Also annoying though are people who think they "get it", stop listening and be interruptive after a few words, and totally miss the crucial part that comes later.
Other neurodivergent people are hard to hang out with, except for sharing our grievances in memes :-)
I find that ND peeps are much easier to get along with.
Yeah i have realized all my friends thru the years are some kinna ND. I didn't plan it that way obviously. We NDs tend to find each other naturally
Just like stand users!
My wife has ADHD as well as myself. How often I'm trying to make a point by starting off on points that lead to that point, and she makes the point for me, conducts a counter argument, and wastes 30 seconds of me back pedaling to say that's not at all what I'm trying to get at.
Yes, this is a serious problem with some people. Far worse than OP's issue.
crucial part that comes later.
Put the crucial parts first, before the fluff.
Sometimes context is important!
Or
Context is important sometimes! (If you want the point first)
That is a beautiful bit of word play there to show a point succinctly. Love it, well done!
The word play, Love that! Succinct point put beautifully. Well done!
If you are going to make a long winded statement, its not crazy to preface it with something.
But then they think they heard the only important part already and miss the context which equally matters.
Its not prefacing it with a summary, its letting them know you have a point at the end they should wait for.
I actually prefer the type of conversation that goes back and forth and tangents, but there is a place for more long form cohesive ideas, and you should wait to hear it all before speaking.
There is a whole house of people I know like that. I visited for Labor Day, and people were constantly talking over each other. They wonder why I don't visit too often anymore.
This on really irks me as two people in my family are this way… but always wrong. It’s like having a conversation with an autocomplete engine that’s always wrong. If you just let me finish my sentence, this would go way faster.
Im more on the
"I need you to repeat that second half because something you said in the first half sent me down an entirely different line of thinking and i stopped listening to you and only pretended to"
Side of things
Sounds very similar to my, "I have something relevant and important to say and you're moving past the past where it's relevant!" And it's always with someone who acts like I'm always interrupting when actually they are constantly interrupting.
Two words: Group. Therapy.
I'm immensely grateful for the help and support it's provided but holy hell this happens a dozen times a session.
That doesn't sound like something I can convince my co-workers to do, and it probably won't change them any.
Oh, I'm not saying take them to group therapy. It's just that it happens a lot in that setting.
Ooohhh yeah.
I'm on both 😁👍
Omg, I hate this feeling.
If I’m drunk I just can’t handle it, and end up attempting to truncate what they are saying with a graceful and quick demonstration of my understanding to move things along. Mixed results ensue.
My partner does this all the time. Unfortunately, they’re often completely wrong about what I was trying to say. Suddenly we’re having two completely different conversations simultaneously.
If they didn't interrupt you would still be having two conversations since they misunderstood what you were trying to say, but it would take longer to catch on.
I'm talking about situations where my meaning would become clear if I weren't interrupted before I finished what I was saying.
It's fine, though. I'm learning to front-load my main points. Instead of trying to say "Hey, I know we said we'd clean the basement this weekend, but I think it's more important that I spend that time fixing the car," and getting interrupted with thoughts about the basement before I'm able to mention the car, I try to say "I'd like to work on the car this weekend. I think the basement can wait." Takes practice, though.
Agree to some extent, but the meaning would only become clear if they continue to listen instead of assuming they know what you're about to say and zoning out.
I have some of both with my SO and I'm not sure what's more annoying, being interrupted or explaining exactly what you mean and having none of it be absorbed.
Yeah, leading with the important part so the reat of it has context seems to work a lot better for a lot more people in my experience. Especially in your example where you are trying to front load the thing to do followed by the thing not to do. That way they don't jump to speculation halfway through the sentence :)
On a somewhat nonscientifically aupported personal observation, if the sentence structure has a 'but' in the middle the audience is very likely to start mentally guessing what is coming up and will have more trouble listening to what it being said. It can often sound like a rug pulling moment, where what they thought was true is suddenly switched up and most people don't like that. So if thinking ahead it is better to reverse a sentence like in that example to avoid the middle 'but'.
hopefully, also *hilarious *results.
My therapist helped this by saying that there are no points. forgetting what you are saying in order to let others in is part of the deal.
it happens literally multiple billions a times a day. be part of team "it is ok not to make my point".
it is a fun team to join.
That's all well and good until it's my turn to speak and I make an equally bad impression by having nothing to say.
I have ADHD, I work in tech.
I'm pretty sure I've of my more troublesome clients is both extremely rude and also needs Ritalin.
Every time I say anything, they interrupt me with a reply, except, 90% of the time, they've didn't actually understand what I was trying to say. The assumption they make about what I am saying is very consistently incorrect.
It's really quite aggravating.
Is that an ADHD thing?
It's the impulse control and anxiety & frustration that builds from not giving in to the impulse that's the challenge. That's if you're aware of the issue that if you do give in to the impulse you will likely come off as a dismissive asshole, and probabaly even condescending.
