Reply To: How do I Explain this to Others

[Patte Rosebank]

What I’ve learned is that, it’s all in how you look at it. And there are some ways that are easier to grasp and accept than others.

For me, it comes down to the simple fact that, while the non-ADHD brain is driven by what’s important, the ADHD brain is driven by what’s interesting. That’s why we can spend hours doing something we love, but can’t face half an hour of doing our taxes.

And why we often hear, “He can focus when he wants to”. It’s not a matter of “wanting to”, but a matter of finding something personally interesting enough to US to activate our brain.

This doesn’t mean we CAN’T do something. It just means that we need to find a different way of doing it, that works for us. Like someone who’s left-handed can still write with a fountain-pen, but they have to use a different nib, and hold the pen differently from the way a right-handed person would.

I’ve found that explaining ADHD as “kind of like being left-handed in a right-handed world” is a lot easier for people to understand and accept, because it’s such a simple concept. And it’s familiar to them, because everyone’s seen people who are left-handed, and how they have to do things a bit differently.

The real beauty of this is that when something seems familiar, it’s no longer so scary, so it doesn’t spark such heated arguments.

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