How ADHD Guided Me Through a Hurricane
As Hurricane Irma bore down on my hometown, my unrelenting ADHD hyperfocus took the wheel, guiding me with focus and efficiency toward safety.
7 Comments: How ADHD Guided Me Through a Hurricane
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My kids used to tell me that thats what i did when anything major came along. Considering one was adhd It never occipurred to me that i might be also for another 30 years
One explanation is that the heightened situation causes neurochemistry to balance out the deficiencies, rendering abnormal, disfunctional, behaviour in normal contexts into normal functioning behaviour in an abnormal context!
I first noticed it when I joined the police and then the army, then as a professional musician performing on stage and live sound engineering and eventually as an academic. When others were stressed and anxious, I became calm and organised, able to process even extremely complex, demanding or threatening situations with surprising clarity. I found normal mundane work difficult and my superiors couldn’t reconcile the inconsistencies in my performance. Sustained, physical activity such as mountaineering has the same effect.
I’ve been on methylphenidate but now experimenting with beta-blockers, ketogenic diet and exercise as a reflection of that theory.
This more than anything else explains why Winston Churchill was revered as a Wartime Leader in the UK and dumped by those same peoplee after the war was over.
Thank you for sharing your story! You were the boss! I’ve just been diagnosed at 48, but as I learned more and more about the symptoms, I also realized when the ADHD made me a superhuman. I was driving a friend home from Las Vegas in her large-size Lexus and a car completely lost control maybe 20 yards ahead of us. I went absolutely CALM and, as if time slowed down, I was able to assess the situation and make predictions of where the car will end up, meanwhile looking in the rear-view mirror to anticipate rear end situations, etc. etc. I calmly steered the car away from any danger and looked back to see the tragic ending (the car rolled several times and hit the bridge support beam). I swear it was like dodging the bullets in The Matrix. My friend, who always made comments about my spacy-ness, couldn’t believe what happened. She was screaming the whole time (apparently, I didn’t hear it), and she made me get off the freeway so she could get out of the car and breathe some fresh air. She thanked me for saving our lives and never gave me another comment/look about my scattered brain.! HAHA. I bet the best race-car drivers are ADHD! If Irma did come home to you, there’s no doubt you and your family would have kept it together.
I have had a few similar incidents, and I was able to recall a discussion or something I had read, assess that according to the current situation, and make a good decision, and all within a fraction of a second.
Proof is that I am still here.
Excellent example of how we need to stop looking at ADHD as a curse and look at it as a super power that can harness to improve our lives. The ability to have super fast intuition as well as second to none problem solving is something I really cherish.
Its hard to read stories when you have ADHD. It has to be a pretty amazing one. Thank you for for sharing what qualities we know we have but are not always given the situations to prove it to the world. I’m glad you and the family are safe.