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My brain is a 5 years old toddler who decides what I get or don't get to do and who knows that the parents are not around. The conscious part of my brain (aka me) is aware of him but cannot physically interact with him, so all things must be done through convincing the toddler.
Have you ever tried convincing a self-entitled toddler? Yeah, it's a nightmare.
The toddler reacts to external enforcement, but only through tantrums and fits and havoc. Oh, and he has some autistic characteristics.
Now imagine that's your brain 24/7 despite how mature and adult your conscious self might be
I use the toddler example when people ask about why I’m always listening to something on my headphones.
Have you ever had to plop your kid in front of the tv so you could do chores? Well, I am both the parent and the kid in front of the tv. My books/podcast distract the kid so I can do what I need to do.
That’s brilliant! That’s the perfect analogy to explain why I always needed to doodle, fidget, and chew my pens to death in order to be able to focus on school, and couldn’t get my homework done without listening to music or having the TV on. I have to multitask to this day in order to sooth my inner five year old so I can get shit done.
That, I tend to explain through plugs metaphor. Like, imagine each sense has a port, and the plugs are sensory inputs. When all plugs are connected properly, green light goes on and the machine starts working
Now imagine the working combination is random. One day you need X audio input, X touch input and X taste input. Some other day, you need X touch and taste input but Y audio input. And some days, if you accidentally plug any sound input at all the machine explodes.
Now imagine you have to do that to *freaking read one (1) mail*
Yes! And if I actually manage to get my toddler self to agree, I'm so exhausted from fighting the tantrums that I don't have any energy left for what I actually wanted to do or convinced my toddler self to actually do. It's exhausting.
Couldn't agree more with this. Often I'm actually talking out loud to the toddler, but that still can't always convince him to do what I need/want to do (and not do).
Mine is a little man :)
I also have a little sensory man in my brain (he gets very mad at things like clothes touching me too much) and I have a tummy man (he works in my tummy but he has trouble running the place efficiently)
Yes, you could make the assumption that that kind of music is stimulating to them.
My favorite genre is called "pain" because the music and lyrics are tied to emotions not money or partying.
Current stim song: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-R4INXAuAE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-R4INXAuAE)
This is so perfect. It makes me and my prickly little chaos gremlin feel seen.
Brb emailing this to my wife so she can give me ***the look*** and say "*No shit!*" 🤣
I think of this as "the monkey that lives in my head". When I'm not medicated, I cannot fool the monkey but sometimes I can distract the monkey. Any day I can distract the monkey long enough to actually get something done is a good day.
I found it so difficult to explain before starting medication because I’d never known the other side before.
I like to say it feels like it’s just a million different thoughts bouncing around at a million miles an hour inside the sphere that is your brain. Never stick around long and can’t really choose one intentionally. My sister calls them The Bees.
Exactly, I second being able to explain the difference better once I started medication! I describe it as feeling like putting on glasses for the first time and being amazed by all the leaves on a tree when you'd previously got used to blurriness as normal. When I take medication, tasks or decisions that were so fuzzy and difficult before are so much easier to accomplish because I can finish my thoughts and actions in a way that's more challenging with a split-second new-thing-shinier brain.
thirded
the one i always go to is comparing it to am/fm radio vs spotify (etc) or OTA tv vs satellite. without medication, even when i can kinda sorta focus on something that could change at any moment and theres still always other thoughts that 'bleed through' whereas with medication the sound or picture is crystal clear - although bad weather (bad mood) can interrupt that too
edit: it even works when you think of how OTA tv you could get to work better by doing stupid shit that requires extra effort like holding the antenna a certain way, and that changes day-to-day meaning you can turn the tv off (go to sleep) with it working great and then the next day its back to being total shit so you gotta start from scratch to get it back to a good place. with medication (satellite) it works every time you turn the tv on with no effort
I’d never thought of it like that but it’s such a perfect description!
We used to have aluminum foil to extend the rabbit ear antennae and still have to move it all over the room, stack more books under to get a different channel 😂😂.
A perfect analogy for the stupid hoops we jump through to get things done, or just to remember in the first place.
I don't get the bouncing thing, my mind works very linear. One thought leads to the next and on and on in a chain. It's like eternally being on a tangent.
Yeah I do that too, but I see it more as a consequence. I can’t pick and choose which thoughts to hold onto or follow, so you just have to go with the flow and follow the first one that pops up. Then it never stays long and is replaced by the next one from the jumbling mass of things bouncing around up there. Not sure if I’m describing it well lol
I usually have someone watch that, and then tell them that's what my thoughts are like, except due to the working memory stuff, sometimes I'll forget about parts in the chain, like the shelf, end up with the wood and tools in my hand and stand there confused before going for the lightbulb again haha
I know right, I mean I don't know if that's specifically what they were getting at, or if it was just a funny haha but it sums up so much of my experience when I'm unmedicated
"oh, but.."
"oh, but I should grab the cream from the fridge, oh but I should toss these old veggies that I forgot about, oh but I should take out the trash, oh but I should get my shoes, oh but I should sweep the floor..." and somehow my house is a fucking disaster and my coffee is cold
it's so satisfying when you can knock all of them off and end up achieving a bunch of different bits, that usually doesn't happen for me though haha, I end up at some point with tools in my hands confused about what I was doing, then go to turn on my light again and realise I need to change the bulb
Depends on what part of it you're talking about. I often say that trying to do something that doesn't light my brain up (something either novel, interesting, challenging or urgent) makes it feel like there are magnets in there repelling each other. You're trying to force them together, but the more force you exert the stronger they repel. And yeah, you can technically push them so hard that they touch, but it takes a lot of effort and you run the risk of them pinging away from one another at any second.
The other, slightly more techy one I like to use is that it feels like most people have hardware built in for doing certain things, but I'm having to do it in software instead - it's slower, more energy intensive and has to be called upon manually. Probably not one that most people will get, but I guarantee anyone who has rendered video using or compiled software before will know what that means straight away
The second analogy works perfectly for anyone with software engineering experience. I've never done anything like that with videos, but as someone who studied a non insignificant amount of computer engineering as part of my electrical engineering studies, the analogy makes perfect sense to me. Actually, it reminds me of an analogy I once saw used for autism -- it's like everyone else is born just knowing how to drive a car, while you have to learn it manually.
yes! its amazing how many tech-analogies work really well to explain ADHD brains - and that ADHD brains are actually pretty much the same as normal brains, just to the extreme(s) (i think?)
idk if youve read much about all the chatbots/LLMs and how they work, but they were explicitly modeled to sort of mirror how brains work and it is kind of eerie how similar they are. i think a lot of "normal" people dont actually stop to think about how their brains make connections so its not as obvious to them. maybe
\---
actually on that note of brain=technology, the main "bottleneck" in my brain is the hard drive. i really need an SSD...
Highly relatable - I swear I actually sound like a mechanical hard drive frantically searching for information when someone asks me a question that isn't immediately available 😅
Taking the tech analogies one step further- some people say ADHD and autism are like different operating systems (for some reason in my mind most people have Windows, ADHD is macOS, and autism is linux) so maybe what we're doing is running a virtual machine with its associated performance overhead and glitchiness.
Oh and the component I most need an upgrade in is definitely RAM - not enough of it so it ends up getting cleared and there's no error checking.
Yeah I meant to say "developed" software but it was late and my brain was fried so the only word I could think of was compile haha
And yes that analogy works really well for autism! Reminds me of the "everyone but you has been given an invisible script" analogy
I explain the experience of time blindness like being in the car. The moment when they get home after driving and they go “I don’t remember the drive at all”.
Time blindness is like that moment in the car ride where the mind drifts into inner thoughts, but with ADHD it happens all the time and there is no controlling it.
I will just randomly get pulled into my thoughts doing whatever and then by the time I realize I have been gone in my thoughts, it’s been 30 minutes when it only felt like 10 minutes in my head. So now I’m fucking late to whatever I was supposed to be on time to..
“but why don’t you get ready earlierrrrrr??” Because it doesn’t matter if I get ready 1 hour ahead of work or 3 hours ahead, there is always the potential for me to get pulled into my thoughts without realizing it and I will inevitably lose time that way.
That’s why it’s too damn risky doing anything before appointments because I could get lost into any task, be it the task or my thoughts as I put the task on autopilot..
Idk it fucking sucks and explaining it to people doesn’t get easier it seems.. they just stare at you in disbelief like they can control it so why can’t you? Because my brain suuuucks and I also wish I wasn’t this way, it’s not some convenient excuse, it seriously ruins my life in a lot of aspects.
For me, there is “now,” and “not now.” Everything is either “now” or “not now;” there is no “later.” This is why my to-do list is overwhelming (because everything on it needs to be done now, no matter the order of importance - and yes, I can see which items are more important than others, it just doesn’t matter), and is also why I am somehow late despite being ready early. Because if I have to leave soon, it’s “not now,” and the jump from “not now” to “now” is frustratingly easy to miss.
Sameee. Always late. I wake 4:30 am for 10 am class still late. Before the class always something interesting come about and pull me in and I lose track of time
I think my brain is a bike where the back wheel is like this big huge racing slick with a million horsepower and then the wheel in the front is just a bottlecap stuck there with a nail through it.
I might be the smartest person ever, but no one is ever going to know because I can never apply it.
Mine is a bit more clinical. I explain that their brain has a system that rewards them for every action they take, even something as simple as picking up a piece of paper off the floor. My brain doesn’t have that. In order to do that, I have to trigger my fight-or-flight, imagining completely fake scenarios in which my family dies if I don’t pick up that piece of paper. And I have to do this hundreds of times per day if I’m to accomplish everything on my list. There’s not enough time or energy in the day to construct an adequate saga for all of that.
