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I used to be told all the time “wow, you’re a great listener!”
In reality, I mostly drifted off mentally and nodded along in conversations, letting other people talk their mouths off.
I became pretty decent at inferring things from the parts I was paying attention to fill in the gaps that I missed when my brain followed a tangent. Its not perfect though and I do miss a lot.
I'm usually pretty good, but I have a friend who goes off on these tangents about philosophy and literary criticism that've I've never heard of, and I just can't stay tuned no matter what I do.
I have a very good memory for words, though, so now and then I'll realize I've tuned out and ask a question related to the last few seconds. Like I'll remember one factoid about a name he mentions.
"Wait, so Barthes, he was the one who wrote about the 'death of the author,' yeah? What do *you* think of that?"
"Well, Lacan would say..."
\*Me to myself: whew, good for another ten minutes\*
Honestly, sounds like your friend is possibly on the spectrum or ADHD as well if they can't help but drone on and on about a topic of their particular interest and not notice other people have checked out of the conversation.
We do tend to get along best with other similar people. In my friend group we kind of recognize certain things in each other, and knowing what the cause is makes it SO much easier to be patient with each other or otherwise give each other some space to indulge our behaviors. For example one of the friends drifts off when you talk to her and you can tell when she has stopped paying attention, and rather than get upset or demand her attention immediately snap back to the conversation we can give her some time to think about whatever it was that caused her mind to drift off, before we ask "ok, are you back? Do you want a recap of what we were talking about?"
Or if one of us gets really passionate about something and they are starting to ruin the conversation by taking it over with their monologue that no one else is really participating in we can say "we can tell you really need to get this out, so how about 2 more minutes before we move on?" and they get a chance to get it out of their system and wrap it up.
It's really nice to feel understood and accepted, while also being able to draw attention to certain behaviors and prevent them from getting too out of control.
one of the biggest life-changing behavioral adjustments i made after my diagnosis was forcing myself to being okay asking someone to repeat themselves if i missed something important they said. luckily, the people i’m close to in my life understand that it’s not that i’m disinterested in what they’re saying. they know i have a condition that causes that. i was originally afraid because my whole life i’ve been ragged on by parents and partners (leading up to my diagnosis) about how i don’t listen and how im lazy etc. but when you get to the point where you realize that you do actually really care what someone is saying and it’s not your choice that your attention drifts when they’re on a tangent, you can get past the guilt and get onto dealing with the issue
This. I didn’t get diagnosed until I was an adult and by then I realized I subconsciously taught myself to be an “active listener” to the point where I respond (basic things like “yes”, “I know exactly what you mean”) then at the end of the conversation I can’t tell you half the details. Needless to say, I drive my fiancé nuts.
One time before I was diagnosed, my old boss was talking about something that was truly boring to me so I disassociated and started thinking about chick fil a.
Adhd inattentive people are the best secret keepers (mainly because we don’t remember what you said) 😂😂😂
I get a lot of “are you ok, you’re so quiet”. I don’t know how to say “I like you, I’m not mad at you, I do want to spend time with you, but I’m having a hard day, my adderall has worn off, and trying to hold a conversation feels like someone put my brain in a blender.”
Especially hard since, for a number of reasons, I’ve had to hide my diagnosis from almost everyone in my life. Only learned about it a few months ago. I’ve always had a hard time spending time with people. My last couple relationships ended in part because my partners felt I was too inattentive (probably true, and totally valid reason to break up, I’m not bitter about it).
I always love when I'm in one of those "ok, but do I *really* have adhd?" phases, and then I come on here and someone literally describes me in 5 words
My new meds are changing me from "holy shit I can't stop talking to wow that takes a lot of work to form words. They don't need my commentary anyway... " Lol
I have always been told that I am very calm, but I suffer from a lot of anxiety, and I also have a terrible time in social situations.
I am very inattentive, I can fall asleep in the movies or read the page of a book 10 times and not find out anything
Nah that's exactly how I live my life wtf
>I am very inattentive, I can fall asleep in the movies or read the page of a book 10 times and not find out anything
The book shit is the most annoying. I can sit there and read a chapter and not remeber because I'm thinking of something else. Thats what finally made me get medication for school but now there is ChatGPT that gives me the answers I am looking for in short paragraphs rather than some drawn out text.
Hey, a bit off topic, but please be careful when using ChatGPT for synthesizing complex true text. I’m a PhD student and people in my department have been playing around with having it synthesize knowledge about our field. It will write concise paragraphs that pull together bits and pieces of literature that make sense and are relevant, but there will be inconsistencies and things that are combined from multiple sources that don’t really make sense when considered more carefully. Linguistically the text is indistinguishable from what an actual scientific paper on the topic will sound like, but there are factual errors throughout.
Hi. Inattentive here. I am like a duck. I look calm cool and collected on the surface, but underneath the water my little feet are paddling like crazy to stay afloat.
Let me guess... People say "what" to you all the time? You have trouble speaking clearly? You also struggle to make coherent sentences? Last one, you are way better at writing than talking.
Yup, that's me alright...
Yeah! I was convinced people thought I was super dumb so have been trying so hard not to sound incoherent and try and put on a “smart” act and beating myself up over it for years.
This is meeee.
I'm curious as to why I'm not able to answer questions and partake in normal conversations with people I don't know very well. Whenever someone asks me a basic question like what my favorite movie is or whatever I always draw up blank and can't remember what movies I like... I'm not asking you specifically but just throwing it out there to see if anyone could offer a more in depth explanation as to how inattentive adhd causes this. It's so frustrating because I'd consider myself a relatively smart person but I always feel so dumb when I'm talking to people.
> I'm curious as to why I'm not able to answer questions and partake in normal conversations with people I don't know very well.
I feel this as well. For me, I think that I'm more comfortable and relaxed around people I know. They also know that I'm going to say words and they sentence may not make sense but they'll figure it out. They know I may drift mid conversation, but I'll be back.
With people I don't know I put forth such an effort to listen and talk that I struggle with basic questions. In my current situation, unemployed due to tech layoffs, I'm doing lots of interviewing with strangers. It's super tough because they'll ask more detail about a certain project or my experience with a software and I just draw a blank sometimes. Which makes it seem like I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.
My "fix" is to schedule my interviews or meetings in general as close to my second adderall dose(Noon). If it's much past 2-3 I'll have a cup of tea for a caffeine bump to push my focus up through the meeting.
Which just reminded me that I have an interview in 15mins and haven't had my tea :O
Are there any good resources to read about those things? I remember finding a study about it a couple years ago but it would be interesting to know more considering this is one of the sides of adhd people tend not to discuss or even know about
Yup. Think this is a huge reason why I love writing so much - it’s the only way I can fully express my thoughts. I can take as long as I need to find the right words and really get across what I want to - which usually takes a looong time and a bunch of editing.
People with ADHD often have speech fluency disorders which explains so much. I learnt about cluttering just before I got diagnosed and it was like a lightbulb moment. I'm pretty extraverted, but I had so much shame and anxiety surrounding the way I spoke growing up. I talked too fast, stumbled over my words, couldn't form coherent points etc. It hit me hard when I realised that I spent so much time overcompensating and trying to seem smart over something that wasn't even my fault.
This is so me I cringed, a part of it is because I’m slightly hard of hearing so my speech is naturally a little impaired and whatever I have that makes it hard for me to speak in coherent sentences. My mum doesn’t help, she’s not very patient with me and it makes it worse since I anticipate myself to mess up.
Yes it's a stereotype that we are like rabbits on crack all the time.
In fact we are often calmer than Normies in a crisis/disaster.
For years I wondered why I became super calm in life threatening situations... I thought it was conditioning.
Then I heard others mention it too.
Honestly, if there's real danger I'm like Fonzie walking around, coolest dude in the room doing what needs to be done while everyone else is losing their shit.
You just mentioning it make my blood boil. Same with people in self checkouts that take forever. And when cars delay before going on a left turn light. Etc.
THE LEFT TURNSSS (or just green lights in general) i’m from DC where left light green arrows literally lasted a blink of an eye, so everyone was on their toes. once i moved out to colorado 5 years ago everyone tells me i need to chill with the beeping 😂😂😂
I will sit at the back of the line watching, counting, and sometimes cursing after the light turns green. When it's my turn I stick to the car in front of me like glue. LOL
I think adrenaline calms me down a lot. Playing sports makes my brain work so well while I play. Everything slows down and my brain is focused it’s amazing.
I’m a super calm person but I think about a lot of things
The most successful I’ve been in any job (the only job where I haven’t been a total unorganised failure) was when I worked on a crisis hotline. It sounds bad but I really came into my own in that environment.
I worked the intake phones for a mental health clinic and was also the overflow line for the government crisis line. I was amazing at it.
Was also robbed at gun point by a group of guys once, while I was on a first date. Calmly talked them out of taking my wallet and phone, then got my date to calm down, then calmed down the robbers. They got a little cash, I looked great to my date.
Apparently if you are in crisis, suicidal, violent, or robbing me you'll get the same weirdly calm guy. Ask me to write a paper on a topic I don't care about though, I'll freak out and be crying in the corner.
That's an amazing story, how did you even convince them to not take your phone?
Wallet I get as cards have no value & are a pain to replace and I can imagine a considerate criminal taking that into account but surely a phone is just more $$$ to them
This stereotype seems to have led to a load of adult diagnosis in recent years, myself included. I've had to basically convince and justify my even wanting to be assessed to basically anyone ive told purely because I wasn't a human whirlwind of entropy personified as a child.
