First of all, philosophium, thanks for asking!
Iâm glad ADHD community replied, because theyâre a good source of facts about ADHD presented from an ADHD perspective. So, you learn some of what youâd get in a psych textbook, but also what it feels like from the inside.
If youâre really starting from zero, this Buzzfeed article is a nice place to start.Â
Hereâs some miscellaneous information about ADHD that will hopefully help you write more accurate, and less stereotypical, characters.
1) Weâre Not All Extraverted, Hyper, Happy Go Lucky Males. We can be male or female, child or adult. Iâd love to see an introverted, non-hyperactive ADHD character, ideally a male one. Or an ADHD character who obsessively overthinks, and is prone to anxiety and perfectionism.
2) Look at Both Extremes. In real life, some people with ADHD can only multitask while others can only hyperfocus. Some people with ADHD can focus on the details while ignoring the big picture, others see the big picture brilliantly but miss all the details, while others can bounce back and forth but canât see both at the same time. Some of us are laid back and prefer to go with the flow, while others react to their disabilities by becoming extremely perfectionistic and trying to plan everything ahead of time (me). Some of us have IQ in the gifted range (see âneed for stimulationâ), while others have low IQ or severe developmental delays (children who are born prematurely, have lead poisoning, or who have fetal alcohol syndrome often have ADHD). Almost all the people I know with ADHD are artists, scientists, or both.
3) ADHD Is a Disability of Executive Function. Executive function is a confusing mess of tasks performed by the frontal lobe that allow us to control our behavior and respond flexibly and optimally to a changing environment. Some executive functions include working memory, inhibition (i.e., stopping oneself from doing or thinking something), task switching, sustained attention, planning, decision making, prioritizing, prospective memory.
4) We Can Pay Attention, We Just Canât Regulate It. We can focus for hours on something that interests us, or on procrastinating. Weâre not good at focusing on things that we find boring or that donât matter to us. We also arenât good at controlling the amount of attention we pay. This is how our attention works:
5) ADHD is a Production Problem, Not a Learning Problem. A lot of us excel at getting information into our brains, especially when it interests us. The difficulty is producing something that shows what weâve learned by a deadlineâbe it a paper, a presentation, or a project. For some of us, the hardest part of any assignment is finishing it and turning it in on time in the correct format. If we can do these things, weâll probably get an A; if we canât, weâll probably fail. As a result, the idea of âgradating your effortâ doesnât apply well to us (telling us to âstop being so perfectionistic and do the minimumâ makes no sense to us), and our achievement can be all-or-nothing.
6) We Donât All Get Bad Grades, Or Misbehave in School. Those of us who are smart, learn easily, and are interested in school can get good grades until the demands for organized, well-formatted, and on-time work overwhelm our abilities to produce (see #5). Those with inattentive ADHD, when bored, tend to daydream, look out the window, or draw rather than misbehave. Teachers might not notice these students at allâor might even see them as well-behaved and a joy to teach.
7) Need for Stimulation. As ADHD community said, an ADHD character who is wildly intelligent, and when bored, feels as if theyâre in a sensory deprivation tank. Boredom is Chinese water torture. Each second is a drop of water. How we react to this varies. Some are constantly bored and highly aware of their search for stimulation. Others, like me, think theyâre never bored because theyâve become very good at keeping themselves occupied. I always carried a book to read and a sketchbook to draw in with me, and I would read even while crossing the street. Only when I needed to learn to cook did I realize I can get bored within literally 10 seconds.
8) Sometimes, whatâs âhardâ or âcomplexâ is easy for us, and whatâs âeasyâ or âsimpleâ for others is hard for us. Especially if weâre also gifted. See: http://neurodiversitysci.tumblr.com/post/12568168808/the-complex-is-simple-the-simple-complexif
9) Memory Problems. Iâd like to see an ADHD character who has a terrible memory, and struggles with the psychological/identity consequences of that and not just the academic ones. Theyâre constantly writing things down, and constantly worrying about how to organize the record of their life, or about what would happen if it were destroyed in a fire/flood/other accident. The most impaired form of memory, though, is prospective memory, the ability to remember what you are going to do. Memory problems are some of my worst ADHD traits, yet I rarely see them discussed.Â
10) Paradoxes of Reminders and Clutters. Because of our memory problems, you might think the answer is simple: just put post-it notes everywhere. And indeed, even other ADHD-ers often advise us to use colorful post-it notes and put them everywhere. However, visual clutter shuts our brains off, so we stop looking at these post it notes and remindersâor even look right at them and donât register their existence. Another version: if items arenât visible, I forget that they exist. (For example, I forget about food in the back of the refrigerator until it goes bad; I forget about clothes in the corner of the closet). But if too many things are visible, I stop being able to see them. They just look like clutter, an undifferentiated âbunch of stuffâ to me. It would seem like the answer is to get rid of as much stuff as possible, but the decisions involved take hours and leave me exhausted.
