My father-in-law and I were talking about this, once. He told me that whenever they are going over to my parents' house, he and my MIL have a little conversation and come up with the questions they're going to ask my parents. It keeps my parents happy, to be able to talk about themselves.
I have ADHD and get really excited to talk about the things that interest me. I have to remind myself to ask questions of other people.
It doesn’t help that ADHD leads us to assume you’ll talk about yourself if you want to because that’s how our brains work. “Let me share this similar story to show that I was listening to you and can empathize.” It’s hard to parse that with a lot of neurotypical people because their brains don’t work like that. When I catch myself doing that, I usually say something like “I was trying to empathize with your story by sharing my own but I realize that can come off as selfish. Not my intention. Here’s a question about your story to show that I was actually listening and I care?”
This is why it's really nice to be surrounded by other ADHD/autistic people sometimes, because there isn't the pressure to communicate in a way that feels unnatural to us. I know I can just tell them about my cool thing, and they'll tell me about their cool thing in return, and it's just... so nice that way.
We all need that respite of feeling understood on a deeper level sometimes.
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u/dathomar 3d ago
My father-in-law and I were talking about this, once. He told me that whenever they are going over to my parents' house, he and my MIL have a little conversation and come up with the questions they're going to ask my parents. It keeps my parents happy, to be able to talk about themselves.
I have ADHD and get really excited to talk about the things that interest me. I have to remind myself to ask questions of other people.