The Problem Isn’t Your Feelings
It hits at weird times.
You stand at the sink.
Or stare into the fridge like something delicious will suddenly appear.
Your chest tightens.
Like someone pulling a drawstring inside your ribs.
Not a thought.
A squeeze.
Your throat dries out.
Your shoulders climb toward your ears.
Your jaw locks.
You didn’t choose this.
Your nervous system flips the switch and blares the alarm.
“Warning. Warning. Danger, Will Robinson.”
If you’re like this, you move fast.
You bury it.
You swallow it.
You crack a joke.
You stay busy.
You go quiet.
Anything but the intensity and vulnerability of it.
Like standing there helpless while your feelings rip through the room like the Tasmanian Devil off leash.
If people called you too sensitive growing up.
Too reactive.
Too intense.
Too much.
For years, I treated my feelings like the problem.
I learned to believe it.
I tried to regulate harder.
Be calmer.
Stop overthinking.
Stop taking everything so personally.
I worked overtime trying to pull myself together.
But I didn’t have a feelings problem.
I misread my feelings and missed what they were saying.
Feelings are characters in the story, not the author of it.
A garden doesn’t fault a plant for drooping.
You study the droop.
You check the soil.
You adjust the light.
You add water.
Plant drooping is a fact, not a failure.
Now think about that tight chest at the sink.
You might carry grief looking for its moment in the sun.
That clenched jaw?
You learned to swallow anger because other people met it with their own.
Or with criticism.
Or with “calm down.”
That restlessness?
Part of you wants change while another part insists everything is fine.
When we silence pain, it spreads.
It seeps into identity.
I am anxious.
I am broken.
I am too much.
I am the problem.
But when you name what’s happening, you shrink it.
You turn a mountain into a stone.
Now you can pick it up.
Now you can move it.
Don’t miss this week’s episode…
Compost
Soil doesn’t deny death.
It breaks it down.
It turns something into something else.
This pain grew from something.
This sorrow feeds life.
Not because it’s pretty.
Because that’s how compost works.
Something to Try On
The next time your body tightens, don’t fight it.
Say:
“This is a surge.”
Then ask:
Is this about now, or is this about then?
One question.
One degree of clarity.
That’s how you shrink mountains into rocks.
Don’t fix it.
Don’t defend yourself.
Don’t perform insight.
Listen.
Your feelings aren’t the problem.
No one taught you how to read them.
The garden is still growing.
The Garden Is Still Growing
Reflections on the lived experience of AuDHD, belonging, relationships, and being yourself.
If this resonated, join the launch for Agatha’s Garden below.
I’ll share behind-the-scenes notes, early excerpts, the moment the doors open, and more.
Thanks for being you,
Brian