What It Is Like to Live With ADHD?
ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder that impacts 5% to 9% of people. Everyone says something about ADHD, but today I’m going to tackle the topic in a way that you can empathize with a person with ADHD as you can see from the title.
Our brains work differently from a neurotypical person’s brain. We mostly don’t have the motivation to start something new because of our low dopamine levels. I ate a lot of junk food, scrolled through social media and listened to music in order to write this blog because my reward mechanism was broken by the ADHD. We need the reward first to increase our dopamine levels if we want to be able to work.
My mother gets angry about this one. She asks me to get something from the kitchen and I say yes, but when i enter the kitchen, suddenly my mind goes blank. I return to ask her what she asked for. If there is no distraction in the room, I directly ask her. If there is a distraction in the room, I forgot to ask and didn’t bring what she asked for. Of course she gets mad at me.
As a result of not remembering everything and the motivation problem, we can finish a job in a longer time than other people. If a project doesn’t have a due date, we’ll have trouble focusing. If it does, we’ll wait until the last minute and tear ourselves up to finish the project with hours of full attention.
We don’t always face a lack of attention, sometimes we are in trouble with hyperfocus. Well! What does “hyperfocus” mean? I want to explain it to you in my own way. Sometimes we focus so much on something we love that we forget to eat or drink. For example, I love reading psychology articles and I lose track of time. When I finish reading, I realize that i forgot to eat, drink and go to the toilet. I can focus on something that i love for like six hours straight. That is exhausting as you can imagine. But this is how my brain works. It is a bit quirky but i love it the way it is.
I think this picture explains a lot why i cut this blog short. Thanks to all neurotypicals for reading this. I know I lost people with ADHD somewhere in the texts but I thank you guys too for your effort.
