[Sean E Bravo]

I have the same issue, especially when meeting new people or in a new place. The irony being that I’m an entertainer and would happily stand in front of 20000 people in my underwear singing. And then if you Couple distraction with my boar-headed insistence that I’m always right, and my narcissistic assumption that everything is about me, I find myself in trouble. “in trouble” means a lot to me….mostly when maybe I’ve made an assumption, or just plain have read a situation incorrectly and suddenly without warning “everyone” is mad at me.

Most of the time, I’m BRILLIANT! Half the time I’m worried that I’m in trouble…which is what’s distracting me and usually the root cause of everything. The problem? I very rarely know which situation I’m in. So many times I think things are awesome, only to find out later that “so and so” is mad at me, other times I may think everything was terrible, only to find out that the people I just met are really nice and thought I was great. That’s what makes me nervous about talking to people…I’m sure I only remember the times I’m wrong, but I feel like I’m wrong a lot.

TONE – OMG – Sometimes out of the blue, I’ll find out that I’ve been oblivious to some sort of damaging “tone to my voice” that seems to offend many people. It doesn’t matter how correct I was in what I was saying or how nice I thought I was being , every good point I make will fall on deaf ears, because I have a “TONE”. That tone seems to escape my lips whenever it likes, without my knowledge of it. It’s broken up friendships, it’s cost me jobs. At 40 years old, I still feel like I have no frikken clue when someone out of the blue is going to get mad at me and say it was the tone of my voice. No real argument…just the tone of my voice. My guess is that I’m afraid of my issues, and I get defensive about it…that get’s reflected in my voice and people think that I think they are being jerks…which makes me a jerk…Crazy…but that’s what I’ve been able to figure out so far.

I don’t get it. How do “normal” people (humans as I call them) know if the tone they are using is going to be accepted or not by the tribe? I am a very nice and loving person who honestly just means well for anyone and everyone, yet something about the way I say things from time to time sets people off and I’m left feeling like I’m a jerk.

It’s a huge concern to me. There are times I explode because I’m so angry about being “in trouble” (for lack of a better word) that I end up letting my super creative hyper active mind spin excellent arguments as to why this is an injustice…..only to find out that I’m the only one who cares if I was “right” or not.

Bleh, this is turning in to a rant…but I guess this is important to me, and free therapy! 🙂

Anyhoo….the kicker of it all is that I’m a popular, successful, well-loved, personality driven artist who constantly has love dumped upon him…and I can let one little glance or word from someone that I interpret as being “them mad at me” and it wrecks my whole day. Like all I can see is the insignificant little bad thing … and I miss the 99% of the compliments and esteem people give to me….which when I’m having a good day(like today) seems like a lot.

So I’ve learned to recognize when I’m being negative in my head, but knowing this is the case… everything is all right….I’m loved….I understand the actual situation…..doesn’t seem to help. Even though I’m conscientiously self-talking positive things…I can’t get my emotions to listen to the rationale. So This whole rant is really a 2 part question….

1) What do you do when someone says they didn’t like your tone as they thought you were being rude….and you honestly were not intending to be rude…words making no difference as your tone supersedes any good thing you may have just said?

2) what does one do when they learn, practice and even actively put to use tools (such as the strategies for managing ADHD found on this site) but your still suffering the negative emotional effects of something that’s bothering you?

phew….did that make any sense?

Anyhoo….I’m sick of being so sure of something that someone did or said (could be anything) and finding out later that what I thought happened, TOTALLY didn’t happen or wasn’t said in the same way as I thought it was. I reacted to the image in my head (which was negative) and people think me rude.

So…yeah….why is talking to new people hard? All up there…that’s what I’m thinking when my wife says “oh have you met my husband? Sean this is…….”

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[Sean E Bravo]

@Memzak – that’s an awesome idea! I think I need to do something like this, but I am very afraid to do so. I usually give up on diaries and things like that too, because when I go back to review what I was thinking or saying at the time, I end up getting embarrassed or angry with what I had written or said. So maybe there’s half the answer right there.

@wreckedangle – Yes, I’m on Vivanse 50mgs right now. They haven’t been working as well as they did 3 months ago. I can’t really tell if I’m being irritable due to the meds (which I do think are a factor…more on that in a bit) My wife is also fairly terrified of me going a day without vivanse, so I haven’t really put it to the test. I’ve been getting feedback for this behaviour as long as I can remember, so even without the irritability sideeffect of a stimulant I still get reports.

