Reply to Therapist says we are busy doing and not feeling

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, I’m a adhd parent with adhd kids.

I have no idea if this is the right therapist or approach for your family. But I would encourage you to try to tune into the more subterranean emotions like fear, remorse, and shame. Over the years, I’ve realized that a lot of my reactivity has stemmed from fear — the fear that if my kid can’t do X now, they won’t be able to do Y in 5 years and Z in ten years. And that means disastrous things for their whole life. The fear taps into my own childhood too; I had pretty non-functional parents, whom I suspect desperately needed diagnoses themselves, so I have these living models for what happens when people don’t manage to get their sh*t together. Now the fear has the mass not only of an opaque future, but also of my ickiest past. It’s like a black hole, sucking everything in.

Meanwhile, the same situation — and my responses to it — can tap into my kids’ sense of shame about who they are and what they struggle with, and that shame has is own story that is much, much larger than the circumstances at hand.

All this means that an argument over the dishes can be, on the subterranean level,  about something much bigger: whether they are okay, and whether they will *be* okay, and whether they are lovable, and loved, etc etc.

Michael Phelps-type goals can get mixed up in all of this, too — sometimes those goals take on meaning related to these questions. “If I can do ____, I’ll have proof that I’m worthy.” Which of course complicates things even further.

Like I say, I have no idea of this is the approach or therapy you need. But a question I’ve asked started asking myself, and that I try to encourage the kids to ask themselves, is “what am I making this mean?” I’ve found that very helpful for identifying the harder, less obvious emotions that are lurking beneath the surface. 
[/quote]

Thank you. Can you be my therapist? LOL. But yes that's probably what she means. hiding the bigger emotions below everything. Although I have to say tiredness is a lot of what I feel. There is real physicality to adhd struggles that probably all of us feel.[/quote]

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