I see this topic come up a lot with ADHD and I do not relate to it at all, but am fascinated. What weird little things have you noticed and how?
Disclaimer: there’ve been discussions about pathologizing “quirks” and applying them to ADHD as a whole which is so valid. We’re not X-men. But I just want to keep this thread fun and informative, and acknowledging the vast spectrum of ND. This won’t apply to everyone (myself included) and that’s okay!
I can tell when people are pregnant pretty early on. I can’t put my finger on how I know, but I do. I can tell when things are off in relationships without major red flags or arguments and such. Just little dips in communication, innocuous comments. I’m rarely surprised (though often disappointed) when I hear a couple broke up.
I'm the same, not with pregnancy but with breakups. I always seem to know it's coming.
I feel like an obvious tell is when you see someone who has a S/O and they don’t mention or bring anything up about them unless you go out of your way to ask how they are…yeah that shit is doomed.
This is me too! And once I see it’s a relationship is on the rocks I have a hard time bothering to pretend to get to know them when I know they’re not going to be sticking around.
Lmfaooooo. Before I was diagnosed people had me convinced that I might be psychic because I could predict things like when pregnancies would happen, couples breaking up or getting engaged, and other events. 😂
I'm now convinced that the wise people/shamans that villagers used to consult in the past were undiagnosed with ADHD. LOL
I call this my pregdar! I have freaked SO many people out with this and really wasn't trying to be shocking . It would be like some comment like "oh weird just got heartburn" and I'd be like "oh that's common in early pregnancy" and then everyone would go silent. Like ..ooops what did I say. "I'm not pregnant..." "Oh I thought you were because of this this this" and then they'd tell me later that day they took a test and they hadn't told anyone that they were trying etc etc
I’m a scientist and this is absolutely a super power for me. I tend to be pretty oblivious until some subconscious part of my brain notices something has happened multiple times. It’s like a logger running constantly. Then it’s like I recognize it as a thing to pay attention to and can remember back to other things I’ve encountered that I didn’t clock in my conscious brain at the time.
I do a lot of unknown material ID and we run thousands of samples a month. I once connected three samples that came in months apart from different locations just by how they looked. They looked very much like all our other submissions but there was something about them that gave a slight shimmer. They were submitted by three different people who were having the same problem in different geographical areas - but they each thought their problem was unique. I looked back and they were all the same material, which was in an unexpected state (of matter). So I called them and was like “idk if this means anything to you but your sample is exactly like the samples submitted by these other folks and they’re all this weird variant.”
Anyway, turns out those locations had a vendor in common and that material was from bad lots of product distributed by that vendor.
That’s been my best work so far.
Oh that's COOL. ❤️
In the group of about 25 people in my school I have quickly learned who is approaching my workbench by the sound and rhytm of their footsteps. I don't even need to look up to know who it is. Which in turn has caused a few minor weird outs when I have adressed people without looking them in the eye (I don't normally do this, of course, but if I'm at the end of a sentence or in the middle of a movement absolutely hate having to stop suddenly).
I was going to comment the same. I recognize people by their footsteps and did the same with horses back when I used to work with them. For example, I was a groom for a professional rider at competitions for awhile and I could always tell when one of “my” horses was returning to the stabling area by the sound of their foot falls on the concrete floors.
I also have that with animals, but it's my cats!
I can even feel which cat jumped on the bed, from the style of landig.
Oh absolutely! Same here. Getting on and off the bed.
Heh one time my fiance confused the dog for one of our cats scratching at the door and I still haven't let him live it down. He's almost as good at identifying them as me now, but I find it so funny that our (admittedly very small) dog sounded like one of the cats to him 😂
Omg. Yes! Horses - even if the same size and breed, their footfalls are distinctive on a concrete floor.
Like I need any more excuses to fully lean into the horse girl little me always wanted to be... 🥹
Yes, this, and I also can recognize some of my friends from far away by their gait before I can fully see their face and/or from behind. I realized at some point that most people don't/can't do that, and I have tried not to make it weird, butttt...I can.
I mostly recognise people like this, because I so seldomly remember a face immediately there’s always something else that’s a tip off to who it is!
I’m an aphantasiac who may struggle with facial recognition (if I see you out of context, I might not recognize you, at least not right away, eg a coworker at the grocery store).
This is that, I recognize how someone moves long before I’m close enough to see their face or hear their voice.
Yep, exactly the same. I remember people by the thing that makes them stand out, and often that’s their silhouette, the way they walk, their hair (which goes with silhouette) and then eventually I recognise the face. I only recently heard of aphantasia, before that I thought it must be mild face blindness.
Wait, this is so interesting because I can do the gait thing, but also have a creepy facial recognition ability. Like someone could be in a commercial and then years later on a tv show and I’ll tell people I’m with and they all think I’m insane…Like I just noticed Coach Beard from Ted Lasso is in an town hall meeting from an early episode of Parks and Rec the other day. 🤷♀️ why?
Sorry I always find on this thread how similar things can be for us (and it’s fascinating) so I got really into this being so opposite.
Yep same. I think it’s the things that make their face stand out. A funny little thing they do with their lips. Something about their eyes. I guess could be that pattern recognition thing, which is so funny because I’m always working out if I do it lol
I don’t recognise the whole, certainly not at first, but the little things put it together.
It sometimes works against me. I went to see Furiosa yesterday and Chris Hemworth appeared to be doing such a totally perfect imitation of Guy Pierce, all the things that make Guy Pierce recognisable through any make up for me, I spent the entire film wondering if I’d imagined Chris Hemsworth‘s name lol
I play darts and remember people by the way they throw darts. I’m rubbish with names and even worse with faces, but a darts throw brings back what league they play in and where!!
I used to have the problem where I thought people were giving me the cut direct when we passed each other in public - I'd recognise them, wave, they'd ignore me, I'd feel too self conscious to wave again.
Got my eyes lasered and while my astigmatism is now gone, my visual acuity has also dropped, and I realise that the people I was waving to probably couldn't even see me, let alone recognise me.
My old boss used to like opening the door when he came in to the office and saying, BOO! to give me a little start. It never, ever worked. I could always tell it was him about to open the door a split second before he did because of the way he'd turn the knob. I wouldn't even look up, he'd burst in with a BOO! and I'd just say, "Hey, Lou." Used to drive him crazy. 🤣
Definitely footsteps, but I also know who’s getting home by the sound of their keys.
lol my friend (who also has adhd) said she knew it was me coming because of the popping sound my knee makes
I’m a NICU nurse and I caught a breathing disorder in a baby that no one had ever heard of and has only been diagnosed less than 10 times in literature. I just noticed the baby was breathing funny and started googling. 😅 I’m weirdly good at identifying rare conditions before anyone else (I’ve done it three separate times, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it’s happened 3 times).
Not a nurse. Not a doctor. However.
I correctly identified multiple diagnoses in myself, several in my mom, two in my brother, two in my dad, called an ambulance on someone who didn't even know they were experiencing a medical emergency that was really obvious by the time the paramedics showed up, and correctly diagnosed brain tumors before literal doctors.
ALL of these were later confirmed by medical professionals.
It usually took several professionals to diagnose them when presenting for treatment.
I can't tell if I'm good at this or the healthcare system is straight up negligent.
Dude same. People have finally learned to trust me when I say "no, you gotta go to the hospital." I'm very anti going to the hospital/doctor UNLESS it's necessary.
Hey, can you be in my life? I never know how serious something I’m experiencing might be. Is this hospital serious? Urgent care serious? Make an appt with my PCP for next months serious? Or is it literally just nothing and I need to calm down? Sometimes things seem scarier than they are and sometimes things seem completely normal to me and people are like why the fuck are you not in the ER rn? Like Idk!?