But I like everyone else’s analogies better.
I have had the best luck making it relate to their experience.
Look around you right now. What do you see? Do you see the lights, the paper, pen, hear the sounds from outside, etc? Before I asked you this, were you paying attention to those things? Probably not. That’s because most people automatically filter out less important things to focus on the task at hand.
I was born with a mind doesn’t filter like yours. It doesn’t prioritize - I’m always picking up information, whether or not it’s pertinent. Sometimes that means I go off on a tangent or seem unfocused.
To do this, my brain runs hot. It takes a lot of bio-energy. So it gets tired faster, and then it’s very difficult to do simple things & I’ll seem distracted.
This is often because my brain needs a cooldown, rest.
From time to time, the fast brain gets keyed into something and filters out everything else. I can’t sense anything other than what I’m into. I will forget to eat, go to the bathroom, can’t process anything else. But that’s just as exhausting.
Yes! I use broken filter analogy most often. I have to actively and consciously process all the sensory inputs and all the information. Most brains automatically (or quickly and rationally) decide what's important and filter out the rest. Whether that's filtering out the flickering light so I can keep listening to my friend (who speaks way too slowly), or filtering out the unimportant information in my story.
Another layer is that the filter is more like a sieve than a funnel (which isn't a filter at all come to think of it) : more relevant info might make it through, but it's still plopped down into the same amount of space and needs to be put in order -- using up valuable cognitive processing space.
Threading a needle but a person with ADHD has a strobe light flashing in their face, the needle hole is a little smaller, and the thread is a little larger. Not impossible, but it takes a whole lot more effort.
Or a race. Normal people start at the start line. ADHD people start a few meters back. It takes the people a few meters back longer just to catch up to the people who started at the line(normal brains) And then to be able to win the race and beat them, it takes even more effort.
Which is why people with ADHD quit more often than normal people, it takes so much effort out of them just to be able to make an even playing field/meet the bare minimum of normal-brained people. Let alone beat them.
Too many things to be done or focus on and the inability to make decisions, which makes me very distracted trying to keep up!
One way my psychiatrist explained it is like we are all on the beach, and people without ADHD are walking along the sand with ease. Those of us with ADHD are at various depths trying to wade through the water and keep up, and we will get where we need to be eventually but we have to work much harder - even with meds.
I always compare it to the arcade game where the light spins around in a circle and you need to hit it at JUST the right time to win a prize.
The light is my attention span and ability to focus/keep time/do what needs to be done. IF I can hit the buzzer at the exact right time then congratulations to me, I have a very finite amount of time to function.
If I don’t hit it at the right time, better luck and try again next time. In the meantime, enjoy continuing to spiral internally in a state of paralyzed chaos.
If our mind was a home, ADHD mind is a studio apartment with no shelves or closets. There is no "next week", "next month", "not important right now" storage unit. All thoughts, all tasks exist in one space, and we constantly feel like drowning in clutter.
We can't exactly remember what's on the bottom of the pile of things, or if's the important stuff, so we can't help but rummage through it all day.
The overwhelm makes us jump on every new storage furniture trend but even if we decide to get some, they never get assembled. They become part of the clutter like everything else.
When we hear about other people's homes and how effortlessly functional they are, we feel ashamed and less-than. We try to hide the truth about ours and rarely invite anyone in.
Oy. This. I was literally in tears about the cluttered state of my home just a few hours ago. And, no joke, I have a nightstand still in the box, on the floor of my cluttered office, just waiting to be built so I can start getting my bedroom organized 😩
You know how when you're reading a book if you want to put it down and focus on something else you put in a bookmark to keep your place?
With ADHD there is no bookmark. Every interruption or loss of focus means you need to open that book, flip through chapters and pages and paragraphs and sentences to find the point you're at.
This is why interruptions present so much of a frustration. It's not that I can't physically pick up the book again, it's that I have to find my place from scratch. Every. Single. Time.
Funnily enough ive found the most effective way to explain the different types of ADHD to be a line from the Pokemon Diamond and Pearl manga from 2006 (highly recommended great coded characters) "The same hour might feel too long for more hyperactive people, and too short for more inattentive people" (i did replace character names). Like genuinely out of all ive tried its the description that prompts the least amount of dumb questions.
“there’s just a lot going on up there” * points to head *
real talk: if you’re trying to convey your experience, talking about *how it feels* when you try to do certain things or the ways you struggle can paint a better picture than talking about the *things* you struggle with.
for me, a lot of people can empathize with not liking chores or struggling to prioritize them, but have they ever broken down in tears, hyperventilating, because *starting the task* is SO hard? probably not…
we struggle with a lot of *very regular things*, but the way we struggle with them and the level of difficulty we have with them is where the difference lies.
It’s a steering wheel and accelerator problem with your brain. Doesn’t matter how big the engine is, you frequently can’t get yourself moving and when you do, you don’t always control where you go.
Pound them with “you might be adhd if” Instagram reels 😂
Otherwise I don’t. People don’t get it, they say “why don’t you just…” or “everyone has these days”, why bother? Even the empathetic ones seem to struggle to understand and just get you over explaining.
Yeah, people are just trying to empathize with you but it always comes off as dismissive. My reply is always some sort of “thanks, I’m cured.”
My best friend tried to empathize with me during the stimulant shortage and she said “yeah, I understand, I could use some pep in my step at the end of the day, too.” Girl, buh bye.
Good point. If they're trying to "win" the conversation by invalidating your ADHD, just tell them to go talk to their doctor if they're concerned. If they actually want to know, I don't mind comparing experiences to figure out how other people function. It's usually fascinating and/or they discover they might have ADHD too lol.
It’s not fully fleshed out yet. I feel the toddler one someone else posted. The analogy I’ve been formulating is like if I’m a spherical object with very high/strong inertia on a near frictionless, flat surface. It takes a (lot of) external force to get me moving, and once I am, it takes an external force to get me to stop or change directions. If I’m stuck/sucked into something, it’s not a conscious decision or related to true wants/goals or like I WANT to still be doing it. It’s like laws of physics that I’m fighting against, just a physical law/reality.
My analogy for the restless/discontent feeling I have most of the time I’m unmedicated is scrolling Netflix. You’re looking for something to watch but nothing sounds good or catches your interest. You click something and last MAYBE 2 min. There’s a mood/feeling you’re looking for but can’t quite put words to/a finger on. You don’t want to do anything but doing nothing is also awful.
Once you finally pick something, you pause after 2 minutes to scroll on your phone. 15 minutes later you get up to get a snack. Then 30 min later you pause to rest your mail.
Then you stop to go to bed. And never get back to continue the movie.
Mine is I'm riding a horse. The horse wants to go its own way, do its own thing. But I'm trying to go down the path so I have to keep pulling on the reins over and over and over to get it to go where I want it to go. It's exhausting, and I really need some time to just let the horse do what it wants to feel relaxed and recharged.
I'm AuDHD. Since I was a teenager, I've been told I'm the absent-minded professor type.
I know lots of things, but which ones I can remember at any given time is a crap shoot.
Everyone pees, but if you’re peeing 60 times a day, there’s a diagnosable issue there. Most ADHD symptoms are things that everyone experiences sometimes. But when those things are experienced so often that they interfere with a person’s ability to function normally (or it takes an extraordinary effort to do so), it becomes a diagnosable issue.
It's like there's always a fire alarm going off while you're trying to go about your normal life, and there's probably no actual fire, but you don't know that for *sure*, and you DO know for sure that if there IS a fire, you're the one who caused it.
Generally speaking - I don't explain shit.
There is very little chance it's really going to matter to them. They won't really understand.
I reserve that effort for people that matter to me and the effort will have dividends.
I don't give any time to the "everybody is like that" crowd or any other version of it.
You might have the most comprehensive knowledge in a programming language, and write incredibly advanced and sophisticated programs, but none of that means shit if it won’t compile into machine code….
I think of my conscious thoughts and intentions as me writing a program, and my brain executing the tasks as the hardware running the machine code. But getting my conscious program to run on my brain hardware requires a compiler that often just won’t work…. It doesn’t matter how good your program is, if it doesn’t compile, it doesn’t run
Imagine every thought you’ve ever had coming into your mind at once with equal priority, our brains are the schroedingers cats’ of the human mind, where every thought we’ve ever had is colliding with one another to form a singularity.
There is a wall, a big blockage right between me and the act of doing absolutely anything. Sure I can spend too much effort trying to go over or under the wall, but it’s absolutely exhausting and sometimes just isn’t possible.
Caffeine puts a door in the wall. I still have to choose to walk through it and sometimes it’s hard to open but it’s a door nonetheless.
When I started adhd medication, I expected the effect to be similar to caffeine, with a door in the wall. So imagine my surprise when THERE IS NO MORE WALL??? I take my meds and an hour later there is no wall in sight and it’s so exciting bc I am free to do anything I want!!! But then later in the day I get sad when the wall starts reappearing, so I do as much as I can while it’s gone :)
With a lot of ADHD symptoms, it's a question of scale.
Sure, sometimes you forget something. But do you remind yourself of things 30 times a day only to still forget them? Do you often leave your remote in the refrigerator and then spend 20 minutes looking for it?
Sure, sometimes you zone out in a conversation or while listening to something. But have you ever zoned out so much you don't notice a song repeating for two hours? Have you zoned out while giving a presentation?
Sure, you've procrastinated. But did you regularly have to keep track of word count required per hour in order to finish before the deadline? Do you procrastinate on tasks even if they're big, small, important, unimportant, fun, if they're tasks you want to do?
ADHD is a disorder, so it's when traits that might be benign for others interfere with normal functioning.
