Positive Feedback

[sdwa]

This has been on my mind a lot lately. Possibly forever, but not consciously. I have felt starved of positive feedback from other people for my entire life.

There are a number of situations I’ve given up on entirely because I know I will get negative feedback. I don’t have the strength to go into those environments any more – for what? (The latest trigger was getting negative messages from my son’s school about his grades, late homework, and challenging behavior in class – which sent me over the edge so I couldn’t sleep for three days. It happens.) I gave up on being part of a religious community because I feel like it’s an environment where people will tell me I’m wrong all the time. I don’t make phone calls at all, for a number of reasons (one is that conversation is hard for me to follow – but the bigger reason is that I expect to be criticized). I stay out of the political arena because people there are nasty all the time to everyone. I don’t join groups because I know I’ll feel overwhelmed and will be targeted by someone for verbal abuse. I avoid  going out in public because I am a magnet for hostile comments from complete strangers. I don’t go to classes partly because I can’t cope with the overwhelming amount of information in a physical space (same reason I don’t go to conferences). And so on.

A huge part of my life seems to be dedicated to avoiding negative feedback. I just want to be left alone. It’s like I’m walking around with this giant gaping wound. I feel safer by myself and with the very small number of people I allow into my life because they give me positive feedback.

Ironically, many people feel it is OK for them to be critical about my comfort zone. Think I “should” be able to be more social, and participate and be involved according to their standards, their level of comfort, and that I shouldn’t be self-absorbed (or basically shouldn’t have any needs). Meanwhile, I feel like I have to put on body armor to communicate with anyone about anything.

I was reclusive, even as a little kid, for pretty much the same reasons: To avoid harassment, criticism, and overwhelm. My family criticized me for being shy, withdrawn, “self-absorbed,” and “anti-social.”

Do you think if you felt attacked every time you left your house, you might become antisocial? Or even misanthropic?

So, what was my point? Why do we live in a world where it is so difficult for people to find something nice to say? Anyone can make critical comments. It’s easy to be condemning, judgmental, unkind, petty, sarcastic, and mean. I try to make a point of saying nice things to other people – I also think it’s a good habit of mind to cultivate. Rarely do people say nice things to me. To the point that I wonder if I should mail greeting cards to myself with some kind of encouraging message, like hey Sdwa, you’re really smart and insightful, and I’m impressed with the amazing job you did on this project, etc. LOL.

Do you feel starved for positive feedback, or is it just me?

(This message brought to you by the Campaign to Increase Positive Feedback in the World – find something nice to say to someone, and then say it)

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[blackdog]

Yes I feel starved for positive feedback. It seems to me that I never get enough of it.

I think there are two reasons I feel that way. The first is all the negative feedback and criticism I do get, and especially the amount I received as a young child. The second is that it just isn’t enough when I do get positive feedback. I always feel like I still need more. I remember hearing one time that it takes 10 positive experiences to undo the damage from one negative one, or something like that. So I guess that is why I never feel like it’s enough.

It is also easier to believe the negative feedback and it sinks in more deeply. Especially when those negative comments are reinforced by our own actions. When we make mistakes in an area where we receive frequent criticism it makes us feel like the people who criticized us were right.

I also get told that I need to be more sociable, that I am too self centred, that I have to learn to accept people the way they are, that I have to be willing to do things the way other people like to do them etc. And my response to that is why do I have to accept them the way they are if they don’t accept me? And why can’t we do things the way I like at least once in awhile? I feel like it’s always what they want and never what I want, or need. Like you said, I am not supposed to have needs.

And that’s another thing. When did it become a crime to be needy? What is wrong with needing a little  extra help sometimes? We all have problems and we all go through periods in our lives when we  need a little extra help/attention/affection. So why   is it that the accepted practice is to push people away for being “too needy”? If they got what they needed then maybe they wouldn’t be so needy.  I think this attitude also leads to a lot of other problems, like depression, because people feel alone and feel like they can’t talk about their problems or express their emotions.

Lately I have felt like I am getting a lot of static for not going back to work. No one has really said anything but I get the impression that they disapprove. I find myself constantly making statements in my own defence, explaining myself. And it is partly to convince myself, because I don’t really believe I am disabled, despite some pretty convincing evidence to the contrary. But that again is all those other voices working on me, all those people who think I am just being lazy/selfish/needy.It comes   from years of hiding behind masks, convincing myself that it was all in my head, pretending that I  am okay.

I am not okay. It’s okay that I am not okay. I am starting to accept that. And it feels good.