Both are probably true. Healthcare is undoubtedly straight up negligent.
Haha I annoyed the shit out of my doctor when I presented him with my self diagnosis (via google) of a rare autoimmune disorder and then after he tested me for it it’s exactly what I have! He wanted to go down a laundry list of other things it was more likely to be first, but NOPE it’s eosinophilic esophagitis juuuuust like I said. 😂
Not a nurse, but I work in early childhood education, and I’ve somehow become the designated person to evaluate symptoms when kids aren’t feeling well to unofficially “diagnose” them. I’m really just determining if their symptoms indicate they’re contagious and need to go home, but I normally give a suggestion about what to ask the doctor about and 9.5 times out of 10, I’m right. Most recently I’ve become the “Rash Whisperer.” Lol
Same. In health care and it’s my superpower. I also diagnosed my own mother with a very rare type of cancer while her doctor blew her off and told her to take more iron when her hemoglobin dropped. Asking why tends to lead to the right answer. I will not put bandaids over bullet holes and have found so many rare things this way.
bless you. women’s health is so incredibly overlooked
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
I have a colleague with a short temper. Nothing extreme, but noticeable.
I'd been there a year when his fuse got even shorter. He had a medical emergency and was in hospital for several weeks, phased return to work, lost his driving license - big deal.
Time passes, he's doing well, got his car back etc. One day he was acting weird. Very grumpy. He walked out of a meeting and I asked whether he was ok, basically got brushed off. Afterwards I asked our mutual manager to check on him. She said he was fine.
He was back in hospital that night.
A few weeks ago I asked our new manager to please check on him as I had an alarm bell going off from his behaviour. Manager said they hadn't noticed anything but they'd check in about workloads etc.
He's back in hospital.
Manager asked me how I knew. I'm not particularly close to this colleague. So I rattled off observations about each of the team - I know whether manager's 5 a side team won or not by the way he walks in on Monday, Fred's high support needs daughter had a rough night last night because he did x this morning, you know whether Sue will make the deadline or not a week ahead because of Y... Various examples.
There are data based ones but I'm not sure how to explain them without needing to write war and peace - this was long enough! But I love this sub and the "oooooooh, that's because of this too? Good to know!"
That’s so interesting! That’s exactly the kinda stuff I hear about. It’s obviously not wholly unique to us but it’s a cool case study in picking up implicit clues
I'm a nurse and this totally tracks. We call this a "good catch".
My dad tailgates and drives aggressively when he’s got indigestion or is upset about something. Unfortunately it’s not really possible to get him to let someone else drive, but at least now I know why it happens. People are weird!!
People call that "intuition". I think there's a lot of tiny perceptual changes in people and our environment that we notice, but that we aren't even consciously aware of.
you're Sherlock Holmes
No joke, that is what I do a side hustle. Being able to pick up on subtle clues on whether someone is lying. I work w LE and insurance companies for hard to crack cases requiring social engineering.
I never once credited my AdHd until you said that. So freaking funny because...duh, of course it is how could I have missed that.
The "fun" thing with me is that I'll fail all those pattern recognition tests for "what comes next". They don't make any sense at all to me the vast majority of the time.
At work though, I'm know for seeing the problem no one else does. For connecting the dots no one knew were even there. For finding the glaringly oblivious reason (to me) something isn't going to work (yes I know it works on paper but it will not work in practice). For being the "if this, then that" destroyer of dreams. And also, for knowing pretty early on whether or not I like someone, and generally having my suspicions confirmed within a few weeks/months.
I’m the same but I’m often accused of being too negative.
Same. I respond that I'm just honest and won't sugar coat stuff to make them feel better. Sometimes saying "that's probably how we got here in the first place anyways."
It always baffles me when people react poorly to these types of discoveries. Do they want to be correct or right? I'd rather know asap that my idea isn't workable so we can pivot towards something that is.
We all bring different skills and perspectives to the table, so I want staff/colleagues to speak up. I can't possibly know or see everything from every angle. If I'm missing something, I want to know! The quality/correctness of the end result is what matters to me.
Exactly this!!! It makes me so angry.
I have one coworker that, during one project, we didn't do ABC because of XYZ. I countered we should because of 123. Ultimately not my choice so I lost.
During another nearly identical project with the same coworker, I followed their same logic. Because...why tf wouldn't I? This time they said I had to do ABC because of 123. My own argument, used against me.
Example of someone who wants to be right, not correct.
That or high strung 🙄
Like, "No, Allison. I'm not freaking out, nothing has happened yet to freak out about. I'm simply bringing your attention to the fact that you placed highly volatile chemicals directly in front of the radiator, and perhaps questioning how tf you didn't see how this could be an issue."
Same here. I usually reply; no I’m not a pessimist, I’m a realist!
This is me. I can spot complications before the full scenario is rolled out. I can spot even the tiniest flaws in a plan that everyone else overlooks. It is one reason I’m a good scientist. My supervisor says, let’s see what happens and that I need to have more faith. and six years later, I have not been wrong once.
Some of my colleagues have come to respect this and will ask my advice. Some of the higher ups think I’m negative and a know it all. True story-I was accused of hexing someone after their project imploded.
YUP! Too negative and then when it all goes to hell, "why didn't you kick and scream to make us listen?" Uh even just stating that there is an issue was too much for you assholes, kicking and screaming would likely have meant immediate firing. Maybe just listen?
I'm the same way with work. I would always hear, "How did you notice that?", and I was like "HOW TF DID YOU NOT?"
Many years ago, I kept warning our IT department that an implementation was going to blow things up in our department, because we had a different software load than other departments -- a specialized phone software that was new to the company (this was 1997 and pretty cutting edge at the time). They kept assuring me everything had been tested thoroughly. I was literally begging them to take a look at my concerns, and nobody listened. As luck would have it, I was selected to serve on a court jury that started on implementation day and would last two weeks.
Implementation day our entire department was dead in the water. 100 employees literally could not do their jobs. It took almost the entire two weeks to resolve and issue the software fix that would work with our phone software.
I left that department for a new position shortly after that.
This story makes my soul happy.
We had a system glitch for a bit that our IT folks couldn't figure out. It was happening randomly during a set time frame, usually. The "workaround" was to do stuff and wait a day for any system miscommunication to resolve themselves, basically. Because it was intermittent, nobody listened. I was adamant for the actual important things we should heed the advice of our IT and Sys Admins.
Nope. Went for it. I got the message when they tried to move forward that what I'd been warning them about had actually happened, and I just laughed while saying it served them right, and I was glad it had happened. We missed an important deadline by a few days because someone didn't want to wait 12 hours.
I'm not always good at this with people though I know I have recognized a few things. But with animals? I notice everything. Lol Probably why I'm a potty training wizard and can manage to pick up on dogs routines and quirks really fast.
I never understand people who don't seem to innately understand animals by their behavior and the way that species expresses itself. I think it why I get mildly annoyed when they show mean dogs on a show and they are obviously not upset.
Dog tails usually have to be cgi enhanced because they are so happy to be working. But I see it in their eyes and body language. I also know exactly what my dog wants (we have full conversations) and could always tell what my kids needed by the pattern of their cries.
Lol yes! Cats too. I don't think I've ever seen a cat on a show that's "hissing" and "terrified" or "aggressive" that didn't look perfectly happy to be chilling with the hissing sound obviously (and poorly) dubbed over 😂
I have had managers tell me that I'm very good at reading people. Pattern recognition is also why I'm very good at my job in IT.
