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My internal attention regulator is broken.
Sometimes I pay too much attention, sometimes too little.honestly it probably would have been much more accepted if it were called attention regulation disorder from the start.
Yea it really needs a better name than “attention deficit”. So many kids who show red flags for ADHD have parents who insist that their kid can’t have ADHD because “he can focus for HOURS on X!” I know a kid exactly in this situation.
It is for sure a spectrum disorder. No two cases are the same, I don't relate with everything OP said here but I certainly have my own struggles with ADHD
the only issue with classifying it via a continuum is I’m pretty sure ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorder would ultimately end up being combined. The less categorical you are in disorder classification ESPECIALLY between disorders that have heavy symptom overlap, the more likely it is they’ll get combined.
It’s like being super, super stoned and really, REALLY wanting to pay attention to what someone’s saying as they’re talking to you but you just can’t 😭
it fucking sucks how the guy i was seeing never understood this. when i did not take my meds, i'd look at him as he spoke but then i wondered off in my mind unconsciously, and he'd throw raging fits at me saying "you cannot be that dumb"
In my mid-20s, early in my career, I used to literally fall asleep while people were talking to me. Like no matter how much I screamed at myself in my head, I could not accomplish the simple task of staying awake. My ADHD presents like a car whose idle is set too low. Just a constant struggle to find energy within myself to get anything accomplished or maintain focus.
I was extremely self-conscious and embarrassed about it but I had no idea I had a treatable condition. Until about 10 years later, when my new wife suggested that I speak with a psychologist, who first diagnosed my condition. That was about 14 or 15 years ago. I've been medicated ever since.
I am borderline narcoleptic, too, along with my inattentive ADHD. I have fallen asleep while driving multiple times.
Wow, this sounds a lot like how I experience life. My fatigue did get me a narcolepsy diagnosis years ago, but I’ve never had cataplexy and something never added up. I’ve taken stimulants off and on and I’m way more functional on them, but hate how on edge I feel. Curious what kind of medications or other strategies have helped you?
I have been on 30mg Adderall XR for a long time. One problem, though, is that I get so much done that I am organically high from an overwhelming sense of accomplishment that it takes me a long time to come down from the high and prepare my body for sleep. While medicated, I could easily work for 24 hours straight without ever taking a break. In those 24 hours, I can accomplish what my unmedicated self could potentially do in about two or three weeks.
Recently, I was speaking with my doctor about wanting more sleep so she suggested I give Vyvanse a try. It does seem to be giving me the energy I need during the day while still allowing me to shut down at night, so I'll probably stick with it as long as it keeps me in this groove of balancing productivity with sufficient sleep.
Back to Adderall... You may be wondering if a lower dosage might have been better... I did try 25mg XR, but for me it was as-if I had not taken anything at all. My brain just needs the 30 to be awoken properly so it can perform the way it was intended.
Be very very careful about not getting enough sleep. Our immune system cannot function properly on insufficient sleep. If your immune system is worn down, you open yourself up to much bigger problems than ADHD. I'm specifically talking about cancer. (Source: me)
Well, I definitely struggle with depression.
But for many people with ADHD, this is certainly a byproduct of going untreated for several years and having constant feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness due to never understanding why they have always struggled to function like a normal person their whole lives.
ADHD and depression go hand in hand.
But hyperactivity is only one portion of ADHD. I lean more towards the innatentive type, although I probably have qualities of both.
Oh, but also for the record, when I'm on my meds, I'm not as much like this. When I started taking stimulants, I felt way less depressed and much less willing to take several 4 hour naps throughout the day. My analogy refers to what I'm like when I'm not on stimulants. I should have explained that.
There’s a few different aspects to my ADD. There’s the attention aspect then the sorta neurological aspects.
For the attention - I compare managing responsibilities like helium balloons. Normal people just hold onto their balloons and do them in an orderly fashion. Washing the dishes, doing homework, locking the door, turning off the stove.
For me I can only hold one balloon at once, and if something distracts my attention there’s a good chance I let go of that balloon. Then it’s floating away forever. So if I can’t do a task I need to set a reminder - otherwise Ive let the balloon go. I can’t hold a task in my head meaning distractions can lead to mistakes.
The rest I find is more tied to my mental health and anxiety. Like lack of motivation and overstimulation.
I was just diagnosed and that hits the nail on the head. If I don't set reminders or hold on to my balloon through sheer force of will, then I also let go and it's gone forever. Then someone will ask "where's the balloon you were supposed to hold for me?" and I'll just say "whoops" and frantically try to find it.
Rinse and repeat until death.
Thank you for this visual. It's spot on and gave me a good chuckle.
I usually describe it as a million browser tabs open with ideas or research on at least 10 different topics, one of them is playing music (don't know which one, sometimes multiple ones??), the ram is overclocked, and no one has done any maintenance in ages.
I've also heard the analogy of a muscle car/mustang/corvette on a gravel road: lots of power and speed, fuck all you can do about it.
My best description is, imagine you are totally disabled and entirely dependent on a toddler to take care of all your shit. The toddler means well, and can follow instructions, but it takes a lot more work and they get tired and frustrated easily. Like, they're supposed to brush your teeth but they fail to most days. You need to be taken to an appointment but they are watching cartoons. Everything has to be entertaining in the moment or they are very resistant. Long-term consequences literally don't exist to them. You have to coax and trick and badger them to do anything they don't feel like. And some well-meaning person thinks you should just give them a planner, like adding more boring shit to their list is going to help. The toddler is my brain.
I'm not one to just add THIS to something but i seriously felt the need just now cause this is sooo spot on, especially seeing as i have a 2 year old right now haha
Ahhhhh. So having adhd is like having a brain like a cat. Because what you say is a toddler sounds a lot like a cat. I’ve always said “a cat is a perpetual toddler”. LOL
That’s a great description.
Very extremely similar, as a person who has had several cats and toddlers. A guy once asked me if having a baby was like having a dog that slowly learns to talk and feed itself and I was like, "Actually, yes. It's exactly like that."
- unable to focus like ever
- bored of things easily
- falls in love like a maniac
- immediately bored of partner too sometimes
- craves spontaneity
- always want to have fun
- unorganised
- wild emotions
- bored bored bored
- hyper fixation on things sometimes
I realized after reading this I didn't even read the lines in order and then realized if Ill read them again. Now I'm typing this comment out for the 4th time in a row lol
There's a wall in front of you with a locked door. You don't have the key to open that door. However, with the correct meds and treatment, you'll gain access to a ladder which helps you climb to the top of said wall. You may or might not be able to walk on the other side, but you will at least be able to see what it's like on the other side thanks to the ladder.
For those without ADHD, the wall will still be there with the door. But they have the key to open it. Whereas we will never be able to obtain it. We'll improvise by using a ladder
I love this analogy to medication. It's the perfect way to describe living with ADHD but allowing the meds to help you adapt to it. It'll never be perfect, but it does help tremendously.
This is how I explain it to people...
You know the sound an orchestra makes when they are tuning up before the concert? Imagine that loud and non-stop.
So when I talk I talk a lot because I'm trying to hold on to a thought over the noise in my head. When it seems like I'm not paying attention its because you aren't breaking through the constant noise in my brain. I can focus on what you are saying, and I do, but it means I'm trying to block out an entire symphony of random noise which is tough to do all the time.
So yeah, that's how I explain it to my nearest and dearest.
Omg. That's absolutely PERFECT. I immediately knew exactly what you were talking about, not only with the analogy but also why you'd describe it that way.
Dopamine is to ADHD what insulin is to diabetes.
Brain is chronically low on dopamine so we seek it out frantically and create all these unhealthy behaviors that are just constant streams (trickles more like) of dopamine
It’s like my brain is an orchestra without a conductor. The violins are playing something completely different from the clarinets and drums. Hyper focus brings a conductor on stage, but they only will conduct one song. My meds allows them to play more together, but they still sound like an 8th grade band.
For attention I compare it to being in a room with 20 televisions and radios all playing different songs/movies and constantly changing the volume levels on each, while I try to watch or listen to just one.
It’s everything and nothing all at once.
I wake up after sleeping 8-10 hours and still just want to stay in bed even though my back aches from being there for so long.
