How Do You Explain A.D.D. To Non-A.D.D.ers?
Here are two ways to explain it.
From Dr. Hallowell:
Many metaphors come to mind to describe it. It’s like driving in the rain with bad windshield wipers. Everything is smudged and blurred and you’re speeding along, and it’s reeeeally frustrating not being able to see very well. Or, it’s like listening to a radio station with a lot of static and you have to strain to hear what’s going on. Or, it’s like trying to build a house of cards in a dust storm. You have to build a structure to protect yourself from the wind before you can even start on the cards.
In other ways it’s like being super-charged all the time. You get one idea and you have to act on it, and then, what do you know, but you’ve got another idea before you’ve finished up with the first one, and so you go for that one, but of course a third idea intercepts the second, and you just have to follow that one, and pretty soon people are calling you disorganized and impulsive and all sorts of impolite words that miss the point completely. Because you’re trying really hard. It’s just that you have all these invisible vectors pulling you this way and that which makes it really hard to stay on task.
Plus which, you’re spilling over all the time. You’re drumming your fingers, tapping your feet, humming a song, whistling, looking here, looking there, scratching, stretching, doodling, and people think you’re not paying attention or that you’re not interested, but all you’re doing is spilling over so that you can pay attention. I can pay a lot better attention when I’m taking a walk or listening to music or even when I’m in a crowded, noisy room than when I’m still and surrounded by silence. God save me from the reading rooms.
Source: What’s It Like To Have A.D.D.
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It’s like having Robin Williams in your head.
But the Robin Williams in your head can be a trickster. He can play games with you you’re not aware of, reversing letters on a page, turning bed to deb, or dog to god. He may reverse the orders of words. It’s fun for the Robin Williams in your head. But the rest of the world calls this dyslexia. Many people with passive ADD have dyslexia or dysplaxia, a similar problem with math.
Other people try to face down the Robin Williams in their heads. They argue with him. They try to become like him. Their heads become very busy places, and they may not have much time for what’s outside them. If you’re a boy and you have Robin Williams in your head, you will likely be diagnosed as having ADHD. You don’t know there’s anything wrong. You see the whole world from the inside out. You may have great trouble interacting with other people, or suffering other, slower people, like teachers.
Source: The Robin Williams In My Head
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(On Oct 22nd, 2007 at 7:45 am)
I always explain as like static on a spit screen TV. When I take my meds I can have it on one clear channel at a time and change stations when I want to.
Jeff
ADD/Dyslexic CEO
(No Relation to Jeff the blogger)
(On Oct 22nd, 2007 at 7:53 am)
The problem may be that the screen is split multiple times.
My favorite metaphor is that A.D.D. is like having a radio that tunes all stations simultaneously. They come in at equal signal strength and, therefore, at the same volume. Each station tries to command your attention. The daily struggle of the A.D.D.er is to concentrate on one station at a time.
(On Oct 22nd, 2007 at 12:41 pm)
Often times, the curse is that if you hear what is being said, you process it…you just don’t know it yet!
It’s like a computer that has a bunch of data and it never gets defragmented…there is all of this information, it just might take a little longer to process or call up that information!