The latter sometimes drives me nuts because people don't often see the connections I make, and therefore don't believe me. So I have given up arguing, and I just sit and wait for them to come to the same conclusion I did usually much, much later. I have lost count of the amount of times I've had people come to me afterwards and say 'so that thing.....you were right".
yessss all of this. I work with someone who is an absolute MENACE. she’s horrible. a terrible, toxic person. it’s been 4 years of sitting quietly and letting everyone else figure out what I clocked in the first 2 weeks of knowing her.
I pegged my manager as ineffective and unable to make a decision and stand on her own two feet within two weeks of her starting. I kept quiet because my co-workers were very excited to have her on board because they had worked with her before in a different capacity. We are one year in and they are now figuring out for themselves that she's pretty much useless. It sucks for us because the three of us are now our own little island with zero backup or support when we need it. It's pretty frustrating.
The worst is just knowing something is off based on vibes, and you try to figure out if you can identify what tipped you off so you can explain the vibe to others… but it doesn’t matter anyway because they still won’t believe you!
I call this one 'watching the world burn' because my partner hates when I try to explain what's going to happen, yet often comes back to me with the ol "you were right..." 🤣
Ive only recently realized that when someone says "how did we even get on this topic?" that is not always an invitation to answer with a beat-to-beat breakdown of the conversation leading up to that point 😅
oh man i could use a companion with that kind of gift. you’re like a natural-born stenographer. in conversation i will often build up to big points, tracing around piles of peripheral context in the process, then distract myself with those excess details and wind up entirely derailing my initial thought progression.
Omg this is me.
I had a colleague who was an artist with dermatillomania who regularly fucked up his nails and fingertips. At one point he was talking about an upcoming show and I asked him why he was so anxious about it. He asked how I knew and I said he'd obviously been picking at his fingers a bunch. Turned out he has no idea he was doing it, that it was anxiety triggered, or that dermatillomania was a thing. I felt so bad that I had observed this for years just assuming that I didn't know anything about him he didn't know himself. We looked up resources, came up with a mindfulness plan to notice the behavior and identify sources of anxiety, and set goals to reward and reinforce with manicures when he had gone long enough without doing it for his hands to heal. He's said he doesn't think anyone else could have mentioned it without him just spiraling into shame and embarrassment. I was just so matter of fact "this is how you are, it is what it is, nbd." Apparently a number of my friends have talked amongst themselves about the genesis of our friendship being me just being around aloof/introverted/asocial/whatever and then casually delivering random life-changing insights. I have no idea how to make friends intentionally but this is apparently my secret sauce to basically all my social relationships. I don't know your name but I can make you feel seen to your core lol.
This is so relatable for me. All of my closest relationships have had a moment like this where I saw the light click on for them that I truly saw them and they leaned into the relationship much more. It's how I filter my people now - if the sharing of insight lights them up, we often belong together to some degree. If it doesn't, especially if they take offence, we're not a match.
For the people it lights up, I'm told I'm insightful and non judgemental. For the others, condescending is a common way for them to describe the exact same behaviour. It's a handy way to tell if I should unmask that part of my divergence or keep it shielded and keep that person at arm's length.
I notice minor changes in background noise at home/work and use that information to figure out what needs to me fixed.
I seem to be immune to narcissists and MLM's.
I am so sorry but the way this is worded makes me very morbidly curious.
Yesss this one.
I knew within five minutes of meeting and speaking to my FIL that he's not a great person. No reason at all, just got the vibes. Never had any desire to see him or anything. Boyfriend-now-husband saw nothing wrong (but you know, it's your dad so you've grown up with that). We never saw him much and then FIL moved to a lake house several hours away from MIL that they owned. I went, well that's weird and sounds like a separation, but partner went, nah they just do what they want in their marriage, MIL was fine with it. Again, still don't know these people well but ok. Then heard they were getting divorced and partner was blindsided and I went, well ok, obvious. But I still had no reason to dislike him, people get divorced all the time for any reason. Then we got engaged, and still have barely any contact with FIL since he moved and doesn't bother to reach out, and we went to SILs wedding near him, and so we spent a day or two at the lake as a vacation before going to our air BNB for her wedding, and I went nope, never need to know this man any closer or spend time with him, and fiance felt he was also just a lot now and didn't feel guilty for how we never visited. Then come to find out from his cousin that FIL had been cheating on mil down at the lake house for several years before I got there, and the affair partner had called MIL to let her know he loved her more and some other shit when she was drunk. But we met her, introduced as his lady friend, and she's just as bad as him, AND he treats her like crap, so really, MIL is better off (and seems to have been fine with the separation and divorce). I never saw him treat her badly or heard about it. But she was an alcoholic when husband was growing up, and I wonder how much FIL had to do with that. I love the woman to death and she's a wonderful person, literally could not ask for a better MIL.
But yea, when the vibes are off, I trust them.
Well don’t leave us hanging… what was it?
Some people do a little thing when lying. I pick up on that super quickly. My dad scratches behind his ear in a very specific way when he's lying or exaggerating something. My friend does a little bob with her head. Another friend smiles and looks away in a specific way. When I tell someone else like "haha I knew they were lying bc they were doing x" they look at me like ??? but it's certain every single time.
I would have a certain almost physical feeling as a child when someone was lying
Omg, my husbands top lip points just a little when he's lying! I call him out every time and laugh! Now he tries to cover it up. He doesn't lie about anything big..it's always...your dog did x, it wasn't my dog, kind of things. I think it also happens because he's trying not to laugh as he says it.
Lying is very easy to detect for me as well. The hard part is having enough interaction of truth. There are some very good professional liars. Interestingly, though (and lucky for us), the truly professional liars also seem to lack original emotions that are not mirrors. I can see those really well, too. The ones that have consciouses have ticks galore! Even the well versed, what I would call professional RL actors (cons) will be relaxed at some point to let the mask slip. Acting all the time is emotionally difficult to maintain.
Now I want to meet you 😅 because my weird thing is I'm an exceptionally good liar. Especially with lying logic when playing board games like resistance. So I'd be very intrigued to know if I have a tell.
I’m very quickly aware of, and put off by strong narcissistic traits. I have had it happen frequently in jobs with people with these traits. While everyone else around me is kind of fooled by the facade for much longer/ all the way until they get hurt, I’m calling it out and walking away within a few weeks of working with them. A former colleague who was a trainer and would tell people, “wow! Look how well I trained you! You’re doing great!” And everyone would be like oh awesome she said I’m doing well and miss completely how she was taking credit of their success! Anyway I’m quick to those patterns because my dad has a lot of narcissistic traits. Not full blown NPD—I am not diagnosing ANYONE! Everyone has some level of narcissistic traits. And my spidey senses pick it up!
I'm the same but I was conditioned by my dumbass family to just tolerate it instead of walking away, so I've stayed in jobs and relationships that reached unimaginable levels of unbearable.
I feel you deep on this!
Wow, I never realized this. I’ve done this my whole life.
Same!!! i had to learn to keep quiet about my feelings about these kind of people.. no one would believe me and when i was proved right they didn’t like it either!
I stop telling people. If they’re already being fooled, they have to figure it out and narcissists usually can’t help but to out themselves eventually.
Once you know a true narcissist, you spot them a freaking mile a way!
Male rage is something I sense when no one else does. At my current job there were two different guys that walked in and I looked at my boss and said “He’s going to be a problem.” Literally just said hello and the red flags went up. Both of them were problems almost immediately. It’s to the point now where if a guy starts and my coworker bestie is uneasy about him, she’ll ask if my creep alarm went off.
A couple different times I had very bad feelings about guys when I was younger, very bad things happened. One had undiagnosed schizophrenia and ended up trying to SA his roommate when he had a psychotic break. I was accused of being a bully when I only told my friends “I don’t like that guy, but I get he’s your friend. All I ask is to give me a heads up if he’s going to be around so I can make an informed decision whether or to come.” Another guy SAed my friend after I was very vocal about not liking him.
