The Forums › Forums › Ask The Community › What exactly is the reason? I need to understand WHY. › Re: What exactly is the reason? I need to understand WHY.
Tiddler, the neurology is not well understood. There are many ways of looking at this. None of them are necessarily the truth, they just give a different perspective. In the same way you could say, “That mother is feeding her baby because she loves him, because he’s hungry and that’s her job, because everyone would shame her if she didn’t, because she wants him to grow up strong, because it’s time for him to eat, because he’s hungry, because he was crying and she recognized it was his ‘hungry’ cry, she knows once he eats he’ll go down for his nap.”
All good reasons. Some simple facts, some quite complex.
So one way to look at ADHD is that we need more rewards than most people. We don’t feel our successes as deeply. (We don’t seem to feel hunger, thirst or other simple things as easily as others do. One person said, “I don’t really feel anything below my neck.” Another said, “The first time I tried medication I could actually taste the chocolate and enjoy it. I wasn’t thinking about something else.”
So we need more rewards. Bigger ones. Some people get a great deal of satisfaction from adding up their receipts and having the numbers come out right. They don’t like adding up the numbers any more than we do, but they like the reward of a job well done. Not ADDers. So we take high risk/high stimulation jobs, or seek situations, hobbies, addictions that give us big payoffs.
The trick I have found is to really reward myself for doing the basic stuff, like making up my list and sticking with it.
I celebrate a lot more than I ever did. Before, I’d finish one thing and jump to the next. I have written and performed in over 700 episodes of television and radio. And I’ve probably watched or listen to less than 50 of them. I never stopped to savour what I’d done, acknowledge it, enjoy it, and give myself a high five. Busy, busy, busy… Exhausting.
So try really rewarding yourself, mentally, verbally, however you want, when you do something. And best of all, have people who acknowledge you a lot. Especially at the start as you’re building skills. And if you have ADHD/ADD kids, acknowledge each step forward. Acknowledge the effort it took, not “You’re so smart” or “You’re so talented” or “You do have lots of willpower.” Cause we don’t believe we have willpower. And as for smart or talented? Well, I was those things my whole life and they didn’t help. What helped was making the effort.
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