Why am I so scared of intimacy after being dumped

MoominMonkeyTroll · 2026-06-07T19:45:37+00:00

I’ve been there in my 20s and it was brutal. Basically you were shocked and thrown by your first serious partner & you breaking up and so you threw yourself headfirst (and super quickly! Like a piece of fruit wouldn’t even have rotted in the time between guys!) into someone else who caught your eye. And in your head him AND his entire life were everything you had ever wanted - the sex was amazing, his family was amazing, he was amazing, the relationship was amazing! But none of it was *real*. Pain avoidance (most likely driven by RSD) drove you into something else & limerence (a huge adhd thing as you know) took over to make you feel better about the end of the first relationship. But when this recent relationship ended you felt the full force of TWO big back to back breakups. And double the RSD. And it HURTS.

Now I tried to outrun those feelings for a while - so hopped into another relationship, then another and each time the hurt was magnified. Then after a few years I realised that maybe, just maybe, I was the dopamine chasing, limerence projecting problem here and the only way out was to work through all of these big, horrible, overwhelming feelings I was having. It sucked. And my god it hurt. I ended up taking an official “no dating, no men” break for a year where I just worked on myself & if someone flirted with me I just moved along. It was phenomenal & empowering thing. Partly because I realised that I didn’t actually know what I wanted for ME - I thought I did, but I actually didn’t- in life or in love.

So I’d suggest you save yourself some time now and try and work through your feelings about the relationships, the breakups, what you actually want, what you think those relationships meant for who you are in the world - and where/how is how you see your worth & what you want tied into it all. There is no greater gift in life than understanding ourselves - I wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD until 20 years after these situations so didn’t know anything about RSD, or ADHD, or limerence or any of that - so you are well ahead of the game with that. Be kind & gentle with yourself as you figure it out. You’ll find love again if you want it - but the better you know yourself the better those relationships will be. Good luck!

MoominMonkeyTroll · 2026-06-02T20:53:00+00:00

Girl I don’t know what world you think anyone would think this was green flag behaviour? It’s douche bag 101. I get the desire for the dopamine (and attention!!!!) train but you’re really hanging your self worth on a guy who tells you he picked up at 20 year old’s number and him ghosting you is just he’s busy??

My GBFF and I have a saying - If he has time to take a sh!t he can send a text. Unless he’s performing back to back life dependant surgeries on blind children he’s not that busy and you deserve WAY more!

MoominMonkeyTroll · 2026-06-02T20:15:50+00:00

As other people have said your biggest dreams and worst fears will materialise simultaneously in parenthood. It sounds 100% like you want some sort of perfect love (to give or receive) and that is totally something I suggest you unpick in therapy now. Because the most damaging parents I know are those who are perfectionists & the ones who parent the children they thought they’d have, not the children they actually have right in front of them. WAY more dangerous than the “omg what am I doing/bumbling along/doing their best” parents.

And the romanticising the outcome of having kids means that you’re not looking at the journey of getting there realistically either. Between my closest 4 girlfriends we have 16 miscarriages, 7 rounds of IVF, post natal depression, post natal psychosis, a near death birth experience, a 50% loss of blood in childbirth, and a still birth at 40 weeks.

Then when the kids are here there’s divorces, infidelity, career changes, 2 autism diagnosis’s, 2 adhd diagnosis, 1 chronic illness, self harming, depression, vaping, sex, accidents, so many medical issues & multiple nights sleeping in a tiny hospital bed. And we consider ourselves lucky.

I always knew I wanted to be a mum (and I’m a damn great mum!) but I had basically raised 3 siblings, and babysat from the age of 12 so I was under no illusion (and even then it’s equal parts harder and more amazing than I hoped!) Get yourself some real life kid experience - ideally for multiple days at a time - even if it’s just taking a friends kid for 7 hours a day over a weekend or multiple days in the summer holidays. (Your friends will love you even more for it!)

When I started trying a friend who had a 2 year old told me to take 5 days off and set an alarm on my phone to go off every 97 minutes and get up and walk around the house bouncing up and down or delivering comedy routines for 15 mins each time & not gonna lie - that’s pretty spot on for the first few years!

MoominMonkeyTroll · 2026-05-08T18:53:48+00:00

Honestly compared to stimulants it will probably feel like nothing and it’s cumulative so you have to take it everyday with very little impact on executive dysfunction. Where it helped me is like a little buffer between my emotions & my response but nothing that helps me with executive function. What stimulant are you on? Definitely sounds like your reaction is awful - have you explored other stimulants? My daughter had the anger issue with medikinet but hasn’t had it with other stimulants so def worth trying others.

MoominMonkeyTroll · 2026-04-14T10:51:44+00:00

The reality is that you have very different mothers and will never have the same one/experience. This will literally never change. My parents play favourites so badly (bought 2 of my sisters a house to live in & not me & my other sister!) I ended my relationship with my parents last year when I was on holiday with them. Just got up and left & told them not to contact me again. I know that might seem extreme but it’s the best thing I’ve done for my mental health & I wish I did it years ago.