I have inattentive ADHD, so for me it's not an impulse thing, it's the fact that I'll forget what I was going to say by the time someone has finished. So either I interrupt or we sit awkwardly while I try and remember what I was going to say and it sucks.
I have mixed. The impulse control sucks as well as forgetting comments. I've come up with some mechanisms to help me remeber from notes, making a fist and holding up a finger for each thing I want to say, etc. Sometimes my comments/questions are answered if I wait too. I sometimes still forget. However, the urge to grip my hands together and claw at the skin on my hands is very real if I resist the impulse to jump in or rush the person to their point.
It's not. Most of the things posted to this sub are just wrong.
Warning for rule 1
Looked on the sidebar to see what rule 1 was and saw "1. No porn" and was very confused until I noticed that I was looking at my instance's rules. Thanks Alexandrite.
I wouldn’t say wrong do much as call them shared experiences that are not unique to adhd
Yeah, in general it's things that everyone experiences but to a lesser extent.
Yeah I'm like this sometimes but I don't have ADHD. Just impatient lol
Actually I see a ton of posts lately mostly on Instagram where it says "such and such thing" is so ADHD and it seems like just some normal stuff. Like everything is adhd now
Some/most of the way the ADHD presents itself is that they are things that everyone does, but ADHDers do it much more often to the point it is a problem or deemed socially unacceptable. So yes, ADHD touches a lot of things that neurotypical people do which is why it is such an insidious disability, it hides in plain sight and is dismissed by others as the individual displaying those traits just doesn’t have the mental fortitude and they need to practice better control, which leads to the ADHDer not seeking therapy/meds for their condition as they are made to feel that their condition is a personal failing and not an actual disability due to faulty wiring in their brain. This is why many people with ADHD have a negative self image and are typically treated for depression due to that negative self image. If the person with ADHD gets support, through their community, family, school, job, meds, therapist and etc then that negative self image can be dismantled and the real issue is the ADHD, the depression was just a symptom.
A simple thing I tell people when this is brought up to me is that; “Everyone goes to the bathroom a few times a day but if you are going 60 times a day we can all agree you should see a doctor about that.”
It is a hard thing to treat, especially if you are undiagnosed until later in life, unwinding all the negativity around it in your life and dismantling all the unhealthy coping mechanisms is difficult the longer you live with it.
What we are seeing now with ADHD, and related similar conditions, is not a sudden over diagnosis and prescription to treat it but that it has been vastly under diagnosed and untreated and we as a society are just catching up as we start to understand it more.
Apologies, I didn’t mean to monologue at you as this wasn’t necessarily directed at you but you hit a piece of the much larger iceberg and it didn’t feel right to not expound on the topic holistically.
Just a caveat, seeking therapy for ADHD is improving mental fortitude. Nothing wrong with that, and some people might need chemical assistance. Hard to say, its such a young field.
Yes, no doubt, it is such a wide spectrum with many co-morbidities, generalizing anything is really doing it a disservice. Many, but not all, use therapy as a way to gain an understanding of their condition and to acknowledge how their triggers work to develop mental fortitude to address those triggers. It is definitely not the same for everyone and there is work being done by thousands of people daily to understand ADHD, and other related or unrelated mental disabilities, to develop better tools. For now, predominantly, the focus is on meds and therapy because those are the tools we have right now that have the highest probability of alleviating some of the suffering related to those conditions.
Sorry, I did not think I was implying that chemical assistance or therapy were not valid treatment paths for those who have ADHD. They saved my life, I slogged through decades of not knowing; with meds and therapy to address my ADHD, and various other issues/co-morbidities, I can honestly say I am by far the happiest I have ever been. It is a long and difficult journey and my path, like everyone else’s, is unique. For people who suspect they may have it but don’t know where to begin then exploring therapy and meds is an excellent place to start. It may not be what you need to get to where you want to be but bringing your issues to trained professionals to grow your support team is not a bad move to make, they can help you get the help you need.
I think the part people leave out is that not everyone has the same goal. Most describe it as being "happy", but never consider whether thats even possible to be happy nearly all the time.
The flaw there as I see it is that humans seem to always return to some sort of baseline emotional state, but this state is not happiness. Happiness is the spikes up while sadness are the spikes down, but given enough time it always comes back to baseline.
Thats why you can find really extreme examples of happiness. Some of the time I spent in jail were truly happy times, which really confused me at the time. On the other side you might see people become depressed during or after achieving their goals.
In my opinion, having the wrong expectations for how you should feel and for how long, can turn small curable problems into consuming destructive problems.
It should be: time plus perspective heals all wounds.
Not sure I am following you on this one, I believe the only time happiness has been mentioned in this thread of comments is when I said I am the happiest I have ever been. I think I am uniquely qualified to determine where my new baseline lays on a happiness scale.
