Is this an ADHD trait?

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To get too emotionally involved with others and impulsively take matters into your own hands?

While I'm in no way a snitch, nor do I gossip everyone's secrets out, if myself or a friend is upset in the workplace I like to do anything I can to help, and then I find myself becoming involved and then I find myself in the middle of another situation.

I do it without realising at the time, like my body is being driven by a motor and I'm focusing on a mishap that has gone on (unfairness, bullying, etc), and like someone else's problem becomes my problem, all because I care too much.

Lately I've often been getting myself into bother for helping others. Makes me not want to help people any more.

But then people tell me to do something about it if I'm being bullied, then when I do something about it I'm still made to feel like I shouldn't have said anything. But what's wrong with speaking up?

If your supervisor made it clear to you that you cannot, under any circumstances, have holiday days off the same time someone else has holiday days, but then he let two people both have holiday days together even though the rule was always strictly ONE only, and it caused problems due to staff shortage and he didn't even want to know our wellbeing during that difficult period, then wouldn't you be up in arms about it? Me and double standards do not mix. If I see a double standard that affects me in some way then I will want an answer.

Bad management should be sorted out, not kept quiet - in situations like this where nobody even likes the supervisor. I'd understand it if people I worked with were friendly with the supervisor, but everyone hates him as much as I do.
But maybe I should just do what everyone else does and be "all mouth and no action".

It means you have a protective nature

It could be because you've been bullied but no one has helped you so you go out of your way to help others to kind of compensate

Idk I'm kind of similar

With ADHD mixed in it does probably mean that you act impulsively compared to other protective types who don't have ADHD

I wouldn't know if everyone who has ADHD will have a protective nature

Yeah I don't think having a protective nature is an ADHD thing, but my tendency to say too much can be.

This is where I start beating myself up, because I pride myself with not having the "autistic brutal honesty", because I know I don't, as I've been in many everyday situations where I've known not to say this or that to save someone's feelings. That is a social skill I do have.

But when it comes to bullying or unfairness that affects me in some way, then it eats away at me and I become wound up and have to offload. Then all of a sudden I find myself involved in something and digging myself a hole.

I think it's because I focus on the principles too much and I like closure. If a matter feels undealt with and just brushed under the carpet then I can spend the rest of myself dwelling on it.

I stood up against racism last year, when a good friend of mine was being treated differently at work just for being black. I hated seeing my friend treated like that, as he was a very good worker. He was upset and often confided in me, and he said that he had taken it further. So I told him that I'll stand up for him on his behalf, so that it wasn't just his word against the others. Sometimes abuse is taken more seriously when you have friends to back you up, and I knew I wasn't spilling anything private or anything, because everyone knew about the racial bullying already. But it just seems that a lot of people at my workplace say they're going to take the unfairness further but then nothing happens. But when I tried to stand up against racism in the workplace, I was told to "mind my own business". But it's my business if a good friend of mine is in distress and talks to me about it and appreciates any moral support I can offer. I couldn't just do nothing.

And this supervisor has picked on me before. He's the sort of person who has a completely different set of rules than everyone else and it's hard to be on his wavelength, and although everyone else struggles to understand his weird rules too, I seem to turn out to be the scapegoat or called to the office about something that most management wouldn't really care about. And it's causing me stress and anxiety and like I'm being picked on by him. So why shouldn't I speak out? Why is it wrong for me to speak out?

But I feel like I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.

I would talk to Samaritans about this, but I feel they don't really help. I mean I know it's nice to have someone listen to you and all that but sometimes I feel like they don't always know what to say, especially to complex issues like mine that takes a lot of explaining. Aren't Samaritans volunteers? So not professional counselors? All they do really is repeat what you've said. Like for example if you say "I'm so angry all the time with my wife" they reply things like "you feel angry with your wife all the time".

Sometimes I just need reassurance.

But whenever I feel I have failed, I get downhearted and anxious and feel like slapping myself in the face for being so stupid. But what can you do when you have one person telling you to do something and another person telling you that you shouldn't have done it?

And, before anyone gets it wrong, no I'm not "white knighting" or "virtue-signaling", I genuinely feel a caring attitude towards people I care about.

I find it hard to sit on my hands as well sometimes
Well a lot of the time actually

I lack the ability to stop
I would say that's a disability in itself actually because it's the thing that's caused me the most problems in my life.

I sometimes wonder if people are born with this "stop" function and it automatically kicks in, or if it's something you have to learn

I think many people get over things quicker than I do. So they rant and shout that they are going to do something about it, but a couple of days later they're suddenly cooled down and don't mention it again. I did do that too a few times, but then I began thinking "what if people think I'm just all talk and no action?" So that's why I thought I'd better stand up and do something about it. But when I did it backfired.

I think a lot of it is down to anxiety though. The supervisor makes me anxious with his weird ways and I don't feel he is a very suitable supervisor you can turn to. He really is causing me massive stress and I shouldn't have to come in to work worrying about being confronted by him for something I didn't even do.

If a coworker has a problem and gives their daughter the supervisor's number and she phones him on her behalf and gives him a mouthful, and it's not regarding me in the slightest, then it has nothing to do with me. I didn't give my coworker's daughter his number. I don't even know the coworker's daughter. Yet I was going to get a letter sent to me giving me a warning about something, until another coworker told him not to. But in some ways I wish he had of sent me a letter, even though the thought of that threat fills me with anxiety, because I'm now intrigued to know what would have been said in the letter about what I have supposed to have done so wrong that it warranted a letter of warning.

I guess this is the treatment you get for having a good attendance record despite the way the place is declining your mental health, getting on with your coworkers, helping others, and doing your work right.

It would be nice to find a way to be able to let go of things quicker wouldn't it

It's like other people are causing you stress and you're also punishing yourself because you can't let go

You can do it you know

I am feeling so anxious though. But one of my coworkers told me to just come to him whenever I have any issues with that useless supervisor, and he'll deal with it. That way it won't get round to the wrong people, as news travels fast in this industry.

I think my supervisor really needs to know about my ADHD. I mean he could have guessed but he's not really going to know unless he's told. I don't want him to start feeling all sorry for me and treating me differently or anything, but it might just make him understand things about me:-

- My meltdowns aren't attention-seeking behaviour, it's from anxiety and emotional dysregulation.

- If I'm caught touching something, it's because I always need to be fiddling with new things and I'm easily distracted, not because I want to pry or tamper with or steal anything.

- I prefer to just be left alone, not pulled up into the office for petty things that aren't important. This can make me feel like I'm in trouble or done something wrong and I get anxious.

I think I'm just going to put all this down as being 'hyper-social', which can be a common behaviour of hyperactive-type ADHD.