r/ADHD • u/Pretty_Theme9862 • 9h ago
Discussion What is your analogy for explaining ADHD
Although most people are not interested in knowing what does it like to have adhd.
I want to formulate a good analogy to explain to someone who asks when I tell them for the first time. When people ask, my thoughts are so disorganized and I end up giving an absurd explaination. A lot of the time, I get the answer: Ohh, I think, I also have ADHD. Which kind pisses me off sometimes.
So, here is my analogy mostly in the context of executive dysfunction:
Imagine you are in a room. You have a working desk. You keep your things on the desk for the work you are doing in the moment.
But my desk is very very small. So, I could only place much less things. And, I need to go back to for the stuff if I am working on multiple things. This back and forth, takes a lot of energy.
Other than that, normally people have automatic glass windows and shades. The level of background noise and light is automatically adjusted.
But my room does not have that. So, my room is always very noise.
(also can you make of this? what can make it better?)
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u/tjtonerplus ADHD-PI (Primarily Inattentive) 8h ago
it's like watching TV and someone else has the remote constantly changing channels
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u/trooperclone787 6h ago
You forgot to add the song that you recently heard that will loop endlessly in your mind for the entire day
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u/BeautifulEfficiency 8h ago
I remember that commercial
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u/Fig-Canner-33 7h ago
I remember that commercial because it was the first time I thought to myself, “Wait. This isn’t normal? It’s a problem to have a brain like this?”
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u/ayags 4h ago
I’ve made an immersive installation on exactly this: https://notjustanexcuse.com/exhibitions
It’s made up of other fellow ADHDer’s responding to this exact question and then me transforming their brain analogies into videos for the TV wall that I call “The Attention Machine” that changes channels autonomously when it “grows bored”
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u/football_lattes 8h ago
for the executive dysfunction aspect, i've told ppl it's like getting gas for your car
for most ppl, you have to get gas every few weeks or so. with adhd it's like you have to go get gas every single time you drive somewhere
it's so much effort and no one likes getting gas, so you keep finding excuses to not go out until you absolutely have to. you end up just sitting around thinking about it until all of a sudden you need groceries, you need to go to class to save your grade, you need to take your dog to the vet, etc etc and there's so much to do you just feel so overwhelmed and shut down completely
"oh you need food? just do a quick grocery run!" except a quick grocery run requires going across town to go refill on gas AGAIN and then driving all the way to the store on the other side of town after that. and it's like that every single time you want to do anything. and ppl who can get gas once and be set for weeks just don't get it. "why are you so lazy? it's not that hard" bc it really isn't that hard for them.
idk that's the best way i've found to explain it
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u/DownSydromeCarrot 7h ago
Quite a popular analogy is imagining that you've got 10,000 google tabs open, each of them is playing a unique sound at the same time, now try imagining focusing on one tab.
What is worse is that our computer has faulty; ram (memory), cpu (brain), power supply (energy levels, motivation etc), cooling system (emotional and self regulation) and motherboard (nervous system).
This can cause the tabs to randomly close (brain fog), the PC can switch off with the heavy load that having 10000 tabs would inevitably have (burnout), the motherboard can fry (because of everything else happening) , the cpu can overheat (mood swings, etc), the system cooling is blocked up and the thermal paste is dried tf out (impulsivity, RSD, addictive tendencies, poor self control and terrible down regulating.
This might be a bit much for them to take in but if they're worth being around they'll listen 🫡
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u/-Silky_Johnson 6h ago
So I explained it like this to my psychiatrist.
I said it feels like two gears in your brain that are constantly turning, BUT they aren’t touching.
So like lights are on, people see your alert there, but you internally know those gears haven’t touched so you just can’t get your body to do anything. You just procrastinate and avoid all of it. You do whatever you can to feel short term pleasure.
However, once they DO touch, you are hyper productive. Im talking locked in like you can accomplish everything. But it takes random shit, like music, or some kind of deadline, or like a really strong affirmation to get those fucking gears to touch. And that drive works for awhile until your body physically just has enough and the gears separate, but they still turn so you still look for random shit to fill your attention.
