The other day my daughter and I were talking to an acquaintance. He's a friendly, outgoing type who connects easily with people and gets quite enthusiastic with talking about what he's been up to. As he continued to chat avidly to me, my daughter left to carry on with the activities we were there for and I joined her a bit later. I jokingly asked her if she'd lost interest in what he was regaling us with and she surprised me somewhat with the response she gave. She actually felt he was being rude because he kept interrupting me whenever I tried to add to the conversation and would get distracted and go off on another tangent of his own.
I was rather touched by her getting offended for me, but I'm so used to it that I feel like that's what most people are like. Maybe in my experience, but not so much in hers. We are both quiet and introverted, but I guess we've grown up in different environments. As I look back and think about it I can recall being pleasantly surprised and rather touched on the rare occasions when I encountered peers who would actually make a point to come back to me and ask what it was I was saying when someone else interrupted and talked over me. I used to assume that I was talked over because my voice was too quiet to be heard. Either that or I was just too uninteresting for most to bother listening or responding to, because even talking louder didn't seem to work.
I find it easier to communicate online with written word than in person, because I can think for longer about what I'm wanting to express before writing it down and sending it. Yet even when I write a comment I don't usually expect it to be read or responded to, especially if there are lots of other comments already made.
Image courtesy of @motionkapture777
Ironically, while I saw this as normal for me I took a different stance when raising my daughters. While I taught them not to interrupt when others were speaking, I would always make sure to come back to them and hear what they wanted to say when I'd finished speaking with someone else. I also made sure to take interest in what they were telling me about, even if it wasn't something that personally interested me, because what mattered more was that it was important to them. Too often we experience our interests and achievements being dismissed as worthless just because others don't see them as important themselves. This is something I refuse to do, because things can still be appreciated even if it's not something that normally interests you. That said, I don't think someone should feel forced to feign interest in something that really doesn't interest them, but knowing what that dismissal can feel like I would personally choose to try and find an interest for someone I care about or even just want to maintain a cordial relationship with.
In general it's normal for children to be self absorbed as the prefrontal cortex takes about 25 years to fully develop. So children are naturally more selfish and the loudest ones will dominate and drown out the quieter ones. Growing up I learnt to just join in with others by listening and observing. I'm still not good at conversing unless it's one on one, so even today if there is a group I default to just listening to the conversations. It's not a bad thing and I often know what's going on in people's lives more than others around them because of it. Everyone else is usually too busy trying to make themselves heard, after all.
Growing up, my daughters weren't always in classroom environments due to being homeschooled for most of their education. This meant that they were surrounded more by adults and had more choice in which children they hung around. The family they connected with the most had children who weren't self conscious and were very inclusive of everyone. When they joined my girls at one of their dance activities I was amazed at how much they changed the social environment when everyone was gathering before the class began. Instead of hanging in their own little groups as they normally would, their friends had eveyone curiously joining in with the games they would start up.
Divergent or Typical?
These days we have labels for those people who get distracted easily, talk over others or seem just interested in themselves. The main one seems to be ADHD and then there's a general blanket term of neurodivergence. There's something of a campaign to drive acceptance of neurodivergence and making allowances for it. However, where do we draw the line between accommodating for the fact that all people generally are different in the way they think and act and allowing it to be used as an excuse for them to get away with behaving terribly towards other people? And can we even define what is neurotypical when we have such a diversity in people?
These days everyone seems to want to class themselves as being ADHD or on the autism spectrum. Could it be that they feel this gives an answer to that age old question of "why don't I fit in?" I think nearly everyone feels like that at some point, even those we least expect it of. Yet I think that often the reason why we feel like we don't fit in is purely because none of us are completely the same as someone else. We usually feel like we belong the most when we're doing an activity that everyone has chosen to come together for because they all enjoy it. However, even then when a group of those same people organise another event to do something else, those who don't enjoy that activity or who aren't able to do it can then feel excluded again.
A trend I've noticed on social media is people saying that if you do things like this or that you are ADHD or on the autism spectrum. Yet the given examples are a range things that practically everyone can say that they relate to at least some of. I can tick off so many, but by proper diagnosis methods I'm not classed as ADHD or being high on the autism spectrum. So that means I'm neurotypical, right?