 

Why is it so much easier for people to give negative feedback? A lot of reasons. But, believe it or not, one of the most common is low self esteem. They are very insecure about themselves so they put others   down as a way of boosting their self image. That person is fatter/uglier/more stupid than I am.

(to be continued)

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[dithl]

10 to 1 — yep, I have heard that too…but often we say more negative things than positive things. Probably because negatives are often easier to notice, and people don’t even realize they are doing that. Actually, I remember learning *not* to be too positive as part of growing up. It wasn’t cool to be positive. It was cool to be sophisticated and sarcastic and to roll your eyes at new ideas. Maybe that was the body armour adopted by some of the cool kids because they weren’t coping…unfortunately, it’s infectious.

Also — I read somewhere that worry is something that ADHD mind clings to. Negativity is actually a stimulant. It lights up like a beacon when we are full of a jumble of different thoughts and sensations, and feeling lost. I love the time when I first wake up in the morning, and before my mind really kicks in. That first bit of being awake but not worried, mind floating free…and then it latches on to a worry. And so the day begins, moving from one “should” to another with a relentless feeling of anxiety underpinning it all. One thing that stuck out from Rick’s talk was the notion that people with ADHD are never truly happy. We don’t (can’t?) savour the moment when something positive is going on…because we don’t rest. Off to the next adventure!

@sdwa — in order to navigate almost any social contact, I have a continual self-talk going on inside — almost a script that runs parallel to the actual conversation. Like so: ***lesson learned — using the little sideways v brackets (over the comma and the period) results in whatever was inside them disappearing when you post. I had a whole monologue in here. Sorry, not re-writing it, gotta do laundry and such!*** “Good, we didn’t do much. How about you?” . I hate the label of shy/socially awkward too. Lived with it for too many years. Considering the lengths I go to in order to hold a conversation, I would say I am pretty damn social!

Writing down good stuff you do isn’t a bad idea — it was advice given to me a few years ago, at the end of the day to write down 3 things I did well and one thing I was thankful for. To help with depression / feelings of overwhelm. Actually, now that I think of it, it did help me turn my self-talk away from “I can’t do that” to “I can”. Hmm. Not 100% mind you, but there has been a fundamental shift.

Maybe not starved, but very hungry for attention all my life. Starting to learn to be my own best friend, whatever that means. Validation from other people is awesome, but in reality it doesn’t happen near as often as it should. Maybe if one worked on giving positives to themselves, they would warm up and start just radiating positiveness. Like starting up a generator. Imagine being that person. Give it away, and it would come right back….

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[blackdog]

I have heard the same thing about ADHD and holding on to negative things. Like a feedback loop. We keep coming back to that negative thought/memory over and over.

I like the feeling when I first wake up in the morning too, though I never thought about it that way. But it’s the only time I ever feel truly relaxed, while I’m snoozing, before I have remembered why my alarm is going off and what is facing me once I get up.

Writing down the good stuff can really help. I don’t remember to do it every day, but I try to off and on.  A lot of the self esteem course I just took was about daily affirmations, which make me want to groan and roll my eyes. But it is important to congratulate yourself for the good things you do and remember the things you are grateful for. And you have to go easy on yourself for your mistakes and flaws. I am trying to learn to do that now, to not beat myself up for every time I screw up.

And you have to be your own best friend. No one is ever going to understand your needs better than you. So you have to learn to do what you can for yourself. They talked about that in the self esteem group too, doing something nice for yourself every day.

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[sdwa]

@blackdog

Yup. I can relate to all of that. I used to ask the same question: what’s wrong with being “needy” or wanting attention? It wouldn’t actually take that much – a kind or encouraging word can go a long way toward alleviating stress and tension, and increasing optimism.

I try to do that stuff for myself, but the problem is that when I’m in the depths of turmoil, I don’t and can’t remember to do it. I need my emergency kit on the wall, and to change it up often so it doesn’t become like wallpaper. Yeah sure, I’m going to get on that project right now. Funny thing is, if I had to hand in my daily list of affirmations to another person once a week, I’d actually remember to do it.

It is not a crime to have needs. What does seem to be a crime is when our needs don’t match the needs of the majority. They’re upset because our needs don’t conform to their expectations – what we need is different from what they need – and they can’t understand why we need it. If they were the only ones with those needs, I bet they’d be changing their tune about what kind of needs are legitimate.

You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve had some person screaming at me, “You’re in the minority!” Gee, ya think? And yet although I’m in the minority, I’m such a huge threat that they have to yell at me? How does that work, exactly? Go figure.

