hi guys, exactly what it says in the title. ive been overseas for almost a decade now and i feel my malay going down the drain. i am fluent, at one point more fluent than my English. but since being in an English speaking country, i can feel myself losing vocab.
if you guys wanna chat just lmk!
hi everyone, i am in a relationship with an amazing person who i love very much.
when she is feeling low (and even when she isn't, tbh), i try to replenish her spoons by getting her things that she likes: oysters, and diet coke with lemons. there are some others but i can't quite think of them at the moment. we also spend time at home together which we enjoy.
other than this, it would be nice to read about other things people do to combat feeling low, even if it's just to say they embrace the low and go through it.
i am fairly new to this world, so i am still learning a lot about how to be a better partner to someone with adhd.
dx
hi everyone, i'm in a relationship with someone i love very much. she has adhd, and for the most part, i think i do not.
i'm learning alot about adhd through reading and research and lived experiences with her. it seems like her brain is often on the go but sometimes just the thought of doing something simple like household chores really overwhelms her.
i actually like doing the dishes, laundry, packing and folding, etc. so we have a good routine down where she will cook and i will do the washing up.
here's what happened recently.
after i realised that doing the dishes (and really any other task) doesn't give her a dopamine hit, i've been pretty antsy about her leaving it all to me. from my point of view, i don't see the benefit in making her do something that she doesn't enjoy. sure, you can say that we all have to do things we don't enjoy, but for this particular situation, i feel that it would be fine for me to do this task 100% of the time (or whenever possible).
on the flip side, i'm aware that by always doing these things she doesn't much like doing, it could take away her autonomy. she has mentioned that i can't be doing All these things for her, but deep down i genuinely want to. i like seeing her do things that make her happy and i can fill in the gaps.
after what she said, i have left the dishes in the sink overnight kind of on purpose, and i feel so bad. i heard her cleaning up a bit this morning and it made me feel bad again.
am i on the right track? or should i step back and let her do things that feel draining and mundane to her sometimes.
i want to be able to make her feel safe and seen and heard, but i am new to this world and how i can support her in the way she needs. any advice or suggestions or even just similar experiences would be really great to read about.
edit: i should mention that my partner absolutely does things for us in our relationship that i also don't like/prefer doing. like cooking, organising activities, etc.
just to be clear: i'm not against anybody expressing their emotions this way at all. i can acknowledge that there is absolutely no "weakness", as a lot of society likes to claim (falsely, of course), in healthily processesing your feelings.
but i don't cry. i just Don't.
(in the time i wrote this we just had a short conversation about emotional intelligence lol)
none of my friends think i cry at all, and i'm more than fine with them thinking that. i'm more than fine with the image i've spent years (unintentionally) building up for myself. all through uni and most of my adult life i've been perceived as cold (sometimes mean) and lowkey scary. weirdly enough, i kind of enjoyed it.
perhaps it was the intense jade west phase i was going through lol.
i know it's not good to never cry, so i actually scheduled times to do so. felt strange that i had to turn it on and off like a tap every few months or so. i just never really felt it that strongly i guess.
fast forward to my relationship and this girl has turned me into an emotional wreck. broken down all my stupid, paper maché walls of toxic stoicism. either that, or i've just never cared this much, full stop. i feel like i'm ultra sensitive to everything about her. in a good way and also a way that might be too much. i hang on to everything she says and does, as well as everything she doesn't say and doesn't do. i feel like i tune into the silence between us sometimes and it makes me so happy i want to cry. and then i think about how lucky i am to have met her and boom. cry again.
on the flip side, sometimes she'll say something (completely normal btw!) and it'll tear at my heart for hours or days. when i think about (again, completely normal) changes/the progression of our relationship, ahh, you guessed it. waterworks.
i don't like crying at all. i always wanted to be the one to comfort her when she's upset, when she needs a shoulder to lean on. i didn't particularly like her seeing me like that. i wanted to be the one taking care of her. on the contrary, we have spoken about me being more emotionally vulnerable, and i'm very happy about the progress i see in myself.
i really really care.
edit: i forgot to mention therapy is the reason i'm posting this. expressing your emotions is healthy, guys, don't be like past me.
i'm not having a meltdown i promise.
i'm just feeling so weirdly restless.
my gf has just left for a destination wedding for a week. one. A. single. individual week.
mind you, i've literally loved living alone for the past 8 years and wanted nothing else. and then this?!?! am i going insane? does anyone else love their partner's company that much? she's going to have an amazing time and i'm so happy for her and can't wait to hear all about it.
so i only ask two things.
why do i feel like bending time?
what have you guys done to pass the time? (i'm just super bored i would like fun stories)
i've ordered about 2 meals worth of mcdonalds, and watched 2 movies. i expected it to be time to pick her up by the end of the second one tbh. i'm going to hang out with a bunch of friends i haven't met in ages haha.
edit: guys this is a joke! i miss her of course, but i'm having fun on reddit passing the time.
let me preface this by saying i (27f) love my gf (32f) beyond words i can find right now. we've been through so much together and she's honestly the most patient, kindest and loving person i've ever met. i can't wait to move out with her and her cat and just live with each other. i think we have a good push pull relationship.
that being said, i fear i have met my match.
not to sound too far up myself, i would say i'm a decent person to hang around. i've always had a good circle of acquaintances and my close friends i have kept to this day. the same applies romantically. i've not had a shortage of people my age, as well as older/younger who were interested me. the attention was a novelty, but i never dated any of them. it got old fast, and was somewhat annoying because i started to question my friendships to some of these people. eventually i dated (rushed into a relationship, more like) a woman that lasted a year. we soon realised we weren't suited at all. we were long distance and it put a strain on us, especially because she started getting very jealous of literally everyone i was hanging out with, even my friends whom she'd met before, and a new friend (straight) who gave me a lift home once. she would get upset when i would have dinner with people i knew.... etc. you get the picture. i knew it wasn't healthy for either of us, and that breaking up was definitely the right thing to do to because i felt relieved...for the both of us. i didn't look back and wish we had never broken up, i look at it as a time that i am grateful for but has passed. it doesn't affect me and it was surprising how little i felt about it. she's a great person, just not the person for me.
i feel that this is relevant, because we're fast forwarding to my relationship now. i have stood by this my entire life, and i fully thought i was going to die on this hill.
the three things i am not:
jealous.
clingy.
fomo.
and for the first time in my 27 long years on this earth, i have been hit with the realisation that i am, in fact, very wrong about that.
to quote fix-it-felix, my gf is one dynamite gal. and she has one of those once-in-a-lifetime, stellar personalities that you can't help but be attracted to. unfortunately, i am not the only person in 'everyone'. it is a constant, uphill goddamned battle with everyone i meet. i'm sus of anyone and everyone (okay, not literally, but you know). i trust her completely, but it doesn't erase the fact that i'm hyper-aware of what's been awoken inside of me. it's nonsense! i'm not jealous, yet no one is allowed to even breathe wrong in her direction. i'm not clingy, but i want to create a 13th month in the year just to spend with her. i don't get fomo, but i miss her when she's away even for an evening.
this makes me feel like such a hypocrite because these are all the things my ex used to feel about me. i tell myself that i am too grown and should be mature enough to not feel like this.
it makes me really wonder if i've ever truly loved anyone till i met her.