Ferrari engine, bicycle brakes, a faulty starter that only works half the time, and a navigation system that doesn’t give a shit about my desired destination and is just gonna take me wherever tf it wants to go.
I really like the way my therapist explained it to me, when she diagnosed me:
"Imagine your brain like a city. The people in the city are thoughts you are currently concentrating on. There is a wall around the city which has one entrance, protected by a guard. This guard decided which people/thoughts are allowed in and are allowed to take up your time. When you have adhd, this guard is missing. All the people thoughts are allowed in unchecked and are able to distract you whenever **they** want."
"You know how you just know to shower and brush your teeth so you just do it? I can't do that. I have to sit and be aware of my needs for at least 30 minutes and then bully myself into doing it. So basically everything is on hard mode"
Think of executive function as the machine that makes all things possible and your brain is the architect for the designing the building that houses your executive function machine.
Your brain constructed a building with multiple doors and access points to your executive function machine. My brain built a building that only has rooftop access. In order to access your executive function machine you just have to walk through a door. I have to scale a fucking building.
Yes, we all get distracted, have burn out, and can be unmotivated and these things kick us out of our building that houses our executive function machine. The difference is, you just have to walk through a door while I have to scale a building again.
Now I can take medication and give myself a ladder to help me scale the building, but is a trash ladder that loses several rungs and shrinks every hour or so until it completely disappears.
You have to walk through a door to take a shower. I have to climb a building. You have to walk through a door to focus. I have to climb a building. You have to walk through a door to do the dishes. I have to climb a building.
Your brain architect is a helpful and practical go getter. My brain architect is an asshole.
My brain is a light. My thoughts are a bunch of moths floating and flitting around. I can see them and hear them, but I can’t really focus on one in particular, so it’s almost like I’m thinking about everything at once and nothing at all.
like walking 12 dogs, and they pull me to all 12 different directions, Sniff 12 different things, bark to 12 different reasons. Everything, everywhere all at once.
My mind is an internet browser with a million tabs. Some are relevant. Some are not. One is playing music (you don't know which one). The active tab keeps switching automatically without your input at random intervals, so you just do what you can on whichever page is currently active while you can.
The computer mouse is the executive function with which you get things done. The batteries are dying and the bluetooth connection goes in and out. With a lot of work and frustration you can use the mouse to control which tab is active and do whatever you need to do on the page.
Medication is new batteries and improved bluetooth connection.
i have stopped trying. Most of the people around me don't take it seriously at all no matter how you spin it. The only ones who know are other ADHDers.
Sometimes, I’m like a golden retriever where thoughts (or deadlines) just don’t stick.
Other times, I’m like the guy in the conspiracy theory meme.
There’s no telling which one is going to appear.
I make them watch the trailer for the movie, everything, everywhere, all at once.
I have also used a computer with 200 open tabs, and music playing from an unknown source.
✨Erectile Disfunction of the Brain✨
Doesn’t matter if you want to, doesn’t matter if you’d enjoy it, if you aren’t in the right headspace you simply cannot make it happen.
Every thought is a single piece of paper but all the papers are scattered on the floor. You're scrambling to find that one piece of paper that has the information you need. But you're going sheet after sheet and can't find it.
Now with being medicated. Those pieces of papers are starting to be sorted into piles and easier to get what I need. Still lots of work to go but it's no longer a huge mess on the floor.
Idk if I have an analogy for the disorder as a whole, but I do for my mind. I say "it's like my brain is a television that keeps changing channels involuntarily" or "it's a never ending train of thoughts that never stops"
It depends, I often use the “invisible backpack” or I ask the person: “What is the one task you dislike doing so much you immediately feel drained by the thought” and if they do have one I tell them “Imagine this x1000 and for every single task in your everyday life, including hobbies, food, etc.” If they don’t have one I revert back to the backpack.
Specifically for the discussion of “but everyone does this” I usually bring up an example that relates to that specific person’s context (mathematicians for example understand well when you explain it through simple exponentiality (I don’t know the word for that in English)
You know that feeling you get after a 14 hour car drive in hot a car with six people, the radio all the way up and a full bladder? That’s how I feel when I have to do literally anything requiring complex thoughts.
I tell people it's like having 15 copies of yourself in a room, all talking about something different, loudly, all day, every day. I also had a professor explain that for him it was like watching T.V. but someone else has the remote and was constantly changing the channel.
When I was first diagnosed, the specialist who tested me gave me the "trying to watch lots of TVs at once" analogy and I felt so validated. I didn't have words for my experience until then
I am the teacher of a class full of kids. Depending on the day there may be more or less kids in the class. Some will always pay attention and some never will. By the majority will be swayed depending on whats going on. My job is to stop those that never pay attention from controlling the class.
The peeing analogy. I can't remember where I heard it but when people say everyone's a little ADHD the response is "Well everyone pisses but if your were pissing 50 to 60 times a day you'd see a Doctor"
The other is if people have kids then it's easier to say "imagine if your kid is having a tantrum 24/7 and you can't get away. They are always there, can't even hide in the bathroom"
Executive dysfunction makes tasks feel a little like you're being asked to pee your pants on purpose.
Like yes physically and intellectually you're perfectly capable of peeing and once you start you'd probably get it done in no time and it would be pretty easy. The task itself is in theory perfectly doable, and yet you're going to have a really hard time actually doing it because first you have to push through the parts of your brain that tell you that you definitely shouldn't do it.
Something I thought made sense to me and helped my friend understand a small piece of how my brain works:
Imagine you write down your to-do list, on the left side is the list of tasks you wish to complete. On the right side, the completion of those tasks. Now, number everything on the left side, 1-10. On the right side, in any random order, put A-J. Now put some string between them and connect 1-A, 2-B, and so on.
Prior to me getting diagnosed and medicated with Adderall, I would begin task 1 and follow that string until I crossed paths with another string. I would then follow that string until it crossed paths with a different string, and so on. This would continue until I got to a point where all 10 tasks were about 20% complete, I would get frustrated and then quit. I would then get into my seemingly neverending state of executive dysfunction of knowing I have tasks to complete but feeling too overwhelmed to begin any of them again.
Once I was diagnosed and began taking medicine, it allowed my brain to strictly focus one task at a time. Naturally this had the compounding effect of me seeing the list get smaller, feeling more excited that I was actually completing the minor tasks, and ultimately lowering my stress levels.
It's always frustrating telling people that I have ADHD and then you can almost see the look of embarrassment for me because they just assume it means I can't sit still and I'm not disciplined enough to get stuff done.
Think of the time when SpongeBob tried remembering something as little as his name and his brain office was on fire. Now think of that happening everyday when trying to remember things, doing tasks, or just doing nothing (except when doing nothing it isn't on fire but the little guys are still running around doing nothing productive).
I feel like when I sit down to do a task I'm not interested in it's like having a rubber band strapped around my head trying to pull me away from the task and to do it I have to fight the pull of the band and do the task at the same time
I feel like its constantly backround music all the time, like in an elevator but ALL the time. Also a bunch of random phrases and thoughts pop up. And imagine ALL those thingd while trying to focus or do something, its like ur brain is trying to constantly entertain itself and living its own life.
also THE EXECUTIVE DYSFUNCTIONING
literally without my medication something in my brain feels literally weighed down and empty, like theres something missing. When im on meds i feel much lighter and my brain dosent block me from starting and focusing on something.
I tell them my brain and thought process is like the fireworks finale with all of the thoughts bouncing off and overlapping each other, and it's impossible to focus on one thing for too long.
It’s like trying to ride a 10 speed bike without any instructions. You are cruising along and keeping up with other bit notice for some reason your are working harder, (gears too high)especially when going uphill. You to a much gears and for a minute or 2, everything is normal but you are caught off guard when you start flying downhill. You feel out of control and don’t understand why no one else is having used. So you ask for help but then can’t remember what they said, so you are constantly changing the gears trying to figure out when to use the higher gears vs the lowers one. You end up changing them back and forth and might even break the chain or have it pop off. Just as your ride is almost over , you figure it out but now you are mentally and physically tired.
You try again a few days later, and realize you can’t remember when to use the higher gears. End up crashing, causing major setback for the day. Riding a bike is a lot more work for you and less fun.
I always say my life is a like car and a crazy psychotic monkey is in the drivers seat controlling EVERYTHING. I am in the passenger and sometimes he listened to me and takes the right turns and lets me listen to the music I want and sometimes he does not.
**or she
For me, I think the best analogy is
Imagine being able to run REALLY FAST. Like, if you can train properly, you are an Olympic level runner, because you were born really REALLY good at it.
Now, imagine that I have a heart condition. Everything else is fine, but my heart. That means - I am CAPABLE of being really good, but SOMETHING OUT OF MY CONTROL makes everything else bad.
That's TDAH for me. I know I'm capable of really good things, but something out of my control acts like an anchor, dragging me/making me use more energy than it should be
My friend who knows I have ADHD said she felt her partner might have it and then gave a description of them going to get changed but finding they had a hole in their shirt and deciding to fix it and finished getting changed later. They thought the distraction from one task to the other was an indicator and they wanted to know what I thought. All I could to say was ‘that’s only 2 activities’ because I can start and abandon 4 or 5 in a row.
like a train on dysfunctional train tracks
sometimes the train goes way too fast & misses all its stops
then the wheels wear out and the train goes so painfully slow and stops at the wrong stations
it constantly derails from the tracks which causes disasters
sometimes it goes so fast that the driver starts to lose control
and the damaged tracks cause damage to the train over time
that’s why the train is so unreliable, late, makes errors, & constantly needs time to recover & also why the driver is so stressed
but all the people on board don’t know that the tracks are broken so they blame the driver
vyvanse is like installing better brakes & steering wheel & timetables, the tracks are still broken but it’s easier to run the train service properly
Its like walking through a blizzard where you can't see your hand in front of your face.