The whole world of employment or unemployment can be a nightmare. I am so easily overstimulated. I really need to work alone, with a few other people maybe in the same office, far away at their desks where they won’t bother me. I can’t think with other people scratching around in my space. I can’t be having chatty conversations. I need to be doing solitary work, where I’m calm, focused, and at my best. How many jobs are like that? Are there any jobs like that? Working with ideas, not people. Being an artist is fine, but there’s no money in it. Being a writer is marginally better – still, not easy to earn a living.

I can appreciate how you might feel like you’re not disabled, because we’re not stupid people. We know things. We can do stuff. We’re not incompetent. We’re not ignorant. There’s nothing wrong with who we are or how we think.  Being able to call on our skills in a context where those skills have value is a completely different issue.

I’m kind of at a point where it’s like, hey, I’m 50 years old, and I’m not going to change. I am who I am. I’m tired of trying so hard  – and I mean exhausted, burned out, maxed out – to contort myself to fit into impossible situations. I’d rather just not go there. And I’m fine with the concept of being “impaired” because clearly I am impaired, if impaired means there are certain environments where, despite my best efforts and intentions, I can’t be successful no matter how hard I try. There are many things “normal” people can do with ease and comfort that take a huge amount of energy for me – on a Herculean scale. And there is never any reward for that effort. No money, no kudos, no support.

I believe everyone with ADHD deserves some kind of gold medal for effort, perseverance, and courage under fire. We’re probably the only ones who will ever understand how hard it is just to get through the day.

My mind is quiet for about thirty seconds when I wake up in the morning. It’s downhill from there. But it’s weird how much perception creates my reality. When my state of mind changes, the world changes with it. There isn’t just one objective world out there for me – it is constantly in flux.

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[sdwa]

@dithl

Funny about learning not to be positive. In my family of origin there was an attitude that praise would make a person “get a swelled head.” That any good behavior or achievement should be taken for granted. Expectations should not be rewarded. So they ignored the good stuff and focused only on what I was doing wrong. Unfortunately, that’s how the world seems to work, more often than not.

I don’t get it.

It’s almost impossible for me to follow a conversation. I don’t understand what people are saying – I hear the tone more than the content. When I read, I get more information, because if nothing else, if I miss something I can go back and see what it was. Even then, I could read the same passage five times and still have no idea what it says. Depends on the type of writing.

Nobody sees how much effort is involved in being social. They assume if it’s easy for them, it should be easy for us. Then we run into that “what is wrong with you?” attitude. What’s wrong is that we see the world differently, not by choice but because we are different.

It helps to remind myself of my values and strengths, but it has to be visual, in my line of sight, like a personal coat of arms or mission statement that says This is what I’m about. Because if I don’t see it, it doesn’t exist. It can’t be in a notebook. I will forget.

Those early morning moments of silence are too short. It can take days to come down from being upset. Days. Not hours, not minutes.

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[blackdog]

I understand you completely and can relate to every word of what you say.

I want to comment more, but the snow is starting to come down heavy and I have to go out and get the garbage cans before the wind picks up. And then I really need to take a look at the note book you just reminded me about and see what it is I had planned to be doing right now.

And I also just remembered that I have to make an un scheduled trip to the pharmacy today. Why can’t my mother ever run out of things at a convenient time? (Answer: because I forget to check and see if she is running out of things)

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[Rick Green – Founder of TotallyADD]

My mom is 90, and she doesn’t want us to pick stuff up, she wants to go get it with us. (And she never runs out cause she stocks up with way more than she needs… so she never runs out.)

I have to add in here, Positive Feedback is so crucial. Encouragement. Belief. Acknowledgement. Huge!

There’s a tremendous book about what research is showing into Happiness. It’s called Positivity, by Dr. Barbara L Fredrickson. (If we don’t have it in the TotallyADD shop, I’ll see if we can get it there.

Amazing research is showing if you have roughly 3 positive experiences for everyone negative your happiness will spiral upwards. Less than that and it will spiral downwards.

And it’s so, so, so  easy with ADHD for people to focus on the small mistakes. Here’s one thing I’ve noticed. I crave positive feedback. I crave being acknowledged for small victories as well as the big ones. I crave being acknowledged and thanked for doing the routine stuff. And yet, and this was very confronting, how often did diagnose it should others around me? How much did I knowledge my wife for everything she is doing. How often did I give her positive feedback for the hundred and 1 things that she does every day? And how often did I only focus on what didn’t get done, or was still to do, or took too long to do, or whatever.

I think it was Gandhi who said, “be the change you want to see in the world.” Which I figure was a reference to an Urbana, global peace, humankind linked arm in arm singing, “We are the world…”

But I started being more knowledge and of Ava, people I work with, friends, family. Not to inventing stuff, or trying to gloss over things that had gone wrong.  Not, “well it’s great that you dropped that vase because now we can have a fun shopping trip.”

