Sometimes, people living with ADHD may behave in ways that come off as rude or disrespectful. These behaviors can stem from challenges with self-control, executive functioning, and self-stimulating actions. How you perceive their behavior often depends on your understanding of ADHD symptoms.
The effects of ADHD that equate to rudeness include: A lack of impulse control that leads to interrupting. Talking too much. Abruptly walking away from a conversation.
ADHD behaviors are often misperceived as disrespectful, lazy, careless, self-absorbed, or rude. For people with ADHD, it can be overwhelming and frustrating to be interrupted, distracted, or questioned during a conversation.
Children with ADHD usually understand what good manners are and probably get why they are important, but may have a hard time applying those manners consistently. Russell Barkley, PhD, is famously quoted as saying that ADHD is not a disorder of knowing what to do; rather, it's a disorder of doing what you know.
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.
Many people with ADHD have behaviors that get them in trouble. Some people might tell lies. Others may have angry outbursts. These actions or words can be hurtful to others.
Common ADHD-Related Problems
Impulsive spending or overspending. Starting fights or arguing. Trouble maintaining friendships and romantic relationships. Speeding and dangerous driving.
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.
Self-centered behavior is common with ADHD.
Another sign of self-centered behavior is not being able to wait for their turn. This can be particularly disruptive in the classroom.
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.
Students with ADHD may have a hard time managing their emotions when interacting with their peers. 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.
Hyperactivity (talks a lot, fidgets, always on the go, etc.) Impulsivity (blurts out, interrupts, lies, angry outbursts, difficulty waiting, etc.) Inattention (forgetful, loses things, disorganized, makes careless mistakes, etc.)
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 ...
Communication and ADHD
Even without specific delays, because of distractibility and related ADHD symptoms, they are more likely to get off-topic when speaking. They also frequently struggle to find the right words and put thoughts together quickly and linearly in conversation.
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.
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).
When people with ADHD are activated, they are often plagued by self-sabotaging, negative internal talk that prevents them from believing they can do things. It can be conscious or unconscious and can keep folks from setting, working towards, and reaching goals. It holds them back from doing what they want to do.
This is why people with ADHD can often hold grudges against people, companies and locations; memories of an injustice or disservice can linger for a while, which can cause all sorts of other problems such as low moods and irritability.
On the podcast, we discuss that even though ADHD people tend to be more forgiving, there isn't hard science as to why that is.
Why it happens. If you live with ADHD and find that you're more sensitive to criticisms and critiques, then you might be experiencing rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD). RSD is “a near ubiquitous experience for ADHDers,” says Joel Schwartz, PsyD, an ADHD clinical psychologist in San Luis Obispo, California.
During conversations or presentations, a person with ADHD might blurt out things inappropriately. While this seems rude, experts say it's actually part of their symptoms.
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.
For people with ADHD, this means that, although it can look like these other people are trying to control you, they're really just trying to control their own anxiety - using external anxiety management.