What you said does not dismiss the existence of a generally agreed upon meaning of happiness. Yes, it spikes to high levels for short periods of time and it sinks into sadness too. But that does not mean the baseline cannot shift up or down on that scale and hold at a new level.
Define your scale with words that make sense to you but I think you would be hard pressed to convince anyone that seeking professional help for a mental disability, or even a suspected mental disability, would not lead to better outcomes or a high quality of life for those seeking help than to not seek help at all.
It was an additional point, noone brought it up before I mentioned it.
I am saying a lot of focus goes on putting in work and not as much into what's being worked towards.
People should seek treatment if they think it will helpthemz, I wasnt saying otherwise. Therapy can be hit or miss though so saying that like its just a simple thing is a problem in its own.
There are many moving parts to this type of thing, and searching for a single monolithic solution is not helping. The more tools people have the better, and one of them is moderating expectation of quality of life to a reasonable level.
Who is searching for a single monolithic solution?
Who suggested there was one?
Not sure where you are going with this or where you are pulling that from.
Plenty of mentions of what one could or would be working towards in the above conversation so I think that is a dead end topic.
“Saying a lot of focus goes to putting in work” and then “saying that therapy is just like a simple thing” are contradictory, so which one is it? I don’t think anyone has mentioned, or even inferred, that therapy is a simple thing. Not sure where you got that from.
I see you making a lot of assumptions that aren’t based on this thread of comments so it feels like you are fighting against a straw man of your own creation instead of actually engaging in this conversation.
Also, your contributions here have been directed more towards dismantling any suggestion without putting forth an alternative that could benefit this community. It is like you are fighting for the status quo and suggesting that we shouldn’t strive towards improving our quality of life
How is you moderating how much others get to believe in their potential to improve their own quality of life in any way a useful tool to anyone other than yourself?
The fact is that therapy and medical treatment is a statistically valid first step for people who suffer from ADHD and other similar disabilities/disorder. Those disabilities/disorders, if left untreated, statistically lower your quality of life, which can be measured by many different metrics. This is not anecdotal but based on the research done by people like Dr. Russell Barkley and others who have studied mental disabilities and disorders for decades while developing treatments for said disorders. I have read their books and feel their research stands on it own. You are welcome to debate their findings with said professionals in this field of study. No one said it works for everyone and no one said it is the only path. Again, it feels like you are debating arguments that no one is making.
I think it is unfair for you to put a ceiling on how much potential improvements that others can make to their own quality of life. I do not think it is helpful to “Well… Ackchyually” your opinion into the conversation to nitpick topicality of terms and to question the validity of proven starting points for people who want to seek help for their mental disability without providing alternative suggestions and beneficial contributions to the conversation.
That’s because people don’t understand ADHD.…. It’s like someone saying they have OCD when they have some habit or quirk they think is unique. OCD is something that people tend to figure out kinda quickly, but ADHD gets dismissed because everyone does do some of the things ADHD does. They just don’t do it all the time or to the point where it affects their lives constantly.
You guys are having conversations where someone gets to the point at the beginning?
I usually get a meandering barely tangential story that is supposed to be context but is irrelevant and gets in the way of communicating their simple point.
"snooggums, are you able to take off work tomorrow? I was walking the dog and ran into Cindy. You know Cindy, Bob's daughter? She went to Kansas State and majored in chemistry, but was never that into it. Anyway, so Cindy was talking about how they painted their house last year and the contractor wasn't someone you would want to work with because when she talked to them he said that he wasn't sure that the work was going well and he wanted to follow up to discuss the work with him. But then he said that it was ok and it all worked out. On the way back the dog had a limp, can you take her to the vet?"
Sorry, you have to picture a similar meandering explanation for something as that whole story has filled my brain for the morning.
snooggums, are you able to take off work tomorrow? I was ...
No.
There you go
Negative Ghostrider, doggo comes first!
To be fair: 95% of people saying 'I get it' definetly didn't got it.
Sauce: Ask anyone working in IT support
I am impatient with long descriptions, but I do find that in a minority of cases, the description does lead in to a distinction that I would not have intuited.
I try to reflect on that during long descriptions, particularly ones that are highly redundant with something I remember.
This also happens to me in reverse. I get half a sentence out, the other person nods and says "yup" or "K", and then i say "yeah k so then anyway" and on to the next point
You'd go crazy in places like Japan where it can be common to use these verbal confirmations they're listening. Even considered rude or that you're not paying attention if you don't...
my nd friend group has a protocol for this! if you think you already understand what the other person is saying, you just say “avocado”. then they either ask some questions to confirm or just say “ok but i wanna info dump anyways” and then it’s COLLABORATIVE info dumping!
