Autism

ADHD person here living with a normie girlfriend and apparently it's not. She gets so upset when I add my own personal anecdotes to the conversation, but when I sit there in silence she accuses me of not listening.

Guys I don't know what to do.

Well apparently I have this paranoia although I think evidence of prior conversations makes it entirely warranted :)

I fight the urge to share too much of my own past experiences or knowledge by speaking to myself in my head during the conversation. I know it annoys people when I do this too often, but it’s so frustrating at the same time to remain silent that I came up with this trick to « unload my mind ». Took me too many years to come up with this solution to be honest ^^.

Uh-oh. UH-oh. UH-OH!

rocking back and forth intensifies

There are degrees. If someone's sharing about their recent stillborn child, it's probably best not to bring up that one time I was 6 and my cat died and I can really, really sympathize. Anyone who worries about this is probably that person and could spend more time asking questions and less time, "relating".

Many find the interrupting part to be disrespectful and rude, but it really isn't.

Oh for sure. I've already toned it down to like 80%. However, there are some people with which I realized I toned it down 100% because they become accusatory ("you're trying to make it about yourself") or insulting ("you have no self-awareness because your autistic"). They wont necessarily say it so explicitly, but they definitely do it in a passive-aggressive manner that means the same thing. Regardless, I'm in the process of slowly removing them from my life.

I respect this. I fix computers for a living and people tell you a surprising amount about their lives if you just nod and agree with platitudes like "Oh yeah, I definitely get it." and "That's fair enough"

Hahaha, as a nurse, I think you should become a nurse. This is a clinical skill we are taught called "therapeutic use of self."

I will selectively tell stories from my own personal background explicitly for the sake of drawing more information out of a patient, letting them know they're not alone I've been through something similar, or sometimes just a funny anecdote to distract them from something uncomfortable.

But it's never about something I'm particularly interested in talking about. It's only because it's relevant to the patient's current situation and I feel like it might help them in some way. Because, after all, love y'all and everything, but I'm at work here, not trying to socialize with ya.

And yes...it sometimes feels a little sociopathic lol

It's been mentioned below that you're unknowingly employing a therapeutic skill as a coping mechanism, but it bears mentioning that you absolutely could and should consider with a professional why it arose. Neurodivergence or personality disorders do lend themselves to developing these kind of coping strategies. It might be worth seeing someone to discover if new self-understanding and control are just around the corner.

Apparently I do this subconsciously. I've literally had thousands of people tell me that, "You're so easy to talk to," or "I wouldn't tell anyone else this, but you make me feel safe."

I've yet to figure out how to actually use this autistic power for good.

This sounds like a kind of, admittedly wicked, talent. Wanna share how you would go about it?

(Edit: ok I think you got what I did there, judging from the fact that you deleted the reply)

It can be seen as rude because you're interrupting someone's story.

My coworker does this neat trick where she interrupts with, "Oh I have a story too but I'll tell it later. Remind me!"

And I always liked how she does that.

It's physically painful to try to keep the story in.

A lot of them are typical experiences that are just much more intense or frequent among ASD/ADHD. So while everyone pees, if you're peeing 100 times per day, then it becomes indicative of a larger issue.

Idk about other instances, but almost anyone I had a long conversation with seems to do this...

If you really have nothing to say, just ask for a bit more detail on something they said.