- Strong will, stubbornness, refusal of help. It can seem stunningly stupid, but many people with ADHD, especially men, state outright, “I’d rather fail to do it my way than succeed with help.”
- As life progresses, social problems can develop, due to trouble reading the social scene and inability to control the impulse to interrupt or butt in.
- Rejection-Sensitive Dysphoria
- Tendency to externalise or blame others while not seeing your role in the problem.
- This is coupled with a general inability to observe oneself accurately, which naturally leads to more externalising since you truly do not see the role you play in the problem.
- Distorted negative self-image.
- Due to the inability to observe oneself accurately, coupled with the heightened sensitivity to perceived criticism and a record of underachievement, people with ADHD usually have a self-image that is far more negative than is warranted.
- Not seeing ourselves as others do
- Seeing only what we regard as failures and shortcomings
- All but blind to the upside (which is typically considerable)
- People who have ADHD or VAST are also particularly prone to head toward gloom and doom in their minds because they have stored up in their memory banks a lifetime of moments of failure, disappointment, shame, frustration, defeat, and embarrassment.
- Those of us with ADHD are usually pretty sensitive, so we begin to put up defences, and before you know it we’re loners, being teased, put off, or, if we’re adults, not climbing the ladder, and people are wondering why, and not in a helpful way.
- The deeper reason that some people avoid connection is that they fear it. They fear it because they’ve connected before and been hurt in a way they never want to be hurt again.