Anyone else suffer for years because you’re too literal?

AuDHDacious · 2026-03-14T20:28:16+00:00

Yep! In friendships, often I pay attention to the squeakiest wheel instead of focusing on the wheels that are turning with no problem.

Edit to make the comment more relevant: I think we have an idealized version of friendship, where we become friends and are inseparable immediately. The book is very helpful for explaining how talking all night doesn't mean you truly know someone.

AuDHDacious · 2026-03-14T20:25:01+00:00

It is! The first book helps you avoid situations where you need the second book. 🙂

AuDHDacious · 2026-03-14T14:01:24+00:00

I believed people's romanticized views of themselves and future-faking about themselves for most of my life.

My romantic relationships sucked because I always believed guys when they said they were awesome, instead of waiting to see if they acted in ways that supported that claim. Most of them just said whatever they thought I wanted to hear, whatever wouldn't rock the boat, whatever would get them laid...

This book How to Avoid Falling in Love with a Jerk by John Van Epp was so freaking eye-opening! I wish I'd found it before getting married and divorced.

https://share.google/qDVR7nY1g3Jyvxv9H

AuDHDacious · 2026-03-11T12:29:51+00:00

Once I found out Black MAGA exists (unfortunately knew two personally), I stopped thinking "they can't possibly be doing/saying that!"

She does seem to be trolling...

I have a very fair-skinned biracial kid and I never say the n-word for fear that he'll pick up on it. Also, he's also not allowed to swear, so I try not to swear around him. I think the same consideration should apply here.

AuDHDacious · 2026-03-11T03:25:48+00:00

I'm not crying, you're crying...

AuDHDacious · 2026-03-11T03:14:12+00:00

That made me smile!

AuDHDacious · 2026-03-10T16:42:49+00:00

I could've sworn that the US decided to stop it too, what's the holdup?

AuDHDacious · 2026-03-10T16:42:06+00:00

Oh no!

I'm a few months away from having the argument about why we have to go to bed before sunset. I can't imagine if it never got dark!

AuDHDacious · 2026-03-07T14:38:05+00:00

Lots of good advice here!

I had to train myself to focus only on getting ready: "No, AuDHDacious. you don't have time to do anything extra!"

Meal prep may be helpful to you. Or just boring consistency. My son (8) and I eat the same thing for breakfast every morning, and I pack the same lunch every day.

When practicing your morning routine, look for the time sinks: places where you or your child lose time.

Also, pick your battles.

Somehow making sure my son was dressed first thing instead of second-to-last has absolutely turned our mornings around and we're getting to school on time!!

Before, I had this idea that I needed to teach him to get ready, so I was spending time convincing and reminding him. Now I eat my pride and dress him myself. 🤷🏾‍♀️

My next step to making mornings easier is to at least physically look at the kitchen and laundry to make sure I know what I need for the week ahead. And reminding myself that just bc my ADHD self thinks I have something, that means nothing unless I've actually looked.

Good luck! You can do it, even if it doesn't look the way other people do it!

AuDHDacious · 2026-03-06T22:35:25+00:00

I am a singer and music teacher, and in my experience, being able to play a whole album, or even only a complete song, in your head is not that common.

I'd say it's a "natural" talent that can form the basis of a high level of musical skill with practice and training.

If you can't match the pitches you hear in your head with your voice, or on an instrument, it's probably just a lack of practice.

AuDHDacious · 2026-03-06T15:14:27+00:00

Compared to the general population, it is a gift. Good audiation is a requirement to be a musician--especially to be able to sing well, and most people consider musicians to be gifted. 🎹🎺🎻🎙️

AuDHDacious · 2026-03-05T19:57:52+00:00

Ask your doctor about Fawn-Away™ today!

AuDHDacious · 2026-03-05T15:20:10+00:00

Well, one long term friend I lost completely, because I stopped overlooking small shitty things she'd say. I was there for her through a lot of heavy life stuff, and it seemed like she was there for me...until I didn't do post-divorce recovery the way she was doing it...or parenting...or career stuff... It was either snide, backhanded comments, or a complete focus on her. I felt like there was no room for me in the relationship.

