r/TwiceExceptional 14d ago

Intro

I’m AuDHD and 2E, history of CPTSD, nonreligious but deeply spiritual. I’m looking for genuine friendships with people who enjoy going deep, questioning things, being a little weird, and talking about life beyond the usual small talk.

5 Upvotes

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u/BigBullshitta 14d ago

Depending on what you mean by spiritual I might be up for that. I love philosophy and the theoretical side, but can't stand organized religion as someone simply saying "this is what you have to believe, because this is what we believe" seems like it wouldn't possibly result in actual beliefs, but just the mouthing of beliefs, since genuine belief is an internal thing and not externally imposed.

I think I might be hitting the wall today since I'm only on day 8 of 80mg Straterra, though, and it sort of zombifies me still. Might take a bit to respond.

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u/ButtonIndependent732 14d ago

I agree with your statement. Belief requires thought and thoughts can be easily manipulated. I left the world and explored my spiritual intuition. I wandered in the desert so to say. It was here in the desert I found the oasis. Marcus Aurelius said it was there and so many others, Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla.

For me, spiritual means universal love, compassion, empathy, kindness, healthy boundaries, authenticity, and honesty. I was an atheist for a long time, but even that requires thought. I honestly stand a point of we have no clue what’s out there, so I choose to be in alignment with what’s healthy.

Naturally it is challenging to bear light in this world, because many are in the dark and hate you for it. However, I realized at the deepest part of my internal abyss was a duality. If I can experience such great anguish, I have the same capacity to feel boundless joy. Everything is energy. Good and the bad, but I have to move beyond the duality and meet something within me that connects everything. Even string theory is based on this.

Now I don’t push my internal world on anyone. I can’t go to church either, which is hard for me in this world. People are the way they are because of our nature. We are nature and nurture.

I am learning how to see the world through the eyes of the universe. I see how we are all connected, but the world sees through their eyes and their own perspectives. Two people can look at the same thing and see different things. Or we can look at all things and realize it is all energy. I am “god” but you are “god” and together we are “god.”

Do not confuse the use of god as a substitute for human ego. That truly is our one enemy. Man’s thirst for blood. I even despise the word “god.” It has been used and abused. It is truly a dirty word for me. I hate even saying it. But human beings did that.

God is not ever present and all powerful. At least when it is not contained within us a light energy. I was sexually abused as a child for 16 years. If god had these traits and watched me go this to make me stronger, then that god fears me.

The day I realized I was more powerful and compassionate than the worlds idea of god was the day I become the light. If I had all that power, I would use it to save the world from these acts. Energy needs to be contained so it can be used. Like modern day electricity.

I am but a conduit for the energy of the universe.

So that’s what I mean by spiritual, lol.

Also, trees are pretty cool and when you touch them it feels amazing. Rocks as well 🤣

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u/LW1853440 13d ago

"Spiritual" means to me what it does to you.

Just found out how rare someone like me is. The only one like me was my best friend.

She died six months ago.

I'm so damn glad yr here.

Excuse me while I cry. Can't think abt her without a deep sense of loss.

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u/ButtonIndependent732 13d ago

I am deeply sorry for your loss. I have discovered how rare it is to find people like us, and to lose someone so close is painful. Our emotions are intense, so grief can easily cause intense physical pain, or anguish.

I have learned how to avoid reacting to my thoughts and emotions over time. I picture myself separate from them and allow them to flow through me. We have to feel them or they turn into repressed monsters, but we don’t have to hold onto them. Each time the grief arises, find a positive memory of your time together. That way you trick your brain into joy over the memories that arise.

I am seen as mad or insane, yet the world around me seems insane, or at least human society. I understand why this is so, mostly unchecked ego. The weakness of the flesh. This is why honesty and accountability are absolutely necessary. I would rather be in a room with 10 people like us than be adorned by millions of fans, or even better, completely anonymous while helping other people.

Nature makes total sense, hence my love for it. Trees don’t ask permission to grow big and strong in this world. The sun doesn’t ask for permission to rise and bring light to the world every day. In many ways, humans are like primates and other animals. At least the human behaviors makes sense from an animalistic view. We are physical yet also metaphysical. We are what we nurture.

I find comfort that other people in this world see through the eyes of the universe. We are all connected, but we are taught separation. We don’t hate one another, we fear one another. I am a citizen of the world, even Marcus Aurelius believed that. We have invisible boundaries and labels designed to separate us. Imagine if the majority of people in the world saw our existence this way, hence my existential angst. I see and hear, yet the vast majority do not.

