ADHD - The Hidden Superpower
Why ADHD, when controlled properly, can enrich your life and become a tool & not a burden
This blog post was inspired by a video from a creator/developer I follow on Twitter and YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@ThePrimeagen. This is a little shorter than my normal posts but this one was lingering for many months and I just wanted to get it out so I can work on my next one.
What is ADHD?
Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder is a term used to describe the behavior of individuals who have trouble focusing and paying attention. Symptoms typically manifest as a jittery level of distraction that prevents learning and absorption of information in many environments, particularly ones the subject is forced to engage in. The diagnosis is usually made at younger ages as these are the times when we go to school and have a lot of energy but are typically being forced to learn specific things that require focus and patience/consistency. ADHD sticks out like a sore thumb in the classroom and on the gradebooks typically.
My Experience with ADHD
School, School, School. That was the bane of my existence growing up and anyone close to me can confirm this. I was the sort of person who would scrape by. I would barely do my homework (sometimes 2 minutes before class), talk and distract others, and never study for tests and exams. Basically, if I did not grasp the material just by listening to the teacher talk, I would never grasp it because I put in close to zero effort trying to. Contrast that to some of my friends who were at the top of our class in high school and you have a clear problem; an intelligent young man who can keep up with his peers in unstructured and unenforced environments but the moment you throw them into a structure they don’t choose, all of it falls apart. My friends clearly put in more effort and time towards their education and it paid off. They are all highly successful and have a good grasp on life as we are approaching our 30’s. This doesn’t mean that I am a mess these days (I have a solid career, decent fiscal status, and would consider myself successful) but it does mean I have regrets. Regrets about not listening to those around me (“You just need to apply yourself Kyle” - “Set some reminders Kyle” - “It would be easier to just get it over with than skirt around it Kyle”). I distincly recall having to vacuum floors when I was younger, and chooseing to take a plastic train that had wheels about the same width as our vacuum and locomote the train around the room so it looked like I vacuumed. I was so livid about having to vacuum NOW that I basically just did a harder version of vacuuming, without the vacuuming. This is idiot behavior but my aversion to being forced to do chores instead of what I wanted was so great that I made a mountain out of a molehill!
I have regrets about not pushing myself to be mentally and emotionally uncomfortable. Regrets about not seeing the bigger path before me and understanding that every move I do or don’t make today helps define that path. All of this is to say I rejected the idea that there was something “wrong” with me while at the same time refusing to acknowledge that I was the provider of my own pain. I was a victim blamer, choosing to refute the system and opining the system was the problem and not myself. To be fair, the “system” is certainly broken and I do believe we can do a much better job of encouraging hard work, curiosity, and learning even in non-classical students. At the end of the day however, I simply could have been wiser and I regret that. Looking back, I regret the frustration I undoubtedly caused in my friends, family, teachers, and mentors. Time and time again I was given resources and support to handle my difficulties and succeed where some might say I had a disavantage. I can’t imagine being a parent knowing that the only thing your damn kid needs to do is write things down and have more consistent habits only to have them scream in revolt and claim “its everything else that’s the problem, not me”. Although I know I wouldn’t be where I am today without that adversity, I regret that my kicking and screaming took a toll on others. Hindsight 20/20!
The Uncomfortable Truth
The reason I linked ‘The Primeagen” above is because he also has ADHD and by the looks of his videos he has it way more than me. We are similar in that Michael (his real name I believe) went through the first period of his life up until College monkeying around just like I did. He refused to acknowledge both his potential and the steps needed to reach that potential which eventually got him into some trouble with drugs and alcohol. It was a long and lengthy process of ups and downs but eventually Michael reached a point where he was thriving. His GPA went from a 2.1 in High School to nearly double that in college. I admire Michael because he experienced enough pain from his decisions that he decided to change his behavior essentially overnight. He also did this with less support structure in his life than I had. I can’t tell you how many nights I decide “tomorrow is the day I do X” only to inevitably betray myself the following day so being able to look at every facet of your life and change overnight takes some serious willpower and awareness. This is, I have come to realize, the Uncomfortable Truth. There is no secret for those with ADHD. No amount of note taking, scheduling, or budgeting can prevent the subconscious ADHD monkey from messing things up. There is no pill you can take that will remove ADHD and not have other side effects. What you are left with is either choosing to live your life with ADHD in the drivers seat or choosing through sheer willpower to take the wheel and navigate yourself. Fortunately, there are ways to not only fight ADHD tendencies but also to use those tendencies to fuel yourself in certain situations. The trick is finding out how you specifically need to tap into those tendencies and when to ignore them.
