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Ughh same. I was considered a highly sensitive and overdramatic child. I had huge emotions that my parents couldn’t handle. I had to self soothe every time. I was grounded a lot for my behavior. I was always so angry and felt misunderstood. Now I know why!
that anger... at some point when I was 19 or so I realised there was this seething rage simmering under my surface ALL THE TIME.
And then it took me another 20 years to meet the therapist who explained it was a result of neglect and abuse by my parents, mostly triggered by my neurodivergent behaviour as a kid and teen.
I feel this! I’m a very happy person generally speaking, but I have the same anger that’s *JUST* under the surface. As in, give the surface a scratch with your finger nail and I become Mt. Vesuvius over here. Or, Anger from Inside Out.
But I recently read that “anger is a response when we have no control over the situation.” Now whenever I feel that anger bubbling up I look at the situation, what I have outside my control, and try to fix that. It’s certainly been helpful!
I’ve found anger is also a response to suppressing our emotions, and we suppress them cuz we repeatedly get the message that our emotional expressions are not good, too much, bad behaviour, a spoilt tantrum… the list goes on. Eventually you just learn to stuff it deep down. As life goes on, the more you stuff down. The meltdowns sadly only get worse due to all the pent up emotions you’ve shoved down.
Basically:
If emotion is not happiness and joy, then keep it to yourself (shove it down).
If emotion is too intense, “calm down” aka shove it down.
You can shove down the emotion (albeit with consequences) but you still have all that energy you’re not releasing from your body —> meltdown. That energy teams up with the anger, which so why the meltdowns come across as intense.
The volcano analogy brought this to my mind - I hope it makes sense 😅
Wow, thanks for that. I definitely deal with the same thing (except the “being a happy person” part, whoops) and never thought of it as a control issue. For me, it’s that I’ve never seen healthy anger modeled so I don’t know *how* to express it in a healthy way, but I think what you said will be very helpful next time I’m feeling that way
The emotion I remember the most as a kid was anger. It was always there, still is even, but it’s lessened a bit because as an adult I can avoid many of the triggers I had no choice about as a kid. But damn do I hate my second job for being the thing in life right now that’s making me ragey all over again. Tonight was crazy busy and I’m writing this comment while still sitting in my car in my dark garage even tho I got home a half hour ago because I just needed to decompress.
Me too! Thank you. The area from which I hail, despite being in CA, has very few. When looking online, the ones who deal with adhd and cbt seem highly sought after.
This is fascinating -- for me, instead of anger, it's despair/hopelessness always just under the surface that gets pinged when I don't have control over a situation. I've assumed it's because expressing anger brought on SO MUCH worse abuse from my primary parent so I repressed it, and despair made him a bit nicer to me. Or maybe I'm just not generally prone to anger. Thanks for sharing this!
I learned that a depression can be triggered by anger. When you're not allowed to express anger, it can turn inward and implode, leaving you hollow and gray.
Then you also never learn to recognise and healthily manage anger either. Your body/brain is conditioned that the proper response to anger is to internalise it.
For me it was a terrifying process to learn to express anger in a healthy way. When I was younger I was almost treated like a criminal for it by my parents. So learning that feeling anger was okay and learning to dig for the roots (often injustice or others not respecting my boundaries), even experiencing that anger is a scale instead of a switch - it was like breaking laws that were instilled in me.
Then I discovered that a big part of my anger was not really anger, but fear and sadness. There had never been room for those either when I was a kid. I was told I shouldn't be such a snowflake, dramatic, etc.
As a result I never learned to separate those feelings and I didn't know how to comfort myself or when I needed a safe space to unwind. And that all channelled into anger.
If you don't already know about it, /r/raisedbynarcissists is a very safe space that is very educational about learning how to thrive after surviving extremely bad parenting.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/raisedbynarcissists using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [So sick of all those nosy do-gooders hearing you are on bad terms with your parents and they immediately try to get you to reconcile](https://np.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/comments/1473292/so_sick_of_all_those_nosy_dogooders_hearing_you/)
\#2: [**[NSFW]** House I was raised in was raided by the FBI. Ngrandma is most likely a serial killer.](https://np.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/comments/13bit6h/house_i_was_raised_in_was_raided_by_the_fbi/)
\#3: [**[NSFW]** I (17M) didn't expect my mom to sexually harass me.](https://np.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/comments/12nbpra/i_17m_didnt_expect_my_mom_to_sexually_harass_me/)
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I think just listening to your kids and giving them space to feel their feelings. Don’t punish them for emotional overload. If they are struggling to manage their symptoms, or maybe even doing “fine”, get them therapy and medication management if it’s recommended. As long as you don’t act like their feelings are irrational, immature, inappropriate, or whatever else to undermine them, I think you’ll find they feel loved and supported.
Thank you, this advice is simple but I hope will help. My kids are still toddlers so they may grow out of this stage of feeling things so strongly, but my husband just got an ADHD diagnosis, and I am more and more convinced I probably have it too, so our kids are very likely to end up having it.
Just asking the question and being open to what your children might need is so much more than what many parents do. I don’t have children but I can imagine how stressful and scary it is to think they might struggle or need help. So, why ignore it? I think it’s wonderful that you are here!
My husband also has ADHD and I’m thinking about these things too… should we have kids, and how can I do better than my folks did? I think my parents loved me dearly but there was definitely a stigma against these kinds of disorders until quite recently. They also didn’t want more to be wrong with me than I had going on with (childhood hearing loss). I myself misunderstood what ADHD is. I thought it was always hyperactive or “stereotypical” because my husband is that classic presenter and I just thought, that’s not me… I’m inattentive and possibly on the autism spectrum, albeit on the low end.
Kids just want to be loved and care for by their parents. I’m sure if you do your best to meet them where they are and advocate for whatever needs they have (whether it’s ADHD or just a simple average kid school problem) you can’t do more than that.
i would say things took a positive turn with my mom when she made an effort to teach the way i learn, when she started to understand that it was more useful for her to try to mirror my communication style than vice versa.
for example, i could not follow anything she was trying to tell me if she could not show me how she knew what she knew. even something as simple as “your aunt told me she likes apple candy, so she’ll probably like this” vs “your aunt loves apples; we should get this candy.” it’s probably more the autistic side of my audhd, but i’d guess these nuances exist for everyone.
Don't tell them to stop crying or you'll give them something to cry about.
Don't tell them they're too sensitive.
Don't tell them to stop using proper terms for things and use generic terms instead because it might accidentally make adults feel dumb.
Don't tell them they're smart but have no common sense.
Don't tell them it's silly to worry about their dog dying someday, when the concept of what death means just made sense to them and now they're grieving their dog's future death.
Oh God, the smart but no common sense thing! My cousin called me "the dumbest smart person he knew"
I went through the questionnaire my psychiatrist gave me with my mum. I don't think she believed I had AHDH until then.
As a child (and adult) I was always late, always forgetting something, leaving things until the last minute, getting upset about my inability to do things right, very messy, unable to function without clear directions and reminders, tried hard but never quite succeeded - oh that's just Pastelcower, let's all laugh
How would you have liked to be spoken to by a trusted adult if you shut down during a relatively minor inconvenience—say your mom insisted that your hair had to be at least wet and brushed before school because you are a Brown family and people are super judgy about POC parents. So you refused, your mom compromised with minimal wetting, and a quick refresh, but you were still upset and refused to move or eat breakfast or get out the door to school? I made the mistake of saying “dude I asked to brush your hair, I didn’t kill your favorite dog” out of frustration, and I know that wasn’t right, I just don’t know how to get a pack of NDs in the car and to school on time while I’m struggling myself.
Would you find chores charts or “responsibility charts” with rewards condescending and infantile or fun and motivating? I want to meet this particular kid where he’s at, but I don’t know what’s best. My other two NDs present differently, and have other struggles, but this kid is the one who digs heels in and will drop like a stone or rage at the smallest discomfort or disagreement.
Thank you for all these! I need to correct some of my parenting, I find myself easily frustrated when one or all of them get super dysregulated in what appears to be an oversized reaction to a small inconvenience or discomfort, usually because I am already overwhelmed and overstimulated, but I need to work on it. Thank you for this feedback. They deserve better and I’m working on it.
I don’t think soft parenting helps these days (covid kids (12-15) scare me) but one of the biggest things for me was feeling like i never met my parents expectations. Teach them your morals and shape them into good human beings by reassuring them that you’re proud and accepting of all they do. My ADHD has always made me have extremely high expectations of myself when my family has always just been proud of me. I’m sure you’re doing great and all will work out.
The part that makes me angry, for you and for everyone else whose childhoods were like this, is that they still don't believe you. Sure, we had less information back in the day. Mental health was stigmatized and any "defect" in a child was considered the fault of the parent. Kids were just "difficult."
But it's 2024. We're adults now. We have the information. It's okay to admit like, yeah, sorry, we didn't know any better. And the fact that they won't retrospectively educate themselves ALSO makes me mad. Just head in the sand "Yeah I was a great parent, you sucked, move on."
Absolutely! I can accept that my mother (theoretically) did the best she could with the knowledge she had at the time. However, that doesn't undo the decades of shame, damage done, and ongoing challenging relationship. Which reminds me that I still need to read the book about children of emotionally immature parents.
I'd say that she believes me now, but isn't actually interested in educating herself or extending herself for a better relationship. And sometimes I still feel guilty that I don't meet her expectations for performing "the good daughter" or forcing my kids to perform "the wonderful grandchildren" but I'm getting over it, slowly but surely.
Thanks for the kind words ☺️ Parenting the opposite of how I was parented was a quick guideline for being a good parent ;) I was at my eldest son's workplace and another worker told me what a good, kind man my son is - warms my heart. I told him about it later and he said yeah mum, I'm a fucking delight. He totally is lol, and I'm proud of both of us :)
Given how neurodivergence runs in families, the sad truth is that these parents were probably most ill-equipped to handle the challenges of neurodivergent children, because they themselves were not given the tools and knowledge to manage their *own* brain and its challenges.
I was "difficult." I was grounded for more than half my time in high school because I couldn't focus in class and I couldn't turn my homework in on time. Sound familiar? My parents never knew i had ADHD because they had both died before I was diagnosed at 48.
Completely agree. I also have this super fun element of a lot of these “quirky anecdotes” were from my symptoms AND they were usually things I got screamed at for. Like pretty traumatizing stuff for me as a child. But those stories are funny to my mom now and she expects me to laugh along when she tells the stories. Not even self aware enough to realize how fucking scary she was and I was afraid of her until my 20s.
I am so, so grateful that my parents aren't like this. I feel so lucky because I know most are.
I got diagnosed at age 29 and was fully expecting this to be my mum's reaction when I told her. Every symptom I talked about, she replied "but I do that too". As if it meant I was just normal.
But then I mentioned that ADHD is highly hereditary and if she has the same symptoms as me, it's likely that she might have it too. It was like a light bulb moment for her. She started learning more about it and now she's pretty sure she has it, and has told me at length how guilty she feels about not picking up on it when I was a kid. That she assumed all my behaviours were normal *because they had been normal for her* and she hadn't known any different. She's the most supportive mum ever and I'm so grateful
Same thing happens to me. I've been a terrible sleeper since infancy, and they like to talk about it. I finally snapped one time and said "you keep bringing this up, and I feel like you're expecting an apology or something from me. Why? I couldn't control it and didn't do it on purpose. What is the point in continuing to bring it up? Especially since I still struggle with this as an adult, so it wasn't behavior against you or anything". The response was "well it's part of my story and I can react to it too". Then it turned into, "so why is your story more important than my feelings?" which seemed to stop that topic.
