Weak. Needy. Helpless. Annoying. Thanks to social conditioning and outdated gender norms and decades of hits to our self-esteem, this is how some of us think we appear when we ask for help. But research and experience tell us otherwise.

Strong self-advocacy skills — i.e., the ability to ask for and secure support when it matters — is a strong indicator of success for people with ADHD. Everything from executive dysfunction to the emotional impact of ADHD and its comorbidities are made more manageable with the right kind of help. But the same ADHD characteristics that make assistance so important also make asking for it really tough.

So we asked ADDitude readers to share their experiences with self-advocacy and offer any tips, hacks, or hints that have helped them get helpful help. Here’s what they told us:

Why We Ask for Help

“I see requests for help as opportunities to build relationships and connections.” —Catherine, Washington

“When I ask for help, it makes me feel like a failure. But I remind myself that I need to set an example for my kids, so I will ask my husband for help by explaining that I need to prioritize something else so can he please cook dinner?” —Kate, Australia

[Read: The Fear of Failure Is Real — and Profound]

“I’m midlife and the gig of doing it all by myself is up: I have crashed and have to ask for help now. The trick is choosing relationships in every area of life with people who have high standards of relations, reciprocity, and compassion. I choose now, rather than hoping others will get me. It changes everything!” —An ADDitude Reader

“I think having a background in addiction recovery is an asset to ADHD coping. I am already aware that in some areas, I need support outside of myself. Therefore, I am already practiced in asking for support. I know that if I try to cope on my own, it may lead to unhealthy behaviors.” —Krysta, Canada

“I have a 15-minute rule. If I am stuck for more than 15 minutes, I ask for help. I instill this in my employees as well. Asking for help tells me that they are comfortable with communication, and humble.” —John, Florida

“If I notice my RSD is preventing me from asking for support, that often indicates that I’m not getting what I need from that relationship to feel safe.” —AJ, Utah

[Read: How ADHD Ignites RSD – Meaning & Medication Solutions]

How We Ask for Help

“I prefer typing out a text or email rather than orally asking for help, but if text/email is not an option, writing a script can help me prepare for a face-to-face request.” —Chandler, Pennsylvania

“Ask for something super tiny to get practice at asking for help.” —Katrina, Australia

“I have set up keywords with my husband, so when I say those words he knows I am feeling lonely and I need help.” —April, Oklahoma

“My ADHD can make me quite impatient, so I need to give people time to process my request, or take the action I’ve asked for. It helps to remember this isn’t rejection, and they don’t have to drop everything then and there in order to be willing to help.” —Trish

“To address loneliness, I have learned to say ‘I need a hug.’ Often it opens the door for me to share more about what is going on.” —Claire, Pennsylvania

“I identify a person with complementary skills, and I spontaneously contribute to our shared objective by doing the tasks they find laborious. The reciprocal task division follows naturally. Nobody has to ask, no gift debt is engendered. We are actively helping each other.” —Dettie

“I imagine that I’m giving someone good news when I’m about to ask for something I feel nervous about.” —Kelsie, Mississippi

“I have to just accept that asking feels awkward, and it probably always will.” —Sarah, Georgia

“I always express gratitude to any person who is willing to body double with me and I describe how it was helpful. For example, ‘You read your book while I was doing bills and I got sooo much more done. Thank you. Let me know when you are reading your next book.’” —An ADDitude Reader

“I offer help, often. That makes me feel better about asking for help. In my mind, I’ve kind of already paid for the help that I need by helping others, and now I’m cashing out.” —Helen, Maryland

“I practice a lot of ‘I statements,’ like, ‘I feel so overwhelmed by the number of tasks I have to do and I need extra hands.’ It’s not easy, but if you start with positive ‘I need’ statements, and practice, it’ll start feeling like second nature.” —Vanessa, Texas

“I try to set up check-ins with team members at work so it’s easier to ask for help while working on a specific project.” —Christina, Louisiana

“Give yourself 10 seconds of bravery. Start counting backwards from 10 and, before you hit one, say what you need to say to the person.” —Charlie, Australia

“Before asking for help at work, I always make sure to have a list made up of things I need help with. It shows my boss and team members that I have come prepared, with a plan.” —Melissa, Minnesota

“I have realized that I need to be very concise and direct when asking for help, instead of talking about how much I need help and giving reasons.” —An ADDitude Reader

“I use an app such as Goblin Tools to break down tasks, then I ask for specific help. I find that if I say I need help in a non-specific way, people are less ready to help, but if I say, ‘Can you declutter this one drawer please?’ then I’ll get help. The act of breaking the task down helps reduce my overwhelm, too.” —Laura, New Zealand

“One thing that helps is to talk to friends about what is going on, just to gauge what their capacity is for listening or coming up with solutions I am blind to. More eyes and brains on a problem are a good thing.” —Sarah, Germany

“With my teenager, it is mostly a choice-based, task-related ask: ‘Would you be willing to help me with Option A or Option B and at what time?’” —Kristen, Michigan

“At work, I have a personal checklist of resources to exhaust. If I can’t find the answers after doing due diligence, I reach out to an appropriate team member. Having researched on my end allows me to reach out with a more informed and confident ask for help.” —Sharon, Ohio

ADHD Self Advocacy: Next Steps

• Quiz: Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria Symptom Test
• Quiz: How Severe Is Your Loneliness?
• Download: The Emotions of ADHD

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More than half of individuals with ADHD — and significantly more women than men — were diagnosed in adulthood, according to new data published in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).¹ These findings constitute the CDC’s first update on the prevalence and age of diagnosis for ADHD in nearly 20 years.

The CDC report, which found that 6 percent of U.S. adults have a current ADHD diagnosis, identified several gender-based discrepancies regarding the age of diagnosis. Sixty-one percent of women received their ADHD diagnosis during adulthood, compared to 40 percent of men. One-quarter of women received an ADHD diagnosis before age 11, compared to 45 percent of men.

“Taken together, these data highlight the significant public health burden of ADHD and challenges experienced by adults with this diagnosis,” said Greg Mattingly, M.D., president of the American Professional Society of ADHD and Related Disorders (APSARD), and Ann Childress, M.D., past president of APSARD, in an article published in Psychiatric Times.²

The MMWR analyzed data collected from the National Center for Health Statistics Rapid Survey System (RSS) from October through November 2023 on the prevalence, treatment barriers, and telehealth usage of adults with ADHD.

Consequences of Undiagnosed Adult ADHD

Once considered a childhood condition, ADHD is now recognized as one of the most common mental health conditions in adults, affecting men and women almost equally. ³,⁴ A new national survey of 1,000 American adults by The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and College of Medicine revealed that as many as one in four adults suspect they may have undiagnosed ADHD, however, only 13 percent have consulted a doctor about their suspicions. The researchers say the findings raise concerns that self-diagnosis may lead to incorrect treatment.

“In recent years, the number of adults diagnosed with ADHD has risen significantly – thanks, in part, to decades of research that has advanced awareness of ADHD as a lifelong disorder,”⁵ wrote APSARD secretary Maggie Sibley, Ph.D., in the ADDitude article, “Why We Need U.S. Guidelines for Adults with ADHD.” “Though ADHD is commonly detected in childhood, later-in-life diagnoses are providing clarity and relief for many adults with once unexplained, misunderstood, or overlooked lifelong struggles.”

Untreated adult ADHD symptoms may impair individuals personally and professionally, and they may exacerbate comorbidities like depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, insomnia, substance use disorders, and trauma-related conditions. ⁶, ⁷

“ADHD does not happen in a vacuum, and its effects are far more impairing when the condition goes undiagnosed, untreated, or improperly treated,” said Nelson M. Handal, M.D., DFAPA, in the ADDitude webinar, “New Insights Into and Treatments for Comorbid Depression” “It’s not difficult to see how untreated symptoms of ADHD — from impulsivity and emotional instability to poor planning and execution skills — compromise one’s ability to find success in school, work, relationships, and other parts of life.”

Even with an ADHD diagnosis, adults face barriers to care amid the ongoing stimulant shortage. Approximately 7 in 10 adults treating ADHD with stimulant medications reported difficulty obtaining their prescriptions, the CDC found.

The CDC’s findings suggest that telemedicine may improve access to healthcare and decrease systemic discrepancies in care. Nearly half of adults with a current ADHD diagnosis said they received some of their ADHD healthcare via telemedicine.