I saw an amusing video the other day where a woman acted out a "what if I treated my friends how my autistic son treats his friends?" scenario. It ended with a scenario where a friend arrives unannounced at her home and asks if she can come in. To which the woman responds, "no, no you can't" and closes the door on her. She concludes with mentioning that this is often how she feels like responding herself, because she is also neurodivergent, and asking how neurotypical people are okay with people dropping in on them out of the blue. It was a video that was going viral, but I saw no responses from any "neurotypical" people answering this question. They were all responding in agreement with the woman that they struggle with this too. So are we actually all just neurotypical and the extroverts the neurodivergent ones?
I actually have a theory here. I don't generally have people drop in unannounced and on the rare occasions they do I find it stressful because I'm not sure how to deal with it. I enjoy the company, however, and I like the idea that someone finds me interesting enough to be around that they would do such a thing. Secretly I'd love to be someone that happily welcomes lots of people turning up at her house, yet there are few people I know of who even have this happen. My daughter is friends with some Pacific Islanders and Maoris who have a big community dynamic. They have aunts and uncles who aren't even necessarily blood relatives. Friends can just turn up at the house and help themselves to food from the fridge and this is totally normal. When my daughter went to visit she was just accepted by the family. Mum came home from work and kissed all her children and their friends on the forehead like they were all her own.
My theory is that in western culture we are awkward not because of neurodivergence, but because we've become so far removed from our community dynamics. Those who just accept and welcome friends turning up out of the blue do so because that's what they've been used to all their lives. Those who are uncomfortable with it are uncomfortable because it hasn't been the norm for them. We are becoming isolated by what we perceive as more important things, like careers and keeping up appearances. With us so busy with these "more important" community and relationships with other people have lost their importance to us and we don't really know them well enough any more to know if they will just accept us or judge us.
If someone turns up and your house isn't immaculate, you worry whether they will judge you on it. That's why you need warning to prepare. I've found the people most likely to invite you into their homes out of the blue in a friendly manner when you hardly know them usually have messy houses and don't seem to care what you think.
I tend to find that with those people who are telling everyone they are neurodivergent, ADHD, autistic etc, it seems to be used either to gain sympathy or as an excuse to be rude and get away with it. If you then point out that rude behaviour, they tend gaslight you and say it's you that's the problem for being neurotypical and not understanding.
Ironically, people who are actually autistic or have a mental disability where they struggle to understand social convention don't tend to tell you they have that condition. They're usually too busy trying to socially do the right thing and not stand out, because they've been taught by family how you're meant to behave in order to not cause friction (they generally don't like friction). I have two clients like this and I couldn't tell you what their actual diagnoses are. When I see them they do the required pleasantries then disappear into their rooms while I get on with my job. I only disturb them if I need to ask something important and one of them might not even respond, especially if it's not been planned in advance that I might need to ask him something important. I have to be very persistent if it really is actually important enough to need a response while I'm there, otherwise I'll leave a note.
I had a friend whose son was diagnosed with Aspergers. I only knew because she told me, because he certainly wouldn't have mentioned it. She would apologise for rude behaviour from him and explain his condition out of embarrassment then pull him up on it so that he could learn. He didn't care what others thought, but his mum's corrections, and likely her embarrassed reactions, helped him to learn that certain etiquette was expected to function in the adult world and he began to apply this as he grew older.
I'm starting to come to the conclusion that the reality is that the entire population of the planet could actually be best described as neurodivergent, because there is a broad spectrum in the way our brains function. A bigger question for me is what can even be classed as neurotypical? For some it seems to be extroverted behaviour that's neurotypical, yet ADHD can manifest itself that way and isn't that neurodivergence?