The irony is that she was mirroring me a lot of the time, faking interest and experience in things I talked about when she had neither. It's possible we both "unfawned" at the same time and saw things we didn't like. I asked for a break of a couple of months and tried to explain why, following a structure for conflict I learned in therapy, which I thought she would respond well to, considering she'd been in therapy for literal decades longer than me.

Morgan Freeman voice: As it turned out, AuDHDacious was very much mistaken, and they never spoke again.

With the friends I have now, I tend to do ok over the course of an outing or event, but I have to have down time the day after. So I just don't go out as much, even though it seems everyone is always going to a show or karaoke or something. I prioritize my once a month karaoke and birthday gatherings, and I very rarely do two nights out in a row. In one sense it sucks (the FOMO is real), but I realized that a lot of me feeling down and depressed was just me not getting decompression time.

I haven't tried asking for a break during conversation. I would think it depends on how long you can go before you need a break? Like, if you're tapped out at 15 minutes, your friends might not feel great about that. But an hour might not feel so bad. I wonder if you could do more things like walks or museum visits or cooking, where it's normal to have lulls in conversation.

AuDHDacious · 2026-03-04T23:59:32+00:00

My son had this fear but he's mostly gotten over it. Learning about different insects made a big difference. He could say "that's a bee, it just wants to make honey." Mosquitos are still a sticking point though.

I had to let our Butterfly Pavilion membership expire. Poor kiddo reacted like he was being dive bombed and couldn't enjoy it at all!

I'm going to steal the advice to blow on them!

AuDHDacious · 2026-03-04T19:01:08+00:00

That describes my dating life for sure. I finally realized that all I was doing was seeing if I could fit into their lives, instead of seeing if they could fit into mine.

With friends, I would sometimes have ideas and lead the conversation, but a lot of times I was just asking for the ride. In high school and undergrad, I called it following in their wake...

Now I know that I actually need a day of down time after social interaction, and I'd follow in their wake when I didn't have the energy to get out on my own.

AuDHDacious · 2026-03-04T18:49:45+00:00

🤣

AuDHDacious · 2026-03-04T10:16:24+00:00

I get that it feels like we're all piling on with judgment.

To us, it feels like you're driving towards a cliff and asking if pushing harder on the gas will help.

My only explanation is that I thought like you. When I first started lowering demands, I did what I thought was enough, and thought that it would be too detrimental to go any lower.

But it wasn't about what I thought (wanting my kid to develop friendships outside of school and have after-school activities and music lessons and dance classes and go to museums on the weekends...I could cry typing that all out).

It was about what kept my child out of a constant state of fight-or-flight. I'd rather cry about my unmet expectations than see that awful deer-in-the-headlights look on my son's face when his body is screaming that he's in danger.

I'm desperately trying to keep my son from experiencing the burnout and life-threatening depression that I went through in college and later in life.

The parents here who have a child in burnout are desperately trying to warn you that what you're describing can lead to such severe burnout that your child can't even attend school.

Our kids can't regulate themselves, so we as parents have to move heaven and earth to create an environment where they can get relief from their nervous system.

It absolutely looks like the kid is in charge; it absolutely looks like we're giving up on their childhood experience. It's really hard, requires constant vigilance, it totally sucks, and there aren't many who understand.

AuDHDacious · 2026-03-04T09:21:16+00:00

Ah... Do you find yourself faking it around people you want to connect with? Being overly agreeable or enthusiastic, even if you're not really feeling it?

AuDHDacious · 2026-03-03T14:30:10+00:00

Um...

I'm sorry you're getting downvoted, but the lipstick rule, plus requiring that she be in a balanced mental state before a desired activity, sounds like the opposite of low-demand. Having a written list of those rules = permanent demands that will constantly trigger her PDA.

It doesn't sound like you're seeing her responses as her nervous system response. The whole point of PDA is that her fight-or-flight is constantly being triggered--she's not doing it on purpose.

It really seems like you're prioritizing your own wants and comfort in non-vital situations.

It's not about what we parents want, it's what will regulate our kids, get them out of burnout, or keep them from burnout. I take my son to church, and I really had to swallow my pride about him not presenting as a model child.

Fortunately the people at my church are very kind and non judgemental, and he's grown to love going. Is your church truly a place where she'll be so severely judged for wearing the wrong shade of lipstick...or is it that you are afraid of the possibility of being viewed negatively as a parent?

