ADHD Humor: My Gift and My Curse
Sometimes my quirky jokes bring down the house, and other times my ADHD brain misfires badly. Through trial and error, I’m starting to learn who ‘gets’ my jests and who takes them the wrong way.
3 Comments: ADHD Humor: My Gift and My Curse
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Ugh, I can identify, unfortunately. I consider being funny a talent that I have, but sometimes everyone agrees and other times it’s only funny in my head but I realize after it falls flat that the thought behind what makes it funny doesn’t automatically occur to most people. Without some explanation about how my brain arrived there, conversation goes suddenly quiet with confusion but eventually moves on in the best case scenario, or someone completely misunderstands what I meant in the worst case scenario, and now believes I am boldly condescending toward others and/or a variety of other negative attributes. I am a slow learner, though. Even though I realized a long time ago that this wouldn’t happen if I took my time assessing how to put my thoughts into words and when to keep my thoughts to myself, this has proven to be one of the most difficult things for me to work on. It comes so natural to just blurt out whatever is on my mind (which leads me to talk fast and change subjects quite abruptly, which is obviously overwhelming to some people) that to keep so many thoughts to myself or to lower my voice even though I am passionate about the subject, feels like it takes a ton of effort and more importantly, feels inauthentic, as if I’m not being my true self. There is one positive to speaking without thinking- I’m an extremely honest person. With a thousand other on-the-spot ideas running through my head, I don’t even consider the ordeal of making up a lie, having to remember what I said to whom and actually preparing what I’m going to say way ahead of time. It’s much easier for me to use a million other words to try and explain myself impulsively and hope for the best. I am forced to be mindful of this sometimes, however. I often attack my Husband with words and thoughts the minute he gets home from work but eventually between his body language and the look on his face I am reminded to dial it down a few notches. The bottom line is that I am still figuring out how to balance this within my true personality but that’s ok since I believe no matter how old we are or how wise, we’re still forever a work in progress.
I was in a room with about 10 recovering addicts, watching a seriously intense movie. Behind me I had one man snacking loudly on popcorn, and in front of me, I had a man sleeping, snoring loudly. Well, an intense part of the movie came on, and I’d been holding back, then at that intense moment, I bursted out laughing. Everyone just looked at me obliviously to what I had been hearing. I said, “I’m sorry but I’ve got one smacking and one snoring loudly”, as I laughed telling the others. I couldn’t believe I was the only one seeing how funny it was, and being my silly self, I just smiled and tried to continue watching the movie, but I kept thinking about it, giggling and I had to remove myself from the room for a few moments. I’ve had ADHD all my life, but I wasn’t diagnosed until in my late twenties and I didn’t start medications until my forties. Now, at 51 years old, I’ve finally found a medication that works for me, but I’ll always have my Gift of Humor, maybe using a better time of judgement, during an intense movie. This magazine is wonderful, helping me understand more of my ADHD and that we are not alone. Laugh, Live, Love and Laugh some more!
Wow, karma20w I had to check and make I sure I hadn’t written your comment myself! I can relate to every part of it, from feeling inauthentic when I hold too much back, to being an awful liar, to bombarding my husband with stories at the end of the day! I have gotten myself into trouble several times saying too much at work, when I (still) see it as just saying the truth. I get exhausted with “politics” in the workplace and hierarchies and what you should and shouldn’t say in front of whom…it just feels so fake too me! I love to laugh and make others laugh, and “refining” myself to think about how there’s “a time and a place” for spontaneous, witty jokes is definitely–as you said–a “work in progress.”
I really enjoyed the article, overall, because I have never really thought of my sense of humor as being related to my ADHD brain or way of viewing the world, but this really helped me see myself and others a little more clearly.