Who-man (Human)

This has been sitting with me for a long time — these repeated moments that make me question how well we understand each other, and how often we misread the emotional landscapes of the people we care about. I don’t like the idea that people are “lessons,” because nobody should be reduced to that. But the patterns have been too consistent to ignore.

This will make sense.

Over the last year or so, four people close to me have received the same diagnosis: ADHD, discovered in adulthood. I won’t write about them directly — that wouldn’t be fair — but I can say that each of them has shaped how I think about connection, communication, and the ways we accidentally hurt each other without meaning to.

The first person was someone I lived with briefly in 2024, someone I’ve always cared about deeply. I ignored them for nearly five years — not out of spite, but because the circumstances around that connection felt complicated and potentially harmful for me. When we reconnected, they told me they understood why I stepped away, but that it had hurt them in ways they struggled to explain.

We’ve all felt rejection, but this was the first time I began to understand the depth of hurt some people with ADHD can experience. The next day, by complete chance, I was in a charity shop and saw a book about loving adults with ADHD. I picked it up, sat in my car, and started reading. And that was the moment something shifted.

It hit me because it felt like everything was suddenly pointing in the same direction — four diagnoses in a short space of time, this book appearing out of nowhere, and the realisation that maybe I had been misreading things for years. It pushed me to ask myself hard questions: Have I been as good as I can be with people? Have I understood what they needed from me? Have I been too blunt, too quick, too closed off without realising the impact?

I thought about someone else too — someone who must have felt rejected and unwanted by me, and how maybe I could have done things better. And that’s when the sadness really landed. Not guilt, exactly. More the ache of hindsight.

I can be blunt. I can be standoffish. I can give short answers that, to me, are just efficient. But for someone experiencing what’s known as Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD), those quick replies can feel like dismissal, withdrawal, or abandonment. I didn’t know that then. I do now.

Equally, I understand that when people experience the feelings associated with RSD,  my understanding is that it can create fear and pain deep within, and perhaps I have taken offence to being questioned when if I had a better understanding maybe I would have – as I would now – be more understanding.

I asked my therapist about it, and they told me a story: a husband who always texted his wife when he arrived at work to say he loved her. One day he was late, stressed, and walked straight into problems at work. He forgot the text. His wife — later diagnosed with ADHD — spiralled into panic, convinced he didn’t love her anymore. Not because she was dramatic, but because her brain interpreted the silence as rejection.

That story has stayed with me. I think about it most weeks. Even thinking about it now makes me cry a bit, because there are things within that story that I can relate to.

Because I know moments in my own life where I’ve done something similar — sitting in my car watching videos before going back inside, not replying straight away, giving a one‑word answer because I didn’t think it mattered. And someone I cared about thought I was angry with them. I wasn’t. I just didn’t realise how my silence might land.

And this brings me back to the first blog I wrote. Back to the person who also felt things deeply, who also needed reassurance I didn’t know how to give. Now I can see it. Now I can name it. And I’m trying to be better.

If I were in that situation again — sitting in my car, knowing someone might worry — I’d simply say what I was doing. Not because I owe constant updates, but because a tiny bit of clarity can prevent a huge amount of pain.

So the title: Who-man (Human). 

Who are we, really, when we collide with each other’s vulnerabilities?

We’re inconsistent. 

We’re flawed. 

We hit the wrong notes sometimes. 

And those notes echo further than we realise.

I know that being gruff or standoffish isn’t the best way to be with everyone. I know I need to be more open, more aware of how my communication lands, more willing to offer reassurance when it costs me nothing but means everything to someone else.

We’re all different. But we’re all human. And the world isn’t getting easier. Maybe the least we can do is try to understand the shape of each other’s hurt, and meet it with a little more care.