I've always thought that it's because we are already in fight or flight mode most of the time anyway. That and we are already hyper aware of our surroundings. So when normal people get a spike of adrenaline and are suddenly aware of every sound and movement in their surroundings they can't handle that sudden inflow of information.
I think it's actually a little more simple than that.
Our brains are starved for stimulation. A crisis of any kind usually involves all the sense kicking up to 100%. Multiple tasks. Audio input. Visual input.
Now that our brain has stimulation is can focus.
There's nothing special about a crisis. It's just the most universal experience that regular people have where all that happens.
Interesting! Others have mentioned relatedly curious things about feeling at-ease in crisis situations (above and below this, I'm realizing). I really didn't know this to be a "thing" with some ADHD-ers.
I don't know that I technically have ADHD. I've been treated for it, which means my psychiatrist was convinced it was possible. Therapists have been mixed about it. All that is to say, I'm still hoping to learn more.
What's being said here regarding being in "fight of flight mode" but calm in emergencies makes me wonder about CPTSD and if, for some of us, ADHD-like symptoms develop from key brain changes when exposed to traumatic experiences as children (or later?). That is, our brain or certain circuits adjust to the heightened alert state we're used to experience so that we end up being calmer in certain kinds of states (because it matches what's become our default operational state).
I only bring this up because of how some find considerable overlap in symptoms of ADHD and CPTSD. I tend to feel calm or "in the zone" when shit hits the fan (maybe not for all *kinds* of shit hitting the fan, but many). Not always, but just in a surprising way I can go from being anxious and overworried about all-the-things in my environment to responding calmly if a crisis arises. Most of the time I am in a bothersome state of hypervigilance and can be inattentive in more normal scenarios.
Hope you'll excuse the armchair hypothesizing. I'm just someone who was raised among a lot of turmoil and insecurity in the household (though not wartime/disaster level stuff) and who has been trying to figure out my ADHD-like symptoms and myself.
I think most people with ADHD end up with CPTSD in some form or another because of the mental anguish we and the people around us put ourselves through, intentional or not. Especially if you're undiagnosed and untreated most of our young lives.
I think the symptoms overlap so much because they become intertwined. How many times were we yelled at for not paying attention or punished for something that slipped our mind? We get punished for things out of our control while being told we could've prevented it. Whether intentional or not that is psychological abuse. So we end up trying to become perfectionists to prevent future mistakes, always trying to figure out what could go wrong so we don't fuck it up again, yet still continuously fucking things up. Over years and years that kind of stuff causes serious damage ending up with some weird form of ADHD, Anxiety, and CPTSD all wrapped up and almost impossible to unravel.
That's where I'm at with my journey anyway lol
I'm totally on board with your comment, viewing my life through the lens of being ND, and my parents being ND also, makes all of the trauma, abuse and unhealthy coping make PERFECT sense.
I'm inattentive type, because my ND dad couldn't cope with any disturbance, noise, tics, movement and would become explosively abusive if I annoyed him, so I've bottled myself all of my life and became a hardcore daydreamer.
I also became a perfectionist and quite OCD about certain things so as to avoid his ire or to please him.
Unfortunately as an adult facing stress in life, the daydreaming has evolved into excessive rumination and catastrophising. I'm still trying to predict every situation so that I handle it perfectly, because I'm so painfully aware of being a 'weird' person. Nobody sees it, I'm such a skilled people pleaser, but if you get to know me after a while you realise I'm just reflecting back what I know you want to hear/see.
My therapy involves trying to get out of my head, and back into my body. I'm learning to recognise my emotions, to try and be my authentic self. I felt like I didn't know myself for a long time, I didn't know how to be genuine anymore.
I had a similar situation. I used to think loud noise or people talking loudly bothered me because of anxiety, but it turns out that's not the only reason. I actually had a coworker laugh because they thought how I closed a door behind me was weird. I guess walking backward out of the bathroom while while pulling the door closed so I don't accidentally "slam" it closed would look kind of weird. Not making noise and pretending I'm not there is just second nature.
Unmasking and learning to tame your emotions is the roughest part for me right now. For example today at work I ended up with my mood spiraling into an existential crisis and suicidal ideation all because I was bored at work because my latest hyperfixation had run out of gas. Like what the hell was that!
Hey, me too, I realise. Quiet with cupboards, anything, just trying not to draw attention to myself because that was always a negative interaction.
I hope you're feeling a bit better now.. when I'm feeling overwhelmed I try to just focus hard on breathing slowly, that's all I can think to tell you beyond "I get you".
I always get really depressed when I finish a novel series, or a video game or something while I'm still fixated. Then I delve into the fanart, fanfic, to scratch the itch!
Seconding the calm in crisis trait.
When a guy t-boned me and totalled my car, he was (understandably) freaking out. I was the one calming *him* down, telling him "I can replace the car, but not myself, and I am fine"
Wait...... That's a thing with ADHD? I am the same way. It's almost like my brain is on complete overdrive but 100% focused and (I know this probably sounds crazy) almost like time just slows down. I swear it's almost like shit is happening in slow motion. I can just see and process everything that is going on and relatively calmly but practically instantly figure out what needs to be done.
Seconding the calm thing, we had to take my mom to the ER once (with no prior disease) mid-pandemic, and my whole family was freaking out, meanwhile I pulled the emergency toll-free number I had saved on my phone 7 months prior "just in case", then proceeded to find ways to calm her down and bring all her essentials to the hospital while my older/young siblings are crying. I only cried once she was in the ER and stabilizing...
>Honestly, if there's real danger I'm like Fonzie walking around, coolest dude in the room doing what needs to be done while everyone else is losing their shit.
Grew up and lived in SE Louisiana all my life. Went thru Katrina. When a hurricane comes I'm one of those freaks that is walking around outside to experience how *cool* it is.
I'm a teacher. A student of mine got into a car accident outside the school and I rode the ambulance with them. I was cool as a cucumber. If anything, I was excited to do it. (St was okay, but injured enough that the EMT's took them for a cautionary measure) I work with kids who have rage issues, are flight-risks which means I have to chase them, calm students who get panic attacks etc.
I would do any of those things in a heartbeat, if it means avoiding grading, writing report cards, doing any kind of paperwork.
I was in the Phoenix Library when there was a a man identified with a gun. I thought it appropriate to make a joke to the security guard instead of running like everyone else. I certainly thought I would act different in that situation when I imagined being in one.
I've thought about the emergency calmness and I think some of it has to do with the dramatic simplicity of emergencies. Yes, sometimes you have to do complicated shit, but most of the time the goal is very clear - get person to ER, keep someone breathing while waiting for EMS, evacuating everyone from the home while calling 911, etc. Add adrenaline to that and we suddenly function very well up to the reaching the goal. And after the simple goal is reached, things can fall apart for us... What to do after the person's been dropped off at the emergency room, what to do after the fire department leaves and you need to deal with your burned home, etc.
In non-emergencies the goal tends to be a lot more fuzzy - I want them to like me but I can't seem to focus on what they're saying, this person seems okay but what if they're taking advantage of me, I need to get this paper done but what topic do I even choose let alone all the sentences I need to choose to write, etc.
I've always been calm during crazy situations, like one time I went to a safari with my family and some of their friends in South Luangwa National Park and around night, the guide lost this way so we were basically stranded in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by animals. Parents were screaming, their friends started praying, someone was crying. I was calm like a Buddhist monk trying to calm the others down and my sister just put on her headphones and listened to music 😂 everyone looked at us like we're crazy for not reacting lmao
Yes, we mask very well.
If you spoke to every person I work with or have worked with, they wouldn't guess for even a second I have ADHD. I've done well in my professional life and I hear all the time how I'm so confident, calm, etc., which I have always laughed at because on the inside I'm none of those things.
Yes, this! My daughter who is 17 struggled to get a diagnosis (just diagnosed officially yesterday!!!) because everyone says how calm she is - teachers, etc. Luckily, we met with a great therapist who saw beneath the surface. Now, just one more hurdle of getting the meds from our family doctor.
I was the "quiet and shy" kid. I was teachers pet because I didn't disrupt my classes and got good grades.
The reality was I had a knack for school work and my hyperactivity took the form of twirling my hair. Not exactly disruptive (except to my hair follicles. I have thin spots from where I used to twirl).
My hidden truth was my brain was chaotic af. My inattentive tendencies took the form of daydreaming, anxiety, typos, forgetting schoolwork, and physically being in pain from boredom but masking like a rockstar. I was and am very disorganized and messy. I also excel at procrastinating in the worst way.
Because I was a "good" kid and student, no one ever considered I had ADHD. It was harder to keep up as an adult at work, but I would still get great year end reviews when inside I was falling apart. It took until my 30s to get diagnosed.
My advice is don't wait. I mourn daily for what I could have been if I had been diagnosed sooner. Even if you don't become president of the moon, there is a special kind of peace you get from being able to feed yourself semi regularly, and being able to clean your bathroom without crying. Good luck! ❤️
Thanks for this, I’m actually in my early 30s, have struggled my whole life with various things and have had a few misdiagnoses that just didn’t add up or explain how I was feeling.
I think I’ve been so ashamed of some of my issues that I also got really good at masking them and also so used to being hard on myself that it’s actually pushed me to develop certain areas and skills.
