How do I make myself SHUT UP?

[lumilumi]

I think that writing things down is a brilliant solution. It works all the time and it helps me remember what I was going to ask during the Q&A session. A lot of times the questions that I was going to ask get answered a little after the time I almost interrupted the speaker.

Something interesting happened recently, though. I sent all my friends and family a question, “What do you think I’d be good at and why”. Most of the answers said that I’d make a good counselor because I’m a good listener. Wow!!! A good listener, me??? The one that is always interrupting and have been classified ‘rude’ because of that? I was really surprised but that shows that the way you see yourself is not the same way other people see you.

Allan: when having negative thoughts about groups of people of a certain age, race, etc., ask yourself questions like, “Are all Christians bombers of abortion clinics?” “Are all Chinese people cruel and heartless as Hollywood movies show them?” “Are all old people senile?” and so on. That will help you with the generalization. I used to blurt things out like “Mexicans are blah, blah, blah” and “Americans are blah, blah, blah”, Asians are blah, blah, blah, etc. until my son made me stop and think “are all the billions of Americans, Mexicans, Asians, women, old people, Christians, Muslims, etc. the same? Can I guarantee that they’re all the way I’m describing them?

I find myself repeating the same sentence or two more than once. This has started not too long ago. I realize that I’m doing it almost as a way of reminding myself of what I’m saying, the topic being discussed. It’s annoying and it’s new. Has anyone felt that way, about repeating things as a way to not forget them?

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[witamind]

Its taken me forever, but I just don’t take things so seriously. If I want to get something done I make it into a game. Games….those things we played, made-up, and loved back in the day. The “arbitrary rules” are the ones we adopted when we stopped making up our own. Why make-up a game to stop talking so much?

Because talking to much is annoying and none of the other kids will want to play with us. Also you’re (me too) really not that special (*gasp, yea I said it!!). So in the words of Nighthawk “Shut your mouth. Sh-sh-shut your mouth”

OK  if you really want something serious….(I don’t know if this really came from Mother Teresa)

Mother Teresa’s Humility List (AKA

1. Speak as little as possible about yourself

2. Keep busy with your own affairs & not those of others

3. Avoid curiosity

4. Do not interfere in the affairs of others

5. Accept small irritations with good humor

6. Do not dwell on the faults of others

7. Accept censures even if unmerited

8. Give in to the will of others

9. Accept insults & injuries

10. Accept contempt, being forgotten & disregarded

11. Be courteous & delicate even when provoked by someone

 

**Im not comfortable with this list and I have ADD to prove it.**

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[MarieAngell]

Witamind, that’s a very concise list of reasons why Mother Teresa was made a saint and I won’t be.

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[Lori]

Woah. I’m stuck on #3.  Much harder than not interrupting.

Last night my teen said she needed to vent.  I said go ahead.  She told me not to you; you have all the answers.  Ouch.   She tried to back out because she knew my feelings were hurt.  I said, own that, because you’re right.

She vented a bit,  I bit my tongue.  It was hard.  Her Dad came home.  We were both happy.  He’s just better at being at the other end of a vent.

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[Anonymous]

You may have something else. Excessive talking is more a trait of Asperger’s. I would get tested for that.

I’ve been an executive coach for people with ADHD for a number of years and I work with my wife, a licensed psychologist an expert in AD/HD.

Normally, she evaluates the excessive talkers and most of the time it is indicative of Asperger’s and not ADD.

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[That Guy with ADHD]

Are you kidding me?  Excessive talking is a big symptom of ADHD.  There is an enormous pressure to speak.  At times it can be uncontrolable and you end up injecting yourself into a conversation with complete strangers telling them all kinds of personal things you never wanted to have people know.  It’s something that happens so quickly that it’s often over before you realize it.  Watch ADD and Loving It.  They talk about it in there.

 

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[Anonymous]

Am I kidding you? No, I am not kidding.

