My T-Shirt and I Enjoyed an Ice-Cream Last Night

Read that again

Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

It’s embarrassingly common for me to spill food all over the table, my shirts, and over people’s consciences. It could be one of the reasons why I avoid eating with other people — they’ll see me making a mess live! That’s far too intimate. How do you live that one down?

But I also have the innate ability to pretend that I’m not with other people, and so I eat however I want to my heart’s content.

But regardless of what my parents like to think, I don’t make a mess on purpose. No, no one likes wasting ice cream. It just happens.

Following my ADHD diagnosis, half of my life had started making sense, so I wondered if spilling food had something to do with ADHD.

Turns out, it does.

Now, I did not spend hours rifling through research papers to get my answers. No, a quick ChatGPT search satisfied my curiosity enough.

But since I’m very likely to forget what I discovered, it called for a Medium blog. The chances of forgetting would be as much as me checking Medium, which varies per season and my workload. Anyhoo, we should start this.

Why do people with ADHD spill food?

So turns out the reasons could range from — inattention (struggling to maintain focus on eating), to impulsivity (careless, hasty movements resulting in spilled food), to motor coordination difficulties.

For me, though, I think it is more along the lines of motor coordination difficulties. But not the way it shows up in people with developmental co-ordination disorders and dyspraxia.

However since I was inclined toward this option, I asked a follow-up question.

What are some other ways in which motor coordination difficulties show up in people with ADHD?

Now this is an answer I related even more with; here’s what ChatGPT pulled up:

• Handwriting difficulties: Now, I have good handwriting, but can I keep it consistent throughout years, classes, and heck even pages? No. I have the talent for producing differently sized, differently spaced, and weirdly written words on a single page. I’m proud of this talent, regardless of what it says about my motor coordination.
• Difficulty with motor tasks such as buttoning, clothing, and tying shoelaces: This is something I haven’t experienced.
• Messy and disorganized work: This is a can of worms we’re not touching.
• Clumsiness: I trip on thin air on a regular basis. My body is a canvas of blue, pink, or purple colored spots that I earn by walking into walls, door knobs, tables, and corners of all kinds.
• Sports and physical activities: Fun fact, I went to this paint party over the weekend. We were supposed to introduce ourselves if someone threw over a soft, fluffy ball. Easy enough, right? Someone threw the ball at me, I almost missed it. And then when it was my turn to throw it to someone else, I handed it over to the dude next to me. Having me throw a ball, however fluffy is like asking me to mess up your … planters, even though that’s not the direction I was aiming into. As I said, I am talented. You should see how I throw shuttle cocks; no one plays with me because I throw them weirdly. Doesn’t help that Badminton is the only sport that can’t cause damage to humans, animals, or plants. If I hit myself with the racket, then I get hit anyway, right?
• Difficulty with tasks that require sequencing: Tasks that involve a series of steps can be difficult, for example, cooking. because it involves precise timing and coordination of multiple steps. It hurts badly because I like baking and I can’t manage to bake one single cake. And if I end up creating something edible, no one eats it besides me.
• Poor spatial awareness: Oh god, today’s the day I realized why I gave up learning how to drive a car. I simply can’t drive a car without fearing I’d hit someone. I can’t judge the distance between the car and something else. Becuase between me and that object, there’s an entire expanse of the car and I don’t know how big it is. I know it doesn’t make sense, but it won’t make sense to neurotypicals anyway.
• Difficulty with activities that involve rhythm: Erm, I react to the rhythm after the rhythm has passed. This is also why I can’t create reels even if I have 9.87 hours required to create reels.

That’s quite a lot, no? I also thought that so I decided to ask my favorite question — why?

Why do people with ADHD experience motor coordination difficulties?

ChatGPT says the exact cause is not yet fully understood, which sucks. But it did give me some reasons, such as:

• Neurobiological factors: Cute. ADHD is a neurobiological disorder (Google what it means if you don’t know, thank you). Basically, people with ADHD have a different brain structure, particularly in areas related to attention, impulse control, and executive functions. And yes, I did read this in a research paper last month. These differences also probably affect the parts of the brain responsible for motor coordination.

Neurotransmitters like dopamine and norepinephrine, which are known to be dysregulated in ADHD, play a role in motor control, and their imbalances could contribute to coordination difficulties.

• Executive function deficits: Did I say cute earlier? This one needs a more intense cute. We struggle with executive functions — higher-order cognitive processes that include planning, organization, and working memory, among others. these functions are also responsible for coordinating motor activities.
• Distractibility: I think the word cute will lose its significance if I say it again, so I won’t, but it is implied. People with ADHD are easily distracted, which can make it difficult for them to focus on the task at hand. Motor coordination often requires sustained attention to detail, and any distraction can lead to errors in coordination.
• Sensory processing issues: This one is my favorite right now because I have been experiencing this since morning. People with ADHD may have (not everyone has it, but I do) sensory processing issues. It means they find it difficult to process and respond to sensory information. This can affect their perception and response to their own body movements and the environment, leading to coordination problems.

So, this is it folks, this is why my clothes perpetually spot a spot. Now the challenge is to explain this to my parents, which no one would be able to achieve in this century. So I won’t even try. But it is nice to know.

I just read this and wanted to put it out there:

Be softer with you. You are a breathing thing. A memory to someone, a home to a life.

— Nayyirah Waheed

Until next time, folks.