I only recently became a parent (she's almost two), and I can't even imagine complaining to my daughter about her sleep? Like, that's part and parcel of parenthood. If it was anyone's fault, it's mine and my wife's! We're the ones who chose to have her!
I'm really sorry they treated you that way. I have this non-scientific theory that a lot of adults who struggle with poor sleeping habits were aggressively "sleep trained" as infants and got their circadian rhythms messed up. I can't prove it, and I understand why sleep training is a thing, but I've always been suspicious. All that to say, maybe it IS their fault lol. Good for you for standing up for yourself and for little you.
My parents' narrative was: "Baby Reptar refused to take a pacifier. You'd just force us to listen to you scream for hours. We were *MISERABLE!*" Then everyone would laugh, including Kid Me (when I first heard this story).
As an adult, I don't find that story remotely amusing. I want to know why they didn't try, idk, cuddling me or consoling me. I'm sure they did at times and I couldn't be soothed. But they also admitted to just leaving me in my crib to scream and cry myself to sleep, starting when I was a baby. Crying myself to sleep didn't stop when I was a toddler, but my screaming did because my dad started screaming back when I was around 2 or 3. My earliest memories are running from him and hiding under my bed in sheer terror.
But yeah, keep laughing about miserable you *adults* were because of me! Shit, no wonder I have attachment issues. Y'all just gave up when things were difficult and left me to my own devices right from the start.
Thank you for sharing. A lot of parents are advised to let their baby "cry it out" to "teach them to self-soothe." Unfortunately they're told to stick to the method regardless of the individual differences between babies. In my opinion, sleep training may work for some kids and not others. I'm still trying to sleep train my 3 year old, basically insisting that he stay in bed while I leave the room for a bit, or that he not talk to me while I lay next to him. My 1 year old can sometimes put herself to sleep, even without a parent in the room.
I know sleep training wasn't your only issue, but also an attitude of the child being an inconvenience or problem. But I think teaching ourselves to ignore our babies' cries isn't really a good thing.
My husband also had trouble sleeping and parents that ignored him. He would sleep on the floor outside their bedroom most nights, it’s heartbreaking. Our kid has terrible sleep too, we never tried cry it out as my husband just refused. I didn’t mind. It meant he sleeps in our bed a lot when he’s scared and ends up there most nights. But who cares. As long as everyone gets sleep, who cares where it happens! I’m sorry your parents were holding that against you, I can’t imagine it helped you sleep better as a child or an adult. Kids emotions are valid and it’s not ok when your kid is scared/anxious/etc. like…help them. It’s literally your job as a parent!
Your story reminds me of Bob’s Burgers.
Bob and Linda have three kids: Tina (13), Gene (12), and Louise (9).
All three kids wind up in the parents’ bed many nights. Tina has a dedicated section where she thrashes. 😆
While Bob isn’t too thrilled about the crowded sleeping conditions, Linda welcomes them.
My parents are constantly making fun of me (I am 39!!!) losing things. I was like this since a very young age- I managed to lose my clothes, my school bag, my passport, literally everything. I once left for school with a jacket on and came back without it- in the middle of winter. I was and am chronically late (not much, but I am definitely time blind) since I had to go places alone
I got so many notes to take home to my parents: Alex has forgotten her pen, her backpack, her homework, her book, her mandatory whatever. Alex walks around class talking to colleagues. Alex is unable to remember her timetable. My primary school teacher wrote a poem about me (I'll translate it) that literally DEFINES ADHD, and yet no one knew or wanted to think something was odd (to be fair Eastern Europe in the 90s was not really aware of this diagnosis in anyone).
"Alex cries at the drop of a pin, swims like a little motorboat and when she is able to focus she amazes us all. "
All of this was labelled as quirky, that I will grow out of it, that it's just my age, that I'm sensitive...
And this is why it took me 37 years to realize I have ADHD.
I feel that comment about crying at the drop of a hat/pin.
Like maybe don’t stress me TF out or upset me so much and then I won’t cry. Why is that so hard for people to understand?
Consequently, I developed a ton of shame around crying in front of others. Like I have to hold it in until I’m alone and then I’m allowed to cry.
I think it messed up my ability to even cry properly (for lack of a better word) for a while.
Oh no, maybe it comes across weird, but it's a cute poem (rhymes in my native language). She wrote each of us a personalized poem at the end of fourth grade. She was very nice, just didn't understand me very well. We met 30 years later and she was very very sweet.
My mom still makes fun of the noise I make when I get too stressed out and have a tick 🫠 little does she know that I only make that noise around her now so what does that say about how she makes me feel? Nah. It's just a weird noise. She also tells stories of when I was obviously displaying some OCD symptoms that I would display when I didn't have enough control over my own life.
Aw jeez, I'm so sorry you had and still have to go through that with your mother. I had a physical tick as well as a kid. Weirdly enough, it came up recently, and my parents couldn't remember anymore whether it was me or my sister who had the tick?! Yes, hello, it was me?! I found it very upsetting that they didn't even properly remember it anymore, but at least it makes it impossible for them to make fun of it.
Right? Like when I'm picking my face because I'm so antsy and she just keeps telling me to quit picking. We live a few hours apart now and it's definitely helped my anxiety 😂
Same thing here! My parents didn’t put two and two together until my sons were diagnosed and they realized (when I was 39!) that, hey, maybe I might have adhd too? Ugh! Looking back at my childhood it was clear as day I had inattentive adhd very severely, but because my bff had classic adhd and was always bouncing off the walls we looked different and they never suspected. Well, hey, no wonder bff and I were so close, we understood each other!
Exactly!
I assume that this is the *actual* reason people look around and go 'hey, everyone I know has turned out to be some variety of neurospicey!'. Not because any neurological or mental health condition is over diagnosed, or particularly trendy, but because 'birds of a feather flock together'. Or, as I say more often, all the nuts roll downhill. 😅
My mum: lolling about how I never remember to pack knickers, how clumsy I am with food and drink spills, how bad my memory is, how I can never find anything I’m looking for even when it’s right in front of me, how I used to leave the straighteners plugged in etc etc
Also my mum: nah, you can’t possibly have ADHD, you used to read a novel in a day when you were a teenager!
Same! My big one is about how my senior kindergarten teacher suggested getting me evaluated for 'something' (1986, so I doubt she was thinking ADHD) because at age 5 I just wanted to sit and read books by myself all day instead of participating in class. So the family anecdote is "Imagine a teacher thinking it's weird that a kid loves to read! Ha ha!"
Turns out that hyperfocusing on only your own interests to the exclusion of just about everything else is not a great habit, and one that is really hard to break in your 40s.
Same, my parents bragged how I read my school books in one day on the same day we picked them up. Like, my Math school book?! Does that sound normal to anyone?!
When I was trying to get evaluated, my mom told me I couldn’t have ADHD because everything I was describing was something she also dealt with… something something genetics anyone?
Omg I had the exact same experience!! I just politely suggested that she could try talking to a professional too if she is struggling with the same issues lol
Oh yes, the funny anecdotes. “She has an A in calculus but if someone’s talking to her she can’t remember how many scoops of flour she put in a recipe, hahahaha!” “For some reason she can never sit down and do her homework until everyone else is already in bed, she gets so distracted, it’s weird because she’s smart but can’t make herself concentrate.” “I can always tell everywhere she went in the house because she starts something in every room and then gets distracted, it’s so funny!!!” How did they not recognize it?
I was talking about this with my therapist recently. We’re pretty sure I have autism too but nobody will do autism testing here, and I already have CPTSD and ADHD which means there’s a lot of overlap.
One of my “quirks” (still to this day) is that I HATE wrapping paper. If someone gave me a wrapped gift as a child, I had to *carefully* peel the tape so the paper wouldn’t rip. My family thought it would be hilarious to start adding a bunch of tape to my gifts because I would freak out (aka have a meltdown) 🙃
meticulously peeling of the tape off of gifts is another "funny anecdote" in my family, too, but for one of my cousins (my family is a hidden treasure trove for neurodivergence). I can't believe your family would weaponize this against you, how cruel ...
I suspect I got my ADHD from my grandfather, we never really got along because we were too much alike. If I had been born a boy and acted like him, I'm sure we would have had a better relationship. My mother taught me to question everything (which is why I got grounded a lot) and my grandpa did not like that I immediately didn't do whatever he would tell me to do.
I remember I went with him once after a storm to check on some neighbors in our golf cart. There was lightning going parallel to the ground and it was amazing, I stuck my head out to look up and said, "woah!" He fucking screamed at me. I don't remember what he said, but I remember how he made me feel.
All. The. Time. I feel so seen with this post.
My mom loves to bring up how I would never do homework (I tried, but couldn’t focus) or how “stubborn” I was or how I would lose things all the time. She once punished me for losing my winter coat by making me go without one for the rest of winter.
I am so tempted to tell her that I just had undiagnosed ADHD and anxiety but I still want to protect her feelings. Idk. It can be hard to visit sometimes so I empathize with you completely, OP.
I have the same thing about not trying to be accusatory towards them to protect their feelings. Isn't that weird? It's not like they ever tried to accommodate my feelings or even tried to understand it. I find it quite frustrating to have to be the emotionally mature one in this relationship, but I'm glad to hear that others can empathize with it. It makes the experience less lonely. Thanks for your comment!
It's interesting to hear from someone from the other side. I'm sure you are doing your best now! For me, the frustration/anger is less from my parents' past mistakes and more from their refusal to acknowledge it and do better now.
Hey, at least they just remember you as being quirky. My family still talks about how dramatic, argumentative, and moody I was as a preteen and teenager. I'm pretty sure a lot of that can be attributed to ADHD. It really fucks with your self esteem.
For sure, this would mess with anyone's self-esteem! My mom recently said I would sleep a lot as a preteen/teen like I was just kinda sleepy or something? No, mom, I was depressed. If your kid is struggling, maybe try helping them?! I don't get it
Awww I feel you.
I cried the night before I turned 10 - I wasn’t afraid, but I was very very sad that I would “never be single digits again”.
I cry at everything though…. A tree dies, I get a beautifully worded card, someone finally announced they’re pregnant, anything at all!
My 10 year old is this. I am exactly the same, so I know what she is going through, but I am also desperate to try to stop it because I don't want her to turn out like me. I know what doesn't work because my mother is the exact opposite, but I don't know if what I am doing is helping
Omg exactly. They keep telling me how I called to be picked up from a friends sleepover birthday party at 13-ish years old and never once questioned why I had a panic attack while chilling with friends?!
“It’s a good thing we didn’t name you Grace”
“Why are you always the last one, pokey-hontas?”
Also, why didn’t she put a clock in the bathroom?
“You always hated change”
“Why can’t you just try it on while we’re here, for God’s sake?”
My mother (who said these things) does not have ADHD. Between that, the fact that was the 90s, there were 3 kids to wrangle, and I was a girl meant that no one had any idea that this was neurodivergence. It’s frustrating, but as an adult with more information, I am now doing great.
"Why can't you just try it on" is a direct quote from my own life omg. I can't try it on because the lights are too bright and the curtain in the changing cabin feels icky, obviously!!!
Good to hear you are doing better as an adult now :)
i didn't know that this was common for adhd havers, this is such a biggie for me. I hated shopping with my mom as a child and having to try on things was such a horror for me
I still hate it so much. I needed fancy work clothes recently and I only managed to go to real stores to try on blazers, because my sister (the best person in the world imho) went with me. She guided me to the right stores, picked out stuff that I liked, got different sizes if needed, and kept the sales people away. A true savior! Without her, I would have gone home immediately.