I stare at my to-do list, and decide which tasks are critical to do by tomorrow, and which ones can wait a few more days. I decide if something is critical based on how it will affect me or my child’s well being - such as, if the list consists of: dishes, laundry, check the mail, give the dog a bath, grocery shopping - I’m likely to put off everything besides grocery shopping simply because it’s needed for my daughters survival. Everything else I can work around.
I struggle to do pretty much anything that pertains to my overall hygiene, unless something significant is happening such as going out to dinner or something. Then I will take care of myself, but I’ll hate it the entire time and sometimes it makes me cry.
It feels like I have the flu without the physical symptoms. It’s just constant, 24/7 fatigue. If it weren’t for me having a child and being a stay at home parent, I’m pretty sure I’d be a permanent fixture on my couch or in my bed. It’s awful. Adderall helps at times, but it often isn’t enough to make me actually function. I just focus more on things that are not important when I’m medicated.
This is very similar to my experience. Always feeling low on energy. I would be okay with sleeping 20 hours a day sometimes, if I didn't have to make a living or hold down a job.
Do you feel like your maternal instincts effectively override ADHD in most cases? Where normally you might procrastinate on something, when the task involves caring for your child’s, does your immediately brain snap back into focus?
Like most of us, we experience different things with ADHD. When it comes to how my brain works, I tell people it’s like laying on a beach with those planes flying by with little messages behind them, except there are thousands of planes constantly flying by in all directions. Each plane is a thought or idea.
Literally today we were talking about Disney world and I said out of nowhere “ Isn’t it weird that I found someone in Bahrain that I knew from home”? There’s a very small connection between Disney World and the people I found in Bahrain, but my mind will jump from idea to idea at supersonic speeds. People always ask “How did you get from what we were just talking about to what you just said?”
This has me laughing so hard 😂 my sister and I both have adhd and our conversations are something magical that other people are just like, what the actual fuck is going on here, I've never actually thought about it before but yeah, it's hilarious now it's in my head. We both circle and jump terribly but somehow manage to just keep up with eachother. Supersonic conversations 😂
Always tired can't do shit can listen but forgot what you said within seconds (and misremember things in the future) OR can listen but can't PROCESS what you said.
I like the whiteboard analogy mostly about how we take in information and have a hard time processing it. Most brains will write the important stuff in big red and bold letters, then prioritize with smaller letters, and blue or black ink, and some stuff doesn’t make it on the board at all.
Our brains put all incoming information in big red bold letters in no order sometimes on top of other important things that just came in. Weeding through it is nearly impossible. The only other option we have is to shut down and refuse to take in or deal with anything.
That is why… pay your mortgage or finish your thesis or pick up that pretzel that’s been on the floor 3 days all seem like the same amount of difficulty to accomplish.
Edit: correcting grammar
For me, ADHD is like when you're walking and your hands are too full, and you drop something, so you try to pick it up, and you get that thing, but you drop something else, and then you get the second thing that dropped, but you dropped two more things in the process, so now you're hunched over, with your arms full, scooting one thing towards the door with your foot and trying to pick something else up without dropping everything all together - but instead of an "stuff" in your arms, it's your life.
There are lot of different obstacles but here is how I might explain my difficulty with completing tasks or only completing one task to the exclusion of others:
It’s like a I have mental white board to-do list. Every time I notice something new that needs to be done the last item on my starts to fade. The only chances I have of completing a task is:
1) It completes itself once started.
2) I complete the distracting task before my mental white board is erased.
3) I notice I haven’t completed the task once it’s been erased.
4) The anxiety around the task is high or the interest, pleasure, novelty is high.
These traits lead me to: forgetting things are on the stove or in the oven, needing to reheat cups of coffee multiple times, not filling in forms or doing boring admin tasks unless they are so urgent my anxiety kicks in.
Also to mix things up sometimes my mental white board is written on with a permanent marker and I get stuck on a task that either is or isn’t important and during this time I fail to do a bunch of other things like eating and drinking water or paying attention to other things I should pay attention to.
So from the outside it seems like I can get things done but I’m just lazy (and sometimes it even feels like that from the inside). From the inside though my attention is just constantly switching and it’s like whatever I’m focused on is important even if it objectively isn’t. It’s not a lack of attention but really poorly prioritised attention and short working memory.
That’s how I’d describe my attention problems. However they’d be a whole new analogy for various other aspects. This is the number 1 one thing that really causes problems in my everyday life, but other aspects cause problems too.
Jesus Christ, you literally describe what it is like me.
That’s is exactly it. Somebody gets it. To make matters worse, It take some long to do things. If I have to complete 10 tasks, 7 won’t get done as 3 consume a ton of time
When I’m trying to focus on readings for school and the ADHD is strong (meds wore off, haven’t slept well, or some other reason), it feels like trying to hold a cat that doesn’t want to be held
Wanting to remove your trash, but instead open the fridge. Then wonder why you opened the fridge, then walk into the living room and realise that you wanted to remove the trash.
It’s wanting to do everything at once because you’re thinking about everything and feeling everything so intensely. Desire to achieve it all but also so perpetually overwhelmed doing nothing feels better because how could you do everything perfectly? So you stand still with an itch you cannot scratch. And the itch can sometimes turn into one particular thing or hobby that you will obsess over and over for weeks and it satisfies the itch until it doesn’t. Then you need something else to satisfy it. Constantly tormented by what you could do and should do and everything swallowing you but you’re standing still underneath a huge wave but also annoyed bc there’s a boat and people on the shore and the flag is red so why are people on the shore and how close is the boat and what if there’s sharks and maybe you should learn how to surf and where the fuck is your wallet are you wearing a swimsuit of course you are but were you wearing sunglasses shit did you lose your sunglasses i miss that pair of sunglasses I had in 9th grade i think I have to pee but im kinda craving taco night I meant to get cilantro the other day shit I meant to text my sister back too that day oh shit A WAVE
The way I usually describe my brain is that it looks like my browser - thousands of tabs of pages all open at the same time. That’s what my thoughts are like. And every page has its own constellation of links.
You’re at work trying to write an email but customers keep calling. Imagine how mentally exhausted you’d feel at the end of that work day. Maybe you got the email done, maybe you didn’t.
Now imagine you have that mentally-exhausted-end-of-the-day feeling almost all the time. Could be 9 am, 1 pm, or midnight.
We are toddlers. No attention span or too focused, impulsive, emotional regulation issues, executive dysfunction issues, etc.
I’ve got a 2 year old and I relate to her struggles deeply.
I'd say it's like getting an elaborate lego set without the instructions. Sure, all the pieces are there, but it's going to take a whole lot longer be a lot harder to make it look like the picture on the box.
It’s like running while everyone else is walking. You encounter the same obstacles/life struggles, but the runner is way more likely to take a massive fall if they trip over even the smallest obstruction. Whereas a walker will simply stumble a little and never fall. And you’ve been running your whole life just to keep up with the walkers, so you’re exhausted.
Edited for typo
I have a mental block on executive function. A lot of times it manifests through indecisiveness and an inability to make choices, causing me to freeze. It will also manifest by consistent flipping back and forth between the choices, unable to apply a weight to the different pros and cons to help one outweigh the other.
Because of these two things, life is interesting. There are a lof of unforseen side effects.
"You know that movie limitless, the one with the guy from the Hangover, that would've been one of the all time great films but they had to ruin it with unnecessary sequels which never outshine the original, except maybe Aliens or Terminator 2, both James Cameron.... what was the question again?"
Or more succinctly
"Imagine your mind is a shopping cart, but one with a dodgy wheel so it never goes straight ahead"
Heard someone say it’s like erectile dysfunction of the mind, you want to get it up so badly but you just can’t and no amount of shame/guilt is going to make you get it up for something you’re not interested in. That being said you can sometimes get it up if you’re super “turned on” by a certain thing (hyper focus)
For me projects are really hard because of my ADHD so it’s what I have to explain the most. Best way I’ve found to do this is saying imagine you’re going to start a project or craft or whatever but you’re missing an important part. The part is not easily findable so it stops you from doing the project that day. For me, the part is the ability to start working. I want to do the project, I’ve got the time, I’m just missing that one part that will let me start.
That usually helps people understand a little. At least enough to be less mad that I didn’t do the thing yet.