That's pretty cool but requires a tight group of cognizant NDs.
i gotta lotta unconditional love for my homies lol
Congrats, I too have a solid group of ND friends all exploring their condition and we have similar mechanism to acknowledge communication issues and trying to make them more palatable for the group in an honest, fair and kind way that brings us all up and doesn’t shut us down. I am incredibly lucky and I love my bros unconditionally too.
Happy to hear you have a community like that too.
I can not nod any slower.
Then nod faster?
I only struggle when someone pauses after making a point that seems complete, only to start adding more points the moment i begin to reply. The most annoying part is that i feel like an asshole for just trying to engage. So then i sit there trying to multitask listening, holding into my response, editing it, and managing anxiety, which leads to missing most of their additional points. This varies wildly individual to individual.
Luckily people are pretty forgiving...
Strange... I don't remember making this comment and yet it's here already.
Are you me? This is literally me IRL ALL THE TIME!
In my experience though some people are forgiving, others not so much. But the ones that are often times can become friends
Hahaha yeah...
It's taken me waayyyy too long to recognize that someone being unforgiving about it is a red flag.
It took therapy to realize there are things i can't change about myself and this might be one. Still have to work on it but can't beat myself up over it.
The hardest part is not beating yourself up for things about yourself that you can't change
That's definitely a hard part. This is probably a non-sequitor but I always felt like others had their shit together and assumed them to be valid when they talked and my own thoughts/emotions to be subject to that validity. But that just leads to an internal unwillingness to communicate those feelings out of fear of invalidating them and the faulty logic that i must be invalid when in reality both people have real, immediate experience and emotion. So i would beat myself up instead of pressing them to meet on the same level.
Bleh, anyways, theres a nugget in there which led me to be more willing to assert my own validity. That helped a lot with my anxiety. But i still walk away from every social interaction over analyzing everything and being critical of myself. I'm just learning to be a little more critical of others too, that they made a choice in how to interact with me, and that i either appreciated it or not.
Pick one:
A) Sit there and try to listen while repeating your response in your head so you don't forget it, but you put too much attention towards that and miss everything they add
B) Listen intently, but forget what you wanted to say.
ADHD sure is a superpower!
Look at meme: "I'm pretty sure i got the condition"
Look medical resources: "This list of symptoms describes me."
Everyone you know: "I'm pretty you i got the condition"
The therapist: "That will take 6mo and $5k. to figure out and first we have to address the symptom of the condition to make sure the symptom isn't cauaing the condition, not included."
This just seems like something everyone does. Is this an ADHD symptom?
Hohoho boy
Living with my new roommate, about 2/3 of the infodumps she gives me about random stuff I already know. I always want to stop it because it feels like a minute of wasted time, but I don’t want to dissuade them from sharing info.
I end up just repeating “She doesn’t know what I do and don’t know” and just agreeing with the information when she’s done.
I grew up getting talked over at home. At school I was bullied and ostracized. After entering the workforce, I've been quietly beaten down at every workplace and made to feel like I should STFU at all times.
Today, people ask me why I'm so quiet most of the time and why I don't attend non-mandatory work functions or teambuildings anymore. I can only smile faintly and fakely while agreeing with them that I must be shy or simply have nothing to contribute.
It is what it is.
Ah that sucks mate. Do you have any ND friends?
I don't have any friends, really. Not since Covid.
That really sucks. One can't survive without friends. Can't you endeavour to make some ND ones? They tend to be way more in sync.
Then you finally give up and zone out for a bit.
Until you realize they just asked you a question.
People use so much fluff and crap filler talk...even emails I get, cherry pick information all over, cut the garbage out and a 4 paragraph email is 2 sentences.
Give information and facts and leave your stories and deep thought explanations out of it. It's useless and horribly inefficient
It's funny you say that. I'm actively working to add intro sentences to more of my emails to add "fluff". Asking how their weekend was, commenting about the weather, sharing a one-sentence story about an experience I've had, etc.
I'm trying to build connection with people and not come off as terse/abrupt. My wife calls me out for it all the time.
I only have this problem with my sister who will spend 30 minutes just to get to the point after grabbing my attention with 1 foot out the door as I am trying to leave.
I always feel that it’s a sign of disrespect to forcefully hold my attention instead of just saying what they want.
ADHD aside interrupting people is rude.
Does anyone know people who tell you the same stories every other week and you already know it word by word? Do you say something or just wait awkwardly?
It’s even worse when they start to stutter or loose their train of thought.
It would be better if they never loosed their train of thought on you in the first place.
Yeah, people hate this. It's a serious struggle. You have to let them finish, and it's seldom easy to do that.
I just repeat my 'yes' and grunts and 'I see' in triples. Aha, aha, aha, yes, yes, yes, no, no, no, ok, ok, ok, click there, click there, click there, no, no, no, yes, yes, yes, NO-NO-NO HIGHER yes-yes-yes, okay sigh.
My wife absolutely hates it, though she knows why I do it.
Also annoying though are people who think they "get it", stop listening and be interruptive after a few words, and totally miss the crucial part that comes later.