“These benefits must, however, be balanced with the need for thorough diagnostic evaluation and follow-up for both the in-person and virtual models of care,” said Mattingly and Childress.

“Some telehealth companies are under federal investigation for their prescribing practices, highlighting a need for clarity on appropriate practices for the prescription of stimulants – a first-line treatment for ADHD,” Sibley wrote. “APSARD’s forthcoming adult ADHD guidelines will address this urgent need for providers and patients alike — making evaluations more thorough, diagnosis more reliable, and treatment safer.”

Importance of Adult ADHD Guidelines

The Ohio State study and CDC data underscore the need for adult ADHD diagnosis and treatment guidelines, which APSARD is working to finalize by late this year or early 2025.

“These will be the first U.S. guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of adults with ADHD, and they will provide a valuable framework of treatment for clinicians and families,” said Mattingly and Childress. “While many unanswered questions remain, these findings bring us one step closer to a deeper understanding of the needs of adults with ADHD.”

The impact of the APSARD guidelines may be felt most profoundly by adult women.

“Many women do not recognize that they have ADHD or seek evaluations until their children are diagnosed,” wrote Childress in an ADDitude article earlier this year. They are often treated for anxiety or depression that developed secondarily to ADHD. Helping clinicians recognize the difference in presentation of ADHD symptoms in women is important.”

Sources

¹taley, S.B., Robinson, L.R., Claussen, A.H., et al. Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Diagnosis, Treatment and Telehealth Use in Adults – National Center for Health Statistics Rapid Surveys System, United States, October – November 2023. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2024;73(40)

² Mattingly, G., Childress, A. (2024). Clinical Implications of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in Adults: What New Data on Diagnostic Trends, Treatment Barriers, and Telehealth Utilization Tell Us. J Clin Psychiatry; 85(4): 24com15592. https://doi.org/10.4088/JCP.24com15592

³Ayano, G., Tsegay, L., Gizachew, Y, et al. (2023). Prevalence of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Adults: Umbrella Review of Evidence Generated Across the Globe. Psychiatry Res; 328:115449. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2023.115449

⁴Faraone, S.V., Bellgrove, M.A., Brikell, I., et al. (2024). Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Nat Rev Dis Primers; 10(1):11. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41572-024-00495-0

⁵Sibley, M.H., Arnold, L.E., Swanson, J.M., Hechtman, L.T., Kennedy, T.M., Owens, E., Molina, B.S., Jensen, P.S., Hinshaw, S.P., Roy, A., Chronis-Tuscano, A. (2022). Variable Patterns of Remission from ADHD in the Multimodal Treatment Study of ADHD. American Journal of Psychiatry;179(2):142-51. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2021.21010032

⁶Kessler, R.C., Berglund, P., Chiu, W.T., et al. (2004). The US National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R): Design and Field Procedures. Int J Methods Psychiatr Res; 13(2):69–92. https://doi.org/10.1002/mpr.167

⁷Katzman, M.A., Bilkey, T.S., Chokka, P.R., et al. (2017). Adult ADHD and Comorbid Disorders: Clinical Implications of a Dimensional Approach. BMC Psychiatry. 17(1):https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-017-1463-3

Lead with Your Heart

Stick to talking about your passions. With an interest-based brain, you’ll be able to put your best foot forward — and see if you really zing with someone — when you focus on what excites you. If you’re into horror films, for example, share that with your date and see how they respond. You may learn that horror isn’t their thing, but true crime podcasts are. (And that’s how the conversation keeps going and stays somewhat on track.)

LIVE WEBINAR ON NOV. 7: CONSCIOUS DATING WITH ADHD
Register for this free webinar and get an opportunity to ask your questions about dating. Plus, get the replay link to share.

Establish Clear Boundaries

Whether regarding first dates or small talk with colleagues and acquaintances, set clear rules for yourself about what you will and will not discuss. Consider these topics off limits:

• body fluids and functions
• odor and hygiene
• sexual history
• money
• medical history
• traumatic events and family histories

[Get This Free Download: Become a Small-Talk Superstar]

Devise Handy Summarizing Scripts

If you know that you’re prone to divulging too much information on a sensitive topic, like your rocky relationship with your parents, come up with a few phrases that satisfactorily capture the situation, like “I have difficult parents” or “I come from a challenging family.” These phrases say a lot, minus the details, which you’ll have a chance to share with your date if you do grow closer to them.

Bring It Back with a Laugh

Humor is fantastic for pivoting conversations when you realize you’re oversharing. Say, “Wow, I have had a lot of coffee today!” or “I definitely went down the rabbit hole there. Can we go back to what you were talking about?”

How to Not Overshare: Next Steps

• Get the eBook! The ADHD Relationship Guide
• Read: “5 Things I Learned from First Dates”
• Read: Dating Advice & Strategies for Adults with ADHD

The content for this article was derived from the ADDitude ADHD Experts webinar titled, “Oversharing and Underinvesting: The Social Traps That Snare ADHD Adults” [Video Replay & Podcast #496] with Caroline Maguire, M.Ed., ACCG, PCC, which was broadcast on March 14, 2024.

SUPPORT ADDITUDE
Thank you for reading ADDitude. To support our mission of providing ADHD education and support, please consider subscribing. Your readership and support help make our content and outreach possible. Thank you.

Resilience isn’t so much a skill that individuals with ADHD need to build, but a fundamental part of their DNA. Working an 80-hour week while pregnant. Graduating college at age 43. Navigating unhealthy relationships. Staying strong when faced with mental and physical setbacks. These are just some examples ADDitude readers shared when asked for a time their (or their child’s) ADHD resilience truly shone. Read on for more stories of perseverance and grit.

Share your stories of ADHD resilience in the comments section.

“I lost my three-year-old daughter to a rare form of cancer. I remember wanting to die, too. A voice in my head said, ‘You have three other kids who need you to find a way to go on. Because if life hits them the way it’s hit you, they will know they can overcome.’” — Tracy, Canada

“I struggled with depression and anxiety in my first semester of college because of major imposter syndrome and ended up having to go home on medical leave for suicidal ideation. No one expected me (maybe not even myself) to get up the next morning and apply for a job. Hitting what seemed like rock bottom helped me find a hidden, gritty, scrappy fighter within me. I knew I needed time and experience outside of the academic arena to show me that there is more to life and that I have value and talent beyond what any classroom grade might assign me.” — Rebecca, Connecticut

“I failed out of college. Then, I took a semester off, went to community college, eventually enrolled in a four-year program, and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in accounting.” — Erin, Missouri

“Being diagnosed late in life, raising three kiddos with ADHD, surviving a high-conflict divorce, running a school, and navigating a teen through trauma and treatment — ADHD resilience, it’s a real thing.” — Katie, Arizona

[Get This Free Download: Secrets of the ADHD Brain]

“Having ADHD and dealing with setbacks has made my teenager resilient and allowed him to build strong boundaries. When he realized he was being mistreated by ‘friends,’ he recognized that their negativity was contagious and dangerous to his mental health because he was emotionally sensitive. Recognizing his sensitivity to unpleasant behavior gave him the motivation to end old relationships and seek out new ones that are positive and more rewarding. This is a life skill that more teenagers need to live happier lives.” — Jane, Tennessee

“I was told I might not be able to walk again. Yes, I suffered from depression, but I had small goals and kept going. I worked hard. I pushed myself (with my high expectations), and now I can walk with a walking stick. It was one of the most challenging things I’ve ever had to do. It has taken me years to get to where I am today. But I did it because I’m resilient and strong. I’m grateful. I’m proud. Thank you, ADHD.” — Sam, U.K.

