant of when we're thinking about this because we often reject ourselves without even trying.

12:43This doesn't mean that getting past RSD will be quick or even easy. It's just saying that there are some things we can do. What often helps the most with RSD is simply understanding that the feelings are, well, perhaps not normal, or at least in the realm of the symptoms of ADHD. That it's not just us who feels overwhelmed by simple rejections. Because we often feel guilt with these feelings, we feel like we shouldn't be feeling this way, which only makes us feel worse and then feel bad about feeling bad.

13:14It's not a great cycle. But when we know that this is just another extension of our ADHD, it can help us create this understanding of those feelings. We're better able to frame them, and we know that this too shall pass. Thanks for sticking with me all the way to the end. Before you go though, let's do a quick rundown of today's top tips. One, many people with ADHD also report being hypersensitive or being a highly sensitive person, which means that they can process certain physical and emotional stimuli more intensely or thoroughly than others.

13:56It also means that we tend to process more aspects of our environment than other people. Two, to help limit all the stimuli we receive, we can do things like wear comfortable tagless clothing, use noise-canceling headphones, and use proper lighting to help reduce the number of distractions we get in our day. Three, rejection sensitive dysphoria, or RSD, is an extreme emotional sensitivity that is triggered by the perception of rejection or failure.

14:24The intense feelings can even manifest as physical pain. RSD isn't easy to deal with, but can be worked on with the understanding that the feelings won't last forever, and knowing that you can get past them. For this episode's show notes, go to HackingYourADHD.com/hypersensitivity. That's it. Thanks for listening. I'd love to hear what you thought of this episode. You can reach me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @HackingYourADHD, or the best way you can connect with me is over at HackingYourADHD.com/contact.

14:59And now for your moment of dad. I used to be addicted to soap, but you should all know, now I'm clean.