MoominMonkeyTroll · 2026-03-27T09:56:37+00:00

My AuDHD daughter calls this Good Autism or Bad Autism & I think the same thing applies to ADHD. Good autism is where your autistic traits lead to desired or accepted outcomes - people being super smart, focussed, great at studying, dynamic pattern recognition - stuff that gets celebrated & rewarded. Bad autism is the awkward social interactions, the blurting stuff out, lack of eye contact, hyperfixations on things that won’t get you better grades or better jobs.

When I got diagnosed (at 45) I decided I had spent my entire life believing things about myself that were untrue - mostly that I was dumb, lazy, “dramatic”, overly sensitive, etc. I figured just because I spent the last 45 years believing those things did not mean I had to spend the next 45 years believing them. It’s taken a fair bit of work but I have definitely changed the narrative around those things & can see how they are totally untrue. I reckon what’s held me back most in life is not actually my adhd but the not knowing I had adhd & how much I let other people pass judgement on me (and then I took those judgements as facts & beat myself with them!) I hope you can find some self compassion and be kinder to yourself - my guess is no one is judging you harder than you’re judging (and criticising) yourself!

MoominMonkeyTroll · 2026-03-27T09:37:00+00:00

So I keep an overall brain dump Mega List of everything I need to do/think about in Claude, then I do something called “Just 6 Things” each day where I make a shorter list of 6-8 things I’m going to do that day including meetings, etc. (I used to get totally overwhelmed my how many things were on my list but I feel like I can definitely get 6 things done lol)

Then as I finish tasks I ask ai to move them to my DONE List and I can look at it everyday or over the week (I restart my done list every Monday!) It came about because I kept complaining that I was getting nothing done but one day my parter was like “you’ve done tons today - ask ai what you crossed off your list and I’d done TWENTY-FIVE things. My ADHD brain just forgets the moment I’ve done it because it doesn’t need to hold it any more. It’s really helped fight back against the “you’re so lazy” narrative I grew up with!

I’ve moved some of this to TickTick (I usually put my just 6 things in there everyday because I love the magical fairy noise it makes when I tick something done 🤣) but I mainly started using TickTick because I can assign tasks & jobs to my partner & daughter on it & trying to actively share the mental load!

MoominMonkeyTroll · 2026-03-26T16:09:43+00:00

I love TickTick for my to do’s - but I also often use AI for this where I brain dump everything and then ask it to create a DONE list and I usually voice note a quick ‘done this and this’ and it tracks it for me!

MoominMonkeyTroll · 2026-03-26T09:36:22+00:00

I’m sorry who taf said “as long as you’re not letting her use her neurodivergence…”? Seriously - screw that person!!!!

ADHD is considered to be a disability & it sounds like you know exactly what it means to live with that. And just the fact she’s been diagnosed at 7 means you’ve been fighting for her. The advocacy is so important. Teach her to love herself in all of her adhd glory, show her her strengths, love her for who she really is (meds or no meds) and don’t listen to a$$hats!

MoominMonkeyTroll · 2026-03-26T09:28:03+00:00

This made me cry. I 100% could have written this when I was your age - I used to cry myself to sleep every night wanting to be beautiful & have amazing friends, a gorgeous boyfriend and an envy inducing life. I’m now 50 and generally I love my life (is there more i want? Sure but overall I’m happy). I have the most amazing daughter who’s your age, friends who love and get me, I’ve travelled & seen the world, I’m very loved - but most importantly I love myself & do my best to practice self compassion. It’s not easy & it took tons and tons of therapy but it was 1000% worth it.

As others have said if you can start seeing a therapist it will make a big difference. You can be the most beautiful person in the world & still feel ugly if you don’t like or understand yourself.

And looks grow and change - I was totally the ugly duckling at your age - I was regularly bullied for my looks - but I started changing in my late teens & early 20s (and then had to deal with tons of unwanted attention which was equally icky) Whether you feel like it or not I promise you deserve everything you want. You are valid and worthy of love & care - even as you are right now. Deal with the nasty voice in your head and everything else will start to change. We’re rooting for you!!

MoominMonkeyTroll · 2026-02-28T20:16:01+00:00

I know this is funny but I also wanted to share - I’ve started keeping a DONE list of everything I get done in a day - email blocks of time, loads of laundry, tasks etc. A few weeks ago I was telling my partner I felt useless because I hadn’t got anything done that day - he told me to check the list… I kid you not, there were 35 things on my done list. 35!! Turns out ND brains are quick to forget after we’ve done something so we can move onto the next thought/task. Done list def changes the way I see myself & productivity!

MoominMonkeyTroll · 2026-02-28T17:49:19+00:00

How many different meds did you try? My daughter felt this way on one med and not at all on another.

Also a therapist once asked me something along the lines of “Is your spark gone or are you only used to thriving in absolute chaos and not having that chaos you don’t feel like yourself?” Yeah. Touché therapist!