“A childhood full of bullying, misunderstanding, and criticism drove me to seek out therapy. That self-exploration gave me an early advantage in self-acceptance and how to deal with others, especially in the decades when I went undiagnosed. I’m a veteran human being now.” — Dee, Canada

“I have fallen on my face so many times over the years, but each time, I climb back up and get a little more success — money, lifestyle, health, etc. I have endurance tattooed on my back (I should add resilience).” — Angie, Virginia

[Join the ADDitude Support Group for Adults with ADHD]

“I try to be resilient by giving myself grace when I forget things and try to complete multi-step tasks. I tell myself it’s ‘OK if I don’t get it right the first time.’ Allowing myself to try again took a long time to accept because I like to get things perfect the first time.” — An ADDitude Reader

“I taught a class of 16-year-olds who hated my guts. Going to work was like entering a war zone. My work colleagues could not believe how I kept going. At home, I also took care of my husband, who suffered from a work injury. I refused to give up. Former bosses still talk to me, and some former students smile and publicly say, ‘Hello.’ My marriage and career continue to thrive.” — Louise, Australia

“I have big emotional reactions to setbacks and rejection, especially involving others. Since learning more about RSD and ADHD, I try to allow myself to feel my feelings so I can build resiliency and move forward. I remind myself that, while people may not understand me, I know who I am.” — Ellen, Massachusetts

“My 10-year-old son faced significant challenges when he developed arthritis and severe asthma following a post-COVID infection. This condition made physical activities like running and playing soccer and basketball difficult, often leaving him in pain and short of breath. Despite his efforts, some teammates were unkind, telling him he was hopeless and suggesting he should quit. When he shared his feelings with me, he showed determination, leaving me in awe. He said, ‘I’ve heard what they’ve said, but I want to finish the season because I made a commitment. I’ll keep doing my best, stay positive, and not let their comments get to me. After the season, I’ll find an activity that better suits my abilities.’ True to his word, he persevered through the season and eventually discovered jiu-jitsu and ninja training, activities that he loves and excels at.” — Jo, Australia

“I have learned that my value is not determined by what I do or have not done or how much I weigh or what others say about me. I have learned to forgive myself and move on. I’m also not afraid of admitting and taking ownership of my mistakes. I try to teach my son this, too.” — Glenda, California

“I don’t know how I survived the five years of my life when I was pregnant, had two young sons, and worked in an industry where an 80-hour workweek was expected. As an ambitious advertising executive and new mother, I flew more than 100,000 miles a year, breast-pumped on the road, and stayed up until 3 a.m. working on new business pitches. I had no clue that I even had ADHD until this year!” — Tyra, Arizona

“I continue to write despite never finishing a single project. I have three unfinished novels, an overflowing drawer of unpublished poetry, and ideas for more. Despite the unsuccessful struggle to complete or publish any of this, I am actively working on a non-fiction book, mostly because I can’t not do it.” — David, Oregon

“I can think of several times in my adulthood where I was resilient: Going to nursing school at age 27, finishing at the top of the class, completing college at age 43, becoming licensed in the state and nationally as a nursing home director, and becoming a director of a bankrupt facility. Despite wanting to drown many times, my mind would rebound, and I kept swimming.” — Enola, Oklahoma

“I had five different majors in college. I spent my 20s jumping from job to job, unsure of what I was good at or wanted. I returned to school and got my Ph.D. at age 39. Ten years later, I am tenured and an associate dean at a major university. I work with people who know that they benefit from my ADHD superpowers and accommodate my less super ADHD symptoms. I regularly get to use my position to help neurodivergent students.” — Ted, California

“I co-founded a charter school 22 years ago. Keeping it on track through many challenges required a lot of perseverance.” — Morgan, California

Perseverance & Resilience: Next Steps

• Read: Building Resilience Begins Here – 6 Motivation Strategies for ADHD Families
• Download: How Well Are You Handling Stress?
• Read: “I Am What I Choose to Become!”

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Admittedly, ADHD brains do not typically excel at making — and following through with — plans. But they can expertly pivot and devise ingenious solutions on the fly when setbacks arise. Sometimes, these new, spontaneous plans result in opportunities and rewards that would have otherwise remained unfulfilled.

So, when a last-ditch effort to score a ticket to your favorite band’s show lands you backstage, or a late entry into a neighborhood Super Bowl pool means winning $750, you can thank your ADHD propensity for spontaneity.

Here, ADDitude readers share more stories of when they reaped the rewards of spontaneity.

Have you ever benefited from spontaneous decision-making or a failure to plan? Share your story in the comments.

Rewards of ADHD Spontaneity

“On a vacation with my husband a few years ago, I got rewarded for failing to plan. Upon arriving at the Mammoth Cave National Park, I realized that I needed to order tickets to tour the caves weeks in advance. As a result, we could only enter the public park areas. Once the initial ‘Oh no, we drove here and can’t go in’ feeling solidified into reality, it allowed for total spontaneity. We explored on our own and enjoyed a nice lunch. Instead of the trip being about the destination, it was about the journey. To this day, we still use the expression ‘It’s a Mammoth Cave day’ to describe how a failure to plan resulted in a good outcome.” — Lisa, Wisconsin

[Get This Free Download: 25 Things to Love About ADHD]

“I was given the task of planning the family vacation. I kept putting it off, paralyzed by the thought of wading through travel brochures and finding a deal within our budget. Three days before the holidays, I saw a local travel agency advertise a reduced-price trip to Florida for two weeks that was a cancellation. It turned out to be the holiday of a lifetime. My grown children still talk about it being the best trip ever!” —Jacinta, Lancashire, England

“When my kids were little, I took them on midnight runs to IHOP on their birthdays.” —An ADDitude Reader

“I forgot to submit my entry to a neighborhood Super Bowl pool and had to take the last block available. I ended up winning $750!” — Kate, Pennsylvania

“I wrote a poem for my parents’ 25th wedding anniversary in the bathroom of the banquet hall 20 minutes before the toast. It was so well received that my parents still gush about it 30 years later!” — Beth, Colorado

[Self-Test: Do I Have Hyperactive-Impulsive ADHD?

“After I finished an aerobics class at my health club, I asked for a job — and got it!” —Terri, Colorado

“Any sort of travel is always fun with a touch of spontaneity! I traveled alone in Thailand once, and I came across so many experiences and people just by winging it and wandering around!” — Kayla

“During COVID, I spontaneously moved to a new city without a job or knowing a single soul. In the three years since, this new place has offered me wonderful friendships, a career switch, and a more authentic life.” — An ADDitude Reader, Netherlands

“Despite being a huge fan of the band Wilco, I never followed through and bought a concert ticket when they came to town, and it sold out. On the day of the show, I went to the venue to search for a ticket. I started watching the soundcheck when a guy asked me what I was doing. When I told him I was trying to find a ticket, he said he was the show’s opener, and I could be his ‘roadie’ to get into the show. Afterward, he invited me and others, including Wilco members, for drinks. As I’m leaving, another guy asks me if he can catch a ride — and it turns out to be Leroy Bach, the multi-instrumentalist for Wilco at the time. Leroy invited me to Wilco’s Seattle show the next night. All of this happened because I failed to plan!” — Josh, Utah

“I met my husband on a blind date, and we got engaged two weeks later. We’ve been together 20 years.” — Vanessa, Australia

“One time at work, I did not sufficiently study the plan for a large project and could not contribute to the discussion. However, my ADHD brain spontaneously proposed a different and better solution that we used instead of the original plan.” — Allen, Michigan

“I randomly stopped at a neighborhood estate sale and bought a bag of costume jewelry for $1. After it was sitting in my drawer for three years, I finally took four or five gold pieces to a pawn shop. I made $300.” —Lisa, Virginia

“Being the mom of a 10-year-old, I can be rigid with plans to get everything done. But when I go off the list or veer from what we have planned, my daughter loves the spontaneity. An unplanned trip on our way home to get ice cream in a never-visited town recently was a lot of fun.” — Christine, Michigan

“During a deeply unhappy time at work, a recruiter called me out of the blue and offered me a job. Despite giving up a well-paid permanent position at a time when I struggled to make ends meet as a single parent, I took the position. It became one of the best moves I ever made.” — John, Yorkshire, U.K.

 “I convinced my husband to move us and our four young children to Greece. It wasn’t easy, but what a year or so we had!” —Julia

ADHD Spontaneity: Next Steps

• Free Download: Your Free Guide to All the Best Parts of ADHD
• Read: Who Says One Kind of Thinking Is Better Than Another?
• Read: Decision-Making Advice for Impulsive or Indecisive Adults with ADHD
• Blog: “Riding Motorbikes and Contemplating Death with ADHD”

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Procrastivity happens when you avoid a high-priority task by engaging in a lower-priority, less time-urgent activity. It can be tricky to tell if you’re in this state because the less-critical task you’ve escaped to (perhaps unwittingly) is still beneficial. Regardless, procrastivity is most often self-defeating and often hard to cease. Here, learn how to check in with yourself to ensure that you’re focusing on what’s most important.

