ADHD Is Awesome: A Guide to (Mostly) Thriving with ADHD

“We do not suffer from a deficit of attention. Just the opposite. We have an abundance of attention! Our challenge is to control it. Once we do that, the sky is the limit in terms of what we can do in life.”

“We’ve found the characteristics of what our ADHD brains crave. They are best summarized by Jessica McCabe, creator and host of the excellent YouTube series “How to ADHD,” who says ADHD brains are attracted to the following: Novelty. L.L.Bean catalog with its sensible fleece vests and parkas? No, thank you. SkyMall catalog with an eight-foot-tall gorilla statue and a cross-body bag that winks at passersby? Hell, yes. Challenges. We respond well to competition of all sorts, whether we’re racing against ourselves to make the world’s fastest fried egg or trying to get the most Ping-Pong balls in a jar. (Or participating in The Amazing Race.) Things of personal interest. If we are learning to use a chainsaw, the instructions might be deadly dull—but skipping them might just be deadly, so we will probably buckle down and learn what a two-stroke engine is because we’re interested in keeping our fingers.”

“Sometimes, we knock it out of the park. Other times, we can’t even get our jerseys on. This can be confounding for people observing ADHDers, because they see what we can do and then wonder why we don’t just, you know, do it. You didn’t forget to unload the dishes yesterday. How come you forgot today? But like people who have other types of neurodivergent brains—such as people with autism spectrum disorder or dyslexia—those of us with ADHD are not in control of how our brain differences manifest. It’s simply how we are wired. Unfortunately, much of the world doesn’t recognize that, and this lack of understanding can make people with ADHD feel . . . well, bad.”

“It all boils down to stimulation. At its core, the ADHD brain is wired to seek stimulation. We must have it in order to feel “right,” so our brains are always scanning for the bigger, better offer. While the typical understanding of ADHD suggests that people who have it are overstimulated, the ADHD brain is actually chronically understimulated. It just needs more input than a neurotypical brain to keep it humming, so what appears to be a lack of attention or impulse control is really just a desire to get to a baseline level of stimulation that keeps our brains happy.”

“For many ADHD brains, a broad request—“Take care of this,” “Be responsible for that,” “It’s your turn to x,” “Your job is y,” etc.—is hard to translate into action. The ADHD brain responds better to a series of smaller imperatives that get directly to the point. As Dr. King said7, ADHD behaviors happen when the expectations are greater than the skills, so make sure your expectations match your ADHDer’s skills.”

“Not making it on time to an appointment because your brain has compromised time-management function is an actual limitation, not a character flaw.”

“The CEO in a neurotypical person’s head will look over their shoulder and ask, “Are you sure you want to do that? Is it in the best interests of You Inc.? Or should you take a beat to reconsider?” When it comes to an ADHD CEO, the frontal lobe really believes in you and your instincts. It says yes to everything, even if it means abandoning the project you were just working on or letting you take a lunch break at 9:25 a.m.”

“ADHD). Dr. Caldwell also explained that the ADHD brain doesn’t have a great filter to keep clutter out of the fishbowl. The neurotypical brain has a killer important/unimportant sorting system that allows only the critical pieces into their fishbowl. In the ADHD brain, the criteria for “important” is so broad it applies to most things. It can be difficult for those of us with ADHD to sort out which signals matter.”

“without warning and for no apparent reason.”)”

“Kim is doing her best to give me radical acceptance, but I, in turn, must do my part with the radical commitment. Otherwise, this relationship will not work.”

“We love you—even if it may not always look that way to you.”

“Fill in your pain points—the areas in which ADHD makes your life more of a challenge—and rate them based on the following scale: Eh, I can live with it. Sometimes it bothers me, but mostly it seems to bother other people. I’d change it if changing it didn’t require a lot of effort. It gets me in a heap of trouble. It’s worse than an itchy sweater on a hundred-degree day. If I don’t change it right now, I will scream.”

“Dr. Hallowell describes people with ADHD as having a Ferrari engine in a race car brain with bicycle brakes.”

“For Penn, time is very fluid. He has time blindness. If we have a video shoot that is supposed to start at 9:00, at 8:58, he’ll be on the bed watching the Australian Open, unshowered and unshaven. Then he’ll tell me, “I’ll get ready in two minutes.” In his defense, Penn can do a lot in two minutes—such as orchestrate an entire piece of music—but the laws of physics still apply. Some things actually do take time, like fishing a clean pair of pants out of the laundry pile by his dresser and putting them on. Without someone to nudge him to kick it into gear, time is more like a suggestion to him. So I help keep the trains running by regularly checking on his progress and giving him reminders.”

“Their happiness and their improvement are priority number one, win or lose. But when they win, it is TIME TO CELEBRATE.”

“guilt is feeling bad3 about something you’ve done, while shame is feeling bad about who you are. Shame doesn’t hit like a lightning bolt; it’s more like standing in quicksand and slowly sinking.”

“While the typical understanding of ADHD suggests that people who have it are overstimulated, the ADHD brain is actually chronically understimulated. It just needs more input than a neurotypical brain to keep it humming, so what appears to be a lack of attention or impulse control is really just a desire to get to a baseline level of stimulation that keeps our brains happy.”

“To ADHD-ize Einstein’s famous quote, never try to remember something if you can write it down instead. My rule is that if I can write it down, I should write it down. This applies every bit as much to routine activities, like wiping down the countertops, as it does to remembering my online banking passwords.”

“Dr. Loucresie Rupert said she sees this among her patients: I get pushback on medications6. My stance on medication resistance is if you’re doing fine without medication—if you are able to handle your schoolwork and your peer relationships, and still have good self-esteem, and if you’re not stressing yourself out trying to get things done to the point where you are emotionally falling apart—cool. But if any of that starts slipping, we need to have another conversation. My approach is that I will do whatever your plan is, unless your plan isn’t working.”

“you may be an Oprah-level listener who could out-tidy those Home Edit ladies.”