People With ADHD Explain The Things Neurotypical People Just Don't Get

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodivergent condition that impacts the individual in many aspects of their life including academic and professional achievements, interpersonal relationships, and daily functioning.

People with ADHD can seem restless, may have trouble concentrating and may act on impulse. Awareness of ADHD has increased greatly, but there are still misconceptions and misinformation.

Reddit user ViolinistMiddle1534 asked:

"People with ADHD what are the things about it that people just don’t get?"

Single-Minded Focus

"I am absolutely dying to do the thing."

"I want to do the thing more than you want me to do the thing."

"Not having done the thing is ruining every minute I spend not doing the thing."

"But I can’t do the thing right now."

~ whatshamilton

Burnout

"Many of us have used stress to focus in the workplace. But you can’t turn it off, and it leads to burnout."

~ skyborn_dreamer

"It’s funny, I only realised I had ADHD when I went beyond burnout and just couldn’t motivate myself to do ANYTHING."

~ LochNessMother

Auditory Processing Disorder

"ADHD often comes with an auditory processing disorder—especially in women. People don’t understand I can hear you just fine, I’m not going deaf."

"It’s just what you said to me is either processed as complete gibberish or if there are multiple other sounds in a small area, I input them all at the same volume."

"The TV is the same volume as the dishwasher which is the same volume as the dog scratching her back which is the same volume as what you just said to me."

"It’s sometimes impossible to sort unless I am looking at your face as you speak to me."

~ Commander_Fem_Shep

Demotivated

"It is truly a special kind of hell to be a perfectionist in the deepest reaches of your soul, but at the same time, not have the drive or ability to achieve said perfection."

~ Blinding_faith

Frustration

"The irrational rage when someone innocently interrupts a hyper-focus."

"The frustration of desperately wanting to do the task, but the brain is like 'nah, what about unimportant thing?'."

~ dragon34

"I experience this as well. Part of my anger is the fact that it probably took me a long time to finally start working on that task especially if it is something that I have to but don't want to do."

"Depending on the task I may never work on it again."

~ jelloshot

Hypervigilance

"Hypervigilance is f*cking exhausting."

"It's like the dumbest version of what the guy in Psych does, except it's all anxiety-based and intel gathering for better masking."

"You're spotting micro-expressions on people's faces or sauce on their tie and wondering if they don't like talking to you while also trying to guess which chicken sandwich shop they ate lunch at."

"Now you're thinking which shop is your favorite and then which country invented fried chicken. All of this stupid information is a traffic jam blocking what Bill from Accounting just said and you just want to run."

~ thedanyon

All Or Nothing

"I once saw an excellent explanation of ADHD paralysis on a YouTube video. A guy held up a pen, one of those ones that has multiple switches that each attaches to a different colored pen head."

"He explained that someone without ADHD is able to pull down one pen head at a time and use it as they are supposed to. That is their focus.

"A person with ADHD is not able to use only one pen head at a time, everything happens at once at the same volume, at the same priority in an ADHD brain. It is like trying to trigger every single pen head come out of the hole at once, but if you do that, they all get in the way and block each other."

"Thus, not a single one is able to fit through the hole. The pen can't be used."

"Never have I felt more understood in that regard than after seeing that video. That is literally EXACTLY what it's like."

~ Xerrographica

Getting Started

"Sometimes, for me, it's like this administrator in my head stops me and says, 'This isn't going to end up perfect like I want. So why even start?'."

"And that gets in the way of me trying so many things I want to do."

~ thedanyon

Miscommunication

"I trip and stumble over my words constantly when I'm speaking because by the time I've finished a single sentence, 300,000,000 new things happened in my brain."

~ EstateDangerous7456

"Oh God, this. People think you're thick as hell because you struggle to remember words or trip over your words, but it's just trying to wrangle the million different thoughts whizzing around your head and because your mouth can't keep up with your thoughts."

~ Kasha2000UK

Lost Time

"There's a lot of things that folks with ADHD deal with that sound super relatable to everyone, and makes them say 'Haha oh yeah I'm like that too!'."

