Getting Over Disappointment | ADHD Information

 

Many people on here have explained feelings of disappointment and difficulty getting over those feelings?

What is your method for helping yourself through disappointment?

 

TheDog38760.3609259259

Disappointments effect me so much emotionally.  Whether it be some disagreement on the job or personally.  I mean it's really bad. 

The only thing I can do that helps is to try to avoid the person that caused my upset and be alone as much as possible.  It takes me at least 2 full days to start feeling better and it also gives me time to analyse the situation more rationally as the emotions calm down. 

what  a good question.  I get so excited by things and then when they don't work out I get so upset that my whole day is ruined.  Now i try not to get excited about it.  I try to tell myself if it happens it happens....and not to get so worked up.  but I still suffer.  It is so hard.  I still get let downs but try to contain them and think of or do something different and if this doesn't work I go shopping and buy myself something. 

My mom says that she couldn't tell me things when i was little because if they didn't work out i would get so dissappointed that I shut down for a day.  Also I would take out the disappointment in uncharacteristic ways. 

I'm usually really hard on myself and deal with disappointments by trying to force myself to let things go by (A) ignoring my feelings about the whole thing because I hate being vulnerable and (B) telling myself to toughen up and/or "get over it" and it only gets worse - and then I do something impulsive or dumb. 

So about 2 weeks ago, I had a disappointment and for the first time I said to myself this is just my ADD way of dealing with it, it's okay, I feel stupid about this, I feel rejected, I'm just going to roll with it until it passes and obsess all I want until I don't feel it anymore.  I forced myself to be honest with myself about how the whole thing made me feel, and I have to say since I didn't fight myself so hard, I really learned something from it, and now I'm okay with the whole thing.  I don't know if this applies to your situation, and I don't even know if this is good advice, but it worked for me. 

The other thing I did for the first time is talked to one of my friends about how I felt and asked her for her insight - (this is something I never, never do because I don't like people to see me in a vulnerable way) - she was surprised and great and so helpful, and it made me laugh a little and get over it more easily. 

I used to have a real problem with building up situations in my life to the point where when they didn't gel - I was shattered.  That happened a lot.  For example if someone said "I MIGHT be able to get you a job" - my brain heard "I'm GOING to get you a job" - and when it comes to pass that it never happens I end up feeling like I was ripped off.

Many times it comes down to realistic expectations of life.  We end up building and building on things that are not certain (or in fact are absolutely never going to come to pass) and then of course it's inevitable that we are doomed to feel the crush of disappointment.

Many times now I hear someone say something - and I try to work on the premise that it is unlikely that it's going to occur - or just to be able to work with "what will be will be".  It's not easy as we tend to run our imagination to make an early start of something come to completion in our mind.  It's how we imagine conversations that are to come or meetings farther in the future.

Also - once you get the rest of your life in order using whatever means you have to you - the disappointment lessens as you find you are doing things that end up in success!  It can happen - I am rarely disappointed with life in the last year for sure.

 

If thats cynical, then I am.

I always expect the worst to happen and have done for the past 20years. Ofcourse I get disappointed but thats mostly cos things doesn't happen the way I was told they were. And I do have problem with ppl changeing the time. If they said the be here around 4.40pm and show up at 5pm then I'm in a very bad mood. But I think thats a part of my AS (Asperger), Don't touch my circles.

/Kaks
i'm wondering if this is part of the OC part of being ADD ... i just don't get over things.  i have less problem with it when i'm taking zoloft.  but , i'm not taking any SSRIs right now, and thoughts that pain me just won't relent.  for instance, i'm totally hung up on a man that didn't want me back, and i'm telling you, it still aches, even though the incident happened a couple years back now. I always keep up a wall with everyone. This is how i protect me from dissapointment. It is part of life. I just now expect everyone to let me down that way when it happens it doesn't hurt as bad. [QUOTE=bepatient]

I don't know why I get sooooooooo disappointed when this happens?   It's like when I get excited about something, I set my mind to it as if it's written in stone or something and to change it just throws me for a loop. [/QUOTE]

I think it might have a little to do with the feeling of excitement itself - the excitement is so stimulating and it feels good and then when it's taken away it's like CRASH.  I think some of us ADDers need thrills and exciting things so maybe we build things up more for that reason??  I mean I think we pretty much hate boredom, and exciting things we are looking forward to keep us going sometimes?  Just a half-baked theory I'm working on here.   It's in my mind but I don't think I'm getting it across very well. 

[QUOTE=GlenW]

Yet always temper even with the trusted by reminding yourselves that things don't always work out no matter how hard you try.  A bit cynical yes but it helps.

[/QUOTE]

It isn't cynical actually.  I had an interesting conversation with my boss today that really helped me understand this issue.  I have been having a hard time dealing with the stupid decisions that are made by upper management.  I get angry or sarcastic and really negative sometimes.  So this afternoon, I went to my manager.  He is a really intelligent guy who manages to stay in a good mood despite the fact that we have many of the same opinions and attitudes. 