11) The Paradox of Routines/Habits: Habits help us function despite our inability to remember what weâre supposed to be doing and our tendency to get sidetracked in the middle. Thatâs because habits require no thought, attention, or memoryâwe do them automatically.Â
The problem is, itâs almost impossible for us to make the habit in the first place because we canât consistently remember to do it. So, you get people with ADHD who forget to take their medication for the very reasons they need it in the first place.
12) Inconsistency. An ADHD character whose functioning is inconsistent from day to day and so feels he/she canât rely on him/herself. Thereâs a lot of research on this âintra-individual variabilityâ and indeed, it ranks among the most consistently-found traits found in both children and adults.
13) When weâre exhausted or overwhelmed, or a life crisis happens, we can stop being able to do basic things we used to be able to do. Maybe we used to be able to get to work/school on time, remember when assignments were due, or have a consistent morning routine. Now weâre no longer able to get out of the house on time, remember our assignments, or remember to take our medicine or brush our teeth in the morning. When this happens to me, I realize how much energy and attention Iâm putting into doing âbasicâ things and wonder when Iâll ever âget them under controlâ so I can focus on learning new things.
14) Slow or Inconsistent Processing Speed. We donât always talk fast and display high energy (I wish!). Some of us struggle with fatigue and slow processing speed (see: Sluggish Cognitive Tempo, a proposed subtype of Inattentive ADHD). For example, I usually feel mentally and emotionally tiredâI feel after a full nightâs sleep the way most people do after three or four hours of sleep. The more tired I feel, the more difficulty I have concentrating, multitasking, remembering to do things, and making decisions. This is one reason why stimulants and even wakefulness medications can help. Some people, like me, have inconsistent processing speed. Sometimes I think and talk so fast it irritates others, I find whatâs happening around us boring (think of the worldâs longest meeting), and I interrupt others. Other times, I am just about to answer someoneâs question when they irritably repeat themselves or ask why Iâm taking so long to answer. It feels like Iâm  thinking and talking at the normal speed, but othersâ reactions make clear that weâre going much faster or slower than they are. Our relative strengths and weaknesses can affect when we think faster vs. slower than normal. For example, I finished the verbal portion of the SAT and checked my answers multiple times halfway through the time limit. I then had to sit there, bored, until the time was up. On the other hand, I ran out of time on the math section before I could check my work.
15) Some of us are socially awkward penguins, not graceful adrenaline junkies. Thereâs a stereotype that weâre adrenaline junkies who perform surgeries and jump out of planes. Or, weâre social butterflies who compensate for our school difficulties by playing class clown or making friends with everyone. But some of us are physically or socially awkward. Socially, lapses in attention can make us say things that come off as awkward or rude. Our poor sense of timing and inconsistent processing speed can throw off our conversational rhythm, making us interruptâor just appear odd. Many of us also have motor coordination delays and difficulties (and research bears this out). As kids, we might have had difficulty using scissors, writing, tying our shoes, throwing or catching a ball, or riding a bike. We can have social and/or motor difficulties without meeting criteria for autism spectrum disorder. (Although a lot of people with ADHD have autism, tooâsee below).
16) Anxiety. Most of us develop anxiety, for all sorts of reasons. Weâre prone to overthinking, to begin with. We have to worry about others misunderstanding us and calling us lazy, stupid, flaky, or rude. Some of us develop an exhausting habit of âconstant vigilanceâ because we know of no other way to avoid making ADHD mistakes (losing things, forgetting things, math/writing errors, running late, etc.).
17) Co-occurring conditions. ADHD rarely rides alone. People with ADHD often have dyslexia, math disability, sensory processing disorder, dyspraxia, autism spectrum disorder, depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, or allergies. Immune system or digestive problems might make us even more inconsistent.
