Spiralling down with ADHD emotional processing

Hi there,

Not sure what I'm expecting, support and advice is welcome but I at least need to get this off of my chest so I figured here was as good a place as any. Yesterday I had my biggest autistic/ADHD meltdown in a while and it's been putting me under quite a bit of stress.

For context, next year I will be going to a friend's wedding, which will be the first wedding I go to as an adult. Yesterday night I was discussing it with my girlfriend (she'll be coming too) and she mentioned that there was probably going to be a dresscode. I asked my friend and he said that yes, there was going to be a dresscode, the standard “suits for men, dresses for women” (and whichever of the two enbies prefer).

Thinking about a dresscode triggered me for several reasons. One, traditions make no sense to me. Two, having me buy clothes for one day in my life feels dumb. Three, you're not getting me to wear something I don't like, if you want to have me then you'll have me as myself, in the clothes that I want. And four, if you're forcing me then you're just not respecting me.

Those were my initial thoughts anyway. They're things I never really had to work through (my family doesn't care for traditions and dressing up, and I was rarely forced to wear something I didn't like), and the combo of the different triggers caught me by surprise with how deep they were. I reacted really violently in anger and frustration and I threw all of those feelings at my girlfriend (we're mostly long-distance so it was in *** DMs), essentially saying “yeah *** that, I'm not doing it”. It was too much for her to handle, for one, but dressing up also happens to be important to her and she was looking forward to doing it with me, not only at my friend's wedding but on other occasions too. Seeing me reject the possibility so abruptly was really hurtful to her.

Once the feelings calmed down enough, I felt very guilty and I knew I had reacted selfishly and on impulse. I apologised to her profusely, but at that point we were both caught in our own emotional loops (she has ADHD too).

We had planned on gaming together last night, but I had nearly no executive function left from working through the intense feelings. I needed reassurance that “it was okay” but I knew she was in no mental place to provide that anyway, especially since I was the one who hurt her in the first place. I didn't feel like I deserved that anyway. I became mostly paralysed and nonverbal and stuck in self-loathing and guilt. As for her, she was angry with what had happened, and she couldn't find a way to talk to me without being angry at me, which she felt would have been unfair and mean. So she ended up being nonverbal too and we just sat at our desks being quiet. What made it worse is that we don't have an easy time finding time together and we were both looking forward to the gaming night. That was ruined by then, which contributed to the sadness even more.

Eventually we played a game together for 15 minutes. Felt horrible, we stopped. Then we finally managed to talk it out properly, and for the next few hours we discussed our feelings in-depth. We processed some of our feelings, so eventually I started seeing the interest in dressing up (it's fun, it's a nice thing to do on special occasions for people you care for, it's quite romantic to figure it out with your partner, and there are options to make outfits reusable for other occasions). We started looking into suits for me to wear, and I opened up to the possibility of dressing up with her on occasions. We postponed the gaming night to today.

We're fine and I know *** times are part of any relationship. However I feel like neurotypicals would have a much easier time snapping out of emotional spirals like these. I should have taken some time to explore my feelings, and then I could have told her “hmm, I'm not a fan of dressing up, I've never done it but it's an interesting thing to consider”, and from there we could have had a conversation about it. But I was not able to do that because the triggers were sudden, intense, and mostly things I'd never gotten around to confront and explore as an adult before. My brain didn't give me any time to take a step back and be reasonable about it. And the thing is, that doesn't feel right of me to say because it sounds like an excuse (it is one, right?). It does not justify that I threw my feelings at my partner in such a way, I do feel horrible about it and I kept apologising for it.

In other words, I was caught between two extremes.

• “My brain didn't leave me a choice or time to take a step back, I deserve understanding for that”
• “I'm so sorry, I acted so selfishly, I don't deserve any of your understanding, I'll just disappear so you don't have to deal with me for tonight anymore”

And I guess my question is, how do you guys deal with that kind of emotional processing where you end up caught in a loop between two extremes? That's evidently not a constructive way to process emotional issues, it's happened to me before and I don't want it to happen again. This is mostly a one-off due to rare, old, and unprocessed triggers I have, it doesn't happen to me often at all anymore and it most likely will remain a rare occurrence. However it's almost the kind of thought process you get from BPD and it's very tricky and exhausting to work out. I could probably use therapy for that, but I was wondering if there were tips and tricks you could tell me about, or stories I could relate to that would help me for next time.

And for those of you who like ironic endings, one more word. I ended up figuring out this morning that my friend and I had had a misunderstanding; the wedding ceremony and lunch are restricted to 80 people and all the invitations have already gone out to the families, so there's no room for my partner and I there. We will be welcome at the afterparty though. Which doesn't require dressing up.

Thank you for reading me thus far, and long live the neurospices.