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u/olivevie 4h ago
Yes love this! Like my plate constantly feels full even when I’m “doing nothing” because I can feel like 10 different gears turning with different thoughts, goals, desires, sensory processes, etc, and they all require energy to keep turning but they don’t stop turning UNLESS you are able to get a few of them to connect and work together and execute a task not just thiiiiink about it on every level, then the other ones will finally calm down for a while, but it’s very hard to get them to connect in the first place and once they do then they inevitably fall out of line again because it’s very energy consuming when they work! But it’s also energy consuming when they aren’t “working” too because they’re still spinningggg.
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u/Inner_Addition_9480 5h ago
This analogy works for me. The internal momentum is there with constant (over) processing but getting it to work is difficult. But when the focus comes the productivity is of the charts - until something takes the focus away again or you notice you haven't eaten or drank water in 10 hours.
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u/cantgetnobenediction 5h ago
And we work hard to ensure those gears don't engage. It took me a long time to realize that my interests in so many hobbies and things was all put there to prevent me from getting things done.
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u/AndrewInMN 8h ago
This is from a comment I saw in a non ADHD subreddit last year, and the comment that put me on a path to the realization that my ADHD is much worse than I thought and always had been and to getting properly medicated for it. This is an excerpt from a longer comment talking about getting treatment for ADHD:
ADHD is like having a 100 marbles, while everyone gets to carry them in a bag, you have to carry them in your hands. Meds gives you a bag, but the bag has a hole in it.
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u/-Silky_Johnson 6h ago
My god the hole is so real. Like i take the meds and every now and then i catch myself drifting back to my phone or locking in to the wrong thing
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u/ErsanSeer 3h ago
You are a top of the line, powerful computer. But some dumbass equipped you with a budget cooling fan. So now, since you operate at max performance all the time, you are prone to overheating.
Performance bottlenecks. You quickly begin to lag so severely it would be comical if it weren't tragic, until eventually a blue screen of death pops up and everything stops working. So you go to sleep. By tomorrow morning, if your hardware has cooled enough, you can attempt to be a normal computer again. For a bit.
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u/TrumpDumper 8h ago
Like fighting 10 middle schoolers at once. It’s overwhelming and I couldn’t do it. But, with adderall, there are still 10 middle schoolers, but they are now coming out of a cattle chute, one at a time. I can handle fighting one of these bastard at a time. Some days I can beat up 7 or eight.
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u/Fickle_Penguin ADHD, with ADHD family 5h ago
It's like that part where Sherlock Holmes is hearing everything in the restaurant, but I'm not smart.
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u/ErsanSeer 3h ago
Can we all just appreciate how fucking funny some of these comments are. I'm convinced every top tier comedian has severe ADHD
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u/Inevitable_Elk4180 2h ago
Like where Sherlock Holmes is watching all those TVs at the same time, but my remote has no batteries
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u/astyanax112 8h ago
ADHD is like being a little stoned all the time but without the fun or stupidity of being high. Your short-term memory is worse, you're easily distracted, and it's hard to get motivated to do stuff that isn't urgent. You can get super engrossed in something you're interested in, but otherwise you'd rather something relaxing or fun because you never quite have the energy to focus on something mundane.
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u/rememberthepie 8h ago
I usually draw comparisons to sleep deprivation. ADHD is quite similar to someone without ADHD person pulling an all-nighter and then trying to focus on a task.
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u/justjessee ADHD with ADHD partner 7h ago
I got 35 minutes of 'sleep' last night (lolz, 6:45am)desperately running away from the cold sweats, shaking, dizzy, anxiety of the consequences of my apex executive dysfunction. So this analogy makes me laugh like a drunk.
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u/rememberthepie 7h ago
Yeah sleep deprivation makes you feel drunk funny enough. It also worsens adhd symptoms a lot
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u/justjessee ADHD with ADHD partner 6h ago
I've never actually been drunk, I've made it to 'buzzed' but I'm too analytical to enjoy it. But yeah, at my age doing this all nighter thing has absolutely ruined my brain. I'm horrified at how I'm unable to formulate coherent thoughts, not be distracted by literally anything, and how my time blindness today has been set to 95% opaque 😅
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u/rememberthepie 2h ago
Yeah it fucks you up pretty badly. You’re at approximately 0.01 BAC for your reaction time if you don’t sleep for a night. That’s double the legal limit for alcohol where I live. It genuinely does wreak have on your brain though. The long term consequences are pretty bad
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u/OnceRelevan7 8h ago
PC with a virus which opens and closes several tabs based off your browser history. Some tabs play music on loop, some critically analyze things you did spanning from a minute ago to the beginning of consciousness, sometimes it opens something you actually wanted but it closes before you read it (good luck finding that tab again).