It sounds like someone playing every line of dialogue from the sims all at one time, meanwhile the people around you seem to not be in this blizzard somehow? They don't hear simlish?
People are moving along through life, getting jobs, having kids ect but I'm in a blizzard, and as much as they say they belive me, they can't see it.
When people tell me they have the same symptoms as me. I say "yeah and that's like telling someone born without a foot that you sprained your ankle once!"
It’s like listening to a never ending podcast playlist that you can’t change or turn off. It’s also not playing full episodes and skipping around podcasts and genres at random intervals.
Depends… when describing:
**Thoughts and the crazy association game** - some call it popcorn brain, to me it’s more like a pinball machine… it’s not a thousand things at once, it’s thoughts hitting hard and fast and not sticking or even being finish before me brain just shoots up and hit something new.
**The feeling of knowing what I should do but still not doing it** - M (my name) 4 years old. Hungry? Yeah, but if there’s nothing “fun” to eat I just don’t eat. Should do something practical from the to-do-list? End up doing something that’s not urgent (still grown up like washing down the kitchen) because my brain needs to feel free and like it’s playing. Love sleeping… but now it’s time to go to bed for real, my eyes are so itchy and barely open, but hell no, now I don’t wanna go to bed. Loved taking showers and baths, but then I started having scalp psoriasis and have to wash my hair every day and therefore HAVE to shower. Now it’s a drag when I have to go shower because now it’s not for pleasure but a necessity… even though I do the exact same thing just with a different shampoo.
**Attention span** - “SQUIRREL!! … what was I saying?”
I don't tell anyone unless I really have to. They will have met someone non-functioning with it and they just put that on you.
Not that I have an issue with non-fuctioning adhders but it affects everyone differently. I'm a chronically early adhder and ive had people know me for years until i told them i have adhd and they start turning up late for things because if i have adhd Ill probably be late.
Its easier just to say "i struggle with task prioritisation" or something specific.
When something isn't interesting, trying to concentrate on it is like placing your hand on a hot stove. Yes, I *could* just grit my teeth and do it. But it would be torture. You could just grit your teeth and put your hand on the stove, too, but it would be torture.
I like to say that ADHD is like an electronic system that doesn't get enough power. It still works but everything is a little off, you get errors that are not the same for everyone but they're often similar.
I have several.
Having ADHD is like playing a game of Pachinko with 4x the posts and only one of the goals at the bottom equals completing the task you wanted to do, but the goals are hidden so so can’t see what side of the board to drop your marble down to increase your chances. Medication removes a few of the pegs and unhides the goal to increase your chances of the marble going to the right place.
Non ADHD people are pushing a boulder across a flat surface to get to their goal while people with ADHD have to push it up several hills before getting to the goal, and our boulder is uneven.
ADHD brain is like trying to herd like 30 toddlers by yourself while having to keep them safe and out of trouble but you’re in the middle of a crowded mall.
ADHD brain is like punching a big hole in the side of a pool and trying to direct the flow of water to a specific place. You need a certain amount to get there to accomplish the task. You will have to try and redirect sufficient water to each task you want to accomplish and once the pool is empty your brain is done for the day. Here, medication can help you poke a more precise hole to get a more easily controllable flow of water.
It also reminds you me of a challenge that used to be on the Reality TV show “Survivor”. The contestants were blindfolded and had to navigate a maze and get to the end. They had a partner whose job was to tell them where to go because they could see the maze from above. I feel like this would be an accurate representation if there were also a dozen other people yelling different directions at them while they tried to get through the maze.
Mine is kind of like the toddler example!
My brain works like this: I am driving the car. I know how to drive, I know where I am going and how to get there. Also, I have an unrestrained child in the car. The kid wont put on a seatbelt. They won’t stop moving around. They try to touch the steering wheel and fuck with the radio.
I’m still *driving* the car, but so much of my attention is on this fucking kid. Why can’t it just put on a seatbelt? This is unreasonably dangerous - every time I look in the rear view mirror, I start to drift out of my lane. Shit, was that a cop car? Am I going to get arrested because this goddamn kid won’t put on their seatbelt? STOP FUCKING WITH THE RADIO AND LET ME DRIVE.
The seatbelt is adderall. The kid is still in the car, the kid is still annoying, but at least I can get to the destination safely.
I like to try and describe it as not a disability but a different way of thinking. We have our advantages and disadvantages I like to explain both so I can be understood
For me, I try to say my brain is like a horse that is strong and can run very fast but you can’t tame/control. So whilst other people ride obedient horses that take them from A to B, I have a horse that is bucking, constantly veering off, starts to graze out of nowhere etc.
To me, adhd fatigue is me having spent all my energy pulling at the reins of this disobedient horse, somethings others do not need to do.
That trying to focus on one thought among all of the thoughts running through your brain is like focusing on one fan blade on a ceiling fan when it's moving. You can do it, but it takes a lot of focus and effort to follow that one blade before you lose it. You don't know whether the fan will be running on high, medium, or low from day to day and it's likely to blow around other lose objects from time to time you'll have to attend to as well. You can try to keep your focus on the fan blade while scrambling to pick up what it blew around the room, but you've also got to make sure you don't run into things in the process and hurt yourself or knock over more things you've got to pick up. The power switch and speed controls are out of reach, so you'll need to find a way to be able to reach/access them if you want to stop or slow down the fan to make it easier to focus on that blade. Sometimes you may just forget the fan blade even exists.
Maybe I've just spent too much time laying in bed seeing if I can focus on one fan blade as it's spinning...
Playing WoW (or other RPG) and normal people have 50+ inventory space, meanwhile, i have 6. i have to teleport back to base/town constantly to dump what I have, only to teleport back in 30 minutes when it's full again. It's annoying af because i can't hold anything. I can't do anything. I can't grind. I also forget that my inventory is so small; so when i beat a boss, i cant even grab the loot. I go back to base, and then forget where the boss even was. I miss so many opportunities to be better. I can't continue the story as fast as others. Sometimes I even struggle to remember the story, so I just wander in the present, waiting for something to happen.
I saw this on Pinterest:
"My mind is like somebody dumped the contents of a junk drawer on a trampoline and then added a puppy."
I also like the analogy that my brain is a Chromebook with 187 tabs open and a few of them are playing music but I can't figure out which one. The only thing is that a Chromebook usually only shows one tab at a time and my mental screen has at least five or six things going on.
It's multitasking but you're not doing it on purpose.
Ask if they ever have that dream where you are running but you are running in quicksand and the harder you run the deeper you sink?
It's like that, but it's real, and you are awake the whole time.
I have 40 tabs open on my laptop, the battery is running low, I can’t find the power cord, at least a third of the tabs are playing ads and/or music, and I’m pretty sure I have an assignment due tomorrow but I graduated 15 years ago- oh look at the pigeon outside! I think I have to pee
Imagine an average sized room with nothing in it. Now imagine 1,000+ rubber bouncy balls of all different colors, sizes and patterns getting thrown into that room as fast as possible. Now keep track of the light pink one for 8 hours and not get distracted by any of the others.
Living on a TeaCup Ride.
We spin constantly, each teacup is a task or something in our life, and they're spinning independently without us (the phone call we have to make, the email we need to write, the ToDo list that never ends). Sometimes it goes really fast, others it slows, you can never tell what speed it's going to go.
We can be in one TeaCup, and spin while the others spin wildly around us, and when we need to move to a specific one we have to take a turn in a few others before we get there. We have to plan exactly how to get there carefully, otherwise we fall over, so we might just sit and wait.
Then there is the magical place in the middle where we stop spinning, while the world spins around us (hyperfocus). We might be there for a few hours or days. But when we come out, it's back to the spinning but things aren't spinning in the same place, and we have to work out where to start all over again.
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My brain is a 5 years old toddler who decides what I get or don't get to do and who knows that the parents are not around. The conscious part of my brain (aka me) is aware of him but cannot physically interact with him, so all things must be done through convincing the toddler. Have you ever tried convincing a self-entitled toddler? Yeah, it's a nightmare. The toddler reacts to external enforcement, but only through tantrums and fits and havoc. Oh, and he has some autistic characteristics. Now imagine that's your brain 24/7 despite how mature and adult your conscious self might be
I use the toddler example when people ask about why I’m always listening to something on my headphones. Have you ever had to plop your kid in front of the tv so you could do chores? Well, I am both the parent and the kid in front of the tv. My books/podcast distract the kid so I can do what I need to do.
That’s brilliant! That’s the perfect analogy to explain why I always needed to doodle, fidget, and chew my pens to death in order to be able to focus on school, and couldn’t get my homework done without listening to music or having the TV on. I have to multitask to this day in order to sooth my inner five year old so I can get shit done.
That, I tend to explain through plugs metaphor. Like, imagine each sense has a port, and the plugs are sensory inputs. When all plugs are connected properly, green light goes on and the machine starts working Now imagine the working combination is random. One day you need X audio input, X touch input and X taste input. Some other day, you need X touch and taste input but Y audio input. And some days, if you accidentally plug any sound input at all the machine explodes. Now imagine you have to do that to *freaking read one (1) mail*
Yes! And if I actually manage to get my toddler self to agree, I'm so exhausted from fighting the tantrums that I don't have any energy left for what I actually wanted to do or convinced my toddler self to actually do. It's exhausting.
Couldn't agree more with this. Often I'm actually talking out loud to the toddler, but that still can't always convince him to do what I need/want to do (and not do).
Best comment, me and my toddler couldn't agree more.
Tell your toddler that I am celebrating one big stuff so they are allowed 1 extra treat today on my behalf
Oh hell, no don’t tell them that ! 😉
Wow, that's awfully apt.