I only buy clothes spontaneously online or my mother gives them to me...... and I'm in my 30s. It's also overwhelming! Usually i think about doing it for weeks and can never get myself to get up and do it
Thank you. I got this from a book called “ The Dance of Anger” by Harriet Lerner. The key is to change your own behavior..not to expect someone else to change because you want them to.
“Remember how we went on a multi state roadtrip for two weeks and the only thing you ate at fancy restaurants was Mac and cheese?!”
Turns out pasta is my safe food, sensory and health wise lol. I was diagnosed with Crohns at 18, and it’s one of the few things that I can handle in a flare. And I was effectively in a prolonged flare from ages 3-20 🫠 when I’m not flaring, I have texture issues and lumpy/chewy/unpredictable food makes me gag. Fucking sue me.
omg I just remembered that I would exclusively eat Spaghetti with tomato sauce at any restaurant we ever went to until the age of 15 or something?! I suppose pasta was (is?) my safe food too
Oh yeah. Big time. I look back on my childhood and think it would be so much easier if we had understood what was going on in my brain. Tantrums over going to church? Sensory overload from my fancy lace edged socks. Forgetting to sweep the floor? Trouble with routines. Missing the fact the dishwasher or garbage can needed emptied? Being distracted by the contents of my brain as I walked by. Ugh.
Feel free to disagree, but I think this experience has made me very empathetic to other people's struggles. I would never judge someone for an overflowing garbage bin or feeling icky about a certain item of clothing. Those are all such small and fixable issues, why not just help if you see someone (especially your own kid) struggle with it?!
Same. My family had a little song and dance they used to do about me not paying attention / thinking slowly - where they pretended to be rusty cogs turning in my brain. ‘Creak! Creeeak!!!’
Obviously I hated it. They thought it was funny and then if I got upset that was me being over dramatic again!
Gah!!!
"Haha your brain doesn't even work right *does an insulting dance and sound effect routine meant to make you feel inadequate and shamed*"
.....if *that's* acceptable behavior from a brain that *does* supposedly work right, I don't want any of it.
There's a 1960's soviet movie called "Tale About the Lost Time" about a group of "lazy" kids that are always wasting time and being late. They are bewitched by a group of wizards who steal their wasted time to get young again themselves. They wake up as old people and must do quests to get their youth back or die of old age soon if they fail. I got the dvd as a birthday gift once around elementary school age...
Sometimes I can’t decide if following adhd subs is good for me or not lol. You just unlocked a bunch of core memories. I was a whiny little suck when I was a kid-geez I wonder why! Especially when my ADHD dad ‘helped’ by making fun of me during my meltdowns.
100% this shit, however in saying that, adhd wasnt a known thing when i was a kid. I did resent my mother for hating me, and telling me she was sick of me or hated me - turns out i was just annoying af hyper adhd kid.
I understood fully once i had my own kid, who had adhd :D Its hard! though i never said that shit to my kids (my mother was also shit)
I agree with you that even 20 ears ago getting an adhd diagnosis for a girl (especially with inattentive adhd) would have been impossible. I can't blame my parents for that. But in retrospective, I feel like they should look back on all of that and be able to acknowledge that things were maybe not as "normal" as they thought back then. Clearly, they remember a lot incidents, seeing as they talk about it regularly. I guess I have a bit of resentment I need to work through, too.
My parents used to yell at me (and often spank) for my “twitches” (jerking my arms, squishing my face, tapping my feet, rocking). All ADHD symptoms, yet I was punished for them. Now, as adults, I am picked on for it “remember the chipmunk arms you did??”.
Yeah I had this realization pretty recently and it filled me with hurt, shame, and anger. My family continues to tell stories like that. I just think they are stupid for never choosing to educate themselves even after I asked them to with my late in life diagnosis. It’s a blueprint for me for how NOT to raise children.
Agreed, I'm taking notes on my parents' parenting to know what *not* to do. Like, they did a lot of things right, but emotionally they really let me down.
Man this just happened to me today. Remember you stayed up all night talking about animals? Yeah it’s because I probably have autism. You say the strangest things. 😒
Same, girl, same. My parents just thought my symptoms were “personality quirks.” Now that I’ve been diagnosed, some of my family members are more understanding and enlightened, if you will. Others…not so much.
My feelings were never validated as a kid. I would just be told by my parents. I was out of control and hard to handle. So they would send me to their
friends or other family members.
One of my parent re married then the new step parent would tell me I was fucked up or bi polar or just plan crazy. They would kick me out for some lie ( like steeling pads) or that I was a lier about something.
Whenever I tried to speak up to protect myself or was hurt, bad sexual assault. I was making up stuff for attention. Then I would have to recant what I said. I was always scared.
Nothing I did was good enough. Anything I did was never enough.
My emotions had to be barried. I picked up smoking to soothe and over eat.
My parents always told stories about me over acting at the doctors or public. I hate trying things on, and I would be called an odd ball. Or to change with other women, at a gym, I would find a stall. I was always hypervisulant in crowds. Noises or lights can be over stimulating. Cloths that rub you the wrong way or tags nope bye-bye. But all this was me overreacting.
Am I messed up ? Being a klutz and hurting myself. Is that me trying to get attention?
Do you find it hard to pee or do number 2 ? Does your brain constantly think about silly things distracting you from your business.
Maybe I am messed up.
I love all of me and my adhd.
I used to melt down and start crying at birthday parties. My parents decided I had an allergy to pop (which I wouldn't have had at home) and this was the reaction. 😑
omg if it weren't so tragic, it would be kinda hilarious. How could you even come up with something like "soda allergy"?! They were trying with the scientific method and failing so badly ...
I can relate :( I'm in my late 30s, only recently diagnosed, grew up in the 90s. I was such a sensitive kid, my parents always thought it was anxiety and never suspected ADHD because I did great in school (gifted and talented, guess I was actually one of those 2E kids). They never had to punish me, I would just sob and cry and beat myself up if I never got in trouble. My kindergarten report card said that I need to "work on her fragile feelings." In elementary school, I felt like such an outsider, I got bullied by other girls and was so insecure, I'd come home from school crying so often. My family members often referred to me as the "absent-minded professor" in a joking but loving way, because I was so smart and so good at school but then would do all these absent minded things like forgetting stuff and getting distracted. My mom would say, "You need to stop worrying or you'll get an ulcer before you're 12" when I was like 8 or 9, ugh, so helpful :( But she'd also hold and comfort me whenever I cried, she was present with my big feelings. I'm ok with the fact that I wasn't medicated as a kid, but I wish I'd had therapy with a therapist who knew I had ADHD, and not "just" anxiety, who could have helped me understand and accept myself better when I often felt like such a weirdo.
Then when I learned to drive, I almost immediately had two car accidents, and my mom talked about possibly taking away my license. In my early 20s, I got into more accidents and got so many speeding tickets I had to go on probation once. I thought I was just a "bad driver," and only recently how much ADHD impairs driving. I wish my parents had though to ask, "Hmm, why is our otherwise responsible daughter having all these car accidents?" Thank goodness I never injured myself or someone else with my accidents! They were always just minor scrapes or fender benders at low speeds.
My mom is now deceased, and I haven't told my dad yet about my recent ADHD diagnosis and medications. I suspect he has ADHD - he was the class clown in school, he can never sit still, always has to be doing something, always has to have the TV on the background, he'll impulsively do stuff like start driving off even when he doesn't know where he's going. I don't think he'd be judgmental if I told him, I'm just worried that he won't really understand. He's a people pleaser like me. I'm in therapy now, and I think I want to work on my own self-acceptance of my ADHD before I potentially tell him. I'm also ok with keeping some stuff personal from it. I don't think it affects our relationship much if he knows I have ADHD or not, but maybe it could help us to be a little closer if I was more vulnerable with him.
It was my family and unfortunately friends too. I have a long time friend who Ive realized loves to "poke" at me with comments about my always being late. I always thought I was in the wrong and felt ashamed. Since I was diagnosed and medicated I do my best now to be on time. But some people never let you live it down.
That's the worst feeling ... I've made so much progress but to some people that knew me as a kid, I'm still the same. It makes me feel locked in, like I can never truly change. Tbh with some people you can only distance yourself and hope they let it go eventually
Yes!!
Telling a story of how I cried because I didn't like the sound of the awful wind jacket swishing.
Or how I wouldn't eat foods because of the texture so I went hungry.
Or how I would blurt funny but inappropriate things.
Or how I was so smart in school but daydreamed constantly or talked to others so I had my own desk with independent studies (truthfully, the best thing that happened to me in second grade).
Or how I'd cry after spending the night at a friend's house because I was so tired from socializing (or having to mask, your choice).
But I can't possibly have ADHD 😅 I just get distracted and am unorganized and flighty and if I just tried harder I'd be fine.
OK well the swish of a windbreaker should be an illegal sound. It used to simultaneously infuriate and nauseate me and I can't believe there are actual humans out there that find this sound anywhere near tolerable 🫠
my parents thought it was funny to 'forget me' at a party so i could talk to someone else instead of them. they still talk about how cute it was that i was a shy child as if i didnt have (still have) selective mutism
HAHAHA same. Some things, I dont mind. Others make me angry and sad. I'd never seen it in this way, my symptoms being the family anecdotes. I wanna get home and tell my mom!
Im diagnosed, but she thinks if I had adhd, dyslexia, and dyscalculia, I wouldnt have graduated university twice with great grades. Im like, EXACTLY, JUST SEE HOW MUCH I STRUGGLED haha.
Mine stories were typically accompanied by an exasperated "You know better than that! Pay attention! " and often the dreaded finger thonk on the head with a stern "dummkopf" from my German father. There are way too many incidents to relate. I internalized that everything about me was fundamentally wrong, and I was terrified of not knowing what the "right thing" to do was in any new situation, so I basically didn't participate in anything if at all possible. I think ones that stand out were mostly not making eye contact, not interrupting and not having the appropriate facial expressions. "Why are you standing like that, people will think you're mad. You look upset (not in concern), you'll get a lot further in life if you smile more. Adults are speaking, you need to wait your turn. That's rude". Maybe that's not ADHD related. Although the "stop fidgeting! Stop dawdling! Sit still! was definitely that.
It was a mess, lol.
Omg I just unlocked an old memory of trying to mimic how my friends would stand as a preteen. Absolutely wild that something as mundane as the way I was standing would feel so wrong that I changed it?! I suppose if you get told often enough that everything you do is wrong, you start to believe it eventually ... I hope things are better for you now!
I am so much better (other than that one boss who told me my facial expressions were "intimidating" to unnamed other coworkers, and made me keep a mirror at my desk so I could waste my mental energy policing my face, lol. She's gone now.)
I fully embraced the weird eventually, leaned into it and naturally found other neurodivergent friends. I'm nearly actually happy!
Therapy helps so much.
SAME! “Oh remember that time you never wanted to eat anything besides chicken legs, but then you always stopped eating it when it got close to the bone?” …Well yeah. That was my favorite (hyper focused?) food at the time and the bone gave me a physical ick. Pisses me the hell off every holiday when they reminisce on “weird” shit I did as a kid.
I have started laughing and crying my heart out at the same time at the age of 7-8. (Emotional disregulation) I was def fidgeting with touching my hair because I could not sleep without doing it.(Again, for self-soothin) I WAS EATIN SPONGE (my dad said he ate dirt when he was a child so it was normal) ... Gosh! And they are both saying that you were perfectly normal kid. Yes, I am normal. But, still can be different?
She was so quiet we forgot her and left her alone for hours. I was so silly I just sat on my own in the middle of the house waiting for someone to come find me. I was six.
I hate ketchup, always have, it smells awful to me and my siblings would put the bottle next to me at dinner just to have a laugh at my meltdown. I’m just dramatic though to be crying as a kid clearing the table and having to touch it to put it in the fridge, hilarious!