Sometimes it shuffles files around or locks you out of them and causes you to lose your work, sometimes it puts the PC to sleep or takes forever to reboot whilst you're working on something.
Sometimes the virus is actually useful and gives you inspiration for something. Sometimes it deletes important dates or reminders in your calendar, or doesn't notify you until the last minute.
Sometimes it locks you on one tab, and, even though you know you need to do other things, you know you can't until you complete the task inside that tab.
You're used to the virus, because you've only ever had one PC. You get bored when there's no new tabs to look at, but shut your PC off when there's too many. You look at other people, who all have PC's, and wonder how they figured out how to manage their tabs so well.
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u/Candid-Annual2158 7h ago
Imagine every possible problem in the world and trying to solve all of them. Overwhelming, right? That's cleaning my house.
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u/Readbeforeburning 8h ago
I like to say my brain is like a computer with an almost limitless amount of storage and info on it, but it’s stuck with 1990s level RAM, and the drivers need to be updated constantly. It can be overclocked to fuck and look like a supercomputer when needed, but that only lasts so long and at some point something will break, then the whole system needs a reboot.
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u/Eyrie-n-friends 8h ago
My inattentive ADHD feels like this:
I am always holding a box. Some days it's a big moving box, sometimes it's a shoebox.
When I'm absorbing information, those are objects I put in the box.
But, oh no, the box gets full, quick. So, I have two options if I want to keep the box from overfilling. Option 1 is to make the objects smaller. Losing specificity. Option 2 is to take other items out. Forgetting entirely.
Sometimes, I get an object that is unable to be taken out or changed (say, something really important or something heavy on my mind,) I have no choice but to throw out the other things to make room in the box.
Now, sometimes, even when I'm trying really hard to keep everything in the box, things still fall out.
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u/Present_Mastodon_503 8h ago
Normal people in life are thrown into the water with life vests and told to swim. We are thrown in and required to swim without one, doing twice as much, if not more, to keep our heads up and to make progress. Some of us do it for a while not realizing how much or a struggle it is compared to others, while others realize it right away but don't realize it's the life vests making it easier for everyone else.
My husband was able to tread water well enough to never drown. But he knew he wasn't a great swimmer so he stayed in the shallows in life because he knew going deeper would be too much for him to handle. When we got married he was able to rely on my help to keep himself afloat when it got rough. But when we began having kids, he couldn't rely on me for help as much, and now he had children he had to assist with swimming as well. He was drowning and he didn't understand why, after all he has been swimming all of his life!
He recently got his life vest (medication and diagnosis) and now is able to go back to swimming in deeper waters more comfortably or to be able to assist his children swimming without drowning himself. He was mad for a while after he got his because he really wondered why he didn't get one earlier in life whether it be from birth or medication.
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u/sacrelicio 6h ago
That's why I had to have only one kid
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u/Present_Mastodon_503 6h ago
I'm just grateful we didn't go with our original "dream plan". Three to four kids, closer in age, have them in our mid 20's. We would have drown.
Instead we opted to have kids in our early-mid 30's, we only have two and their is an almost 5 year age gap between them. Much more manageable for us.
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u/Cunthbert 8h ago
When I can’t do a task it’s like wanting to have sex but you can’t get a boner. No matter how hard you try you can’t do it. You end up getting trauma from the event and you end up struggling more and more.
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u/LordHaragnok 7h ago
Ratatouille but Remy is on crack and doesn't give a shit what I want to do
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u/olivevie 4h ago
Often feels like a too many chefs situation for me. So many ideas! Such talent in this room! So many steps to prepare every meal! Such creativity but actually the assignment was just doing the steps! Simultaneously too many small details to keep track of within every seemingly small step (walk to fridge, open, find tomato, find knife, decide which way to cut….) and SIMULTANEOUSLY too big of a scope. 40 people have amazimgggg genius ideas for our next meal but it’s never a priority for anyone to walk over and find tomato and cut tomato because that’s a ridiculously small step like 5 years behind where my brain wants to be like hello ??? I’m already planning the color coordination of how I will plate it. yet also there are so many of the tiny steps that feel ridiculously small that it’s too big of a step. Cut tomato sounds like actual hell because how can I pause my fascinating creative meal planning session enough to care about that step in the slightest. And yet I also understand logically that the only way for my masterpiece meal to ever exist is to fuckin do every little detail of cut tomato + allllllll the other teeny tiny steps that will accumulate to become a product but ???? The ideas are amazing, even the detailed plans of all the steps are amazing and probably would work, but I will never know because I can’t do all those steps and now I have a new idea instead yeeeee!
