Oh no I once again looked at fictional characters in love and it undid all the progress I had regarding the "I am an independent person on my own, I don't need a romantic relationship" and now I'm, once again, a "pathetic unlovable adult"

Emotional Abuse and ADHD

Ok, first real post on the ADHD sideblog, so lets dive straight into the heavy stuff.   TW/CW for emotional abuse, gaslighting, and probably some other things too (please feel free to let me know if I should add additional tags).

I had trouble sleeping last night because my brain kept insisting I needed to start this blog, like immediately, despite it being clearly not an opportune time to do anything of the sort. Or at least, it insisted, I needed to jot down all the essay/ramble/whatever topic ideas I had complicated thoughts on so I could start the blog today. I managed to resist doing both of those things, and get to sleep eventually, but here I am.  The first topic that brought this on was wanting to talk about my experience in an emotionally abusive relationship and how many aspects of that were exacerbated by various symptoms of my (then undiagnosed) ADHD. 

I’m going to assume a certain amount of baseline familiarity with some terminology and whatnot here, if you’re confused by any of the ADHD terms I use here I recommend heading over to theadhdmanual.com and reading their very helpful “three pillars” articles which do a great job of explaining Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) and emotional hyperarrousal (also elsewhere called emotional disregulation, I’ll be using both terms interchangably but won’t be abbreviating the latter for hopefully obvious reasons).  On the emotional abuse terminology front, there’s a couple great articles on gaslighting on everydayfeminism.com that I recommend seeking out. 

It is possible I am slightly stalling here by providing all this context.

At this point damn near ten years ago, for most of my senior year of college and for a good few months afterwards (I don’t remember how long exactly since adhd brains suck at timelines and I don’t feel like logicing it out right now) I was in what I later realized (with help from the aforementioned everydayfeminism articles) was an emotionally abusive relationship.  My then-boyfriend, who I will call Al, was insecure and jealous. I had more sexual experience than him going into the relationship, and he used that as an excuse to guilt-trip, manipulate, and ultimately control me.  I realize now, that the primary weapon he would use against me was my own RSD. 

Whenever I did something that upset Al, (typical infractions included things like accidentally mentioning one of my exes, correcting him about something,  “flirting with” --read: talking to-- any of my friends who were more my friend than his, or singing along to music) he would generally make his displeasure known by ignoring me--withdrawing all physical affection, coupled with the silent treatment.  If you’re familiar with RSD, you can already guess how effective this was.  If you’re not, then for comparison you should know that ADHD people can spiral very quickly into completely irrational “they hate me, don’t they?” thought spiral from something as small as a delayed text.  Al would almost never tell me what I did to upset him, and in my guilt-spiral I would usually tearfully beg forgiveness for everything I could think of until I guessed correctly and/or he arbitrarily decided I’d had enough. 

As an aside,  he would often do this silent treatment toward me in public while being perfectly cheerful and whatnot with our other friends, often making it seem to others like he was just joking or messing with me. On one memorable occasion he refused to say anything to me but the word “spoon” with varying inflections for the better part of a day--a pretty skillful gaslight because to everyone else around this just seemed like goofy ol’ Al being his silly self, but from context I knew this was part of a punishment, and I couldn’t express any kind of being upset about this, even annoyance, without looking like I was overreacting to a dumb joke.

Ultimately much of what he actually did (or didn’t do) in public didn’t look like much to an outside observer, but he knew my (RSD fueled) insecurity would make it hurt, especially when I wouldn’t be able to address anything with him until we were in private later. 

Also (and I intend to write a whole different post about this later) my particular brand of emotional disregulation takes the form of crying extremely easily.  I cry when I’m sad, when I’m tired, when I’m happy, when I see something too cute to handle, and (most importantly, in this instance) when I’m angry.  Because of this, every time I tried to address some relationship concern I had with him, whenever I tried to call out some of his shitty behavior or bring attention to my own emotional needs, it was extremely difficult--nigh impossible--to do so without crying.  This gave him a massive amount of gaslighting ammunition--it made it very easy for him to say I was overreacting, overemotional, irrational, trying to manipulate him, et cetera.   And it was hard to defend myself against that, even to myself. After all, lacking the ADHD diagnosis and resources about emotional disregulation that I have now, I had pretty much internalized the idea that I’m just “oversensitive” when it comes to crying, so I rationalized that I was also being oversensitive about whatever concern I started with in the first place. So every time a conversation started with me telling him he hurt me some way, it inevitably ended with me apologizing to him instead of the other way around.