1. Is the task on your to-do list?

It’s a straightforward question that will force you to be honest about how you use your time. It also underscores the importance of having a prioritized to-do list and an implementation plan for your tasks.

[Get This Free Download: The Eisenhower Matrix to Learn Prioritization]

Take the task of tidying your workspace. If this is not on today’s to-do list, and yet you’ve found yourself doing just that in lieu of other tasks, then it’s a clear-cut case of procrastination. But what if tidying your desk is on your list? If there is anything else on your list that needs more immediate attention and carries significant consequences if delayed or unfinished — like that major project due tomorrow — then you know that choosing to tidy is a form of procrastivity.

A prioritized list is not enough; you need an implementation plan that specifies not just what tasks you’ll do, but when and where. You can plan, for example, to put the finishing touches on your project at 2 pm. If you’re doing anything else at that time, then you’re procrastinating.

2. Are you rationalizing?

Procrastivity distorts your thoughts and tricks you into believing that you’re being productive. If you have any of the following distorted positive thoughts ¹ while engaging in a task, then you know it’s procrastivity talking:

• “I’ll just do this one thing first.”
• “I do better waiting until the last minute to start an important task.”
• “I can’t stop this task right now, might as well continue with it.”
• “Though this task usually sucks me in, I’ll just do it for a minute.”
• “I have plenty of time — I’ll just do one more thing before I jump to the other important task.”
• “Being impulsive is just part of who I am.”
• “I know I’m supposed to be doing something else, but I want to do this now.”

[Read: The Everyday Rationales That Let Procrastination In]

Practice checking in with your thoughts as you perform tasks. The more you do this, the more likely you’ll catch yourself when you do engage in procrastivity and get back on track.

Busy vs Productive: Next Steps to Combat Procrastivity

• Get This Free Download: Stop Procrastinating and Finish Your To-Do List TODAY
• Read: How to Finish What You Start
• Read: Why ADHD Minds Struggle to Meet Goals with Action

The content for this article was derived from the ADDitude ADHD Experts webinar titled, “Unraveling ADHD Procrastivity: How to Outsmart Procrastination and Improve Productivity” [Video Replay & Podcast #501] with J. Russell Ramsay, Ph.D., which was broadcast on April 18, 2024.

SUPPORT ADDITUDE
Thank you for reading ADDitude. To support our mission of providing ADHD education and support, please consider subscribing. Your readership and support help make our content and outreach possible. Thank you.

Sources

¹ Knouse, L. E., Mitchell, J. T., Kimbrel, N. A., & Anastopoulos, A. D. (2019). Development and evaluation of the ADHD Cognitions Scale for adults. Journal of Attention Disorders, 23(10), 1090–1100. https://doi.org/10.1177/1087054717707580

When solving a particularly sticky problem, it helps if your brain is adept at divergent thinking — that is, generating original ideas by considering diverse and unprecedented possibilities.

Unsurprisingly, neurodivergent brains tend to be aces at divergent thinking. Folks with ADHD tend to think fast, dream big, and innovate solutions that are totally unexpected and brilliant, making them perfect people to turn to when there’s a problem that stumps everyone else.

From software snafus to construction conundrums, tough problems are no match for ADHD brains. Here, ADDitude readers share their problem-solving success stories.

“When I was buying a new mattress, the sales person told me I needed to rotate it top to bottom, once a month. I’m a single mum and having to handle a double mattress on my own didn’t sound fun. I thought for a second and said, ‘Can’t I just rotate my body instead of the mattress?’ The person looked at me for a second and said “Wow, actually yeah. No one has ever suggested that before.” —Emma, Scotland

“I came up with this crazy idea to design costumes for my colleagues and I to wear to a presentation for the higher-ups that really made this project idea hit home. It was fun and effective.” —Jen, Ontario

[Read: 17 Things to Love About Your ADHD!]

“Door handle fell off. Fixed it with a shoelace and two pencils.” —Miriam, Ireland

“An ability to see patterns allowed me to devise a flow chart that simplified an admissions process in a mental health facility. It also allowed me to ‘see’ an element that might be missing during an intake interview. This led to better diagnosis and care.” —Rinda

“I am often coming up with suggestions that are totally logical to me and not to others. Yesterday, I helped a friend and her daughter hang something in the stairwell. I suggested using one ladder as a base to support for the other ladder, which made the job easy.” —Lisa, Washington

[Read: What I Would Never Trade Away]

“I fix all temporary problems in my house with painter’s tape. It makes a great seal, picture hanger, cable organizer, label. The only thing it can’t do is my taxes!” —Yvette, Canada

“As a nurse practitioner working in a student health clinic, I unleashed my creativity and developed an on-line reference for students that was wildly popular! —An ADDitude Reader

“I can make the simplest dish for lunch even when my fridge is almost empty.” —Boon, Malaysia

“ADHD has allowed me to find workarounds within proprietary software at work faster and more frequently than others. Sharing workarounds when something is broken helps stop productivity loss until a permanent fix is made.” —An ADDitude Reader

“I saved a deadline once with my ADHD thinking. Pre-internet, my East Coast publishing company discovered that we forgot to fact check an important detail with a federal government bureau that had closed for the day. While my bosses pondered disaster, I realized that all we had to do was call other branches on Pacific Time that were still open, to get the info. We made our deadline!” —Dee

“At my first real job I was given a task that regularly took people three days to do. I found a different way of doing it that got the same results but took one day.” —Erin, Missouri

“At work, colleagues were attempting to reorganize a room so that a light fixture was not accessible when you stood on the bed. They were discussing moving wardrobes when I came in and said, ‘Why not cut the legs off the bed?’ So, we did, much easier!” —Lisa, Wales

ADHD & Problem Solving: Next Steps

• Free Download: Your Free Guide to All the Best Parts of ADHD
• Read: Who Says One Kind of Thinking Is Better Than Another?
• Quiz: ADHD Myth or ADHD Reality? Check Your Knowledge
• Read: How My ADHD Makes Me a More Dynamic, Resourceful, Passionate Leader”

SUPPORT ADDITUDE
Thank you for reading ADDitude. To support our mission of providing ADHD education and support, please consider subscribing. Your readership and support help make our content and outreach possible. Thank you.

My 9-year-old son has always been a firework, from the very second of his surprise existence. If my pregnancy test could have displayed two zigzags instead of straight lines, it would have.

He has never followed the path well-trodden. Instead, he has swung from the trees shadowing its path, spinning and tumbling over it like a Ferris wheel free from its hinges. His brain is always busy. It darts and daydreams and never tells him to sit, breathe, and just be.

“I was the same as him when I was a kid,” my husband would say. “He’s just a little boy.”

He often spoke of marked similarities between them, and we thought our son had simply inherited a huge slice of his father’s personality. That this was just “them.” So we attributed his behaviors to that – a child who was beautifully energetic. If he wasn’t spinning or cartwheeling, he was singing or asking questions or making funny little noises. The only time he really rested was when he slept, when dreams took over and his compulsion to “fizz,” as he calls it, quelled.

Father and Son: Drawing ADHD Parallels

Analyzing my child’s behavior, helicoptering his nuances and traits, and researching “ADHD in children” until there was nothing left to Google came easy. Turning the lens to my husband, on the other hand, was trickier.

My husband flitted from job to job, struggled to prioritize, became easily frustrated with any task, and was unfocused. But we had gone through a fair chunk of sadness in the last few years — the death of one of our other sons, the loss of parents, our 9-year-old’s meningitis battle when he was a baby. I put my husband’s erratic nature down to stress and trauma.

[Read: “Let Me Tell You How ADHD Runs in My Family”]

All the while, the phone calls from my son’s exasperated teacher mounted, as did the sense that my son’s behaviors in school and at home were indicative of something bigger.

My mother-in-law was a special education teacher for many years. The more I called her to analyze my little boy’s behavior, the more parallels she’d draw between him and my husband. Eventually, the constant joke that they were two peas in a pod became a lightbulb moment for me. I made an appointment with an ADHD specialist – for my son and husband. Sure enough, after a careful evaluation, the specialist diagnosed both of them with ADHD in the same appointment. Their test scores were practically identical, she noted.