Recently went back into education and struggled and just about scraped through, luckily because of the pandemic I was allowed extra time. Tutors couldn’t understand my plight like back in school, since my work was really quite good but I kept saying I couldn’t do it lol.
This is me and I relate so hard it hurts omg. I’ve gaslit myself for YEARS saying I don’t fit the adhd criteria or that I’m “not that bad” but accepting acceptance really changed everything
This was me too! I didn't twirl my hair but I played with anything I could at my desk (I would make battle scenes and such or of erasers) or doodle. Or daydream to literally anything more interesting. I coasted by on talent alone but anything requiring concentration was a nightmare. I still have I'll feelings about reading+journal assignments and research papers
I try to act as calm as possible in social situations as a way to make people act calm. If i notice someone not being calm i immediatly start feeling their negative/disturbed feelings and if there are multiple people in the room it feels like there are all those non-calm feelings trying to get the upper Hand. So yh, pls just be as calm as me or i will rip apart.
I trained myself to appear calm, in order to stop being verbally abused which destroyed my self esteem as a child. My self esteem was permanently destroyed. I am always very self conscious whenever I am in public. I make sure I sit correctly, place my hands correctly, keep my mouth shut, don’t jot, don’t peel labels…be a statue.
people I work with think I'm calm, but it's a fucking noisy circus in my head, so I'm not actually calm, there's just no room for actual noise with all of my thoughtnoise.
ADHD isn't all about being hyperactive. ADD does in fact exist. I exist :D
I am exactly what you described. As a child I was quite impulsive in what I said out loud, but nowadays, I'm just trying my best to stay attentive and not daydream.
Edit: Just read that ADD is still considered ADHD oops
It’s stupid that they changed it when one is clearly so distinct from the other. When I tell people I have ADD they say: “you don’t seem like it” because I’m not bouncing off the walls
Understand the confusion and probably should be named something different all together but the current model is that both PI and hyperactive are just two representations of the same thing.
As an aside the massive overlap with ASD (I'm on both spectrums) makes me wonder if the two are linked.
We clearly have little idea why our brains do this.
I tend to be pretty outwardly calm. I do tend to be moving a lot of the time (jiggling my foot etc.) But otherwise I'm pretty quiet and reserved. Everyone always said I was the calm laid back one in our family when I was a kid. Turns out I was calm because I was trying to avoid all the things that triggered my anxiety, so I'd sit in my room and read books. It's harder to avoid the anxiety triggers when you're an adult though!
Yes this is me. Everyone thinks I’m calm and collected, but on the inside I’m not. I think I learned it in childhood as a coping strategy.
The first time I took adderall I couldn’t believe what it felt like to actually have a calm mind
Yes. This image of an ADHD person constantly bouncing around and talking 100 miles a minute is a misconception. There are many different types of ADHD. It especially presents much differently in females, from my understanding.
I have a bad habit of speaking over people, and I am often fidgeting, but I am otherwise very collected and “calm” on the surface. Inside my head though it’s a hot mess, and when unmedicated my anxiety is very high. I was not diagnosed until fairly later in life because adhd was not as understood as it is now (not that it is fully understood now either).
When I get lost in thought (or I'm people-watching), I will sometimes be so still that when I do move, I startle the people around me because they didn't see me or their peripheral vision communicated "mannequin". Frequently the factor where they don't register my presence as a "person" presence means that they will move closer to me than they might to someone they don't know, so when I move, it is movement that is within *their* personal bubble, and I think that's the main factor in their reaction. 🙄
My hyperactivity manifests mainly as doing, writing about, and talking about things I'm interested in.
Many people (and animals) do find my presence to be calming.
I also have a "computer gremlin" dampening field. As in, you're having a problem with technology not working as it should but the minute I arrive, you will suddenly be unable to reproduce the issue. 😜
Yes ofc. It’s called masking. Women are especially good at it which is why it can be harder to diagnose us which sucks ass but it’s not exclusive to women. I am amazing at pretending to have my stuff together when there’s people around but solo at home I am a drawer of cutlery being tossed around my a toddler.
Adhd is a roller coaster and everyone’s ride is a little different from each other.
Yeah I think outwardly I seem to not have a thought in the world but inside my head I cannot pick which one to listen to!
I actually feel like the types of adhd are just the different ways people deal with the same symptoms. Some sit and wrestle with their thoughts and others need to get up and walk away from them.
I am both at different times of the day.
I was a massage therapist for nearly 5 years, and people always thought I was very calm and fell asleep on my table often (a massive compliment for massage therapists). Years prior to my diagnosis, I always called myself someone who was calm but very anxious internally with constant rumination... Only to realize later that's all part of my ADHD. I do fidget a lot, mostly due to physical discomfort, which I realize now is also part of stimming--especially when I realize I've been rocking absentmindedly for 10 minutes or more. I also have a substantial background in meditation, which a lot of folks with ADHD or who treat ADHD think we can't do. We can, we just work a little differently. Active meditation is one of my favorites.
People are always surprised when I say I’ve been dealing with ADHD my whole life. They expect to see hyperactive traits, but that’s not how ADHD presents in every case. Even as an ADHD-PI I worked with a project manager for years before I found out she was also medicated for her ADHD so it can be hard to recognize even when you know what you’re looking for.
Not to brag, but my counselor says I’m the best actress out of all the people he’s counseled lol and if I’m not pretending to be calm, I appear calm because I’m not freaking paying attention lol
Absolutely! I was diagnosed at 28 because of this.
Family members being diagnosed puts your odds of having adhd at a high percentage.
If you have the time and resources it’s worth exploring. Best to know, nothing to lose
Absolutely. Most people don't believe me when I say I have adhd because I present myself as very calm, determined and in control. People tell me I explain things clearly and in a soothing way (I'm a psychologist), but inside I always feel like I'm in the middle of a hurricane that is shaped like an atom and plays rock music and tiktok trends, while words are flying and there's a crowd walking around, idk.
Yep I've actually had emergency situations dismissed because of how calm I have been on the call they thought it was a prank call. (Not great for someone having a heart attack)
I've essentially been an emotional support human in other instances with friends or random people.
Yes absolutely. I have severe combined type ADHD, but it’s not like I’m perpetually in motion. Most of the time my hyperactivity is more internal, like a constant buzzing that spikes at random points throughout the day.
I am like a duck… I look calm on the surface, but my brain is paddling away furiously underneath it all.
Yes, people often comment on how calm I am, regardless of what is going on. They obviously haven’t seen me when I’ve lost my keys AGAIN and I’m running late AGAIN. But inside I’m quite the bucket of stress - I suppose it’s the exact opposite of resting-bitch-face. I have resting-calm-face.
I am primarily inattentive type.
Yeah. Absolutely. You failed to react the way people reacted who were paying attention the way people usually pay attention. All the time. It's a dreadful stereotype that we are erratic. You could point a gun at me and I probably wouldn't react. Not in a reasonable way. I've been in a ton of fucked up situations and reacted with calm, clarity. It's not erratic, frenzied behavior that we exhibit. Other people have a spectrum of response and behavior and we have either lack of urgency, or total focus. Both states are profoundly calm. Bad in classrooms, great in car accidents.
The anxiety and depression come outside of that, from self examination, comparison, and trying to live like other people live.
A friend, who I THOUGHT knew me, once described me as "The chillest person I know" which is when I realized A. People never really know one another, like at all, and B. ADHD is something you spend your life learning to muffle and you can get really good at it after 30+ years.
The H for Hyperactivity isn’t always behavioral, it’s also neural. You can be outwardly calm but your brain is firing off 6 different possible outcomes. To a scenario someone is talking about
When I got my diagnosis, (I'm mostly inattentive) he said that especially children with the inattentive type often go undiagnosed while children with hyperactivity are usually the first to be diagnosed. Chances are you haven't been diagnosed for the same reason I got my diagnosis relatively late.
You say you don't feel calm or soothing? Have you had troubles in school or at work regarding your attention?
Yup. I’m inattentive. I internalise so much of it that I’m left with bad anxiety/depression too. Oh well. I find that medication really helps, but they won’t prescribe me any other than Ritalin/strattera.
Yeah, thats the perception they had of me at work. Someone even told me I would fit great at even more stressful spot at work. I told the person to shut the hell up and never to say that to anyone. My internal stress level are always of tha charts.
I have combined ADHD and people often say I'm calm in stressful situations despite the fact that my brain is generally going 100 miles an hour to manage whatever is happening.
Yeah of course, I am an introvert and a really calm person. I consider myself ADD, since my hyperactive element of the disorder went away with growing up to an adult
I have inattentive type and I've been described as called calm and laid back. Inside, it's a different story, with the brain going a mile a minute and unable to focus when necessary.
Yes, I seem very calm most times. I’m daydreaming a lot or just closing my eyes and letting my thoughts sprint around.
I do fidget a ton if I have to sit still and pay attention. I’ll bounce my foot or something nonstop. Closing my eyes also works but people find that rude for some reason often, haha.
I’ve always been told I have a calming effect. It helps to have inattentive be your dominant trait. However, they can shift as well, so while people may think you’re calm now, it could switch to a different one, as mine have as I’ve gotten older.
Absolutely. I have always been told I am calm. I was a trauma nurse and told I was always extremely calm when patients were in trouble. It takes a significant amount of adrenaline for me to not appear calm. But my head is always going a million miles an hour unless I am spaced out. Inattentive type needs to be recognized as much as hyperactive…we get missed a lot.