Other neurodivergent people are hard to hang out with, except for sharing our grievances in memes :-)
I find that ND peeps are much easier to get along with.
Yeah i have realized all my friends thru the years are some kinna ND. I didn't plan it that way obviously. We NDs tend to find each other naturally
Just like stand users!
My wife has ADHD as well as myself. How often I'm trying to make a point by starting off on points that lead to that point, and she makes the point for me, conducts a counter argument, and wastes 30 seconds of me back pedaling to say that's not at all what I'm trying to get at.
Yes, this is a serious problem with some people. Far worse than OP's issue.
Put the crucial parts first, before the fluff.
Sometimes context is important!
Or
Context is important sometimes! (If you want the point first)
That is a beautiful bit of word play there to show a point succinctly. Love it, well done!
The word play, Love that! Succinct point put beautifully. Well done!
If you are going to make a long winded statement, its not crazy to preface it with something.
But then they think they heard the only important part already and miss the context which equally matters.
Its not prefacing it with a summary, its letting them know you have a point at the end they should wait for.
I actually prefer the type of conversation that goes back and forth and tangents, but there is a place for more long form cohesive ideas, and you should wait to hear it all before speaking.
There is a whole house of people I know like that. I visited for Labor Day, and people were constantly talking over each other. They wonder why I don't visit too often anymore.
This on really irks me as two people in my family are this way… but always wrong. It’s like having a conversation with an autocomplete engine that’s always wrong. If you just let me finish my sentence, this would go way faster.
Im more on the
"I need you to repeat that second half because something you said in the first half sent me down an entirely different line of thinking and i stopped listening to you and only pretended to"
Side of things
Sounds very similar to my, "I have something relevant and important to say and you're moving past the past where it's relevant!" And it's always with someone who acts like I'm always interrupting when actually they are constantly interrupting.
Two words: Group. Therapy.
I'm immensely grateful for the help and support it's provided but holy hell this happens a dozen times a session.
That doesn't sound like something I can convince my co-workers to do, and it probably won't change them any.
Oh, I'm not saying take them to group therapy. It's just that it happens a lot in that setting.
Ooohhh yeah.
I'm on both 😁👍
Omg, I hate this feeling.
If I’m drunk I just can’t handle it, and end up attempting to truncate what they are saying with a graceful and quick demonstration of my understanding to move things along. Mixed results ensue.
My partner does this all the time. Unfortunately, they’re often completely wrong about what I was trying to say. Suddenly we’re having two completely different conversations simultaneously.
If they didn't interrupt you would still be having two conversations since they misunderstood what you were trying to say, but it would take longer to catch on.
I'm talking about situations where my meaning would become clear if I weren't interrupted before I finished what I was saying.
It's fine, though. I'm learning to front-load my main points. Instead of trying to say "Hey, I know we said we'd clean the basement this weekend, but I think it's more important that I spend that time fixing the car," and getting interrupted with thoughts about the basement before I'm able to mention the car, I try to say "I'd like to work on the car this weekend. I think the basement can wait." Takes practice, though.
Agree to some extent, but the meaning would only become clear if they continue to listen instead of assuming they know what you're about to say and zoning out.
I have some of both with my SO and I'm not sure what's more annoying, being interrupted or explaining exactly what you mean and having none of it be absorbed.
Yeah, leading with the important part so the reat of it has context seems to work a lot better for a lot more people in my experience. Especially in your example where you are trying to front load the thing to do followed by the thing not to do. That way they don't jump to speculation halfway through the sentence :)
On a somewhat nonscientifically aupported personal observation, if the sentence structure has a 'but' in the middle the audience is very likely to start mentally guessing what is coming up and will have more trouble listening to what it being said. It can often sound like a rug pulling moment, where what they thought was true is suddenly switched up and most people don't like that. So if thinking ahead it is better to reverse a sentence like in that example to avoid the middle 'but'.
hopefully, also *hilarious *results.
My therapist helped this by saying that there are no points. forgetting what you are saying in order to let others in is part of the deal.
it happens literally multiple billions a times a day. be part of team "it is ok not to make my point".
it is a fun team to join.
That's all well and good until it's my turn to speak and I make an equally bad impression by having nothing to say.
I have ADHD, I work in tech.
I'm pretty sure I've of my more troublesome clients is both extremely rude and also needs Ritalin.
Every time I say anything, they interrupt me with a reply, except, 90% of the time, they've didn't actually understand what I was trying to say. The assumption they make about what I am saying is very consistently incorrect.
It's really quite aggravating.
Is that an ADHD thing?
It's the impulse control and anxiety & frustration that builds from not giving in to the impulse that's the challenge. That's if you're aware of the issue that if you do give in to the impulse you will likely come off as a dismissive asshole, and probabaly even condescending.
