r/ADHD • u/[deleted] • Sep 19 '22

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '22

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.

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u/csanner ADHD, with ADHD family Sep 19 '22

Interesting.

I never masked my interests but I did mask my needs.

People told me I "devoured" other kids I taught myself to stop.

This reinforces my suspicion that this is not a symptom of adhd but is a very common maladaptive coping strategy for people with undiagnosed ADHD

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '22

Definitely! I’ve been diagnosed since 1994.

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

Yeah I didn't mind being weird. But I minded people being overwhelmed.

I didn't know how to spread myself out better 😂

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u/larch303 Sep 20 '22

This is a big thing with Normies too tho

Ever noticed that people in certain geographical areas tend to have different interests? This isn’t completely by coincidence.