18) Our family members are likely to have ADHD or autismâdiagnosed or otherwise. Many people report being diagnosed with ADHD after their own children were diagnosed. Like autism, dyslexia, and other disabilities, ADHD is highly heritable, meaning that itâs highly likely that someone with ADHD traits will have children with the same traits (and their parents probably have them, too). I have a younger brother on the spectrum, and have met a number of other older ADHD sisters with younger autistic brothers. While the gender thing may be a fluke, I have read that ADHD and autism share genetic causes and can run together in families.Â
19) We have a variety of attitudes towards our ADHD. Some of us see ADHD as uniformly disabling, preventing us from using our talents and passions Other people see ADHD as a gift. People with each of these viewpoints sometimes see the opposite as harmful to people with ADHD. Still others view ADHD as a trait like any other, which can have positive or negative effects depending on how one chooses to use it and what environment one is in. (Personally, I see ADHD, in general, as a set of traits. However, I see mine as mostly negative because they have been impairing me recently and preventing me from pursuing a longstanding dream. I view my ADHD traits as preventing me from using many of my talents and passions. However, there are environments where theyâd be less disabling, and Iâm currently trying to find them).
20) Being diagnosed and labeled can have good effects, too. Thereâs a sense of relief, of understanding, of not being broken, of having words for oneâs experience. The book title âYou mean Iâm not lazy, stupid, or crazy?â captures the feeling pretty well, I think. Iâve also written about the benefits of diagnosis and the crappiness of growing up without diagnosis a LOTâsee this, this, most of all, this:
ââŠthat sense that there was some mysterious thing wrong with me. (Do you know what it feels like, to carry around a sense that something is wrong with you, always ready to erupt, and not know whatâs wrong or why? To have people constantly pointing out when you do something wrong but never acknowledging that mysterious brokennessâpointing out the elephant dung and squished sofa in your living room but never mentioning the elephant or offering to help get it out of your living room? And since no one will talk about the elephant, you have no idea how to get it out of your living room, so youâre just stuck with it there. No one can tell you how to fix whatâs broken).â Â
21) Stimulants donât necessarily turn you into a zombie. They arenât necessarily a cure-all, either, and some of us choose not to take them. I have yet to find a medication at a dose I can take daily, because it makes me completely lose my appetite. I only take it during emergenciesâhigh-stakes days where Iâm not able to function, and/or due to other health problems acting up, I canât drink coffee. This isnât the only side effect. Some people get migraines from stimulants. These medications can also slightly stunt childrenâs growth.
22) ADHD can be seriously disabling. ADHD looks on the surface like something âeveryone deals with,â but as the experiences Iâve described above suggest, it can cause serious problems in school, work, and relationships. The large-scale MTA study, which followed hundreds of girls and boys with ADHD into adulthood, found some poor outcomes, including higher rates of self-injury and mental illness; adolescent substance use; eating disorders; and poorer relationships with peers in adolescence and parents and partners in adulthood. ADHD has also been linked to lower test performance, poorer education and work performance, greater risk of accidents, and obesity. Researchers and the media tend to describe these problems as a result of the ADHD traits themselves, especially impulsivity. But the way we treat people with ADHD probably has a lot to do with the bad outcomes. One contributing factor: many, especially those diagnosed late in life, develop crippling shame and self-hatred.Â
23) Weâre also awesome! People with ADHD can be creative, energetic, passionate, thoughtful, academically skilled, empathetic, entrepreneurial, and more. Famous people in every walk of life have diagnosed ADHD, and many past geniuses have traits. Like other disabilities, ADHD colors how we experience and act in the world, but it does not diminish us or make us less human.  Â
24) Bonus point that doesnât fit anywhere: Iâve noticed that smart women with ADHD have a very distinctive style of talking. We talk fast, crowding as many ideas into a sentence as possible before we forget what weâre saying. We are trying to pack a lot complicated thoughts into a short amount of time. We veer off on tangents whenever someone says something interesting. If two of us start talking, we can go on for hours and never run out of things to sayâand also never return to the topic we started with. To those who do not have ADHD, we sound rambling or incoherent. To other women with ADHD, we make perfect sense and the conversation feels exhilarating, with the energy building increasingly as we talk. We sound incoherent to others but not each other because our thoughts are arranged in a very dense and logical web, but we move through the web in a zig-zagging pattern based on associations instead of a straight line. The zig-zag pattern happens in part because with our short working memory, our span of awareness is extremely short. So we operate on associations; everything reminds us of something else. Other peopleâs words, objects in the room, and music we hear reminds us of something, but then then we forget what we were talking about before. Weâre constantly forgetting what we were talking about or what we were doing in the middle. As a result, some of us have a bad habit of interrupting others in order to get our message out before we forget it.Â
If you have any more questions, feel free to ask! Sorry this was so longâŠ
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