I have inattentive ADHD, so for me it's not an impulse thing, it's the fact that I'll forget what I was going to say by the time someone has finished. So either I interrupt or we sit awkwardly while I try and remember what I was going to say and it sucks.
I have mixed. The impulse control sucks as well as forgetting comments. I've come up with some mechanisms to help me remeber from notes, making a fist and holding up a finger for each thing I want to say, etc. Sometimes my comments/questions are answered if I wait too. I sometimes still forget. However, the urge to grip my hands together and claw at the skin on my hands is very real if I resist the impulse to jump in or rush the person to their point.
It's not. Most of the things posted to this sub are just wrong.
Warning for rule 1
Looked on the sidebar to see what rule 1 was and saw "1. No porn" and was very confused until I noticed that I was looking at my instance's rules. Thanks Alexandrite.
I wouldn’t say wrong do much as call them shared experiences that are not unique to adhd
Yeah, in general it's things that everyone experiences but to a lesser extent.
Yeah I'm like this sometimes but I don't have ADHD. Just impatient lol
Actually I see a ton of posts lately mostly on Instagram where it says "such and such thing" is so ADHD and it seems like just some normal stuff. Like everything is adhd now
Some/most of the way the ADHD presents itself is that they are things that everyone does, but ADHDers do it much more often to the point it is a problem or deemed socially unacceptable. So yes, ADHD touches a lot of things that neurotypical people do which is why it is such an insidious disability, it hides in plain sight and is dismissed by others as the individual displaying those traits just doesn’t have the mental fortitude and they need to practice better control, which leads to the ADHDer not seeking therapy/meds for their condition as they are made to feel that their condition is a personal failing and not an actual disability due to faulty wiring in their brain. This is why many people with ADHD have a negative self image and are typically treated for depression due to that negative self image. If the person with ADHD gets support, through their community, family, school, job, meds, therapist and etc then that negative self image can be dismantled and the real issue is the ADHD, the depression was just a symptom.
A simple thing I tell people when this is brought up to me is that; “Everyone goes to the bathroom a few times a day but if you are going 60 times a day we can all agree you should see a doctor about that.”
It is a hard thing to treat, especially if you are undiagnosed until later in life, unwinding all the negativity around it in your life and dismantling all the unhealthy coping mechanisms is difficult the longer you live with it.
What we are seeing now with ADHD, and related similar conditions, is not a sudden over diagnosis and prescription to treat it but that it has been vastly under diagnosed and untreated and we as a society are just catching up as we start to understand it more.
Apologies, I didn’t mean to monologue at you as this wasn’t necessarily directed at you but you hit a piece of the much larger iceberg and it didn’t feel right to not expound on the topic holistically.
Just a caveat, seeking therapy for ADHD is improving mental fortitude. Nothing wrong with that, and some people might need chemical assistance. Hard to say, its such a young field.
Yes, no doubt, it is such a wide spectrum with many co-morbidities, generalizing anything is really doing it a disservice. Many, but not all, use therapy as a way to gain an understanding of their condition and to acknowledge how their triggers work to develop mental fortitude to address those triggers. It is definitely not the same for everyone and there is work being done by thousands of people daily to understand ADHD, and other related or unrelated mental disabilities, to develop better tools. For now, predominantly, the focus is on meds and therapy because those are the tools we have right now that have the highest probability of alleviating some of the suffering related to those conditions.
Sorry, I did not think I was implying that chemical assistance or therapy were not valid treatment paths for those who have ADHD. They saved my life, I slogged through decades of not knowing; with meds and therapy to address my ADHD, and various other issues/co-morbidities, I can honestly say I am by far the happiest I have ever been. It is a long and difficult journey and my path, like everyone else’s, is unique. For people who suspect they may have it but don’t know where to begin then exploring therapy and meds is an excellent place to start. It may not be what you need to get to where you want to be but bringing your issues to trained professionals to grow your support team is not a bad move to make, they can help you get the help you need.
I think the part people leave out is that not everyone has the same goal. Most describe it as being "happy", but never consider whether thats even possible to be happy nearly all the time.
The flaw there as I see it is that humans seem to always return to some sort of baseline emotional state, but this state is not happiness. Happiness is the spikes up while sadness are the spikes down, but given enough time it always comes back to baseline.
Thats why you can find really extreme examples of happiness. Some of the time I spent in jail were truly happy times, which really confused me at the time. On the other side you might see people become depressed during or after achieving their goals.
In my opinion, having the wrong expectations for how you should feel and for how long, can turn small curable problems into consuming destructive problems.
It should be: time plus perspective heals all wounds.
Not sure I am following you on this one, I believe the only time happiness has been mentioned in this thread of comments is when I said I am the happiest I have ever been. I think I am uniquely qualified to determine where my new baseline lays on a happiness scale.
