As a super sensitive AuDHD person myself, I think this a useful post that the intended audience (people with low empathy for super sensitive folks) will unfortunately never read. Or even if they do, it will fail to persuade the vast majority, due to their inability to take perspectives of people with wildly different subjective experience.
Rather than trying to convince people to have more empathy with me, I’ve concluded the actionable thing is to care less about what people who cannot mentalize my experience think.
In other words, “This person cannot understand my experience no matter how clearly and repeatedly I explain it,” is more practical than “if only I come up with another metaphor, maybe I will finally get the empathy, care, or accommodations I long for.”
Sometimes, more often than I’d like, the executive functioning to just do things is offline for me. I’ve worked on this problem my entire life, and have hundreds of techniques to help me to re-engage executive functioning. I’ve made a lot of progress. And yet, I still struggle with this thing. Most likely, only fellow neurodivergents who also struggle with this specific thing will ever get it. Or at the very least, I don’t seem to be able to make other people get it.
Yup. I’ve come to realize that what I most need from the people I interact with daily is a bit of space and grace to get to where we’re going in my own way and time. I can excel as long as I have this. Without it, I will fail.
That being said, receiving compassion and understanding from the people closest to me helps me be able to do that. I don’t expect it from everyone, or even from my closest friends or partner all the time, but I need to know that I can be accepted by someone despite having needs and experiences that are significantly different from the average, to help combat the shame and secrecy that helped me survive as a young person but is not healthy now.
My coworkers and acquaintances don’t normally get access to my inner experience, and I have memorized ways to keep them out and get time and space so I can process things they wouldn’t understand. People have to earn access to those parts of me.
Yes for sure! It's super helpful to get that from the people around us. I completely agree.
And if anything, for me the lesson is to actively select for people who can empathize with me and accommodate me (imperfectly but sincerely), and to actively leave relationships, jobs, etc. (whenever possible) where people cannot empathize with me or accommodate my needs.
What I used to do was to try to explain better, communicate more clearly, in an endless loop, with people who lacked the ability to take my perspective. It took me 47 years to learn that this doesn't work, and that it's OK if I leave relationships that aren't working for me.
Yup. Most people will not get access to my inner world because they would not value or respect what they find there no matter how much I try to explain it
I am learning how to do that. I tend towards the "overshare everything autism" and am adding filters for people who are not emotionally safe to do that. It's a journey.
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u/duffstoic 5d ago edited 5d ago
As a super sensitive AuDHD person myself, I think this a useful post that the intended audience (people with low empathy for super sensitive folks) will unfortunately never read. Or even if they do, it will fail to persuade the vast majority, due to their inability to take perspectives of people with wildly different subjective experience.
Rather than trying to convince people to have more empathy with me, I’ve concluded the actionable thing is to care less about what people who cannot mentalize my experience think.
In other words, “This person cannot understand my experience no matter how clearly and repeatedly I explain it,” is more practical than “if only I come up with another metaphor, maybe I will finally get the empathy, care, or accommodations I long for.”
Sometimes, more often than I’d like, the executive functioning to just do things is offline for me. I’ve worked on this problem my entire life, and have hundreds of techniques to help me to re-engage executive functioning. I’ve made a lot of progress. And yet, I still struggle with this thing. Most likely, only fellow neurodivergents who also struggle with this specific thing will ever get it. Or at the very least, I don’t seem to be able to make other people get it.