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.
Social Skills in Adults with ADHD. Individuals with ADHD often experience social difficulties, social rejection, and interpersonal relationship problems as a result of their inattention, impulsivity and hyperactivity. Such negative interpersonal outcomes cause emotional pain and suffering.
It is easy for people with ADHD to lose confidence and feel frustrated with themselves or others. They may get discouraged and can even feel incompetent and unhappy with their lives because of these difficulties. Some withdraw from social activities and become isolated as a result.
Adults with ADHD frequently think being sociable with others is an all-or-nothing part of their lives. Either they're oversharing and talking too much, or they're withdrawn and staying home alone. Hyperactivity in adults is often expressed as being overly talkative and boisterous.
ADHD can make it challenging to properly learn those cues. Not understanding or adhering to social norms due to neurodivergency can create negative social outcomes, including at work. In the workplace, ADHD people can struggle to navigate social norms, which can impact their experience at work.
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.
It might be embarrassing small talk or something private about someone else. But for many people with ADHD, “oversharing” can be a more frequent problem. Oversharing is saying something personal or inappropriate in the wrong setting or to the wrong person. It's usually not something people with ADHD do on purpose.
Common ADHD-Related Problems
Impulsive spending or overspending. Starting fights or arguing. Trouble maintaining friendships and romantic relationships. Speeding and dangerous driving.
Kids with ADHD have friendship trouble for all sorts of reasons. Some simply aren't good listeners. Others drive away potential friends by their impulsivity — blurting out unkind comments, for example. A mom in Hawaii says her “mother hen” daughter alienates other children by trying to micromanage their lives.
Excessive talking is a common symptom for kids with ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder), who often have trouble inhibiting and controlling their responses. 1 They may blurt out whatever first comes to mind, whether appropriate or not, without thinking through how their words may be received.
Be on the lookout for nonverbal clues.
These include body language, such as moving away from you, cutting conversations short, or crossing their arms or legs. Also note facial expressions, such as red faces, scowls, tight lips, or hurt or angry eyes.
This is due to impulsivity that people with ADHD struggle with. If you can't seem to wait your turn to speak, it may be an issue worth looking into. If you've officially become the “flaky” friend, it could also be a sign. Individuals with high-functioning ADHD may appear flaky or scattered periodically or always.
They can easily sense the social cues of detachment through our non-verbal gestures. This awareness alone can make us feel socially awkward because we struggle to keep up with what they say or mask our inattentive symptoms. Another thing about our inattention is it makes us less perceptive of how people are acting.
While extroverted traits like these are part of the ADHD experience for some people, they're not everyone's experience. In fact, many people with ADHD identify with introverted traits. Whether that's needing time alone to recharge, spending lots of time in their own head or feeling overwhelmed by external stimuli.
Controlling behavior and distrust. Abusive — this is also inclusive of emotionally abusive behaviors, such as gaslighting, love bombing, breadcrumbing etc. Disrespectful. Financial abuse or dishonesty.
Because someone with ADHD may be lacking in stimulation in their prefrontal cortex, they may seek it in ways large and small. This can also play out in the person with ADHD making blunt comments that could unintentionally hurt their partner's feelings. The need for stimulation is high for those with ADHD.
With ADHD, a child or teen may have rapid or impulsive speech, physical restlessness, trouble focusing, irritability, and, sometimes, defiant or oppositional behavior.
It was concluded from this study that ADHD children were less emotional mature as well as had less adjustment than the normal children.
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.
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.
Many people with ADHD are, if anything, argument-averse. And certainly, you needn't have ADHD to be an argumentative son of a gun. Yet, some individuals with ADHD do habitually bait others into heated disagreements. It's typically a subconscious behavior.