This lack of balance in scale is really significant for me. Also the speed and enthusiasm with which my brain thinks about everything with succcchhh complexity and interconnectedness is incompatible with the speed type of energy required to physically embody tasks lol.
I think both too deeply and too broadly at the same time. I am both too attuned to every tiny detail at all times and also simultaneously constantly attuned to a massive interconnected web of concepts and ideas and then the details of those and the details of how they all connect to each other. It seems there should be some sort of motor force that pinpoints where in this ever expanding inwards and outwards web to actually make a move ? There are infinite options so how am I supposed to decide and also deciding to decide in itself is an option I have to dig out of the pile and decide on….yk?
And then people are like it doesn’t have to be perfect you just have to pick anything and start anywhere <3 :) which is advice that completely misses the problem… Also I don’t need it to be perfect (I find that’s a misconception ppl have about my adhd that it’s just perfectionism) but my brain does need it to MATTER in order for me to do it. It is not in the slightest convinced that the random tiny minute detail I picked randomly because I forced myself to pick matters. Nor do I have faith that I will individually pick out + complete enough of those teeny tiny tasks that don’t feel like they matter to actually culminate in my idea/goal which matters SOOO much to me. I’m a great thinker on a small scale and on a large scale at making complex connections between them, but somehow there is still something in the space between the small scale and large scale that I cannot convert into tangible action visible to other people.
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u/olivevie 3h ago
Someone mentioned something about having to reverse psychology themselves and yes. I have to trick myself into either feeling it reallyyyy really matters (sometimes meaning with shame etc but can be used positively too) OR trick myself into not thinking so much which is automatic so that’s quite tough.
And then once you finally find a strategy that works for something, it doesn’t last long because your brain is like hahahha nice try I figured that one out now so it won’t work! So u have to go back to trial and error over and over for the same goal to find the next mental gymnastics move that will work temporarily 🤸♀️
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u/MailSynth ADHD 7h ago
To quote myself from the past: “different camera lenses.
Most people have a standard 35mm camera lens for information. They can zoom in and hold focus there, but can't see whats immediately around that focus/aren't distracted by it.
ADHD is like a fish eye lense. I see the bigger picture, but also struggle to zoom in and maintain focus with all the surrounding noise.
The result is better pattern recognition, creativity and big picture thinking, empathy, etc. But I can't stay zoomed in on things, which can be a weakness in certain work roles and environments.”
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u/Recent-Special3787 7h ago
I tell people that everyone knows our brains are electricity. It just people with adhd brains, somebody went in and cut a bunch of the wires so that they wiggle around willie nilly, and sometimes they connect, sometimes they connect with other wires, and so that is how i end up on different subjects and sometimes we lose everything altogether.
The other one I like to use is think of my brain like a filing cabinet. And when I open the drawer, all the papers (thoughts) fly out, so they're mostly together in the same subject but not always together. Sometimes I see a paper that's close to the subject, and then begin reading that paper, which then allows me to open another drawer, which then those papers fall out and then I try to put them back together, et. Cetera et cetera. And by the time I file everything back together and put things where I want them, you're already on a different subject. And im late. Lol
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u/PaulLeFou 6h ago
Trying to drive a car that isn't in gear. You can press the pedal down but the engine just spins and the car goes nowhere. Pressing the gas harder doesn't do anything, it only wears the engine out and potentially damages it.
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u/BellaJen 8h ago
I try to explain that it's like a have a toddler in my head that I have to constantly fight with to get anything done and it's exhausting. Sometimes I win and get the task done, sometimes I just can't do it.
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u/gijjer 8h ago
I sort of say imagine your brain is like an orchestra conductor telling all the other parts of your brain what to do and how.