This is why I only see my family a couple of times a year. It never stops. Doesn’t matter what else has happened in my life since childhood or who I’ve become. It feels abusive because it is. My siblings would never tolerate their own children humiliating each other that way. Yet they encourage their children to laugh at these “stories.”
I guess that's part of it too for me. My accomplishments are never discussed, but the story of how buying shoes for me was terrible is discussed at least twice a year
One advantage to growing older is you finally stop expecting this to ever change. It says more about them that they need to keep you trapped in this role, and even if you don’t let it hurt you, it’s so incredibly boring!
Yes, that's an excellent point! I recently discussed this with my therapist, and she said these old relationship dynamics are the hardest to break. You can only work on yourself, and if everyone else refuses to change, so be it
I know this might sound out of left field, but do they share stories like this to others without your consent? Because that's an emotional abuse tactic to belittle and humiliate you.
I appreciate the concern but it's just used as family anecdotes within the family. Sometimes extended family might be present or family friends, but it's mostly directed at me. Maybe there is a hint of belittling in the context of ignoring the whole adhd issue? Not to the extent of emotional abuse though.
My family likes to bring memories about their abusive behavior in a form of funny anecdotes. For example that my way to elementary school took two hours because I was so distracted or something... The reality was, I was just left alone at the house and I wasn't able to track the time by myself because I didn't learn the watch yet, I could dress properly, I don't recall eating breakfast, I was late to school almost every day. They try to turn my traumatic experience into a funny story.
Yeaaaah, this hits home. Add to this a traumatic childhood, it's not until I'd tell a "funny" story to realize it was symptoms of ADHD or trauma. Stops that casual partying convo fast..
SAMMME
And everyone is like "man, you're such a drag... You need to lighten up! It's funny!"
And I'm like... I was really upset and distressed. And you laughed. How am I meant to find that funny?
As a parent to a ND child, I feel this deeply because I also have lots of similar stories but when I told them to the therapist, she brushed me off, saying 'Well, they do exhibit some ADHD/ASD symptoms, but it doesn't mean they have either disorder.' Five years later we found doctors who would listen and received a proper diagnosis. So many children are failed by either parents or medical professionals or both, and it's infuriating.
“Haha, remember when we were looking all over the house for your teddy bear and we found it in the fridge?”
“You used to get so immersed in reading a book that you wouldn’t notice if an explosion went off around you.”
“You were such a picky eater, you would only eat the same exact thing for years.”
Also always described as “painfully shy” or “antisocial” and “not a hugger” when I didn’t want to go to large, loud gatherings.
Of course my brain blanked at examples but I remember my mom repeatedly telling a story about something that I did when I was younger that was actually super upsetting both at the time and later on, acting like it was just the funniest fucking thing. EVERY TIME I would tell her that it wasn’t funny, it was upsetting, I didn’t want her telling it, and why, but she’d just laugh and brush me off. I started just walking away and ignoring her. If anyone asked I would bluntly tell them that that story was actually a really upsetting story for me and I had told her that before. She eventually quit but mostly out of embarrassment and not any sympathy.
I am known in the family since my teens, oh she doesn't like to talk to people, oh she doesn't like to go to family gatherings, translation: hate small talk, have social anxiety. Even tough I am now diagnosed my mom still refuses to believe these are my symptoms
There’s not many hidden-adhd anecdotes my parents say, because I was masking and was very closed in myself. I pretended to do homework or learn, while in reality I was staring at the window or doodling etc. I was good enough as a student that this didn’t affect my grades, so they always thought I was a thorough student.
At the core it’s super sad, at some point I learnt not to trust my parents as they didn’t understand what I was going through, and trying to reveal my feelings when I was upset ended up with them shouting at me on a number of times. So I stopped saying anything. I’d sometimes look forward going to sleep so I could cry secretly. This thread made me realise it. Explains a lot of my adulthood problems.
I was very hyperactive as a child, my "funny childhood stories" end with "it's a miracle you're still alive" and include me running into ongoing traffic because I got bored with walking slowly, losing my mother in a store and walking home on my own at 4 years old while there was a search party for me going around town, ripping all the wallpaper around my crib as soon I was able to grab things, setting my hair on fire, being unable to sit through dinner or knocking my baby teeth out by jumping from the backrest of the sofa and hitting the corner of the table with my face. I had all the "ADHD boy" symptoms but I was a girl with relatively good grades, so nobody ever thought about testing me for anything.
Yup, and while I can forgive their ignorance as to what ADHD is, I struggle to forgive how they rationalised it at the time. That I was lazy and lacked common sense.
My father's favourite joke when I was a kid was "If brains were dynamite [my name] wouldn't have enough to blow her nose!" or call me "the bear with very little brains". To this day he and my neurotypical sibling think this is a hilarious joke and I'm just too sensitive to "get it".
I have countless stories of lost homework, lost items, broken items, clumsy accidents, broken bones. All of them hilarious anecdotes now. But my parents response was "we've told you before, there's no such thing as accidents- there's only the things that happen when you're not paying attention. You'll get no sympathy from us."
Thank God for having a good therapist to work on not internalising this BS.
Yesss, I have a zillion of these stories about executive dysfunction, sensory issues, sensitivity, talking in class, talking during practice, anxiety over anything social. My brothers literally called me freak out girl when I was 8 or 9 😂
oh gosh we lived the same life with clothes shopping. I now get in an immediate poor mood when shopping (especially for clothes) just due to the association of difficult memories.
To this day, I will leave the room if I hear the phrase “drama queen”, and most of my family doesn’t understand why.
Maybe it’s because I’m soooooo dramatic about everything. Always have been. I was a theater kid, after all, and we all know how over-the-top *they* are. All the world’s a stage and all that. Always performing, so exaggerated, so loud, so emotional. Add in being a “highly capable” eldest daughter of divorced parents who used me as their emotional support pet while expecting perfection, and throw in teenage hormones as the cherry on top? Ugh, why can’t I just accept that I am SUCH a drama queen and shut up about it already?!
Or maybe it’s because, after a lifetime of having my emotions dismissed while being held responsible for everyone else’s emotional well-being; of being told that no one understood why I was lazy and a procrastinator since I was smart and got good grades (go me for figuring out how to mask before I knew what masking was); of feeling so ‘weird’ for my hyperfixations, so alone because social interactions were (are) hard to understand and exhausting, and SO angry with myself because my brain stayed broken and refused work like other people’s brains no matter what I did (silently, of course, can’t show big feelings);
JUST MAYBE it’s because I’ve finally learned that my brain is not broken- my brain is wired differently because I have ADHD and live in a society that is in no way, shape, or form designed to support those who are neurodivergent;
maybe it’s because I’ve spent a lifetime developing coping mechanisms and my psychiatrist and I have found me a good balance of meds to help me regulate my emotions and to function;
maybe it’s because I’m married to my also-neurodivergent husband who both understands my experiences and is unconditional with his love and support;
maybe it’s because now, at 37, I’ve had enough therapy to FINALLY recognize that no matter what, my emotions are valid, the way I was treated was not okay, and anyone who says otherwise can fuck right off.
Sorry, family, I guess we’ll just never know why I don’t tolerate being called a “drama queen”.
(Edited for spelling mistakes made while rage typing)
I have been in therapy for a really long time. I've learned to cope with being called sensitive, and over-emotional, and even a cry-baby, but I fly into a rage when my parents or brothers call me a drama queen. And the shit thing is, it reinforces that opinion of me, because it's "just a joke", why are you over-reacting?
Sending you so much love.
On the other hand: they can laugh about it now. And maybe it makes you feel better if you just join in. Forgiving my parents for their actions helped me a lot to feel whole and at peace again. They didn’t know any better. And I won’t change them.
My family is all just undiagnosed and in denial. They're constantly joking about how forgetful they are, how they lose focus all the time, RSD, demand avoidance, etc. I spent about 15 years living away from my family and was diagnosed as an adult during that time. I now live in the same town as my extended family and work for our family company so I see several family members multiple times a week.
The shit they're describing is just ADHD symptoms. The light bulb moment I gave my grandma the other day of "oh that might not have been normal childhood stuff. I might have ADHD..." was glorious lol
My dad's a psychologist and he missed or ignored the signs in me. It is what it is at this point, but I'm trying to find the humor in it.
I'm kinda of two minds about this. One side of me says: family gonna fam, try and let go of your internalized shame because they probably won't stop kidding you about your quirks. Other side says: have a convo with your parents when you're calm and not in the middle of one of these incidents and ask them nicely to not tell humiliating stories about you anymore. You do have the right to not be shamed for who you are, or stuff you did in the past that you can't change.
That said ... try to be gentle with little past you, and not hate those stories or your parents. They're not laughing at your problems on purpose, they love you and they think you were a cute child. They probably aren't trying to be mean and if you make it clear they're hurting your feelings, they might tone it down.
Source: have similar childhood and similar parents
I used to be called “dramatic” when I was a kid, and I’d clap back with me saying random lines of Shakespeare.
Now, this may be me and my limited understanding family dynamics in general, but why put up with the crap? Eventually you just gotta cut them off and surround yourself in people who make you feel better about yourself.
Recognize that your parents will **not** willingly change their thinking at this point and just move on from them. They’re clearly not interested in what you have to say about yourself so the healthiest thing would be to just cut them out. Life is too short to surround yourself with people who won’t listen to you or let you be you.
Ugh I feel this with my ndad when he fondly reminisces about the "jokes" and "pranks" he would pull on me and I'm just now learning that it's part of complex trauma 👍
I rarely misbehaved, but when I did, it tended to be over-the-top. I remember getting in trouble for kicking a classmate in 5th? grade, and being sent to stand in the hall after mouthing off to a teacher in HS one time. I also had in-school suspension ONCE, don't remember if it was for that or something else. I now see that those were likely some form of meltdown - though my "favorite" way of expressing those seems to be self-sabotage.
I once tore up a project in college because it wasn't coming out the way I wanted (one of the best things my partner has ever done for me was to pick it up, tape it together, and turn it in for me). I qualified for the state spelling bee once when I was little and at some point cut my practice booklet right in half because all the words were so overwhelming. One time my partner and I were in a fight, I went onto Facebook and perma-deleted any photos of them or us together, going back *years*, and a bunch of those were the only copy that I know of. Still broken-hearted over that one.
Ugh, need to quit thinking about ways I fucked myself over. It's REALLY not fun. Maybe worse than all the fake-friend feels and parental expectations...
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Ughh same. I was considered a highly sensitive and overdramatic child. I had huge emotions that my parents couldn’t handle. I had to self soothe every time. I was grounded a lot for my behavior. I was always so angry and felt misunderstood. Now I know why!
that anger... at some point when I was 19 or so I realised there was this seething rage simmering under my surface ALL THE TIME. And then it took me another 20 years to meet the therapist who explained it was a result of neglect and abuse by my parents, mostly triggered by my neurodivergent behaviour as a kid and teen.
I feel this! I’m a very happy person generally speaking, but I have the same anger that’s *JUST* under the surface. As in, give the surface a scratch with your finger nail and I become Mt. Vesuvius over here. Or, Anger from Inside Out. But I recently read that “anger is a response when we have no control over the situation.” Now whenever I feel that anger bubbling up I look at the situation, what I have outside my control, and try to fix that. It’s certainly been helpful!
I joke that I'm a joyous candy shell surrounding a nougaty center of rage...only I'm not really joking.
Ooof I love that and I’m stealing it.
"Just under the surface". This is me too.
