Communication between ADHD people

[Faequine]

I don’t really know anyone else with ADD/HD. Talking with Non ADDers is always hard, and stressful. Wondering what i’ll miss or miss say. The family suspect my step dad in law may have it, not sure if it’s really easier to talk to him yet. But talking is easier on here or via email etc.

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[quizzical]

Old topic re-awakened…

but very interesting to me, because I’m inattentive type and very shy. Meaning, I look like a good listener, because I don’t say much, but I’m actually a terrible listener, quietly sitting there with my mind a million miles away!

My husband is not ADD, but he’s got family members who are, and they are probably more on the hyperactive side. They talk A LOT.

I find it very trying to be around them.

Then I have a brother who is undiagnosed but clearly has at least some degree of ADD. He talks a lot, too.

I find I enjoy talking to him for a while – I’m always happy to take his calls – and then at some point I hit my limit – rather suddenly – but he’s clueless and still going strong.

I’m working on jumping in and saying “Hey, gotta go,” but a lifetime of Not Making Waves makes this difficult.

The only difference I find between talking with ADDers and non ADDers is with non ADDers I’m more likely to blame my inattentiveness when I can’t follow or add to the conversation, whereas with ADDers I tend to fault them for those same difficulties (“When will they let me get a word in?”).

At times I find it disturbing when someone’s “ADD-ness” bugs me, since I have it too – I sit and wonder if I’m A) A horrible, unsympathetic person or B) misdiagnosed. Not fun.

I would say that in the end, my ability to enjoy a conversation with someone is more about a conversation’s subject matter than whether the person is or isn’t ADD. As far as my ability to communicate effectively, well, that probably goes to my interest in the topic as well.

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[Scattybird]

Quizzical – your comments about someone’s ADD-ness bugging hit a chord with me. I have a post-graduate student who is clearly ADHD and his lateness, lack of organisation and general chaos drives me nuts! WHY can’t he just get on with it?!

Yep – I’m a  class A hypocrite – but I think it annoys me because I am struggling to organise myself and seeing him be so like me makes me want to throttle him and tell him to get help NOW before he ruins his life!

On saying that, we get on really well because we ‘get’ each other and can chat for hours about anything – it’s only when work crops up that the tension hits.

So, on balance I get on better with ADHD folk, but to work with them is stressful. Maybe I just feel like that today because I am off meds and tired. Or maybe I am just a baaaad person.

 

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[moses]

AH, okay sweet this is a good thread. okay so personally, I’ve known i had adhd for the most part of my life, i was diagnosed when i was in grade 2, after that well whatever life happened, anyways, i never really knew anybody that had adhd other than my brother and hes kinda a, um, unconventionally unsympathetic type of person, but its great to talk with him because we can have our own conversationa nd come up with amazing ideas or mini rants about things and come to the same conclusions that would normally take someone without, ages to accomplish, we both deal in concepts, which i think is easier than actual thoughtforms per se. i mean we can skip large portions of a conversation, know all the missing peice automatically and come to the same complex conlusion within seconds, the only thing that sucks is its like were speaking a different launguage than everybody else you know? aNd people are like, wtf are they talking about?. it helped out a lot growing up with a sibling that has the same condition you do, but at times we clash to the point were were all like YAAAAAAA -punches eachothers in the throat- type fights, but twenty seconds later and were trying to figure out why people havent invented working models of AI yet. its wierd. weve kinda lostr touch with eachother since we live in different provinces, but hey, experience is experience. idk im happy i found this website, i spent hours and hours last night looking for a good online community that deals strictly with what makes all of us awesome and excelent. tho, i didnt read anybodies elses posts yet cuz i wanted to get this out first, ill read everyone elsese now

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[Patte Rosebank]

Hey, @Moses! Welcome aboard!

My brother and I are very similar, but I have ADHD and he doesn’t. We used to fight all the time when we were kids, but now, we get along great. Though we occasionally snap at each other, because I’m a very verbal processor (I learn by talking my way through things), and he isn’t.

I was diagnosed 3 1/2 years ago, and my mom was diagnosed just over a month ago. Now, when we talk, we really notice the ways we think alike, and even finish each other’s thoughts.