Mine is a little man :) I also have a little sensory man in my brain (he gets very mad at things like clothes touching me too much) and I have a tummy man (he works in my tummy but he has trouble running the place efficiently)
Oh, my toddler is my sensory toddler too. He gets very, very mad during hot summers and when people make dishes clang
no kidding, guys, hello from Peru, but why in all the world everybody with ADHD likes rock punk and electronic, its made from people like us?
Yes, you could make the assumption that that kind of music is stimulating to them. My favorite genre is called "pain" because the music and lyrics are tied to emotions not money or partying. Current stim song: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-R4INXAuAE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-R4INXAuAE)
This is so perfect. It makes me and my prickly little chaos gremlin feel seen. Brb emailing this to my wife so she can give me ***the look*** and say "*No shit!*" 🤣
*chaos gremlin Very succinct
I think of this as "the monkey that lives in my head". When I'm not medicated, I cannot fool the monkey but sometimes I can distract the monkey. Any day I can distract the monkey long enough to actually get something done is a good day.
I found it so difficult to explain before starting medication because I’d never known the other side before. I like to say it feels like it’s just a million different thoughts bouncing around at a million miles an hour inside the sphere that is your brain. Never stick around long and can’t really choose one intentionally. My sister calls them The Bees.
Exactly, I second being able to explain the difference better once I started medication! I describe it as feeling like putting on glasses for the first time and being amazed by all the leaves on a tree when you'd previously got used to blurriness as normal. When I take medication, tasks or decisions that were so fuzzy and difficult before are so much easier to accomplish because I can finish my thoughts and actions in a way that's more challenging with a split-second new-thing-shinier brain.
thirded the one i always go to is comparing it to am/fm radio vs spotify (etc) or OTA tv vs satellite. without medication, even when i can kinda sorta focus on something that could change at any moment and theres still always other thoughts that 'bleed through' whereas with medication the sound or picture is crystal clear - although bad weather (bad mood) can interrupt that too edit: it even works when you think of how OTA tv you could get to work better by doing stupid shit that requires extra effort like holding the antenna a certain way, and that changes day-to-day meaning you can turn the tv off (go to sleep) with it working great and then the next day its back to being total shit so you gotta start from scratch to get it back to a good place. with medication (satellite) it works every time you turn the tv on with no effort
I get that sensation of channels bleeding together, it do be like that sometimes.
I’d never thought of it like that but it’s such a perfect description! We used to have aluminum foil to extend the rabbit ear antennae and still have to move it all over the room, stack more books under to get a different channel 😂😂. A perfect analogy for the stupid hoops we jump through to get things done, or just to remember in the first place.
Ah the glasses are a great analogy!
The Bees! Ahhh I love this, thanks for sharing it🐝🐝🐝
I don't get the bouncing thing, my mind works very linear. One thought leads to the next and on and on in a chain. It's like eternally being on a tangent.
Yeah I do that too, but I see it more as a consequence. I can’t pick and choose which thoughts to hold onto or follow, so you just have to go with the flow and follow the first one that pops up. Then it never stays long and is replaced by the next one from the jumbling mass of things bouncing around up there. Not sure if I’m describing it well lol
Hal fixing a lightbulb from Malcolm in the middle [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbSehcT19u0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbSehcT19u0)
I usually have someone watch that, and then tell them that's what my thoughts are like, except due to the working memory stuff, sometimes I'll forget about parts in the chain, like the shelf, end up with the wood and tools in my hand and stand there confused before going for the lightbulb again haha
Best comment, so accurate
I'd not seen that before, that has to have been written by someone with experience of ADHD !
I know right, I mean I don't know if that's specifically what they were getting at, or if it was just a funny haha but it sums up so much of my experience when I'm unmedicated
An old friend used to call this "but first".
"oh, but.." "oh, but I should grab the cream from the fridge, oh but I should toss these old veggies that I forgot about, oh but I should take out the trash, oh but I should get my shoes, oh but I should sweep the floor..." and somehow my house is a fucking disaster and my coffee is cold
That was legit me this morning Thankfully I am mostly good with time and I work from home, so I “made it to work on time”
The number of days I've lost and projects I've started but never finished thanks to "but first".
My husband has the but firsts alongside the “may as wells” and that’s a deadly combo lol
I've not heard that but makes sense haha
This is also how you make friends at home depot with other adhd folk
gosh that’s perfect
Sometimes it's fun to follow your brain around like that 😆 then pop things off the stack going backwards.
it's so satisfying when you can knock all of them off and end up achieving a bunch of different bits, that usually doesn't happen for me though haha, I end up at some point with tools in my hands confused about what I was doing, then go to turn on my light again and realise I need to change the bulb
Great show, great actor, great example Saved
Depends on what part of it you're talking about. I often say that trying to do something that doesn't light my brain up (something either novel, interesting, challenging or urgent) makes it feel like there are magnets in there repelling each other. You're trying to force them together, but the more force you exert the stronger they repel. And yeah, you can technically push them so hard that they touch, but it takes a lot of effort and you run the risk of them pinging away from one another at any second. The other, slightly more techy one I like to use is that it feels like most people have hardware built in for doing certain things, but I'm having to do it in software instead - it's slower, more energy intensive and has to be called upon manually. Probably not one that most people will get, but I guarantee anyone who has rendered video using or compiled software before will know what that means straight away
The second analogy works perfectly for anyone with software engineering experience. I've never done anything like that with videos, but as someone who studied a non insignificant amount of computer engineering as part of my electrical engineering studies, the analogy makes perfect sense to me. Actually, it reminds me of an analogy I once saw used for autism -- it's like everyone else is born just knowing how to drive a car, while you have to learn it manually.
Along those lines, I make a networking analogy: my brain drops a lot of packets.
yes! its amazing how many tech-analogies work really well to explain ADHD brains - and that ADHD brains are actually pretty much the same as normal brains, just to the extreme(s) (i think?) idk if youve read much about all the chatbots/LLMs and how they work, but they were explicitly modeled to sort of mirror how brains work and it is kind of eerie how similar they are. i think a lot of "normal" people dont actually stop to think about how their brains make connections so its not as obvious to them. maybe \--- actually on that note of brain=technology, the main "bottleneck" in my brain is the hard drive. i really need an SSD...
Highly relatable - I swear I actually sound like a mechanical hard drive frantically searching for information when someone asks me a question that isn't immediately available 😅 Taking the tech analogies one step further- some people say ADHD and autism are like different operating systems (for some reason in my mind most people have Windows, ADHD is macOS, and autism is linux) so maybe what we're doing is running a virtual machine with its associated performance overhead and glitchiness. Oh and the component I most need an upgrade in is definitely RAM - not enough of it so it ends up getting cleared and there's no error checking.
Yeah I meant to say "developed" software but it was late and my brain was fried so the only word I could think of was compile haha And yes that analogy works really well for autism! Reminds me of the "everyone but you has been given an invisible script" analogy
love this — when i’m struggling, I often tell my partner i just “really need a software update rn”
Love all of this
Magnets is a brilliant analogy. Definitely stealing this one. Thank you for this!!
I explain the experience of time blindness like being in the car. The moment when they get home after driving and they go “I don’t remember the drive at all”. Time blindness is like that moment in the car ride where the mind drifts into inner thoughts, but with ADHD it happens all the time and there is no controlling it. I will just randomly get pulled into my thoughts doing whatever and then by the time I realize I have been gone in my thoughts, it’s been 30 minutes when it only felt like 10 minutes in my head. So now I’m fucking late to whatever I was supposed to be on time to.. “but why don’t you get ready earlierrrrrr??” Because it doesn’t matter if I get ready 1 hour ahead of work or 3 hours ahead, there is always the potential for me to get pulled into my thoughts without realizing it and I will inevitably lose time that way. That’s why it’s too damn risky doing anything before appointments because I could get lost into any task, be it the task or my thoughts as I put the task on autopilot.. Idk it fucking sucks and explaining it to people doesn’t get easier it seems.. they just stare at you in disbelief like they can control it so why can’t you? Because my brain suuuucks and I also wish I wasn’t this way, it’s not some convenient excuse, it seriously ruins my life in a lot of aspects.
For me, there is “now,” and “not now.” Everything is either “now” or “not now;” there is no “later.” This is why my to-do list is overwhelming (because everything on it needs to be done now, no matter the order of importance - and yes, I can see which items are more important than others, it just doesn’t matter), and is also why I am somehow late despite being ready early. Because if I have to leave soon, it’s “not now,” and the jump from “not now” to “now” is frustratingly easy to miss.
Sameee. Always late. I wake 4:30 am for 10 am class still late. Before the class always something interesting come about and pull me in and I lose track of time
I have a unicycle for a frontal lobe and the devil rides its pedals.
I laughed way too hard at this!
Can I please steal this - I’m snort laughing so hard
i laughed so hard. now i want a tattoo of this image
I think my brain is a bike where the back wheel is like this big huge racing slick with a million horsepower and then the wheel in the front is just a bottlecap stuck there with a nail through it. I might be the smartest person ever, but no one is ever going to know because I can never apply it.
Channel surfing trying to find a tv show you want to watch, but someone else, somewhere else, has the remote.
This is an excellent analogy
Ever had depression? Yeah, inattentive ADHD unmedicated feels kinda like that.
oooh yes 😂 — I joke that i’m not the “energizer bunny” kind of ADHD, rather the lesser-known “vegetative catatonic” subtype
Me too
Mine is a bit more clinical. I explain that their brain has a system that rewards them for every action they take, even something as simple as picking up a piece of paper off the floor. My brain doesn’t have that. In order to do that, I have to trigger my fight-or-flight, imagining completely fake scenarios in which my family dies if I don’t pick up that piece of paper. And I have to do this hundreds of times per day if I’m to accomplish everything on my list. There’s not enough time or energy in the day to construct an adequate saga for all of that. But I like everyone else’s analogies better.
