Have you ever wondered why it might take you much longer to complete a task than someone else? Do you get easily distracted or discouraged? Does your brain think differently and sometimes work at the speed of lightening? Do you have boundless amounts of energy? Find yourself interrupting your family and friends and sometimes drive them up a wall? Do you have multiple hobbies but never seem to focus on one at a time? Have multiple projects started but not one completely finished?
Are you a quick thinker? Can you become hyper focused on one task and get that done in a relatively short timeframe? Do you get overwhelmed with keeping a schedule and looking at a calendar on a daily basis? Do you harness the creative part of your brain to come up with a brilliant new idea, song, piece of artwork, or suddenly complete a project that you have been working on for years?
If you relate to these questions, then you may have a diagnosis of ADHD: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR), the symptoms and criteria of ADHD are:
- Inattention: problems staying on task, paying attention, difficulty with being organized. None of these are due to a lack of understanding.
- Hyperactivity: being very restless, constantly moving, fidgeting, interrupting a lot.
- Impulsivity: difficulty with self-control, interrupting too much, acting before you think through a situation, risk taking, not being able to delay gratification.
With a diagnosis ADHD or ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder—sometimes diagnosed in adults later in life), your brain just works differently. You may have heard the terms neurodivergent or neurodiversity. According to the Cleveland Clinic (https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/symptoms/23154-neurodivergent) neurodivergent “describes people whose brain differences affect how their brain works. This means they have different strengths and challenges from people whose brains don’t have those differences.”
ADHD and ADD are not visible to the world. There is no flashing light to signal to your family and friends that you have a diagnosis of ADHD or ADD. In a world where society thrives on structure, living by calendars, appointments, and timeframes, you find yourself struggling. People with a diagnosis of ADHD find themselves adapting to society and creating work-around strategies to function in a world full of distractions, social media notifications, and obligations and expectations from others.
Challenges may include difficulty with reading, concentration, staying on task, impulsiveness, being disorganized, poor time management, trouble multitasking, and poor planning. You may find yourself walking into a room to complete a task and then totally forgetting what you went into the room for. Example: you go to the kitchen to unload the dishwasher and get distracted by looking in the fridge for a snack…20 minutes later you are in the living room playing a video game and never unloaded the dishwasher. An hour later you may remember that you never unloaded the dishwasher.
Have you left your socks on the dining room table? Put your car keys in the fridge? Walked outside in your socks through a puddle? Couldn’t find your reading glasses and your spouse told you they are in the cabinet in the laundry room? Leave for the airport 90 minutes before your flight, convinced that you have enough time to get to the gate? These are all classic examples of what living with an ADHD / ADD brain is like.
A diagnosis of ADHD or ADD does not mean that you cannot focus, cannot complete a task, or pay attention to another person. If you are really interested in a particular topic or the person that you are communicating with, you may be better at focusing than your family and friends who do not have ADHD or ADD. This is the “superpower” to hyper focus on a topic. That means that you have almost laser vision, focus, and attention to detail to get that task done. This can appear when you play a video game or a board game and understand the strategy better than your competitors. Maybe you can write a new song in 15 minutes or solve a crossword puzzle in record time. Are you the life of the party and can make anyone laugh at the drop of a hat? Have you ever had a thought one minute and then realize that it left your brain…only to come back later? All of these are ways that your brain functions differently than other people.
ADHD and ADD do not have to be lifelong struggles. There is help to manage the symptoms that you experience. You can live a healthy and successful life once you learn to manage your symptoms.