Mom and I are very verbal processors, which can sometimes make our conversations stressful. Part of the ADHD Paradox, is that the same ADHD traits we embrace as part of ourselves, can drive us NUTS when we experience them in other people.

You’ll discover lots of those “You mean, I’m not the only one who does that?” moments, as you explore TotallyADD.  Especially when you watch some of Bill’s ADDventures, in the Videos section.

One quick note about the Forums: When you post, try to break it up into paragraphs that are 2 or 3 sentences long. Huge blocks of text are hard to read. But you can edit your posts for a couple of hours after you’ve posted, which is pretty cool!

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[moses]

haha okay yeah sorry, im really bad with gramar and stuff, its daunting haveing to put things that arent words in with all your words lol

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[moses]

I learn by Visual and Verbal aide, Verbal meaning if you try and teach me something, you best have brought a pen and paper, I can retain a little bit if im reading, but I really shine when I read it and see it simultaneously.

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[nicholas23]

My brother whom I am extremely close too is ADHD, and I am acute ADHD. I never quite understood as an adolescent, I just had this feeling when I looked at the general population, I knew I stood away, but I never knew why. Naturally, I was heavily plagued with relating to my fellow homo sapiens.I struggled immensely with idolizing and devaluing people.

As fellow sufferers of ADD and ADHD alike, now that I almost died during a tonsillectomy because of my extreme blood pressure, after a 24 hour urine analysis it became clear that my body just produced a excess of adrenaline and epinephrine, and it all became clear to me. The years of misery in sports breaking my body 8 hours a day, the beating I took in the Marine Corps and flight school mentally and physically, and even now as I pursue Cornell law and continue my studies in philosophy, I have become increasingly consciously aware of the people around me and I categorize them based off of their majors, their previous socioeconomic factors, and finally what I believe to be their mental genetic makeup regarding how their neurological makeup transcends over into their personality, thus how I distinguish between talking to people without ADD/ADHD and communicating with people who don’t.

Essentially, when I communicate with people especially in college where you meet thousands of different intellectual people on a day to day basis, I know this abut my own personal ADHD mind and how hard it is for a stark ADHD person like myself to relate to them:

1.) They bore me immensely, but at the same time I know they’re not boring people. In fact, the majority of people I meet who are not ADD/ADHD are very level headed, caring, intelligent people, but they bore me to death. With the ADHD mind, we are all slaves to the most extremes of every emotion, and we love and hate it at the same time. When I feel a mindset seeping in, usually some image or possible future that I have for myself, and I become excited and motivated, but this is also true for all aspects of the ADHD mind, as biologically and neurologically we are wired to seek the thrill, follow everything to the bitter end, we want meaning, not boring social intricacies that we just tune out. We want connection, emotion, a moment or a memory, a feeling in the air that excites us and puts lighting in our bones.

When I speak with fellow ADD/ADHD people such as my brother, there is just this beautiful temporal conscious connection, a mutual understanding of one another. When me and my brother speak, and another close business associate I have who is also a fellow sufferer of acute documented ADHD will all build off one another, we all mutually don’t care about the grotesque, the sad, the happy, the social stigmatization’s, the ever changing idea of “right” and “wrong” and question everything, no matter how uncomfortable it is to ponder, this is something I have never been able to do with a non ADD/ADHD person, it’s too much for them, it’s uncomfortable to most, people want to believe in their small reality, while ADHD people are just constantly questioning and pondering everything they know, some people can be extremely smart but this is just not something they are comfortable with.

So, in closing, talking to people who are ADD is more of a discussion for controlling procrastination and such, but when I meet a fellow documented ADHD sufferer, I can immediately feel their presence psychically and emotionally, sometimes me and my colleagues philosophizing of metaphysics and all the unknowns in the universe, and with each and every clarity you can logically create between the two of you, it just enhances both person’s hyperactivity, their emotion takes over and we ride the euphoric feeling of finally meeting someone who you can look at in a auditorium of 300 people, and immediately know what they’re thinking without having to speak to them, constructive and intellectual communication between two people who are not only controlling their ADHD, but using many of the ADHD mind’s advantages in order to elevate their mind and financial future, is a tantalizingly pleasurable experience.

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[Shadow Nexus]

How good would it be though to have an ADHD village, eh? Imagine the laughter!

Read my post about ADHD housing. “No more toxic heavy bass or loud music ever.”

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