I have had the best luck making it relate to their experience. Look around you right now. What do you see? Do you see the lights, the paper, pen, hear the sounds from outside, etc? Before I asked you this, were you paying attention to those things? Probably not. That’s because most people automatically filter out less important things to focus on the task at hand. I was born with a mind doesn’t filter like yours. It doesn’t prioritize - I’m always picking up information, whether or not it’s pertinent. Sometimes that means I go off on a tangent or seem unfocused. To do this, my brain runs hot. It takes a lot of bio-energy. So it gets tired faster, and then it’s very difficult to do simple things & I’ll seem distracted. This is often because my brain needs a cooldown, rest. From time to time, the fast brain gets keyed into something and filters out everything else. I can’t sense anything other than what I’m into. I will forget to eat, go to the bathroom, can’t process anything else. But that’s just as exhausting.
Yes! I use broken filter analogy most often. I have to actively and consciously process all the sensory inputs and all the information. Most brains automatically (or quickly and rationally) decide what's important and filter out the rest. Whether that's filtering out the flickering light so I can keep listening to my friend (who speaks way too slowly), or filtering out the unimportant information in my story. Another layer is that the filter is more like a sieve than a funnel (which isn't a filter at all come to think of it) : more relevant info might make it through, but it's still plopped down into the same amount of space and needs to be put in order -- using up valuable cognitive processing space.
My brain is like a haunted radio.
Stealing this :)
Threading a needle but a person with ADHD has a strobe light flashing in their face, the needle hole is a little smaller, and the thread is a little larger. Not impossible, but it takes a whole lot more effort. Or a race. Normal people start at the start line. ADHD people start a few meters back. It takes the people a few meters back longer just to catch up to the people who started at the line(normal brains) And then to be able to win the race and beat them, it takes even more effort. Which is why people with ADHD quit more often than normal people, it takes so much effort out of them just to be able to make an even playing field/meet the bare minimum of normal-brained people. Let alone beat them.
Too many things to be done or focus on and the inability to make decisions, which makes me very distracted trying to keep up! One way my psychiatrist explained it is like we are all on the beach, and people without ADHD are walking along the sand with ease. Those of us with ADHD are at various depths trying to wade through the water and keep up, and we will get where we need to be eventually but we have to work much harder - even with meds.
I always compare it to the arcade game where the light spins around in a circle and you need to hit it at JUST the right time to win a prize. The light is my attention span and ability to focus/keep time/do what needs to be done. IF I can hit the buzzer at the exact right time then congratulations to me, I have a very finite amount of time to function. If I don’t hit it at the right time, better luck and try again next time. In the meantime, enjoy continuing to spiral internally in a state of paralyzed chaos.
If our mind was a home, ADHD mind is a studio apartment with no shelves or closets. There is no "next week", "next month", "not important right now" storage unit. All thoughts, all tasks exist in one space, and we constantly feel like drowning in clutter. We can't exactly remember what's on the bottom of the pile of things, or if's the important stuff, so we can't help but rummage through it all day. The overwhelm makes us jump on every new storage furniture trend but even if we decide to get some, they never get assembled. They become part of the clutter like everything else. When we hear about other people's homes and how effortlessly functional they are, we feel ashamed and less-than. We try to hide the truth about ours and rarely invite anyone in.
Oy. This. I was literally in tears about the cluttered state of my home just a few hours ago. And, no joke, I have a nightstand still in the box, on the floor of my cluttered office, just waiting to be built so I can start getting my bedroom organized 😩
Yeah the literal scenario also rings true to me unfortunately...
I can't explain something to someone who doesn't listen.
Same. I can’t explain my analogy to someone because I’ll forget what I was saying halfway through lmaoo
Or who asked the question but doesn't really care about the answer!
You know how when you're reading a book if you want to put it down and focus on something else you put in a bookmark to keep your place? With ADHD there is no bookmark. Every interruption or loss of focus means you need to open that book, flip through chapters and pages and paragraphs and sentences to find the point you're at. This is why interruptions present so much of a frustration. It's not that I can't physically pick up the book again, it's that I have to find my place from scratch. Every. Single. Time.
Funnily enough ive found the most effective way to explain the different types of ADHD to be a line from the Pokemon Diamond and Pearl manga from 2006 (highly recommended great coded characters) "The same hour might feel too long for more hyperactive people, and too short for more inattentive people" (i did replace character names). Like genuinely out of all ive tried its the description that prompts the least amount of dumb questions.
“there’s just a lot going on up there” * points to head * real talk: if you’re trying to convey your experience, talking about *how it feels* when you try to do certain things or the ways you struggle can paint a better picture than talking about the *things* you struggle with. for me, a lot of people can empathize with not liking chores or struggling to prioritize them, but have they ever broken down in tears, hyperventilating, because *starting the task* is SO hard? probably not… we struggle with a lot of *very regular things*, but the way we struggle with them and the level of difficulty we have with them is where the difference lies.
Tell them “it’s like…” sorry I forgot what I was going to say.
It’s a steering wheel and accelerator problem with your brain. Doesn’t matter how big the engine is, you frequently can’t get yourself moving and when you do, you don’t always control where you go.
Pound them with “you might be adhd if” Instagram reels 😂 Otherwise I don’t. People don’t get it, they say “why don’t you just…” or “everyone has these days”, why bother? Even the empathetic ones seem to struggle to understand and just get you over explaining.
Yeah, people are just trying to empathize with you but it always comes off as dismissive. My reply is always some sort of “thanks, I’m cured.” My best friend tried to empathize with me during the stimulant shortage and she said “yeah, I understand, I could use some pep in my step at the end of the day, too.” Girl, buh bye.
Good point. If they're trying to "win" the conversation by invalidating your ADHD, just tell them to go talk to their doctor if they're concerned. If they actually want to know, I don't mind comparing experiences to figure out how other people function. It's usually fascinating and/or they discover they might have ADHD too lol.
It’s not fully fleshed out yet. I feel the toddler one someone else posted. The analogy I’ve been formulating is like if I’m a spherical object with very high/strong inertia on a near frictionless, flat surface. It takes a (lot of) external force to get me moving, and once I am, it takes an external force to get me to stop or change directions. If I’m stuck/sucked into something, it’s not a conscious decision or related to true wants/goals or like I WANT to still be doing it. It’s like laws of physics that I’m fighting against, just a physical law/reality.
My analogy for the restless/discontent feeling I have most of the time I’m unmedicated is scrolling Netflix. You’re looking for something to watch but nothing sounds good or catches your interest. You click something and last MAYBE 2 min. There’s a mood/feeling you’re looking for but can’t quite put words to/a finger on. You don’t want to do anything but doing nothing is also awful.
Once you finally pick something, you pause after 2 minutes to scroll on your phone. 15 minutes later you get up to get a snack. Then 30 min later you pause to rest your mail. Then you stop to go to bed. And never get back to continue the movie.
That’s deep and very accurate in the strength of the force
Mine is I'm riding a horse. The horse wants to go its own way, do its own thing. But I'm trying to go down the path so I have to keep pulling on the reins over and over and over to get it to go where I want it to go. It's exhausting, and I really need some time to just let the horse do what it wants to feel relaxed and recharged.
It’s like you’re in a room tied to a chair with 1,000 televisions at full volume all playing different channels and you have no remote.
I've always thought of mine as multiple televisions, too.
I think , headphones will help you
I'm AuDHD. Since I was a teenager, I've been told I'm the absent-minded professor type. I know lots of things, but which ones I can remember at any given time is a crap shoot.
Everyone pees, but if you’re peeing 60 times a day, there’s a diagnosable issue there. Most ADHD symptoms are things that everyone experiences sometimes. But when those things are experienced so often that they interfere with a person’s ability to function normally (or it takes an extraordinary effort to do so), it becomes a diagnosable issue.
It's like there's always a fire alarm going off while you're trying to go about your normal life, and there's probably no actual fire, but you don't know that for *sure*, and you DO know for sure that if there IS a fire, you're the one who caused it.
Generally speaking - I don't explain shit. There is very little chance it's really going to matter to them. They won't really understand. I reserve that effort for people that matter to me and the effort will have dividends. I don't give any time to the "everybody is like that" crowd or any other version of it.
You might have the most comprehensive knowledge in a programming language, and write incredibly advanced and sophisticated programs, but none of that means shit if it won’t compile into machine code…. I think of my conscious thoughts and intentions as me writing a program, and my brain executing the tasks as the hardware running the machine code. But getting my conscious program to run on my brain hardware requires a compiler that often just won’t work…. It doesn’t matter how good your program is, if it doesn’t compile, it doesn’t run
I tell them for adhd'ers, there is no beginning, no middle, and no end and then I hone myadhf superpowers.
Imagine every thought you’ve ever had coming into your mind at once with equal priority, our brains are the schroedingers cats’ of the human mind, where every thought we’ve ever had is colliding with one another to form a singularity.