Just to add to the already nasty cycle, Al also considered crying over something he didn’t deem worth crying over a punishable offense, so it often triggered the previously discussed silent treatment. 

A third aspect of ADHD I haven’t discussed yet also played a major part in how I was abused--Memory.  I don’t have a good resource to link on this one (I’m pretty sure there are some good howtoadhd videos on it on youtube but I’m not going to go dig for them right now), but ADHD people, on the whole, have terrible memories, especially short term/working memory.  Mine in particular might be even worse for some kinds of things  for unrelated reasons (aphantasia, which I might write about later but this is already really long and it’s not actually that relevant here).

Al was perpetually convinced that I was cheating on him, and any time we were apart he would quiz me afterwards on where exactly I was, what I did, for how long, and in what order.  Any inconsistency in my account, or any “I don’t remember”s would mean he would accuse me of lying about the whole thing.  I am pretty sure I have in common with most ADHD people that between time blindness and bad working memories, giving a consistent and accurate account like that is basically impossible, so this rarely went well for me.  Just to further complicate matters, being accused of lying when I’m not is practically guaranteed to make me cry, and trying to keep from crying (to avoid angering him further) means I swallow a lot, and somewhere Al had heard that excessive swallowing is a sign that someone is lying, so again these various ADHD symptoms would combine to just make everything worse.  

 I eventually got out of that relationship, and not too long afterwards got together with my now-husband, who is wonderful, so that’s a happy ending. Getting diagnosed with ADHD a few months ago, learning about these symptoms, and figuring all this out has made this make much more sense to me than before.   But in addition to my ADHD symptoms making me more vulnerable to these emotional abuse tactics,  I’m pretty sure the leftover baggage from the emotional abuse may have made those very same ADHD symptoms worse, and while my new meds seem to help immensely with the executive disfunction aspects of ADHD, they don’t do a damn thing about RSD spirals or emotional disregulation.  Healing and processing it all is slow going, but it has gotten a lot better over the years, and knowing now that even another aspect of this isn’t my fault helps too.  And taking my meds today did help me motivate myself to write all this out, so maybe that will help as well. 

I’m not sure what the takeaway is here, other than I strongly suggest everyone learn what gaslighting and emotional abuse in general looks like, but especially if you have ADHD or suspect you might have ADHD because we might be more vulnerable to being on the receiving end of it than most people.  If anything I talked about here sounds a little too familiar, I strongly recommend reading up on gaslighting, and consider getting the heck away from anyone who sounds too much like Al.  Maybe us ADHDers will inevitably get into some nasty thought-spirals or bad emotional places sometimes, maybe we’ll cry over nothing or worry too much that something we said will make everyone hate us, but if anyone tries to use any of that against you, uses it to get you to do what they want, or intentionally makes you feel worse, they’re not someone worth being around, and I promise you deserve better.

Not sure if anyone will read this, much less any fellow ADHDers because yeah, it’s a big ol’ wall of text and I get that can be hard, but if you made it this far, thanks for listening and I’ll try to go not quite so heavy with my next post, (assuming, of course, that I have a next post and this blog doesn’t become yet another started-and-abandoned project).

That’s all for now.