Like Father, Like Son

“How do you feel?” the specialist asked my son. She sat next to him on the floor as he clicked LEGOs together and bounced on his knees.

“Exhausted” he said. And my heart sank. Exhausted by trying to concentrate in school and being told off constantly, exhausted by coming home to homework cajoling, exhausted for being reprimanded for his impatience and other behaviors at the outskirts of his control.

[Read: “My ADHD Family Tree — Three Generations of Neurodivergence Revealed”]

I saw my husband’s face crumble a little as he knew that feeling all too well. And I realized that, as a wife and mother, I had failed them. To me, their behaviors were annoying, frustrating, and sometimes inexplicable. I had often said to my son, “Why is it always you? Why are you the one who always gets into trouble?” I sometimes dreamed of an easier marriage to a man who would stick at a job or for a man who would actually listen to me. I had no idea what either of them were going through. It was an incredibly emotional day for everyone.

We walked out of the specialist’s room with a deeper understanding of each other and a feeling that we can all start to be our truer selves.

Our ADHD Family

We’ve only recently entered the neurodivergent universe. We’re perched on a circling satellite looking into a place where words like “disorder,” “impulsivity,” and “disorganization” zoom by. But it’s other zooming words that captivate us — “spontaneity,” “creativity,” “courage.” We are going to run with these as fast as we can.

We’re not alone in entering this universe. We see many other families embarking on this journey, too. Some days we think we have a firm grasp on ADHD – and some days we don’t. And that’s OK, because all we can do is buckle up so the twists and turns don’t jolt the ones we love quite so much.

I would not change my son or husband for anything. We’ll bundle up all of the positives and challenges, stick them into our family jetpack, and navigate the steps, bounces, stumbles, and freefalls of this shared diagnosis together.

ADHD Family Ties: Next Steps

• Get This Free Download: ADHD Empowerment Month Calendar
• Read: 5 Ways to Build Bonds – A Guide for ADHD Dads
• Read: Helping Your Kids Find the “Awesome” in ADHD

SUPPORT ADDITUDE
Thank you for reading ADDitude. To support our mission of providing ADHD education and support, please consider subscribing. Your readership and support help make our content and outreach possible. Thank you.

Register to reserve your spot for this free webinar and webinar replay ►

Not available November 7? Don’t worry. Register now and we’ll send you the replay link to watch at your convenience.

Dating fires up the dopamine that ADHD brains crave. Developing a relationship is new, exciting, and sometimes all-consuming — all of which can create elation and/or a perfect storm for ADHD traits like impulsivity, emotional sensitivity, and hyperfocus to ignite a fire. In this webinar, we’ll explore the complexities of online dating profiles and connections, first meetings, and the early stages of relationships — and introduce the process of mindful, conscious dating.

Join Master Certified Relationship Coach Amie Leadingham as we delve into dating apps, and learn why impulsivity, novelty-seeking, and people-pleasing can draw people with ADHD to prospects who appear to be risk-takers but not ideal partners. You’ll learn the importance of presenting your authentic self, setting healthy boundaries, and recognizing potential red flags. This isn’t just about finding love. It’s about embracing who you are on the road to discovering the healthy relationship you deserve.

In this webinar, you will learn:

• Strategies for creating an effective online dating profile that showcases your authentic self
• How to identify potential red flags and read between the lines in other people’s profiles
• Guidance on navigating common dating scenarios, including love bombing, impulsivity, and ghosting
• Techniques for setting and maintaining healthy boundaries

Have a question for our expert? There will be an opportunity to post questions for the presenter during the live webinar.

Meet the Expert Speaker

Amie Leadingham is a Master Certified Relationship Coach, author, wife, and mother of two amazing pugs. Her mission is to help singles find lasting love by conscious dating. She was named one of LA’s “Best Dating Coaches” and has been featured in a variety of media outlets including the CBS Network, Fox 5 News, LA Times, People Entertainment, Oprah Daily, Cosmopolitan, Newsweek, and more. Her mission is to empower singles to heal past programming, build self-confidence, and find a loving, genuine connection.

Dating with ADHD: More Resources

• Download: Understanding Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria
• Q&A: “What Are the Signs of a Controlling Relationship?”
• Read: The First Rule of Dating with ADHD
• eBook: The ADHD Relationship Guide

Webinar Sponsor

The sponsor of this ADDitude webinar is….

Managing relationships with ADHD can be challenging, and advice like “just communicate better” or “just be more organized” often falls short. That’s why we created Inflow, a tool to help you navigate relationships while living with ADHD. Developed by leading ADHD clinicians, Inflow uses science-backed principles to help you better understand your ADHD, improve communication, and strengthen your connections with others. Take the ADHD self-assessment today to kick off your Inflow journey.

ADDitude thanks our sponsors for supporting our webinars. Sponsorship has no influence on speaker selection or webinar content.

Certificate of Attendance: For information on how to purchase the certificate of attendance option (cost $10), register for the webinar, then look for instructions in the email you’ll receive one hour after it ends. The certificate of attendance link will also be available here, on the webinar replay page, several hours after the live webinar. ADDitude does not offer CEU credits.

Closed captions available.

Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) combines elements of mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to treat conditions marked by emotional dysregulation, including ADHD, mood disorders, and anxiety disorders.

Initially developed by Marsha Linehan, Ph.D., in the 1980s to treat borderline personality disorder (BPD), DBT helps people learn to tolerate internal experiences (i.e., emotions), physical sensations (i.e., agitation and restlessness), and the urge to fidget or interrupt. It has become a go-to treatment for ADHD.

A central tenet of DBT is validation — accepting uncomfortable emotions and situations before trying to change them. By coming to terms with troubling thoughts and emotions, change appears possible, and patients can work with their therapists to create a recovery plan.

In this download, you will learn:

• The four modules that comprise DBT skills training
• Types of coping strategies presented in DBT
• How DBT improves emotional regulation skills
• How DBT improves ADHD symptoms
  The difference between cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and DBT
• And much more!

Art is Hayley Wall’s love language. Since Wall was a young child, she has found her footing as a communicator through drawing. Wall struggled academically as a child due to dyslexia and undiagnosed ADHD and autism, but she says, “What I did have was this gift where I could create images and I could tell stories.”

When Wall graduated from university and considered where to take her art, she was drawn to the topic of disability. “I was exploring the things I felt were important, the things that needed to be spoken about,” Wall explains. “My mom is disabled, so that’s been around me for a long, long time and it’s felt like people with disabilities are always the last to be thought of.”

Wall was asked to illustrate an article on chronic illness for the cover of Sick magazine, and then another on the same topic for It’s Nice That. These illustrations caught the attention of The New York Times, which commissioned Wall to illustrate a package celebrating the anniversary of The Americans with Disabilities Act. Her work became known for her signature bodies — large, gender-fluid forms, typically without faces, that exude strength, joy, and confidence.

As Wall’s art career gained momentum, so too did her personal journey to understand her own neurodivergence. Though Wall struggled with mental health challenges all her life, it wasn’t until she was 34 that she received a diagnosis of ADHD and autism.

Below, Wall shares her creative process, the challenges and joys of being a neurodivergent artist, and her commitment to a future that celebrates different minds and bodies.

[Read: “Happily Neurodivergent — at Last”]

Q: How did your diagnoses come about?

I’ve always wondered, ‘What’s wrong with me?’ and always struggled with my mental health. It was a feeling of being too much — too emotional, too sensitive, I always carried this feeling of, I just don’t fit in.

When I was 30, I sat down with my partner at the time, and was like, ‘I found this article about adults that have been diagnosed with ADHD and I’ve just done multiple quizzes. Can you do the quiz as well, please?’ They did, and they scored really low. I was like, ‘So you don’t do that? And that?’ It made me think, ‘OK, I think something’s going on.’ I approached my general practitioner, and from there, it took four years to get a diagnosis.

When I was 36, a year ago, I got diagnosed with autism and a mental health condition. I’m coming to terms with all these diagnoses and trying to understand how to navigate them. To me, what’s more important is not the label but just working out what I need.

Credit: Hayley Wall, illustrator

[Self-Test: Autism Test for Adults – Signs of ASD]

Q: When did your love of art begin?

