Tips from an ADHD Coach: When shame leads to changing yourself

Have you ever had a painful experience or received feedback that made you vow to change yourself? Did you swing a bit too far in the other direction? 

This week on Tips from an ADHD Coach, Jaye talks about how overcorrecting ourselves can lead to not feeling great about the new outcome. Listen for some insight and tips to stay true to yourself.

Have a challenge you’d like Jaye to talk about in an episode? Email or send a voice memo to us at adhdcoachtips@understood.org.

Related resources

• ADHD, social awkwardness, and ghosting (Allison’s story)

• How to build confidence when you know you’re different

• ADHD and feelings of remorse

Timestamps

(00:47) Allison’s quote

(02:22) Receiving negative feedback that changes our perception of ourselves

(03:34) Emotional dysregulation and processing our emotions

(04:23) Overcorrecting

(07:34) What can we do in this position?

(10:39) Recap

Episode transcript

Jaye: Have you ever received feedback or had a painful experience that made you feel bad about yourself? Did you vow to never let that happen again and make a drastic change in how you show up in the world? Have you ever felt like maybe you've swung too far in the other direction?

This is "Tips from an ADHD Coach," and I'm your coach, Jaye Lin. Today we're talking about how sometimes we can overcorrect on something we'd like to change about ourselves to the point where we don't feel great about the new outcome either. We're going to hear from Allison, who was on another Understood.org podcast, "ADHD Aha!," about a painful experience she had that made her change how she interacts with others.

(00:47) Allison's quote

Allison: I was always very constantly chatting and I definitely have a tendency to overshare and go a little bit farther than I think most people would. And that really sort of rubbed people the wrong way. And so, because of that, I became the annoying friend. It's actually quite sad. I accidentally came across a text message from people in my friend group where somebody had texted one of my friends saying that I was the annoying friend in my friend group compared to the annoying friend and one of the other friend groups.

That was my first sort of initial experience of feeling like, "Oh the people that I hang around with, they think that I'm annoying and that it was like rubbing them the wrong way where it doesn't necessarily like make them want to be around me," which is really sad. I think I was in middle school or like maybe high school, so it's like those formative years where that's not something you want to hear from your friends.

And just having that experience definitely stuck with me. And even to this day, I'm very hesitant to like overshare with co-workers and even my friends today, like they have mentioned, like, "Allison doesn't really share things with us."

And it is something that I'm working on with this new friend group specifically because they're my friends and I want to share things with them. But I'm always very like cautious about what I say because it could be something that is just a little overboard and it ends up pushing people who I care about away.

(02:22) Receiving negative feedback that changes our perception of ourselves

Jaye: The experience and reaction Allison had from seeing this really cruel text from her friends is something I see a lot in myself and with others in the ADHD community. It's not surprising that this happened while she was in middle school because kids can be cruel, and especially at that age where we're all struggling with self-esteem and finding our place in the world.

I will openly admit that I said a lot of cruel things when I was that age that I would never say now because I didn't really understand or even think about the damage my words could do to others. The challenge is that while mean words can be more common at that age, as Allison mentioned, they are formative years for us as well, and they can do even more harm to us than if we were to hear those words as adults.

Adding to this, for many girls and women with ADHD, hormones play a huge factor in how we experience our ADHD. And hormone fluctuations can often cause moments of lower executive function, more emotional dysregulation and higher anxiety. This means that during certain points in our menstrual cycle, when we're pregnant in perimenopause, menopause, and in this case, puberty, our emotional states can get cranked up in intensity.

(03:34) Emotional dysregulation and processing our emotions

When moments feel especially painful and shameful, it can be common for us to overcorrect and go overboard with changing what we do and how we act in order to prevent those painful experiences from happening again. With emotional dysregulation, we can have a harder time processing our emotions. We experience our feelings much more intensely than neurotypical people, which can feel overwhelming.

We can also have a harder time processing what the emotions mean and have a harder time getting back to our emotional baseline. Basically, emotional dysregulation can make negative emotions feel more terrible for longer periods of time and make it harder for us to make informed decisions about how we'd like to move forward.

(04:23) Overcorrecting

Let's look at what Allison said. She saw a text from her friends that said she was the annoying friend and then a text comparing her to who they considered an annoying friend from another group of friends. From that, she decided this was because she was chatty and overshared and that this made people not want to be around her. While maybe she tends to be chatty and share more than some people are comfortable with. It's not actually clear if that's what made her friends say that she was annoying.

And through text, I don't even know if them saying she was annoying was meant to be particularly cruel, especially at that age. While all of her assumptions could be true, there is a chance that her emotional reaction was more intense due to emotional dysregulation. Which is not to say that it's unreasonable or outrageous for her to feel that way, just that she experienced that text more intensely than someone who is neurotypical might.

With emotional dysregulation, it's more common for us to experience an extremely heightened emotional response to rejection that can make us extra sensitive to tone and words others use, interpreting it in a more critical and negative way.

And as humans, we have a negativity bias, so we're much more likely to want to make changes when we encounter painful experiences than we want to stay the same because of all of our positive experiences. Because those positive experiences tend not to make much impact on our memory and our decision-making.