If a person is babbling on and on, injecting themselves into conversations, etc. it is highly likely that it is an emotional problem. Nothing like this is hard wired to ADHD.

Its based on your personal psychology that you acquired by about age 6. You actually are addicted to a specific feeling and that addiction is driving your inability to shut up.

If you really want to argue about it, my wife is a psychologist and known expert in the area of ADHD. There are no emotionally driven behaviors hard wired to ADHD. Most negative behaviors are driven by emotional addictions. Spend some time reading the works of Carl Jung, its all there.

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[That Guy with ADHD]

With all due respect I think the current research would disagree with your hypothesis.  Dr. Daniel Amen’s research, amoung many others, has shown that the depleted dopamine levels in the ADHD brain affect the executive function which control our ability to resist the urge to speak our minds.  He shows how the brain is “Hard Wired” in such a way to cause the symptoms.  The idea that ADHD behaviour is due to some unresolved childhood issue has been debunked by the psychological community long ago.  DSM 5 acknowledges this fact.  The hosts of this website created an excellent documentary called “ADD And Loving It” which outlines the current beliefs outlined by the psychological community.  I encourage you to watch it and create a thread discussing your research and how and why it differs from the rest of your peers.

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[Anonymous]

There is a huge difference between saying that we have tendencies toward hyper focus, blurting things out, being impulsive and the like and coupling those indicators with emotionally driven bad behaviors.

Emotions are not hard wired to ADHD. Having a heightened emotional response is.

This is the difference.

While the bulk of the research may suggest certain things about AD/HD, more research that actually demonstrated the opposite is coming out every day. Several were released in the last week. Dr. Amen has an opinion based on a hypothesis. There are many competing views. Using leaches to bleed out disease was commonly accepted at one time, it does not mean it was the correct method.

One can easily see why learned emotional disconnects result in specific behaviors in the teachings of Carl Jung. All people repress things in their lives and those things eventually manifest as their dark side (pains, physical or emotional). It is well known that each of us adopt our personal psychology by about age six and that is normally driven by our care givers and/or parents. We continue those patterns we learn the rest of our lives…the negative patterns appear very much as addictive behaviors. The same is true in people with ADHD.

Interrupting people and being rude is likely an emotional disconnect. It appears like addictive behavior. The individual gets a specific feeling or “high” during the experience, afterward feels low or depressed and repeats the behavior. Neurotypical people with addictions go through the same cycle. I didn’t invent this. Addictions are repetitive behaviors that do not benefit us.
The behavior described is more often seen in people with Asperger’s. Particularly, in that they also have poor social skills and the ability to recognize social cues. Suggesting that it may be a possibility is perfectly appropriate. Apparently, you are dealing with some serious issues and can’t entertain other views based on known research. Suggesting Dr. Amen alone has all the answers is a fallacy in and of itself. What he says is interesting, but not fact. There is no fact in science.

There are emotional triggers to most of the behaviors that are associated with ADHD. Certain symptoms are associated with ADHD and behaviors are not. There is a distinction. Behaviors are not symptoms, but indicators.

There are a number of universities, including one where we conducted our own research and developed programs to teach students where the behaviors were not evident. The children did not need to be drugged and were perfectly behaved. They got better grades the neurotypical counterparts.

People with ADHD do not have a hard-wired urge to insert themselves into conversations. That is much different than blurting out something during a meeting. The suggesting that people with ADHD are hard wired to insert themselves in conversations and be rude about it has no evidence or basis.

 

 

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[That Guy with ADHD]

Firstly, no-one is talking about emotionally driven bad behaviour.  The initial post spoke about simply interupting people which is an known trait of people with ADHD.

Secondly,  while I agree that there is new research going on all the time you speak as if your hypothesis is the only valid one (despite all of the current beliefs) yet you provide no research evidence to back it up other than to say that some research has been done.  If you believe in what you say provide links to your research so that we can educate ourselves.  Who knows, you may convince me.