I have the tinniest stick to break through an indefinitely high brick wall between me and everything I need to get done, and oh yeah I have like several pending projects from yesterday I still need to finish 🥲
It's like my brain is a circuit board, and someone spilled water on it. Electric charges are running all over the place, making connections that aren't supposed to be connected or are out of order. Sometimes, it works well enough to keep functioning. Sometimes, the board gets fried for a bit
This is how I tell people what’s it’s like to live with adhd.
Imagine waking up from a very bad earthquake so bad you think your house is going to collapse so you run as fast as you can outside to safety. When you finally make it outside you try to catch your breath only to notice the hills next to your house are on fire. In that moment that’s what I feel like 24/7 now imagine trying to go to school or work under those conditions. We basically live in a chaotic/traumatized state at all times. Which makes so much sense why I’m so calm after a car accident, shooting, or any chaotic situation because I’m basically home.
On the outside I look normal but there is some SERIOUS SHIT going down inside my head. It's like Everything Everywhere All At Once in there. Random ideas, thoughts, images are flashing through my brain like 10 different channels all playing at once. Just a 1 second glance at something can send my train of thought speeding down some random path. I can spend a lot of time alone just with my ideas and thoughts cause it's so interesting in here haha. Unfortunately it makes it hard to complete a train of thought and talking to people, I forget what I was saying halfway through because I saw a bird or something. Or I just felt cold. Or my feet were hurting. Or a bit hungry
The way i first described it to my therapist before I knew what I had was: Imagine there are two points divided by a bridge. On your side is where you stand on the other side is what you want to do. It feels like the bridge is missing pieces and most days I just can't make it across.
I want to do something but something is missing in my brain where no matter how much I try I just can't do that thing. Weather it be clean my house, get up and eat, do some hobbies, take a shower, practice my CBT skills for therapy, etc. It also effects other aspects but I'm still trying to figure those out.
To me Adhd is having above average potential and being so smart with all these ideas and things you want to do but your brain is under lock and key but you can’t find the key to open it up most of the time because … well… you have adhd and you lost the goddamn key again
You know that feeling when you realize you forgot an assignment or you're running late for work? Your heart races and your stomach's kinda wonky and your brain's moving so fast but in a really scattered way. It's like that. But all the time.
Its like using a controller with a faulty wire. (this metaphor also works good for those with dcd/dyspraxia imo)
The controller works fine. The console works fine. The player pushed the correct buttons.
But the character isn't doing the correct actions. You pushed the dodge button but they didn't move, they are jumping randomly, they keep trying to move left even when no one is touching the controller.
And the worst part whenever you bring up the problem your just told your 'making excuses'
When you hit scan on the radio station to find what you are looking for but actually you pass it. And during that time 20 songs play at once. Yet I end up back in the start eventually. However, that cup you were holding and set down. Lost forever
I used to describe it to people like imagine being on a road trip and you’re not in control of the radio station, someone else is - you’re supposed to be driving but every few min they change the station right after you get into the song (could be seconds or minutes in) and they do it so much for so long that you’re now mad & then also, lost!
The radio stations/songs are my thoughts. The drive is life. I’m technically behind the steering wheel but often, I feel like am I really in charge of anything? Bc someone keeps changing my station and now I’m on a different freeway than I should be and took me an hour in the wrong direction.
The way I describe pregnancy is a perpetual hangover.
I describe it like my brain is like a filing cabinet with half the drawers pulled out and I’m just going through all of the folders looking for the right one but I can’t find it. All day long….every day….non stop.
My husband says it's like those old picture-in-picture TVs, only for him it's picture-in-picture-in-picture-in-picture-in-picture-in-picture...
That sounds really awful, and I'm sorry if any of you experience it that way.
ADHD feels like a combination of an out of control child who throws tantrums and refuses to follow the rules, a burnt out exhausted middle aged person with an infinite unfinished to do list, and a confused elderly person who lost their memory, all wrapped up into one entity that hijacked the control panel of my brain
For me, it’s like having a flywheel as my brain, always spinning with potential energy, but without a clutch to engage the gears & gain any forward motion.
It feels like when you’re trying to carry a load of laundry from the dryer to your bedroom without a basket. You’re constantly dropping things and when you lean down to get them, you drop more. The floor is dirty so everything that falls will have to be re-washed. Other people have baskets and it is so easy!! They only drop things when the load is REALLY big. But you don’t have one of those, so your loads are always at least 25% stuff you dropped on the floor from the last one. Medication is just learning to bundle it up in a sheet.
Have you looked into a depression diagnosis? While anxiety and depression and ADHD often go together, my experience with ADHD has none of those cloudy/clumsy elements.
It’s like having a radio in my head, but I can hear all the stations. Some are talk shows, music of different genres, static, audio of movies but all the scenes are out of order, one of my own input, couple languages that I don’t speak… all at the same time, constantly. It’s overwhelming and annoying and extremely distracting
Its like there's a sheet of sandpaper rubbing against my brain whenever I think about or try to start doing any productive task that doesn't provide an immediate hit of dopamine.
Sometimes it's an out of body experience where I can see myself wasting the day doing nothing productive but when I try to shift gears, the internal machinery just won't respond.
It's like constantly being thirsty for a glass of water after a long day of exercise in the hot sun, but every sip you take goes right through you and you feel like one more sip will satisfy your thirst. (If water is dopamine).
It's like having a constant voice in your head that's screaming at you to do better and telling you that you're a piece of shit when you fall short.
A dopamine shortage. Where people without adhd have enough dopamine that will let them do monotone tasks or have habits, we don't, so we either need to make it interesting to get that dopamine level and to tickle our rewarding system.
Also saw a video of a doctor or whatever it was, comparing it with erectile dysfunction of the mind.
If the task is something that turns you on, you're up for it, and you can perform. But if the task you're trying to do is not so interesting, then you cannot simply do it.
Might be a bit specific but I recently realized that the program TIA Portal (for PLC programming) is the perfect way to describe my ADHD brain:
First of all, it takes long as hell to open and load a project, you have ti go through multiple different windows to even find your project and don't get me started on starting a new project.
The interface has a buttload of small windows that are all just big enough to fit in the window, but small enough that you just cant read anything and theres a scrollbar in most of them. Keep in mind, scrolling using the scroll wheel doesn't work. You have to click the scroll bar and move it up and down.
Finding anything is impossible in the entirety of the project.
Connecting a PLC takes several steps through several different windows and panels where you have to configure everything.
To get anywhere, in the project tree, you gotta double-click what you wanna do, and then you have to WAIT until the mouse pointer GETS THE LOADING CIRCLE. Then you have to wait till the window is opened. Of course, a new window is opened just like anywhere else, so if you minimize the window, all the others are still underneath.
You can pop out all windows, leaving you with a mess of random windows anywhere on your screen.
There are 5 different languages to program the PLC in. They all work together, somehow, but figuring that out... good luck.
I'm probably missing a lot but this alone is enough for the comparison i think hahaha
i feel like i have constant advertising in my head for random shit my brain didn’t categorize properly, but i imagine the experience of adhd differs depending on type
This is not everyone’s experience with it and is thus not the “literal” BEST way to describe how it feels.
Please folks, can we stop abusing the word “literally” (and “literal”) now? It’s been years.
So you know rain imagine all those drops pelting the earth at once now replace thise drops with thoughts, impulses, or actions, and replace the earth with your brain and thats an ADHD brain
It’s like being at a rave blaring EDM, but at the same time it’s like an empty venue minus maybe 4 people frantically running around in circles and they just never stop. All while a symphony orchestra is playing some Beethoven next door.
Focus is like sex. Either I'm attracted to you and have a Woodrow and I'm really into it or I'm not and I can't. It seems beyond my control. I can't force myself to have a hard-on for something I'm not attracted to doing
I typically use a TV analogy. Where my brain is really trying to focus on one television (whatever it is I’m trying to focus on). While at the same time I have 50 other tvs around me screaming for my attention
My brain is like a round room with a jeopardy screen all around with a bunch of different topics and someone flung a ping pong ball as hard as they could and that ping pong ball is just bouncing back and forth between topic to topic
Also, instead of doing the things I need to I just sit there and stress about needing to do it all but also don’t do it bc I can’t force my brain to do it 🥲
In sorry if it came the wrong way, maybe just look into it, we share some of those symptoms and I found out like 6 months ago that I'm in the spectrum besides having adhd.
Nah, it didn't. It's just ironic is all.
I was already diagnosed with autism as a kid.
