9. When Your Pain Has No Name
You know that profound loneliness of carrying experiences that don't fit society's automatic compassion categories?
When your pain is real but invisible, when others can't recognize what you're going through as worthy of support?
AuDHD brains experience life more intensely in ways society doesn't recognize - while being equipped with the exact opposite skills needed to get understanding for those experiences. Your autistic honesty expects others to be loyal like you. Your ADHD rejection sensitivity amplifies every betrayal and abandonment.
The central paradox: You need support most when you're least able to ask for it in ways others understand. When you're processing grief, your autistic brain goes inward while your ADHD brain desperately craves connection. Meanwhile, the very skills needed to "perform" pain for recognition are exactly what burnout steals from you.
This isn't about whose pain is worse - it's about whose pain gets built-in social support. Death has scripts. Divorce labeled as "relationship failure" doesn't capture relationship murder. Friendship abandonment after vulnerability doesn't translate to "just find new friends."
In This Episode:
Why betrayal trauma hits AuDHD brains differently than relationship endings hit others
The exhaustion of constantly translating invisible experiences for recognition
How processing alone isn't isolation - it's honoring your nervous system's wisdom
Redefining coregulation when traditional support doesn't match your brain
Building your ecosystem to recognize unnamed pain without requiring performance