If you haven’t read this post, here is another opportunity for you to do so. Black and white thinking can be a real challenge for those with ADHD.
“But, my teacher said it has to be done this way”, he says. “Well, let’s take a look at the directions and double check that, because it doesn’t quite make sense”, I say. “No, I know for sure that it’s this way, and we don’t need to look at the directions”, he says. And here we go, around and around, until it becomes a yelling match. Unable to budge, unable to stop, unable to be flexible, unable to accept that there might be another way to look at something.
The Cambridge dictionary defines black and white thinking as : To have a simple view of right or wrong or good and bad.
People with ADHD often have this cognitive distortion. Ryan again, has it in spades. He knows he does, but in the heat of the moment, it’s very hard for him to stop and breathe and take a moment. Sometimes we can catch it early enough, but we have to be thinking on our feet almost all of the time. And when I say we, this includes Ryan.
Of course, any typical kid who is a teenager or young adult, can be this way with his or her parents or an authority figure. It’s quite expected, but this behavior in those with ADHD is like being on steroids. And I’m sure some of us have come across adults in our lives who are like this too. Some people with OCD also can have this trait.
I’m going to try and flip it on its head for a moment and see if there are any positives about it, and then I’ll talk more about the negatives.
If you’re really passionate about something and you know without a shadow of a doubt that you’re right, this trait can come across as someone who stands firm in their belief. This can be good in a religious sense, or a social justice sense, and a political sense, and a health sense. (Yes, you say, but that can be a negative thing too….I’ll get to that in a bit.) We need people in this world who have real convictions to make a change. Another positive thing about black and white thinking is one’s black and white sense of good and bad in their own ethical or moral life. (Again, yes, that could be negative too, but please be patient.) Honestly, I can’t think of anything else on the positive side of this way of thinking, and even the positives can really cause issues, right?
This trait can cause all kinds of angst in relationships. I do know that Ryan got this from me. I grew up thinking in a black and white world. Gray did not exist. And to this day, I struggle with my black and white judgmental attitude. I am aware of it and I work on it daily. I’m sure I’ve lost friends over my inability to accept faults, or decisions my friends have made. I open my mouth, and tell friends what I think, without thinking before I speak. Not until I got in to college and went to nursing school, did I begin to realize that life just isn’t black and white, there’s lots of gray. I needed to learn realize that I wasn’t the expert in everything nor did I know everything. People had different life experiences, and what was right for me, wasn’t necessarily right for them. People don’t want to be around know it alls and blowhards. It’s a difficult lesson to learn about oneself. So again, it comes down to keeping friends. It also comes down to being heard and accepted when you might want to make a political, ethical, religious or social justice stand. People with black and white thinking sometimes can be really over the top obnoxious and pushy. Is anyone really going to listen to you? The only ones who will listen will be your “choir”. If you want to make a change or have people listen, you need to come from a place of humility and kindness. Find out more about the “opposition”, their experiences, their education. Get to know them. Their black and white can become your gray. Jane Goodall has said, “You have to reach the hearts and minds of people in order to make change.” What a wonderful philosophy.
OK, I’ve gotten off track a little. It’s the COVID-19 stay in place order talking. But, I still think it speaks to black and white thinking, and how to work towards changing an ADHD brains mindset. Ryan is 20 and I have actually used the words, “You say black, I say white. ” Sometimes it doesn’t matter what we’re talking about, he’ll just automatically take the other side. So what do we do to work on this?
We have helped Ryan to become aware, to step back , to consider other options and be considerate of others. He’s worked with his therapist by himself and in family therapy with his dad and me. We’ve had him in social skills groups. It hasn’t gone away, but he’s been given tools to use. Sometimes these tools work great and he’s able to access them. Other times, in the heat of a moment, they don’t . Again, it’s a process. A lifelong process.
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