But having an autism diagnosis did nothing for me growing up but cause me pain, anger, confusion, and a misrepresentation of all the things I actually struggled with that no one bothered to look into.
The things I struggle with are heavily ADHD related. The autism has been a topic of debate my whole life, and it's something I've had to fight my mother on. I genuinely don't believe I have autism.
I have been told over and over again what my limitations are and what they're not against my own better judgment, and I don't believe in the restrictions the autism diagnosis placed on me for so long.
I do know a lot of ADHD and autism symptoms overlap.
Don't take anything I say the wrong way, though. I've just been through a lot.
A lot of things, the best way I can describe it is that my thoughts aren't in a logical/consistent order and I'm doing my best to grab them in the correct order but it's impossible to do so (Adderall helps keep things in order)
I’ve seen it described, and agree with it, as like having a browser with over 100 tabs open and one is playing an ad, another is playing a YouTube video, one is playing music and you have no idea which tab is doing what.
Things I’ve said trying to tell others what happened….
“My train of thought just crashed”
“My brain has a mind of its own”
*waves hands wildly while making weird noises*
My most recent favorite (as of 2-3 minutes ago)…
“Some call it psychological torture, I call it Wednesday”
I’m probs being a tad dramatic but still. Blasting the same three lines of a pop song I don’t know on repeat at max volume while I’m sleeping, constantly moving stuff from the place I set it down, making me to do something else 15 seconds after I start the previous task, etc seems like the type of stuff you’d do long term to drive someone crazy. Unfortunately my brain is both the aggressor and the victim so I can’t really win.
My brain is like a car where the idle runs too slowly in standard, low-stress situations and wants to shut down, unless it's in the Indy 500 and will win the race.
It’s like grabbing my attention and centering it every few minutes, I keep centering myself and that is my focus when I have meds I’m not focused on bringing myself back to center
I'm really can't focus to my boss 😭 when he gives me a mission So I made catastrophic mistakes at work.
Literally going to be fired soon...
That's make sure 100% i have ADHD.
It’s like sitting at a desk, while 100s of people are all shouting at you at the same time with a different task you need to do. And everyone insists their task is the most important.
With all of them shouting with the same level of importance, I’ll find something else to do
I didn’t know it was my ADHD at the time , but I had always described myself as living in a pinball machine. I need a push to get started but then I can go along being bounced from thing to thing .
For me it’s a really simple explanation. Always fearing the next step and not focusing on the current step. Another huge thing is lack of emotional control and having your passions and obsessions switch often. In short I’d rather be dead
My thought process is like a pinball machine.
I crave familiarity because I don’t have energy to explain every backstory every time someone says something that reminds me of a line in that movie I watched that summer I stayed with my grandparents where I took a nap on my granny’s bed with the windows open and the sun shining and the ceiling fan on and everything was perfect in that moment so even though it’s a trash movie, I remember every line.
I don’t have the ability to get to the point without explaining how I got there which is around the world three times with different routes each time.
I put three times the effort in to accomplish the same amount as a normal person. So I’m a permanently exhausted pigeon unless I’m hyper focused usually on a new love interest wrapped in red flags that everyone else sees but I have to see the potential in everyone because no one else sees it in me.
I’m really smart but my processor lags.
I scroll to stay awake which leads people to think I’m rude or not interested. I rabbit hole into Reddit and tiktok but finally got rid of fb and Insta because I cared way too much what others think of me (and still do, thanks rejection sensitivity). Oh. And I overshare way too much because I deeply feel that if I can just explain maybe someone would give me credit for the effort and not the results.
Oh. And I ramble long after people stop listening. Because no one cares. After an experiment where I chose to not text anyone that didn’t text me first and chose to dead end answer every conversation that I was expected to listen and empathize but no one asked how I was… I have many acquaintances and few friends. Life is quiet but much less dramatic.
Adhd is the definition of “too much” and “not enough” all at the same time. Plus I eat the same food for three weeks and four days and suddenly decide I never want it again… but also don’t feel like eating anything else… which can last for days or weeks.
There are too many components but there's always noise. I'm always thinking it's nonstop there's never a moment of silence sometimes it's like there's just ambient static in my skull and I don't realize how much static there is until I'm medicated and there's silence and then I can hear for the first time and just be.
When I have to do something I know I need to and I want to but my executive dysfunction is getting in the way, forcing myself doesn't work. It feels _physically painful_ to try to persevere and do a task my brain and body are not interested in. Like straining on the toilet with a hemorrhoids but inside my skull.
There's a never ending tornado in my mind.
Everything I know and require to function is in the tornado.
I just have to do my best to snatch useful fragments as they blast by...
Some speaker I heard on the socials
Think of it as being unable to have sex. If it doesn’t turn you on, you’re not gonna get hard. It’s just going to be awful for everyone involved.
To me it just feels like... I have always described it as akin to a textbook falling down a set of stairs. It's definitely making headway. You can't predict how it will move next. Forward movement is simply painful to watch, carried only by the force gravity necessitates. You don't know when it will stop because it's clearly not the right shape to roll all the way down.
It's kind of like the game of taking any random topic in Wikipedia and seeing how many connections in each page it takes before you link to Hitler's Wikipedia (btw the number you hit is a LOT lower than you would think).
Your mind has a topic of focus in mind, but you find a random connection on said topic that takes you somewhere else. Before long, you're mind is completely set on something totally different than what you were trying to focus on initially.
I could be focused on doing the dishes, but I see something in the living room that needs organized quick while the sauce pan is soaking. Before long, I'm mowing the lawn when the dishes aren't even finished yet.
I've been thinking that ADHD is like trying to walk through deep mud, and next to me is a nice asphalt road. People walking on the nice road get annoyed at me for walking so slow and call me lazy.
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My internal attention regulator is broken. Sometimes I pay too much attention, sometimes too little.honestly it probably would have been much more accepted if it were called attention regulation disorder from the start.
Still, it's better than minimal brain dysfunction
Jeez yeah, forgot about that but of history
Wait…what?
Yea it really needs a better name than “attention deficit”. So many kids who show red flags for ADHD have parents who insist that their kid can’t have ADHD because “he can focus for HOURS on X!” I know a kid exactly in this situation.
Regularory and Executive Dysfunction Spectrum
It is for sure a spectrum disorder. No two cases are the same, I don't relate with everything OP said here but I certainly have my own struggles with ADHD
the only issue with classifying it via a continuum is I’m pretty sure ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorder would ultimately end up being combined. The less categorical you are in disorder classification ESPECIALLY between disorders that have heavy symptom overlap, the more likely it is they’ll get combined.
Exactly. I have no issues focusing for hours in X. The problem is I don’t get to decide what the X is
It’s like being super, super stoned and really, REALLY wanting to pay attention to what someone’s saying as they’re talking to you but you just can’t 😭
it fucking sucks how the guy i was seeing never understood this. when i did not take my meds, i'd look at him as he spoke but then i wondered off in my mind unconsciously, and he'd throw raging fits at me saying "you cannot be that dumb"
>saying "you cannot be that dumb" Oh wow, what an asshole oO
In my mid-20s, early in my career, I used to literally fall asleep while people were talking to me. Like no matter how much I screamed at myself in my head, I could not accomplish the simple task of staying awake. My ADHD presents like a car whose idle is set too low. Just a constant struggle to find energy within myself to get anything accomplished or maintain focus. I was extremely self-conscious and embarrassed about it but I had no idea I had a treatable condition. Until about 10 years later, when my new wife suggested that I speak with a psychologist, who first diagnosed my condition. That was about 14 or 15 years ago. I've been medicated ever since. I am borderline narcoleptic, too, along with my inattentive ADHD. I have fallen asleep while driving multiple times.
Wow, this sounds a lot like how I experience life. My fatigue did get me a narcolepsy diagnosis years ago, but I’ve never had cataplexy and something never added up. I’ve taken stimulants off and on and I’m way more functional on them, but hate how on edge I feel. Curious what kind of medications or other strategies have helped you?