I was a kid who bounced off the walls, I had so much energy. I wouldn’t shut up, and I would cry and scream. To calm me down, my parents would give me pens and paper and I would draw. It was the one time I was calm and focused.

Q: How does your ADHD inform your work?

After graduating, it took me 8 to 10 years to establish myself. I’ve done so many random jobs. I’ve worked as a nanny, in factories, in cafes. But running parallel to that was my hyperfocus, which kept me on track to pursue art. My hyperfocus is the reason I’ve been able to turn art into a career.

My work is all about bodies, usually gender ambiguous bodies. They are these big bodies that take up space — maybe because I’ve always felt really small and inferior. The bodies in my work are powerful. I can live through them.

The whole ‘taking up space’ idea is a big f&*k you to society for being like, ‘You have to be like this, or like that.’ It’s, ‘No, we can be whomever we want to be.’

Q: Can you tell us about your creative process?

A commission will come through and it’s like jumping on a roller coaster. There’s a voice that goes, ‘Here we go.’

I center myself and breathe to remove any negative voices and let the process take me.

As I read the commission, the visuals start coming, and my brain is joining dot-to-dots. I have a background in dance, and the dancing lives in my work now. Sometimes I’ll get myself or my friends into different positions and I’ll draw from that. I create loose, playful hand-rendered drawings and textures, and then I bring it onto my computer to work with.

Once I’ve got my concept down, I enter the most playful part of the process. I can enjoy coming to the end of the roller coaster nice and slowly.

Q: What’s the hardest part of your job?

The first bit of the process, mind-mapping concepts, is hard because I’ve got so many ideas, and I need to hone in. It’s the organization of thoughts that’s hard.

What crushes mind-mapping is impostor syndrome, a feeling I’ve carried of being inferior. I wish I was able to remove that saboteur voice that creeps in to say, ‘You’re not good enough,’ so I could just let my brain run free.

Q: What ADHD supports have you found helpful?

Freelance work is definitely hard because you don’t have HR, you don’t have colleagues to turn to. You are your absolute everything, and it’s really tough.
I was doing it for a long time all by myself, and I reached burnout. My mental health crashed.

In the UK, we are very lucky in terms of the benefits we get from the government. The ‘Access to Work’ program offers a sort of grant or reimbursement scheme to cover the cost of a support worker. It has been very helpful to me, and I’ve used that to have somebody support me through the admin tasks.
I never want to go back to a point where I’m trying to manage it all alone.

Q: Any advice for other artists with ADHD?

If you can tune into your voice and communicate your story, that’s when you’re going to create something nobody’s ever seen before.

Q: Where are you now on your journey of understanding your neurodivergence?

With the community I’ve found, I have a feeling of being able to unmask, to be my true self, to be able to be too much, weird, overly emotional, and sensitive.

Recently, I did a commission for a London museum and library called The Wellcome Collection. They asked me to respond to an article written by a person who was diagnosed with autism as an adult, and because this piece was so personal to my experience, I really wanted to place myself in the work. It was a three-part series: before, during and after diagnosis.

For the final image, I Photoshopped my face in quite a warped way onto the figure. I’ve hid behind my work for years, so to put my own face on this figure felt quite important. It was like, ‘I’m unmasking now. I’m showing myself. I’m allowing myself to actually come through. This is me.’

ADHD, Art, and Mental Health: Next Steps

• Read: Stifled Creativity and Its Damaging Impact on the ADHD Brain
• Read: Why ADHD Masking Is a Form of Self-Sabotage
• Read: “I’m Not Hiding My ADHD Anymore”

SUPPORT ADDITUDE
Thank you for reading ADDitude. To support our mission of providing ADHD education and support, please consider subscribing. Your readership and support help make our content and outreach possible. Thank you.

Dear Neurotypicals,

When I reveal that I have ADHD, I often hear about how “brave” I am for being so “open” and “vulnerable.” Granted, I like hearing that because I’m human and I like compliments. Plus, it’s better than fending off stereotypes about ADHD.

To be totally honest, though, I’m not telling you about my ADHD diagnosis to promote diversity, make you feel more comfortable confiding in me, or whatever other altruistic reason you’re thinking. I’m telling you as an act of self-preservation, often after days of deliberation over whether I will hurt or help my case. Disclosing my ADHD is a carefully calculated risk that’s more about substantive outcomes than feel-good moments.

Explaining ADHD to Someone Who Doesn’t Have It

Disclosing my ADHD is really about showing you the inner workings of my mind. My day-to-day life reminds me of my choir teacher’s advice for onstage performance: “Be like a duck: calm on top and paddling like crazy under the surface.” You can’t see my constant struggles to stay on top of employment, housework, and personal affairs; you can’t hear my every thought scream for my total attention as I fail to hold onto a single one; you certainly can’t feel the smaller effects of ADHD pile on top of each other to create a web of executive dysfunction.

[Get This Free Download: Secrets of the ADHD Brain]

No matter how calm I seem on the surface, underneath I am paddling through constant self-assessments and adjustments.

Without the context of a diagnosis, I’m a mess. I can’t get anywhere on time. My apartment is filled with projects that I dove into, lost interest in, and can’t bring myself to put away. Efforts to reach out are too easily put off and forgotten. And heaven help you if I’m having more trouble with my emotional regulation than usual.

So, in more casual settings, my telling you about my ADHD is to let you know that nothing’s personal. I didn’t show up 10 minutes late and yawn when you were talking because I hate you and want to disrespect your time. While you certainly have the right to boundaries and shouldn’t just put up with certain behaviors, you should also know that my shortcomings do not reflect how I view our relationship. And, hopefully, you don’t hate me as much after I’ve confided in you.

When Disclosing ADHD, Context Matters

From a professional perspective, my honesty about ADHD could mean the difference between remaining employed or yet another job hunt. I’m sure that never occurred to my managers as they went on about my courage and whatnot – that I had actual goals beyond reveling in feel-good honesty. Not that I would recommend that everyone with ADHD should disclose their diagnosis to employers. Most sources suggest not doing so, and for good reason.

Conscious and unconscious biases are inevitable, and anything that could make me stand out as a problem could also be my undoing. Though I have been open about my diagnosis and received ADA accommodations, I will always wonder if my managers are now keeping a closer eye on me for any slip-up that would go unnoticed if made by a co-worker.

Disclosing a diagnosis, especially one like ADHD that forces me to confront some of my deepest insecurities, is unpleasant at best. I don’t do it for fun. My decision to open up to you was difficult and ultimately made in hopes of some sort of action. Maybe that’s just a bit of patience, or some help navigating a world that was not designed for me.

I trust you enough to give you a chance to understand me better, and, in turn, learn how we can grow together. Please take that chance.

Explaining ADHD: Next Steps

• Get This Free Download: ADHD Empowerment Month Calendar
• Read: How Adults with ADHD Think — Uncomfortable Truths About the ADHD Nervous System
• Read: “Does Everyone Have ADHD? No. And Why It Hurts When Neurotypicals Claim an ‘ADHD Moment’”
• Read: Your Rights to ADHD Accommodations at Work

SUPPORT ADDITUDE
Thank you for reading ADDitude. To support our mission of providing ADHD education and support, please consider subscribing. Your readership and support help make our content and outreach possible. Thank you.

Rachel Feinstein finds herself in some ridiculous situations courtesy of her ADHD. Because she’s been gifted with a razor-sharp sense of humor, she takes these unlikely, sometimes absurd moments and turns them into comedy gold in her stand-up routine.

Rachel is a nationally touring comedian and actress whose newest hour-long comedy special, Big Guy, is now streaming on Netflix, where it premiered in the Top 10. In it, she talks about everything from her aggressively liberal mother and Facebook-blundering dad to the odd-couple relationship she has with her fire chief husband, who affectionately calls her “Big Guy.” In vivid detail, Feinstein illustrates how perplexing and frustrating her annoyingly neat husband finds her chronic messes.

“One morning, I walk into the kitchen and my husband is just pacing,” she recounts. “He goes, ‘One question. I got one question for you: Why are there three open seltzers? I’d love to hear the story behind that.” And I’m like, ‘It’s not gonna be a good tale. It’s not like I’m gonna tell you ‘Well, there was blow and hookers and then three open La Croixs!’”