I’m realy not trying to pick a fight but rather to carry on a meaningful debate.  I stand on the side of the current understanding of the disorder.  Your position is lacking credible evidence and I challenge you to direct the readers to the works you are citing.

Regards

Richard, That Guy with ADHD

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[Anonymous]

You brought up a bunch of things that were not relevant. You started the “argument” that it could never be Asperger’s. However, incessant talking is a natural trait associated with Asperger’s, not ADHD. Impulsively blurting out is a trait of AD/HD. Particularly, it can be spotted in short, choppy speech patterns.

Interrupting other people, listening in, being rude is not hard wired to AD/HD. That is an emotional response; as I took the time to write and explain over and over and over.

I gave you the references. Read, rather than skipping over what I said. You probably run this same pattern talking. You don’t want to hear what the other people have to say, just about making your point and getting a response. I see it all the time with our clients.

I have a list of 100 of the most common words people with AD/HD use to describe how they feel. NONE of them are hard wired.

No symptoms of AD/HD are emotional.
Emotions are BEHAVIORS are INDICATORS only, not symptoms. They are in the process of revising the DSM right now to revise the portions about ADHD.
A thermometer measures the temperature of a body, but does not say the root of the problem. An elevated temperature is an indicator, but not the problem.
Anxiety or feeling fractured are indicators, but neurotypical people have those same indicators for various things rooted in their psychology.
People with ADHD experience high emotional states. However, the emotions are all over the place and are indicators of a SOURCE issue.
The SOURCE is based in our core psychology that we ADOPT by about age 6.
We adopt our psychology from the people around us during that time. IT IS LEARNED. We make the interpretations of our world. Our dark side (negative emotions) is created by repressed feelings about…fill in the blank. Just read Carl Jung. I don’t have to prove him.

It is well known…our parents exhibit a trait. We mirror or match that trait or traits. This is why we all marry the mirror or match of our opposite sex parent. Read up, it is Psychology 101.

Before age 6 you made interpretations of your world based on the people and situations around you.
The things that made you feel bad or good became patterns you repeat over and over. If mom praised you and you like that feeling, you will continue repeating patterns in your life to bring that feeling to you.
These manifest in addictive behaviors, on our dark side. If dad challenged you in such a way that you became anxious, you’ll find ways to bring anxiety into your life.

So…by the time we hit elementary school, we begin attracting into our lives the same patterns. We will seek out the teacher that praises us or the customer that gives us great feedback. We will also seek out situations that provide us anxiety or perpetuate situations that make us feel fractured. We create our own heaven or hell, it is not accidental.

I can demonstrate real world applications how this manifests in people with AD/HD. It is everywhere.

Someone with AD/HD that is shaking or wiggling their leg…that is an indicator of an emotional disconnect.
A child rolling around on the floor and acting out…that is an indicator of an emotional disconnect.
Distraction…an indicator of natural brain function, seeking answers or data and the block…that is an indicator of an emotional disconnect.
Hyperfocus to the point of being harmful…that is an indicator of an emotional disconnect.

 

Demonstrating this is rather simple. Each time something happens like interrupting, inserting yourself into a conversation or being rude, the question to ask is “What am I feeling right now?” (This is the exact same question most good psychologists ask during a session. Feelings are INDICATORS.)

Someone will actually get an emotional high from what they are doing, even if it is harmful. We all learned that, I guarantee it. (Our parents did not intentionally teach us. We attach meaning to our world. We can see that in “fear.” There are only two natural fears in life, every other fear we learn. “Don’t touch that, it is hot!” We do not have a natural fear of a hot stove.

