The Impact of Criticism
Welcome to my blog. Today I want to talk about criticism and how it impacts people with ADHD. Criticism is any negative feedback directed toward someone about their personality or abilities. I emphasize the word “any” because this does not just apply to verbal criticism. Criticism can also be powerfully delivered with body language or complete dismissal. Perceived criticism can also be impactful. Being compared to others never feels good, you know?
The Impact of Criticism
My Story
People with ADHD can be inattentive, impulsive, and/or hyperactive, and while these symptoms can be disruptive to the individual with ADHD experiencing them, these symptoms also garner criticism from others. My ADHD is very heavy on the “h”, and when I get excited about a project or feel creatively inspired, I talk faster and louder and have more grandiose gestures.
Years ago I was the marketing director for a mid-size organization and was asked to re-brand the business. I found this task quite thrilling and I became incredibly excited to come up with something brilliant for the company. I met with the company’s owner to present my ideas, and I guess my excitement for something that should bring their business great success was too much for this individual to handle. They were visibly taken aback by my exuberance and ended up completely dismissing me in a very rude way. In other words, “come back when I ‘calm’ down”.
Their reaction hit me like a ton of bricks. I was very hurt.
My initial altruistic hyperactive excitement to do great work for this company turned into an all-or-nothing response from me. I did “calm down” and lost all desire to work on this project. There was nothing anyone could do to help me find any motivation. I wanted nothing to do with the rebranding. Since I was fully checked out, I encouraged this company owner to hire out and they did. It was a phenomenal failure.
The Research
People with ADHD are like Swiss Cheese when it comes to our self-worth. The response of that business owner was not in isolation for me, but more the norm. People with ADHD face criticism from others their entire lives. Criticism has not only been found to be detrimental to our confidence, self-esteem, and self-worth but is associated with depression and anxiety.
Beaton and colleagues interviewed 162 adults with ADHD. Participants told these researchers that they received criticism from others about their impulsivity, lack of self-control, inability to focus, and inattention, as well as their challenges with organization, time management, and memory. These individuals stated that the criticism affected them deeply and greatly harmed their self-perceptions. One participant stated, “Any suggestion, critique or something similar from anyone cuts like a knife and leaves me unable to feel anything but devastated for days”.
I can relate. Can you?
What do we do?
Let’s just say the answer to the above question is not how I reacted to the business owner. My reaction did nothing to benefit me nor make this individual understand or change their behaviors. But what we can do is learn to set healthy boundaries around criticism. We cannot change our beautiful ADHD brains, nor do we want to (because we are ADHD Strong). We cannot stop people from criticizing our ADHD symptoms. But what we can do is change how we respond to these people! I suggest that we implement healthy boundary-setting strategies using assertive language.
Instead of shutting down and checking out, what I should have done was express what I was thinking and feeling, appropriately set a boundary, and present the owner with alternatives to how we could have moved forward. For example, I could have said, “I feel that you telling me to “calm down” is unprofessional and inappropriate, and moving forward, I need all communication between us to be respectful. I am very excited about this project and would like it to be a success, and perhaps my enthusiasm is too much at this time. task. Would you like to reschedule this meeting or would you prefer for me to send you my ideas via email?”
People with ADHD have symptoms that others may find challenging, but criticizing someone’s symptoms from their neurodevelopmental disorder causes the person great harm. To live in our strengths we need to gently remind others through healthy boundary setting that criticism is not appropriate.
References
Beaton, D. M., Sirois, F., & Milne, E. (2022). Experiences of criticism in adults with ADHD: A qualitative study. Plos one, 17(2), e0263366. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0263366