Feinstein’s been praised for her “amazing impersonations” (Vulture), “acute observations,” and ability to be “subtly, exquisitely attuned to her audience” (AV Club). She’s had three Comedy Central specials, co-hosted The View, and been a guest on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, among other late night shows, not to mention her slew of TV and film appearances. And she’s the mother of a three-year-old, who provides plenty of comedy material. “My daddy’s a hero,” her daughter likes to say. “And my mommy’s sarcastic.”

Below, Feinstein opens up about the good, the bad, and the funny of her ADHD journey.

[Read: In Praise of the ADHD Funny Bone]

Q: What does your ADHD look like?

I am insanely disorganized. I am always running late. I shed debit cards. I’m always leaving a shoe in somebody’s car. I lose a passport almost every year.

My husband, who is OCD, always says to me: ‘Why don’t you just put things back in the same place?’ And I’m like, ‘You’re assuming I know where I put them. My hands take trips throughout the day. It’s like my hands are not connected to my body.’

I’m a workaholic — but only if someone’s sitting with me. I always have to have a babysitter for myself. I pay people to sit with me.

[Read: Get More Done With a Body Double]

So, for example, an editor expressed interest in working with me on my Netflix special, but I knew I was never going to go through it and email him time codes. So I said to the editor: ‘I’m going to come to your house and sit with you and edit every line with you.’ I don’t think he thought I was going to really do that. Then I was over at his place — just me and him and his wife in his little apartment. I’d leave and bathe and give him time to implement notes, but we were together for two weeks and we got it done. I think we were common law wed by the end of that process.

Q: What was school like for you?

When I even smell a school now, it brings me back to all these weird bad feelings about myself. Ever since I can remember, I was always doing so terribly in school. I was failing, getting Ds and Fs in my public school. They couldn’t stuff information into my brain. I had no idea what was going on in any of the classes. I remember getting 23% on a quiz and thinking, ‘Wow! I can’t believe I know 23% of this!’

I felt like a quaking, throbbing mess in school. It created my core self-esteem issues. When I was 11, I was diagnosed with ADHD, inattentive type.

Then, junior year in high school my parents took me out of the local public school and got me into a tiny Quaker school. There were 60 kids in the whole school, 8 kids in each class. I was able to learn there. I wasn’t distracted and confused. I had a 3.8 GPA for a beat.

Q: When did your love of comedy begin?

From very early on, I loved accents and imitating people and affectations. My parents got me into acting classes and I’d put on living room plays and impersonate everyone in my family.

I always thought I had to entertain people. I remember trying to make everybody laugh in school — and being good at that. That was one thing I could do.

Q: How does ADHD inform your comedy?

I think about things in a funny way. I wasn’t able to think about things in a straight way, so that was the only option left available to me. I need things to hook on to that are funny; that’s what helps me pay attention. So, if someone uses a weird word choice, I’m going to notice what’s funny about it, otherwise I won’t retain anything.

My mom said I was always friends with people who had very distinct personalities and accents — it woke me up, jolted me. That’s true to this day; I’m married to a Brooklyn firefighter pronounced “fiya fida.”

Q: What’s your favorite part of your job?

When I’m on stage, I get a very immediate reaction: it either works or it doesn’t. I am addicted to it, the way my husband’s addicted to the adrenaline rush of being a firefighter. This also helps me as an editing process: I know what works and what doesn’t, and I shed, shed, shed as I go.

The other great thing about stand-up for somebody with ADHD is once you’re booked, you have to do it — you have to be on stage. It’s not something you have to turn in; if it was, I’d never turn it in.

Q: Your least favorite part of your job?

The constant rejection, which mimics all those bad feelings I had about myself in school. There’s always a new insult, even when you think you’ve gotten past that and you’re accepted.

I have to retrain my mind every day to not focus on the person that isn’t into me, that doesn’t like what I’m doing. When the rejection starts to take its toll, I go to the Comedy Cellar and have an immediate connection with the audience.

Q: Where have you found inspiration or encouragement along the way?

I had a therapist who told me that I could juggle a lot of things and that I could grow up and do something where I could be thinking of a million things at once. I remember thinking, ‘This is a man with a desk, who went to graduate school, and he believes this?’ I thought. ‘If Dr. Castellano thinks I won’t be in a Gray Gardens situation for the rest of my life, maybe I won’t be.’

Later, when I was 17, I moved to New York with this random guy and his band, which was named ‘Dick’s Sister.’ I was very obsessed with guys at the time, thinking more about them than what I was going to do with the rest of my life. I had a vague idea of being something funny.

I really didn’t know how to keep a job and I kept getting fired from everything — waitressing, bartending. Then I started nannying for this five-year-old boy with autism. That was the one job I could keep. I really related to his struggles.

I remember I’d tell him, ‘Go put that in the trash can and come right back,’ and he’d get caught between where we were sitting and the trash can. I’d see him get almost there and then get lost. I really related to the feeling of making it halfway to what you were supposed to do. I still do that — I do most of the work and it falls apart at the end.

I worked really hard at the nannying job because I just had this feeling that he had really complicated thoughts, that he was really smart. I didn’t know if I was projecting onto him, but there really was something very special and creative and gifted about him. He ended up going to Harvard. We’re still in touch. He came to my wedding!

It was the first successful experience I had of following something through, until I did stand-up full time. He taught me a lot more than I taught him.

Q: What’s your advice to other people with ADHD?

For anyone who struggles with those old bad feelings from school, my message would be what a lovely therapist said to me: Believe in the way your mind works. Do what you need to do to support yourself.

What might be considered indulgent or lazy might be your own weird route to success. When I was getting started, I did stuff like take cabs everywhere because I was always late. That’s the way I had to do it. I knew I would never be the person who was going to take two buses and be there on time. I spent money to make money. I bet on myself.

ADHD and Comedy: Next Steps

• Read: Laughter Is the Best Medicine
• Watch: “ADHD is Awesome – The Holderness Family Guide to Thriving with ADHD”
• Read: Laugh It Up
  
• Read: Stifled Creativity and Its Negative Impact on the ADHD Brain

SUPPORT ADDITUDE
Thank you for reading ADDitude. To support our mission of providing ADHD education and support, please consider subscribing. Your readership and support help make our content and outreach possible. Thank you.

But what we often fail to consider is how these fires are sparked.

Before the consequence of unmanaged ADHD blows up in our faces, there is a long progression of unnoticed action that gradually stokes such a blaze. Unchecked ADHD, then, is more of a slow, silent, invisible flame that heats and bubbles under the surface. Everything may appear smooth on the surface, but the hushed activity below tells a different story.

This quiet simmer is a vast collection of kindling – of distractions, impulsive actions, lack of initiation, and other issues that eventually spark and rage into an inferno — a missed deadline, a failed relationship, a lost job, a failed class. To the person with ADHD, simmers are so easy to ignore or miss altogether. Fires are undeniable.

When the fire erupts, everybody runs wild in a panic, which increases our chances of acting upon the situation. The crisis revs up the brain chemistry that provokes fear, which makes us move and do. We run around in circles trying to extinguish the awful thing, engaging serious damage control. This usually includes saying we’re desperately sorry, groaning to ourselves that yet again we’ve screwed up. Sometimes we hide under a rock.

This is one reason why ADHD is so hard for the larger community to accept. “How can you act like this sometimes but not all the time?” If we were blind, we wouldn’t see some of the time. The consensus among all affected by our fires — parents, teachers, spouses, friends, bosses — is that to prevent the next one, we must remain in freak-out mode because that’s the only thing that will keep us in check.

[Read: To Infinity and Beyond, Powered by Self-Awareness]

The problem, of course, was never the raging fire. That was only the most obvious consequence of the slow-burn of hundreds of small decisions prior to it, when we decided to do the wrong thing at the wrong time, one on top of the other. That is at the heart of what it means to suffer and struggle with ADHD.

Living with ADHD: The Importance of Self-Awareness

The work of preventing these self-defeating fires is more subtle and consistent than a handful of panic episodes, and more fine-tuned to the specific issue with which we struggle. The solution rests on one thing and one thing only: Self-awareness. You can’t change what you don’t see.

It’s hard to learn how to become aware of those subtle, quiet seconds of mis-decision, especially when there’s panic in the room. Awareness is a quieter practice. It prefers to act on a stage of self-compassion, self-honesty, and wanting to change. It involves figuring out how we’re going to help ourselves to notice in the first place. But how do we build awareness when the landscape seems so unknowable, so unmapped?