So, she pulled back on her excited chattiness and sharing. And by a lot. She didn't want to overshare, so now she undershares. That excitement that she felt when she was chatting with friends has turned into caution and fear of being rejected. That makes me sad to hear because it really sounds like that experience dimmed her light and there are plenty of people who would appreciate that light.

I'm constantly thinking about an interaction I had with a former partner's mom when we were over having dinner one night. She had made chicken parmesan and spaghetti and told us to dish up the servings while she tossed the salad. When we got to her plate, she told us she only wanted a little bit of spaghetti. So, I put on what I consider to be a little bit of pasta on her plate.

She kept saying that it was too much, so I kept taking more pasta off, then more, then more. Eventually, she said she would just go do it and came over and portioned the spaghetti herself. I'm not joking. What she put on the plate was two strands of spaghetti. I kept thinking that if I told someone, I only wanted a little bit of pasta and they put two strands of spaghetti on my plate, I would be pretty upset.

I remind myself of this all the time. What one person considers too much could be considered by another person as not enough. So, maybe someone in that middle school friend group thought Allison was annoying. This doesn't mean Allison is annoying. Even if it were more specific and someone from that group thought Allison overshared, someone else might feel like she shared exactly enough.

What is too much or too little is subjective. And if someone thinks we're too much, it really just means we are too much to them.

(07:34) What can we do in this position?

So, what can we do if we find ourselves in this position where we have a painful experience that makes us want to overcorrect? The first thing I suggest is to be aware of a tendency we ADHD folk have for all-or-nothing thinking. We don't only have the option of sharing everything or sharing nothing. There is a gray area in the middle that exists that we can shoot for.

After acknowledging that we may not want to have all-or-nothing thinking about what's happening, we can look at what happened without a positive or negative judgment. Use the data point without creating guilt or shame for ourselves. I have often been told that I am too much, which is a negative judgment. I'll admit I am a lot. I ask a lot of questions. I like to go hard in research and ideas, and I even have conversations with a certain intensity that some people don't prefer.

I think everyone on the production team of this podcast knows that I am a lot. But is any of that a bad thing? Maybe for some people who might be uncomfortable with that level of intensity and would prefer lower-key, completely calm conversations? Maybe some people would prefer working with someone who is a little more relaxed in their working style.

But there are plenty of people who would prefer working with someone like me or at the very least are OK with working with someone like me. I am intense, which isn't good or bad. It just is. We can surround ourselves with people who accept, appreciate, and compliment exactly who we are. This self-compassionate view of the situation can also allow us to look at the details more clearly because it might not be as painful to think about what happened.

The useful data I got from Allison's example was that the person who sent the text about Allison being annoying is someone who she could pull back on chatting and sharing with. She doesn't necessarily have to pull back on her excitement or sharing with everyone. Maybe just that one person. If she overshared once and made someone feel uncomfortable, it would do a lot of good to analyze what about this made them uncomfortable and use that as a data point for what oversharing means.

Did she share a traumatic event with someone she barely knows? Did she emotionally dump on someone who was not in the right headspace at the time? Did she dominate the conversation and not allow them to get a word in? These are useful tidbits of knowledge that allow us to effectively pivot the way we show up in the world, lowering the chance of switching everything up entirely.

And lastly, we can be more intentional about how we want to show up in the world by acknowledging the dos that we would like to do instead of the don'ts like "Don't share because you overshare." Being intentional about our dos looks like "Before I share something emotional with a friend, I'm going to ask them if they feel comfortable hearing about it or I want to check in with myself before I share something big to make sure it's appropriate to do so at this point in our relationship."

Instead of fear, being intentional with our dos can give us a feeling of empowerment and growth, allowing us to show up the way we want to without having to overcorrect.

(10:39) Recap

Painful experiences paired with emotional dysregulation, negativity, biases and all-or-nothing thinking can often lead us to overcorrecting on our behavior. We can avoid overcorrection by viewing what happened with a self-compassionate lens, which gives us data points for how we'd like to proceed without creating guilt and shame for ourselves.

This allows us to see the situation clearly so we can make small pivots and be intentional about what we'd like to do instead of creating sweeping don'ts that can lead to guilt, shame, and overcorrection.

And very importantly, what is too much to someone might be too little for someone else. And everyone's level of comfort varies. So, one person's judgment that we are too much is just one person's opinion and not a definitive statement about who we are. So, go ahead. Keep shining your light. Thanks for listening.

You've been listening to "Tips from an ADHD Coach" on the Understood Podcast Network. If you have a challenge that you'd like me to talk about on air or would just like to say hi, you can email us at ADHDCoachTips@understood.org. You can also check out the show notes to find links to anything mentioned in the show and more resources.

This show is brought to you by Understood.org. Understood is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia. If you want to help us continue this work, donate at Understood.org/whygive.

"Tips from an ADHD Coach" is produced and edited by Jessamine Molli and Margie DeSantis. Our theme music was written by Justin D. Wright, who also makes the show. Ilana Millner and Ash Beecher are our supervising producers. Briana Berry is our production director and Neil Drumming is our editorial director. For Understood.org, our executive directors are Laura Key, Scott Cocchiere, and Seth Melnick. And I'm your host, Jaye Lin. Thanks for listening.