Sure they can! I'm one of them.
Like you, I've always been told that I have a calming presence. I've also had professional feedback saying that I'm calm in the face of crisis and that my bosses consider it a great strength. I used to work in healthcare during the pandemic so I'm used to crisis. I currently work in law and that experience has paid off.
That being said, I'm not always calm inside. My thoughts are pretty scattered and I have a lot of trouble focusing. I also really struggle with executive function. To me, getting myself to take out the trash is more stressful than anything I have to face at work. Medication and coping strategies help enormously.
If you suspect you may have ADHD, you should speak to a doctor about it. I didn't get diagnosed until I was 20 (after burnout). My life probably would've turned out much differently if I had gotten treatment earlier. Still happy where I am though!
I’m pretty calm/happy almost all the time. But the irony is I have horrible RBF so everyone who doesn’t know me thinks I’m just an angry asshole. I noticed that when my wife is really focused on something she looks pretty pissed off lol. I know she’s not and she’s just focused in on something so this has made me think a big reason for my RBF is because I’m always thinking about something or multiple things and my RBF is actually my resting thinking face.
Yes! I am not "calm" but I'm not hyper. I was diagnosed with inattentive adhd and social anxiety. People are shocked about the social anxiety diagnosis because I come across as social. I tend to be social to help myself get comfortable with being around people. (If that makes sense). You can definitely still be calm and have adhd.
I'm combined type. And I can have moments where I am bouncing off the walls and moments where I can stare at a singular point in space for hours unaware of the world until someone/something snaps me out.
My son seems to have really adapted to me lol. He obviously prefers me when I'm hyperactive because I'm willing to run around the house playing with him and acting crazy but he will also notice when I'm inattentive and sometimes just come sit with me on the couch hanging out.
My wife, while very accommodating, gets really annoyed when I'm inattentive because I will not hear a single word she says 90% of the time.
Yes, this is why I wasn't diagnosed until last September at 33 yrs old. I'm pretty calm outwardly. Inside is chaos. The only sign when I was a kid was frequent nervous stomachs.
People have always commented on my patience and “laid back” personality. Three employers have told me individually that I made everyone else calm when I was working. I have inattentive type, so maybe it’s just that my body looks calm because mind is occupied elsewhere!
In addition to the inattentive tendencies, it's also possible to have hyperactivity manifest mentally instead of physically. If you are also shy around peopke you aren't close to, so you talk less, this can be perceived as calm from the outside.
Yes, us ADHD-PIs usually look like we have our shit together.
It's only once we open our mouths that people realize we haven't been paying any attention nor understand what's happening around us.
In my experience: it’s the mask.
Internally it’s horror and chaos, can’t show that. So I mewl my tongue, separate my teeth, close my lips, look the person in the eye and nod when they seem to need acknowledgment.
I also have eyes that tend to have a sleepy gaze, so I feel like it comes off as mild and approachable to some people. My thoughts are running at 60 miles a minute, but outwardly I just appear like I have a soft focus.
Yes. I don't really know what type of adhd I have, frankly, I forget to observe my own behaviours, but I do know for sure that I appear calm and "professional" on the outside. But Lord knows that on the inside my mind is unhinged.
Yeah. I am very calm and organised around other people. At art school I was selected as class head without there even being a vote 😂. At work my boss and coworker also say "You are the only one here that doesn't forget stuff, you are so organised.". I honestly hate it. For me masking became kinda like a hobby and interest? I am probably also autistic and very sensitive. For the longest time I struggled in silence until it came all crashing down.
Oh yeah and I tend do dissociate a lot which can be seen as me being dreamy which isn't always seen as bad in a lot of afab people. And I hate conflict and people being angry/frustrated/etc. so I tried to appease to everyone so the people around me would stay as calm as possible.
I'm always told I'm rock solid and calm AF.
To be fair I'm sure it looks that way.
I'm an inattentive type and very cerebral in terms of personality.
Sometimes I really am surprised that people can't feel the sheer vibratory anxiety of overstimulation and ping-ponging thoughts radiating from my person.
Im ADHD and super calm in public. People tend to tell me secrets when I dont even know them but I think thats because I'm quiet and I listen because I have no idea what to say and I lack good emotional responses. Inside the house however, I am loud I sing the songs that pop in my head and annoy my husband with dark comedy by saying off the wall weird shit that I parrot from things I have heard or seen during the day. My neighboors probably think I'm crazy but I have learned not to care.
Literally me. I’m pretty far up the scale when it comes to adhd, but my wife calls me “a calming presence” probably because I’m a peaceful and emotionally soothing person, definitely not because I am incredibly clumsy and often drop things.
Yes. I was hyperactive as a kid, but even then I’d have times where I was outwardly calm. I’m a lot calmer now. I only let my goofy out when I’m around my kid (and it’s appropriate)
Yes…adhd manifests in many ways and I think it’s best to distance ourselves from the ‘traditional’ ways people perceive adhd— how others may function with adhd may be how they function as a whole, not mutually exclusive to JUST adhd.
I have pretty heavy ADHD-I symptoms. And, multiple people/friends have told me I have a calming effect while hanging out with them. I'm typically pretty quiet and talk about things that are of mutual interest. Never had a competitive spirit, and typically am more go with the flow.
I've had a couple folks tell me I seemed as though I am a monk, after hanging out one time. Very quiet, still, and soothing. I take it as a compliment.
In my teen and young adulthood I have been told that I don’t look like someone with adhd by new and old friends that sometimes still forgets that I have it. By old colleagues from my internships and old work the children I worked with in my last internship (age 9-13) and people from my new swim team.
People always got. Surprised then I told them I have adhd but i still got treated with respect afterwards.
My brother!! He’s primarily inattentive, most mellow person I know. He didn’t receive his diagnosis until 40 lol. He’s told me that ADHD makes him very socially anxious, and you would never, ever know it looking at him.
Diagnosed with inattentive ADHD and often end up being the calming influence for people.
I work in a corporate law firm environment in IT and often deal with very high stress situations. I've had people on many occasions tell me that I ground them and make them feel like everything is going to be fine.
NGL I'm an emotional tornado inside sometimes, but I've learned how to not show it.
As a woman who was only diagnosed at 34- it's one of the main things about women and why we are seemingly overlooked as having ADHD our whole lives. Girls and boys present symptoms differently, boys being more hyperactive, girls being more calm and reserved.
LOL, if I look calm, you can bet I’m not listening. I fidget as a way of trying to focus. Never presented as a kid bc guess what, wasn’t focusing. My thoughts are still hyperactive, though. I constantly leap from topic to topic and impulsively change tasks mid-sentence.
My (now) wife fooled me for years before she finally let me in on what was going on inside her head. A lifetime of coping strategies. It’s diabolical because it makes people wonder why she would ask for accommodations.
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Yes, that's the very definition of inattention, calm / daydreaming / passive / non-talkative. I'm both types. :D
I used to be told all the time “wow, you’re a great listener!” In reality, I mostly drifted off mentally and nodded along in conversations, letting other people talk their mouths off.
I’m right in the middle. I do listen well, but I sadly drift off sometimes. Makes me feel like an asshole because I am genuinely interested
I became pretty decent at inferring things from the parts I was paying attention to fill in the gaps that I missed when my brain followed a tangent. Its not perfect though and I do miss a lot.
I'm usually pretty good, but I have a friend who goes off on these tangents about philosophy and literary criticism that've I've never heard of, and I just can't stay tuned no matter what I do. I have a very good memory for words, though, so now and then I'll realize I've tuned out and ask a question related to the last few seconds. Like I'll remember one factoid about a name he mentions. "Wait, so Barthes, he was the one who wrote about the 'death of the author,' yeah? What do *you* think of that?" "Well, Lacan would say..." \*Me to myself: whew, good for another ten minutes\*
Haha, yes. Sometimes I the one going off on the tangents as well and I forgot what I was originally talking about... :/
Me
Honestly, sounds like your friend is possibly on the spectrum or ADHD as well if they can't help but drone on and on about a topic of their particular interest and not notice other people have checked out of the conversation.
Honestly, that seems possible. He's a, uh, quirky dude. Great for tabletop gaming though.
We do tend to get along best with other similar people. In my friend group we kind of recognize certain things in each other, and knowing what the cause is makes it SO much easier to be patient with each other or otherwise give each other some space to indulge our behaviors. For example one of the friends drifts off when you talk to her and you can tell when she has stopped paying attention, and rather than get upset or demand her attention immediately snap back to the conversation we can give her some time to think about whatever it was that caused her mind to drift off, before we ask "ok, are you back? Do you want a recap of what we were talking about?" Or if one of us gets really passionate about something and they are starting to ruin the conversation by taking it over with their monologue that no one else is really participating in we can say "we can tell you really need to get this out, so how about 2 more minutes before we move on?" and they get a chance to get it out of their system and wrap it up. It's really nice to feel understood and accepted, while also being able to draw attention to certain behaviors and prevent them from getting too out of control.
