You probably know some of the key traits of someone with ADHD: inability to focus, disorganized, intense focus on what they find interest in, making careless mistakes, distractibility, issues with establishing priorities, etc. etc. If you never lived in that mind though what does it really look like?

I invite you to spend a few minutes exploring how an average 7ish minute chunk of my workday was back in 2019.

I would be sitting at my desk, working away and trying not to get distracted by the group having a conversation 10 feet away from me. I would actively have to come up with something else to focus on. My eyes catch the clock in the bottom right-hand corner of my screen; it’s 8:10am. The work on my computer is what I am focused on, but it doesn’t keep my attention for very long. I look away from my screen and glance at the cubicle next to me. I notice a magnet of Robert Downey Jr saying some witty phrase. I’ve seen this magnet hundreds of times. I turn back to my computer, to my work. Then my mind takes a detour:

“Oh, I think I remember seeing Robert Downey Jr in some 1980s movie about a soccer team; hmm, I don’t remember the name of that. I wonder where the next World Cup is being held? I know it’s being held in Qatar. Geez, I bet that it will be hot; maybe they will move it to the winter months to better accommodate the players. I know the next Summer Olympics are going to be held in Tokyo, but I can’t remember where the next Winter Olympics are going to be. I better look that up. I might as well do that right now, take a break from whatever I’m working on.” 

Upon opening my browser, I see a news story about how the Fed has changed a key interest rate:
“I bet that will trigger an email from a higher-up about the impact that it will have on our business. Maybe I will just read this story now.”
I read the story and then reread the last paragraph because I started thinking about what we need to buy at Costco this weekend. I shift my attention back to what I was working on, it happens to be a refi loan in California.
“Man, it’s been a while since I was in California, and I’ve never been to Northern California. I would love to go to Redwoods National Park. Huh? I wonder where the best place to fly into, to go to Redwoods would be. Probably San Francisco, and then rent a car and drive up the coast. I wonder how much flights cost? Maybe we could do that this summer; yeah, I should kick that around. Kick! Oh yeah, I was going to look up when the next World Cup is!” 
I look to the corner of my screen, 8:17am. 

If reading this was confusing, that’s perfectly acceptable; if reading this sounded like a typical 5-minute snippet of your day, then it might be time to get tested for ADHD.

If the passage above didn’t make much sense to you, you might be wondering how I let things go on for so long without seeking a diagnosis. Honestly, I wonder that myself some days. The truth is, it was all I had ever known—and somehow, I managed to get by.

The idea that I might have ADHD first crossed my mind during my senior year of high school. I was a terrible student. I’d sit in class, listening to the teacher, but I didn’t hear what they were saying. My mind would latch onto a word or phrase from the beginning of the lesson, and from there, my mind would spiral into a distorted scene much like the one above.

Over time, I came up with “solutions” to the challenges I faced. But they weren’t really solutions—more like shortcuts or workarounds that never held up over time. The one I relied on the most was avoidance. I would steer clear of multi-step tasks, hesitate to join new activities for fear I couldn’t commit, and avoid intricate projects altogether.

I looked at everything just a little bit differently and that seemed to be working ok. Until it didn’t anymore….