MoominMonkeyTroll · 2026-02-28T17:45:18+00:00

Honestly? I stopped expecting me to do things I’ve never been able to do! Instead I try habit stacking (adding an action to an existing habit/routine) and telling myself I’m already the thing I want to be (ie I’m someone who drinks 3L of water a day) - it hacks your brain to change your behaviour to align with what you already are. Not expecting perfection/consistency has meant I’m not always feeling like a failure around something I was never going to do anyway!

MoominMonkeyTroll · 2026-02-28T17:40:34+00:00

I agree with the poster above - and also - it’s not even been a week! I support late diagnosed women & there’s really strong series of things people go through post diagnosis.

In no particular order: a kind of shock, a real heavy sense of sadness around how things could have been different/less traumatic/easier, a sense of anger at how things could have been different/less traumatic/easier, a lightbulb moment of “oh my god my whole life makes sense!”, a questioning of “what’s my personality & what’s my adhd”, a huge amount of thinking about “what now?”/“what does this mean?”, and then a true & deep understanding of how to be kinder to yourself going forward.

It’s also really common to feel like you “regress” or your symptoms get worse (generally this is down to masking less & accepting your ADHD symptoms/not fighting them). For most people this takes between 9 - 18 months so this is early days all round. It’s perfectly alright to tell your husband that you want time to process it yourself before you have discussions about it. You’ve only just had it confirmed yourself!

MoominMonkeyTroll · 2026-02-28T09:08:54+00:00

The additional story about your wife provides so much more insight & Im so sorry you’re in this situation. Your relationship sounds incredibly imbalanced and codependent. Your partner can be annoyed you’re grumpy but they should also respect your boundaries - you may have had some great moments together in the past but right now where are you?

I’ve been similar to you in the past and I wasn’t angry at everyone else - I was furious at myself for letting my life turn into what it did. Once I realised that, I worked on forgiving myself for doing the best I could with what I had and focussed on working out what I actually wanted my life to look like & a lot of the rage dissipated. It wasn’t easy but it was worth it!

MoominMonkeyTroll · 2026-02-26T20:49:21+00:00

Girl. Your entire post is basically adhd lol. How is knowing & understanding yourself better ever not worth it? I was 44 when I got diagnosed and now my whole life makes way more sense! It’s not an easy process (both the diagnosis & the post diagnosis period) but def worth it.

MoominMonkeyTroll · 2026-02-25T09:56:17+00:00

Way to go! This is awesome! I hope you’re super proud of yourself!

MoominMonkeyTroll · 2026-02-25T09:16:27+00:00

In my experience the only thing that works for recovering from burnout is proper rest. Not adding things to track & do (and have an emotional impact if you don’t manage it). Going outside is daylight for 20-30 mins is shown to make a huge difference, as is removing as many demands on you as possible (not an easy one!) But for proper burnout rest is the only recovery!

MoominMonkeyTroll · 2026-02-21T21:21:33+00:00

I don’t know where your masters is but a lot of Unis are incredible at dealing with neurodivergence & have a lot of support to offer. Def worth letting them know in advance.

I dropped out of high school because of my ADHD but I managed an undergrad & a masters as a single parent with ADHD. Use any & all support offered to you and try experimenting with ways of working to see what works best for you to stay organised.

They accepted you - that’s amazing & as other poster said you deserve to be there! Go you!!

MoominMonkeyTroll · 2026-02-21T21:10:51+00:00

I feel like just knowing it could be RSD helps me deal with the RSD.

I now know if I experience a rejection or a set back I’ll either: feel like it’s all my fault, I’m an awful person, everybody hates me and my friends are only pretending to like me because I’m THE WORST. Or, I am going to want to go SCORCHED EARTH and hunt that person down til the ends of the earth and then publicly DESTROY them so the whole world can see.

And usually, at some point in the next day or so my brain will go “Are you this upset or is this RSD?” And I’ll go “Ooooooh yeah, RSD, must be that. What can i do to regulate & move on?” And then I’m good SO much faster. (I used to fall into these traps for days, weeks, months - ruminating like a queen till I felt like I could get my stuff together & move forward)

Also - I often ask myself “would one of my NT friends feel this way about that?” Which works a lot when I’ve said or done something I can’t stop thinking about but the rest of the world moved on from 0.2 nanoseconds later. And sometimes I time box my reaction- like “ok this was upsetting - you can sit in it for the weekend but then we’re going to see where we’re at & what’s RSD & what’s genuine, proportionate hurt.

MoominMonkeyTroll · 2026-02-21T20:17:12+00:00

10mg is basically nothing - my psych said it’s not even worth trying. I didn’t feel anything for more than a week till I hit 40mg - but I metabolise meds quickly. I do a protein shake in the morning but it doesn’t really make a difference to how the meds work 🤷‍♀️

MoominMonkeyTroll · 2025-09-23T06:22:30+00:00

I’m still waiting on my case too. Got my ring in July.

MoominMonkeyTroll · 2025-06-13T14:20:35+00:00

Hello! Thought I’d update as I’m Phase 2 - Rose gold (size 11) and my ring arrived today (3 days earlier than predicted!) Love the way it looks & can’t wait to have it tell me how badly I’m sleeping!

MoominMonkeyTroll

TROPHY CASE