Help Me Find My Way Back to Center
Survival mode can't be the only way to live
A quieter challenge of living with AuDHD is this.
When I get dysregulated, there isn’t a clear place to return to.
There’s no internal couch I recognize.
No familiar exhale that says, okay, I’m back.
It’s more like standing in a house where the furniture keeps moving.
I know I’ve been here before, but I can’t quite tell where to sit.
A lot of people seem to have a place like that.
They notice their shoulders drop.
Their breathing evens out.
Their thoughts line up instead of talking over each other.
They might still be upset, still rattled, but there’s a sense of orientation.
A feeling of, I know how to get myself through this.
For me, the map has always been… smudged.
Not blank.
Just hard to read when my hands are shaking.
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Calming Isn’t the Same as Returning
I know how to put out fires.
I stim.
I pace.
I rock.
I tap.
I put on the same song and let it loop until my nervous system stops shouting.
The volume comes down.
My jaw unclenches.
My breathing slows enough that I can think in full sentences again.
That matters.
That’s relief.
But afterward, there’s often a strange, hollow pause.
Like the smoke has cleared, but I’m not sure where I’m standing.
Okay, I think. Now what?
Where am I supposed to land?
What does “regulated” actually mean for me?
What am I returning to when the storm passes?
Calm isn’t a place. It’s a state.
And states slip away quickly when your nervous system never learned what “baseline” felt like.
If this sounds familiar, it’s not because you’re missing a skill.
It’s because no one ever showed you what “home” was supposed to feel like inside yourself.
My Center Was Physical Before It Was Emotional
For a long time, my center lived in my body.
In repetition.
In forms I could run without thinking.
In breath moving when I told it to.
Martial arts gave me edges.
Meditation gave me weight.
My feet on the ground, my spine upright, my muscles doing something predictable.
In those moments, I didn’t have to explain anything to myself.
I didn’t have to name my feelings or figure out what they meant.
My body knew where it was.
That kind of grounded feels like gravity working again.
But emotional center?
That’s different.
Emotions don’t move in straight lines.
They don’t wait their turn.
They burst in mid-thought, dragging old memories and future worries with them.
One moment I’m fine.
The next, I’m flooded.
And suddenly I’m looking around internally, thinking, Where did I go?
When emotions take over, I don’t instinctively know where “home” is.
Not because I lack insight.
But because I was never taught that my inner experience was allowed to settle anywhere.
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When the World Keeps Trying to Fix You
Here’s something that makes all of this harder.
Most environments don’t respond to dysregulation with curiosity.
They respond with correction.
Sit up.
Lower your voice.
Try harder.
Pay attention.
What’s wrong with you right now?
Even when the tone is polite, the message lands the same.
You are not okay as you are.
After enough of that, your nervous system stops looking for safety.
It looks for performance.
And it’s very hard to build an inner sense of home when you’re always being adjusted, redirected, or improved.
Because safety doesn’t feel like someone watching you closely.
It feels like being treated like a person, not a project.
Happiness Is a Terrible Anchor
We all say we want to be happy.
What we usually mean is, I want the discomfort to stop.
But happiness is unreliable.
It flickers.
It depends on sleep, pain levels, sensory overload, timing, hormones, weather, and whether someone nearby is chewing like a raccoon who lost a bet.
Some days happiness shows up.
Some days it ghosts you completely.
If happiness is the thing you’re trying to return to, every hard moment feels like failure.
And that wears people down.
So What Do I Anchor To?
Lately, I’ve been noticing something else.
Meaning doesn’t vanish when I’m overwhelmed.
It doesn’t care whether I feel calm or scattered.
It doesn’t ask me to earn my place by feeling better first.
Meaning shows up quietly and says,
This still counts.
Even now.
Even like this.
Meaning is a compass. Mood is weather.
Weather shifts by the hour.
A compass keeps pointing, even in the storm.
So the question changes.
Not, “Am I regulated yet?”
But, “What matters enough to stay present for, even in this version of the moment?”
That question assumes something radical.
That you are still here.
That you still matter.
That this moment isn’t wasted just because it’s uncomfortable.
Maybe Center Isn’t Stillness
Maybe center isn’t a peaceful lake you’re supposed to float on.
Maybe it’s a compass you learn to check when everything feels off.
Something that points true even when you’re jittery, overloaded, or emotionally sideways.
Something that says:
You can be dysregulated and still oriented.
You can be struggling and still moving.
You don’t have to be calm to be anchored.
I’m still learning what my center is.
But I know what it isn’t.
It isn’t happiness.
It isn’t compliance.
And it definitely isn’t pretending I’m fine.
It might be meaning.
It might be curiosity.
It might be the quiet decision to do more than just survive.
And if you recognize yourself anywhere in this, I want you to hear this part clearly.
You’re not failing to find your center.
You’re building one.
And that counts.
That really, really counts.
Thanks for being you,
Brian
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