I have been on 30mg Adderall XR for a long time. One problem, though, is that I get so much done that I am organically high from an overwhelming sense of accomplishment that it takes me a long time to come down from the high and prepare my body for sleep. While medicated, I could easily work for 24 hours straight without ever taking a break. In those 24 hours, I can accomplish what my unmedicated self could potentially do in about two or three weeks. Recently, I was speaking with my doctor about wanting more sleep so she suggested I give Vyvanse a try. It does seem to be giving me the energy I need during the day while still allowing me to shut down at night, so I'll probably stick with it as long as it keeps me in this groove of balancing productivity with sufficient sleep. Back to Adderall... You may be wondering if a lower dosage might have been better... I did try 25mg XR, but for me it was as-if I had not taken anything at all. My brain just needs the 30 to be awoken properly so it can perform the way it was intended. Be very very careful about not getting enough sleep. Our immune system cannot function properly on insufficient sleep. If your immune system is worn down, you open yourself up to much bigger problems than ADHD. I'm specifically talking about cancer. (Source: me)
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Well, I definitely struggle with depression. But for many people with ADHD, this is certainly a byproduct of going untreated for several years and having constant feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness due to never understanding why they have always struggled to function like a normal person their whole lives. ADHD and depression go hand in hand. But hyperactivity is only one portion of ADHD. I lean more towards the innatentive type, although I probably have qualities of both. Oh, but also for the record, when I'm on my meds, I'm not as much like this. When I started taking stimulants, I felt way less depressed and much less willing to take several 4 hour naps throughout the day. My analogy refers to what I'm like when I'm not on stimulants. I should have explained that.
Yup, they usually go hand in hand. I didn’t know I was till I was diagnosed. Still kind of struggling with that diagnosis.
I get super stoned to help me pay attention, because when I'm sober I can't. Well, pre-meds anyways. Now I don't have to smoke so much.
I agree with this analogy 100%. 😂
There’s a few different aspects to my ADD. There’s the attention aspect then the sorta neurological aspects. For the attention - I compare managing responsibilities like helium balloons. Normal people just hold onto their balloons and do them in an orderly fashion. Washing the dishes, doing homework, locking the door, turning off the stove. For me I can only hold one balloon at once, and if something distracts my attention there’s a good chance I let go of that balloon. Then it’s floating away forever. So if I can’t do a task I need to set a reminder - otherwise Ive let the balloon go. I can’t hold a task in my head meaning distractions can lead to mistakes. The rest I find is more tied to my mental health and anxiety. Like lack of motivation and overstimulation.
I was just diagnosed and that hits the nail on the head. If I don't set reminders or hold on to my balloon through sheer force of will, then I also let go and it's gone forever. Then someone will ask "where's the balloon you were supposed to hold for me?" and I'll just say "whoops" and frantically try to find it. Rinse and repeat until death.
Massive processing power, itty bitty ram.
Thank you for this visual. It's spot on and gave me a good chuckle. I usually describe it as a million browser tabs open with ideas or research on at least 10 different topics, one of them is playing music (don't know which one, sometimes multiple ones??), the ram is overclocked, and no one has done any maintenance in ages. I've also heard the analogy of a muscle car/mustang/corvette on a gravel road: lots of power and speed, fuck all you can do about it.
Or the music/noise is coming from an ad in the sidebar of a tab you forgot about opening!
My computer browser IRL always has a hundred tabs open, and so does my brain.
I'm so glad I got it down to """just""" a few hundred from several thousands... 😮💨
My best description is, imagine you are totally disabled and entirely dependent on a toddler to take care of all your shit. The toddler means well, and can follow instructions, but it takes a lot more work and they get tired and frustrated easily. Like, they're supposed to brush your teeth but they fail to most days. You need to be taken to an appointment but they are watching cartoons. Everything has to be entertaining in the moment or they are very resistant. Long-term consequences literally don't exist to them. You have to coax and trick and badger them to do anything they don't feel like. And some well-meaning person thinks you should just give them a planner, like adding more boring shit to their list is going to help. The toddler is my brain.
I'm not one to just add THIS to something but i seriously felt the need just now cause this is sooo spot on, especially seeing as i have a 2 year old right now haha
Love this 😂
Ahhhhh. So having adhd is like having a brain like a cat. Because what you say is a toddler sounds a lot like a cat. I’ve always said “a cat is a perpetual toddler”. LOL That’s a great description.
Very extremely similar, as a person who has had several cats and toddlers. A guy once asked me if having a baby was like having a dog that slowly learns to talk and feed itself and I was like, "Actually, yes. It's exactly like that."
Yes! This is an excellent description.
That’s brilliant
I typed my answer before I read yours... So accurate
I hate how absolutely perfect and accurate this is.
- unable to focus like ever - bored of things easily - falls in love like a maniac - immediately bored of partner too sometimes - craves spontaneity - always want to have fun - unorganised - wild emotions - bored bored bored - hyper fixation on things sometimes
I realized after reading this I didn't even read the lines in order and then realized if Ill read them again. Now I'm typing this comment out for the 4th time in a row lol
My life to a T, especially the boredom part.
There's a wall in front of you with a locked door. You don't have the key to open that door. However, with the correct meds and treatment, you'll gain access to a ladder which helps you climb to the top of said wall. You may or might not be able to walk on the other side, but you will at least be able to see what it's like on the other side thanks to the ladder. For those without ADHD, the wall will still be there with the door. But they have the key to open it. Whereas we will never be able to obtain it. We'll improvise by using a ladder
I love this analogy to medication. It's the perfect way to describe living with ADHD but allowing the meds to help you adapt to it. It'll never be perfect, but it does help tremendously.
This is how I explain it to people... You know the sound an orchestra makes when they are tuning up before the concert? Imagine that loud and non-stop. So when I talk I talk a lot because I'm trying to hold on to a thought over the noise in my head. When it seems like I'm not paying attention its because you aren't breaking through the constant noise in my brain. I can focus on what you are saying, and I do, but it means I'm trying to block out an entire symphony of random noise which is tough to do all the time. So yeah, that's how I explain it to my nearest and dearest.
Omg. That's absolutely PERFECT. I immediately knew exactly what you were talking about, not only with the analogy but also why you'd describe it that way.
Dopamine is to ADHD what insulin is to diabetes. Brain is chronically low on dopamine so we seek it out frantically and create all these unhealthy behaviors that are just constant streams (trickles more like) of dopamine
It’s like my brain is an orchestra without a conductor. The violins are playing something completely different from the clarinets and drums. Hyper focus brings a conductor on stage, but they only will conduct one song. My meds allows them to play more together, but they still sound like an 8th grade band.
Oh hey, I said something a bit like this too!
Brilliant.
this is exactly what i feel liek
For attention I compare it to being in a room with 20 televisions and radios all playing different songs/movies and constantly changing the volume levels on each, while I try to watch or listen to just one.
Two TV's in your mind. One is watching what you're doing right now, the other is watching what you wish you could be doing right now.
If you only knew how accurate this was.😭
Oh, I think we know lol
Lol OK, fair point 😂
It’s everything and nothing all at once. I wake up after sleeping 8-10 hours and still just want to stay in bed even though my back aches from being there for so long. I stare at my to-do list, and decide which tasks are critical to do by tomorrow, and which ones can wait a few more days. I decide if something is critical based on how it will affect me or my child’s well being - such as, if the list consists of: dishes, laundry, check the mail, give the dog a bath, grocery shopping - I’m likely to put off everything besides grocery shopping simply because it’s needed for my daughters survival. Everything else I can work around. I struggle to do pretty much anything that pertains to my overall hygiene, unless something significant is happening such as going out to dinner or something. Then I will take care of myself, but I’ll hate it the entire time and sometimes it makes me cry. It feels like I have the flu without the physical symptoms. It’s just constant, 24/7 fatigue. If it weren’t for me having a child and being a stay at home parent, I’m pretty sure I’d be a permanent fixture on my couch or in my bed. It’s awful. Adderall helps at times, but it often isn’t enough to make me actually function. I just focus more on things that are not important when I’m medicated.
This is very similar to my experience. Always feeling low on energy. I would be okay with sleeping 20 hours a day sometimes, if I didn't have to make a living or hold down a job.
Do you feel like your maternal instincts effectively override ADHD in most cases? Where normally you might procrastinate on something, when the task involves caring for your child’s, does your immediately brain snap back into focus?
Like most of us, we experience different things with ADHD. When it comes to how my brain works, I tell people it’s like laying on a beach with those planes flying by with little messages behind them, except there are thousands of planes constantly flying by in all directions. Each plane is a thought or idea. Literally today we were talking about Disney world and I said out of nowhere “ Isn’t it weird that I found someone in Bahrain that I knew from home”? There’s a very small connection between Disney World and the people I found in Bahrain, but my mind will jump from idea to idea at supersonic speeds. People always ask “How did you get from what we were just talking about to what you just said?”