But just being able to find something positive, actually seeking it out, had me discover a  files in one things I hadn’t noticed before.

On November 26 I’m doing a webinar about how to defend yourself from people who are dismissive of ADHD, or the possibility that you might have it. But I’m going to make a note now also talk about positivity. Will actually do an exercise during the webinar, one I did many years ago that was life altering for me.

But I have to say when I started to  give positive feedback to everyone around me because the profound shift in my view of the world. More than simply, “the glass is half full.”

The other thing that happened was that by being the change I wanted to see in the world, namely more positive feedback, the more positive comments, and feedback, and gratitude came back to me. And it worked way better than me asking people to be positive.

And it was a lot harder. At least for me. It’s just so easy for me to focus on the negative. It’s kind of my Go To setting.

So, @sdwa, @blackdog, and @dithl, thank you for this posting. I love that you’ve brought this topic up. And I love what you’ve shared. Cause it’s painful. And I suspect it’s common, if not universal, for adults with ADHD.

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[sdwa]

@Rick

I’m glad that has resonance for you. I agree it probably does for many of us.

It can be challenging, when I’m at a low point, to remember to extend appreciation to others because I don’t have the energy to muster a good thought. If I’m too depleted, I can’t do it. But if I have the presence of mind to force myself (like lifting 500 pound weights), or to save a kitten or something, that helps me feel better as well. It’s kind of a win-win practice for everyone.

I love that Gandhi quote. The book you mention sounds good. Thanks.

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[blackdog]

@Rick–  LOL I remember when my mother had a huge pantry stocked floor to ceiling with everything imaginable “just in case we get snowed in”.  She can’t go shopping anymore.  And I manage her medications for her, which you can imagine is not an ideal situation. Many unscheduled trips to the pharmacy.

I have the same problem with remembering to acknowledge other people. I seldom give praise or say anything nice about someone. Not sure why. I just don’t think of it most of the time. I can remember my mother trying to teach me to respond with “fine thank you, how are you?” when someone said “how are you?” She eventually drilled it into me but it was always a robotic, preprogrammed response. And I am always so relieved when I get a short answer like “I’m okay”. I dread having someone decide to actually tell me how they are. Then I have to figure out how to respond. And make it sound like I care.

I do care and will give praise when necessary. Like when the boss asked me how a new employee was doing. I would automatically leap to her defence and point out all of her best qualities. I never criticized except when it was something I felt was bad enough that it had to be addressed.  Of course those same employees are the ones who threw me under the bus.

Nevertheless, it is true that what you put out into the world does affect what you receive in return. And the best policy is to say something kind or say nothing at all.

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[Rick Green – Founder of TotallyADD]

I have found that acknowledging others, praising their strengths, giving them positive feedback is kind of a muscle. The more I work it, the better I get at it.

I wonder if it would be worth creating a program or a challenge where we take this on.

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[sdwa]

How about trying to do one a day to start, and work up from there? I gave someone positive feedback today (which hopefully didn’t come across as patronizing), so I have one down already. But then I realized this person is someone I don’t know very well, and probably I should choose those closest to me first, like my husband and children, to make sure they know they’re appreciated.

I really like the idea of a positivity challenge.

🙂

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[Patte Rosebank]

@Sdwa, it sounds like you’re off to a good start.  And that your skill with words, and your strong nurturing instincts, will help you with this.

For me, the key is to speak from my heart, and let my natural emotions show.  (Or, as my mom says, “Don’t hide your light under a bushel”.)

When we’ve spent our whole lives trying to suppress who we really are, and how we really feel about something, it’s scary to try showing our real selves and feelings. At least, it has been for me.

But, as I’m learning, when I openly acknowledge/praise others (especially strangers), it feels lovely to see their response—usually of very pleasant surprise, because most people aren’t acknowledged often enough, so we don’t expect it. Especially us ADDers.

I’m also learning that the more someone is acknowledged, the more likely they are to acknowledge someone else, because they know how good it feels to receive it.  So, with that one little thing, we can help make the world a better place.

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[blackdog]

Blech! Too sappy…. 😛

I agree sdwa, you have what it takes. I can see clearly from your comments here that you are a sensitive and caring person.

Okay, that’s it. I can only compliment one person a day. Sorry Larynxa, you’re out of luck.

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[Patte Rosebank]

Oh, Blackdog, you’re silly today…

So, I’ll be silly, right back:  Don’t point that tongue at me, unless you intend to use it!

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