Do you want to know what the frustrating thing about ADHD is?

You feel like you've spent more time being wrong than right.

Learning is not a good thing, because it takes you twice as long as everyone else to do it. You never seem to reach a level where you think you've got it all together. You're constantly in the 'novice' position, never in the 'mastery' position.

Criticism is always there. Very rarely do your efforts get praise. And no matter how long I've heard, somehow it never gets easier to take.

The only thing I ever wanted from my diagnosis is to feel 'right' for longer than ten seconds. I'll keep a thousand to do lists if it meant I never have to hear a critism again.

The only thing I wanted from the 'management' of ADHD is to make progress. I want the 'yelling' (I guess my word for critism) to stop. I want it to stop now.

It sucks, I know. No one asked for it or did anything to deserve it.
Is someone criticizing you now?

I've been criticized so much that all I do is criticize myself. I've been told pretty much everything that is wrong with me.

I think I overfocus on things or something... I've been told a few times that I never listen, or I can get see people's frustration when I don't so everytime I'm listening to people I notice when I'm not listening and keep telling myself GOD YOU NEVER LISTEN!

-------------in return it's even harder for me to listen because I'm thinking too much about not listening! Man what am I going to do with myself.

Yea it can feel like that sometime. the best thing to do for your sanity is find something to do stimulating...sex perferrably, it will take your mind off. Plus remember the "**** em" phrase...its so much easier to **** em, forget what they think, what would it change?

Oh man.. so right..

Criticism drives me crazy.. WHY AM I THE ONE WHO IS WRONG.. WHY AREN'T YOU THE ONE WHO'S WRONG AND I'M ACTUALLY RIGHT..

After I read this thread i got the same crap. Its very hard to heal and work on yourself when you live w/ people who tear you down and disapprove. The more I work on me especially when I start doing better, that is when I get slammed. I know that its part of human nature for people to do so some of this but my bf is really bad. I keep telling myself that my stuff is ADD behaviors and that I know they're hard to live with, but he is just totally out there. Huge fight last night that he started. My part was I didnt let it go and should have. I'm stobburn about trying to help myself, my attitude is just be strong your gonna make it, this is your life, its very important, your worthy. I am doing my very best not to give up and look in to everything I have to do for myself that I can. If he doesn't like it that is his problem. Its like when you want to diet and someone keeps trying to feed you. I know this is their issue, people depend on you staying the same, if you do better its threatning to them and what ever issues they have. Pull yourself up and don't listen to bs. Only own your own issues not theirs. My bf was telling me that I'm crazy, inturrupting everything I said, saying mean childish hurtful things. I thought, "whos crazy"??

It sucks, I know. No one asked for it or did anything to deserve it.
Is someone criticizing you now?

People at work

I don't take critisism well. Especially if I feel that I have been labeled a certain way and everyone IS looking for whatever. The more they look for it the worse I get. I have never been able to hold a job were I had to work closely w/ others everyday. The jobs I lasted at were either solitary or with different people. You may be in a field thats not right for you. Not your ADD........but you and all the things that make you special. Don't let them pull you down, people can be mean sometimes.

Fucm Em!

Self-criticism is very tough to cope with.

At least, that's my experience.

I've been recently diagnosed with ADHD, but I've been working on limiting the excess of self-criticism for years. And now that I've finally found a term for what I have, I think it might even be easier to deal with.

But just saying "Hey, here goes my ADHD again" might not be sufficient to calm self-criticism down.

One thing that I found very, very useful is to gain a sense of self-consciousness of the cognitive process that is underlying self-criticism. That is, trying to be aware of what you're saying to yourself (mostly bad things) WHILE it happens. Or maybe shortly after it happened. And trying to "raplay" in your mind the steps of judgment, with a logic significance.

I'll give you an example: forgetting things.

If you just say to yourself "you forgot this, therefore you're bad, or wrong" leads to nothing: it is just hurting yourself, and does not prevent you from doing it again.

But if you say "you forgot this, BECAUSE you're mentally ill", it might be of little help also, and very often is misleading, or even wrong.