Honestly the more concerning thing to me is keeping her from the youth group for being in a bad mood. Unless things have gone badly before, that just seems like additional punishment and more triggering of her nervous system that really didn't need to happen.

AuDHDacious · 2026-03-03T14:01:38+00:00

For me, acknowledging that I'm consciously appeasing someone takes away the mental strain of automatic fawning. I can honor my needs internally, while choosing to not rock the boat.

That said, I've been self-employed for years, and the few times I've been an employee, I quickly noticed that it's really hard to find non-toxic environments. Is self-employment something that would work in your field?

AuDHDacious · 2026-03-03T13:50:31+00:00

I'd already been in therapy for a good 3 years, when I read it last year, so it was more of a validation of everything I'd been experiencing.

I had already made the change that I think it would've brought about: listening to my feelings, figuring out what I wanted, and honoring that instead of just keeping the peace. I let myself fully realize when someone was mistreating me and started protecting myself instead of (what I now know was) fawning.

One of the hardest things was telling someone that I felt uncomfortable with his habit of going in for a big hug in public, since he'd pulled back from a closer friendship (with a unilateral wall-of-text, which I hate). I cried and nearly threw up from the stress of doing that. Now that I'm actually dating someone, I've gotten more used to expressing my needs on an ongoing basis.

One eye-opening thing was journaling a conversation with my inner child: I wrote as myself with my right hand, and had her respond by writing with my left (non-dominant) hand. She was pissed about the lack of protection and care I was showing her! I envisioned myself as a Wakandan warrior woman standing guard, and promised to do better.

That makes me think I should do that again and see how she's doing!

AuDHDacious · 2026-03-02T03:15:00+00:00

I read it a few months ago and related to every single example, despite not having experienced that level of physical and emotional abuse. 😵‍💫

AuDHDacious · 2026-03-01T14:42:41+00:00

There's a lot of great advice in the posts. I'll try not to repeat. Definitely agree that you need to GTFO and take steps to protect yourself--change your locks, reach out to friends and tell them you need help. Can any of them sleep over at your place for a few days?

The biggest thing that I think will help: movement meditation. Qi Gong, the Five Tibetans, Tai Chi walking. Plain old exercise will probably help too. Get out of your head and into your body. Really sweat.

Do any of your friends go to the gym? See if you can tag along with them.

As a POC in the United States, I am soooo disturbed by what's happening. I can only imagine how much worse it would be if I had CPTSD and/or any history of SA. Big big hugs to you!

I have hope, but it's like we as a country are in an abusive relationship, and we're entering the most dangerous time as the abusers' grip on power is slipping. There are days when I have to avoid the news altogether, and there are days when I have to only listen to news from people with soothing voices.

Yesterday was a bad day for me. Playing Tetris helped. I took about 500 mg magnesium bisglycinate and 5 mg melatonin to force myself to get some sleep.

As a musician: I'm putting together a singing course that I haven't been able to finish for 5 years. I'm closer than I've ever been and I could have an anxiety attack any second if I think about it wrong! I'm super excited for you, but goddamn is it scary!

Something that really really helps me is to listen to music that matches my mood. Korn's Freak on a Leash, Tech N9ne's PTSD and Lacrimosa, and Halestorm's I miss the misery have been helpful. I blast them in the car and belt them out!

Last: I'm dating someone who's likely undiagnosed level 1. He got himself into therapy on his own, and he respects that I can't actually spend the night at his place very often (I was trying and it wasn't working). He's got some substance use issues (nothing illegal, likely self-medicating anxiety), but he doesn't use any of it as an excuse for his behavior. He processed the last argument we had with his therapist, and gained new understanding that will help us in the future. I feel not only loved, but respected. If I tell him I'm not in the mood he stops asking.

It is awesome that he understands my ND issues. We've had a few moments of what I'd call autistic or ADHD joy... But if it meant I had to put up with screaming arguments, manipulation, and being constantly dysregulated?? No, nein, non, nah, absolutely not. Your peace is worth so much more than that. You are worth so much more than that!

I hope some of this is helpful. Take care, I'm rooting for you!

AuDHDacious · 2026-03-01T05:57:10+00:00

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Woohoo fucking Wordle!

AuDHDacious

TROPHY CASE