I’ve missed plenty of bad men, but if I clock him as being bad news he is.
Ohhhh you just made a huge chunk of my life make sense!
Wish I had you by my side. Those f'ers can spot me a mile away. I can spot them now but it took 40 years.
Same, and also immediately put off by, what appears to me very obviously to be, sociopathic behavior. Typical “charming” behavior from very attractive people immediately puts me off and I love that I’m not affected by it. That in turn shows how little these people have to offer since they never had to create any abilities past charm and looks.
I’ve found there’s different kinds of charm and it becomes really obvious which is which. Some people are naturally affable, good humoured and playful, and the others give off a vibe of having studied how to get what they want. It’s friendly and playful but there’s manipulation, malice and a weird emptiness behind it.
I often laugh at a joke before anyone else. Is this an ADHD thing? Enhanced pattern recognition?
I do this, but I'm trying to stop. I'd like to think it's because I'm just so brilliantly smart that I pick up on where things are going early, but really, it is a little rude to be laughing out loud in places like the theater 10 seconds before everyone else😬 I'm also chronically interrupting people because I think I know what they're going to say, the truth of which is neither here nor there, because they should be allowed to finish talking anyway...
Here’s more info!
Enhanced Pattern Recognition ADHD may grant individuals a unique ability to recognize patterns and make connections that might elude others. Their brains are constantly scanning their surroundings, picking up on subtle details that others might overlook. This heightened sensitivity to stimuli can spark new and original ideas, leading to fresh perspectives in problem-solving and creative endeavors.
Specifically, when someone is speaking in a professional setting, and jokes are not expected. I tend to react a second before everyone else.
I teacher lower elementary and I am really good at clocking neurodivergent kids, specifically ones on the autism spectrum. It’s super frustrating because legally I’m not allowed to tell families “hey I think your kid has ___” because I’m not a diagnostician but 100% of the time when one of those kids goes in for formal testing they come back with a diagnosis.
I love being in the classroom right now but I’m considering looking into getting certified as a diagnostician when I’m tired of teaching haha
Yes! I know without looking at IEPs who my neurodivergent kids are lol. And many of them do not have IEPs or are not diagnosed. I teach music, so I don't even know their reading level or how much math they know, it's literally behaviors haha.
I'm not a teacher so I don't know about your constraints, but I'm the same and I take steps with parents to try and help the kid. I'm openly ND, so I'll pick traits I've seen in the kid and talk about my experience of them, how they relate to my neurodiversity, how else they can present (esp if I see the trait but it doesn't look the same as it does in me), and how helpful being diagnosed has been in self esteem and access to helpful resources. I've also talked about other kids or people I know to illustrate a trait and link it to behaviour their kid demonstrates.
I'm good at finding the conversation openings that allow me to take the conversation in that direction and prompt them to reflect on their kid without directly saying anything about their kid. I'm also super proud of my divergence and talk a lot about its strengths, with a semi dismissive attitude towards the challenges in that they're annoying but manageable once you know what you're dealing with and find the right info on how to navigate them.
I lay a trail of breadcrumbs and they often follow it themselves within a couple of months and think it was their idea. To me, that's the ideal outcome. Not sure if there's something in there you could use to take small steps to help these kids get the recognition and support they deserve, but figured I would share just in case. It would have made a huge difference if I'd been diagnosed 30 years earlier
I can almost always fill in the blanks with lyrics to unheard pop songs
It’s fun but frustrating with badly written songs. Sometimes I finish a line in my head with the wrong word/sentence. If I think my option is better I judge the hell out of the artist for not choosing the ‘obviously better’ choice.
So glad I’m not alone in this lol
I kinda do this with movies, I can predict what is going to happen, people always wonder how… duhhh, obvious
My husband has accused me of secretly watching things beforehand on more than one occasion lol
ME TOO - it just seems so obvious to me
Ugghhh yes I've tried to explain this to my roommate and it's a big reason why I find movies so boring, but it's ironic because I really enjoy formulaic shows like House MD or reality shows like Mythbusters where there's novelty within the structure. With movies, I find myself agonizing for the Big Fight™️ to happen so it can just be over already lol
Same! I tend to solve mysteries and spot plot twists well before you're supposed to. I really have to rein in my reactions, because I've spoiled a few movies or shows for my husband that way!
It's a handy skill as a book editor, though.
I sometimes automatically predict both what characters in tv-series are going to say (even word for word, including tone and pause sometimes) or what is going to happen next. Often it disappoints me when I guess right, because that makes me feel like the writers or directors just went with the most obvious solutions, and I normally don't continue watching a movie or a series after too many right guesses. But if I guess wrong enough times I usually become thrilled and excited about the series/movie
Oh my God! My boyfriend and I do this all the time! At first I was really hesitant because my social conditioning growing up didn't really give me permission to practice making weird noises, singing in general, or stumbling through a joke and being able to try again. But I started dating my soon-to-be husband a few years ago and he is one of the kindest and most supportive people I've ever met. He has actually taught me to enjoy video games despite the fact that I was terrified due to my previous experiences!
But anyways! We love to binge certain shows, Star Trek being one of the household favorites. My boyfriend jailbroke chat gpt to get it to write theme songs to The melodies to different Star Trek shows all about our dogs. Rosie's farts. It was fucking amazing! So now every show that we watch we make up new and evolving renditions about Rosie's stinky farts that are in the melody of the show we're watching. LMAO! It's awesome! And I am finally surpassing my teacher in the wildly hysterical things I can come up with on the fly. I'm so glad my boyfriend tapped into an unnoticed ADHD superpower!
Omg hi me!
I can do this with music - I can almost always intuit where the chord structure is heading. I love singing harmony, so I just make up my own to a lot of songs. Even when I haven't heard them before.
I do this both lyrically and melody wise. I’m really good at learning new songs because I just know whether they go up or down intuitively! People don’t believe me when I say I’ve never heard a song before and then continue to sing-along. I have like zero music theory knowledge so I’m left using gestures and mimicking trumpets to try and explain what I mean xD
I’m the canary in the coal mine of breakups! I can always tell when romantic relationships are going to end way before they actually do. At first it was just my own relationships, where I would come home from plans with a guy and be like “I had fun but he is for sure going to end things soon” and every friend, therapist, etc. was convinced it was just a self-fulfilling prophecy thing where I must have been behaving differently because I was worried a break up was coming. But then I started accurately predicting other people’s breakups and they finally (kind of) got it. No, babes, this isn’t paranoia. I can just tell.
Unsurprisingly, people to not like this about me! 😂
I’m the same! And I second the friends/therapists telling me that I’m creating the self-fulfilling prophecy.. I know that’s well meaning, but I think it lead to a lot of self-blame and distrust. If and when this happens to me again I’m going to try to be like “do we need to have a conversation?” before the downward spiral
Do you ever find this has its downsides as well - I find being hyper aware of people’s changeable moods and ‘tells’ for want of a better word can be exhausting and cause disagreement. I think it’s why honesty is something super important to a lot of people with adhd or autism. The mental and emotional effort of dealing with people who are insincere or just straight up deceitful is draining
Yes, sadly it does. I’m very good with pattern recognition. Most people will say I’m overthinking something but I can just recognize patterns in people’s behaviors really easily as I get to know them. It’s easy to see when people are acting differently or changing up. Often if I consistently point things out especially if they clash with my values I’m looked at as being overly critical or always finding something wrong. I also have an issue with recognizing patterns but not wanting to call it what it is as because often that involves me admitting that this person may not be best for me. My empathy runs deep so I tend to believe what I see isn’t reality vs actual reality.