What you said does not dismiss the existence of a generally agreed upon meaning of happiness. Yes, it spikes to high levels for short periods of time and it sinks into sadness too. But that does not mean the baseline cannot shift up or down on that scale and hold at a new level.
Define your scale with words that make sense to you but I think you would be hard pressed to convince anyone that seeking professional help for a mental disability, or even a suspected mental disability, would not lead to better outcomes or a high quality of life for those seeking help than to not seek help at all.
It was an additional point, noone brought it up before I mentioned it.
I am saying a lot of focus goes on putting in work and not as much into what's being worked towards.
People should seek treatment if they think it will helpthemz, I wasnt saying otherwise. Therapy can be hit or miss though so saying that like its just a simple thing is a problem in its own.
There are many moving parts to this type of thing, and searching for a single monolithic solution is not helping. The more tools people have the better, and one of them is moderating expectation of quality of life to a reasonable level.
Who is searching for a single monolithic solution? Who suggested there was one?
Not sure where you are going with this or where you are pulling that from.
Plenty of mentions of what one could or would be working towards in the above conversation so I think that is a dead end topic.
“Saying a lot of focus goes to putting in work” and then “saying that therapy is just like a simple thing” are contradictory, so which one is it? I don’t think anyone has mentioned, or even inferred, that therapy is a simple thing. Not sure where you got that from.
I see you making a lot of assumptions that aren’t based on this thread of comments so it feels like you are fighting against a straw man of your own creation instead of actually engaging in this conversation.
Also, your contributions here have been directed more towards dismantling any suggestion without putting forth an alternative that could benefit this community. It is like you are fighting for the status quo and suggesting that we shouldn’t strive towards improving our quality of life
How is you moderating how much others get to believe in their potential to improve their own quality of life in any way a useful tool to anyone other than yourself?
The fact is that therapy and medical treatment is a statistically valid first step for people who suffer from ADHD and other similar disabilities/disorder. Those disabilities/disorders, if left untreated, statistically lower your quality of life, which can be measured by many different metrics. This is not anecdotal but based on the research done by people like Dr. Russell Barkley and others who have studied mental disabilities and disorders for decades while developing treatments for said disorders. I have read their books and feel their research stands on it own. You are welcome to debate their findings with said professionals in this field of study. No one said it works for everyone and no one said it is the only path. Again, it feels like you are debating arguments that no one is making.
I think it is unfair for you to put a ceiling on how much potential improvements that others can make to their own quality of life. I do not think it is helpful to “Well… Ackchyually” your opinion into the conversation to nitpick topicality of terms and to question the validity of proven starting points for people who want to seek help for their mental disability without providing alternative suggestions and beneficial contributions to the conversation.
That’s because people don’t understand ADHD.…. It’s like someone saying they have OCD when they have some habit or quirk they think is unique. OCD is something that people tend to figure out kinda quickly, but ADHD gets dismissed because everyone does do some of the things ADHD does. They just don’t do it all the time or to the point where it affects their lives constantly.
Warning for rule 1
Lmao, you're pooping on the parties
Neurotypical people don't grasp what the other wants to say after the first few sentences?
You guys are having conversations where someone gets to the point at the beginning?
I usually get a meandering barely tangential story that is supposed to be context but is irrelevant and gets in the way of communicating their simple point.
"snooggums, are you able to take off work tomorrow? I was walking the dog and ran into Cindy. You know Cindy, Bob's daughter? She went to Kansas State and majored in chemistry, but was never that into it. Anyway, so Cindy was talking about how they painted their house last year and the contractor wasn't someone you would want to work with because when she talked to them he said that he wasn't sure that the work was going well and he wanted to follow up to discuss the work with him. But then he said that it was ok and it all worked out. On the way back the dog had a limp, can you take her to the vet?"
Sorry, you have to picture a similar meandering explanation for something as that whole story has filled my brain for the morning.
No.
There you go
Negative Ghostrider, doggo comes first!
To be fair: 95% of people saying 'I get it' definetly didn't got it.
Sauce: Ask anyone working in IT support
I am impatient with long descriptions, but I do find that in a minority of cases, the description does lead in to a distinction that I would not have intuited.
I try to reflect on that during long descriptions, particularly ones that are highly redundant with something I remember.
This also happens to me in reverse. I get half a sentence out, the other person nods and says "yup" or "K", and then i say "yeah k so then anyway" and on to the next point
You'd go crazy in places like Japan where it can be common to use these verbal confirmations they're listening. Even considered rude or that you're not paying attention if you don't...
my nd friend group has a protocol for this! if you think you already understand what the other person is saying, you just say “avocado”. then they either ask some questions to confirm or just say “ok but i wanna info dump anyways” and then it’s COLLABORATIVE info dumping!
That's pretty cool but requires a tight group of cognizant NDs.
i gotta lotta unconditional love for my homies lol
Congrats, I too have a solid group of ND friends all exploring their condition and we have similar mechanism to acknowledge communication issues and trying to make them more palatable for the group in an honest, fair and kind way that brings us all up and doesn’t shut us down. I am incredibly lucky and I love my bros unconditionally too.
