Everyone has a little ADHD Part 1/2

Listen to the audio version here

“Everyone has a little ADHD, you are not special, just get your act together” and get your act together by doing xyz … and there comes the list of what you should do to concentrate better, on how as a parent you should let your kid run around more, on how you should just sit through it and get things done as a student, on just stopping to do certain behaviors … right!

What’s wrong with me?

I think I spent my life reading self help books – oh sorry! not reading because I can’t read but well, reading chapters, listening and watching videos and summaries and talking to people instead…., I studied psychology and I had psychologist friends and coaches who would drop some pieces of advice here and there … and yea … nothing helped. And I would beat myself up for it even more. Already I beat myself up for many things in my life.
But on top of that I seem to be really stupid to not be able to do all the things those people were doing, writing books about it and all those other people taking their precious pieces of advice and change their lives … and not me!
Years and years of that cycle.

Not being able to figure out, what was going on, just believing I’m stupid, I’m lazy, I’m not worth the soil I’m walking on… kind of. My own empathy saved me at times, realizing that at least my thinking is alright. I like the way I’m thinking. I wish more people would think like me… I know not everyone will agree with that. But I liked myself somehow, even if others found me weird… “you live in a dream world, get real, this is not how it works” … I know that this is not how the world works, but it should!
It’s just those other things that made life really hard, you know. And people were not helping.

Why is the world like that? Why are people always judging, why are people destroying, why are people lying, why are people pretending, why don’t people understand, why do people not have empathy, why do people start wars, why do people kill, why do people hurt others …It makes it hard to live in a world like this, when you see everything and everyone around it and you can’t understand. I know everyone wishes this … but I literally can not understand.
You wish people would not be like that. At least not on purpose. I’m not naive though.

I can, but I can’t

The problem with people with ADHD is that we have a huge amount of empathy. More than anyone else . But the problem is that we are lacking sympathy.
Now, you may think, isn’t that the same thing? No, it’s not. In my empathy, I can feel you. I see you and I can feel your pain, your sadness, your happiness, I can read your face, I can read your body and I can feel your feelings as if they were my own. Sometimes even more than your own because I can add my own stuff to yours and combine it. And I can come up with 1001 excuses for your behaviour and if it was against me, I will forgive you even for the most stupid things others would ban you from your life.
Which by the way makes us ADHDers more vulnerable to abusive relationships because we are too forgiving and often stay longer than we should, but that’s another story.

But what I can NOT do, is to understand. I CAN understand why you feel a certain way or do things a certain way, but at the same time, I CAN’T, because I would not do that.

I often use the social media example because I think this is what we can all relate to the easiest.

I can understand why you posted that social media picture that shows your breakfast in the 5 star hotel with the view to the ocean or your coco chanel dress or the unrecognizable makeup or those new sunglasses .. but at the same time I can’t understand why you are posting it.
I understand that you are looking for the likes and the validation and the admiration of others, at the same time .. While I may want the same thing, I personally would not seek all those things the same way.
My way of seeking validation and admiration is through being there for others (and yes, I know it sounds amazing, but it’s not if you are not doing things for the right reasons!) . So, I would not do the same, because in my mind that kind of validation is wrong. Not that it’s wrong to do it, just that it doesn’t show who you really are and therefore the validation is not valid.
So therefore I am empathic as to that you feel a certain way and why you do things you do, at the same time I can’ sympathize with it because in MY brain it’s not working that way. And this gets worse when injustice is involved or playing with the feelings and lives of other people other than yourself. You do with yourself what you want, it’s none of my business. I have always been a live and let live kind of person. But when it involves other people or if it involves you hurting yourself … our empathy and sense of justice make this hard to watch, combined with the lack of sympathy. And then we wish and/or get frustrated why others don’t see things the same way.

You see, that’s a dangerous place to be in … because you live in a world where you see all those things happening and you get it, but at the same time you don’t get it.
It can get you into places you rather not be in. You may get depressed and you are basically just a vegetable sitting there waiting for life to end somehow. Or you can get frustrated and do the most stupid things that end you up in prison and/or addiction. It can get you to try to get validated by everyone and their goldfish in ways that are not good for anyone … it can create a lot of problems to be in such a place.

Just get your act together

Anyhow, rabbit trail … what did I want to talk about? Right, people thinking that everyone is just a little ADHD so get your act together.
When you read the blog, there will be things where you will shake your head and wonder who would do such a thing. Then you will come across things that totally relate to you. And this should be the case more often than not. Because in the end, we are all human. We all more or less do the same things, just to different degrees.

So of course, when I tell you for example that one of the things I do is that I easily forget things, you can relate, because it’s human. I do not think however that you forget things within 2 seconds most of the time.
It happens to all of us that we walk into a room just to turn around and wonder why we went there in the first place. Once in a while … for me, it happens … often!
Or you can relate to at times warming your coffee because you had something else to do and forgot to drink it … once in a while?
I have to heat my coffee 3 times a day at times, because I get distracted from drinking it.
I can not count the times I have been told I should get tested for Alzheimers disease by people around me because somebody would tell me to do something and I’d forget, within seconds … like you can tell me turn left on the next intersection and I would drive straight.
Now you would think ok you are freaking forgetful, what’s wrong with you. But it’s not always like that because then there are situations that I will remember forever. If i was focused and interested and cared about something somebody said, I will remember tiny things for the rest of my life.
You may have said something occasionally that wasn’t even important and 10 years from now I can remind you that you said that.

Just like you see kids that are totally not focussed in school, but they can build Legos for 5 hours straight without looking up. So that gives the false impression that we can be focussed. And hence, “my son can’t have ADHD, he can focus like hell if he wants to”. Everyone has moments like that, “you just have to try harder, because you showed that you CAN focus, it’s just that you don’t want to. You are lazy, you are too stupid to get that, not interested, you are not disciplined” … Right? – Wrong!

The problem is that … even if I wanted to .. my brain doesn’t let me. How often did I sit on my couch telling myself I need to get up and work on something that I actually really love working on. But I can’t get myself moving. One side of the brain goes … nope! The other side of the brain goes .. come on, move, you really want to get this thing done! It’s fun even, come on. …. Nope!

You on the other hand you can tell yourself .. just get it over with, get your discipline up and running, set those priorities right and you just do it. … I imagine that’s how it works? Or how do you do?
Anyways, that’s not how it works for me. And IF you don’t find the right strategies that match you, you will always live a miserable life. Half functioning, half not .. more often NOT when you are undiagnosed. Because here is the kicker … once you know that you have ADHD a lot of the problems solve themselves and the other part can be learned or dealt with. But you can’t beat an enemy if you don’t know who the enemy is.

We are very relatable – at times

In this blog you will find a lot of things that will resonate with you or/and all the people around you. After all, we seem to make up only betwen 5-9 percent of the population at this point so the majority of people will act and think like you. In some parts of the world the number goes up to 15 percent or higher. We will talk about that in another post – remind me!

And since there will be a few things that will resonate with all of you, because you do them once in a while, it gives you the impression that it’s nothing extraordinary .. nothing special, nothing to worry about, you are the problem, not ADHD, that doesn’t exist. Don’t look for excuses for your behaviour, take responsibility!

But what you have to understand is that for us … it’s not once in a while and it’s not a choice! And then for you to come along and judge us on that, thinking we just need to try harder, we are not living up to our potential , we are lazy, we are stupid, if we really wanted to … we could … yea … again, no!

So, the next time you want to say ‘just get your act together,’ remember that living with ADHD isn’t about lacking effort or willpower. It’s about navigating a complex world with a different set of tools than you have – and actually finding those tools in the first place!

You can read the second part here