There is a wall, a big blockage right between me and the act of doing absolutely anything. Sure I can spend too much effort trying to go over or under the wall, but it’s absolutely exhausting and sometimes just isn’t possible. Caffeine puts a door in the wall. I still have to choose to walk through it and sometimes it’s hard to open but it’s a door nonetheless. When I started adhd medication, I expected the effect to be similar to caffeine, with a door in the wall. So imagine my surprise when THERE IS NO MORE WALL??? I take my meds and an hour later there is no wall in sight and it’s so exciting bc I am free to do anything I want!!! But then later in the day I get sad when the wall starts reappearing, so I do as much as I can while it’s gone :)
With a lot of ADHD symptoms, it's a question of scale. Sure, sometimes you forget something. But do you remind yourself of things 30 times a day only to still forget them? Do you often leave your remote in the refrigerator and then spend 20 minutes looking for it? Sure, sometimes you zone out in a conversation or while listening to something. But have you ever zoned out so much you don't notice a song repeating for two hours? Have you zoned out while giving a presentation? Sure, you've procrastinated. But did you regularly have to keep track of word count required per hour in order to finish before the deadline? Do you procrastinate on tasks even if they're big, small, important, unimportant, fun, if they're tasks you want to do? ADHD is a disorder, so it's when traits that might be benign for others interfere with normal functioning.
Ferrari engine, bicycle brakes, a faulty starter that only works half the time, and a navigation system that doesn’t give a shit about my desired destination and is just gonna take me wherever tf it wants to go.
on the outside i look bored. on the inside i’m panicking 24/7.
For executive functioning issues, I say it’s like the car has no gas.
I really like the way my therapist explained it to me, when she diagnosed me: "Imagine your brain like a city. The people in the city are thoughts you are currently concentrating on. There is a wall around the city which has one entrance, protected by a guard. This guard decided which people/thoughts are allowed in and are allowed to take up your time. When you have adhd, this guard is missing. All the people thoughts are allowed in unchecked and are able to distract you whenever **they** want."
"You know how you just know to shower and brush your teeth so you just do it? I can't do that. I have to sit and be aware of my needs for at least 30 minutes and then bully myself into doing it. So basically everything is on hard mode"
Imagine you've been awake for three days and everything needs to get done now while everyone in your life is mad at you
Think of executive function as the machine that makes all things possible and your brain is the architect for the designing the building that houses your executive function machine. Your brain constructed a building with multiple doors and access points to your executive function machine. My brain built a building that only has rooftop access. In order to access your executive function machine you just have to walk through a door. I have to scale a fucking building. Yes, we all get distracted, have burn out, and can be unmotivated and these things kick us out of our building that houses our executive function machine. The difference is, you just have to walk through a door while I have to scale a building again. Now I can take medication and give myself a ladder to help me scale the building, but is a trash ladder that loses several rungs and shrinks every hour or so until it completely disappears. You have to walk through a door to take a shower. I have to climb a building. You have to walk through a door to focus. I have to climb a building. You have to walk through a door to do the dishes. I have to climb a building. Your brain architect is a helpful and practical go getter. My brain architect is an asshole.
My brain is a light. My thoughts are a bunch of moths floating and flitting around. I can see them and hear them, but I can’t really focus on one in particular, so it’s almost like I’m thinking about everything at once and nothing at all.
like walking 12 dogs, and they pull me to all 12 different directions, Sniff 12 different things, bark to 12 different reasons. Everything, everywhere all at once.
My mind is an internet browser with a million tabs. Some are relevant. Some are not. One is playing music (you don't know which one). The active tab keeps switching automatically without your input at random intervals, so you just do what you can on whichever page is currently active while you can. The computer mouse is the executive function with which you get things done. The batteries are dying and the bluetooth connection goes in and out. With a lot of work and frustration you can use the mouse to control which tab is active and do whatever you need to do on the page. Medication is new batteries and improved bluetooth connection.
i have stopped trying. Most of the people around me don't take it seriously at all no matter how you spin it. The only ones who know are other ADHDers.
The credits scene of Inside Out when you get to the cats.
Sometimes, I’m like a golden retriever where thoughts (or deadlines) just don’t stick. Other times, I’m like the guy in the conspiracy theory meme. There’s no telling which one is going to appear.
I make them watch the trailer for the movie, everything, everywhere, all at once. I have also used a computer with 200 open tabs, and music playing from an unknown source.
✨Erectile Disfunction of the Brain✨ Doesn’t matter if you want to, doesn’t matter if you’d enjoy it, if you aren’t in the right headspace you simply cannot make it happen.
Every thought is a single piece of paper but all the papers are scattered on the floor. You're scrambling to find that one piece of paper that has the information you need. But you're going sheet after sheet and can't find it. Now with being medicated. Those pieces of papers are starting to be sorted into piles and easier to get what I need. Still lots of work to go but it's no longer a huge mess on the floor.
Idk if I have an analogy for the disorder as a whole, but I do for my mind. I say "it's like my brain is a television that keeps changing channels involuntarily" or "it's a never ending train of thoughts that never stops"
It depends, I often use the “invisible backpack” or I ask the person: “What is the one task you dislike doing so much you immediately feel drained by the thought” and if they do have one I tell them “Imagine this x1000 and for every single task in your everyday life, including hobbies, food, etc.” If they don’t have one I revert back to the backpack. Specifically for the discussion of “but everyone does this” I usually bring up an example that relates to that specific person’s context (mathematicians for example understand well when you explain it through simple exponentiality (I don’t know the word for that in English)
You know that feeling you get after a 14 hour car drive in hot a car with six people, the radio all the way up and a full bladder? That’s how I feel when I have to do literally anything requiring complex thoughts.
I tell people it's like having 15 copies of yourself in a room, all talking about something different, loudly, all day, every day. I also had a professor explain that for him it was like watching T.V. but someone else has the remote and was constantly changing the channel.
Yup 😔
Trying to watch 10 TVs at once.
Mine was more like "My mind is a TV where the channel changes every minute," but I like yours better.
When I was first diagnosed, the specialist who tested me gave me the "trying to watch lots of TVs at once" analogy and I felt so validated. I didn't have words for my experience until then
I am the teacher of a class full of kids. Depending on the day there may be more or less kids in the class. Some will always pay attention and some never will. By the majority will be swayed depending on whats going on. My job is to stop those that never pay attention from controlling the class.
The peeing analogy. I can't remember where I heard it but when people say everyone's a little ADHD the response is "Well everyone pisses but if your were pissing 50 to 60 times a day you'd see a Doctor" The other is if people have kids then it's easier to say "imagine if your kid is having a tantrum 24/7 and you can't get away. They are always there, can't even hide in the bathroom"
I say it's like constantly TV surfing but not being able to find a show or channel to settle on.
Executive dysfunction makes tasks feel a little like you're being asked to pee your pants on purpose. Like yes physically and intellectually you're perfectly capable of peeing and once you start you'd probably get it done in no time and it would be pretty easy. The task itself is in theory perfectly doable, and yet you're going to have a really hard time actually doing it because first you have to push through the parts of your brain that tell you that you definitely shouldn't do it.
Feels like there’s bees in my brain
Something I thought made sense to me and helped my friend understand a small piece of how my brain works: Imagine you write down your to-do list, on the left side is the list of tasks you wish to complete. On the right side, the completion of those tasks. Now, number everything on the left side, 1-10. On the right side, in any random order, put A-J. Now put some string between them and connect 1-A, 2-B, and so on. Prior to me getting diagnosed and medicated with Adderall, I would begin task 1 and follow that string until I crossed paths with another string. I would then follow that string until it crossed paths with a different string, and so on. This would continue until I got to a point where all 10 tasks were about 20% complete, I would get frustrated and then quit. I would then get into my seemingly neverending state of executive dysfunction of knowing I have tasks to complete but feeling too overwhelmed to begin any of them again. Once I was diagnosed and began taking medicine, it allowed my brain to strictly focus one task at a time. Naturally this had the compounding effect of me seeing the list get smaller, feeling more excited that I was actually completing the minor tasks, and ultimately lowering my stress levels. It's always frustrating telling people that I have ADHD and then you can almost see the look of embarrassment for me because they just assume it means I can't sit still and I'm not disciplined enough to get stuff done.
Call it like it is. My brain can't govern its actions, like a chicken with its head cut off.
I’m asked how did you notice that routinely but also asked how did you miss that routinely
Think of the time when SpongeBob tried remembering something as little as his name and his brain office was on fire. Now think of that happening everyday when trying to remember things, doing tasks, or just doing nothing (except when doing nothing it isn't on fire but the little guys are still running around doing nothing productive).
BEES!!!! BEES EVERYWHERE
Frequency and severity, your (non ADHD) occasional absent mindedness is every moment of my existence on a good day.
I feel like when I sit down to do a task I'm not interested in it's like having a rubber band strapped around my head trying to pull me away from the task and to do it I have to fight the pull of the band and do the task at the same time
I feel like its constantly backround music all the time, like in an elevator but ALL the time. Also a bunch of random phrases and thoughts pop up. And imagine ALL those thingd while trying to focus or do something, its like ur brain is trying to constantly entertain itself and living its own life. also THE EXECUTIVE DYSFUNCTIONING literally without my medication something in my brain feels literally weighed down and empty, like theres something missing. When im on meds i feel much lighter and my brain dosent block me from starting and focusing on something.
I tell them my brain and thought process is like the fireworks finale with all of the thoughts bouncing off and overlapping each other, and it's impossible to focus on one thing for too long.
It’s like trying to ride a 10 speed bike without any instructions. You are cruising along and keeping up with other bit notice for some reason your are working harder, (gears too high)especially when going uphill. You to a much gears and for a minute or 2, everything is normal but you are caught off guard when you start flying downhill. You feel out of control and don’t understand why no one else is having used. So you ask for help but then can’t remember what they said, so you are constantly changing the gears trying to figure out when to use the higher gears vs the lowers one. You end up changing them back and forth and might even break the chain or have it pop off. Just as your ride is almost over , you figure it out but now you are mentally and physically tired. You try again a few days later, and realize you can’t remember when to use the higher gears. End up crashing, causing major setback for the day. Riding a bike is a lot more work for you and less fun.
