I am embarrassed by nearly everything for sort of unknown reasons.
Sometimes people ask me what I had for lunch in order to make casual conversation and I have a hard time responding.
Even today, my coworker told me some theory she has on a show we were watching and I wasn’t able to really respond much, despite being able to endlessly talk about shows via text with strangers online.
Could it be a masking thing? I am reflexively secretive about the oddest most innocuous things. I think this is an ADHD masking thing, a way of preempting the possibility that something I do will be seen as weird. I’m not aware of experiencing it as embarrasment, but I could imagine it manifesting that way.
I think it’s both an anxiety thing and a privacy thing. I also am afraid of something sounding “weird” or not socially acceptable or for someone to judge me for something. And other things just seem to be personal, like things that I like and enjoy. An example is that any one person won’t feel the same type of deep feelings I do for a song I like, and vice versa that I won’t for theirs.
Why do you think this is an ADHD thing?
From what I’ve read, masking is common in both ADHD and the autism spectrum. I don’t know if what you describe falls under that or not, but it bears some resemblance to what I experience and have come to believe is in my case a form of masking.
Walking my cat.
My neighbors and I never talk, and I can’t tell if it’s because they’re antisocial, or they think I’m antisocial. I wake up at 5am for the gym, go to work, and get home at 6 or later, at which point I’m tired and go straight inside. By the time I even saw one of my neighbors, I’d lived there so long I felt weird suddenly introducing myself.
It’s worse now that I’ve started walking the cat because when people are out and about, she gets tense so all my attention is on her, not making eye contact or small talk with anyone, so I look even more antisocial now.
When other people get really involved in their pet’s enrichment, I think it’s great. When I do it I think I’m a little weirdo who everyone ignores.
Wear dark sunglasses, that way no one can see your eyes and you can compare how much attention you’re actually getting vs how much you think you’re getting.
Its probably just mild/polite curiosity