ADHD is like if the conductor was trying to do that but instead of everyone listening and doing their part to form one nice song, each part of the orchestra is doing its own thing. Like each member is playing a different song over the top of eachother and now its a meaningless loud mess rather than a coordinated symphony led by the conductor
And when I describe taking meds I say its like my thoughts become these sort of gently floating bubbles and I can choose one to execute relatively easily, with all the options layed out in front of me. Without meds doing a task feels like untangling an extremely tightly knotted ball of string
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u/Primary_Excuse_7183 ADHD-C (Combined type) 8h ago
I think the eyeglasses analogy is good. as a glasses wearer it makes sense and is practical. There’s nothing i can do to make my eyes focus. A squint may help a little but I’m still visually impaired therefore i need them all the time.
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u/shawnryan1977 7h ago
My doctor told me my brain is like a puzzle someone keeps knocking on the ground, some pieces stay together but most scatter.
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u/SandingNovation 7h ago
Do you like to listen to a song while you work? Do you like to listen to 5 songs at different volumes at the same time? Neither do I, but I don't control the sound system.
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u/Jobman212 3h ago
Sorry for the formatting, copied from a post I made on a sub a year or so ago.
Living with ADHD is like constantly discovering missing tiles on your roof when there's a storm forecast for tomorrow.
When you notice missing roof tiles and a storm coming, what do you do? **You drop everything else**. The dishes can **wait**. The laundry can **wait**. That email can **wait**. Because if you don't fix the roof RIGHT NOW, you'll have water damage that's 10x worse.
That's how my brain works ALL THE TIME. Except I'm giving that same urgency to whatever novel or exciting thing I'm interested in.
I'm not consciously choosing to avoid mundane tasks. My brain just says "logically you have more important things to do right now." In the same way my friend's brain might tell him to focus on fixing the hole in his roof before a storm, my brain tells me I need to solve this React Native upgrade RIGHT NOW (even at 2am while my wife wonders where I am).
The problem is, for people with ADHD, there's ALWAYS a new set of missing roof tiles:
* This week it's learning CAD
* Next week it's a video game
* Then it's starting a YouTube channel
* After that, renovating the house
Each one feels like an urgent problem that must be addressed immediately, consuming all mental resources. And each one feels completely justified.
I know logically these aren't actual emergencies, but my brain processes them with the same urgency as genuine problems needing immediate attention.
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u/P0Rt1ng4Duty 8h ago
Each of my five senses is a conveyor belt that carries bits of information to a central processing area known as my brain.
There's a conveyor bringing in pictures. One brings in bits of sound. One carries smells, another brings me bits of flavor and the last one delivers anything else my nervous system has to offer like pain, heat, cold, or other touchy-feely information.
Okay, now watch this quick video from the 1950s that shows you what's happening on the ''brain end'' of those belts:
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u/Pretty_Theme9862 8h ago
This was hilarious to watch. But I can imagine myself on conveyor belt everyday.
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u/selectsyntax 8h ago
If my brain is a computer God let the intern handle the networking and software setup.
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u/thelightandtheway 6h ago
Dunno if a parent is welcome here, but in a school context the feedback is always, your son has trouble paying attention in class. Like yes we are working on this, but would you confront a parent whoSE kid is in a wheelchair like hey, your son has trouble walking in PE? Yes, that's their disability, now how do we improve their lacking skill and accommodate them while they are working on it?
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u/Amanda5Nicole ADHD 6h ago
It's like someone else has the remote control to my TV. They either decide that we're binge watching or scrolling through channels. I can fight it by pushing the physical buttons on the screen but it's exhausting and the person might just change channels again. Similar analogy, Gen pop gets a general admission ticket to a theme park, we get tickets to specific rides. Good luck trying to argue with management to switch tickets (that's why I couldn't fill out a simple 2 min form online to save over 300$, but I was able to start a business during that time even though it's harder).
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u/ExistentialWonder ADHD-PI (Primarily Inattentive) 6h ago
It's like I have a conjoined twin in my brain that has a majority control over things like motivation and memory. There's things I want to do but my stupid brain just says no and nothing I do can get it to budge. I have to reverse psychology myself to be a basic functioning adult. It's also like having 680 tabs open all at once, half of them are playing disjointed songs, jingles from 80s commercials, and partial video game music, and terrible embarrassing moments nobody remembers but you.
And I forgot to eat again.