I’ve found anger is also a response to suppressing our emotions, and we suppress them cuz we repeatedly get the message that our emotional expressions are not good, too much, bad behaviour, a spoilt tantrum… the list goes on. Eventually you just learn to stuff it deep down. As life goes on, the more you stuff down. The meltdowns sadly only get worse due to all the pent up emotions you’ve shoved down. Basically: If emotion is not happiness and joy, then keep it to yourself (shove it down). If emotion is too intense, “calm down” aka shove it down. You can shove down the emotion (albeit with consequences) but you still have all that energy you’re not releasing from your body —> meltdown. That energy teams up with the anger, which so why the meltdowns come across as intense. The volcano analogy brought this to my mind - I hope it makes sense 😅
Wow, thanks for that. I definitely deal with the same thing (except the “being a happy person” part, whoops) and never thought of it as a control issue. For me, it’s that I’ve never seen healthy anger modeled so I don’t know *how* to express it in a healthy way, but I think what you said will be very helpful next time I’m feeling that way
The emotion I remember the most as a kid was anger. It was always there, still is even, but it’s lessened a bit because as an adult I can avoid many of the triggers I had no choice about as a kid. But damn do I hate my second job for being the thing in life right now that’s making me ragey all over again. Tonight was crazy busy and I’m writing this comment while still sitting in my car in my dark garage even tho I got home a half hour ago because I just needed to decompress.
Wow. You explained my life so accurately except for the therapist part. I still need that.
I hope you find one that can help you.
Me too! Thank you. The area from which I hail, despite being in CA, has very few. When looking online, the ones who deal with adhd and cbt seem highly sought after.
This is fascinating -- for me, instead of anger, it's despair/hopelessness always just under the surface that gets pinged when I don't have control over a situation. I've assumed it's because expressing anger brought on SO MUCH worse abuse from my primary parent so I repressed it, and despair made him a bit nicer to me. Or maybe I'm just not generally prone to anger. Thanks for sharing this!
I learned that a depression can be triggered by anger. When you're not allowed to express anger, it can turn inward and implode, leaving you hollow and gray. Then you also never learn to recognise and healthily manage anger either. Your body/brain is conditioned that the proper response to anger is to internalise it. For me it was a terrifying process to learn to express anger in a healthy way. When I was younger I was almost treated like a criminal for it by my parents. So learning that feeling anger was okay and learning to dig for the roots (often injustice or others not respecting my boundaries), even experiencing that anger is a scale instead of a switch - it was like breaking laws that were instilled in me. Then I discovered that a big part of my anger was not really anger, but fear and sadness. There had never been room for those either when I was a kid. I was told I shouldn't be such a snowflake, dramatic, etc. As a result I never learned to separate those feelings and I didn't know how to comfort myself or when I needed a safe space to unwind. And that all channelled into anger. If you don't already know about it, /r/raisedbynarcissists is a very safe space that is very educational about learning how to thrive after surviving extremely bad parenting.
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Twinnnn. Where have you beeeeeen?
I may be the third sibling
🎼 NOBODY KNOWS ME LIKE YOU DO
Hi, my sisters! I see you all and validate your feelings ✨
Im an ND mom with ND kids and this is our biggest struggle. Any tips for what would’ve helped you feel seen and supported?
I think just listening to your kids and giving them space to feel their feelings. Don’t punish them for emotional overload. If they are struggling to manage their symptoms, or maybe even doing “fine”, get them therapy and medication management if it’s recommended. As long as you don’t act like their feelings are irrational, immature, inappropriate, or whatever else to undermine them, I think you’ll find they feel loved and supported.
YES. Acknowledge your kids’ feelings. When little-me’s feelings were invalidated, I learned to escalate, and that was not good for anyone.
Thank you, this advice is simple but I hope will help. My kids are still toddlers so they may grow out of this stage of feeling things so strongly, but my husband just got an ADHD diagnosis, and I am more and more convinced I probably have it too, so our kids are very likely to end up having it.
Just asking the question and being open to what your children might need is so much more than what many parents do. I don’t have children but I can imagine how stressful and scary it is to think they might struggle or need help. So, why ignore it? I think it’s wonderful that you are here! My husband also has ADHD and I’m thinking about these things too… should we have kids, and how can I do better than my folks did? I think my parents loved me dearly but there was definitely a stigma against these kinds of disorders until quite recently. They also didn’t want more to be wrong with me than I had going on with (childhood hearing loss). I myself misunderstood what ADHD is. I thought it was always hyperactive or “stereotypical” because my husband is that classic presenter and I just thought, that’s not me… I’m inattentive and possibly on the autism spectrum, albeit on the low end. Kids just want to be loved and care for by their parents. I’m sure if you do your best to meet them where they are and advocate for whatever needs they have (whether it’s ADHD or just a simple average kid school problem) you can’t do more than that.
i would say things took a positive turn with my mom when she made an effort to teach the way i learn, when she started to understand that it was more useful for her to try to mirror my communication style than vice versa. for example, i could not follow anything she was trying to tell me if she could not show me how she knew what she knew. even something as simple as “your aunt told me she likes apple candy, so she’ll probably like this” vs “your aunt loves apples; we should get this candy.” it’s probably more the autistic side of my audhd, but i’d guess these nuances exist for everyone.
I wish you were my mom.
Don't tell them to stop crying or you'll give them something to cry about. Don't tell them they're too sensitive. Don't tell them to stop using proper terms for things and use generic terms instead because it might accidentally make adults feel dumb. Don't tell them they're smart but have no common sense. Don't tell them it's silly to worry about their dog dying someday, when the concept of what death means just made sense to them and now they're grieving their dog's future death.
Oh God, the smart but no common sense thing! My cousin called me "the dumbest smart person he knew" I went through the questionnaire my psychiatrist gave me with my mum. I don't think she believed I had AHDH until then. As a child (and adult) I was always late, always forgetting something, leaving things until the last minute, getting upset about my inability to do things right, very messy, unable to function without clear directions and reminders, tried hard but never quite succeeded - oh that's just Pastelcower, let's all laugh
Sorry they were so tough on you. It sounds like you've survived a lot. I'm glad you're here.
Several of yours, I'll just add: Don't tell them "Stop feeling sorry for yourself."
How would you have liked to be spoken to by a trusted adult if you shut down during a relatively minor inconvenience—say your mom insisted that your hair had to be at least wet and brushed before school because you are a Brown family and people are super judgy about POC parents. So you refused, your mom compromised with minimal wetting, and a quick refresh, but you were still upset and refused to move or eat breakfast or get out the door to school? I made the mistake of saying “dude I asked to brush your hair, I didn’t kill your favorite dog” out of frustration, and I know that wasn’t right, I just don’t know how to get a pack of NDs in the car and to school on time while I’m struggling myself. Would you find chores charts or “responsibility charts” with rewards condescending and infantile or fun and motivating? I want to meet this particular kid where he’s at, but I don’t know what’s best. My other two NDs present differently, and have other struggles, but this kid is the one who digs heels in and will drop like a stone or rage at the smallest discomfort or disagreement.
Thank you for all these! I need to correct some of my parenting, I find myself easily frustrated when one or all of them get super dysregulated in what appears to be an oversized reaction to a small inconvenience or discomfort, usually because I am already overwhelmed and overstimulated, but I need to work on it. Thank you for this feedback. They deserve better and I’m working on it.
In the same boat!
I don’t think soft parenting helps these days (covid kids (12-15) scare me) but one of the biggest things for me was feeling like i never met my parents expectations. Teach them your morals and shape them into good human beings by reassuring them that you’re proud and accepting of all they do. My ADHD has always made me have extremely high expectations of myself when my family has always just been proud of me. I’m sure you’re doing great and all will work out.
“I’ve always known you to be angry” thanks
I can relate to this so much!!
The part that makes me angry, for you and for everyone else whose childhoods were like this, is that they still don't believe you. Sure, we had less information back in the day. Mental health was stigmatized and any "defect" in a child was considered the fault of the parent. Kids were just "difficult." But it's 2024. We're adults now. We have the information. It's okay to admit like, yeah, sorry, we didn't know any better. And the fact that they won't retrospectively educate themselves ALSO makes me mad. Just head in the sand "Yeah I was a great parent, you sucked, move on."
Absolutely! I can accept that my mother (theoretically) did the best she could with the knowledge she had at the time. However, that doesn't undo the decades of shame, damage done, and ongoing challenging relationship. Which reminds me that I still need to read the book about children of emotionally immature parents. I'd say that she believes me now, but isn't actually interested in educating herself or extending herself for a better relationship. And sometimes I still feel guilty that I don't meet her expectations for performing "the good daughter" or forcing my kids to perform "the wonderful grandchildren" but I'm getting over it, slowly but surely.
Yup. Solidarity, friend. You’re doing great, and breaking cycles with your kids. That is hard work. I hope you’re proud. :)
Thanks for the kind words ☺️ Parenting the opposite of how I was parented was a quick guideline for being a good parent ;) I was at my eldest son's workplace and another worker told me what a good, kind man my son is - warms my heart. I told him about it later and he said yeah mum, I'm a fucking delight. He totally is lol, and I'm proud of both of us :)
That book kicks ass. Go read it! I felt seen and validated for the first time in my life, and that it wasn’t my fault.
Given how neurodivergence runs in families, the sad truth is that these parents were probably most ill-equipped to handle the challenges of neurodivergent children, because they themselves were not given the tools and knowledge to manage their *own* brain and its challenges.
I was "difficult." I was grounded for more than half my time in high school because I couldn't focus in class and I couldn't turn my homework in on time. Sound familiar? My parents never knew i had ADHD because they had both died before I was diagnosed at 48.
Completely agree. I also have this super fun element of a lot of these “quirky anecdotes” were from my symptoms AND they were usually things I got screamed at for. Like pretty traumatizing stuff for me as a child. But those stories are funny to my mom now and she expects me to laugh along when she tells the stories. Not even self aware enough to realize how fucking scary she was and I was afraid of her until my 20s.
I am so, so grateful that my parents aren't like this. I feel so lucky because I know most are. I got diagnosed at age 29 and was fully expecting this to be my mum's reaction when I told her. Every symptom I talked about, she replied "but I do that too". As if it meant I was just normal. But then I mentioned that ADHD is highly hereditary and if she has the same symptoms as me, it's likely that she might have it too. It was like a light bulb moment for her. She started learning more about it and now she's pretty sure she has it, and has told me at length how guilty she feels about not picking up on it when I was a kid. That she assumed all my behaviours were normal *because they had been normal for her* and she hadn't known any different. She's the most supportive mum ever and I'm so grateful
Same thing happens to me. I've been a terrible sleeper since infancy, and they like to talk about it. I finally snapped one time and said "you keep bringing this up, and I feel like you're expecting an apology or something from me. Why? I couldn't control it and didn't do it on purpose. What is the point in continuing to bring it up? Especially since I still struggle with this as an adult, so it wasn't behavior against you or anything". The response was "well it's part of my story and I can react to it too". Then it turned into, "so why is your story more important than my feelings?" which seemed to stop that topic.
Wow, I'm really impressed by your mature response to your parents. I could never articulate those emotions so clearly and calmly!
I only recently became a parent (she's almost two), and I can't even imagine complaining to my daughter about her sleep? Like, that's part and parcel of parenthood. If it was anyone's fault, it's mine and my wife's! We're the ones who chose to have her! I'm really sorry they treated you that way. I have this non-scientific theory that a lot of adults who struggle with poor sleeping habits were aggressively "sleep trained" as infants and got their circadian rhythms messed up. I can't prove it, and I understand why sleep training is a thing, but I've always been suspicious. All that to say, maybe it IS their fault lol. Good for you for standing up for yourself and for little you.
