Yeah it’s basically masking. It doesn’t always look like this but it’s basically noticing that your brain wants to do X but you’ve learned from experience that society prefers when you do Y instead of X. So you pay attention to anytime your brain thinks about doing X, catch yourself before you do it, and then do Y instead. It can be unpleasant sometimes because X may be something that you feel a compulsion to do, or that helps you regulate your emotions.
And it’s exhausting having (or feeling like you have to) to process every thought:
should I do/say this?
will they find it appropriate?
how should I do it?
what should I do instead?
Or just doing/saying the thing without thinking bc, well, ADHD…. And then realizing, oh that’s right, I just met these people, probably shouldn’t say things like that, they’ll think I’m crazy/aggressive/controlling. Did everyone’s vibe just change? What do they think of what I just said? Can I recover?
Reminds me, writing work emails or messages is a nightmare, cuz I’ll go through the above process prospectively and keep revising until I’ve got a message that basically sounds like chat gpt wrote it. Maybe I’ll just have chat gpt reword my messages for me, and save a bunch of steps.
Yeah it’s basically masking. It doesn’t always look like this but it’s basically noticing that your brain wants to do X but you’ve learned from experience that society prefers when you do Y instead of X. So you pay attention to anytime your brain thinks about doing X, catch yourself before you do it, and then do Y instead. It can be unpleasant sometimes because X may be something that you feel a compulsion to do, or that helps you regulate your emotions.
And it’s exhausting having (or feeling like you have to) to process every thought:
Or just doing/saying the thing without thinking bc, well, ADHD…. And then realizing, oh that’s right, I just met these people, probably shouldn’t say things like that, they’ll think I’m crazy/aggressive/controlling. Did everyone’s vibe just change? What do they think of what I just said? Can I recover?
Reminds me, writing work emails or messages is a nightmare, cuz I’ll go through the above process prospectively and keep revising until I’ve got a message that basically sounds like chat gpt wrote it. Maybe I’ll just have chat gpt reword my messages for me, and save a bunch of steps.