My only hope is that sharing my journey can do some good in the world.
Rewind to Junior high when my OCD symptoms increased in frequency in the usual ways (hand washing, intrusive thoughts, repetitive behaviors, “contamination” fears etc.) My brain seemed to go on overdrive & my schoolwork started taking a back seat. And back then, words like “neurodivergence,” “HSP,” & “autism” were fairly new too, so I often felt defective for having these traits that made me “different” from my family & other students in school. “Masking” was a must. Feeling different & growing up in a chaotic environment I got my “emotional mirroring” from my alternative rock CDs to help not feel so alone. Being the deep thinking “live in the head” type, I preferred introverted, creative pursuits, (writing, electric guitar, cooking, poetry, video games,) over sports.
To add further context to my ED’s, with relationships, as a guy from a chaotic environment lacking warmth, I was drawn to girlfriend’s who would look out for me. I was that “wounded bird” needing a protector. I always felt so safe sitting on a girlfriend’s lap or borrowing her sweater/jacket, etc. Fast forward, & my wife today is also the breadwinner. (As a househusband, it leveled up the fuzzy “protected” feelings even further, which I only recently learned is common for HSPs to feel comfortable in that role which meshes well with our sensitive needs.) With so much anxiety in the neurodivergent & ED community, no wonder so many of us value co-regulating in these ways, especially growing up with unmet needs from “abandonment wound” so common on top of it.
When it comes to males & ED’s, too often the assumption is that we want to GAIN excess weight. I, like many other guys wired sensitive/submissive, always wanted to be smaller than my girlfriends for the same reasons you stereotypically more often hear with women. Being already small & skinny, somehow my OCD’s spotlight changed to sudden (& dangerous) weight loss. I’d feel “guilty” when eating & would constantly go into “exercise mode” to “undo” the “mistake” or eat just enough to hold hunger back. I saw it as a “badge of honor” if clothing felt loose on me. It wasn’t until I started to feel woozy & saw how “skeletal” I started to look in a photo that I realised my behavior wasn’t safe (no thanks to my OCD often fooling me into thinking otherwise, like my examples above or when I was institutionalised earlier for excessive weight loss from “contamination OCD”).
Thankfully, these days as a highly sensitive neurodivergent there is so much more information today. It was years before I even learned just how many creative people in history are wired this way, (writers, musicians, inventors, etc.,) which is a much more empowering thought & certainly not something to be embarrassed or ashamed of. And the same is true with things like OCD & ED’s. There is hope (& help) out there!”