I have our university research we did on the disconnects that occur. Take a child with ADHD that naturally learns by exploration and put them in a classroom with neurotypical children and the behaviors start. “Johnny, sit down and please be quiet.” Very quickly Johnny learns that his natural patterns of learning are “bad”. However, since Johnny naturally knows his method of learning is what works for him, he gets “frustrated”. When the teacher says, “Stop getting out of your seat (to learn) or I will punish you.” Johnny gains anxiety over punishment. Perhaps even feelings of inferiority because his classmates are now making fun of him. (This is why we see children in some countries that don’t appear to have ADD. The way the children are taught is very different.)

Should you really think the is BS. My wife, spends her days as a psychologist & expert in AD/HD, breaking the bad habits created by TEACHERS in children with ADHD. Our school system actually thwarts how those with ADHD naturally learn. There are schools just for kids with ADHD and the kids have no behavioral issues and don’t need to be drugged. I was part of a team that was funded by the US Department of Education that did this with teens. We issued thousands of pages of research. Believe me, I really don’t care what some pop-culture doctor says about ADHD, I see it every day up close. I have also seen adults BREAK these patterns and get complete command of their ADHD.

I really don’t need to prove anything, what I say is common in psychology. I don’t need to show research. I guess I could paste in all the writings of Freud or Jung or you could read up on it yourself.

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[That Guy with ADHD]

You brought up a bunch of things that were not relevant. You started the “argument” that it could never be Asperger’s. (No, I started the debate that it could be ADHD.  I never denied that it wasn’t a trait associated with Asperger’s. That being said the thread is about interupting people, not incessant talking.)

I gave you the references. Read, rather than skipping over what I said. (Along with referencing Jung you included references to several studies, not one of which can be verified.  Without verification you come across less like a health care professional citing research and more like Donald Trump crying wire tap)

You probably run this same pattern talking. You don’t want to hear what the other people have to say, just about making your point and getting a response. I see it all the time with our clients. (And rather than debate you choose to throw insults.  Very professional)

I have a list of 100 of the most common words people with AD/HD use to describe how they feel. NONE of them are hard wired. (Again you cite facts but offer no way for the reader to verify them)

No symptoms of AD/HD are emotional.(agreed)
Emotions are BEHAVIORS are INDICATORS only, not symptoms. They are in the process of revising the DSM right now to revise the portions about ADHD.(also agreed but unless you claim to know what the changes to the DSM are that fact is irrelevant)
A thermometer measures the temperature of a body, but does not say the root of the problem. An elevated temperature is an indicator, but not the problem.     (The body does not learn to raise the temperature in response to a problem.  It is an automatic response due to some stimulus.  Much like the need to interupt is a response to the lack of Dopamine in the brain affecting Executive functions.)
We adopt our psychology from the people around us during that time. IT IS LEARNED. We make the interpretations of our world. Our dark side (negative emotions) is created by repressed feelings about…fill in the blank. Just read Carl Jung. I don’t have to prove him.  (There are debates in psychology all the time.  If you are Jungian you say it’s learned behaviour but as you yourself pointed out not everything is learned.   And look back.  I never disputed Jung’s theory that emotional behaviour is caused by previous stimuli.  I only said that interupting is not an emotional behaviour for some people with ADHD.)

Someone with AD/HD that is shaking or wiggling their leg…that is an indicator of an emotional disconnect.  Distraction…an indicator of natural brain function, seeking answers or data and the block…that is an indicator of an emotional disconnect.  Hyperfocus to the point of being harmful…that is an indicator of an emotional disconnect. (Conventional ADHD theory would argue that point.  But you did say that there is no Fact in science so I could be persuaded if I only had the evidence…  Oh yea, I don’t have anything but research I got from reputable sources like TotallyADD.com and books by researchers like Dr. Amen)

Demonstrating this is rather simple. Each time something happens like interrupting, inserting yourself into a conversation or being rude, the question to ask is “What am I feeling right now?” (This is the exact same question most good psychologists ask during a session. Feelings are INDICATORS.)        (I don’t FEEL anything when my mind splinters thoughts into thousands of fragments.  It just does.  And my body has moved uncontrolable since I was in the crib and it is never associated with emotions, it just does it.)