"One example I've noticed is that, if you've got something you have to go to later in a day, such as a doctor's appointment, it's hard to get anything done before then, and it feels like you're just kind of existing until then."

"The problem then, and the big problem with having ADHD, is then having to try and explain just how massive an issue it is for someone with ADHD to someone who does not have it in comparison. Like what a massive wall this late appointment is to get literally anything done."

"It's hard to explain how a minor inconvenience for most is a colossal problem for us."

"And that's partly because it is just, extremely difficult to explain what is happening in your head, especially in a way that makes any rational sense. The best I've heard it put is that it's like trying to knowingly place your hand on a hot stove."

~ TheFinners215

Exhausting

"People don't get how exhausting it can be to constantly fight with your own brain to do the simplest tasks or how deeply it affects your self esteem when you're labelled as lazy or inattentive."

~ vickysbae4

Lyrics

"You constantly have music lyrics firing off in your head over and over all day long. I've had about a dozen words from Go With the Flow from Queens of the Stone Age in my head for about an hour now, for example."

"And/or random thoughts about anything from any point in your life just start popping up—last night a random comment someone said to me like 25 years ago played in my head about a dozen times in a couple hour period....in between 80s music lyrics."

~ Serene_Moonns

So Much More

"I wish people understood that ADHD doesn’t just affect your ability to focus. It really needs to be renamed. ADHD changes your brain chemistry and the way that different parts of the brain communicate with each other, which means that it has a TON of symptoms that affect every part of our daily lives."

"We have trouble with executive function, which means that no matter how hard we may want to do something, we may not be able to force ourselves to do it."

"We struggle with motivation because every task is high priority, yet our brains don’t reward us for completing them."

"We have sensory issues because we cannot control which things to pay attention to and which things to block out. Some of us, like me, are not capable of blocking anything out unless we’re hyper focused, in which case I will sometimes literally forget to breathe."

"We have auditory processing issues, and I couldn’t tell you why. As far as I know, it’s just to make our lives harder. On the bad days, speech has no meaning, it’s just sound. It’s like the adults talking in Peanuts cartoons. We want to listen, but it’s just noise."

"We have trouble regulating our emotions. It’s different for everyone, but for me, emotions are either unbearably intense or nonexistent and there is no middle ground."

"There’s so much going on for us at any given moment that it’s no wonder we can’t pay attention. It’s exhausting. It’s not cute or funny, even though we do enjoy poking fun at ourselves."

"I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say that most of us would give anything to have our brains function normally."

~ PixelRapunzel

Memory

"Plus the memory issues. It's so frustrating to get up to do a thing and then end up in a loop because I forgot what I was doing in the middle of doing it so I have to circle back around trying things to shake loose the memory of what I was doing in the first place."

"The memory issues combined with the auditory processing issues plus being embarrassed about the whole thing, means I often miss conversations or key info or completely forget that conversations happened."

"Having to ask someone to repeat themselves sucks. Usually they get super upset saying I'm disrespectful and obviously don't care if I can't pay attention to what they're saying."

"I'm sorry my brain decided to scramble the noises coming out of your mouth and then decided to not absorb the info because it wasn't getting a dopamine hit. I'm literally struggling my best to pay attention and make sense of what's going on and I'm genuinely confused and frustrated with the situation too."

"It makes school so damn hard because teachers will get pissy and then say you should have been paying attention."

"Thank goodness my college has accommodations for the auditory issues and lets me record all my lectures. They gave me a Glean account for my online classes so I can record those easily too."

~ Silaquix

Nothing Minor

"The most frustrating part to me is how people act like it's a minor inconvenience and not an actual disability that makes you less able to do most things in life."

Telling someone with ADHD who is trying that they 'just need to pay attention' is like telling an ambulatory wheelchair user that they 'just need to walk'."

"Sure they can do it a bit with much more effort than most people, but it's unreasonable to expect them to manage as much as an able bodied person could every day."

~ Raichu7

There are a lot of important takeaways for neurotypical people to digest.

Do you have anything to add? Let us know in the comments below.