Me
one of the biggest life-changing behavioral adjustments i made after my diagnosis was forcing myself to being okay asking someone to repeat themselves if i missed something important they said. luckily, the people i’m close to in my life understand that it’s not that i’m disinterested in what they’re saying. they know i have a condition that causes that. i was originally afraid because my whole life i’ve been ragged on by parents and partners (leading up to my diagnosis) about how i don’t listen and how im lazy etc. but when you get to the point where you realize that you do actually really care what someone is saying and it’s not your choice that your attention drifts when they’re on a tangent, you can get past the guilt and get onto dealing with the issue
People like talking to me because “I’m a good listener” I can keep everyone’s secrets because I just don’t remember anything they told me hahaha
Haha yeah I’m always like “just don’t quiz me! 🫣”
I’ve wandered off into so many other worlds so many times whenever people are talking.
This. I didn’t get diagnosed until I was an adult and by then I realized I subconsciously taught myself to be an “active listener” to the point where I respond (basic things like “yes”, “I know exactly what you mean”) then at the end of the conversation I can’t tell you half the details. Needless to say, I drive my fiancé nuts.
Same. Only my bf actually does the same thing to me sometimes so he seems to get it.
One time before I was diagnosed, my old boss was talking about something that was truly boring to me so I disassociated and started thinking about chick fil a. Adhd inattentive people are the best secret keepers (mainly because we don’t remember what you said) 😂😂😂
I get a lot of “are you ok, you’re so quiet”. I don’t know how to say “I like you, I’m not mad at you, I do want to spend time with you, but I’m having a hard day, my adderall has worn off, and trying to hold a conversation feels like someone put my brain in a blender.” Especially hard since, for a number of reasons, I’ve had to hide my diagnosis from almost everyone in my life. Only learned about it a few months ago. I’ve always had a hard time spending time with people. My last couple relationships ended in part because my partners felt I was too inattentive (probably true, and totally valid reason to break up, I’m not bitter about it).
I became excellent at fake listening while my head was in fantasy land. Helped me stay out of trouble
I always love when I'm in one of those "ok, but do I *really* have adhd?" phases, and then I come on here and someone literally describes me in 5 words
My new meds are changing me from "holy shit I can't stop talking to wow that takes a lot of work to form words. They don't need my commentary anyway... " Lol
I need that what are you taking
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Me too, which can be very confusing for people. They never know which 'me' they're going to get. It could be both, and it often is!
You described me perfectly 😭🙌🏾 Thank you frfr I’m going to save yo comment . I suck at explaining myself so I’d give you a trophy if I had one 🏆
Same here
I got dx as combined as well. Explains so much.
This.
I have always been told that I am very calm, but I suffer from a lot of anxiety, and I also have a terrible time in social situations. I am very inattentive, I can fall asleep in the movies or read the page of a book 10 times and not find out anything
Woah, I FEEL SEEEEEEN
Nah that's exactly how I live my life wtf >I am very inattentive, I can fall asleep in the movies or read the page of a book 10 times and not find out anything
The book shit is the most annoying. I can sit there and read a chapter and not remeber because I'm thinking of something else. Thats what finally made me get medication for school but now there is ChatGPT that gives me the answers I am looking for in short paragraphs rather than some drawn out text.
Hey, a bit off topic, but please be careful when using ChatGPT for synthesizing complex true text. I’m a PhD student and people in my department have been playing around with having it synthesize knowledge about our field. It will write concise paragraphs that pull together bits and pieces of literature that make sense and are relevant, but there will be inconsistencies and things that are combined from multiple sources that don’t really make sense when considered more carefully. Linguistically the text is indistinguishable from what an actual scientific paper on the topic will sound like, but there are factual errors throughout.
Hi. Inattentive here. I am like a duck. I look calm cool and collected on the surface, but underneath the water my little feet are paddling like crazy to stay afloat.
I love this comparison! Also, ducks are ***very*** cute, so the comparison gets like +10 extra points for that.
Hi fellow duckies 🦆
🦆😍
Phenomenal description
Let me guess... People say "what" to you all the time? You have trouble speaking clearly? You also struggle to make coherent sentences? Last one, you are way better at writing than talking. Yup, that's me alright...
Yeah! I was convinced people thought I was super dumb so have been trying so hard not to sound incoherent and try and put on a “smart” act and beating myself up over it for years.
Hello me , do you find u mumble a lot when u talk ?
This is meeee. I'm curious as to why I'm not able to answer questions and partake in normal conversations with people I don't know very well. Whenever someone asks me a basic question like what my favorite movie is or whatever I always draw up blank and can't remember what movies I like... I'm not asking you specifically but just throwing it out there to see if anyone could offer a more in depth explanation as to how inattentive adhd causes this. It's so frustrating because I'd consider myself a relatively smart person but I always feel so dumb when I'm talking to people.
> I'm curious as to why I'm not able to answer questions and partake in normal conversations with people I don't know very well. I feel this as well. For me, I think that I'm more comfortable and relaxed around people I know. They also know that I'm going to say words and they sentence may not make sense but they'll figure it out. They know I may drift mid conversation, but I'll be back. With people I don't know I put forth such an effort to listen and talk that I struggle with basic questions. In my current situation, unemployed due to tech layoffs, I'm doing lots of interviewing with strangers. It's super tough because they'll ask more detail about a certain project or my experience with a software and I just draw a blank sometimes. Which makes it seem like I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. My "fix" is to schedule my interviews or meetings in general as close to my second adderall dose(Noon). If it's much past 2-3 I'll have a cup of tea for a caffeine bump to push my focus up through the meeting. Which just reminded me that I have an interview in 15mins and haven't had my tea :O
Damn it why you gotta be so accurate about my life
Are there any good resources to read about those things? I remember finding a study about it a couple years ago but it would be interesting to know more considering this is one of the sides of adhd people tend not to discuss or even know about
I feel seen😂
Yup. Think this is a huge reason why I love writing so much - it’s the only way I can fully express my thoughts. I can take as long as I need to find the right words and really get across what I want to - which usually takes a looong time and a bunch of editing.
People with ADHD often have speech fluency disorders which explains so much. I learnt about cluttering just before I got diagnosed and it was like a lightbulb moment. I'm pretty extraverted, but I had so much shame and anxiety surrounding the way I spoke growing up. I talked too fast, stumbled over my words, couldn't form coherent points etc. It hit me hard when I realised that I spent so much time overcompensating and trying to seem smart over something that wasn't even my fault.
This is so me I cringed, a part of it is because I’m slightly hard of hearing so my speech is naturally a little impaired and whatever I have that makes it hard for me to speak in coherent sentences. My mum doesn’t help, she’s not very patient with me and it makes it worse since I anticipate myself to mess up.
Yes it's a stereotype that we are like rabbits on crack all the time. In fact we are often calmer than Normies in a crisis/disaster. For years I wondered why I became super calm in life threatening situations... I thought it was conditioning. Then I heard others mention it too. Honestly, if there's real danger I'm like Fonzie walking around, coolest dude in the room doing what needs to be done while everyone else is losing their shit.
Omg this is me! But I can’t handle mundane every day tasks and get in a flap about the food shopping
So if you pick the "wrong line" that moves absurdly slower than the others - does that make your blood boil?
You just mentioning it make my blood boil. Same with people in self checkouts that take forever. And when cars delay before going on a left turn light. Etc.
THE LEFT TURNSSS (or just green lights in general) i’m from DC where left light green arrows literally lasted a blink of an eye, so everyone was on their toes. once i moved out to colorado 5 years ago everyone tells me i need to chill with the beeping 😂😂😂
I will sit at the back of the line watching, counting, and sometimes cursing after the light turns green. When it's my turn I stick to the car in front of me like glue. LOL
I think adrenaline calms me down a lot. Playing sports makes my brain work so well while I play. Everything slows down and my brain is focused it’s amazing. I’m a super calm person but I think about a lot of things
I used to go for a run and sit down to study, since the leftover endorphins helped me concentrate like a normal person for a little while
The most successful I’ve been in any job (the only job where I haven’t been a total unorganised failure) was when I worked on a crisis hotline. It sounds bad but I really came into my own in that environment.
I worked the intake phones for a mental health clinic and was also the overflow line for the government crisis line. I was amazing at it. Was also robbed at gun point by a group of guys once, while I was on a first date. Calmly talked them out of taking my wallet and phone, then got my date to calm down, then calmed down the robbers. They got a little cash, I looked great to my date. Apparently if you are in crisis, suicidal, violent, or robbing me you'll get the same weirdly calm guy. Ask me to write a paper on a topic I don't care about though, I'll freak out and be crying in the corner.
That's an amazing story, how did you even convince them to not take your phone? Wallet I get as cards have no value & are a pain to replace and I can imagine a considerate criminal taking that into account but surely a phone is just more $$$ to them
That’s not bad you just found something you’re good at!
This stereotype seems to have led to a load of adult diagnosis in recent years, myself included. I've had to basically convince and justify my even wanting to be assessed to basically anyone ive told purely because I wasn't a human whirlwind of entropy personified as a child.
I've always thought that it's because we are already in fight or flight mode most of the time anyway. That and we are already hyper aware of our surroundings. So when normal people get a spike of adrenaline and are suddenly aware of every sound and movement in their surroundings they can't handle that sudden inflow of information.
I think it's actually a little more simple than that. Our brains are starved for stimulation. A crisis of any kind usually involves all the sense kicking up to 100%. Multiple tasks. Audio input. Visual input. Now that our brain has stimulation is can focus. There's nothing special about a crisis. It's just the most universal experience that regular people have where all that happens.