I have our university research we did on the disconnects that occur. (Again you talk about your research but give the reader no opportunity to verify what your saying Donald)

Should you really think the is BS. My wife, spends her days as a psychologist & expert in AD/HD, breaking the bad habits created by TEACHERS in children with ADHD.  (You keep mentioning your wife’s credentials like she will add credibility to your arguments.  I don’t even know who you are or that you even have a wife so her expertise is irrelevant here, isn’t it.  Having said that I will not argue the fact that schools have been using a model of education that is detrimental to people with ADHD)

I really don’t care what some pop-culture doctor says about ADHD (why do you consider  Dr. Amen to be less than the research physician that he is?  Is it because he has published his research?  Well, all I can say is that it is more than I can say about you because I’ve never had the opportunity to read anything you have published on the subject if, in fact, you have published anything at all.)

I see it every day up close. I have also seen adults BREAK these patterns and get complete command of their ADHD.  (Again you talk about your work as if you have the cure for ADHD but give the reader no opportunity to verify what you’re saying Donald)

I really don’t need to prove anything, what I say is common in psychology. I don’t need to show research. I guess I could paste in all the writings of Freud or Jung or you could read up on it yourself.  (Again I never questioned the work of Jung although there are many that do.  While the works of Jung and Freud are a matter of public record they are a hotly debated pair.  Maybe my problem is my unquenchable desire to sleep with my mother?  Yes, there are some valid points to their research but Jung was also a believer in astrology which was discredited by the psychological community.  You did mention that there is no fact in science and that is especially true in the field of psychology.  Until such time as they are proven wrong I choose to rely on the research presented by a community of psychological health care professionals rather than the unsubstantiated  claims of one person on a public forum.)

Unless you choose to Insult me some more I have nothing further to contribute to this debate but to say “Good Day to you Sir”.

That Guy with ADD

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[seanmacky]

Babyjoe,

I know that people still think I talk to much, but I have vastly improved.  One thing I started doing was before I would say something I was just bursting to say, I would ask myself, “If I do not say this, how big a difference will it make 10 minutes from now, a day from now, a month from now, etc?”  Is anyone going to die If I don’t say it.  Will someone’s life be really less for it, or will they make a mistake if I don’t say it, etc? Most of the time, the answer was I wanted to say it because I felt I would burst if I didn’t.  It was not nearly as satisfying as saying the thought, but I know fewer people head the other way when they see me coming.

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[That Guy with ADHD]

That’s an excellent strategy seanmacky.  I will have to give that a try.

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[youresohumerus]

Hrm. Tough one.

Work knows I struggle with this and were there every step of the way for my ADHD diagnosis but it still annoys people, I can tell even if they don’t say anything. Writing it down is always good, as you can then go on to doodle on the paper and still know what it is you were going to say later.

My coworkers at this point know if I’m hugging myself with my arms/have my hand pushing my chin I’m struggling and will then give me an opening to say something. It’s also a physical reminder. Digging your nails/biting tongue or lips is less healthy but it’s also a good physical grounder.

If they don’t know you have ADHD or refuse to accommodate for it things are difficult but as an example, I use my phone during conversations or meetings. Most workplaces see that as extremely rude, and I obviously can’t do that when dealing with customers as a salesperson. But my coworkers -know- that not only I’m I still listening, I’m listening far better. To reiterate this point I’ll usually speak their points reworded in my own way back to them so they know I’m not just listening to their words but actively processing the concepts they’re communicating. If I’m being forced to sit still or aren’t having a particularly good day I won’t do this and they know they’ll probably need to repeat themselves a few times lol

• This reply was modified 6 years, 5 months ago by youresohumerus. Reason: my typing is clumsy and my brain jumps all over the place so often ill type one word when i meant another or skip it altogether. hello, adhd!

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