My wife has become aware (from me and from reading about ADHD) that there are lots of behaviors she has that "annoy" other - not only me, but also friends and coworkers, and she wants to do things differently. In fact, now that she is so aware of how much she wants to do differently, she is feeling very overwhelmed. In her words - she has "too much to think about. There are just too many rules." Add to that - her self esteem is suffering. What advice do you have for her, and for me as I support her and give her feedback on how she is doing, as she continues to work on her behaviors, so that she doesn't lose hope, and so that she can come to understand that needing to change certain behaviors doesn't mean she is a bsd person or that other people think she's a terrible person?
Too Many Rules
Submitted by Looking4Help on 03/14/2010.
re: Too Many Rules
Submitted by jgf on
I asked my ADHD husband to respond to this because I thought he might be able to better answer this and this is what he said:
My advice would be don't try to be everything you have never been all at once. Many of the traits she has must attract people to her as well, and those behaviors need to be acknowledged at least first so she knows what she's doing well. Change is difficult. If there is one or two things that can be taken on first it can make the task at hand a bit more manageable.
As for me, personally, I have found maturity (or older age) has curbed my knee-jerk reaction to respond as quickly, and that's given me the time to think about what it would really benefit if I said anything at all. I'm quieter more often. That being said, I'm a still a very square peg, I will always be a square peg. I don't need to beat everyone with my square-peggedness, but I know I'll never comfortably fit into a round hole. I'll be different forever, and that is not a bad thing. But just because I'm different doesn't mean I need to be seen as different all the time. I do that incidentally often enough.