Part of #ExplainAdultADHD. A campaign to reduce the ignorance, misinformation, and stigma against adults with ADHD.
No. We Are Not All “A Little ADHD.”
“I have ADHD, I have accepted it so if you’re in my life as a friend, family member or acquaintance you should accept it and not belittle it.
I hear far too often “oh we are all a little ADHD at times” and I want to scream NO that’s wrong, ignorant and hurtful!
People that say this range from family to teachers and they have no idea what it’s like to live in sheer chaos every waking moment.
It’s not just being late, being forgetful, being spaced out, not concentrating or not being smart, it’s trying to do daily simple tasks while having 20 thoughts a minute and trying to focus on one to get it done through the noise and then move on to the next one and fight that same battle over and over again until bedtime.
What do I want most people to know is that it’s an internal battle and those of us who truly have ADHD are trying our best to be capable functioning adults and not let our ADHD show, it’s exhausting.
Try going to the movies and it doesn’t grab your attention, it’s boring or rubs you the wrong way but you’re stuck at the movie theatre until it’s over.
So you get up multiple times just to pace in the movie theatre hall, or you sit there but start bouncing your leg and thinking about the groceries you need to pick up, which shelf each item is on and the other items around it cause it’s too hard to continue watching the movie in front of you.
Then try being so hyper-focused on something you’re enjoying that you can’t break the concentration.
You have to go to the bathroom and you keep telling yourself to just get up and go but your body wants to stay doing the enjoyable task so you stuck there, so you have to start moving your legs or your arms just to break the concentration so that your body will listen and you can go to the bathroom.
When someone says to me “we are all a little ADHD” I usually keep that person who said it at arm’s length, their ignorance is not something I forget and while I realize they cannot truly understand, generalizing it is what is causing this type of stigma around ADHD.
I love having ADHD, for the main reason that I can see the whole picture before the people around me can, I can think outside the box and I am never short on creative things to do, try or ideas.”
By Debi Chambers.
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No matter how important something is, you still may forget about it.. or lose the note you wrote about it or not know how to approach talking about it or you may not remember what you thought about to say about it, but were unable to write it down when you thought about it.. or it was something so simple you thought you would remember it so there was ‘no need’ to write a note, and of course you did forget!!