Everything You Never Knew About the ADHD Brain

28 Comments: Everything You Never Knew About the ADHD Brain

1. What the author is missing is simple — Why nag the husband and start a fight every week, when it would be quicker and less stressful for both parties to just take a quick look to see whether the trash is out or not? If it is, great. If it isn’t, she can either do it herself or politely say to the husband, “Do you have a minute to run the trash out? That’s how you treat another adult. Starting the same fight every week– whether or not the job has already been done — isn’t about getting the job done, or accommodating the spouse’s disability. It’s a control thing. It’s treating the adult spouse like a child. People do this kind of thing all the time to people with ADD, and frankly, it’s insulting.

2. I love most of this, but I have a small issue with this sentence:

   “This is why those with ADHD express emotions more intensely than may be justified for a given situation.”

   Can we not judge how ‘justified’ emotional expression is and maybe highlight the adhd perspective?
   I suggest: “People with ADHD feel emotions very deeply, since most of their focus is taken up by whichever emotion is strongest at the moment. Neurotypical people sometimes struggle to empathise with this way of expressing emotions, which can lead to misunderstanding and judgment.”

3. Wow… I cannot believe I related to this article as much as I do. However, while I love the thought of being able to superfocus on something important, I have no idea how to go about that, as my schoolwork is not nearly as interesting to me as nearly anything that comes into my mind, and for nearly all of the reasons stated above, I have great difficulty maintaining focus (and not procrastinating) while doing school work. Although I was able to get decent grades in high school, I have always struggled with this, and now that I am going to college, the combination of harder assignments and being virtual instead of a focused classroom has led me to do very poorly in many of my classes. I have read many things online about how to remove eliminate distractions to focus better, but I will superfocus on my own thoughts before the assignment so that does not help, and that is impossible given that all of the assignments are online now. Can you please share any advice you have on how to superfocus on stuff you need to do, rather than what is most interesting in my brain at the moment? I am tired of being accused of not caring “if you care enough, you would get it done.” I am starting to lose hope in myself. Thanks again for the great article.

4. The best part of this article was the opening paragraphs. The intersection analogy is terrific.

   The rest of the article seemed to lose its way in certain places, such as the section on “ADHD and Regulating Emotion, Maintaining Motivation and Performance” which failed to talk about maintaining motivation and performance. And then it just abruptly ended with no conclusion.

   Not necessarily the author’s fault… a good editor should have caught this and worked to make the article more useful and meaningful where it lagged.

5. Can I ask the reference of this paragraph
   “Think of how many negative messages a child with ADHD receives throughout his life: 20,000 more criticisms by sixth grade than his non-ADHD counterparts.” please? I really want to read this! thank you for your very helpful article!!

6. Has there been a follow up with strategies?

   I found this because I specifically Googled “ADHD prefrontal cortex”. I’ve been reading (listening) to Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body by Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson.

   I’m 66 and the older I get the more of a challenge my ADHD becomes. Learning about brain science is part of my ongoing quest for answers.

7. Terrific article! It’s especially useful to share with non-ADDers because the intersection is an apt analogy that is easy to understand.

   Regarding solutions for negative thinking, my therapist told me about “ANTs.” ANTs are Automatic Negative Thoughts. Learning to pay attention to these and hold them up for examination is a great way to diffuse them. For example, say you make a silly mistake and have a thought: “I am so stupid!” Immediately grab that thought and change it to: “I’m having the thought that I’m stupid.” Then think of times when you have done things that clearly show you aren’t stupid. This really helps, because the more you do it, the less you will have ANTs popping up all the time.

   Thanks for the article!

8. “Let’s say school is important to you. You spend all your time in the library studying, on your way to a 4.0.”

   This is the only part I disaggree with this brilliant article. If you spend so much task on a task or objective, it can’t be because it is important to you. That is not how ADD-brains work. Pursuing an objective in a consistent way is possible if the tasks involved are interesting. ADD people are not able to motivate themselves because something or its consequences are important. Rather, what matters is how interesting the tasks are.