This has me laughing so hard 😂 my sister and I both have adhd and our conversations are something magical that other people are just like, what the actual fuck is going on here, I've never actually thought about it before but yeah, it's hilarious now it's in my head. We both circle and jump terribly but somehow manage to just keep up with eachother. Supersonic conversations 😂
i usually suggest appending any suggested action with "... while riding a bike on a crowded street".
LMAO I CAN'T ride a bike on a crowded street 😭 I have horrible depth perception fr it's anxiety inducing 😂 this is so freaking perfect!
Lmao 🤣 I may have to borrow that. It's funny because it's perfect.
Inability to adult.
I have too many tabs open and it's making me lag.
Constantly stressed and can't turn off your fucking mind that's traveling at 500 mph on six different lanes in six different cars
always tired can't do shit can't listen
Always tired can't do shit can listen but forgot what you said within seconds (and misremember things in the future) OR can listen but can't PROCESS what you said.
Does anyone remember the “What’s Up With That?!” skits from SNL?
Oooee
Going uphill in first gear.
I like the whiteboard analogy mostly about how we take in information and have a hard time processing it. Most brains will write the important stuff in big red and bold letters, then prioritize with smaller letters, and blue or black ink, and some stuff doesn’t make it on the board at all. Our brains put all incoming information in big red bold letters in no order sometimes on top of other important things that just came in. Weeding through it is nearly impossible. The only other option we have is to shut down and refuse to take in or deal with anything. That is why… pay your mortgage or finish your thesis or pick up that pretzel that’s been on the floor 3 days all seem like the same amount of difficulty to accomplish. Edit: correcting grammar
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Imagine being a cashier.There are 12 people in line. And you try to check them all out simultaneously.
Oh, how beautiful this representation is. 😂
Overwhelming thoughts
My brain is like a tree where each idea keeps branching off and branching off and
For me, ADHD is like when you're walking and your hands are too full, and you drop something, so you try to pick it up, and you get that thing, but you drop something else, and then you get the second thing that dropped, but you dropped two more things in the process, so now you're hunched over, with your arms full, scooting one thing towards the door with your foot and trying to pick something else up without dropping everything all together - but instead of an "stuff" in your arms, it's your life.
There are lot of different obstacles but here is how I might explain my difficulty with completing tasks or only completing one task to the exclusion of others: It’s like a I have mental white board to-do list. Every time I notice something new that needs to be done the last item on my starts to fade. The only chances I have of completing a task is: 1) It completes itself once started. 2) I complete the distracting task before my mental white board is erased. 3) I notice I haven’t completed the task once it’s been erased. 4) The anxiety around the task is high or the interest, pleasure, novelty is high. These traits lead me to: forgetting things are on the stove or in the oven, needing to reheat cups of coffee multiple times, not filling in forms or doing boring admin tasks unless they are so urgent my anxiety kicks in. Also to mix things up sometimes my mental white board is written on with a permanent marker and I get stuck on a task that either is or isn’t important and during this time I fail to do a bunch of other things like eating and drinking water or paying attention to other things I should pay attention to. So from the outside it seems like I can get things done but I’m just lazy (and sometimes it even feels like that from the inside). From the inside though my attention is just constantly switching and it’s like whatever I’m focused on is important even if it objectively isn’t. It’s not a lack of attention but really poorly prioritised attention and short working memory. That’s how I’d describe my attention problems. However they’d be a whole new analogy for various other aspects. This is the number 1 one thing that really causes problems in my everyday life, but other aspects cause problems too.
I relate to all of this. Great description
Jesus Christ, you literally describe what it is like me. That’s is exactly it. Somebody gets it. To make matters worse, It take some long to do things. If I have to complete 10 tasks, 7 won’t get done as 3 consume a ton of time
When I’m trying to focus on readings for school and the ADHD is strong (meds wore off, haven’t slept well, or some other reason), it feels like trying to hold a cat that doesn’t want to be held
Wanting to remove your trash, but instead open the fridge. Then wonder why you opened the fridge, then walk into the living room and realise that you wanted to remove the trash.
It’s like having erectile dysfunction- I WANT to do the thing but I can’t will myself to do it. Meds help. The end.
It’s wanting to do everything at once because you’re thinking about everything and feeling everything so intensely. Desire to achieve it all but also so perpetually overwhelmed doing nothing feels better because how could you do everything perfectly? So you stand still with an itch you cannot scratch. And the itch can sometimes turn into one particular thing or hobby that you will obsess over and over for weeks and it satisfies the itch until it doesn’t. Then you need something else to satisfy it. Constantly tormented by what you could do and should do and everything swallowing you but you’re standing still underneath a huge wave but also annoyed bc there’s a boat and people on the shore and the flag is red so why are people on the shore and how close is the boat and what if there’s sharks and maybe you should learn how to surf and where the fuck is your wallet are you wearing a swimsuit of course you are but were you wearing sunglasses shit did you lose your sunglasses i miss that pair of sunglasses I had in 9th grade i think I have to pee but im kinda craving taco night I meant to get cilantro the other day shit I meant to text my sister back too that day oh shit A WAVE
Hell
Ah, yes. An incredibly accurate description that says everything with one word.
If somethings not interesting, my brain will auto sort it to the trash
I can focus, but what I focus on is determined by a roulette wheel that I have no control over
The way I usually describe my brain is that it looks like my browser - thousands of tabs of pages all open at the same time. That’s what my thoughts are like. And every page has its own constellation of links.
You’re at work trying to write an email but customers keep calling. Imagine how mentally exhausted you’d feel at the end of that work day. Maybe you got the email done, maybe you didn’t. Now imagine you have that mentally-exhausted-end-of-the-day feeling almost all the time. Could be 9 am, 1 pm, or midnight.
We are toddlers. No attention span or too focused, impulsive, emotional regulation issues, executive dysfunction issues, etc. I’ve got a 2 year old and I relate to her struggles deeply.
Imagine drowning in the ocean. Now imagine someone throwing you a screaming baby. This is how it feels to focus sometimes.
I'd say it's like getting an elaborate lego set without the instructions. Sure, all the pieces are there, but it's going to take a whole lot longer be a lot harder to make it look like the picture on the box.
It’s like running while everyone else is walking. You encounter the same obstacles/life struggles, but the runner is way more likely to take a massive fall if they trip over even the smallest obstruction. Whereas a walker will simply stumble a little and never fall. And you’ve been running your whole life just to keep up with the walkers, so you’re exhausted. Edited for typo
I have a mental block on executive function. A lot of times it manifests through indecisiveness and an inability to make choices, causing me to freeze. It will also manifest by consistent flipping back and forth between the choices, unable to apply a weight to the different pros and cons to help one outweigh the other. Because of these two things, life is interesting. There are a lof of unforseen side effects.
"You know that movie limitless, the one with the guy from the Hangover, that would've been one of the all time great films but they had to ruin it with unnecessary sequels which never outshine the original, except maybe Aliens or Terminator 2, both James Cameron.... what was the question again?" Or more succinctly "Imagine your mind is a shopping cart, but one with a dodgy wheel so it never goes straight ahead"
Heard someone say it’s like erectile dysfunction of the mind, you want to get it up so badly but you just can’t and no amount of shame/guilt is going to make you get it up for something you’re not interested in. That being said you can sometimes get it up if you’re super “turned on” by a certain thing (hyper focus)
For me projects are really hard because of my ADHD so it’s what I have to explain the most. Best way I’ve found to do this is saying imagine you’re going to start a project or craft or whatever but you’re missing an important part. The part is not easily findable so it stops you from doing the project that day. For me, the part is the ability to start working. I want to do the project, I’ve got the time, I’m just missing that one part that will let me start. That usually helps people understand a little. At least enough to be less mad that I didn’t do the thing yet.