It is typical that people have a need to fit in and care what others think of us, unless they are a psychopath or high level autistic. Some autistics high on the spectrum quite often don't even have self preservation instincts. A friend's son would quite literally have starved to death rather than eat anything other than the single food item he would eat at that particular time. Autism is certainly a spectrum, but it doesn't become too much of an issue until it reaches a point where they couldn't survive without the care of those around them. It's completely normal to want to feel a bit special and be given more leeway and when we see people like this getting looked after, treated well and having allowances made for them I can see why it would be tempting to want to have the same diagnosis in order to gain those same privileges. Psychopaths don't exactly get the same kind of perks, so I guess that's why it's not so popular to jump on that bandwagon. 😉
Allowances are now even being made in the academic sector for those diagnosed with ADHD. However, these allowances aren't always helpful in getting them to where they want to be. The reality is that to reach reach a career goal you need to find a way to work with those around you and that means putting things in place yourself in order to do that. It also means recognising abrasive behaviour in yourself. It often amuses me how people with ADHD observe and dislike the very behaviours in others that they themselves are guilty of. If a diagnosis can help them to start recognising these behaviours and finding ways to quiet or order that chaos in their brains in order to function alongside others, then it's not a bad thing. But if it's just used as an excuse not to do anything about the behaviour then they aren't doing themselves any favours.
Sorry, that random thought went on a bit of a random journey. What are your thoughts on this?
This does make a lot of sense to me because I don't remember at what age but suddenly, I just know that at some point, I stopped being self-absorbed and worked on building a friendship with my mum. I didn't even know that this must have been what happened. Thank you for sharing this, that's a added knowledge for me.
For a while, I've been seeing some similarities between my personality and ADHD attributes. But I had to ask myself, does being able to relate to one or two things about the disorder classifies me as one? The mistake people make is failing to understand that these these are actually mental disorders, maybe it's the woke culture that has blurred the line but there's absolutely nothing fancy about having ADHD, OCD or bipolar disorder. And just like you've rightfully said, it shouldn't be an excuse for bad behaviour, whether one truly has it or not.
But then again, if we are to consider it from the angle of "not fitting in" especially for teenagers and young adults, it can be quite overwhelming and without the proper guidance, you'll be surprised at what length these age groups can go to seek validation and acceptance from society.
I love this perspective as well. However, as much as not everyone with self-diagnosed ADHD truly have the disorder, there must have been some certain or perhaps notable similarity traits for one to even start wondering if they could have the ADHD, and since these traits are diverse in everyone, can we then class them all as neurotypical?
For me, I think let's call a spade what it is, a spade! Like you've rightly mentioned and I guess, the "woke" culture has glamorized these disorders and quite unfortunately, most people use it as an excuse for bad behaviors. Just the same way they'll say, "I'm Leo, I'm naturally proud and blunt", yet, bluntness does not equal blatant rudeness.
There is a reason why there's a spectrum for these things. That is, to decide how mild or strongly one is affected. Just the same way autism is different is two people, it's the same for ADHD. I believe that people who are genuinely affected by some of these disorders never see it as something to show off or be proud of. And that's ALWAYS the first step to knowing who is real and who is not.
Thank you for this beautiful piece, it felt so immersive like I'm actually having a physical conversation with you. Your use of words and cohesiveness is brilliant. Thank you for this experience!
I have a client with bipolar disorder who I've known for over two years now. She's lovely, but recently she's not been doing so well and it's a fun thing to see. Her medication hasn't been working well for her, so they've been trying to adjust that and she's been all over the place. Last week they ended up having to take her onto the mental health ward. I can't imagine why anyone would want to claim having that if they don't. I really don't think she likes who she is when she's having an episode and nasty to everyone around her.
I recently learnt that women/girls are hard wired to empathise and try to fit in as well, which makes them more easily influenced by how the others around them are behaving.
Nobody in their proper senses would desire to lose control of themselves like that so definitely, it must be sad for her. I wish her well.
Oh yes! The societal standards for what is considered beautiful and acceptable for women keeps changing every day and as women, unless you have gotten to a place of emotional maturity, self-awareness, self-acceptance and then self-love, it can be hard to not be influenced by all the noise. It's such a pity, really.
Your post reminded me of my own experience when I could locate the DSM-IV. I tried very hard to publicize it and get people to pay attention to it, but it was mainly out of simple curiosity. The idea was to popularize anything that had to do with presenting morphological, neurological, and psychological characteristics that showed signs of pathologies and to find out if people felt they fit some of those labels.