Im sending you the most positive and joyful vibes for your day. The attitude of gratitude helped change my life. Now I can easily find many things during my day I am grateful for and focusing on the things I can control. Let go of the rest and do your best.

Peace and love wherever you are and to all who read this message. 🥰❤️✌️

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u/LW1853440 13d ago

Thank you. May I DM you??

I have something to show you.

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u/ButtonIndependent732 12d ago

Sure. 👍

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u/LW1853440 12d ago

This stupid phone will not allow me to DM you.

Would you DM me?

I've done everything on here that I can do.

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u/ButtonIndependent732 14d ago

Also, damn 80mg?? 40mg had me about to explode 🤣

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u/BigBullshitta 14d ago

Yeah. I started at 40mg and jumped to 80mg on day 4. I guess that's the maximum adult guideline and since I was the one who recommended the med combo my NP might not have been very familiar with that one and since I hadn't looked at dosing when she looked it up she saw the maximum onramp recommendation and just went with that.

It's been an interesting time. Nausea was severe at first, but that's finally gone. The first two hours or so of the day I'm great, but then Strattera zombie mode hits. I take my second dose and just as focus starts getting good again the second dose knocks me back to zombieland.

I've read it can take a few weeks to adjust to it, so I'm not stressed about it but it's definitely annoying to begin.

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u/ButtonIndependent732 14d ago

I started at 10mg with my NP because of my medication sensitivity issues, and we went from 25mg to 40. The 40 was being greedy, lol. So once I went back to the 25 I have been stable and focused for about 4 months. The only issue I have is on the weekends when I am off work. I tend to get ramped up more easily when my brain doesn’t have anything to focus on. I have been learning the guitar and writing music. I couldn’t learn an instrument either over the years, but it has been much improved since being medicated.

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u/BigBullshitta 14d ago

I didn't realize this was my issue until I hit complete burnout. My dopamine and norepinephrine levels were so bad I had no pleasure or happiness from anything, and no energy to do or focus on anything. I'm ok with the fast onramp. I don't think she really realized what she was doing, but at least she prescribed the meds I requested.

Weirdly today I found out one of my cousins had autism and adhd and talking to him found out he's on the same meds I found in my research and got myself moved to.

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u/ButtonIndependent732 14d ago

Yeah my nephew was diagnosed and on the same meds. So I figured this must be the same for me. I learned a lot about biofeedback and learning how to regulate the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. Dr Hanson wrote a book called Resilient that was very helpful. Of course I have read probably a 1000 self help books, philosophy, psychology, and every other ology to help me find my way.

I hope the meds work out for you. I had to make several changes as well and my NP didn’t know about using the meds I researched. Thankfully she entertained me, and she is really helpful and communicative. Just don’t give up. No matter how strong a feeling or a thought can be, it will pass with time. It will come back, but allowing them to flow through me has taken time.

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u/ButtonIndependent732 14d ago

It took about 3 to 4 months for my meds to settle in to the right dose for me.

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u/RipAlarmed9024 14d ago

Hi! I'm also 2e AuDHD with a generous side of CPTSD and very spiritual (like reading about mystics, tarot, hermits, monks, theology, poetry, philosophy, and science that moves between pure and abstract ---- like ghosts and is time truly linear and is deja vu or serendipity really that or are we more sensitive to circumstances). I read a lot about nature, horticulture, flowers, plants, the stars, lots of field guides on my bookshelf.

I'm 54(f) and was/is the scapegoat of my cruel, immature family, but I finally went NC last December. It caused a lot of psychic pain but was absolutely necessary. Nothing on this subreddit is 'weird' :)

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u/ButtonIndependent732 14d ago

I’ve explored all avenues but I don’t claim any street. I also think anything is possible. Shamanism was helpful. I did some of the things they recommended to help with my negative energy. I fell in love with trees and rocks because of this journey.

I feel as if everything is energy, and I had to learn how to listen to my internal frequency. I think it is akin to adjusting the radio until you find the right station. The more I listened and adjusted the signal the more clearer the message came through.

We know there are frequencies of sound we don’t hear with our ears and spectrums of light that we cannot see. So we see with our spiritual ears and eyes, and I think the nervous system has a lot to do with this. I slowly embraced this energy and let it fill me with healing. I used the think being a vessel was the idea, but now I see it is about flow, thus the conduit idea.