I have a tendency to notice who is an ass kisser vs who actually works
As a personality hire, I fear people like you 😂
Don't be afraid, emotional labour is work, too.
(I got hired as an assistant manager when I applied for sales staff, because the boss wanted my energy to rub off on the existing sales staff. It kinda worked!)
Aha thank you! Luckily I’m in an industry where I can wear “CEO of Vibes” like a badge of honour ☺️
I notice every damn thing.I was once told that I could "pick the pepper out of fly poo" and damn if they weren't right. I'm especially good at noticing things people prefer to ignore. If there's an elephant in the room you can be sure that I'm immediately going to point it out. People DO NOT like it but mostly I don't even realize that it's supposed to remain unspoken until AFTER I've already pissed everyone off.
I do the same!!
I notice every dang thing that happens around me and if I ever miss things (like when i take substances) it shocks me because it’s so unlike my usual experience.
And I talk about the elephant in the room. Sometimes to say “why are we dancing around this?” when I honestly don’t realize that’s quasi-intentional; other times because I hate that it’s hovering over us and we’re just not addressing it even though we need to. It stresses me out when the important thing is something no one wants to address directly - or at all! So exhausting
My friends like me this way (I think). My family… tolerates it? They like me but they are much less direct and very conflict avoidant so the things I say directly often make them intensely uncomfortable with me
I knew two of my coworkers were having an affair or headed in that direction — it was part of the reason I left that job (it was going to cause a shitstorm when it came out but I was not in a position to blow the whistle since I did not have any proof, just vibes).
When the whole thing came out my former coworker was so irritated when she gave me the news and I was like, “Oh, I knew that was coming way back when he bought that car.” He was a reliable-Japanese-car guy from way back so I knew what was up when he suddenly switched to the same US make that she drove.
I can be walking at a pretty moderate pace, look down, and spot 4-leaf clovers. My "15 min record" is 34, 4+ leaf clovers.
Love it! 🍀
Ha, I’m autistic and adhd and I absolutely DO tell people what I’ve noticed about them that they aren’t aware of 😅. Trying not to but man that autistic need to share info is STRONG
One of my good friends is autistic, and I complained once that people seemed to have trouble understanding me when I talked and I didn’t know why. Without missing a beat, she said, “I have trouble when you hold your hand in front of your mouth, and I don’t know why you do it because it’s a thing people do when they’re self-conscious about their teeth but your teeth are very nice.” And damned if I hadn’t picked up the habit as a kid by emulating my big sister, who needed a lot of orthodontic work and was extremely self conscious about her teeth as a tween/teen.
Anyway, I was so grateful she said something, and because it was shared in such an open, matter-of-fact way I didn’t have even the slightest bad feeling about it.
Hah, this reminds me of one of my friends, idk officially if she’s ND or anything, but I was complaining about wanting to wear rings but never finding any that fit properly (they either fall off, or have to squeeze too tightly, so this next part makes a ton of sense, but I’d never thought it through).
Without missing a beat, she goes “Oh well yeah, because your fingers are fleshy and your knuckles are smaller than the rest of your finger, so it’ll just slide right off”. So matter of factly haha. Same thing, I couldn’t even be mad (I mean why would I anyways, but still), just so outright and also so logical lmao, I love it.
You can try slightly squished rings! So ones that are more oval than round. They have a harder time sliding over your knuckles, but the softer parts of your finger should squish through, so they would fit.
this is why i love neurodivergent people. having adhd has taught me to be a lot more direct because i've realized that's what i need as well.
Yes - I love the matter-of-fact delivery! It’s so different to my Anglo, frequently shame-based “just don’t mention it” family culture. As soon as I encountered this sort of frankness, I could feel in my bones how much better it felt just to be able to name things. It immediately changed my ideas of what I “could” say.
When it’s done with care and respect, I feel like it avoids so much confusion and frees up everyone’s mental resources to address what needs addressing. It’s something I have to work at every day, and I definitely don’t always manage it - the social “how will this be received?” worry is always strong - but it is absolutely worth it to me.
I learned so many things in massage school that people don’t know and it’s really hard not to tell them. Like, did you know your weight is mostly on your left foot all the time? Or that you overpronate really badly? That stuff can hurt you over time!! You should get that checked out!! Bunions are NOT inevitable!! You can prevent them or resolve through posture and shoe choice! You can sometimes prevent bad episiotomies or tears through proper preparation! You can also make birthing and breastfeeding much less painful!! Why can’t we talk about these things!!?
I'm diagnosed ADHD and I sometimes wonder if I'm on the spectrum too. I absolutely love sharing info and I didn't realize that could be an autism thing.
I think there's just a lot of overlap between ADHD and ASD :)
I almost cannot rest if I suspect someone doesn't know something and I do know it. I will interrupt complete strangers' conversations to answer their idle questions. I have given strangers advice in shops that I didn't work in. I have spent literal hours and built full on databases figuring out someone's query online. I have a bit of a reputation for being an information sponge and "knowing everything about every thing". And, with that comes being an insufferable know-it-all.
Weirdly medication made me notice when this is unwelcome and I kind of preferred it when I was oblivious 😅
Every time I can't help but feel like I'm giving them a gift, I'm helping them, it's free guidance. I'm not telling you to judge you bitch I'm on your team! I'm rooting for you and giving you answers!!
We are in a huddle and I'm using your strengths and weaknesses to explain our next play so you score.
Where are you going, don't get insecure I don't think less of you I'm a freaking fan and all aboard the you train, I'm invested!!!
/fucking lol
Yes, that's exactly it! I love it when people are open with me about negative things I do, of which I might not know I do.
I actually honestly love this? I feel like everyone is so concerned about not hurting feelings (myself included) that it’s hard to find honest perspectives. “Blunt” people are my absolute favorite to be around, so it isn’t always something to feel like you need to change!
I can guess movie endings very easily. Like from a mile away. I know who is the killer in every murder mystery. And I then ruin them for my partner, haha!
This is me. I can usually tell what the “big twist” will be. On the rare occasion I’m surprised I’m absolutely delighted lol, and I cherish those moments.
Same and same.
It’s not just frequent tropes, either, right? It’s picking up on small cinematic choices that tip us off too.
When I watched Law and Order I always knew who the perp was because they were a character actor I had seen more than the others. My facial recognition is pretty good so it was like “oh, I saw that person play more roles than whoever else they’re investigating. It’s definitely them”
100% yes!!! If they want to really fool us, put a person who has never acted before in those roles.
Chekhov's guns can be so obvious to me
I cannot do that, which is weird to me because I have spent the last decade working in the film industry. Maybe I’m too close to it all.
I can “ruin” two other film related things with alarming accuracy, though.
1) tell you what’s going to happen in the next 1-5 minutes of a film or tv show (I do enjoy filmmakers who very deliberately disrupt this when appropriate by carefully eliminating every single foreshadowing technique).
2) predict the exact line a character is about to say in response to another character.
This is also extremely irritating to many people. Luckily my bff doesn’t mind, often contributing her own guesses (she’s in film too, and we both suspect she’s ADHD. Not as accurate as I am on these points, but pretty good!). People either like watching content with us or they super hate it lol
I also predict lines! And I love it when filmmaker’s intelligently eliminate all possibilities that are “obvious”.
This is so me!! I always saw it coming from like 10 minutes in and I’m rarely ever wrong. It’s happened twice that I was wrong and I LOVE those movies because of it. I never understood how others didn’t see it.
Same here! I’m not allowed to speculate during movies anymore because I’m always right. I’m good at picking up on little clues and details throughout the movie and putting it all together.
