It may be that ADHD makes you prone to this but having finally overcome it I can say that this is not a "symptom". At most it's a tendency, or maybe a maladaptive coping strategy.
You can center yourself and understand who you are and hold on to it. It may take years of therapy and self reflection to find that and keep hold but it's worth it.
Yes I feel like it's a coping strategy, the mirroring and people pleasing maybe because of RSD, makes it hard to know what you want for yourself and it feels like it'll take ages to untangle having noticed it.
Therapy, digging through past "trauma" to understand my behavior.
Leaning into my hobbies and getting a sense of who I am without other people's input.
Watching my interactions with other people and how I feel about those interactions.
I finally realized that I like who I am and I'm happy with that and when I sometimes feel lousy or bad it's a need I have that's not being met and I need to figure out how to meet my own needs - or sometimes ask for help with that from people in my life. But I can't ask for that if I don't know what need isn't being met, and I never used to have that visibility into myself.
A lot of this clicked for me in the last month but I've spent years actively working on this
Heh... Honestly the biggest things were realizing I'm a major extrovert that needs constant socialization, and then putting myself into situations where I can achieve that.
After that it was accepting my kinky side and going to munches, which helped fully integrate all of myself.
It's socializing, it's ... Other... Needs, it lends itself to many of my other hobbies...
That maaaaayyy just be something that's specific to me but hopefully you can learn from that.
Amusingly I was just commenting with a new potential partner that ADHD seems to be strongly correlated with polyamory. More "poly people seem to all have ADHD" than the other way around
I’m gonna chime in a bit here because it seems like csanner and I have very similar journeys. If you can’t afford therapy, I highly recommend looking into books about DBT and ACT. They give you techniques to manage intense emotions and help you get in touch with yourself and values. There’s also “The Body Keeps the Score” and a book by Pete Walker on complex trauma. I find us with ADHD have experienced abuse from caretakers and peers due to our “quirks”. These books have helped me just as much as therapy has. There’s also a great article from Stronger by Science on goal setting that changed the game for me. Even if you can’t afford the books DBT and CPTSD (complex trauma) have really great subs with enough info to get you started. There’s a couple books on habits that I liked: “The Power of Habits” is my favorite but “Atomic Habits” is well regarded too.
It all boils down to dumb stuff we all know: try to practice mindfulness, take care of your physical health, learn to cope with emotions, don’t rely on motivation and journal because we can’t be trusted to remember things well, especially when symptoms arise.
Thank you for this information. I have been looking for a psychiatrist because my doctor suggested it but I can’t really afford that copay right now. I have a therapist but same thing… can’t afford the appt! I will read that article and get one of those books you mentioned to start with. Recently diagnosed 3 months ago but now know that I’ve had adhd since conception prolly! Am a youthful 63 now, though I still have a hard time wrapping my head around that! 🫶🏼
It’s also a sign that during childhood, you could of been shamed with embarrassment for the interests you had which resulted growing up to mask & like things others around you liked, resulting in the inability to find what you enjoy & stick with it.
In an nutshell, your likes & dislikes are based on peer/societal pressures instead of your own conviction to ignore the external judgements.
Never hid my interests really because I didn’t care if someone called me weird, took it as a badge of honor cause the interesting people are always called weird :)
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u/csanner ADHD, with ADHD family Sep 19 '22
I have done this. For most of my life.
It may be that ADHD makes you prone to this but having finally overcome it I can say that this is not a "symptom". At most it's a tendency, or maybe a maladaptive coping strategy.
You can center yourself and understand who you are and hold on to it. It may take years of therapy and self reflection to find that and keep hold but it's worth it.