Over Sensitivity and Misundunderstanings

[misty]

I just got this in a newsletter. Its very interesting...and hopefully helpful!

Many persons with ADHD often experience a feeling that what they have said was totally been misunderstood by another person. They also frequently are hurt by statements made by others which they have totally personalized in the wrong way. By this I mean that someone may say something to us, and we notice something in their delivery of the statement or their body language that we misinterpret and are hurt or become overly defensive almost immediately.

These two common tendencies lead to many problems in our personal, family, and work environments. Many of the things we say with no intention of offending someone else are said in a manner that combined with our delivery and our body language may be seen as offensive to someone. To make matters worse most people will not tell us immediately about this but rather stew about it and tell others their interpretation of what they heard which may be incorrect. That other person may have been on the receiving end of one of our statements in the past, and the gossip quickly kicks in without our even knowing anything bad has happened. Likewise we may have someone say something to us that we totally misunderstood as being insulting, condescending, or implying something we created in our mind that they had no intention of conveying. Unfortunately we too are more than likely to not say anything immediately and stew about it and become angrier about it the more we think about it. Even worse both of these tendencies may result in both parties coming to a quick boil and an argument breaks out with neither party fully understanding the other persons misinterpretation.

These things happen to everyone from time to time but people with ADHD seem to have more occurrences and more negative outcomes than others. Most of this can be attributed to our more sensitivity to criticism dating back to early childhood and inclination to read things into statements made by others that were not intended. Having a long history of being criticized for things we are hyper-sensitive to assume almost any comment made has a hidden negative meaning.

Many of us struggle with receiving compliments from others as we struggle with our self esteem and find it difficult to believe someone could have something nice to say about us. We often find our response to compliments is having our inner voices stating....if only they knew the real me they would never say something nice like that.

My recommended solution to these types of instances is to calmly tell the other person who made the statement if you could ask them to clarify what they said as you understood it to mean this..... If you are the person who made the statement, try and maintain eye contact and look for body language indications from the other person that may indicate you were not improperly interpreted. You might want to ask them if you have said something that bothered them as that was not your intention. Make sure you don't do this all the time as you will quickly get the reputation of repeating yourself over and over which can really alienate people in a hurry.

Hopefully you are one of the lucky ones who doesn't have these types of problems. But if these things sound familiar to you know that you are not alone.

I would appreciate any feedback you may have on this newsletter or helpful suggestions.

Talk to you next month

Patrick Hurley
[e-mail]

[lcdc1]

Hey, stop describing me!!!

I can relate to that post and yes past ways that you were criticized do mold your response as an adult and for me with adhd, it is hard to take a compliment without thinking there is a hidden agenda attached or to think that I really deserve it.

[John]

If you Need in this area, this is where CBT comes into play . . .

[lostmyshoe]

Thanks so much for sharing this Misty. I myself have dealt with this problem. I do much better now after many years and much practice and concentrating very hard on what I say and how it will come across before delivering it. Once in a blue moon though even so I still come across people that I just can't seem to say the right things to. A couple of years ago I worked with a woman that nothing was ever good enough for and she picked apart everything that was said to her. I was so uncomfortable that it made things worse trying to communicate with her and everything I said seemed to offend her. She finally left for another job and after one last phone conversation in which she was quite nasty, we have never spoken again. She lives in the same neighborhood but thankfully not the same street and we never cross paths. I can forgive her but I still feel the hurt from the way she treated me. I think even someone without ADD would have a hard time relating to that one. I still haven't had a chance to read my CBT book but am hoping to soon. Thank goodness right now I have no difficult relationships in my life and just lots of friends and mostly kind people.