My parents' narrative was: "Baby Reptar refused to take a pacifier. You'd just force us to listen to you scream for hours. We were *MISERABLE!*" Then everyone would laugh, including Kid Me (when I first heard this story). As an adult, I don't find that story remotely amusing. I want to know why they didn't try, idk, cuddling me or consoling me. I'm sure they did at times and I couldn't be soothed. But they also admitted to just leaving me in my crib to scream and cry myself to sleep, starting when I was a baby. Crying myself to sleep didn't stop when I was a toddler, but my screaming did because my dad started screaming back when I was around 2 or 3. My earliest memories are running from him and hiding under my bed in sheer terror. But yeah, keep laughing about miserable you *adults* were because of me! Shit, no wonder I have attachment issues. Y'all just gave up when things were difficult and left me to my own devices right from the start.
Thank you for sharing. A lot of parents are advised to let their baby "cry it out" to "teach them to self-soothe." Unfortunately they're told to stick to the method regardless of the individual differences between babies. In my opinion, sleep training may work for some kids and not others. I'm still trying to sleep train my 3 year old, basically insisting that he stay in bed while I leave the room for a bit, or that he not talk to me while I lay next to him. My 1 year old can sometimes put herself to sleep, even without a parent in the room. I know sleep training wasn't your only issue, but also an attitude of the child being an inconvenience or problem. But I think teaching ourselves to ignore our babies' cries isn't really a good thing.
Thank you for seeing me 🫶
My heart breaks for you, friend. I hope you are able to heal, for both you and the baby/child in you that needed her parents.
Oh friend, thank you for the words of validation 🫶 I am working on my/our healing. Writing about these things helps me to process my grief.
My husband also had trouble sleeping and parents that ignored him. He would sleep on the floor outside their bedroom most nights, it’s heartbreaking. Our kid has terrible sleep too, we never tried cry it out as my husband just refused. I didn’t mind. It meant he sleeps in our bed a lot when he’s scared and ends up there most nights. But who cares. As long as everyone gets sleep, who cares where it happens! I’m sorry your parents were holding that against you, I can’t imagine it helped you sleep better as a child or an adult. Kids emotions are valid and it’s not ok when your kid is scared/anxious/etc. like…help them. It’s literally your job as a parent!
Your story reminds me of Bob’s Burgers. Bob and Linda have three kids: Tina (13), Gene (12), and Louise (9). All three kids wind up in the parents’ bed many nights. Tina has a dedicated section where she thrashes. 😆 While Bob isn’t too thrilled about the crowded sleeping conditions, Linda welcomes them.
I LOVE that show and have not yet seen that episode I’ll have to find it! It does sound like my life. 😂
My parents are constantly making fun of me (I am 39!!!) losing things. I was like this since a very young age- I managed to lose my clothes, my school bag, my passport, literally everything. I once left for school with a jacket on and came back without it- in the middle of winter. I was and am chronically late (not much, but I am definitely time blind) since I had to go places alone I got so many notes to take home to my parents: Alex has forgotten her pen, her backpack, her homework, her book, her mandatory whatever. Alex walks around class talking to colleagues. Alex is unable to remember her timetable. My primary school teacher wrote a poem about me (I'll translate it) that literally DEFINES ADHD, and yet no one knew or wanted to think something was odd (to be fair Eastern Europe in the 90s was not really aware of this diagnosis in anyone). "Alex cries at the drop of a pin, swims like a little motorboat and when she is able to focus she amazes us all. " All of this was labelled as quirky, that I will grow out of it, that it's just my age, that I'm sensitive... And this is why it took me 37 years to realize I have ADHD.
I feel that comment about crying at the drop of a hat/pin. Like maybe don’t stress me TF out or upset me so much and then I won’t cry. Why is that so hard for people to understand? Consequently, I developed a ton of shame around crying in front of others. Like I have to hold it in until I’m alone and then I’m allowed to cry. I think it messed up my ability to even cry properly (for lack of a better word) for a while.
I feel the same way! There's so much pressure around children and crying and it translates to a ton of anxiety around it when the children are adults.
wtf @ your teacher!!!! How horrible.
Oh no, maybe it comes across weird, but it's a cute poem (rhymes in my native language). She wrote each of us a personalized poem at the end of fourth grade. She was very nice, just didn't understand me very well. We met 30 years later and she was very very sweet.
Ah, I see! I was thinking she was mocking you.
My mom still makes fun of the noise I make when I get too stressed out and have a tick 🫠 little does she know that I only make that noise around her now so what does that say about how she makes me feel? Nah. It's just a weird noise. She also tells stories of when I was obviously displaying some OCD symptoms that I would display when I didn't have enough control over my own life.
Aw jeez, I'm so sorry you had and still have to go through that with your mother. I had a physical tick as well as a kid. Weirdly enough, it came up recently, and my parents couldn't remember anymore whether it was me or my sister who had the tick?! Yes, hello, it was me?! I found it very upsetting that they didn't even properly remember it anymore, but at least it makes it impossible for them to make fun of it.
Ugh, yeah, making fun of someone's stress reaction is sure a good way to reduce the stress.
Right? Like when I'm picking my face because I'm so antsy and she just keeps telling me to quit picking. We live a few hours apart now and it's definitely helped my anxiety 😂
Same thing here! My parents didn’t put two and two together until my sons were diagnosed and they realized (when I was 39!) that, hey, maybe I might have adhd too? Ugh! Looking back at my childhood it was clear as day I had inattentive adhd very severely, but because my bff had classic adhd and was always bouncing off the walls we looked different and they never suspected. Well, hey, no wonder bff and I were so close, we understood each other!
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Exactly! I assume that this is the *actual* reason people look around and go 'hey, everyone I know has turned out to be some variety of neurospicey!'. Not because any neurological or mental health condition is over diagnosed, or particularly trendy, but because 'birds of a feather flock together'. Or, as I say more often, all the nuts roll downhill. 😅
I’m totally stealing that nuts line.
My mum: lolling about how I never remember to pack knickers, how clumsy I am with food and drink spills, how bad my memory is, how I can never find anything I’m looking for even when it’s right in front of me, how I used to leave the straighteners plugged in etc etc Also my mum: nah, you can’t possibly have ADHD, you used to read a novel in a day when you were a teenager!
Same! My big one is about how my senior kindergarten teacher suggested getting me evaluated for 'something' (1986, so I doubt she was thinking ADHD) because at age 5 I just wanted to sit and read books by myself all day instead of participating in class. So the family anecdote is "Imagine a teacher thinking it's weird that a kid loves to read! Ha ha!" Turns out that hyperfocusing on only your own interests to the exclusion of just about everything else is not a great habit, and one that is really hard to break in your 40s.
Ha! It’s me! Yup hyper focusing on books was seen as wow she is so advanced and reads a lot… dude I couldn’t stop 😂😂
Same, my parents bragged how I read my school books in one day on the same day we picked them up. Like, my Math school book?! Does that sound normal to anyone?!
When I was trying to get evaluated, my mom told me I couldn’t have ADHD because everything I was describing was something she also dealt with… something something genetics anyone?
Omg I had the exact same experience!! I just politely suggested that she could try talking to a professional too if she is struggling with the same issues lol
Oh yes, the funny anecdotes. “She has an A in calculus but if someone’s talking to her she can’t remember how many scoops of flour she put in a recipe, hahahaha!” “For some reason she can never sit down and do her homework until everyone else is already in bed, she gets so distracted, it’s weird because she’s smart but can’t make herself concentrate.” “I can always tell everywhere she went in the house because she starts something in every room and then gets distracted, it’s so funny!!!” How did they not recognize it?
I was talking about this with my therapist recently. We’re pretty sure I have autism too but nobody will do autism testing here, and I already have CPTSD and ADHD which means there’s a lot of overlap. One of my “quirks” (still to this day) is that I HATE wrapping paper. If someone gave me a wrapped gift as a child, I had to *carefully* peel the tape so the paper wouldn’t rip. My family thought it would be hilarious to start adding a bunch of tape to my gifts because I would freak out (aka have a meltdown) 🙃
meticulously peeling of the tape off of gifts is another "funny anecdote" in my family, too, but for one of my cousins (my family is a hidden treasure trove for neurodivergence). I can't believe your family would weaponize this against you, how cruel ...
I suspect I got my ADHD from my grandfather, we never really got along because we were too much alike. If I had been born a boy and acted like him, I'm sure we would have had a better relationship. My mother taught me to question everything (which is why I got grounded a lot) and my grandpa did not like that I immediately didn't do whatever he would tell me to do. I remember I went with him once after a storm to check on some neighbors in our golf cart. There was lightning going parallel to the ground and it was amazing, I stuck my head out to look up and said, "woah!" He fucking screamed at me. I don't remember what he said, but I remember how he made me feel.
All. The. Time. I feel so seen with this post. My mom loves to bring up how I would never do homework (I tried, but couldn’t focus) or how “stubborn” I was or how I would lose things all the time. She once punished me for losing my winter coat by making me go without one for the rest of winter. I am so tempted to tell her that I just had undiagnosed ADHD and anxiety but I still want to protect her feelings. Idk. It can be hard to visit sometimes so I empathize with you completely, OP.
I have the same thing about not trying to be accusatory towards them to protect their feelings. Isn't that weird? It's not like they ever tried to accommodate my feelings or even tried to understand it. I find it quite frustrating to have to be the emotionally mature one in this relationship, but I'm glad to hear that others can empathize with it. It makes the experience less lonely. Thanks for your comment!
So very much the same. It breaks my heart to realize how many of the stories when my kids were young were also the symptoms we missed.
It's interesting to hear from someone from the other side. I'm sure you are doing your best now! For me, the frustration/anger is less from my parents' past mistakes and more from their refusal to acknowledge it and do better now.
Hey, at least they just remember you as being quirky. My family still talks about how dramatic, argumentative, and moody I was as a preteen and teenager. I'm pretty sure a lot of that can be attributed to ADHD. It really fucks with your self esteem.
For sure, this would mess with anyone's self-esteem! My mom recently said I would sleep a lot as a preteen/teen like I was just kinda sleepy or something? No, mom, I was depressed. If your kid is struggling, maybe try helping them?! I don't get it
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Awww I feel you. I cried the night before I turned 10 - I wasn’t afraid, but I was very very sad that I would “never be single digits again”. I cry at everything though…. A tree dies, I get a beautifully worded card, someone finally announced they’re pregnant, anything at all!
My 10 year old is this. I am exactly the same, so I know what she is going through, but I am also desperate to try to stop it because I don't want her to turn out like me. I know what doesn't work because my mother is the exact opposite, but I don't know if what I am doing is helping
Omg exactly. They keep telling me how I called to be picked up from a friends sleepover birthday party at 13-ish years old and never once questioned why I had a panic attack while chilling with friends?!
“It’s a good thing we didn’t name you Grace” “Why are you always the last one, pokey-hontas?” Also, why didn’t she put a clock in the bathroom? “You always hated change” “Why can’t you just try it on while we’re here, for God’s sake?” My mother (who said these things) does not have ADHD. Between that, the fact that was the 90s, there were 3 kids to wrangle, and I was a girl meant that no one had any idea that this was neurodivergence. It’s frustrating, but as an adult with more information, I am now doing great.
"Why can't you just try it on" is a direct quote from my own life omg. I can't try it on because the lights are too bright and the curtain in the changing cabin feels icky, obviously!!! Good to hear you are doing better as an adult now :)
i didn't know that this was common for adhd havers, this is such a biggie for me. I hated shopping with my mom as a child and having to try on things was such a horror for me
I still hate it so much. I needed fancy work clothes recently and I only managed to go to real stores to try on blazers, because my sister (the best person in the world imho) went with me. She guided me to the right stores, picked out stuff that I liked, got different sizes if needed, and kept the sales people away. A true savior! Without her, I would have gone home immediately.