(1/2) I might sound a bit dramatic but I just wanted to say thank you. THANK YOU SO MUCH! I love the way you talk about V in the vxmc Headcanons, you described his character so so well that I really think these headcanons actually happened in the game, I've been feeling down because some people started to hate V for what happened to saeren and they even compared his actions to rika's actions! to a fuckin criminal!! and don't let me start about people overshadowing him in his own route ;;

(2/2) I started to avoid MM tags because of this.. Idk but now I really REALLY feel good after reading what you said about him ;; and now I’m playing his route for the third time and I can’t stop thinking about your headcanons whenever I chat with V hahaha ;; I’m thankful that you shared your V stuff with us. (sorry english isn’t my first language and I’m not that good in it so I can’t write nor describe what I really feel ;;)

Awwww!! Not at all, you’re welcome I’m so glad you enjoyed them!! Honestly I appreciate you taking the time to reach out and everybody’s kindness in regards to my post, in that I was worried the V haters were going to come out of the woodwork and start screaming about what I’d written considering all the recent discourse. I was a little nervous about posting them, but I’m happy I did. And no worries, your command of the English language is wonderful, no need to apologize! It may surprise you but I wrote those headcanons as a way to cheer myself up in response to all the recent V bashing going on in the fandom, so words can’t express how great it feels to be able to bring somebody else the same comfort writing these did for me. 

What I’ve written below in response is entirely my opinion, so you are all free to disagree with any of this as you like. These are just my undistilled thoughts as of late about V’s route and the recent uproar in the MM fandom. I’m sure there will be people who are outraged/disagree, but that’s fine. You’re all entitled to how you feel.Also V route spoilers

As for the fandom, I’m not going to lie to you. I have been incandescently angry with the sheer volume of Jihyun hatred in this fandom, so much so that I left the MM tags entire days after most people finished Another Story. I still hate going there, though things are a little better now. I was furious, and I am still furious. Because I think he truly is a tragic character; considering the circumstances in his life. I think he honestly was doing his best with what he had. People act like he is this irredeemable, terrible person because he kept these secrets and made a few mistakes in terms of how he handled Rika, and I think that’s so callous and unfair. All I saw was a broken man that hated himself for being a burden to all the people in his life he ever tried to love; he was never enough for his father, his mother died to protect him, and his love was never enough to help Rika. He was hellbent on doing everything alone, because he truly felt he was not worth helping after how much damage he involuntarily caused by “making” Rika behave that way. He was suicidally depressed, hesitant and hurt and hiding so that nobody could see just how wounded and tired he was.

I’ll be clear, I know I’m biased. But I still think the sheer criticism and the nature of everybody’s accusations are absurd for the most part. V is a victim, no matter how you try to convey things. Again, I don’t believe he’s perfect; he was selfish and stubborn and misguided. But guess what? The whole god damn point of this route is that when MC helps put these things into perspective for him and teaches him that it’s okay to royally screw up as long as he does his best to fix it from there and learn from it, he acknowledges what he’s done. He tries so hard to fight the voice inside him that hates him so much–on top of Rika’s screaming and the hallucinogenic/distorting properties of the drug–to realize and own the fact that yes, he did do wrong. He should have relied more on the RFA and been honest with them and been honest with Rika a long time ago. But now he has the chance to make amends and start anew away from Rika and his father’s toxic influence. That cannot remotely be compared to what Rika has done. She, of her own volition, chose to embrace the terrible elements of her nature. She refuses to seek help and blames everybody else for her lack of control, and that to me is not equivalent. They are foils in a sense; V was mentally ill but he made the conscious choice to acknowledge his problems as his own and work through them until he could get to a healthier state of mind (he made his problems about him), Rika was mentally ill but she forced all of her pent up rage and insecurity on V and blamed him for her lack of control and desire to hurt people (Rika blames everybody else and refuses to take any responsibility for the damage she causes). He accepts and grows from his shortcomings, Rika refuses to acknowledge her problems and thus they conflagrate out of control in the presence of V’s lenience. It’s not bad enough that we see droves of incidents of Rika’s victim-blaming throughout this entire route, even the fandom calls him weak and spineless and stupid for trying to help her resolve these things gently; as was in his nature and genuine aspiration of loving somebody unconditionally. Was it ill-advised to tell her that he would love her no matter what she did to him? Yes, of course. But that doesn’t remotely excuse Rika for taking advantage of his desire to help her and legitimately attacking him over and over again, nearly killing him by the end of the route. I don’t care who it is; if somebody asks you to harm them out of love that is a clear sign of self-harm, and that they are in need of help. That is not an excuse to let out your frustrations upon them in any way, shape, or form. I hate that this has become a matter of V “didn’t try hard enough” or make the right decision the first time around (wow it’s almost like he made a mistake like a lot of people do when they’re mentally compromised) when it was in large part Rika that made this entire situation spiral out of control; leaving V to desperately try to salvage what little of his life she hadn’t destroyed and protect the people she was dead-set on dragging into her psychosis.