My husband is like you saw this! Nope. If you are aware of foreshadowing alone it's very easy
This might be less ND and more professional experience, but:
I had a dance teacher that I’d go to walk in classes here and there for a while, in a different place than her studio, she never learned my name or much about me but would generally recognize me, more or less. I went long enough to work my way up from total beginner (in that style) to starting into intermediate.
Like 3 years after I’d last gone to one of those classes (cough cough, pandemic, among other reasons), I went to a walk in beginners class at her own studio for funsies and to shake some of the rust off while I was in the area. She didn’t really seem to recognize me, which checks out given it was years later, different place/context, never fully got to know me/who I was etc.
Until like halfway through class, as she’s reviewing choreo with us while we followed along, she stopped and turned and went “OMG do I know you?! I do!! Where are you from???” lmao. I explained and she was like, wow no way, and explained that it was the way I moved that clued her in. Like, she didn’t recognize me by sight or conversation, but boy could she clock me from across the room doing a couple small movements.
It was wild 😂 it still blows my mind and I think it was super cool, and fits in with some of the stories here. Relatable because I recognize people by gait/movement more than face a lot, but still wild across the years, locations, and number of students she’s had.
I was at a meeting yesterday for my kid's school. I was chatting with a grandparent that I had just met. (I hate small talk, but I'm a female over 40, so I'm very well conditioned to keep up appearances. )
Our chat quickly turned more serious and got personal. When it was done, she said, "How did you know exactly what I needed to hear?"
That's my superpower. I can easily determine which direction someone wants the conversation to steer towards. I can make them feel at ease with letting me know what they might not tell other people. Much in the same way people open up to other passengers on a plane.
I just pick up on the small ways people show what they need, even if they can't see it.
This is why i'm studying to be a therapist... I am surprisingly good at honestly telling people what they didn't know they needed to hear.
I've never been blind sided by someone's behavior. I can tell what kind of person someone is just by being around them for 10 seconds. My friends purposely bring me around when they have new friends, SOs, business partners, etc, specifically to analyze people and tell them what they can expect or if they are genuine, etc.
I can usually guess where music will go, in regards to notes, timing, pauses etc. I am also able to sing an accompany note ie if a song ends on A, I can sing F either below or upper. Don't know how I can do it other than I think I unconsciously recognise the patterns in music and can extrapolate based on what I've already heard.
If I've heard a song, piece of music before, I can usually recognise the song based on the first note or two and if I want to skip then I will do it within the first two to three notes. For songs that I love and listen to all the time one note is enough for me to decide if I want to continue to listen or if I want to skip to the next song.
I was my high school Tetris champion for 4 years running. I seem to be able to play Tetris without even paying attention to what's happening. I guess I just unconsciously observe what's coming up, and remember what my board looks like so I know where to place the item.
Wow, you sound like you’d be amazing at Heardle! You have to guess a song by the first few notes, I’m terrible at it 😂
Ah, I think the issue with that is I have to have heard the song before. And I have very restricted audio preferences.
Wow same!!! I don’t have a background in music but I can predict chord progressions and harmonise with songs very accurately. It makes listening to music even more enjoyable than it already is!
When I was in college, state-school with a lot of people from particular areas in the state, I learned I can read certain (basic) people.
First time I applied it, there was young man whom I’d never met who had been icing me to get to talk to a pretty friend beside me (who didn’t know him & didn’t want to, I asked). He was getting a bit single minded about my friend (eye & body tells). I was so irritated that I bet him I could tell him all about himself, and all he had to do was confirm if I was right. He had that whole ‘let’s see you try’ and by the end of 5 sentences, he was ghost faced and walked away. I yelled “I’ll take that as a yes!”
Also found out that my mom has the same skill, recently? We were at a large event where people were called on stage to guess very general things about the guest speaker: “Early bird or night owl “beach or skiiing” “music or podcast” “sweet or salty” etc, and we guessed along in our seats. By the end, we each only missed 1 of the 7-8 questions. I only knew that the speaker was from CA, had a couple young kids, general speaking topic, and what she was wearing. But I didn’t know my Mom was that good! It was a bonding experience for sure!
I’ve been saying since the 2016 USA election primary that Trump is in the early stages of dementia. He reminds me so much of my aunt at that stage — he’s so angry, his speeches are rambling, full of repetitive rants, and paranoid delusions that everyone is against him. The signs are all right there and I can’t believe more people aren’t noticing it! It’s definitely progressed since then, too. I really don’t want a president with active dementia or Alzheimer’s or whatever it is.
I’ll tag onto this to say, that I think that he might drop dead if he has to do jail time, or maybe even if he doesn’t, because I’ve noticed that when truly narcissistic people are caught in a lie and given repercussions in a public way, their health seems to go rapidly downhill
I don’t think his cult would care if it were revealed that he did have dementia. They’re just delusional about everything about him. I think it’s plainly obvious to everyone else… I hope.
Me too!! My dad had alzheimers and I saw so many signs of it in Trump from his public persona alone.
I've been told I was psychic by a stranger. She and I sat at the same table at some concert and we started chatting a bit. We came on the topic of tarot card reading, and I told her I didn't really need cards to get the gist of a person's current life story.
Of course she questioned that (I would too) but I proceeded to summarise her entire adult life simply based on observing her speech patterns and her type of clothing and hairstyle. And I nailed it.
Some patterns are just very common. Like older women raised to be passive-agressive and severely (internally) mysogynistic. People who were bullied. People with an attachment disorder (unfortunately a lot of neurodivs develop one).
It's much like the way Sherlock was filmed (with Benedict Cumberbatch). Massive input from all kinds of micro-expressions and other small details come up with a general image to hold against previously constructed patterns.
Man I have always wanted to have someone like you try to tell me about myself in a manner like this xD
I can pick out autistics and ADHDers from a mile away. And not the severe, obvious ones, but the very mild, usually not diagnosed, little to no supports needed. I can also pick up on Borderline, Bipolar, Schizophrenic, and No-Empathy/Narcissistic types.
I can smell if someone is sick or if they have kidney damage, diabetes, hypertension, liver failure, seizures, and I think I can smell Parkinson's now. I can also smell when someone is menstruating or ovulating. Birth controls also have a different smell.
I'm also weirdly good at finding things.
All completely useless for a software developer, lol.
Wow - I have a crazy sense of smell and live a pretty scentless life because of it. But it’s not a superpower like this! It just gives me headaches 😂
Can you come smell me and see if I’m ok?
While hearing a song for the first time, I can hear in my mind exactly how the next musical phrase will go, for most genres. Not lyrics (though I can often predict rhymes that'll be used), but the musical part
I’ll never forget the first instance that I learned I had this skill. In 8th grade I was with a friend at her lake house and the neighbor girl came over being extra nice to her, my friend was so flattered because she was older (remember those days!?). Immediately after she left I said, “she’s only being nice to us because she wants to meet your [hot] cousins.” My friend disagreed. By the end of the week my friend was like, “omg you were right, how did you do that!?” And I couldn’t understand how it wasn’t soooooo obvious to her.
I was in a leadership position at work and was pretty good at figuring people out from the moment I met them. I usually kept it to myself and things would be confirmed as time passed on. But I told my boss once and they realized I was spot on with pretty much everyone's first impression. After that, any time we met a new worker, my boss would ask about the first impression. They also started paying attention to my "gut feeling" as well, which was also spot on. That was the first and only time that I was able to freely express whether something "felt" right or wrong without having to provide proof or data, and without being made fun of.
Later I learned that "gut feeling" is called intuitive intelligence and I learned how to present the information and a credible way.
Tips on presenting it in a credible way?