Happy to hear you have a community like that too.
I can not nod any slower.
Then nod faster?
I only struggle when someone pauses after making a point that seems complete, only to start adding more points the moment i begin to reply. The most annoying part is that i feel like an asshole for just trying to engage. So then i sit there trying to multitask listening, holding into my response, editing it, and managing anxiety, which leads to missing most of their additional points. This varies wildly individual to individual.
Luckily people are pretty forgiving...
Strange... I don't remember making this comment and yet it's here already.
Are you me? This is literally me IRL ALL THE TIME!
In my experience though some people are forgiving, others not so much. But the ones that are often times can become friends
Hahaha yeah...
It's taken me waayyyy too long to recognize that someone being unforgiving about it is a red flag.
It took therapy to realize there are things i can't change about myself and this might be one. Still have to work on it but can't beat myself up over it.
The hardest part is not beating yourself up for things about yourself that you can't change
That's definitely a hard part. This is probably a non-sequitor but I always felt like others had their shit together and assumed them to be valid when they talked and my own thoughts/emotions to be subject to that validity. But that just leads to an internal unwillingness to communicate those feelings out of fear of invalidating them and the faulty logic that i must be invalid when in reality both people have real, immediate experience and emotion. So i would beat myself up instead of pressing them to meet on the same level.
Bleh, anyways, theres a nugget in there which led me to be more willing to assert my own validity. That helped a lot with my anxiety. But i still walk away from every social interaction over analyzing everything and being critical of myself. I'm just learning to be a little more critical of others too, that they made a choice in how to interact with me, and that i either appreciated it or not.
Pick one:
A) Sit there and try to listen while repeating your response in your head so you don't forget it, but you put too much attention towards that and miss everything they add
B) Listen intently, but forget what you wanted to say.
ADHD sure is a superpower!
Look at meme: "I'm pretty sure i got the condition"
Look medical resources: "This list of symptoms describes me."
Everyone you know: "I'm pretty you i got the condition"
The therapist: "That will take 6mo and $5k. to figure out and first we have to address the symptom of the condition to make sure the symptom isn't cauaing the condition, not included."
This just seems like something everyone does. Is this an ADHD symptom?
Hohoho boy
Living with my new roommate, about 2/3 of the infodumps she gives me about random stuff I already know. I always want to stop it because it feels like a minute of wasted time, but I don’t want to dissuade them from sharing info.
I end up just repeating “She doesn’t know what I do and don’t know” and just agreeing with the information when she’s done.
I grew up getting talked over at home. At school I was bullied and ostracized. After entering the workforce, I've been quietly beaten down at every workplace and made to feel like I should STFU at all times.
Today, people ask me why I'm so quiet most of the time and why I don't attend non-mandatory work functions or teambuildings anymore. I can only smile faintly and fakely while agreeing with them that I must be shy or simply have nothing to contribute.
It is what it is.
Ah that sucks mate. Do you have any ND friends?
I don't have any friends, really. Not since Covid.
That really sucks. One can't survive without friends. Can't you endeavour to make some ND ones? They tend to be way more in sync.
Then you finally give up and zone out for a bit.
Until you realize they just asked you a question.
People use so much fluff and crap filler talk...even emails I get, cherry pick information all over, cut the garbage out and a 4 paragraph email is 2 sentences.
Give information and facts and leave your stories and deep thought explanations out of it. It's useless and horribly inefficient
It's funny you say that. I'm actively working to add intro sentences to more of my emails to add "fluff". Asking how their weekend was, commenting about the weather, sharing a one-sentence story about an experience I've had, etc.
I'm trying to build connection with people and not come off as terse/abrupt. My wife calls me out for it all the time.
I only have this problem with my sister who will spend 30 minutes just to get to the point after grabbing my attention with 1 foot out the door as I am trying to leave.
I always feel that it’s a sign of disrespect to forcefully hold my attention instead of just saying what they want.
ADHD aside interrupting people is rude.
Does anyone know people who tell you the same stories every other week and you already know it word by word? Do you say something or just wait awkwardly?
It’s even worse when they start to stutter or loose their train of thought.
It would be better if they never loosed their train of thought on you in the first place.
Yeah, people hate this. It's a serious struggle. You have to let them finish, and it's seldom easy to do that.
I just repeat my 'yes' and grunts and 'I see' in triples. Aha, aha, aha, yes, yes, yes, no, no, no, ok, ok, ok, click there, click there, click there, no, no, no, yes, yes, yes, NO-NO-NO HIGHER yes-yes-yes, okay sigh.
My wife absolutely hates it, though she knows why I do it.
I miss Bob
It sho aint easy neither
I like explaining things. Just let me have this.