In an effort to avoid the fear, shame, or guilt that comes with “making a mistake” or “letting someone down,” it's easy for adults with ADHD to get stuck in a pattern of people-pleasing.
ADHD and Autistic People-Pleasing
Particularly among high-masking ADHDers and Autists, many adapt to their social differences by becoming perpetual people-pleasers. This can make it hard to set boundaries and say no to others.
In one study, researchers found that people with self-reported ADHD symptoms earned lower scores for affective empathy compared to other participants. However, they were still within the range of what's considered typical for empathy levels overall.
Guilt that they turned in the paperwork two minutes late. And fear that they will be rejected, fired, or not invited to the party. In an effort to avoid the fear, shame, or guilt that comes with “making a mistake” or “letting someone down,” it's easy for adults with ADHD to get stuck in a pattern of people-pleasing.
People with ADHD can be hypersensitive and overwhelmed by everything that's going in a room. Or, they can seem very cold, very insensitive, or blissfully unaware of the feelings of others. When they disengage — whether due to lack of focus or because they're overwhelmed — they can seem callous or narcissistic.
Many of the traits associated with ADHD — disorganization, procrastination, forgetfulness — are often considered by others to be traits of "immature adults". It's hard not to feel like you're failing at adulthood when everyone else seems to manage just fine.
People with ADHD may have a hard time developing healthy social skills from childhood through adulthood, especially if their condition goes untreated. That said, it's possible to improve your social skills at any point in life. The first step starts with understanding the potential challenges.
The Cyclical Nature of Social Challenges
They can become easily overwhelmed, impatient, or frustrated. In social interactions, when children with ADHD become distracted or dominate the conversation, their peers may view them as uninterested and unkind. These children will likely be avoided by peers.
“Opposites Attract”: People with ADHD are attracted to “organized” and joyless workers bees who can keep the trains running for the both of them and who in turn are drawn to their free-spirited ADHD partner's spontaneity and sense of fun.
If you have ADHD, you probably know what it feels like to be impulsive. While that may manifest as interrupting conversations or making risky life decisions for some, others struggle with an unrelenting urge to pick at their skin.
Based on the hypothesis that high intelligence may mimic ADHD without the “true” disorder being present, it can be hypothesized that highly intelligent individuals with ADHD symptoms will not show the cognitive impairments that are usually found in (average intelligent) individuals with ADHD (Fig.
A recent review of findings on ADHD and FFM personality suggests that, in general, ADHD has associations with the FFM traits of Neuroticism (positive), Agreeableness (negative) and Conscientiousness (negative).
Studies using the Big 5 Personality Factors show that ADHD is strongly tied to both extraversion and to neuroticism. Other studies using validated measures of personality find that those with ADHD rate very low on self determinism — an ability to devise and then execute plans.
It is an attribute common in people with ADHD. Symptoms of hypersensitivity include being highly sensitive to physical (via sound, sight, touch, or smell) and or emotional stimuli and the tendency to be easily overwhelmed by too much information.
ADHD may result in some symptoms that can make a person “socially clumsy.” If you often find yourself saying and doing inappropriate things during conversations, you might be experiencing social awkwardness.
The problem: The social maturity of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD or ADD) may be a few years behind that of their peers. In addition, they have difficulty reading verbal and physical social cues, misinterpreting remarks, or not getting jokes or games.
Common ADHD-Related Problems
Being late or not following through on commitments, appointments, or responsibilities. Impulsive spending or overspending. Starting fights or arguing. Trouble maintaining friendships and romantic relationships.
Similar to the hyperactive symptoms, impulsive symptoms are typically seen by the time a child is four years old and increase during the next three to four years to peak in severity when the child is seven to eight years of age.
The brain's frontal lobes, which are involved in ADHD, continue to mature until we reach age 35. In practical terms, this means that people with ADHD can expect some lessening of their symptoms over time. Many will not match the emotional maturity of a 21-year-old until their late 30's.
They may be quick to lash out, throw a tantrum or be defiant when they are asked to do things they don't want to do. Tantrums and defiance are not symptoms of ADHD itself, but they are often a result of ADHD symptoms.
Similarly, people with ADHD can also experience 'meltdowns' more commonly than others, which is where emotions build up so extremely that someone acts out, often crying, angering, laughing, yelling and moving all at once, driven by many different emotions at once – this essentially resembles a child tantrum and can ...
We tend to react self-defensively, or worse, angrily. Rejection sensitivity is extremely common in people with ADHD. We get overly excited about things, including good things. Just as we often overreact to minor problems and annoyances, we can also go overboard in the other direction.
Most of the respondents in our ADHD interview often express their heightened emotions briefly after being diagnosed with ADHD. Some people have an outburst of tears or intense frustration after a mental health professional officially labels their experiences as ADHD.