Lonely ADD

[Goodlistener]

I have Bipolar 1 & ADD.

I really suffer in the relationships department. I am a good listener but when it comes to talking I mess up. People take me the wrong way. It's my tone that I can't seem to change. They think I'm making a negative statement when I'm not trying to. I've never really had many friends and right now I have. A zero social circle. I see a therapist and take meds. But I'm afraid to be around anyone because I can't be myself.

[MTA-]

It's a long process that I am just starting to make progress on. But the question is what are people hearing when you speak? If people think you're saying something negative when you're not, what are they hearing? It's an issue I have too, and it takes my wife explaining things a lot.

For instance, when someone is saying something that's emotionally heavy to them, I get very quiet. To me, that says that I understand the gravity of what they're going through, that I am listening, and I am not going to butt in. But apparently it comes off that I don't care. I thought I was a really good listener too.

That example might not apply to you, but I still think it would be best to get some insight into what people are hearing.

And if you want to get better at relationships, the sort of brutally honest conversations where you say 'when I am like X, it means Y', and they say 'when you're like X, I hear Z' is really important.

I have the same problem with tone too. I have a really flat affect. I say overcompensate. If you say 'I'm excited' in a flat or negative tone, it sounds sarcastic. So say 'I'm really really excited, because I have been looking forward to this for weeks'. Not only does it get the message across better, but it's more emotionally honest. Which is what people like us need. People relate to it.

They last bit of advice might be tough if you feel bad about talking about yourself. You feel like you're imposing yourself on others by expressing yourself? Again, maybe that's not you; but in general, people relate to you best when you express yourself honestly.

[Gettingittogether]

You might need a more active and directive therapist. I once spent intensive time with a therapist who had to script out various kinds of sentences for me, because the sentences I was coming up with were backfiring on me.

You may need to practice saying hello and introducing yourself and then literally telling a story about what you're thinking or something interesting that happened to you. Then you with the therapist practice reading the body language-response of the person you're talking to and as you see their reaction, you adjust your talking.

You want to ask your therapist to get concrete. Talking generalities won't help you learn how to better talk in a way that connects with other people. But you have to pick the right kind of therapist. The therapist who helped me with talking was an amazing, dazzling communicator. She literally gave me wording at time that I used on my job, to great success. I've had other great therapists who couldn't have "taught" me how to speak to people like this one therapist did.

Literally you practice talking to people in a new situation, then your assignment duringn the week is to go to that situation and talk. You take notes afterwards on how you felt, how you did and how people reacted, you return to the next therapy session and report on what happened. You and the therapist finetune your wording and approach and you go back out into the world.

BTW: standup comedians do this exact thing. They go on the road to small towns and try out new material. They'll have assistants in the audience taking notes on how the comedian delivered their lines and how the audience reacted. The next day, the comedian and staff meet and reflect on the previous night and then come up with adjustments. You would just be doing this for real life and not performance.