Transcriber: 思辰 李 Reviewer: Zsófia Herczeg
Hello. I’m Katherine Ellison,
and if I ever forget that I have ADHD,
something or someone always comes along to remind me.
I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 48 years old.
And frankly, it was a big relief.
There had to be some reason
for why I’d lost so many pairs of sunglasses and friends,
and why I’d only narrowly escaped so many car crashes and cooking fires.
ADHD is widely thought of as a problem that involves little boys,
but in fact today,
about 10 million U.S. men and women suffer symptoms
that include high levels of distraction, forgetfulness,
impulsivity and lots and lots of accidents.
In recent years, our world has become so frazzled
that a lot of other people are starting to feel
like they might be on the spectrum.
About five years ago, Time magazine even reported
that our attention spans were now shorter than a goldfish.
Thank heavens, there’s a lot of other research
that shows we’re still winning that race.
But truly, there’s a big difference
between people who could legitimately be diagnosed with ADHD
and everyone else.
ADHD is a neurobiological disorder that has to do with dopamine
and other important chemical messengers in the brain.
Some of us manage to hyperfocus,
but for the vast majority, it remains a genuine disability
that can sabotage you when you least expect it.
I was lucky early on to have achieved my childhood dream
of becoming a foreign correspondent.
Some of my colleagues would later tell thrilling stories from that time.
Some were even shot at while covering wars.
Not me.
I got injured breaking my leg by stumbling into a manhole in Managua, Nicaragua
while I was chasing after the newly elected president,
Violeta Chamorro.
I was hoping for a quote,
and I didn’t even actually need that quote.
I had already filed my story for the day,
but I couldn’t stop myself
when I saw all the other reporters running after her.
And yet what really burns me up even today
is I know I could have caught her if it hadn’t been for that manhole.
Chamorro was recovering from knee surgery at the time
and walking really slowly on crutches.
Okay, so all that may make what I have to say next
seem counterintuitive,
but hear me out.
There are lots of good reasons why someone with ADHD
can be your best guide as we move out of the pandemic.
Think about it.
Millions of us have been quarantined in our sweats,
if we’re privileged, for more than a year and a half.
And while Covid has brought all kinds of losses and grief,
it’s also given many of us a brilliant reason to slow down
and reduce our pre-pandemic levels of information overload.
But now as we re-emerge into real life,
friends and family members are telling me they’re feeling swamped.
Everything seems like too much:
school drop-offs, dinners out with friends,
traffic, parking, office politics.
Do you or don’t you still wear a mask?
Where can we find the new skirts and pants to match our perfect zoom tops?
It’s only natural to feel anxious, distracted, forgetful even overwhelmed.
Well, welcome to my world.
People with ADHD know from overwhelmed.
I think of us as the coal mine canaries of chronic distraction.
We’ve spent lifetimes chasing after our wandering minds.
The good news for you is that in the process,
quite a few of us with ADHD
have come up with some excellent coping techniques,
which I’m happy to share.
We can give you ways to manage your attention,
even if we can't follow them.
We’re experts in spotting attention rabbit holes,
even if we usually go right down them.
For instance, we know that, of course, we should all get enough sleep,
eat right and get regular exercise,
which tons of research shows helps us all cope with cognitive challenges.
We know we shouldn’t ever spend more than $15 on a pair of sunglasses,
and we should designate one special place to leave our keys.
But what I want to share with you today is more fundamental guidance,
namely three hard-earned lessons
that go right to the soul of chronic distraction
to how you treat yourself amid the inevitable overwhelm
and after some inevitably stupid mistakes.
Mistakes happen to the best of us, despite our best intentions.
Yet there are some things that can help you to avoid them,
which is why my first tip is to mistrust your sense of urgency.
My psychiatrist said this to me so many times over so many years
that I finally put it on a bumper sticker.
And yes, I have to do something about that tape holding it up.
Impulsivity driven by a constant sense of urgency
is a big danger for people with ADHD,
and that danger is rapidly spreading to the neurotypical.