My husband had no idea how badly he craved words of affirmation until I pointed it out to him.
Welp here is where I think I may be on the spectrum as well.
Since I’m old, I won’t probably ever be diagnosed but, I feel like I’m left guessing at what is going on all the darn time!!
i can’t read :between the lines” at all!! need people to say what they mean fr.
Just say it. I can’t handle hints or “beating around the bush”. It makes me frustrated.
I want to have keen inside knowledge like all the others posting!! Instead; I’m just strange, quirky, always shaking my foot, bouncing my knee or rocking like a loon. Im also blunt and messy and chronically late (usually because I can’t find my keys).
What the hell is going on, everyone got a variation of Sherlock/the X-Men deduction skills ? I can't even tell sarcasm apart or if people dislike me 😂 Did I fail ADHD too?
At work I had an office mate who would always take an audible breath before he turned his chair to ask me a question. Every time. One time I heard the breath and so I turned and said, “yes, how can I help?” just as he was turning his chair towards me. He was shocked that I knew what he was about to do. We had a good laugh about it
I am v e r y attuned to animals/their body language, especially cats, and to the extreme with my own cats. Best example is when my cat got an aggressive post-op infection that came on incredibly fast. Not 18 hours prior he had been at the vet for a post-op check in appointment - she gave everything an exam, took a swab, and it was confirmed that things were healing up nicely and not infected.
The following day, things are fine in the morning, but as the day wears on I get a peculiar gut feeling that something isn't right. He's not talking as much, didn't eat lunch at his usual speed and in the usual pattern, was lukewarm on his medicated meatballs, and just seemed off in every way - sight, touch, sound, habits and most notably /smell/. The gut feeling intensifies as it gets into the evening, although my family keeps trying to reassure me that he seems totally fine. By 10pm i'm positive he has an infection and decide to zoom him to the vet ER where he had surgery. Once I get there and he's checked in and they take him. Not half an hour later the ER doc on duty (whom I know and trust) brings him back to me and explains that he seems fine, the site doesn't look infected, he is alert, and he has normal vitals considering the amount of meds he's been on since the operation. He's discharged, and we arrive home around midnight.
Despite the doctors reassurances, the pit in my stomach is only worsening, and I decide to sleep with him in the bathroom he's been camping in while on heavy exercise restrictions. Around 3:30am, i'm startled awake by ghastly retching and moaning noises. He vomits up foamy fluid and proceeds to sort of slump over, breathing fast and shallow and not responding when I touch him. There is diarrhea several places on the floor, he is burning hot to the touch, and he smells absolutely putrid - infection stench. He seems to fade in and out of consciousnesses while I speed him to the vet ER, and gets called as a STAT when the front desk woman sees him. Surprise surprise, this goober had an agressive infection that could've killed him if I hadn't decided to sleep in the bathroom with him.
But hey, at least my bill was mysteriously less than half of what I know it should have been and my cat is alive and well and currently wrestling his brother. Fun times!
I work in retail and this is probably one of the biggest skills I use. I can see what the customer often wants based on really odd descriptions or the "I need this thing" that happens way too often.
I also quickly figure out what the point or goal of whatever we are doing is before the person is done explaining it (like, we want to change up all this area and I can tell after a few sentences what their vision for it is. Also when we talk about our actions with customers or other coworkers, I am quick to see the issues happening and what are next steps to it)
Honestly, it helps me so much. I am very fortunate that I have people who appreciate it when I jump in because I can see it and know what's going on.
I have a similar thing with sales. I would rather die than do sales as a job but when I'm brought in on and important competitive bid I gloss over all the normal stuff and come up with questions that I know will strike the customers as really important considerations that no-one else has though to ask. Like you want to build a home library, materials and style are details we can figure out as we go, tell me about the proportion of large and small format books you own so you don't wind up with books that don't fit or shelves that are vertically half empty. Customers are like omg everyone else bidding is just concerned with the furniture with no regard for the thing that is actually important to me. Also I love people like you so much when I encounter them in hardware stores. I do need help but not with finding a thing with a name for a purpose. I need to know if you have seen something this shape or configuration in any department so I can use it for weird shit that is not it's intended purpose. People who can listen for vision are so rare and valuable.
Quickly figuring out the point/goal gets me in trouble sometimes in personal settings (not work), especially when I’m kind of mentally done with people/conversation for the day. I get all snippy because they take forever to explain what I’ve already parsed from our conversation that could have ended several sentences ago 🫠
I know, miles away…through pictures even, whether I’m going like someone or not. And can describe their personality. I like people that are kind, respectful and intelligent. I’m simple. 🤷🏾♀️
I’m at the cafe in line with one guy behind me. Another guy and two friends walk in. The one in black immediately gave me the ick. The menus are by the register so he grabs one but is way too close for way too long. I’m super conscious of my and others’ personal space.
He then proceeds to cut the guy behind me! and when I called him out on it, ‘Oh sorry, sorry, sorry!’ But his face was annoyed. 🤣
Another time I could tell the drunk guy I had to pass was going to be trouble. Sure enough, I take two steps to the side JUST as he swings to slap my ass but misses. 🤬 He’s lucky because I might have beat the hell out of a drunk that night. 😇
I think with ADHD we’re somehow more in tune with energy? Which manifests as patterns or behaviors or actions. Not sure. But it’s for sure one of our super powers! 💜
ETA: Now I’m starting to think that this is why dating is so hard. It’s difficult to find someone that you haven’t figured out all the way and become bored with. This may also be how abusive people show up in my life…. You never know what you’re gonna get! 😆😳
My ex of 30 years would get pretty bad headaches at night and sometimes I would sleep through him getting up. But I could always tell because he got up and went to the cabinet to get some meds and leave the bottle on the counter.
25 years or so in, I told him this and he just insisted that he never ever left the bottle on the counter.
Ever. He insisted.
And I'm like, 25 years I have been asking you in the morning if you had a headache last night, while I put the bottle back in the cabinet. I don't take those meds, so who was doing it?
Anyway, who cares? He's my ex for a reason.
I am very in tune with patterns and it makes my relationships with people extremely deep. The majority of the time my relationships are unbalanced in this sense but I would never ask or expect another human being to pay attention to this stuff. The connections are made whether I pay attention or not. And a lot of connections are useless observations in the end. I just use the patterns when I can make something out of them. Otherwise it’s just another freakin distraction!
Movies and TV shows. I have a particular talent for knowing exactly how the plot is going to continue, even when it's a "twist" or something with super random add-ons (think like Family Guy cut aways). Luckily my partner doesn't get irritated, he's always impressed haha
I also pick up on social cues and when someone is 'off' really easily, even if I don't know them well. As someone who constantly masks, I learned to pickup on body language and to mirror others when I'm conversing, so I notice when something is different. It always throws someone off when I walk up and ask them if they are alright or tell them I hope their day gets better and they ask how I knew. lol
My husband was really quick to blame others when bad things happen. I pointed this out and he stopped doing it early on. It stopped being other’s fault and it was his.
A member of my team/underling I don’t like very much is a major smoke and mirrors person. They’re absolutely just making things worse and more difficult because he’s quick to pacify and placate others. I don’t do these things so people find me “difficult” but the reality is I set boundaries and call people out on their bad behavior and people don’t like that.
And here I thought this was because I had a complex childhood and had to be hyper vigilant all the time. It was my ADHD superpower this whole time and I didn’t even know it!
While traveling as a kid, we went to a very crowded beach on the ocean. I lost my glasses in the surf and my vision without them was honestly just a blur. It was very confusing and I realized I had no idea how to find my family again. Picked out my brother from 30+ feet away by watching for how he moved, then followed him back to where my family had set up on the beach. Found my contacts and went towards the “big hulking thing” which turned out to be the restroom in order to put them in.
