- ADHD, or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder,
is a neurodevelopmental disorder
that can cause us to struggle with focus, motivation,
sustained attention, organization,
and there's many more, but those are just to name a few.
And in my opinion, it's not a mental illness.
Our brain just works differently
because it's lacking dopamine and dopamine transporters,
meaning that it's harder for us to feel rewarded or good,
because our dopamine can't get to where it needs to
in the brain.
And dopamine is one of our feel good neurotransmitters
that helps us feel motivated, rewarded,
and hold attention when needed.
Because we don't have enough dopamine,
and what we have isn't getting to where it needs to go,
we continuously look out into our environment
for things that make us feel good,
which can make focusing on more mundane tasks difficult,
even painful really.
Since ADHD is often misunderstood and sometimes stigmatized,
today I wanna offer up six things you may not know
are related to it.
If you're new here, welcome to the community.
My name is Kati Morton,
I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist.
I talk about anxiety, depression, eating disorders,
and really anything mental health related.
So if you'd like to subscribe, we would love to have you.
I promise you will always leave
with some helpful information for you
or for someone that you love.
Okay, let's jump into those six things
that we didn't know were ADHD related.
(gentle music)
And number one is taking risks even when unnecessary.
This is because adrenaline can feel really good,
and those of us with ADHD thrive on it.
It's the reason we can feel
like we perform best under pressure.
Because of the risk involved in a high pressure environment,
it makes it easier and more rewarding for our brain
to focus on something,
which is why many of us with ADHD can find ourselves
in jobs like working in an ER, in entertainment, or in tech.
The pressure helps us focus and feel alive.
And this could also be connected
to us doing impulsive things that can cause us
or those we love unnecessary pain.
I've heard from members of our community
that they've made impulsive financial decisions
like poor investments or even quitting their jobs on a whim
because it sounded exciting,
only to realize maybe it wasn't the best decision after all.
Remember, those of us with ADHD can struggle
with organization and paying close attention to details,
which makes us more susceptible
to these types of impulsive decisions.
Number two, being forgetful.
Again, because we are constantly looking out
into our environment for things that are interesting
or exciting to us,
we can not listen when we're spoken to,
get sidetracked while doing something
and forget to come back to it,
or even lose things that we need to complete a task.
This is all because it's hard for us to focus
and log something away into our memory to do later.
We can get pulled into something more enjoyable
and forget what we were doing,
or that we were supposed to be doing something before that.
This can be tricky when it comes to work or school,
and in our relationships,
because people can view it as us being selfish,
or not caring about them, or not being reliable,
when it's really that our brain just doesn't like to focus
on things that aren't new or exciting.
Number three,
talking quickly and over other people all the time.
Hopefully you're starting to see how these are all linked,
because again, when someone is talking about something
that we don't find interesting,
which, if we're all being honest,
this happens a lot in life, right?
But instead of being able to just listen
and wait to change the subject
to something else more exciting, those of us with ADHD,
we can talk over them,
push the conversation into something we enjoy,
and then be so excited about it,
we just talk really quickly about the subject.
And because we're more impulsive,
we can struggle to wait our turn,
because in our mind they're just taking too long, you know?
And by jumping in and talking over them,
we're really just trying to stay engaged
in the conversation.
That's another thing that's important
for everyone to understand.
People with ADHD
aren't doing these things to be rude or hurtful.
They're doing it so that they can keep engaging with us
and enjoy themselves too.
It's almost like a majority of our ADHD symptoms
are just ways that we try to cope with our lack of enjoyment
and reward from everyday tasks.
And number four,
it's difficult to go to bed at a reasonable time.
Now, this can happen for a few reasons.
The first is that we may struggle to even realize
what time it is,
because we're jumping from thing to thing,
maybe show to show, searching for that dopamine hit.
And time can just slip by without us even noticing.
And second,
we may feel like the nighttime is the only time
where we get to actually do the things we want to.
Because that feels damn good,
we lack the impulse control to not watch that next episode
or play that next level.
So before you know it,
it's after midnight or maybe three in the morning
and we've stayed up way later than we planned.
Number five, picking fights with others because we're bored.
Again, this is an unconscious way of getting our needs met.
Those of us with ADHD can like to be around drama,
or even create drama as a way of stimulating
a release of adrenaline,
which in turn stimulates our frontal lobe.
And our frontal lobe is where we organize our thoughts
and spaces, we plan things in advance and accomplish goals.
By picking fights and creating tension, we're trying to,
without realizing it, to create a pressurized situation
so that we can function better.
And this is obviously why not understanding
and managing our ADHD can have an adverse effect
on our relationships.
Sixth and finally, having trouble making decisions,
unless they're done impulsively
like we talked about earlier,
our brains work differently when we have ADHD.
We don't have enough dopamine or dopamine transporters.
And also our prefrontal cortex may not be able to function
at full capacity,
meaning that considering all options
and making a thoughtful decision
isn't going to be our strong suit.
Not only is that level of focus going to be hard for us,
but we may struggle to even think through all the details
and find that we can't make a decision
unless there's a time crunch or pressure that's put on us.
So what can we do?
Well, instead of always fighting against our brains
and trying to force another way of thinking and working,
let's work with our brains.
We know that ADHD brains can focus more when things are new,
interesting to us, there's a sense of urgency,
and the thing that we're doing is challenging.
So when figuring out our one goal, yes, one at a time.
I know you may feel the urge to pile others on,
and I have a trick for that that I'll share in a second,
but pick one goal, write it down,
then take a minute to consider
if there are new things that we could learn
or do on our way to this goal.
Also, what will the cost be for us
if we don't meet that goal?
And is there a deadline?
Write these things down so that you can see them
and they can help keep us motivated
when maybe we're struggling to start or to keep going.
And as for my tip for having too many goals,
take a notebook, pick one page, okay?
Fold it in half vertically
and on the side that you can see when it's folded up,
put that one goal and the motivating things
that we just talked about.
On the side that you folded under, right?
You can't see it when it's folded up.
Unfold it.
Write down all those other goals that have come flying
into your head that you would like to achieve at some point
and then fold it back under.
When you check off the one goal that you can see now,
then I give you full permission to unfold that page
and pick one more to move it to that other side.
Does that make sense?
I hope so.
And my final tip is to take some time to consider
why you have this goal.
Is this something you have set yourself,
or something someone else told you you should do?
Are we doing it because it sounds fun,
or maybe it's just important to us?
This will help us make sure we have enough motivation,
or motivators, like I could lose my job,
or I could fail a class,
to sustain us while we work to get there.
Oh, and my good friend, Jessica,
has a channel called How to ADHD
that I cannot recommend enough.
So go and check her out.
Have a wonderful week.
Thank you so much for watching
and I will see you next time.
(gentle music)