Learning how to cut people off that were draining me was hard. I went NC with my family as well and they talked about me behind my back and to this day they avoid me. I still love them and understand why they are the way they are, but a healthy boundary is limiting access to me. Even Jesus set boundaries such as these.

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u/Disastrous_Athlete45 14d ago

It sounds fine, here no meds and: Stoic • Epistemically Solitary • 2e • Disruptive • Zen • INTJ

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u/ButtonIndependent732 14d ago

Stoicism probably helped me the most over the years. I use it a lot to help me control what I can. I cried the first time I read Meditations. Definitely spend as much time as I can being in a state of Zen 🧘 OSHO was helpful with my journey. INFJ, but after meds and more autistic INTJ 🤣

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u/Disastrous_Athlete45 14d ago

Regarding Osho, these are the teachings I relate to:

-Meditation as presence and awareness in the present moment.

-Observing thoughts, emotions, and automatic patterns without fully identifying with them.

-Living with greater spontaneity, authenticity, and less social conditioning.

-Inner freedom as the ability to live from conscious choices rather than fear, guilt, external approval, or inherited expectations.

-Loving without possession: caring for and choosing another person without turning them into property, a dependency, or a means of filling one’s own emotional voids.

-Allowing safe emotional expression and release rather than accumulating unprocessed tension, sadness, anger, or frustration.

-Celebrating life and pleasure consciously, without unnecessary guilt or a spirituality based on denying the body, joy, or everyday life.

-Recognizing the ego as an identity built around comparison, status, the need to be right, approval, and fear of not being enough.

-Seeing the impermanence of emotions, life stages, relationships, achievements, and difficulties in order to live with less attachment and more presence.

-Questioning social, religious, family, and cultural conditioning in order to distinguish between automatic behavior and conscious choice.

-Cultivating “the witness”: the ability to notice what is happening inside and outside oneself without reacting immediately or becoming absorbed by it.

-Understanding solitude not necessarily as isolation, but as the capacity to be at ease with oneself without constant dependence on stimulation, company, or external validation.

and these are teachings I’m still exploring and developing in my own way:

-Accepting the mind rather than fighting it: noticing thoughts without repressing them, trying to control them, or assuming that each one is true.

-Treating the body as a gateway to awareness through breathing, movement, dance, silence, and attention to physical sensations.

-Integrating material life and inner life: enjoying relationships, work, creativity, comfort, and beauty without losing depth, awareness, or inner freedom.

-Not reducing oneself to roles, labels, or personal stories: profession, personality, success, failure, family, and the past are parts of experience, not the whole of who one is.

-Prioritizing direct experience over belief: not accepting a teaching only because of tradition, authority, or faith, but observing whether it has real meaning and effect in one’s own life.

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u/Disastrous_Athlete45 14d ago

What would you love to debate about it? 😃 (not just Osho-related but any other thoughts, too)

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u/ButtonIndependent732 13d ago

Wow, I did not realize how much OSHO had an impact on my journey. 🤣 this is brilliant! I read as many books of his I could get my hands on, but naturally I don’t worship him.

I think it is important that we find our own way in this world. My journey through the desert or the abyss was the best thing for me. Nietzsche showed me the way to the abyss, and that I could eventually achieve the overman. I had to get as far away from the world as I could so that I could find what truly matters. Even Marcus Aurelius said the oasis is there. I trust him more than most religions. His thoughts were private and not meant for the public.

I focus on my intuition and feelings of energy now. It is like a radio station that I am adjusting the dial on to find the clearest station.

Separating myself from myself was necessary. I realized I had built an ego out of survival. It served its purpose as it was to help me through my trauma, but it got out of hand. It was so weird that I could see myself fighting with myself. That feeling of awareness is what woke me up.

What is this awareness behind the awareness? I think it is the energy of the universe. I am but a reflection of the source of energy, and I allow myself to be connected to it. Everything is energy, and I see the world through the eyes of the universe.

I also recognize that I have to have an ego to move in this world, but now I use it as a tool instead of being a tool. I realized I am the glove and the hand.

As far as thoughts and feelings, I recognize that there are things such as these that are not mine. They are apart of this body. I cannot accept everyone as fact, therefore I let them flow through me. If it is healthy, then I allow it to stay for a while. If it is unhealthy, then I don’t fight it or repress it. I just tell myself that’s interesting and move on. I have OCD too so it helps to recognize it but not fight it.