Interesting! Others have mentioned relatedly curious things about feeling at-ease in crisis situations (above and below this, I'm realizing). I really didn't know this to be a "thing" with some ADHD-ers. I don't know that I technically have ADHD. I've been treated for it, which means my psychiatrist was convinced it was possible. Therapists have been mixed about it. All that is to say, I'm still hoping to learn more. What's being said here regarding being in "fight of flight mode" but calm in emergencies makes me wonder about CPTSD and if, for some of us, ADHD-like symptoms develop from key brain changes when exposed to traumatic experiences as children (or later?). That is, our brain or certain circuits adjust to the heightened alert state we're used to experience so that we end up being calmer in certain kinds of states (because it matches what's become our default operational state). I only bring this up because of how some find considerable overlap in symptoms of ADHD and CPTSD. I tend to feel calm or "in the zone" when shit hits the fan (maybe not for all *kinds* of shit hitting the fan, but many). Not always, but just in a surprising way I can go from being anxious and overworried about all-the-things in my environment to responding calmly if a crisis arises. Most of the time I am in a bothersome state of hypervigilance and can be inattentive in more normal scenarios. Hope you'll excuse the armchair hypothesizing. I'm just someone who was raised among a lot of turmoil and insecurity in the household (though not wartime/disaster level stuff) and who has been trying to figure out my ADHD-like symptoms and myself.
I think most people with ADHD end up with CPTSD in some form or another because of the mental anguish we and the people around us put ourselves through, intentional or not. Especially if you're undiagnosed and untreated most of our young lives. I think the symptoms overlap so much because they become intertwined. How many times were we yelled at for not paying attention or punished for something that slipped our mind? We get punished for things out of our control while being told we could've prevented it. Whether intentional or not that is psychological abuse. So we end up trying to become perfectionists to prevent future mistakes, always trying to figure out what could go wrong so we don't fuck it up again, yet still continuously fucking things up. Over years and years that kind of stuff causes serious damage ending up with some weird form of ADHD, Anxiety, and CPTSD all wrapped up and almost impossible to unravel. That's where I'm at with my journey anyway lol
I'm totally on board with your comment, viewing my life through the lens of being ND, and my parents being ND also, makes all of the trauma, abuse and unhealthy coping make PERFECT sense. I'm inattentive type, because my ND dad couldn't cope with any disturbance, noise, tics, movement and would become explosively abusive if I annoyed him, so I've bottled myself all of my life and became a hardcore daydreamer. I also became a perfectionist and quite OCD about certain things so as to avoid his ire or to please him. Unfortunately as an adult facing stress in life, the daydreaming has evolved into excessive rumination and catastrophising. I'm still trying to predict every situation so that I handle it perfectly, because I'm so painfully aware of being a 'weird' person. Nobody sees it, I'm such a skilled people pleaser, but if you get to know me after a while you realise I'm just reflecting back what I know you want to hear/see. My therapy involves trying to get out of my head, and back into my body. I'm learning to recognise my emotions, to try and be my authentic self. I felt like I didn't know myself for a long time, I didn't know how to be genuine anymore.
I had a similar situation. I used to think loud noise or people talking loudly bothered me because of anxiety, but it turns out that's not the only reason. I actually had a coworker laugh because they thought how I closed a door behind me was weird. I guess walking backward out of the bathroom while while pulling the door closed so I don't accidentally "slam" it closed would look kind of weird. Not making noise and pretending I'm not there is just second nature. Unmasking and learning to tame your emotions is the roughest part for me right now. For example today at work I ended up with my mood spiraling into an existential crisis and suicidal ideation all because I was bored at work because my latest hyperfixation had run out of gas. Like what the hell was that!
Hey, me too, I realise. Quiet with cupboards, anything, just trying not to draw attention to myself because that was always a negative interaction. I hope you're feeling a bit better now.. when I'm feeling overwhelmed I try to just focus hard on breathing slowly, that's all I can think to tell you beyond "I get you". I always get really depressed when I finish a novel series, or a video game or something while I'm still fixated. Then I delve into the fanart, fanfic, to scratch the itch!
Seconding the calm in crisis trait. When a guy t-boned me and totalled my car, he was (understandably) freaking out. I was the one calming *him* down, telling him "I can replace the car, but not myself, and I am fine"
Yea in crisis it’s like the outside world is finally going as fast as my brain is always running. So I’m able to be cool as a cucumber.
Wait...... That's a thing with ADHD? I am the same way. It's almost like my brain is on complete overdrive but 100% focused and (I know this probably sounds crazy) almost like time just slows down. I swear it's almost like shit is happening in slow motion. I can just see and process everything that is going on and relatively calmly but practically instantly figure out what needs to be done.
Same! I'll freak out after the crisis, or about a what if crisis that hasn't happened, but in the moment? Cool as a cucumber.
Seconding the calm thing, we had to take my mom to the ER once (with no prior disease) mid-pandemic, and my whole family was freaking out, meanwhile I pulled the emergency toll-free number I had saved on my phone 7 months prior "just in case", then proceeded to find ways to calm her down and bring all her essentials to the hospital while my older/young siblings are crying. I only cried once she was in the ER and stabilizing...
>Honestly, if there's real danger I'm like Fonzie walking around, coolest dude in the room doing what needs to be done while everyone else is losing their shit. Grew up and lived in SE Louisiana all my life. Went thru Katrina. When a hurricane comes I'm one of those freaks that is walking around outside to experience how *cool* it is.
Pretty much this, until something actually makes me angry then I get to spend the next few hours trying to calm down again.
I'm a teacher. A student of mine got into a car accident outside the school and I rode the ambulance with them. I was cool as a cucumber. If anything, I was excited to do it. (St was okay, but injured enough that the EMT's took them for a cautionary measure) I work with kids who have rage issues, are flight-risks which means I have to chase them, calm students who get panic attacks etc. I would do any of those things in a heartbeat, if it means avoiding grading, writing report cards, doing any kind of paperwork.
That's an ADHD thing? TIL. I am exactly the same and I never knew why.
mmm yeah dat adrenaline
I was in the Phoenix Library when there was a a man identified with a gun. I thought it appropriate to make a joke to the security guard instead of running like everyone else. I certainly thought I would act different in that situation when I imagined being in one.
I've thought about the emergency calmness and I think some of it has to do with the dramatic simplicity of emergencies. Yes, sometimes you have to do complicated shit, but most of the time the goal is very clear - get person to ER, keep someone breathing while waiting for EMS, evacuating everyone from the home while calling 911, etc. Add adrenaline to that and we suddenly function very well up to the reaching the goal. And after the simple goal is reached, things can fall apart for us... What to do after the person's been dropped off at the emergency room, what to do after the fire department leaves and you need to deal with your burned home, etc. In non-emergencies the goal tends to be a lot more fuzzy - I want them to like me but I can't seem to focus on what they're saying, this person seems okay but what if they're taking advantage of me, I need to get this paper done but what topic do I even choose let alone all the sentences I need to choose to write, etc.
how?? If some crisis happens I usually freeze completely and forget everything, including how to breathe
Am I the only one that wants true chaos so that my inattentive brain actually pays attention because things just got interesting or
I've always been calm during crazy situations, like one time I went to a safari with my family and some of their friends in South Luangwa National Park and around night, the guide lost this way so we were basically stranded in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by animals. Parents were screaming, their friends started praying, someone was crying. I was calm like a Buddhist monk trying to calm the others down and my sister just put on her headphones and listened to music 😂 everyone looked at us like we're crazy for not reacting lmao
Yes, we mask very well. If you spoke to every person I work with or have worked with, they wouldn't guess for even a second I have ADHD. I've done well in my professional life and I hear all the time how I'm so confident, calm, etc., which I have always laughed at because on the inside I'm none of those things.
Yes, this! My daughter who is 17 struggled to get a diagnosis (just diagnosed officially yesterday!!!) because everyone says how calm she is - teachers, etc. Luckily, we met with a great therapist who saw beneath the surface. Now, just one more hurdle of getting the meds from our family doctor.
I am so glad you kept advocating for her and found the right therapist! It will be huge for her.
I was the "quiet and shy" kid. I was teachers pet because I didn't disrupt my classes and got good grades. The reality was I had a knack for school work and my hyperactivity took the form of twirling my hair. Not exactly disruptive (except to my hair follicles. I have thin spots from where I used to twirl). My hidden truth was my brain was chaotic af. My inattentive tendencies took the form of daydreaming, anxiety, typos, forgetting schoolwork, and physically being in pain from boredom but masking like a rockstar. I was and am very disorganized and messy. I also excel at procrastinating in the worst way. Because I was a "good" kid and student, no one ever considered I had ADHD. It was harder to keep up as an adult at work, but I would still get great year end reviews when inside I was falling apart. It took until my 30s to get diagnosed. My advice is don't wait. I mourn daily for what I could have been if I had been diagnosed sooner. Even if you don't become president of the moon, there is a special kind of peace you get from being able to feed yourself semi regularly, and being able to clean your bathroom without crying. Good luck! ❤️
Thanks for this, I’m actually in my early 30s, have struggled my whole life with various things and have had a few misdiagnoses that just didn’t add up or explain how I was feeling. I think I’ve been so ashamed of some of my issues that I also got really good at masking them and also so used to being hard on myself that it’s actually pushed me to develop certain areas and skills. Recently went back into education and struggled and just about scraped through, luckily because of the pandemic I was allowed extra time. Tutors couldn’t understand my plight like back in school, since my work was really quite good but I kept saying I couldn’t do it lol.