I said, "I have the feeling that I am witnessing a train wreck around here everyday.  It frustrates me.  How do you deal with it?"  He said, "Part of it is experience.  Mostly, I have learned to have really low expectations.  Working here for as long as I have, I come in and I expect stupidity to happen.  It isn't a disappointment when it happens, and if it doesn't, I am pleasantly surprised."

Until I had this conversation, I thought the same thing -- expecting the worst seemed really cynical.  But I come off far more cynical in my dissappointments than he does being pleasantly surprised. 

*Sits in the corner, pondering.*

Oh no bp - that's not what I'm saying for sure.  But you tend to remember that some people (especially people you haven't got a record of good dealings with) are to be seen with some skepticism.  But for someone who has never let you down when the memories come in you get the record of reliability and that helps too.

For example if you have an uncle who is always promising he'll buy you something expensive but never comes through.  With proper memory access you can go through it and say "just smile and remember that it hasn't come through yet - don't get hopes high or you know what comes".  But if there's someone who has been with you and never let you down - the memories work there too - you can let the thoughts of anticipation in.  Yet always temper even with the trusted by reminding yourselves that things don't always work out no matter how hard you try.  A bit cynical yes but it helps.

I actually had an easier time getting over disappointment before I was put on meds. Dosappointment throws me into a nearly suicidal funk for a couple of days, and then it is an ache that squeezes my heart every time I think of it. I never get over anything, unless it is very trivial. I hold grudges too...It's hard for me to forgive, and I often want to seek revenge. When someone who has wronged me "gets theirs," the grudge dissapates.

Glen,

Are you saying that when someone you love or care about tells you they will carry through with something, you now get a rush of memories of past similiar experiences and therefore always doubt what they say?  So we should never fully believe what they say?

One type of disappointment that effects me so much is when someone tells me that something is going to happen (stating it as fact) and then later they change it to something different or change the time frame to a different time, ect.

I don't know why I get sooooooooo disappointed when this happens?   It's like when I get excited about something, I set my mind to it as if it's written in stone or something and to change it just throws me for a loop.

I just don't understand why people tell you things that will happen and then later change it in some way, or back down or postpone it. 

Can someone help me understand this better?

 

The only way I have found to deal with disappointments is to not let them happen.  I only get disappointed if I have expectations.

I try not to expect anything ever.  I tell myself, "It would be great if that works out."  Then I make a concious decision to take any expectations and shove them into that ADD fog, where I don't remember them.  Let my poor memory work for me that way.  There is plenty of time to enjoy things that actually work out -- I try not to enjoy them beforehand, that leads to disappointment.

I don't know why people say things and then later don't mean them.  I think that maybe most people don't "write it in stone" and they have no clue that other people might.  I mostly just accept that people lie.  I don't have any judgments or negative feelings about the everyday lies, if there was no intent to cause pain.  *shrug*

When I do get disappointed, I get over it faster if I don't keep quiet about it.  Not that I go off the deep end.  I say something like, "I must have misunderstood, I thought we had a plan.  That stinks, I was looking forward to that."  I still might be bent out of shape for a little while, but not nearly as long as if I kept it to myself.  It also gives the other person a chance to change the way they interact with me or to appologize if necessary.

Occasionally I get in an all day funk over somethingorother, and I just let myself have my feelings and say, "I don't want to talk right now, I am pouting."  When it comes to dealing with feelings, honesty gets the best results -- unless the other person is being a complete jerk on purpose. 

I think since we as adhders are so sensitive....that things bothers us for longer and for some reason we roll over them in our heads...like we are hyperfocusing on the situation....I think others don't focus so much....I wish i was like the others...I wish we all could "act like a duck....and just let it roll off like water on our backs" .....tonight I am dealing with problems by drinking a big fat drink...I just started tonight....I wont drive ...I promise...

CC - I'm truly glad that you chose the wise decision to not drink and drive.  That would have been a very tragic decision and you're a smarter person than that.

I'm reading this thread this morning and beginning to rethink a couple of ideas I have been given about my ADHD and believing I was a bit wrong.  I have discussed with my therapist and others involved with ADHD and they convinced me that my literal belief in others and disappointment when promised things that don't happen was Aspergers.  But after seeing these I now am more certain that this behavior is more ADHD than anything.  That or most of us have AS and we are more messed up than I had thought LOL.

When I am at my worst when someone tells me "it's raining cats and dogs" - I've been prone to look up expecting to see animals falling from the sky.  That has been described to me as an AS trait but we all seem to have that from one degree to another.  When someone says "trust me I will do what I say" - I tend to give them my 100 percent trust and then when inevitably they mess up and fail my spirit crashes and the next thing is that feeling of being crushed.

My latest theory on this is that since we have such poor memory recall that when someone says "trust me" we don't get the non-ADHDers usual flood of memories of past disappointments where we then have the defence of saying "wait a second - fool me once shame on you"... and again we say "ok I will trust".

Now that the meds keep my memories at a fingertip away I know how "normal" people deal with disappointment.  Most times when someone claims they will carry through something they get a rush of memories of past experiences that are similar.  It was odd at first when it happened to me and frankly it can bum you out but wow does it remove much of the crashing from being scammed.

I think it takes improved memory - so do try to work that aspect with your respective therapies.

And don't worry so much - you are in the majority obviously.