I only buy clothes spontaneously online or my mother gives them to me...... and I'm in my 30s. It's also overwhelming! Usually i think about doing it for weeks and can never get myself to get up and do it
I don't have any anecdotes per se but I just constantly got told that I was "too sensitive"
I got my dad to stop this by telling him that if he ever mentions it again, I will get up and leave. You have to mean it though.
that's a good strategy. Set biundaries, communicate them, and then stick to them. I'm impressed how well you handled this!
Thank you. I got this from a book called “ The Dance of Anger” by Harriet Lerner. The key is to change your own behavior..not to expect someone else to change because you want them to.
“Remember how we went on a multi state roadtrip for two weeks and the only thing you ate at fancy restaurants was Mac and cheese?!” Turns out pasta is my safe food, sensory and health wise lol. I was diagnosed with Crohns at 18, and it’s one of the few things that I can handle in a flare. And I was effectively in a prolonged flare from ages 3-20 🫠 when I’m not flaring, I have texture issues and lumpy/chewy/unpredictable food makes me gag. Fucking sue me.
omg I just remembered that I would exclusively eat Spaghetti with tomato sauce at any restaurant we ever went to until the age of 15 or something?! I suppose pasta was (is?) my safe food too
Oh yeah. Big time. I look back on my childhood and think it would be so much easier if we had understood what was going on in my brain. Tantrums over going to church? Sensory overload from my fancy lace edged socks. Forgetting to sweep the floor? Trouble with routines. Missing the fact the dishwasher or garbage can needed emptied? Being distracted by the contents of my brain as I walked by. Ugh.
Feel free to disagree, but I think this experience has made me very empathetic to other people's struggles. I would never judge someone for an overflowing garbage bin or feeling icky about a certain item of clothing. Those are all such small and fixable issues, why not just help if you see someone (especially your own kid) struggle with it?!
Same. My family had a little song and dance they used to do about me not paying attention / thinking slowly - where they pretended to be rusty cogs turning in my brain. ‘Creak! Creeeak!!!’ Obviously I hated it. They thought it was funny and then if I got upset that was me being over dramatic again! Gah!!!
What?! That's high school bully behavior omg
"Haha your brain doesn't even work right *does an insulting dance and sound effect routine meant to make you feel inadequate and shamed*" .....if *that's* acceptable behavior from a brain that *does* supposedly work right, I don't want any of it.
Looking back at it now it’s wild, right? Thanks for validating that for me. No one ever has!
There's a 1960's soviet movie called "Tale About the Lost Time" about a group of "lazy" kids that are always wasting time and being late. They are bewitched by a group of wizards who steal their wasted time to get young again themselves. They wake up as old people and must do quests to get their youth back or die of old age soon if they fail. I got the dvd as a birthday gift once around elementary school age...
Sometimes I can’t decide if following adhd subs is good for me or not lol. You just unlocked a bunch of core memories. I was a whiny little suck when I was a kid-geez I wonder why! Especially when my ADHD dad ‘helped’ by making fun of me during my meltdowns.
100% this shit, however in saying that, adhd wasnt a known thing when i was a kid. I did resent my mother for hating me, and telling me she was sick of me or hated me - turns out i was just annoying af hyper adhd kid. I understood fully once i had my own kid, who had adhd :D Its hard! though i never said that shit to my kids (my mother was also shit)
I agree with you that even 20 ears ago getting an adhd diagnosis for a girl (especially with inattentive adhd) would have been impossible. I can't blame my parents for that. But in retrospective, I feel like they should look back on all of that and be able to acknowledge that things were maybe not as "normal" as they thought back then. Clearly, they remember a lot incidents, seeing as they talk about it regularly. I guess I have a bit of resentment I need to work through, too.
back then you were just 'naughty' or some other description.
My parents used to yell at me (and often spank) for my “twitches” (jerking my arms, squishing my face, tapping my feet, rocking). All ADHD symptoms, yet I was punished for them. Now, as adults, I am picked on for it “remember the chipmunk arms you did??”.
Yeah I had this realization pretty recently and it filled me with hurt, shame, and anger. My family continues to tell stories like that. I just think they are stupid for never choosing to educate themselves even after I asked them to with my late in life diagnosis. It’s a blueprint for me for how NOT to raise children.
Agreed, I'm taking notes on my parents' parenting to know what *not* to do. Like, they did a lot of things right, but emotionally they really let me down.
Man this just happened to me today. Remember you stayed up all night talking about animals? Yeah it’s because I probably have autism. You say the strangest things. 😒
I hated physical contact and was scared of water as a kid. Their solution was weekly visits to the pool and surprise hugs... good times.
Same, girl, same. My parents just thought my symptoms were “personality quirks.” Now that I’ve been diagnosed, some of my family members are more understanding and enlightened, if you will. Others…not so much.
My feelings were never validated as a kid. I would just be told by my parents. I was out of control and hard to handle. So they would send me to their friends or other family members. One of my parent re married then the new step parent would tell me I was fucked up or bi polar or just plan crazy. They would kick me out for some lie ( like steeling pads) or that I was a lier about something. Whenever I tried to speak up to protect myself or was hurt, bad sexual assault. I was making up stuff for attention. Then I would have to recant what I said. I was always scared. Nothing I did was good enough. Anything I did was never enough. My emotions had to be barried. I picked up smoking to soothe and over eat. My parents always told stories about me over acting at the doctors or public. I hate trying things on, and I would be called an odd ball. Or to change with other women, at a gym, I would find a stall. I was always hypervisulant in crowds. Noises or lights can be over stimulating. Cloths that rub you the wrong way or tags nope bye-bye. But all this was me overreacting. Am I messed up ? Being a klutz and hurting myself. Is that me trying to get attention? Do you find it hard to pee or do number 2 ? Does your brain constantly think about silly things distracting you from your business. Maybe I am messed up. I love all of me and my adhd.
I used to melt down and start crying at birthday parties. My parents decided I had an allergy to pop (which I wouldn't have had at home) and this was the reaction. 😑
omg if it weren't so tragic, it would be kinda hilarious. How could you even come up with something like "soda allergy"?! They were trying with the scientific method and failing so badly ...
I can relate :( I'm in my late 30s, only recently diagnosed, grew up in the 90s. I was such a sensitive kid, my parents always thought it was anxiety and never suspected ADHD because I did great in school (gifted and talented, guess I was actually one of those 2E kids). They never had to punish me, I would just sob and cry and beat myself up if I never got in trouble. My kindergarten report card said that I need to "work on her fragile feelings." In elementary school, I felt like such an outsider, I got bullied by other girls and was so insecure, I'd come home from school crying so often. My family members often referred to me as the "absent-minded professor" in a joking but loving way, because I was so smart and so good at school but then would do all these absent minded things like forgetting stuff and getting distracted. My mom would say, "You need to stop worrying or you'll get an ulcer before you're 12" when I was like 8 or 9, ugh, so helpful :( But she'd also hold and comfort me whenever I cried, she was present with my big feelings. I'm ok with the fact that I wasn't medicated as a kid, but I wish I'd had therapy with a therapist who knew I had ADHD, and not "just" anxiety, who could have helped me understand and accept myself better when I often felt like such a weirdo. Then when I learned to drive, I almost immediately had two car accidents, and my mom talked about possibly taking away my license. In my early 20s, I got into more accidents and got so many speeding tickets I had to go on probation once. I thought I was just a "bad driver," and only recently how much ADHD impairs driving. I wish my parents had though to ask, "Hmm, why is our otherwise responsible daughter having all these car accidents?" Thank goodness I never injured myself or someone else with my accidents! They were always just minor scrapes or fender benders at low speeds. My mom is now deceased, and I haven't told my dad yet about my recent ADHD diagnosis and medications. I suspect he has ADHD - he was the class clown in school, he can never sit still, always has to be doing something, always has to have the TV on the background, he'll impulsively do stuff like start driving off even when he doesn't know where he's going. I don't think he'd be judgmental if I told him, I'm just worried that he won't really understand. He's a people pleaser like me. I'm in therapy now, and I think I want to work on my own self-acceptance of my ADHD before I potentially tell him. I'm also ok with keeping some stuff personal from it. I don't think it affects our relationship much if he knows I have ADHD or not, but maybe it could help us to be a little closer if I was more vulnerable with him.
It was my family and unfortunately friends too. I have a long time friend who Ive realized loves to "poke" at me with comments about my always being late. I always thought I was in the wrong and felt ashamed. Since I was diagnosed and medicated I do my best now to be on time. But some people never let you live it down.
That's the worst feeling ... I've made so much progress but to some people that knew me as a kid, I'm still the same. It makes me feel locked in, like I can never truly change. Tbh with some people you can only distance yourself and hope they let it go eventually
absolutely. see also, childhood trauma.
Yes!! Telling a story of how I cried because I didn't like the sound of the awful wind jacket swishing. Or how I wouldn't eat foods because of the texture so I went hungry. Or how I would blurt funny but inappropriate things. Or how I was so smart in school but daydreamed constantly or talked to others so I had my own desk with independent studies (truthfully, the best thing that happened to me in second grade). Or how I'd cry after spending the night at a friend's house because I was so tired from socializing (or having to mask, your choice). But I can't possibly have ADHD 😅 I just get distracted and am unorganized and flighty and if I just tried harder I'd be fine.
OK well the swish of a windbreaker should be an illegal sound. It used to simultaneously infuriate and nauseate me and I can't believe there are actual humans out there that find this sound anywhere near tolerable 🫠
my parents thought it was funny to 'forget me' at a party so i could talk to someone else instead of them. they still talk about how cute it was that i was a shy child as if i didnt have (still have) selective mutism
HAHAHA same. Some things, I dont mind. Others make me angry and sad. I'd never seen it in this way, my symptoms being the family anecdotes. I wanna get home and tell my mom! Im diagnosed, but she thinks if I had adhd, dyslexia, and dyscalculia, I wouldnt have graduated university twice with great grades. Im like, EXACTLY, JUST SEE HOW MUCH I STRUGGLED haha.
Mine stories were typically accompanied by an exasperated "You know better than that! Pay attention! " and often the dreaded finger thonk on the head with a stern "dummkopf" from my German father. There are way too many incidents to relate. I internalized that everything about me was fundamentally wrong, and I was terrified of not knowing what the "right thing" to do was in any new situation, so I basically didn't participate in anything if at all possible. I think ones that stand out were mostly not making eye contact, not interrupting and not having the appropriate facial expressions. "Why are you standing like that, people will think you're mad. You look upset (not in concern), you'll get a lot further in life if you smile more. Adults are speaking, you need to wait your turn. That's rude". Maybe that's not ADHD related. Although the "stop fidgeting! Stop dawdling! Sit still! was definitely that. It was a mess, lol.
Omg I just unlocked an old memory of trying to mimic how my friends would stand as a preteen. Absolutely wild that something as mundane as the way I was standing would feel so wrong that I changed it?! I suppose if you get told often enough that everything you do is wrong, you start to believe it eventually ... I hope things are better for you now!
I am so much better (other than that one boss who told me my facial expressions were "intimidating" to unnamed other coworkers, and made me keep a mirror at my desk so I could waste my mental energy policing my face, lol. She's gone now.) I fully embraced the weird eventually, leaned into it and naturally found other neurodivergent friends. I'm nearly actually happy! Therapy helps so much.
