So empathy is a visitation as opposed to a meeting. You visit another person’s planet, survey the geology and weather, and try to imagine how certain events might play out in this world.
The problem to date was that I was unaware of how my processing differed; unaware of audhd. I believed that everyone would need to fix a problem before they can process the emotions. Trying to fix other people’s problems was my version of empathising.
Then the flip-side is that people come to me to talk about my emotions and all I want them to do is fix the problem! Cuts both ways.
I think of it like a scatter chart. The closer two people are, the easier to visit and meet. And it’s easier to meet someone in the right mind space if you know where they sit on the chart.
This explains affinity between neurodivergent family members, and why you just get along with some people so much more than others. Relative proximity. But there still has to be an effort from both sides for an effective relationship to be established.
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So I’m lying there in bed listening to this transformer noise which has bothered me like a truck-sized tooth drill for the last 5 years and… it’s not bothering me. I could sleep through it. This is sensory gating something I have always lacked, apparently.
I had no idea, all this time. I had adhd going wild and had read the book ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’ and boy was I feeling the fear and doing it! But apparently these sensory issues - hearing things that other people can’t to the point of near insanity - apparently they’re not normal.
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