I’ve been working on modifying my behaviour. I really see it as a do or die situation for me, I’m a good guy, I don’t have a bad bone in my body, so when I get feedback like I do, it really bums me out…I don’t want to be mean, aggressive, confrontational or anything…but apparently, many people see me that way. Many of my friends now are aware of my attempts to identify and remold my thoughts and behaviour, so I’ve had some good fortune with some insights this weekend. My wife finally got it nailed down into words…and I know she is right.

She said it’s that when people approach me with feedback or with a request or question there are times that I look up and respond to them with an expression and tone to my voice like I’ve somehow been offended by the interruption. This makes sense to me, I don’t like getting distracted and messing up my tasks. I take negative feedback to heart and it lingers for days and even years depending on what was said so I try to avoid it, and inadvertently respond with some anger. In my head I’m simultaneously the center of the universe and the person least entitled to happiness, so that’s part of what I have to work through. And I’m going to start trying to stop, take a breath, smile and then respond to people, instead of just blurting out the first thing that hits my lips. This whole situation needs to get fixed. It’s been the catalyst for the disintegration of many of my interpersonal relationships, and I just can’t afford to lose any more friends or alienate any other people.

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[Sean E Bravo]

haha, thanks everyone so far.

@pete

I’ll do #6 and will find out 3 days later that an email complaining about my attitude was submitted to the boss In my mind and memory, That’s where I’m lost

When it comes to my family, I’m just afraid (and fairly convinced) that I’ve conditioned them to think that I’m just having a “Defensive” day all the time and thus in a situation they think I’m going to freak out in…and I’m being cognative and trying to make sure I’m not…they start reading into it…then I react in anger I’m learning though!

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[Sean E Bravo]

If you have an iphone there’s a metronome app. Drummers in bands use a thing called a “click track” to keep time too. I’m lost with time as well, if I’m not happy with my task, then minutes feel like hours…if I love it, I’m late for something else. Even my 8 year old daughter knows now to give me a 10 minute warning for things

I set timers in my iphone, I call them “DO IT” timers..usually they just give me a 5 minute warning so I’m reminded to keep on schedule and get ready for the next part of my day.

As for feeling time the same as others, I don’t think that’s possible, but if you figure out a way to do it let me know

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[Sean E Bravo]

I had a pretty good revelation with my therapist yesterday that I’d like to share along the chattering monkey line.

Now the monkeys are there, and will be. But when they’re yelling at me I never really felt like I understood where that came from, and now I think I do.

I’ve spent a life time of coming into the movie half way through, and having to piece together the beginning by what I’m hearing in the now. In other words. I’m distracted, then I realize someone’s been telling me something important, or a teacher in school has been trying to teach the class…I was busy wondering what ever happened to the band the Wallflowers, because Bob Dylan’s son was the lead singer and the bass player is really awesome in that band…..and blamo…I just realize, I should know what’s going in but I don’t. So while I may be proficient at catching up and figuring out what I’m supposed to be doing…and now that I’ve practiced it *drum roll* actually saying “hold on, I missed something, can we just go back for a second and repeat.”…..I really wasn’t growing up. And thus I’d get into “trouble” “sean never does this, Sean always does that” I’d feel like I let someone down because I didn’t meet their expectations, which of course was impossible because, I never knew what the expectation was in the first place.

Phew…sorry, that was a hard paragraph.

Anyhoo, So now I’m in my 30’s and my survival tactic has been to just try to presume what everyone’s possible expectation could be and then try to satisfy them. When things don’t go my way, or when things are really upsetting to me, but not really upsetting to others, I am left confused and wondering if I’m from another dimention. Which of course I am, by choice. My chattering monkeys chirp and dance about with all these expectations that I can’t possibly meet and then point and laugh at me when I get frustrated because I can’t possibly meet those self-imposed and unrealistic expectations.

When my chattering monkeys work for me has always been when I was in the moment. I’m not frustrated at where I think I should be or feeling hopelessly unable to be where I think I should be. When I quiet things down, it’s because I’m right here, right now. And suddenly I’m in the same dimension as those around me and the monkeys start working for me instead of against me.

I’m sorry this is a long post, I didn’t have time to write a smaller one. I hope it made some sense, I’m just excited about this discovery and will keep you up to date with how it’s going. I’m also running late. So….umm…

Thanks for listening.

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