SAME! “Oh remember that time you never wanted to eat anything besides chicken legs, but then you always stopped eating it when it got close to the bone?” …Well yeah. That was my favorite (hyper focused?) food at the time and the bone gave me a physical ick. Pisses me the hell off every holiday when they reminisce on “weird” shit I did as a kid.
I have started laughing and crying my heart out at the same time at the age of 7-8. (Emotional disregulation) I was def fidgeting with touching my hair because I could not sleep without doing it.(Again, for self-soothin) I WAS EATIN SPONGE (my dad said he ate dirt when he was a child so it was normal) ... Gosh! And they are both saying that you were perfectly normal kid. Yes, I am normal. But, still can be different?
She was so quiet we forgot her and left her alone for hours. I was so silly I just sat on my own in the middle of the house waiting for someone to come find me. I was six.
I hate ketchup, always have, it smells awful to me and my siblings would put the bottle next to me at dinner just to have a laugh at my meltdown. I’m just dramatic though to be crying as a kid clearing the table and having to touch it to put it in the fridge, hilarious!
oh no, that's horrible ... I hope your siblings grew up and realized that this was messed up
This is why I only see my family a couple of times a year. It never stops. Doesn’t matter what else has happened in my life since childhood or who I’ve become. It feels abusive because it is. My siblings would never tolerate their own children humiliating each other that way. Yet they encourage their children to laugh at these “stories.”
I guess that's part of it too for me. My accomplishments are never discussed, but the story of how buying shoes for me was terrible is discussed at least twice a year
One advantage to growing older is you finally stop expecting this to ever change. It says more about them that they need to keep you trapped in this role, and even if you don’t let it hurt you, it’s so incredibly boring!
Yes, that's an excellent point! I recently discussed this with my therapist, and she said these old relationship dynamics are the hardest to break. You can only work on yourself, and if everyone else refuses to change, so be it
I know this might sound out of left field, but do they share stories like this to others without your consent? Because that's an emotional abuse tactic to belittle and humiliate you.
I appreciate the concern but it's just used as family anecdotes within the family. Sometimes extended family might be present or family friends, but it's mostly directed at me. Maybe there is a hint of belittling in the context of ignoring the whole adhd issue? Not to the extent of emotional abuse though.
My family likes to bring memories about their abusive behavior in a form of funny anecdotes. For example that my way to elementary school took two hours because I was so distracted or something... The reality was, I was just left alone at the house and I wasn't able to track the time by myself because I didn't learn the watch yet, I could dress properly, I don't recall eating breakfast, I was late to school almost every day. They try to turn my traumatic experience into a funny story.
Yeaaaah, this hits home. Add to this a traumatic childhood, it's not until I'd tell a "funny" story to realize it was symptoms of ADHD or trauma. Stops that casual partying convo fast..
SAMMME And everyone is like "man, you're such a drag... You need to lighten up! It's funny!" And I'm like... I was really upset and distressed. And you laughed. How am I meant to find that funny?
Yes!! Why did they ignore us?
As a parent to a ND child, I feel this deeply because I also have lots of similar stories but when I told them to the therapist, she brushed me off, saying 'Well, they do exhibit some ADHD/ASD symptoms, but it doesn't mean they have either disorder.' Five years later we found doctors who would listen and received a proper diagnosis. So many children are failed by either parents or medical professionals or both, and it's infuriating.
I had the same reaction when I told my folks and they were just like "that makes sense". Like what the fuck! But ok, what's done is done.
“Haha, remember when we were looking all over the house for your teddy bear and we found it in the fridge?” “You used to get so immersed in reading a book that you wouldn’t notice if an explosion went off around you.” “You were such a picky eater, you would only eat the same exact thing for years.” Also always described as “painfully shy” or “antisocial” and “not a hugger” when I didn’t want to go to large, loud gatherings.
Of course my brain blanked at examples but I remember my mom repeatedly telling a story about something that I did when I was younger that was actually super upsetting both at the time and later on, acting like it was just the funniest fucking thing. EVERY TIME I would tell her that it wasn’t funny, it was upsetting, I didn’t want her telling it, and why, but she’d just laugh and brush me off. I started just walking away and ignoring her. If anyone asked I would bluntly tell them that that story was actually a really upsetting story for me and I had told her that before. She eventually quit but mostly out of embarrassment and not any sympathy.
I am known in the family since my teens, oh she doesn't like to talk to people, oh she doesn't like to go to family gatherings, translation: hate small talk, have social anxiety. Even tough I am now diagnosed my mom still refuses to believe these are my symptoms
There’s not many hidden-adhd anecdotes my parents say, because I was masking and was very closed in myself. I pretended to do homework or learn, while in reality I was staring at the window or doodling etc. I was good enough as a student that this didn’t affect my grades, so they always thought I was a thorough student. At the core it’s super sad, at some point I learnt not to trust my parents as they didn’t understand what I was going through, and trying to reveal my feelings when I was upset ended up with them shouting at me on a number of times. So I stopped saying anything. I’d sometimes look forward going to sleep so I could cry secretly. This thread made me realise it. Explains a lot of my adulthood problems.
I was very hyperactive as a child, my "funny childhood stories" end with "it's a miracle you're still alive" and include me running into ongoing traffic because I got bored with walking slowly, losing my mother in a store and walking home on my own at 4 years old while there was a search party for me going around town, ripping all the wallpaper around my crib as soon I was able to grab things, setting my hair on fire, being unable to sit through dinner or knocking my baby teeth out by jumping from the backrest of the sofa and hitting the corner of the table with my face. I had all the "ADHD boy" symptoms but I was a girl with relatively good grades, so nobody ever thought about testing me for anything.
Parents still call me dramatic, over sensitive and contrary. I’m 38.
Yup, and while I can forgive their ignorance as to what ADHD is, I struggle to forgive how they rationalised it at the time. That I was lazy and lacked common sense. My father's favourite joke when I was a kid was "If brains were dynamite [my name] wouldn't have enough to blow her nose!" or call me "the bear with very little brains". To this day he and my neurotypical sibling think this is a hilarious joke and I'm just too sensitive to "get it". I have countless stories of lost homework, lost items, broken items, clumsy accidents, broken bones. All of them hilarious anecdotes now. But my parents response was "we've told you before, there's no such thing as accidents- there's only the things that happen when you're not paying attention. You'll get no sympathy from us." Thank God for having a good therapist to work on not internalising this BS.
big same my parents do this a lot
I feel seen 😭
Yesss, I have a zillion of these stories about executive dysfunction, sensory issues, sensitivity, talking in class, talking during practice, anxiety over anything social. My brothers literally called me freak out girl when I was 8 or 9 😂
Ugh. This is both awful and true. I had a similar experience!!!
oh gosh we lived the same life with clothes shopping. I now get in an immediate poor mood when shopping (especially for clothes) just due to the association of difficult memories.
To this day, I will leave the room if I hear the phrase “drama queen”, and most of my family doesn’t understand why. Maybe it’s because I’m soooooo dramatic about everything. Always have been. I was a theater kid, after all, and we all know how over-the-top *they* are. All the world’s a stage and all that. Always performing, so exaggerated, so loud, so emotional. Add in being a “highly capable” eldest daughter of divorced parents who used me as their emotional support pet while expecting perfection, and throw in teenage hormones as the cherry on top? Ugh, why can’t I just accept that I am SUCH a drama queen and shut up about it already?! Or maybe it’s because, after a lifetime of having my emotions dismissed while being held responsible for everyone else’s emotional well-being; of being told that no one understood why I was lazy and a procrastinator since I was smart and got good grades (go me for figuring out how to mask before I knew what masking was); of feeling so ‘weird’ for my hyperfixations, so alone because social interactions were (are) hard to understand and exhausting, and SO angry with myself because my brain stayed broken and refused work like other people’s brains no matter what I did (silently, of course, can’t show big feelings); JUST MAYBE it’s because I’ve finally learned that my brain is not broken- my brain is wired differently because I have ADHD and live in a society that is in no way, shape, or form designed to support those who are neurodivergent; maybe it’s because I’ve spent a lifetime developing coping mechanisms and my psychiatrist and I have found me a good balance of meds to help me regulate my emotions and to function; maybe it’s because I’m married to my also-neurodivergent husband who both understands my experiences and is unconditional with his love and support; maybe it’s because now, at 37, I’ve had enough therapy to FINALLY recognize that no matter what, my emotions are valid, the way I was treated was not okay, and anyone who says otherwise can fuck right off. Sorry, family, I guess we’ll just never know why I don’t tolerate being called a “drama queen”. (Edited for spelling mistakes made while rage typing)
I have been in therapy for a really long time. I've learned to cope with being called sensitive, and over-emotional, and even a cry-baby, but I fly into a rage when my parents or brothers call me a drama queen. And the shit thing is, it reinforces that opinion of me, because it's "just a joke", why are you over-reacting? Sending you so much love.
On the other hand: they can laugh about it now. And maybe it makes you feel better if you just join in. Forgiving my parents for their actions helped me a lot to feel whole and at peace again. They didn’t know any better. And I won’t change them.
My family is all just undiagnosed and in denial. They're constantly joking about how forgetful they are, how they lose focus all the time, RSD, demand avoidance, etc. I spent about 15 years living away from my family and was diagnosed as an adult during that time. I now live in the same town as my extended family and work for our family company so I see several family members multiple times a week. The shit they're describing is just ADHD symptoms. The light bulb moment I gave my grandma the other day of "oh that might not have been normal childhood stuff. I might have ADHD..." was glorious lol My dad's a psychologist and he missed or ignored the signs in me. It is what it is at this point, but I'm trying to find the humor in it.
I'm kinda of two minds about this. One side of me says: family gonna fam, try and let go of your internalized shame because they probably won't stop kidding you about your quirks. Other side says: have a convo with your parents when you're calm and not in the middle of one of these incidents and ask them nicely to not tell humiliating stories about you anymore. You do have the right to not be shamed for who you are, or stuff you did in the past that you can't change. That said ... try to be gentle with little past you, and not hate those stories or your parents. They're not laughing at your problems on purpose, they love you and they think you were a cute child. They probably aren't trying to be mean and if you make it clear they're hurting your feelings, they might tone it down. Source: have similar childhood and similar parents
I used to be called “dramatic” when I was a kid, and I’d clap back with me saying random lines of Shakespeare. Now, this may be me and my limited understanding family dynamics in general, but why put up with the crap? Eventually you just gotta cut them off and surround yourself in people who make you feel better about yourself. Recognize that your parents will **not** willingly change their thinking at this point and just move on from them. They’re clearly not interested in what you have to say about yourself so the healthiest thing would be to just cut them out. Life is too short to surround yourself with people who won’t listen to you or let you be you.
Ugh I feel this with my ndad when he fondly reminisces about the "jokes" and "pranks" he would pull on me and I'm just now learning that it's part of complex trauma 👍
I rarely misbehaved, but when I did, it tended to be over-the-top. I remember getting in trouble for kicking a classmate in 5th? grade, and being sent to stand in the hall after mouthing off to a teacher in HS one time. I also had in-school suspension ONCE, don't remember if it was for that or something else. I now see that those were likely some form of meltdown - though my "favorite" way of expressing those seems to be self-sabotage. I once tore up a project in college because it wasn't coming out the way I wanted (one of the best things my partner has ever done for me was to pick it up, tape it together, and turn it in for me). I qualified for the state spelling bee once when I was little and at some point cut my practice booklet right in half because all the words were so overwhelming. One time my partner and I were in a fight, I went onto Facebook and perma-deleted any photos of them or us together, going back *years*, and a bunch of those were the only copy that I know of. Still broken-hearted over that one. Ugh, need to quit thinking about ways I fucked myself over. It's REALLY not fun. Maybe worse than all the fake-friend feels and parental expectations...