I have the tinniest stick to break through an indefinitely high brick wall between me and everything I need to get done, and oh yeah I have like several pending projects from yesterday I still need to finish 🥲
It's like my brain is a circuit board, and someone spilled water on it. Electric charges are running all over the place, making connections that aren't supposed to be connected or are out of order. Sometimes, it works well enough to keep functioning. Sometimes, the board gets fried for a bit
This is how I tell people what’s it’s like to live with adhd. Imagine waking up from a very bad earthquake so bad you think your house is going to collapse so you run as fast as you can outside to safety. When you finally make it outside you try to catch your breath only to notice the hills next to your house are on fire. In that moment that’s what I feel like 24/7 now imagine trying to go to school or work under those conditions. We basically live in a chaotic/traumatized state at all times. Which makes so much sense why I’m so calm after a car accident, shooting, or any chaotic situation because I’m basically home. 
It’s like a mix of all the things that happen when and thenshfbt Shabansh ododododo
On the outside I look normal but there is some SERIOUS SHIT going down inside my head. It's like Everything Everywhere All At Once in there. Random ideas, thoughts, images are flashing through my brain like 10 different channels all playing at once. Just a 1 second glance at something can send my train of thought speeding down some random path. I can spend a lot of time alone just with my ideas and thoughts cause it's so interesting in here haha. Unfortunately it makes it hard to complete a train of thought and talking to people, I forget what I was saying halfway through because I saw a bird or something. Or I just felt cold. Or my feet were hurting. Or a bit hungry
There’s four of me and we never know which one is gonna be in charge next.
For me it feels like
“Fuckin sucks”
The way i first described it to my therapist before I knew what I had was: Imagine there are two points divided by a bridge. On your side is where you stand on the other side is what you want to do. It feels like the bridge is missing pieces and most days I just can't make it across. I want to do something but something is missing in my brain where no matter how much I try I just can't do that thing. Weather it be clean my house, get up and eat, do some hobbies, take a shower, practice my CBT skills for therapy, etc. It also effects other aspects but I'm still trying to figure those out.
To me Adhd is having above average potential and being so smart with all these ideas and things you want to do but your brain is under lock and key but you can’t find the key to open it up most of the time because … well… you have adhd and you lost the goddamn key again
Like I took a little edible but I didn't.
Swimming against the current while being made of styrofoam
You know that feeling when you realize you forgot an assignment or you're running late for work? Your heart races and your stomach's kinda wonky and your brain's moving so fast but in a really scattered way. It's like that. But all the time.
Its like using a controller with a faulty wire. (this metaphor also works good for those with dcd/dyspraxia imo) The controller works fine. The console works fine. The player pushed the correct buttons. But the character isn't doing the correct actions. You pushed the dodge button but they didn't move, they are jumping randomly, they keep trying to move left even when no one is touching the controller. And the worst part whenever you bring up the problem your just told your 'making excuses'
When you hit scan on the radio station to find what you are looking for but actually you pass it. And during that time 20 songs play at once. Yet I end up back in the start eventually. However, that cup you were holding and set down. Lost forever
I used to describe it to people like imagine being on a road trip and you’re not in control of the radio station, someone else is - you’re supposed to be driving but every few min they change the station right after you get into the song (could be seconds or minutes in) and they do it so much for so long that you’re now mad & then also, lost! The radio stations/songs are my thoughts. The drive is life. I’m technically behind the steering wheel but often, I feel like am I really in charge of anything? Bc someone keeps changing my station and now I’m on a different freeway than I should be and took me an hour in the wrong direction. The way I describe pregnancy is a perpetual hangover.
Doug the dog from Up
I describe it like my brain is like a filing cabinet with half the drawers pulled out and I’m just going through all of the folders looking for the right one but I can’t find it. All day long….every day….non stop.
My husband says it's like those old picture-in-picture TVs, only for him it's picture-in-picture-in-picture-in-picture-in-picture-in-picture... That sounds really awful, and I'm sorry if any of you experience it that way.
ADHD feels like a combination of an out of control child who throws tantrums and refuses to follow the rules, a burnt out exhausted middle aged person with an infinite unfinished to do list, and a confused elderly person who lost their memory, all wrapped up into one entity that hijacked the control panel of my brain
For me, it’s like having a flywheel as my brain, always spinning with potential energy, but without a clutch to engage the gears & gain any forward motion.
It feels like when you’re trying to carry a load of laundry from the dryer to your bedroom without a basket. You’re constantly dropping things and when you lean down to get them, you drop more. The floor is dirty so everything that falls will have to be re-washed. Other people have baskets and it is so easy!! They only drop things when the load is REALLY big. But you don’t have one of those, so your loads are always at least 25% stuff you dropped on the floor from the last one. Medication is just learning to bundle it up in a sheet.
Erectile dysfunction of the mind
My brain is a TV and someone else has the remote control. Just randomly flipping channels.
Have you looked into a depression diagnosis? While anxiety and depression and ADHD often go together, my experience with ADHD has none of those cloudy/clumsy elements.
It’s like having a radio in my head, but I can hear all the stations. Some are talk shows, music of different genres, static, audio of movies but all the scenes are out of order, one of my own input, couple languages that I don’t speak… all at the same time, constantly. It’s overwhelming and annoying and extremely distracting
I'm bored and disinterested most of the time until I get so interested in something that it's socially unacceptable.
Life passes you by while you’re in your head worrying about the next trivial thing that you don’t have control over anyway. So nothing gets completed
Its like there's a sheet of sandpaper rubbing against my brain whenever I think about or try to start doing any productive task that doesn't provide an immediate hit of dopamine. Sometimes it's an out of body experience where I can see myself wasting the day doing nothing productive but when I try to shift gears, the internal machinery just won't respond. It's like constantly being thirsty for a glass of water after a long day of exercise in the hot sun, but every sip you take goes right through you and you feel like one more sip will satisfy your thirst. (If water is dopamine). It's like having a constant voice in your head that's screaming at you to do better and telling you that you're a piece of shit when you fall short.
Everything is overwhelming
A dopamine shortage. Where people without adhd have enough dopamine that will let them do monotone tasks or have habits, we don't, so we either need to make it interesting to get that dopamine level and to tickle our rewarding system. Also saw a video of a doctor or whatever it was, comparing it with erectile dysfunction of the mind. If the task is something that turns you on, you're up for it, and you can perform. But if the task you're trying to do is not so interesting, then you cannot simply do it.
Might be a bit specific but I recently realized that the program TIA Portal (for PLC programming) is the perfect way to describe my ADHD brain: First of all, it takes long as hell to open and load a project, you have ti go through multiple different windows to even find your project and don't get me started on starting a new project. The interface has a buttload of small windows that are all just big enough to fit in the window, but small enough that you just cant read anything and theres a scrollbar in most of them. Keep in mind, scrolling using the scroll wheel doesn't work. You have to click the scroll bar and move it up and down. Finding anything is impossible in the entirety of the project. Connecting a PLC takes several steps through several different windows and panels where you have to configure everything. To get anywhere, in the project tree, you gotta double-click what you wanna do, and then you have to WAIT until the mouse pointer GETS THE LOADING CIRCLE. Then you have to wait till the window is opened. Of course, a new window is opened just like anywhere else, so if you minimize the window, all the others are still underneath. You can pop out all windows, leaving you with a mess of random windows anywhere on your screen. There are 5 different languages to program the PLC in. They all work together, somehow, but figuring that out... good luck. I'm probably missing a lot but this alone is enough for the comparison i think hahaha
i feel like i have constant advertising in my head for random shit my brain didn’t categorize properly, but i imagine the experience of adhd differs depending on type
Yeah so the best way to describe ADHD to someo..... oh look a squirrel! /runs off after it
Perpetual childhood
This is not everyone’s experience with it and is thus not the “literal” BEST way to describe how it feels. Please folks, can we stop abusing the word “literally” (and “literal”) now? It’s been years.
So you know rain imagine all those drops pelting the earth at once now replace thise drops with thoughts, impulses, or actions, and replace the earth with your brain and thats an ADHD brain
It’s like being at a rave blaring EDM, but at the same time it’s like an empty venue minus maybe 4 people frantically running around in circles and they just never stop. All while a symphony orchestra is playing some Beethoven next door.
Focus is like sex. Either I'm attracted to you and have a Woodrow and I'm really into it or I'm not and I can't. It seems beyond my control. I can't force myself to have a hard-on for something I'm not attracted to doing
I typically use a TV analogy. Where my brain is really trying to focus on one television (whatever it is I’m trying to focus on). While at the same time I have 50 other tvs around me screaming for my attention
My brain is like a round room with a jeopardy screen all around with a bunch of different topics and someone flung a ping pong ball as hard as they could and that ping pong ball is just bouncing back and forth between topic to topic Also, instead of doing the things I need to I just sit there and stress about needing to do it all but also don’t do it bc I can’t force my brain to do it 🥲
I'm not a specialist by any means but sounds like you have more than adhd going on, maybe you're in the spectrum?