At no point did I tell anyone or ask for help which I guess could tell you a bit about me and my family? My brother was never very helpful to me - felt very competitive - and folks, while nice, weren’t either. Usually best just to figure things out myself.
But that’s when I realized I recognize many people far more reliably by how they carry themselves or how they move than by any other means. It comes in handy. I recognize people even from the back, and nobody can fool me with a mask or by switching places with their identical twin
Oh man so many.
I had a friend who was dating a girl. Girls mom lived far away. A few weeks in friend goes kind of quiet. When he reached out I was like she wants to go live w her mom, huh? He couldn’t believe it, but idk something about that girl just gave me the vibe she was clearly unhappy.
Another friend’s friend just didn’t like me. Idgaf, especially because this guy just had sociopath vibes. Generally, I’m cool with everyone. This guy and I mostly just left each other alone. I guess someone asked him and he said he didn’t like me because my brain is like a computer: I take little pieces of info and save them for later. I thought that was a great compliment lmao, that’s exactly how adhd brains work!
This will get buried, but I wanna share anyways.
I can almost always tell someone is pregnant before they announce it. Especially a first-time mom. They're more cautious, their faces change, and they favor certain angles and positions. Women who have had multiple children can be a bit harder, but the nose will always tell on them. The bridge of the nose expands during pregnancy. That typically happens later in the pregnancy, but I can see it as early as 2-3 months in.
I'm also incredibly good at sudoku. Once I figured out the pattern I was able to nail extremely difficult puzzles in under 7 minutes.
Word games are the same for me. Crosswords, connections, wordle- I'm very good. The NYT crossword is easiest on Thursdays, hardest on Wednesdays, and clues going down are easier than across. They also repeat clues often.
I am also eerily good at predicting award recipients, election winners, and my company's employee of the year. Elections have been more difficult lately, though. Presidential is my worst predictions, but local elections are almost always spot on. It's almost never who I vote for lol
I love pattern recognition. I work hard to improve it.
I am a former massage therapist and I learned to recognize way too much stuff in people, because massage therapists are not allowed to diagnose or treat in the US. So I’d have to say like “have you asked your doctor about this?” and unfortunately so many doctors are so unobservant and unhelpful that that would not always be a way forward for them.
Some people seem to have have kind of similar systems and tend to have the same issues where they crop up. It’s frustrating because if you recognize that, you can advise them to try the same things that have worked for other people with similar symptom sets, and often those things might help. Plus you can help them figure out what’s going on and why, and how to care for themselves - what to do and what to watch out for.
But doctors often don’t get the same immediate tactile feedback as massage therapists do so they don’t seem to notice the same things I used to.
So the doctors would say stuff like “fibromyalgia / chronic fatigue doesn’t exist” and I’m like, have you TOUCHED these people?! Their tissues feel so weird, and they all have this same feeling! It’s kind of spongy and loose and non-responsive and doesn’t feel healthy at all, vs. most people’s tissues have a noticeable resting muscle tone and are springy and responsive. It’s notably different and they’re all pretty likely to be intolerant to deep tissue work (even if they want it, it stays sore much longer than average and it messes with their sleep and increases their pain) and often they are also exercise intolerant to an extreme degree if they overdo it. something is clearly going on here
This might be one of my all time favourite ADHD threads! Woke up this morning feeling tired and a bit sad but your stories gave me that all empowering feeling of belongingness which just filled me with energy instead! So thank you!
Back when I still used social media I could tell when people were pregnant or out of relationships by small changes in the way they expressed themselves.
I’ve learnt to recognise other neurodivergent people by the way I feel and behave in their presence. I talk more and mask less. And I also have a lot less anxiety post interactions with them.
I can, as many of you, also pickup on telltale signs of lying. Which is both a blessing and a curse. Because sometimes (good) people lie more to themselves than to others and it feels intrusive to have access to a part of them that’s so private.
I can get more or less total strangers to tell me things about themselves that they don’t usually share with others. I do it by picking up on the things they don’t say and ask questions until we get to the core. I’m genuinely interested in all things human so I carry the knowing of those things like a gift.
On the same theme whenever I join a new workplace it only takes a little while before I know what kind of problems exist in the organisation and what’s troubling my new coworkers. (It’s more often than not a feeling of being unseen.) I’m an asset to good management and a pain in the butt for the bad ones.
Also work related; I see people others disregard and my most precious - but also sad - comments I’ve ever gotten was from a former colleague that thanked me for asking her what she thought. Because in the 15 years she had worked there no one else had ever asked her that before.
I can feel when people need me, even if we don’t know each other. So many people whose lives I’ve made a guest appearance in by stepping in to support them through hardships. Just listening and being there. Until they’ve found their way again.
I can, for the life of me, not remember numbers. But I can find anomalies as well as patterns in huge sheets of data. Which not always is appreciated by lazy management.
Oh! And I can tell when people bought new clothes or found something old in the back of their closets! This one is appreciated by everyone. 😊
Covid. Not before ANYONE, obviously the media was talking about it, reporters were covering it. Some, anyway. I remember traveling right before lockdown, I mean like a week before. Sitting in an international airport and looking around and thinking how insane it was that we were there, of all places. I remember thinking this thing is going to be everywhere, it’s already everywhere, there’s no way it isn’t.
I remember a few weeks before that talking to a friend and mentioning the new illness, and they were completely unaware. They had no idea what I was on about.
Edit: Oh and deer, frogs, animals in among trees. Often see deer before anyone else while driving. When I read adhd may have evolved because we are good at hunting and foraging I thought ‘yes!’. My family also loves garage sales and sorting through boxes of junk. Not sure if it’s related.
I had been following what was going on in China before the news started talking about it. I had purchased 3-packs of lysol wipes and sprays, and I was talking to various people in my life about it. Everyone I talked to about it acted like I was bonkers. I really wish I had been worried about nothing.
Same. I was telling both my sister and my husband that this was absolutely going to affect us, and we should be prepared. They both thought I was being paranoid, and even after it started spreading in the US, my husband thought people were overreacting and said "talk to me when 2000 people have died."
Welp.
and goodness gracious the resentment it can build to see such wreckless and myopic decisions being made by those who cannot recognize the clear patterns. how easy it was for the masses to disregard the danger of a global pandemic of a novel virus with zero concern for humanity as a whole over their own personal prideful ignorance. covid, and moreso the response to it, fundamentally changed how i perceive people on the whole :/
I worked in a property management years ago. One day I got 3 calls from a property reporting their lights off in an office tower on different floors. I told the managers something was wrong, but they just told me to direct people to their floors' light switches.
After a LOT more calls and some really annoyed people who already knew where to find the light switches, we found out a transformer had blown and the whole building had lost power.
Based off the first sentence, I thought this was going to make a much darker turn so that’s a big relief ahah.
Wow I would be so annoyed if my lights were out and they told me to check the light switch! Love that your instincts were spot on
I can see burn out symptoms in people long before they will get to the point of acknowledging them. Unfortunately it's because I've experienced it myself beforehand, though.
I always know within an hour of meeting someone of what kind of person they are and how our relationship will go. A lot of people have told me it’s just a self fulfilling prophecy but I’ve been correct so often and not listening to my gut feeling has always come back to bite me later. I had a terrible job a few years ago, and I just knew during the interview that the people who were interviewing me all hated each other and the work place, even with them being on their best behavior I just knew something was off.
Idk if this qualifies but when I was in school, it was really hard for me to concentrate on taking tests where you had to fill in a little bubble on a sheet because I wanted the filled-in bubbles to make a pattern so badly. It took up a lot of my brain power.
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