   1. Thank you for your comment RV! ADHD’ers can do anything they find interesting meant that the person in this example found school interesting – maybe not motivated by grades or what neurotypicals are motivated by, but for their own reasons. That’s what i meant by this portion – that this particular ADHD’er found school interesting and important enough to hyperfocus on it in order to get a 4.0. The portion that got cut due to space issues included ‘focused on school to the point of excluding everything else, like friends, social activities, and other responsibilities in order to maintain the GPA’. So i agree with you, and apologize that wasn’t clear! Thank you for your insight!

      1. You’re welcome and thank you for the great and insightful article!

9. I’m probably more self critical than anything else. I was having a bad day recently, and feeling frustrated with all the things I kept forgetting. I know I commented out loud on how stupid I was. My husband finally said, “you are way too hard on yourself.” Usually I’m not, but at the time nothing seemed right. I’m not sure what triggers this, but it happens every now and then.

10. Great article and great analogy. I would like a follow up article with some practical ways to put up those stop signs at the intersection or hire a traffic cop who does not make the intersection worse! In Israel we have a lot of roundabouts (traffic circles) . Wow. That might actually metaphorically be very helpful within the analogy! If we (or our loved ones, students, etc..) can be helped to use this to see all the cars on the traffic circle but each must wait its turn so that everyone can wind up moving ahead! Love to see you develop on the theme practically.

    1. A follow up with practical strategies is on the way! Thank you for reading and for your comments!

11. Love the intersection analogy! I’ll definitely pass the article along to my wife and others struggling with ADD. I’d add another thought to the mix about interpreting questions from others as criticisms. For me, I often read criticism into the same type of questions from my wife, co-workers, family members, etc. What makes this even more destructive is that I typically just internalize the negative feeling I receive because I either feel bad or guilty for forgetting the task (garbage bin) in the first place, or I’m desperate NOT to have a confrontation about it that just ends up reinforcing that I’m somehow “broken” and need to have allowances made for. This constant internalizing tends to show up as passive/aggressive behavior and/or comments from me. My wife and I are getting better at recognizing this pattern and intercepting it early with a “time out, let’s talk” conversation. I can’t stress enough how medication only tackles a part of the ADD issue! Counseling with a ADD specialist and behavior modification (lists, daily communication, and humor) is just as, if not more important. Thanks for the article!

    1. I absolutely agree! Unfortunately, many medical plans don’t cover life coaches, etc.
       I have to admit though, that a “time out, let’s talk about it” scenario would be a horrible idea for me personally. It would become another negative to avoid. The ‘let’s talk’ part would seem like the endless conversations throughout my life that pretty much resulted in me feeling even worse about myself, hence, making me feel even more defensive. Another lecture, another time to just sit and discuss my shortcomings, overlooking any positives about myself. Wow. Just the thought of it makes me defensive, apparently. Lol. It can be interesting which words can trigger those emotions differently for each individual, depending upon their experiences and current mindset.

    2. Thank you for reading and commenting! I’m so glad it was helpful! I’m also happy you’ve found ways to cope more effectively and have a supportive spouse to help! Best of luck to you for continuing on this positive path!

12. Great article. I like the model as it seems to describe my experiences well. Being prone to criticism is one that is particularly relevant as it played a big part in the breakup of my marriage.

    I would like to add a different perspective on your Tuesday night argument. It’s not clear from what you’ve written but I would like to ask what your first interaction is when you get home. In my case it was what has been done, needs doing etc. The important thing on my ex wife’s brain was what needs doing and thus that was always the first point of communication. Mine was we haven’t seen each other all day and the first thing you talk about is the chores.

    Having had time to ruminate a lot on my “over” sensitivity I understand that it has an effect on those around me. Maybe as well though, the bin being put out is not as important initially as making each other feel wanted.

    Very much a balancing act from both sides. Things that need doing appear to be the ADHD person’s curse and by proxy those they live with. I think however though that the ‘need’ is relative. I know my ex wife and I see things differently now

    Thanks again for an insightful article.