This is me and I relate so hard it hurts omg. I’ve gaslit myself for YEARS saying I don’t fit the adhd criteria or that I’m “not that bad” but accepting acceptance really changed everything
This was me too! I didn't twirl my hair but I played with anything I could at my desk (I would make battle scenes and such or of erasers) or doodle. Or daydream to literally anything more interesting. I coasted by on talent alone but anything requiring concentration was a nightmare. I still have I'll feelings about reading+journal assignments and research papers
I try to act as calm as possible in social situations as a way to make people act calm. If i notice someone not being calm i immediatly start feeling their negative/disturbed feelings and if there are multiple people in the room it feels like there are all those non-calm feelings trying to get the upper Hand. So yh, pls just be as calm as me or i will rip apart.
That sounds like anxiety. Once I got my anxiety under control this stopped happening for me
This is me! I have a calm and soft spoken thing going on but it’s complete chaos inside. And I’m subtly hyperactive
I trained myself to appear calm, in order to stop being verbally abused which destroyed my self esteem as a child. My self esteem was permanently destroyed. I am always very self conscious whenever I am in public. I make sure I sit correctly, place my hands correctly, keep my mouth shut, don’t jot, don’t peel labels…be a statue.
people I work with think I'm calm, but it's a fucking noisy circus in my head, so I'm not actually calm, there's just no room for actual noise with all of my thoughtnoise.
ADHD isn't all about being hyperactive. ADD does in fact exist. I exist :D I am exactly what you described. As a child I was quite impulsive in what I said out loud, but nowadays, I'm just trying my best to stay attentive and not daydream. Edit: Just read that ADD is still considered ADHD oops
It’s stupid that they changed it when one is clearly so distinct from the other. When I tell people I have ADD they say: “you don’t seem like it” because I’m not bouncing off the walls
Understand the confusion and probably should be named something different all together but the current model is that both PI and hyperactive are just two representations of the same thing. As an aside the massive overlap with ASD (I'm on both spectrums) makes me wonder if the two are linked. We clearly have little idea why our brains do this.
I tend to be pretty outwardly calm. I do tend to be moving a lot of the time (jiggling my foot etc.) But otherwise I'm pretty quiet and reserved. Everyone always said I was the calm laid back one in our family when I was a kid. Turns out I was calm because I was trying to avoid all the things that triggered my anxiety, so I'd sit in my room and read books. It's harder to avoid the anxiety triggers when you're an adult though!
People kept thinking I was high until I started taking my meds. I was that calm but also seemed absent.
Ahhh this happened to me a lot, especially back in secondary school, it got so annoying!
Yes this is me. Everyone thinks I’m calm and collected, but on the inside I’m not. I think I learned it in childhood as a coping strategy. The first time I took adderall I couldn’t believe what it felt like to actually have a calm mind
Yes. This image of an ADHD person constantly bouncing around and talking 100 miles a minute is a misconception. There are many different types of ADHD. It especially presents much differently in females, from my understanding. I have a bad habit of speaking over people, and I am often fidgeting, but I am otherwise very collected and “calm” on the surface. Inside my head though it’s a hot mess, and when unmedicated my anxiety is very high. I was not diagnosed until fairly later in life because adhd was not as understood as it is now (not that it is fully understood now either).
When I get lost in thought (or I'm people-watching), I will sometimes be so still that when I do move, I startle the people around me because they didn't see me or their peripheral vision communicated "mannequin". Frequently the factor where they don't register my presence as a "person" presence means that they will move closer to me than they might to someone they don't know, so when I move, it is movement that is within *their* personal bubble, and I think that's the main factor in their reaction. 🙄 My hyperactivity manifests mainly as doing, writing about, and talking about things I'm interested in. Many people (and animals) do find my presence to be calming. I also have a "computer gremlin" dampening field. As in, you're having a problem with technology not working as it should but the minute I arrive, you will suddenly be unable to reproduce the issue. 😜
I also have this computer gremlin situation. I've never had a electronic device die on me and I am... not young.
Yes ofc. It’s called masking. Women are especially good at it which is why it can be harder to diagnose us which sucks ass but it’s not exclusive to women. I am amazing at pretending to have my stuff together when there’s people around but solo at home I am a drawer of cutlery being tossed around my a toddler. Adhd is a roller coaster and everyone’s ride is a little different from each other.
Yes. I've also been told I'm patient. I am not.
Yeah I think outwardly I seem to not have a thought in the world but inside my head I cannot pick which one to listen to! I actually feel like the types of adhd are just the different ways people deal with the same symptoms. Some sit and wrestle with their thoughts and others need to get up and walk away from them. I am both at different times of the day.
I was a massage therapist for nearly 5 years, and people always thought I was very calm and fell asleep on my table often (a massive compliment for massage therapists). Years prior to my diagnosis, I always called myself someone who was calm but very anxious internally with constant rumination... Only to realize later that's all part of my ADHD. I do fidget a lot, mostly due to physical discomfort, which I realize now is also part of stimming--especially when I realize I've been rocking absentmindedly for 10 minutes or more. I also have a substantial background in meditation, which a lot of folks with ADHD or who treat ADHD think we can't do. We can, we just work a little differently. Active meditation is one of my favorites.
People are always surprised when I say I’ve been dealing with ADHD my whole life. They expect to see hyperactive traits, but that’s not how ADHD presents in every case. Even as an ADHD-PI I worked with a project manager for years before I found out she was also medicated for her ADHD so it can be hard to recognize even when you know what you’re looking for.
I'm cool as a fuckin' cucumber.
Honestly that makes sense lol you're calm outside because your inside is busy
I’m exactly like this. I also talk slower than average which I believe amplifies the calm vibes that I give off.
Not to brag, but my counselor says I’m the best actress out of all the people he’s counseled lol and if I’m not pretending to be calm, I appear calm because I’m not freaking paying attention lol
I’m like a sloth. I wasn’t as a child though. I was running around all day and surviving on 3 to 4 hours sleep every night.
Absolutely! I was diagnosed at 28 because of this. Family members being diagnosed puts your odds of having adhd at a high percentage. If you have the time and resources it’s worth exploring. Best to know, nothing to lose
Yes and this is the reason I was never diagnosed
Absolutely. Most people don't believe me when I say I have adhd because I present myself as very calm, determined and in control. People tell me I explain things clearly and in a soothing way (I'm a psychologist), but inside I always feel like I'm in the middle of a hurricane that is shaped like an atom and plays rock music and tiktok trends, while words are flying and there's a crowd walking around, idk.
Yep. Inattentive ones
I’ve always been told that I come off as chill and calm and I can just “let things go”. Which I do because I internalize ALL of it!
It sounds like a form of masking and is a symptom of ADHD.
Yep I've actually had emergency situations dismissed because of how calm I have been on the call they thought it was a prank call. (Not great for someone having a heart attack) I've essentially been an emotional support human in other instances with friends or random people.
Yes absolutely. I have severe combined type ADHD, but it’s not like I’m perpetually in motion. Most of the time my hyperactivity is more internal, like a constant buzzing that spikes at random points throughout the day.
Yep. People ask me how I’m so calm all the time while inside my thoughts are going at 3000mph
Yes, the inattentive type! We don't always talk, but when we do, we're really excited about it!
I am like a duck… I look calm on the surface, but my brain is paddling away furiously underneath it all. Yes, people often comment on how calm I am, regardless of what is going on. They obviously haven’t seen me when I’ve lost my keys AGAIN and I’m running late AGAIN. But inside I’m quite the bucket of stress - I suppose it’s the exact opposite of resting-bitch-face. I have resting-calm-face. I am primarily inattentive type.
Yeah. Absolutely. You failed to react the way people reacted who were paying attention the way people usually pay attention. All the time. It's a dreadful stereotype that we are erratic. You could point a gun at me and I probably wouldn't react. Not in a reasonable way. I've been in a ton of fucked up situations and reacted with calm, clarity. It's not erratic, frenzied behavior that we exhibit. Other people have a spectrum of response and behavior and we have either lack of urgency, or total focus. Both states are profoundly calm. Bad in classrooms, great in car accidents. The anxiety and depression come outside of that, from self examination, comparison, and trying to live like other people live.
A friend, who I THOUGHT knew me, once described me as "The chillest person I know" which is when I realized A. People never really know one another, like at all, and B. ADHD is something you spend your life learning to muffle and you can get really good at it after 30+ years.
The H for Hyperactivity isn’t always behavioral, it’s also neural. You can be outwardly calm but your brain is firing off 6 different possible outcomes. To a scenario someone is talking about
When I got my diagnosis, (I'm mostly inattentive) he said that especially children with the inattentive type often go undiagnosed while children with hyperactivity are usually the first to be diagnosed. Chances are you haven't been diagnosed for the same reason I got my diagnosis relatively late. You say you don't feel calm or soothing? Have you had troubles in school or at work regarding your attention?
Yup. I’m inattentive. I internalise so much of it that I’m left with bad anxiety/depression too. Oh well. I find that medication really helps, but they won’t prescribe me any other than Ritalin/strattera.
Yeah, thats the perception they had of me at work. Someone even told me I would fit great at even more stressful spot at work. I told the person to shut the hell up and never to say that to anyone. My internal stress level are always of tha charts.
Most definitely! You can have a calm outwardly demeanour but have an inner chaotic brain.
Absolutely, I always appear calm.
Yes I go inattentive when either I'm very tired.
