Stay away from “highly critical” people

Stay away from highly critical people, because as adhd-ers, we give them an endless list of things to criticize us about, and this can lead to toxic relationship dynamics. Anyone who is highly critical, to the point of toxicity, is already difficult for neurotypicals to deal with, but with us… they can truly destroy our self-esteem.

I’ve attracted many “type a” people into my life, perhaps to help counter my disorganization & “spice up” their lives lol. But unfortunately, I’ve discovered that sometimes the root of their high executive functioning comes from a toxic place — chronic shame, extremely judgmental, lacking empathy, and toxic perfectionism, which can all be weaponized against us.

Recently, I left a relationship with a highly critical person. Every mistake I made, no matter how insignificant, was used as “evidence” to build their hatred against me. You know what makes adhd worse? Having someone constantly looking over your shoulder, waiting to criticize your next mistake.

Moving forward, I will never get close to a highly critical person again. I’m not going to “hide” my adhd in the beginning, I need to guarantee they’ll have the empathy to gracefully deal with my frequent mistakes.

We need to ask oursevles — is this “type a” person have genuinely high executive functioning? Or are they fueled by a constant state of hating themselves and everyone for not being perfect?

Bottom line, adhd gives highly critical people a lot to criticize — so don’t waste time with them, they’ll eventually hate you anyway and we deserve to be loved as we are.