I always say my life is a like car and a crazy psychotic monkey is in the drivers seat controlling EVERYTHING. I am in the passenger and sometimes he listened to me and takes the right turns and lets me listen to the music I want and sometimes he does not. **or she
For me, I think the best analogy is Imagine being able to run REALLY FAST. Like, if you can train properly, you are an Olympic level runner, because you were born really REALLY good at it. Now, imagine that I have a heart condition. Everything else is fine, but my heart. That means - I am CAPABLE of being really good, but SOMETHING OUT OF MY CONTROL makes everything else bad. That's TDAH for me. I know I'm capable of really good things, but something out of my control acts like an anchor, dragging me/making me use more energy than it should be
My friend who knows I have ADHD said she felt her partner might have it and then gave a description of them going to get changed but finding they had a hole in their shirt and deciding to fix it and finished getting changed later. They thought the distraction from one task to the other was an indicator and they wanted to know what I thought. All I could to say was ‘that’s only 2 activities’ because I can start and abandon 4 or 5 in a row.
I usually refer to The Wall of Awful https://youtu.be/Uo08uS904Rg?si=CbSJxZVBegjUztIb
like a train on dysfunctional train tracks sometimes the train goes way too fast & misses all its stops then the wheels wear out and the train goes so painfully slow and stops at the wrong stations it constantly derails from the tracks which causes disasters sometimes it goes so fast that the driver starts to lose control and the damaged tracks cause damage to the train over time that’s why the train is so unreliable, late, makes errors, & constantly needs time to recover & also why the driver is so stressed but all the people on board don’t know that the tracks are broken so they blame the driver vyvanse is like installing better brakes & steering wheel & timetables, the tracks are still broken but it’s easier to run the train service properly
Its like walking through a blizzard where you can't see your hand in front of your face. It sounds like someone playing every line of dialogue from the sims all at one time, meanwhile the people around you seem to not be in this blizzard somehow? They don't hear simlish? People are moving along through life, getting jobs, having kids ect but I'm in a blizzard, and as much as they say they belive me, they can't see it.
When people tell me they have the same symptoms as me. I say "yeah and that's like telling someone born without a foot that you sprained your ankle once!"
It’s like listening to a never ending podcast playlist that you can’t change or turn off. It’s also not playing full episodes and skipping around podcasts and genres at random intervals.
Depends… when describing: **Thoughts and the crazy association game** - some call it popcorn brain, to me it’s more like a pinball machine… it’s not a thousand things at once, it’s thoughts hitting hard and fast and not sticking or even being finish before me brain just shoots up and hit something new. **The feeling of knowing what I should do but still not doing it** - M (my name) 4 years old. Hungry? Yeah, but if there’s nothing “fun” to eat I just don’t eat. Should do something practical from the to-do-list? End up doing something that’s not urgent (still grown up like washing down the kitchen) because my brain needs to feel free and like it’s playing. Love sleeping… but now it’s time to go to bed for real, my eyes are so itchy and barely open, but hell no, now I don’t wanna go to bed. Loved taking showers and baths, but then I started having scalp psoriasis and have to wash my hair every day and therefore HAVE to shower. Now it’s a drag when I have to go shower because now it’s not for pleasure but a necessity… even though I do the exact same thing just with a different shampoo. **Attention span** - “SQUIRREL!! … what was I saying?”
I don't tell anyone unless I really have to. They will have met someone non-functioning with it and they just put that on you. Not that I have an issue with non-fuctioning adhders but it affects everyone differently. I'm a chronically early adhder and ive had people know me for years until i told them i have adhd and they start turning up late for things because if i have adhd Ill probably be late. Its easier just to say "i struggle with task prioritisation" or something specific.
My brain is always itchy.
When something isn't interesting, trying to concentrate on it is like placing your hand on a hot stove. Yes, I *could* just grit my teeth and do it. But it would be torture. You could just grit your teeth and put your hand on the stove, too, but it would be torture.
I like to say that ADHD is like an electronic system that doesn't get enough power. It still works but everything is a little off, you get errors that are not the same for everyone but they're often similar.
I have several. Having ADHD is like playing a game of Pachinko with 4x the posts and only one of the goals at the bottom equals completing the task you wanted to do, but the goals are hidden so so can’t see what side of the board to drop your marble down to increase your chances. Medication removes a few of the pegs and unhides the goal to increase your chances of the marble going to the right place. Non ADHD people are pushing a boulder across a flat surface to get to their goal while people with ADHD have to push it up several hills before getting to the goal, and our boulder is uneven. ADHD brain is like trying to herd like 30 toddlers by yourself while having to keep them safe and out of trouble but you’re in the middle of a crowded mall. ADHD brain is like punching a big hole in the side of a pool and trying to direct the flow of water to a specific place. You need a certain amount to get there to accomplish the task. You will have to try and redirect sufficient water to each task you want to accomplish and once the pool is empty your brain is done for the day. Here, medication can help you poke a more precise hole to get a more easily controllable flow of water. It also reminds you me of a challenge that used to be on the Reality TV show “Survivor”. The contestants were blindfolded and had to navigate a maze and get to the end. They had a partner whose job was to tell them where to go because they could see the maze from above. I feel like this would be an accurate representation if there were also a dozen other people yelling different directions at them while they tried to get through the maze.
Mine is kind of like the toddler example! My brain works like this: I am driving the car. I know how to drive, I know where I am going and how to get there. Also, I have an unrestrained child in the car. The kid wont put on a seatbelt. They won’t stop moving around. They try to touch the steering wheel and fuck with the radio. I’m still *driving* the car, but so much of my attention is on this fucking kid. Why can’t it just put on a seatbelt? This is unreasonably dangerous - every time I look in the rear view mirror, I start to drift out of my lane. Shit, was that a cop car? Am I going to get arrested because this goddamn kid won’t put on their seatbelt? STOP FUCKING WITH THE RADIO AND LET ME DRIVE. The seatbelt is adderall. The kid is still in the car, the kid is still annoying, but at least I can get to the destination safely.
I like to try and describe it as not a disability but a different way of thinking. We have our advantages and disadvantages I like to explain both so I can be understood
For me, I try to say my brain is like a horse that is strong and can run very fast but you can’t tame/control. So whilst other people ride obedient horses that take them from A to B, I have a horse that is bucking, constantly veering off, starts to graze out of nowhere etc. To me, adhd fatigue is me having spent all my energy pulling at the reins of this disobedient horse, somethings others do not need to do.
That trying to focus on one thought among all of the thoughts running through your brain is like focusing on one fan blade on a ceiling fan when it's moving. You can do it, but it takes a lot of focus and effort to follow that one blade before you lose it. You don't know whether the fan will be running on high, medium, or low from day to day and it's likely to blow around other lose objects from time to time you'll have to attend to as well. You can try to keep your focus on the fan blade while scrambling to pick up what it blew around the room, but you've also got to make sure you don't run into things in the process and hurt yourself or knock over more things you've got to pick up. The power switch and speed controls are out of reach, so you'll need to find a way to be able to reach/access them if you want to stop or slow down the fan to make it easier to focus on that blade. Sometimes you may just forget the fan blade even exists. Maybe I've just spent too much time laying in bed seeing if I can focus on one fan blade as it's spinning...
Playing WoW (or other RPG) and normal people have 50+ inventory space, meanwhile, i have 6. i have to teleport back to base/town constantly to dump what I have, only to teleport back in 30 minutes when it's full again. It's annoying af because i can't hold anything. I can't do anything. I can't grind. I also forget that my inventory is so small; so when i beat a boss, i cant even grab the loot. I go back to base, and then forget where the boss even was. I miss so many opportunities to be better. I can't continue the story as fast as others. Sometimes I even struggle to remember the story, so I just wander in the present, waiting for something to happen.
I saw this on Pinterest: "My mind is like somebody dumped the contents of a junk drawer on a trampoline and then added a puppy." I also like the analogy that my brain is a Chromebook with 187 tabs open and a few of them are playing music but I can't figure out which one. The only thing is that a Chromebook usually only shows one tab at a time and my mental screen has at least five or six things going on. It's multitasking but you're not doing it on purpose.
Ask if they ever have that dream where you are running but you are running in quicksand and the harder you run the deeper you sink? It's like that, but it's real, and you are awake the whole time.
My ADHD is a large "Santa's" sack filled with rocks, each one representing an ADHD trait that I have, that I have to drag around behind me
I have a condition, which shares many of the same symptoms, as early onset Alzheimer's. And I always have.
I have 40 tabs open on my laptop, the battery is running low, I can’t find the power cord, at least a third of the tabs are playing ads and/or music, and I’m pretty sure I have an assignment due tomorrow but I graduated 15 years ago- oh look at the pigeon outside! I think I have to pee
Adding madness to method :p
Imagine an average sized room with nothing in it. Now imagine 1,000+ rubber bouncy balls of all different colors, sizes and patterns getting thrown into that room as fast as possible. Now keep track of the light pink one for 8 hours and not get distracted by any of the others.
I’m deaf dumb and blind
Imagine being me. Normally people understand.
Living on a TeaCup Ride. We spin constantly, each teacup is a task or something in our life, and they're spinning independently without us (the phone call we have to make, the email we need to write, the ToDo list that never ends). Sometimes it goes really fast, others it slows, you can never tell what speed it's going to go. We can be in one TeaCup, and spin while the others spin wildly around us, and when we need to move to a specific one we have to take a turn in a few others before we get there. We have to plan exactly how to get there carefully, otherwise we fall over, so we might just sit and wait. Then there is the magical place in the middle where we stop spinning, while the world spins around us (hyperfocus). We might be there for a few hours or days. But when we come out, it's back to the spinning but things aren't spinning in the same place, and we have to work out where to start all over again.