The result was that many identified with the DSM-IV. I remember telling them: “You need medication for life, you have not reached old age yet”... The truth is that it has been, I think, about 13 years. Today, many people I met have a life quite different from what they expected when they “identified” with what they read in the DSM-IV. They don't suffer from ADHD or depression...except for a few cases, but I learned that it was already hereditary or hormonal. So I was a big agitator for all the content currently being consumed related to DSM, neurodivergence, etc. These assertions do not deny that they exist, they do. And their early detections are important for the issue of “fitting in” and getting early help to avoid irreversible damage as you rightly state: “Autism is certainly a spectrum, but it doesn't become too much of an issue until it reaches a point where they couldn't survive without the care of those around them”.
In my case, I tend to get bored easily. If I took one of those tests, they would say that I have ADHD, but I don't. I don't. It's really because of other issues related to the environment I grew up in and, well, a long story. My point is, that if there's a very strong disclosure of underlying concepts that you can find in the DSM-IV (there's also the DSM-V) without explanations or contextualized understanding, people are very likely to identify. It's like, for example, the fact that I feel a fever leads me to think, “Oh, it's just viral, the flu”.... But it turns out that it's not, that a few days later I feel worse and I go to the doctor, and then the results determine that my feverish symptom was the result of a urinary tract infection. In a manner of speaking.
So, the same thing happens with many of these concepts, they become popular, and, well, everyone interprets them in their way and that is where the problems begin. It is as if it were a “methodological subjectivism”: “I read a book that finec recommended to me, I interpreted it and adapted it to my own experiences, but I never chose to be more objective and look for an expert or consult so that I could have a more complete conceptualization”.
By the way, I remember there was a quite popular test, I think two years ago, the famous (MBTI). When I completed it I did it several times, the result was that I had multiple personalities, and that made people confused, but the truth is that this test (like many in the area of psychology) has received criticism.
Well, it is a topic for a while, about labels and their possible consequences for not fitting in. I leave you this historical data on infanticide in the Roman Empire (you can consult here and here) and also on senicide. The issue of categorizations about what is different, strange, or divergent from the “normal” is very old, only that the concepts, methodologies, and everything else have changed a lot.
So to speak, today it is more common to speak of ADHD or depression than of sins and demons, although this depends on the social context that is more predominant: the conceptualizations of the DSM-IV, the neurodivergences or the interpretations of sin or the existence of demons. The consultation of the priest or the father no longer has the same effect as before, being replaced by the figures of the therapist, psychiatrist or coaching.
Well, I think that is enough text in this commentary. 😅
That's a really good example/analogy. I was actually listening to an interview with a Dr today talking about peri-menopause and menopause and how often women in peri-menopause are misdiagnosed with depression or other mental health disorders when it's actually the change in hormones that's affecting their brain chemistry and indeed lots of other functions in their bodies. So many things, both physical and mental, will change as our bodies change through puberty as well.
I feel like this is a trait that is becoming more common now with the immediate entertainment at our fingertips that is social media. A demonstration of how environmental factors can change our brain chemistry.
I recall the popularity of the MBTI test, although I think it has waned somewhat now. My daughter got me to take it when she was a teenager because I think a lot of people were putting their "personality type" in their social media profiles. I don't recall my result, likely because it had no meaning for me.
I rather feel like the brain is a bit too complex and changeable for us to easily label conditions. We still don't even fully understand the complexities of the physical body, after all.
I have come across references to infanticide in many ancient cultures, but not senicide before. I guess it makes sense for the same reasons as infanticide would have. It makes me grateful to not be living in a situation that would call for it and I suspect people would be less eager to want to claim disability, mental or otherwise, if we still did live in those situations.
Thank you for such a thought provoking comment.
The thing I always said is it's a reason not an excuse. Someone might be an arsehole because of whatever but that doesn't mean they're absolved from apologising for their behaviour (if they realise later or it's pointed out to them) and doing better (and not making excuses about why it's the other person's problem but a lot of people do that).
I think your follow on sentence about finally having answers for at the time inexplicable behaviour patterns/straight up not understanding some things/etc is very much a thing. In some cases I feel that people just claim such because they view other people diagnosed (professionally or self) getting "special" treatment and want in on that, or they're looking for a free pass to be a dick (I feel like everyone has had that friend or at least seen either in meatspace or online that one person or even several people who are obnoxious and when called out cry about it being their autism/adhd and they can't be held accountable and you're ableist if you do).