If you instead focus on "why did you forget this? What really happened into your mind?" you'll possibly find an amazing number of explanations. For example:

- there was something that distracted you, or more important to remember, or just something different that you LIKED to think about in that moment
- you had an emotion at the same time or shortly before, that generated a different thought
- it is not THAT important that you didn't remember that thing
- none of the above, but there are plenty of solutions for the thing you didn't remember, so why insist on self-criticism?
- none of the above, but simply you didn't do that on purpose, and there were no ways to avoid it
- none of the above, but instead of criticizing, think about a method to avoid that in the future, which can not obviously be only something like "DON'T DO THAT AGAIN!". For example, put something in your path on the way out, so that you remember that thing before you go out
- etc, etc. ....

It is a question of respect: if we are overwhelmed by our criticism, that means that most likely we are losing respect of ourselves.

Well, that's just the way I feel it ...

I developed a highly effective coping mechanism for outside criticism related to ADD symptoms: misanthropy and a big middle finger at everyone who spent less effort than me at anything but still criticised.
It made me less popular, but godd***it, people stopped criticising me :D

-- Allen

Do you want to know what the frustrating thing about ADHD is?

You feel like you've spent more time being wrong than right.


This can be a good thing, now you know what was wrong you can make sure you can learn from it for the future... experience is the best way to master something.


Learning is not a good thing, because it takes you twice as long as everyone else to do it. You never seem to reach a level where you think you've got it all together. You're constantly in the 'novice' position, never in the 'mastery' position.

When you do learn the material it seems to be more rewarding. Yes there are people who can focus and pick it up as they are taught it. However, we can only do this *sometimes*. Yes it is more of a hassel for us than it is for everyone else but its just something we have to deal with. I find I need to take what I've been shown home with me and figure it out for myself. Once I have done that I'm on track.

Criticism is always there. Very rarely do your efforts get praise. And no matter how long I've heard, somehow it never gets easier to take.


people have a funny way of not noticing the good things you do, instead they notice the bad. Just feel good knowing that you are doing something right. Karma is a very real thing!

The only thing I ever wanted from my diagnosis is to feel 'right' for longer than ten seconds. I'll keep a thousand to do lists if it meant I never have to hear a critism again.

Things will never always go smoothly. If they did, life would be boring.


The only thing I wanted from the 'management' of ADHD is to make progress. I want the 'yelling' (I guess my word for critism) to stop. I want it to stop now.

Who is the yelling coming from? If its work people then all you can do is put up with it and try to do your best.

If its from friends, then you need to distance yourself from them. Sure, everyone cant be expected to put up with us all the time, but a friend should be someone who accepts and understands who you are. The rest will just drag you down.


I hope this has helped. I realise things are never easy, but just hold in there.

-------------in return it's even harder for me to listen because I'm thinking too much about not listening! Man what am I going to do with myself.


lol yea its like being in a lecture and thinking

lecture start

"right look at the lecturer and focus... pay attention ok what are they saying... am i focusing? i think i am. ok stay focused. wait... wats being said? i was too busy thinking about focusing. oh man i have no idea where we are... i always do this, i wish i could just concentrate like everyone else and"

lecture finish

"oh ffs. now i'll have to go back and listen to the lecture recording online.... and i probably wont do that anyway because i'll procrastinate and make excuses as to why i dont need to listen to it."

hahahhahahaha!!!!!!!! god lucky for having the lecture recording online.


or have you ever been called on in class and you're like.. whaaaaaaat? or um I have no idea what you are talking about.

hahahhahahaha!!!!!!!! god lucky for having the lecture recording online.


or have you ever been called on in class and you're like.. whaaaaaaat? or um I have no idea what you are talking about.


