
I belong to many ADHD Facebook groups because I love being able to discuss certain topics with neurodiverse people such as myself.
One of the topics that comes up frequently, is loss and grief. How does a neurodiverse individual deal with it compared to a neurotypical?
For me personally, it takes me awhile to fully process emotions—well, all but anger. For some odd reason, I process anger instantly. However, it’s more of an impulsive reaction than processing it.
Grief is the exact opposite. I can’t feel anything until days and sometimes months later. Then it hits me like a ton of bricks. It’s like my brain can’t comprehend what is happening until it’s completely over and done…and a lot of time has gone by.
I can remember being at all of my graduations and watching everyone else crying and feeling awkward around them. I was smiling and enjoying the party. It’s like I didn’t understand that things would never be the same. It wasn’t until the following year I started feeling depressed about the change.
My therapist recently gave me a technique to deal with loss and grief. I decided to share it with all twenty-one of my readers—and my mom, because I thought it was such a great idea.
Basically she told me to schedule a time to be sad. To feel everything and let it all out because life gets in the way and you don’t have time to fully process emotions. Someone who is neurodiverse struggles with the ability to process emotions and lacks the time to try. So if you make time for it, you can relax and let it out, because it needs to come out.
She’s right, it does need to come out. I noticed that if I don’t allow myself time to process emotions, they will effect my life in other ways—at the wrong times. I’ll take things out on my kids or husband and that’s not fair to them.
So, I hope this technique will help you like it helped me. Have a great day!
Stay Squirrely,
Dana
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