In regards to Ray, I will put this delicately since people tend to get very angry about what happened to him. I don’t hate Ray, but I’m unbelievably tired of the disproportionate attention he gets because of his affectionate nature and tragic story. Yes, he’s a tragic boy. Yes, he didn’t deserve what happened to him. But. His relationship with the MC is a bit of a foil to V and Rika’s; his love is about obsession, not true romantic desire. He loves you because nobody else bothers to care about him, and while that breaks my heart I don’t know how to feel about a relationship built on that. What I loved the most about V’s route is that it was at it’s core about guiding V to self-love and helping him heal, I was glad there was no forced relationship; that he doesn’t approach you until after a two-year journey of self-discovery despite how clear it is that he adores you. Because that’s not what V needed after being used and attacked by Rika, and it’s most certainly not what Ray needs after all of his traumatic experiences. Furthermore, I’m really angry about how many people accuse V of not caring enough about Ray to save him, because I think that is 100% untrue. This entire route and situation was not as easy as “let’s just kidnap Ray and everything will be tied up with a neat little bow :))))”. First and foremost, Ray was in no state of mind to leave Mint Eye. I know he was brainwashed, but Ray is exceedingly more clever and stubborn than his Unknown persona; the likelihood that they could get him to leave in any kind of peaceful way is freaking infinitesimal. Ray hated V with a passion because of Rika; there was no way he would have listened or followed any of V’s attempts to get him out of there. I’d be willing to bet that he’d tried, and that it just made Ray angrier and even more hostile than before. Ray would probably kill himself or hide before he’d be taken away; he has no desire to adjust to the outside world and ascribes to Rika’s will without wavering. Second, if V had told Seven the truth then the danger would have escalated unimaginably. Because Seven throws out all reason when it comes to his brother (understandably), meaning that he could have gotten them all killed in a desperate bid to force Saeran out of there. Not to mention Vanderwood potentially finding out about their relation and either killing Saeran himself or using his brother as leverage to force Seven to work harder. I don’t think any of the potential scenarios would have ended well, considering the structure of the route and the possibilities. Third, there are distinct moments in which V expresses a wealth of sadness and concern for Ray’s condition. I don’t think it’s that he doesn’t care; I think he was in a position in which there was only so much he could do, so he chose the decision that would end in the fewest casualties and harm done to innocents. Just because Ray fell, doesn’t mean V will ever forget what happened, or feel no guilt. I absolutely hate the notion that he didn’t try hard enough when it was Rika that took Saeran behind V’s back and did all those terrible things to him. She took away Saeran’s ability to think and fight for himself and live a normal life. V did the best he could with the circumstances and resources available to him; just because you liked Ray doesn’t make V immediately responsible or a bad person for not being able to save him. Those two things do not go hand-in-hand, at least for me. Am I upset that Ray had to be the casualty? Unbelievably so; I hate that he had to suffer for the sake of Rika and V’s twisted love. But to blame a man that was heavily drugged, stabbed, and pressured into silence because the safety of his loved ones now hung in the balance? That sounds way too black and white to me, I just don’t think it was that simple.

Sorry this kind of became a rant? Your ask kind of opened the floodgates for me, lol. I’ve honestly had so much pent up sadness and anger regarding how much people hate him and vilify him in this fandom, and I’m just so tired of it all. I wish people would acknowledge how hard he’s trying to do the right thing; how with these small steps and MC’s support he grows and learns to love himself and blooms beautifully despite everything. Or even that a person who may not be perfect or completely healthy from the outset but actively tries to better himself and be better for others the proper way can still deserve to be happy and loved. (And yes you can argue that it was at the expense of others but nearly everybody’s happiness in MM is at the expense of another character’s, there is no way to save everyone. There’s no panacea. You have to choose one, and in V’s route, the goal is to choose V.)