Hard agree. We do the rock up at houses of friends/family that we're close with like we own the place too and jump right in to help, and we also have to explain it to new friends to the house if they're not used to it or used to people who are not used to it.
I tend to comment as I'm reading and then I got partway down and saw you drew the same conclusions XD
Random thoughts going on random journeys are the most entertaining (or the most time consuming sometimes).
I also skimed the comments and saw one that mentioned chatting over a fence, can't do that much anymore they're too damn high. One of our neighbours called over the fence the other day because she needed help with something and she had to stand on a tree stump or something that was on her side to look over XD
Not just me then. You'd think if they really were that rare that is neurodivergent few of us would know one or encounter one. I feel like more and more people I know are jumping on the bandwagon, and I'm an introvert, so I don't even know that many people...
The only person who does that is my mum and is a recent thing, I think trying to recapture the community dynamic of her childhood. The problem is her "help" isn't generally very helpful. The NDIS cleaning company I work for is a family venture. They gave a huge house, lots of mostly adult kids and the house is never locked, so you just walk in when you need to pick stuff up or drop it off. This was terrifying for me at first, especially as I had minimal information like, "just drop it in the office" and I had no idea where that was. It turns out it's also their bedroom. 😳 I'm still not entirely comfortable going in there.
We can just about manage to peek over the fences. I still feel like I'm hearing disembodied voices when a neighbour tries to get my attention, though. It takes me a while to find the head peering over.
Some of it is a more awareness thing, and some of it does very much seem to be a jumping on the bandwagon thing. I freely admit to being extremely judgemental of anyone who uses it as a crutch/excuse x_x
I think people don't like going into other people's bedrooms (especially adults) because you know what kind of things can go on in bedrooms xD
even though on a pure technicality nothing of the sort is necessarily restricted to a room
LoL XD
The boss man drive trucks, sometimes through the night so he'll sleep during the day. I was talking to the boss lady at the office desk one day, hear his voice behind me and turn round to see him getting out of bed in his undies.
I can see how that would be a bit startling XD
I would not have noticed the undies thing unless someone said something and would have been more like OMG I'M SORRY I WOKE YOU UP
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In my case it's the opposite as talking and listening to a voice is so much easier for me than typing which can make me tired after a while.
But I completely understand and agree that is so unpolite to interrupt you and don't listen what you actually want to say! I am not an introverted person, but I respect that there are many different kinds of people with different preferences and needs. 😍
We are all different for sure. I prefer texting over calling, while my work colleague prefers calling over texting, because it's faster.
Interestingly while it's usually extroverts who talk over me it's also the extroverts who have been the ones to notice I'm being talked over and make a point to do something about it.
It's gotten so bad that some people tend to diagnose themselves of a condition just to gain attention/pity.
I share your sentiments in all these. There are legitimate conditions that are being commonized because of wrong diagnosis.
I tend to look at most personality traits as typical human behaviour. Matter of fact, it takes quite an effort to prove something is beyond the norm to me. Of course those standards don't apply for the rest of the World
I feel like at one time the majority of people thought this way. After all, you need variety in people to make up a functioning community/tribe/village. As long as everyone can work with each other, differences aren't an issue. They only become an issue if it starts to harm others in the collective.
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so in other words silence is the best remedy for curing ADHD ? I do love your perspective on how you take your daughters words seriously even if it doesnt interest you it teach then how to also make others feel important.
Does ADHD need curing? 🤷♀️
I think each person with ADHD will find different ways to manage it in order to find their path in life. We all have to manage ourselves in some way to navigate life, where our brains are quiet or noisy.
hmmm So it all boils down to the person involved learning how to control it?
I'd say so. I know silence doesn't work for my daughter and husband. Loud music will help when they need to focus on something because it drowns out all the other things going on in their heads, so they can bring their focus down to just 2 things, the music and the task at hand.
Lolzz 😅aint they something, I probably wont concentrate with loud sound going on in my head.
Me neither. 😆 I have to tune everything else out in order to concentrate.
lolzzzz guess we on the same boat
Very amazing experience, hope you are always well, I really like the experience you said above ❤️
good!
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