The sheer amount of information we have to process every day
would make any of our ancestors’ heads explode.
It can make us feel constantly driven.
It makes it easy to miss the big picture.
As I've struggled for many years to cope with this problem,
I found it really helpful to give myself little supports,
even just a strategically placed Post-it or two.
So I remember that I don’t really have to answer someone right away
when I’m upset with them,
or even buy those cool-looking, dressy yoga pants advertised on Facebook.
Computers make it so easy to give in to our impulses,
but fortunately, even Silicon Valley has now recognized the problem
and is selling us apps that can shut off other apps
so we can all get more work done.
A good technological support system can also help you avoid multitasking,
which we're all trying to do more and more these days
because we think we can.
I know I’m not alone in believing
I’m one of the very few, very exceptional people
who can safely text and drive.
I recently read that 98% of commuters say
that sending a text while driving is unsafe,
yet at least 40% also say that they do it all the time.
Now, not all of those people are suffering from ADHD.
But what we all have in common
is we’re really, really good at self-deception.
Neuroscientists warn that we’re never really doing two things at a time
but always switching back and forth
and often missing critical information as we do.
Now, that’s not going to be a big loss
if you’re eating popcorn while watching a movie,
but it’s probably best not to play Words with Friends with someone
while you’re talking on the phone with your boss.
Try to do one thing at a time.
You might even like it.
The rare joy of singular focus
helps explain why mindfulness is now so popular,
even for people with ADHD, who generally really suck at it.
It is such a luxury to attend to just one thing,
even for just 15 minutes.
Now that’s one reason my second tip is to limit your Chrono Phagers.
And you heard that right: it’s Chrono Phagers.
It’s a somewhat obscure term
derived from the Greek “chronos” for time and “phage” for eat.
Think about what’s eating your time.
I find it really helpful every once in a while
to write down a list of all my commitments and activities,
apart from the things I have to do.
Marie Kondo wrote that famous book
about the life-changing magic of getting rid of material objects
that no longer spark joy.
Consider applying that advice to the way you spend your time.
Go through your mental closets with the same rigor.
And right now is a great time to do this,
given that so many of us discovered so many creative ways
to fill up the time we might otherwise have spent commuting to work
or seeing people in three dimensions.
I’m sure there are some Chrono Phagers you took on during Covid
that you won’t want to part with.
My family ended up getting a third dog,
which I understand some people might think of as excessive.
And understandably,
the bar for what constitutes meaningful pursuits
got lowered a bit during the quarantines.
Maybe, you’ll keep that subscription to the Jigsaw Puzzle Club
and even keep watching Selling Sunset and 90 Day Fiancé.
But if you do, just remember that as we get to go outside again,
and other demands on our time increase,
it means we all have to give up something else.
Because the march of time really isn’t as forgiving
as it might have felt these past months.
And speaking of forgiveness,
tip number three is to surround yourself with kindness.
People with ADHD understand
that even if you heed all the hacks in the world,
you are still going to screw up.
In our post-pandemic world of revved up cognitive demands,
screw-ups are more and more to be expected.
And yet sometimes the worst mistake we can make is to think
that we need people around us to give us tough love
so we can be our best.
When it comes to the people closest to us,
we need the opposite of that.
The rest of the world has enough tough love to spare.
And by the way, when I say you should surround yourself with kind people,
the first person I'm thinking of is you.
You’ll have your best chance of surviving in the post-pandemic world
if you know you can recover from embarrassing mistakes,
knowing you did your best, and this too will pass.
So for those of my friends with ADHD out there
and everyone else who might have been looking at TikTok on a split screen,
I’m going to repeat the three tips.
One: Mistrust your sense of urgency.
Two: Limit your Chrono Phagers.
And three: Surround yourself with kindness.
And if you're starting to feel overwhelmed in our post-pandemic world,
do something truly kind for yourself:
Talk to someone with ADHD.
We’ve been there and will be there again
and again and again.