Dashiell (“dash-yell”)

it's a huge clue about the real nature of ADHD that rejection sensitive dysphoria is such a common symptom / comorbidity. that tells you that ADHD is not really about "attention" as such. gabor mate's book title "scattered minds" gets closer; something is scattered which wants to be regathered, something is diffuse which wants to be dense when you're scattered you're unsure who you are or what you want or what to do or what to pay attention to so external influences push and pull at you more generally. you're grabbing onto external things to check if they might be your self or your feelings or your desires (this is what you're doing when you're doomscrolling btw) so if you get rejected it feels devastating because you're grabbing onto it and you're like is this me? am i fundamentally bad and unlovable? is it the essence of me to be rejected? there's a different way that can go if you're less scattered, denser, which is harder to describe because it feels like almost nothing, but it feels like almost nothing because of your weight, because of gravity, and a random rejection just doesn't have enough weight to it to perturb your orbit. you can collect together the mass of you, you can move together coherently, in harmony, the accumulated weight of your entire life, everything you've experienced and done and sensed and felt and know. you can become heavy, like grief but also like a mountain, not immovable but vast, tectonic, forested, snow-capped