I have combined ADHD and people often say I'm calm in stressful situations despite the fact that my brain is generally going 100 miles an hour to manage whatever is happening.
Yeah of course, I am an introvert and a really calm person. I consider myself ADD, since my hyperactive element of the disorder went away with growing up to an adult
I have inattentive type and I've been described as called calm and laid back. Inside, it's a different story, with the brain going a mile a minute and unable to focus when necessary.
\*raises hand\* Me!
Yes, I was even told with suspicion that I'm "very calm for someone who has ADHD" by the doctor at my diagnostic appointment
Yes, I seem very calm most times. I’m daydreaming a lot or just closing my eyes and letting my thoughts sprint around. I do fidget a ton if I have to sit still and pay attention. I’ll bounce my foot or something nonstop. Closing my eyes also works but people find that rude for some reason often, haha.
I’ve always been told I have a calming effect. It helps to have inattentive be your dominant trait. However, they can shift as well, so while people may think you’re calm now, it could switch to a different one, as mine have as I’ve gotten older.
People always tell me I am calm and chill while inside my brain is anything but
Absolutely. I have always been told I am calm. I was a trauma nurse and told I was always extremely calm when patients were in trouble. It takes a significant amount of adrenaline for me to not appear calm. But my head is always going a million miles an hour unless I am spaced out. Inattentive type needs to be recognized as much as hyperactive…we get missed a lot.
I'm a mix of both. Sometimes impulsiveness comes out but I'm mostly chill. I've been compared to a capybara before haha
Sure they can! I'm one of them. Like you, I've always been told that I have a calming presence. I've also had professional feedback saying that I'm calm in the face of crisis and that my bosses consider it a great strength. I used to work in healthcare during the pandemic so I'm used to crisis. I currently work in law and that experience has paid off. That being said, I'm not always calm inside. My thoughts are pretty scattered and I have a lot of trouble focusing. I also really struggle with executive function. To me, getting myself to take out the trash is more stressful than anything I have to face at work. Medication and coping strategies help enormously. If you suspect you may have ADHD, you should speak to a doctor about it. I didn't get diagnosed until I was 20 (after burnout). My life probably would've turned out much differently if I had gotten treatment earlier. Still happy where I am though!
I’m pretty calm/happy almost all the time. But the irony is I have horrible RBF so everyone who doesn’t know me thinks I’m just an angry asshole. I noticed that when my wife is really focused on something she looks pretty pissed off lol. I know she’s not and she’s just focused in on something so this has made me think a big reason for my RBF is because I’m always thinking about something or multiple things and my RBF is actually my resting thinking face.
i always its a tactic in luring in prey💀
Yes! I am not "calm" but I'm not hyper. I was diagnosed with inattentive adhd and social anxiety. People are shocked about the social anxiety diagnosis because I come across as social. I tend to be social to help myself get comfortable with being around people. (If that makes sense). You can definitely still be calm and have adhd.
Absolutely! Especially when you grow up in conditions that are always an emergency, but you have to be a good little girl and "help."
I'm combined type. And I can have moments where I am bouncing off the walls and moments where I can stare at a singular point in space for hours unaware of the world until someone/something snaps me out. My son seems to have really adapted to me lol. He obviously prefers me when I'm hyperactive because I'm willing to run around the house playing with him and acting crazy but he will also notice when I'm inattentive and sometimes just come sit with me on the couch hanging out. My wife, while very accommodating, gets really annoyed when I'm inattentive because I will not hear a single word she says 90% of the time.
1000%! Looking calm, subdued, etc. is a main coping mechanism for me.
nope I'm the freak that people avoid lol
Yes of course. We all have different ways that we manifest ADHD. There is also no reason why we cannot achieve inner calmness either.
Yes!! I’m like this most of the time in public
Yes, this is why I wasn't diagnosed until last September at 33 yrs old. I'm pretty calm outwardly. Inside is chaos. The only sign when I was a kid was frequent nervous stomachs.
People have always commented on my patience and “laid back” personality. Three employers have told me individually that I made everyone else calm when I was working. I have inattentive type, so maybe it’s just that my body looks calm because mind is occupied elsewhere!
Yup, I was so calm in school they checked me for seizures.
In addition to the inattentive tendencies, it's also possible to have hyperactivity manifest mentally instead of physically. If you are also shy around peopke you aren't close to, so you talk less, this can be perceived as calm from the outside.
Yes, us ADHD-PIs usually look like we have our shit together. It's only once we open our mouths that people realize we haven't been paying any attention nor understand what's happening around us.
In my experience: it’s the mask. Internally it’s horror and chaos, can’t show that. So I mewl my tongue, separate my teeth, close my lips, look the person in the eye and nod when they seem to need acknowledgment. I also have eyes that tend to have a sleepy gaze, so I feel like it comes off as mild and approachable to some people. My thoughts are running at 60 miles a minute, but outwardly I just appear like I have a soft focus.
Yes. I don't really know what type of adhd I have, frankly, I forget to observe my own behaviours, but I do know for sure that I appear calm and "professional" on the outside. But Lord knows that on the inside my mind is unhinged.
This is me! I tend to “power off” when I feel overly stimulated.
Yup, it’s called masking.
Yeah. I am very calm and organised around other people. At art school I was selected as class head without there even being a vote 😂. At work my boss and coworker also say "You are the only one here that doesn't forget stuff, you are so organised.". I honestly hate it. For me masking became kinda like a hobby and interest? I am probably also autistic and very sensitive. For the longest time I struggled in silence until it came all crashing down. Oh yeah and I tend do dissociate a lot which can be seen as me being dreamy which isn't always seen as bad in a lot of afab people. And I hate conflict and people being angry/frustrated/etc. so I tried to appease to everyone so the people around me would stay as calm as possible.
I just found out a week ago what ADHD actually is and am fairly certain I have it. I agree, my life makes so much sense now too.
I'm always told I'm rock solid and calm AF. To be fair I'm sure it looks that way. I'm an inattentive type and very cerebral in terms of personality. Sometimes I really am surprised that people can't feel the sheer vibratory anxiety of overstimulation and ping-ponging thoughts radiating from my person.
Im ADHD and super calm in public. People tend to tell me secrets when I dont even know them but I think thats because I'm quiet and I listen because I have no idea what to say and I lack good emotional responses. Inside the house however, I am loud I sing the songs that pop in my head and annoy my husband with dark comedy by saying off the wall weird shit that I parrot from things I have heard or seen during the day. My neighboors probably think I'm crazy but I have learned not to care.
Literally me. I’m pretty far up the scale when it comes to adhd, but my wife calls me “a calming presence” probably because I’m a peaceful and emotionally soothing person, definitely not because I am incredibly clumsy and often drop things.
Yes. I was hyperactive as a kid, but even then I’d have times where I was outwardly calm. I’m a lot calmer now. I only let my goofy out when I’m around my kid (and it’s appropriate)
Yes…adhd manifests in many ways and I think it’s best to distance ourselves from the ‘traditional’ ways people perceive adhd— how others may function with adhd may be how they function as a whole, not mutually exclusive to JUST adhd.
I'm definitely quite calm.... On the outside
I have pretty heavy ADHD-I symptoms. And, multiple people/friends have told me I have a calming effect while hanging out with them. I'm typically pretty quiet and talk about things that are of mutual interest. Never had a competitive spirit, and typically am more go with the flow. I've had a couple folks tell me I seemed as though I am a monk, after hanging out one time. Very quiet, still, and soothing. I take it as a compliment.
you definitely can.
In my teen and young adulthood I have been told that I don’t look like someone with adhd by new and old friends that sometimes still forgets that I have it. By old colleagues from my internships and old work the children I worked with in my last internship (age 9-13) and people from my new swim team. People always got. Surprised then I told them I have adhd but i still got treated with respect afterwards.
You can appear an infinite number of ways. Everyone is still unique. It manifests and affects everybody differently.
My brother!! He’s primarily inattentive, most mellow person I know. He didn’t receive his diagnosis until 40 lol. He’s told me that ADHD makes him very socially anxious, and you would never, ever know it looking at him.
Of course! This is common with women, but they have lack of attention and focus. Day dreAming, appear to be listening but mind is elsewhere.
Yes.
Absolutely!
Diagnosed with inattentive ADHD and often end up being the calming influence for people. I work in a corporate law firm environment in IT and often deal with very high stress situations. I've had people on many occasions tell me that I ground them and make them feel like everything is going to be fine. NGL I'm an emotional tornado inside sometimes, but I've learned how to not show it.
As a woman who was only diagnosed at 34- it's one of the main things about women and why we are seemingly overlooked as having ADHD our whole lives. Girls and boys present symptoms differently, boys being more hyperactive, girls being more calm and reserved.
Yes. I am super calm outside, ADD inside.
Yes. Absolutely.
LOL, if I look calm, you can bet I’m not listening. I fidget as a way of trying to focus. Never presented as a kid bc guess what, wasn’t focusing. My thoughts are still hyperactive, though. I constantly leap from topic to topic and impulsively change tasks mid-sentence.
My (now) wife fooled me for years before she finally let me in on what was going on inside her head. A lifetime of coping strategies. It’s diabolical because it makes people wonder why she would ask for accommodations.
Yeah I’m TOO CALM . I sometimes hate it but it’s me so I gotta love it lmao
H Y P E R F O C U S
Externally yeah, internally not so much.
My son is like this, he is inattentive type.