    1. Hi Michael! Thank you for reading and commenting! No, it wasn’t clear whether or not this was my first question or not, so I’m sorry for the confusion. My question would come after the ‘hey how was your day’ discussions, and not the first thing when i walk in the door. I understand how that would be perceived as criticism and taken as if the chores were more important than connecting with your significant other. I was using this as an example of defensiveness, and didn’t really flush out the context for space reasons! But you’re right and thank you for asking for clarification!

       1. Thank you. Something I have come across since is a value system and way of communicating known as Non Violent Communication or Compassionate Communication developed by Marshall Rosenberg which I believe would help all but particularly people where ADHD is concerned.It looks at understanding the fundamental needs underlying our feelings and emotions and how our emotional communication often obscures the need that wasn’t met.

          An example maybe when a loved one returns late without you having known where they have been. An emotional response of anger is often given but this hides the need of knowing the other person was safe.

          Michael Ferguson explores this in greater detail in the chapter Navigating Emotions in his book the The Drummer and the Great Mountain, a Guidebook to Transforming Adult ADD/ADHD

    2. I don’t see your expectations as being unreasonable or necessarily ADHD related. I’m the one with ADHD, and I would not do this to my husband, unless it was something that needed to be done right away. And, I would be irritated if when I got home from the office, the first thing my husband did was tell me what needed to be done. I think that says more about the marriage/relationship than your ADHD.

       1. Hi AnneHW, to some extent I agree with you. Part of the issue was the fact that I struggled with doing the things I had agreed to do which over time led to a pattern of behaviour on both our parts. I think the point William Dodson asks about a lot is the emotional sensitivity and how I might have perceived ongoing criticism may have been affected. Also though isn’t that part of the complexity of ADHD, the fact that so many of our behaviours are experienced by others as well. Thanks for reading and commenting.

       2. “I think that says more about the marriage/relationship than your ADHD.”
          I do not agree with this statement entirely. I think that the question is perhaps a result of having dealt with the ADHDer not getting things done. In that respect, I feel that it is a byproduct of the ADHD. Just my opinion.

       3. Yes FireSprite. The pattern of behaviour and responses I think initially set off by my inability to consistently do what I had agreed to do. Couple that with complete lack of u derstanding or even an inkling that ADHD was involved it is easy to see how our conditioned expectations led us down the route we travelled.

          My current partner has a daughter who may well be ADHD/ASD so has more of an understanding and expectations of me built on already having dealt with such. Also though, I have a far greater understanding of how my differences can be experienced by those around me. For me it comes down to all of us trying to live with empathy and compassion for ourselves and others but this is not our typical cultural or social construct. It is also clear to me now how our parents operated often becomes the way we operate and this can be difficult to change unless there is a big stimulus (divorce, loss of job, bankruptcy) and some form of understanding – articles and other resources like this.

13. Understanding WHY I’m being defensive helps. I know I’m doing it, I’ve often wondered what in the world could have happened to me to make me turn so quickly over what seems to be nothing?! My relationship has suffered from this, looking at myself through this mirror by reading this magazine is helpful. I’m grateful, thank you

    1. Thank you for reading and commenting! I’m so happy it helps you understand yourself better!!

14. I’m a little concerned by the “ADHD and Working Memory Challenges” section being about, erm, memory issues. “Working memory” is another term for “executive function” and therefore covers ALL symptoms of ADHD and not just the memory ones!

    1. Hi SMG! Thank you for reading and commenting! Working memory actually refers to the capacity to hold relevant information in your mind, and changing it in some way, in order to problem solve; while executive functions are a group of actions/behaviors that allow someone to maintain focus and be organized enough to reach their goal. Working memory is an executive function, but not the only one. Executive function is like the conductor in an orchestra, while working memory would be like a cello, one of the pieces that contribute to the overall music. The conductor synchronizes all these pieces and keeps tempo so the music comes together. Hopefully that clears things up a little!

       1. I’m glad to see the article has been updated to remove the references to “working memory challenges”.