When people run from fires, nobody slows down to map the area. Self-awareness happens when we have extra bandwidth to catch ourselves deciding to do the wrong thing at the wrong time. These are those classic moments when we decide “just for now” not to study, or when we “just have to” blurt out a secret, or when we decide we’ll put away our coat or the dinner plate “later.”

[Read: 10 Things I Wish the World Knew About ADHD]

It’s true that negative reinforcers are so enticing, and we’ve used them since we were kids. But wouldn’t it be amazing if we could notice when we do the wrong thing at the wrong time without the fire department having to clang its bell next to our ears? That fire department – us or others – works great for fires, but not for lasting, inspired, intentional human change.

How to Build ADHD Self-Awareness

So, how do we build awareness around the decisions we make, especially when they seem to happen reflexively in the background? Bring to the fore in detail an understanding of what happens at the precise moment when we make these decisions. What is the setting? What are we doing? What else is going on? What do we choose to do instead? When will this most likely happen again?

These are the kinds of things we talk about in ADHD coaching, but none of us live in a coaching call forever. These are the tricks and skills we can learn and develop. Learning to become aware might involve visualizing, talking it over with someone or with ourselves, and then asking curious questions about how to put into place support systems to help us pivot and make optimal decisions. The support options are plentiful. It all rests first on building awareness around how ADHD shows up in us.

Then it’s practicing and tweaking so there are fewer, less intense fires — or maybe no flames at all.

How to Be More Self-Aware with ADHD: Next Steps

• Get This Free Download: The ADHD Healthy Habits Handbook
• Read: Self-Sabotage and ADHD — Are You Your Own Worst Enemy?
• Read: Has ADHD Warped Your Sense of Self? It’s Time to Reclaim Your Story — and Power

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Rebecca Makkai is a New York Times bestselling author whose books have been translated into more than 20 languages. She is a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award finalist. She teaches graduate fiction writing at Northwestern University, among other places, and is artistic director of StoryStudio Chicago. A review of her accomplishments would leave you wondering: What can this woman not do?

The answer? Laundry.

Putting away clean laundry, according to Makkai, is an “insurmountable task.” So is making doctors’ appointments, keeping track of her keys, tolerating conversational lags, and opening a package neatly with scissors. These are the parts of ADHD that Makkai, who was diagnosed just three years ago, finds frustrating. But for Makkai, these annoyances are just a small part of the big neurodivergent picture.

Makkai says ADHD affords her the hyperfocus, bold instinct, and associative thinking that’s allowed her to craft novels like I Have Some Questions for You and The Great Believers, lauded as “spellbinding, “enthralling” and “emotionally riveting” by media outlets including The New York Times Book Review.

“My mind goes in 17 different directions at once, and I’m constantly reaching for new ideas. Everything in the world contains a million things behind it and they’re all fascinating,” Makkai explains. “I’m sure that there are certainly plenty of artists who are linear thinkers but, to me, that feels like a disability. You’re trying to make art and you can only think of one thing after another in a straight line?”

[Download: Your Free Guide to All the Best Parts of ADHD]

Below, Makkai talks about her recent ADHD diagnosis, the gift afforded to her by an unusual education, and how she harnesses the powers of her neurodivergence to create unforgettable stories.

Q: When were you diagnosed?

I was diagnosed two or three years ago, mostly because I have a daughter who is not neurotypical and I was doing these online quizzes for her.

The diagnosis was almost entirely a relief and a revelation. Now, when I lose my keys or mis-manage my time, I know I have reasons other than ‘I’m lazy, I’m spacey, I don’t care.’ It offered me the ability, in certain situations, to stop masking and to help my daughter, who got diagnosed after I did.

[Read: Not Ditzy. Not Lazy. And Definitely Not Dumb.]

It’s been amazing to look back and acknowledge how much of my life I’ve faked, how often it’s like I’m listening to a radio with very poor reception, catching three words and pretending I know what’s going on.

Q: What does your ADHD look like?

I live in a world in which objects move behind my back. I put down my keys and they’re gone. Streets rearrange themselves.

My physical hyperactivity is subtle. If I stand near the food at a party, I will not stop eating — not because I have food issues, but because eating is something to do with my hands. I can only slow down my rapid speech with effort, and I panic at conversational lags. It takes everything I have not to interrupt people constantly.

I have a highly associative brain and a tendency to start several sentences at once. I’ve learned to explain this to my writing students on the first day of class. I’ve learned to start a lot of sentences with “Sidebar” and hold up one finger so students understand that I’m not permanently derailing the conversation.

Q: What was school like for you?

Traditional school can be an ADHD torture chamber. I went to Montessori School until 8th grade, and it was perfect for this kind of mind. It was like, ‘OK, you’re not in the mood for math? You’ll have to do it eventually, but right now, you can go do a report on hedgehogs and knock yourself out doing that for three days. When it’s time for math, you can write your own word problems, or you can do it with a friend, or you can do it in the hall.’

There are so many plusses to this, the biggest one of which is that I learned how my brain works and how I get work done. I’ve been able to carry that with me.

I’m not someone who writes every day. Why would you write every day? If I sit down to work and I’m not in a place to write, then I research. I can do other stuff all week and then I can write for 16 hours if I’m in the mood, so I’m not going to beat myself up for not writing 1,000 words every day.

Before I published my first book, I taught Montessori for 12 years, and that was great for me. There are 30 things going on all the time and you have to pay attention to all of them. I’d be helping a kid with long division, keeping an eye on a discipline issue, answering a question for another kid. Give me that all day long.

Q: How does your ADHD inform your writing?

I’m happiest when I’m doing five things at once. If I could somehow ride a bike and do a Sudoku puzzle and watch a movie and drink a smoothie at the same time, I’d be in heaven. The great news is that the mental juggling you have to do in order to hold a 300-page novel in your mind — ADHDers were built for that.

I teach a lot of really talented writers and I’ve noticed that one of the things that really holds a lot of people back is a dearth of ideas. They start something and they have a couple of elements going on, but they don’t have the urge to add more things that might enrich this. They are marching along this straight and predictable path, which can make for boring writing.

I think a lot of people don’t have good boredom detectors. People who have an above-average sense of patience are going to overestimate the patience of most readers. I am so easily bored that, if I can manage not to bore myself, I probably won’t bore anyone else.

I don’t have infinite patience with a text that’s beautiful but there’s no real craftsmanship to the plot. It’s an art to be able to keep hooking people.

Q: Do you have any ADHD hacks for getting work done?

Deadlines are fantastic for me; they kick me into high gear. Often, I really can’t bring myself to do it until the day before and then I suddenly put my cape on and fly at it and it’s great.

For example, I have a writing group and I know that, if I’ve told them I’m going to get them pages by our meeting on October 1, I have to get those pages to them by then. That helps a lot.

I’ve learned to lean into the sprint in little ways, too. I’ll fail to plug in my computer, realize it’s running low on power, and then try to see how much I can write before it dies. One of the reasons I write well on an airplane is I know I only have so long before they say you have to put away your laptop.

Then, too, so much of the business of writing is not writing. It’s blurbing and interviewing and answering emails. An assistant helps a lot with those things.

Q: What’s your advice to other people with ADHD?

I am so fortunate that I was able to figure out how my mind works at an early age. I’m trying to do that with my daughter now. I tell her, ‘You don’t have to do the same thing everyone else is doing, but you do have to get this done. Let’s analyze: What is your plan? Where do you need to be to get work done? What’s a distraction? What’s a useful distraction? What’s a good break?’

Yes, we need to acknowledge the challenges. And, yes, I frustrate myself, but I love the way my brain works. I’m love my career and how my career is going — and it’s largely due to the brain I have.

The Upsides of ADHD: Next Steps

• Read: Stifled Creativity and Its Damaging Impact on the ADHD Brain
• Buy: I Have Some Questions for You and The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
• Read: 10 Things I Wish the World Knew About ADHD
• Watch: “ADHD is Awesome – The Holderness Family Guide to Thriving with ADHD”

SUPPORT ADDITUDE
Thank you for reading ADDitude. To support our mission of providing ADHD education and support, please consider subscribing. Your readership and support help make our content and outreach possible. Thank you.