The ADHD Power Up
I find that the prototypical “successful” student is extremely good at following an instruction set in almost any endeavor. As long as the steps are laid out and are repeatable, the job can be considered done. The task of checking each step and following directions to achieve “X” is itself the engaging activity for these types of learners. You can see how this would work well for more disciplinary or cookie cutter settings. ADHD affected people have the opposite reaction to these tasks. Typically, its not enough for me to set a goal, see the task list, and just start working. I go on tangents. Starts and stops that lead me down different rabbit holes and in many cases result in half-baked projects or goals that never come to fruition. Unfortunately there is no denying that life has goals and projects that simply require a more studious and defined approach. This is the Uncomfortable Truth part rearing its head again. The only way I have found to tackle these scenarios efficiently is to have a few tools in the bag to help me focus (defined over many years, and everyone has their own. This is a discovery and testing process, no silver bullet unfortunately). Oddly for me, these tools include:
Listening to instrumental music or audio/white noise (the louder the better, lyrics disctract me). Oddly, I find that as the cognitive load of the task increases for me (coding or math), I move to noiser and noiser audio - I.E. moving from classical when I am writing to math/metal rock and harmonics when coding.
Setting pomodoro timers for work and break time (20min work, 10 min break)
For particularly difficult projects or habits I allow myself a daily ritual of practicing or working on it, wherein I can quit the activity after 10 minutes. I find this creates consistency without the pressure of “I have to do this for an hour”.
Applying philosophical reasoning to why I’m doing what I’m doing. What’s the point of this checklist? What do all of these individual components do, and what is there history? Why do I need to do “X+Y” instead of just “X”? This deep dive both allows me to prepare myself for the work as well as build a solid foundation of each components of the work. I work slow, but deeply.
Embracing procrastination. Yeah I said it. I intentionally leave unimportant yet tedious tasks for when I have no choice but to do them. This is a fine line, but the work I can accomplish and the voracity with which I accomplish it seems to fall in line with how close the deadline is…..
Fortunately, not everything in life is a checklist of tasks. In fact, I would argue that most important things in life are unpredictable and intangible. They can’t be defined on a roadmap and require constant correction and growth to adapt to. Relationships, hobbies, personal health - the why’s of this thing we call life. This is where ADHD can truly shine. By applying the tools in your bag that work for you, along with embracing tangents and interests I believe you can become an extremely well-rounded person who has a better understanding of the why’s. My next blog post will be a perfect example of this as it dives into the philosophy of life in relation to economic systems, the universe, consciousness - crazy stuff. But I love it. This inherent interest and love of wanting to understand the world around me (not the world defined on a sheet of paper with checkboxes) allows me to tap into the same energy I have when I leave something to the last minute, except this energy lasts the entire time I research or learn. It’s akin to feeling forced to operate my brain on rusty train rails that slow and break vs a superconductor train that cruises with disregard for physics. I’ve spent an ungodly amount of hours studying topics I find interesting in my free time and all of that time seems to fly by. These topics are also not limited to something surface-level like watching anime or knitting but rather very complex and in-depth topics that are multi-disciplinary. In my case I have vast interests in computing, philosophy, physics, history, etc… Not typically easy class material to engage with. Hell my most recent obession is chess which is certainly not a game you can improve at just by playing - it actually requires studying and I actually study for it. On my own. A lot. If you told me that would the case 5 years ago I would laugh my way out of the room.
Knowing that I can tap into ADHD energy was a very important realization for me as it showed that my limits were not intelligence, or how big my brain was, or that my ADHD made me “slow”. On the contrary, I believe it makes me too fast in some ways (undoubtedly slow in others - sorry to my brother for all the times he tried to teach me Trigonometry!!!). Studies have shown that folks with ADHD receive benefits in a number of categories that I believe apply more broadly to the success of your life. Time and time again in my life I apply knowledge of my specific interests to “The Big Picture” of life. Ignoring the small trivialities of the world and focusing on the why. In a roundabout way, I am letting my ADHD tangents provide a wealth of general knowledge which when combined together end up building a goal, a checklist, or a dream which if given to me without those tangents just looks like something I should do - no different than a checklist.
At the end of the day, I worry that society will continue to ostracize attentive-deficit people under the guise that its some bad abnormality that requires medication to fix. Not a single medication I took made me feel better than when I was off them. Between mood changes, lack of personality, agression, etc….. the side effects of medication were not worth the benefits for me. My intuition and personal experience has led me to believe that at the end of the day, tapping into the abilities ADHD provides is more beneficial that trying to suppress its negatives. There is a clarity to understanding the world around me that I don’t think I would have had I been too hyper-focused on simply trying to fit in. My next blog post is going to be prettty out there and will illustrate perfectly this weird way of thinking I embrace - get ready for that one!
Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
-Albert Einstein