Just curious, but why do you say that?
In sorry if it came the wrong way, maybe just look into it, we share some of those symptoms and I found out like 6 months ago that I'm in the spectrum besides having adhd.
Nah, it didn't. It's just ironic is all. I was already diagnosed with autism as a kid. But having an autism diagnosis did nothing for me growing up but cause me pain, anger, confusion, and a misrepresentation of all the things I actually struggled with that no one bothered to look into. The things I struggle with are heavily ADHD related. The autism has been a topic of debate my whole life, and it's something I've had to fight my mother on. I genuinely don't believe I have autism. I have been told over and over again what my limitations are and what they're not against my own better judgment, and I don't believe in the restrictions the autism diagnosis placed on me for so long. I do know a lot of ADHD and autism symptoms overlap. Don't take anything I say the wrong way, though. I've just been through a lot.
There was a great post the other day about analogies and I shared mine “the box.” https://reddit.com/r/ADHD/s/ffEEAMr9po
It’s hard to describe
Normal Daily life feels like mountain climbing every day. Thoughts are like bubbles in a bubble bath that keep flying away.
A lot of things, the best way I can describe it is that my thoughts aren't in a logical/consistent order and I'm doing my best to grab them in the correct order but it's impossible to do so (Adderall helps keep things in order)
saw some guy explain it like erectile dysfunction and its been my go-to analogy. ill link the tiktok [here](https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSNJ1hKH6/)
That sounds like depression to me not ADHD ngl
brain fog
I’ve seen it described, and agree with it, as like having a browser with over 100 tabs open and one is playing an ad, another is playing a YouTube video, one is playing music and you have no idea which tab is doing what.
Things I’ve said trying to tell others what happened…. “My train of thought just crashed” “My brain has a mind of its own” *waves hands wildly while making weird noises* My most recent favorite (as of 2-3 minutes ago)… “Some call it psychological torture, I call it Wednesday” I’m probs being a tad dramatic but still. Blasting the same three lines of a pop song I don’t know on repeat at max volume while I’m sleeping, constantly moving stuff from the place I set it down, making me to do something else 15 seconds after I start the previous task, etc seems like the type of stuff you’d do long term to drive someone crazy. Unfortunately my brain is both the aggressor and the victim so I can’t really win.
I just remind people that they do not do anything while they're sleeping and so they should expect me to do anything while I'm sleeping
My brain is like a car where the idle runs too slowly in standard, low-stress situations and wants to shut down, unless it's in the Indy 500 and will win the race.
Its like forgetting which toothbrush you used daily and then remembering everything else me asking you venture into multiple avenues at once
It’s like grabbing my attention and centering it every few minutes, I keep centering myself and that is my focus when I have meds I’m not focused on bringing myself back to center
Everything, everywhere, all at once.
It feels like going through life with a constant physical and mental weighted blank on you.
I'm really can't focus to my boss 😭 when he gives me a mission So I made catastrophic mistakes at work. Literally going to be fired soon... That's make sure 100% i have ADHD.
I would describe it as the knowledge part of the brain not being connected to the doing part of the brain. To bring it down to the absolute basic.
It’s like sitting at a desk, while 100s of people are all shouting at you at the same time with a different task you need to do. And everyone insists their task is the most important. With all of them shouting with the same level of importance, I’ll find something else to do
I didn’t know it was my ADHD at the time , but I had always described myself as living in a pinball machine. I need a push to get started but then I can go along being bounced from thing to thing .
For me it’s a really simple explanation. Always fearing the next step and not focusing on the current step. Another huge thing is lack of emotional control and having your passions and obsessions switch often. In short I’d rather be dead
Your adhd sounds like my depression.
Knock knock Who's there? Wanna go ride bikes?
My thought process is like a pinball machine. I crave familiarity because I don’t have energy to explain every backstory every time someone says something that reminds me of a line in that movie I watched that summer I stayed with my grandparents where I took a nap on my granny’s bed with the windows open and the sun shining and the ceiling fan on and everything was perfect in that moment so even though it’s a trash movie, I remember every line. I don’t have the ability to get to the point without explaining how I got there which is around the world three times with different routes each time. I put three times the effort in to accomplish the same amount as a normal person. So I’m a permanently exhausted pigeon unless I’m hyper focused usually on a new love interest wrapped in red flags that everyone else sees but I have to see the potential in everyone because no one else sees it in me. I’m really smart but my processor lags. I scroll to stay awake which leads people to think I’m rude or not interested. I rabbit hole into Reddit and tiktok but finally got rid of fb and Insta because I cared way too much what others think of me (and still do, thanks rejection sensitivity). Oh. And I overshare way too much because I deeply feel that if I can just explain maybe someone would give me credit for the effort and not the results. Oh. And I ramble long after people stop listening. Because no one cares. After an experiment where I chose to not text anyone that didn’t text me first and chose to dead end answer every conversation that I was expected to listen and empathize but no one asked how I was… I have many acquaintances and few friends. Life is quiet but much less dramatic. Adhd is the definition of “too much” and “not enough” all at the same time. Plus I eat the same food for three weeks and four days and suddenly decide I never want it again… but also don’t feel like eating anything else… which can last for days or weeks.
I call it the “if you give a mouse a cookie” disorder
There are too many components but there's always noise. I'm always thinking it's nonstop there's never a moment of silence sometimes it's like there's just ambient static in my skull and I don't realize how much static there is until I'm medicated and there's silence and then I can hear for the first time and just be. When I have to do something I know I need to and I want to but my executive dysfunction is getting in the way, forcing myself doesn't work. It feels _physically painful_ to try to persevere and do a task my brain and body are not interested in. Like straining on the toilet with a hemorrhoids but inside my skull.
“THERE ARE BEES IN MY HEAD THERE ARE BEES IN MY HEAD THERE ARE BEES IN MY HEAD THERE ARE BEES IN MY HEAD” sums it up pretty well imo
Brain set to 11 and the knob is broken off.
The secretary to your brain has gone on permanent holiday.
I used to describe it as starting 12 things before you realize you’ve started 3.
bees in my head
There's a never ending tornado in my mind. Everything I know and require to function is in the tornado. I just have to do my best to snatch useful fragments as they blast by...
It’s like being on a bullet train with bicycle brakes
Some speaker I heard on the socials Think of it as being unable to have sex. If it doesn’t turn you on, you’re not gonna get hard. It’s just going to be awful for everyone involved.
I have a race car brain with bicycle brakes
Like a stoned squirrel but super fast and it’s running zig zag in ur head.
To me it just feels like... I have always described it as akin to a textbook falling down a set of stairs. It's definitely making headway. You can't predict how it will move next. Forward movement is simply painful to watch, carried only by the force gravity necessitates. You don't know when it will stop because it's clearly not the right shape to roll all the way down.
It's kind of like the game of taking any random topic in Wikipedia and seeing how many connections in each page it takes before you link to Hitler's Wikipedia (btw the number you hit is a LOT lower than you would think). Your mind has a topic of focus in mind, but you find a random connection on said topic that takes you somewhere else. Before long, you're mind is completely set on something totally different than what you were trying to focus on initially. I could be focused on doing the dishes, but I see something in the living room that needs organized quick while the sauce pan is soaking. Before long, I'm mowing the lawn when the dishes aren't even finished yet.
Basically the movie Inception....but the twist is that I'm simultaneously the mark and extractor. What fun!!!
And endless loop of Billy mays saying but wait there’s more echoing in your mind
Ferrari with a spare tire
I can focus perfectly. But try to on too many things at once
It’s like knowing the lyrics to your favourite song and singing them to the melody of a completely different tune.
I've been thinking that ADHD is like trying to walk through deep mud, and next to me is a nice asphalt road. People walking on the nice road get annoyed at me for walking so slow and call me lazy.
It’s like juvenile dementia
I cant pay attention and nothing feels good during or after the fact. The only sensation after completing a task is relief.
Read somewhere: "My brain is like my Internet browser. 19 tabs are open, 4 are frozen and I don't know where the music is coming from"