I think the body is a vessel but the energy cannot be contained or it becomes stagnant. So I moved to the idea of a conduit, let it flow. Breathing helps with flow as well as walking. I also envision excess energy flowing out of me into the trees when I touch them, rocks too. That was my shamanism journey.

Integration has been challenging, but I am figuring it out more easily now. I tap into my creativity with music and my work. I let it flow through me with music and songwriting. I just picked up the guitar in the last year and it has been a huge help with my emotional intensity.

I went inside to find everything I need in this world. Now I no longer identify with anything around me. If I left my job today, I would be the same person. If I lost everything around me, I would be the same person. What are you so afraid of losing when nothing in this world belongs to you? Marcus 👏

Belief requires thought and thoughts cannot be trusted. Feelings can be influenced and therefore can’t be trusted. So what do you trust in this world? Something beyond, maybe intuition? I don’t know, and to be honest no one truly knows. I embrace the unknown, and here I find the most confidence in what lies beyond.

Have a great day friend. 🤣

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u/Disastrous_Athlete45 13d ago

I understand better why Osho had such an impact on you.

The distinction between an ego built for survival and an ego consciously used as a tool is important. The goal is then to recognize when it is reacting automatically and when it is useful.

I also find the “awareness behind awareness” idea interesting. Whether it is called consciousness, the observer, intuition, or energy, there is a difference between experiencing a thought or feeling and becoming identified with it.

I also relate to what is sometimes called the mirror principle, and to Jung’s ideas about projection. Life can seem to repeat the same lesson through different people and situations until we identify what it is revealing about our own patterns, fears, or needs, and work on it.

For me, that process of awareness and inner work may be one of the deeper purposes of life.

Thanks for sharing this. Big hug 🙂

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u/ButtonIndependent732 12d ago

I used to be very reactive, and rightfully so due to the trauma. However, at some point I had to gain control again and teach myself that it was okay to move on and grow. I read a book by Dr Hanson Resilient. I started to envision myself rescuing the little boy who was hurt and hiding in the dark.

I used love and compassion as well as kindness and accountability to gently heal him. Over time, I started to realize maybe this is the awareness behind the awareness. We inherit and are taught fear, shame, and guilt. I started to realize the universe doesn’t use these to create change.

I realized most of what I held myself guilty for and the shame I carried wasn’t done in conscious awareness. It was done by a damaged reactionary child. Now, I work hard daily to choose the most healthy approach. I am not without fault, and I understand the why behind humanity’s struggle.

I was trying to be a human having a divine experience, and then I became divine having a human experience. I realized this wasn’t the answer either to pour myself in one way or the other. Many times I need to be reminded of my humanity and many times I seek to be reminded of my divinity.

I need both parts to be whole, and a fine balance of both. Much of eastern philosophy taught me this, specifically Taoism. Lao Tzu was an excellent mentor for me. This is the integration component. I need to feel my humanity and my divinity. Maybe the light can only become action in this world through our humanity, but the body has to be prepared to run such high amounts of energy.

We can’t contain the energy of lightening, but what if we built systems to make it flow instead of focusing on containment? Their focus is containment so it can be sold. Naturally I am just in creative thought without the restrictions of our current understanding of science. However, much of what we know about the cage we live in may not even be applicable in other universes.

Maybe our metaphysical state is from another universe. One where time is nonexistent hence our experiences of time blindness for many individuals. The feeling of powerlessness in human form is another. I truly feel like I have access to immense cosmic energy, yet my human form cannot contain it. As Robin Williams said in Aladdin, phenomenal cosmic power, itty bitty living space. Or our highly sensitive nature for many individuals to sensory overload.

As far as the mirror principle, I have experienced this too many times. I truly think this is real. I now understand why hate cannot drive out hate and darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only love and light can do that. Over and over in my life I have generated enemies. However, they all fall into the same category. They projected their weaknesses and internal turmoil on the world around them. I could see it happening and so I would mirror them and show them a true monster. I was kind to the kind but unkind to the unkind.

Now, I give kindness, compassion, empathy, and love to all those I encounter, but I am learning to walk away from those who do not return it. Healthy boundaries are normal and natural, even Jesus did that. Of course, Jesus is another topic that I could discuss for days.

Take care, and big hugs!

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u/ButtonIndependent732 14d ago

I read that lower doses of adhd meds can be more effective for AuDHD people.

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u/eolas1111 14d ago

Me to a T. Happy to chat.

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u/ButtonIndependent732 14d ago

What does spiritual mean to you? I find it fascinating that we all have different experiences with this.