Why is Having ADHD SO Hard?

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I was talking to someone the other day who was feeling overwhelmed. I asked this person, “well, are you overwhelmed with the number of tasks? Are you overwhelmed with too much to do? Or are you overwhelmed because you feel out of control?” Their answer was, “yes”. Boy, can I relate to that. Sometimes I think of all the things I need to do and I just shut down. I can’t even look, let alone get started. Nevermind the fact that some of those tasks will take five minutes and some an hour…. I can’t see past the list. I can also relate to parents who say their kid overreacts to everything when they get home from school. What parents may not know is this kid has been overwhelmed all day, not to mention getting a whole lot of negative feedback while trying to hold it together and act like they don’t care so classmates won’t notice. All day long it’s, “You have missing work. You didn’t put your name on your paper. I can’t read this. You wrote on the wrong topic. I don’t want you in my work group. I told you that five times already.” … Those are just the things actually SAID. That doesn’t include negative nonverbal communication that this kid may or may not understand. When this kid gets home they are spent. Nothing left in the emotional tank. WHY IS HAVING ADHD SO HARD?? The answer is complicated, but one piece of it may be because we fight it all the time.

Having ADHD can feel like a daily struggle to fit a square peg into a round hole. Every single day we go out into the neurotypical world and try to fit in without anyone knowing that our brain is processing things differently. Why? Why do we do that? I will tell you why I did it. I didn’t know any other way. I believed that if I tried hard enough, I would finally be capable of doing things how everyone else was doing things. Deep down I believed if I could just do that then I would be enough. I’ll let you in on a little secret: When you attach shame to your process you never get there. You never feel like you are enough. I remember when I was trying to graduate college. I had finally made it to the end, and you know what was there? A list. A list of things I had to get done to graduate. After ALL of that, I had another 6 hoops to jump through to get the physical diploma. So what did I do? Did I take the bull by the horn and plow through? No. No I didn’t. I pretended that the list wasn’t there. I turtled until each one of those things became urgent and then I scrambled to get it done. I waited till things were late, so I had to pay a fine. I waited till some things were TOO late and I had to drive an hour to submit something off campus. I don’t remember specifically, but I’m sure I ended each day by ruminating in bed in the middle of the night, beating myself up for being inept. That sounds about right. I wondered why this whole adulting thing was so hard.

I don’t do that anymore. How did I stop? I became friends with my ADHD. Her name is Pixie. Pixie is actually just the impulsive side of my ADHD, but for all intents and purposes she kind of runs the whole ADHD show. I stopped fighting with her and I got to know her. Guess what? She is actually pretty amazing…… sometimes annoying, but amazing never-the-less. When she gets overwhelmed, what she really needs is a visual demonstration that things are going to fit together. That is when I get out my white board. I even color code things when it gets nuts. Pixie has the worst memory EVER, so I just put everything in my phone. Even reminders of conversations I need to have go on my phone. Pixie gets so excited over things that she plows on ahead, regardless of people giving cues that they are over it. She doesn’t even see that, but when I feel her there I pause by getting a drink of water or hitting up the restroom. She means well, but she does get carried away.

I had to get to a point when I was really honest with myself. No, no I don’t have time for that. I don’t “got it”. I’m never going to remember that. No, I won’t actually want to do that later. Our ADHD brain can really pull out all the stops with little lies to keep us following sparkly things. We put off boring tasks and tell ourselves we will do it later. Why? Why would I want to do that later? I don’t WANT to do it EVER! Now I laugh at those little lies when I catch them sneaking into my frontal lobe. When Pixie sneaks one past me, I don’t beat myself up anymore because I know she doesn’t mean harm. I just shake my head and move on. Do I have total control of my ADHD? No. Can I give myself Grace? Yes. Understanding my ADHD brain hasn’t made me an organizational wonder, but it certainly has helped me find ways to succeed while doing things in a way that comes more naturally for me.