ahaha yea or you are sitting there thinking "oh man next week i'm going to be caught up on the readings so i can answer questions... PLEASE DONT ASK ME THIS WEEK"

next week comes and ur still doing the same thing :(

Oh boy, I know this one, all about the self critisim, and having to deal with every one else saying why you can't just listen, or focus, or are you paying attention to what i am saying, or did you hear a word i said? thats one of those keepers...whats even worse is when your your own worst critic..I know i am, and i have a hard time trying to stop my self, from beating my self up.. the favorite why can't you be like every normal person, just because you have adhd, doesn't mean people have to make make concessions to you, you just have to get it to gether, and start acting normal...thats a killer... specially when even if your meds, are making you calmer, in side and all people see is you moving, and they think you haven't got a clue, but your mind is already making the list of the next 5 things..and sorry turning in to a rant..*LOL*

ther are many things i know we all want to shout about and curse our selves about our condition, somtimes we can't always be in control..we have good days and bad days

hahahhahahaha!!!!!!!! god lucky for having the lecture recording online.


or have you ever been called on in class and you're like.. whaaaaaaat? or um I have no idea what you are talking about.
LOL I've had that happen before; felt like a deer in headlights :(

-- Allen

You feel like you've spent more time being wrong than right.

Criticism is always there. Very rarely do your efforts get praise. And no matter how long I've heard, somehow it never gets easier to take.

The only thing I ever wanted from my diagnosis is to feel 'right' for longer than ten seconds. I'll keep a thousand to do lists if it meant I never have to hear a critism again.

I want the 'yelling' (I guess my word for critism) to stop. I want it to stop now.

I REALLY feel you on this. I want the "Yelling" to stop also.

I've been diagnosed with inattentive ADHD for about a year now. Started taking Strattera about 9 months ago and the affects for me were nothing short of 180 degree in my perceptions and attitude.

The flip side is that I and SO started thinking it was going to fix how I functioned and interacted in life. So now with these new "Normal" people expectation of me it seems that all my shortcomings and mistakes are 10x magnified.

I am really confused now. Because I don't know if I'm perceiving reality correctly. Plus my SO of 14 years is claiming that this ADHD thing is nothing but me wanting attention and that I'm really a Narcissist. She even debated it with my therapist.

I truly wish I was living alone and in ignorance again.

I hope this has helped. I realise things are never easy, but just hold in there.

I know you had started in a good place. But after you dismissed each one of my feelings by saying I 'just have to deal with it', I can't say that I felt a sense of support from you. But I do appreciate that you were trying to help.

I feel like your words are the equivlant to the non-ADHDer telling me that if I just 'focused a little harder' things would be ok.

Anyway, I hope you take these words as positive feedback.

I know you had started in a good place. But after you dismissed each one of my feelings by saying I 'just have to deal with it', I can't say that I felt a sense of support from you. But I do appreciate that you were trying to help.

I feel like your words are the equivlant to the non-ADHDer telling me that if I just 'focused a little harder' things would be ok.

Anyway, I hope you take these words as positive feedback.

I apologise if that how I came across. Sometimes I get in a rut, like you seem to be in now. I understand exactly how you are feeling.

I admit it did come across as me saying "toughen up princess." However, connotations sometimes get lost when just reading a text reply.

I'll attempt to explain what I meant.

I get down about add or adhd all the time. I think "why can't my brain just work the same as the general population." Then I think "well there is no point dwelling on something that cannot be fixed... I just have to make do with what I have and do the best I can."

One way to think of it is that us with this condition are stronger people for being able to handle it. People without our condition do not have to work as hard to manage things as we do.

Imagine that for one day, things were reversed. Those in society with add/adhd suddenly did not have the condition, and those who normally do not suffer from adhd/add suddenly do have the condition. The world would be in kaos! They wouldnt have the strength to deal with it like we do, most people would crumble at the challenge they suddenly faced. Where as we'd continue to work harder than the average person and we would continue to excel.

What I am trying to get at is; you are stronger than those people who criticise you. You have more of a disadvantage yet you can still rise to the level of excellence required of you.

Remember to surround yourself with those who love you, accept you and can offer simple support in the way of verbal comfort when you need it. People who put you down are not worth hanging around. Let them go and put someone else down, you do not need that. They will soon learn they need to change their attitude as they realise they keep losing friends.

But remember you also need people around you who can help you to "snap out of it." Sometimes a good "ok stop dwelling on the negatives and get on with your life" talking to is what we need to get us going again. As long as that kick in the bottom is from someone who respects and cares about you, because then you know they are saying it with your best interests at heart.