ADHD person here living with a normie girlfriend and apparently it’s not. She gets so upset when I add my own personal anecdotes to the conversation, but when I sit there in silence she accuses me of not listening.

Guys I don’t know what to do.

Well apparently I have this paranoia although I think evidence of prior conversations makes it entirely warranted :)

I fight the urge to share too much of my own past experiences or knowledge by speaking to myself in my head during the conversation. I know it annoys people when I do this too often, but it’s so frustrating at the same time to remain silent that I came up with this trick to « unload my mind ». Took me too many years to come up with this solution to be honest ^^.

Uh-oh. UH-oh. UH-OH!

rocking back and forth intensifies

I didn’t realize I was on the autism community (I browse All), so I was thinking, “There are people who think that people who do that are trying to make the conversation about themselves?”

There are degrees. If someone’s sharing about their recent stillborn child, it’s probably best not to bring up that one time I was 6 and my cat died and I can really, really sympathize. Anyone who worries about this is probably that person and could spend more time asking questions and less time, “relating”.

Many find the interrupting part to be disrespectful and rude, but it really isn’t.

Oh for sure. I’ve already toned it down to like 80%. However, there are some people with which I realized I toned it down 100% because they become accusatory (“you’re trying to make it about yourself”) or insulting (“you have no self-awareness because your autistic”). They wont necessarily say it so explicitly, but they definitely do it in a passive-aggressive manner that means the same thing. Regardless, I’m in the process of slowly removing them from my life.

I respect this. I fix computers for a living and people tell you a surprising amount about their lives if you just nod and agree with platitudes like “Oh yeah, I definitely get it.” and “That’s fair enough”

Hahaha, as a nurse, I think you should become a nurse. This is a clinical skill we are taught called “therapeutic use of self.”

I will selectively tell stories from my own personal background explicitly for the sake of drawing more information out of a patient, letting them know they’re not alone I’ve been through something similar, or sometimes just a funny anecdote to distract them from something uncomfortable.

But it’s never about something I’m particularly interested in talking about. It’s only because it’s relevant to the patient’s current situation and I feel like it might help them in some way. Because, after all, love y’all and everything, but I’m at work here, not trying to socialize with ya.

And yes…it sometimes feels a little sociopathic lol

It’s been mentioned below that you’re unknowingly employing a therapeutic skill as a coping mechanism, but it bears mentioning that you absolutely could and should consider with a professional why it arose. Neurodivergence or personality disorders do lend themselves to developing these kind of coping strategies. It might be worth seeing someone to discover if new self-understanding and control are just around the corner.

This sounds like a kind of, admittedly wicked, talent. Wanna share how you would go about it?

(Edit: ok I think you got what I did there, judging from the fact that you deleted the reply)

Apparently I do this subconsciously. I’ve literally had thousands of people tell me that, “You’re so easy to talk to,” or “I wouldn’t tell anyone else this, but you make me feel safe.”

I’ve yet to figure out how to actually use this autistic power for good.

It can be seen as rude because you’re interrupting someone’s story.

My coworker does this neat trick where she interrupts with, “Oh I have a story too but I’ll tell it later. Remind me!”

And I always liked how she does that.

It’s physically painful to try to keep the story in.

I find that neurotypical people feel like you’re trying to compete with them for how bad your life is. They want to have it worse than you so they can get more sympathy. By making them feel like their struggles are not exceptional, you make them feel somehow less special. I never really understood that, but I guess a lot of people just can’t stand to lose, even if it’s a race to the bottom.

A lot of them are typical experiences that are just much more intense or frequent among ASD/ADHD. So while everyone pees, if you’re peeing 100 times per day, then it becomes indicative of a larger issue.

Idk about other instances, but almost anyone I had a long conversation with seems to do this…

If you really have nothing to say, just ask for a bit more detail on something they said.

I’ve been accused so many times of being a ‘one-upper’ when I’m just doing my best to relate to people.

Yes!! I’ve noticed that this happens mostly with people that are insecure. If someone relates to me by sharing an experience that is more intense than mine, then I want to hear about it because it sounds interesting and could really help put mine in perspective. However, an insecure person would not because they think that your experience means you are “better” than them on the undisclosed hierarchy. Since accepting that they are “less” than you is too threatening to their sense of self-worth (remember, they are so insecure that sharing a personal unemotional experience causes them distress), they attack you because you are “making them feel bad.” It’s really insecurity and projection.

Personally, I find that this whole phenomenon is a highly ingrained mess that is too hard to unpack, and I end up feeling bad about myself in the end. So, I believe it’s best to just maintain some distance from individuals like this. It’s too exhausting having to constantly protect their self-worth from their own decision to perceive attempts at bonding as attacks. No one is at fault or anything. It’s just not a good fit.

It feels like I have a list of stories and anecdotes in my head to tell new friends and I’m just waiting for that trigger word or phrase to unleash my story.

I’m the same way. I have lists for everything!! The most used app on my phone is my list app. And to demonstrate that I do the same thing, your comment triggered the following response in my algorithm. I used to assume that social interactions and life in general was me having a flow chart of how to behave in every situation. If I find myself in a novel situation, I would consider the most relevant flow chart based on salient qualities, with safety and other people being happy/not upset as priorities. Apparently, and I might be completely wrong, that’s not how allistics do it. They wonder what other people would do in novel situations, and pick the one they relate to the most.

Question: I don’t know if this just me but sometimes when im talking and the other person interupts me, once I’ve let them finish, I’ll purposely wait to see if they ask me to carry on. If they don’t, I assume my story isn’t interesting enough and feel a bit more boring.

I do the same thing! If this is an autistic thing, I would guess it’s because we aren’t good at telling if a person is interested using allistic cues like body language and tone. Instead, we come up with other methods, such as the content of their verbal communication, to see if they are interested. Interestingly, I’ve noticed that directly asking is not effective because people will lie and say they are to “be nice”. So if I then go into my Ted Talk on whatever topic, they will get upset with me for believing their words and not the communication that occurred in the allistic dimension and I missed entirely.