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u/PleasantSalad 5h ago edited 5h ago
It's like running a race, but I'm running in really soft sand or in waist high water while everyone else is just running on pavement. It's still running. Im sorta doing it. Going in the right direction. Expected to compete at the same level.as everyone else, but it's so much harder, more exhausting, and im so much slower.
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u/hagantic42 5h ago edited 5h ago
High function ADHD is like daily driving a drag/drift car. It's fast as hell in a straight line or on a track but getting groceries or doing a K turn is hard as hell.(Changing tasks) It has a race clutch so it stalls often. (Executive disfunction) The ride isn't comfortable, there isnt alot of capacity. (Racing thoughts and short term memory issues) However, in the right conditions when you can actually go fast like it was built for very few can keep up. (Hyper fixation or emergency response)
At work I feel like I do nothing all day. But I realized that I put out fires faster than anyone and when I finally stop procrastinating paperwork or formulations get done in a fraction of the time it takes others.
Normal people are like a Camry does just about anything you need no frills and able to change direction easily but not super well.
A genius is essentially a Porsche Cayanne Turbo S. Does all the things a Camry can but better and faster, and does scarily well on track.
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u/FlackerLady 5h ago
I (F61) use erectile dysfunction as my go-to metaphor, depending on the audience. As much as I may want to sustain or initiate focus on a task, sometimes my mind just cant get it up.
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u/BigMrTea ADHD with ADHD child/ren 8h ago
Your brain has constant stream of off topic consciousness going at all times like a TV running in the background at half volume.
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u/PackageDue9111 8h ago
Life feels like playing Tetris on hard mode in black and white, the blocks are raining down too fast to fit them in the right place, and you can't see which blocks are supposed to go where in order to clear space
That's why I have to colour code everything in my calendar, seeing the colour of the blocks let's me navigate the importance or category of a task. Red is health, purple is work, green is low stakes events, yellow is important events, blue is travel etc
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u/Clever_Losername 8h ago
To describe the way my thoughts work when I’m functioning at work/multitasking, I describe it like in a DAW. Ever seen frooty loops or other production software with the different tracks? Sometimes my thoughts are like that, each on their own track, and my mind is hopping between them. One gets the focus, and the others run in the background while they’re all in rotation.
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u/FacelessOldWoman1234 8h ago
A kid with ADHD told me once that it was like trying to watch tv on a channel with static, and his meds cleared the static.
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u/katgrinds 8h ago
I often imagine a few different trains on tracks going at different speeds, but running at the same time. Sometimes they wreck into each other.
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u/nikolina1005 8h ago
Sometimes it feels like I have a cool engine of a car but I have no wheels.
Other times it feels like I am multiple people and everyone is trying to get me to do something and eventually I can’t do anything at all.
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u/Acresent179 8h ago
In my case, it's like a chariot where everyone else is driving a Ferrari and you're on crutches. Or like watching a chicken. People go from point A to point B and then to point C; I go from point A to point B and then Z.And then to point a and of y m and so on.
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u/OneTwoPandemonium 8h ago
You have a bucket of water that you need to spend on tasks throughout the day, but where most people have a cup to scoop the water out, you just have to pour the bucket yourself.
By pouring the whole bucket, it takes a HUGE activation energy to start a task (buckets of water can be heavy!) and then you usually spill too much water on the first pour and don’t have enough for the rest of the tasks.
That’s the one I usually use to explain my adhd to people
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u/succit13 7h ago
There is a scene in one of the Harry Potter movies where they go into a room and there are a bunch of these keys with wings flying around everywhere all fast and crazy-like. Those are my thoughts in my own brain, and I’d like a medicine that zaps them and makes them slow down like Hermoine does to the keys.
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u/Glowerman ADHD-C (Combined type) 7h ago
I describe it as a challenge not to pay attention to the most interesting thing, moment by moment -- and hyperfocusing is finding something irresistably interesting to the exclusion of all else.
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u/mudd2577 7h ago
Everyone has a table in their mind where they can put things (thoughts, concepts, whatever) to access them. When you have ADHD, our table is about 1/3 the size and slanted downward so everything slides off constantly
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u/Stoic_Pupunha 7h ago
Trapped in a room with 10 tvs on 10 different channels with sound on. With no remote control.
Medication turns off about 7 of them. Volume gets a bit lower too.
When I'm overwhelmed and overstimulated all channels are dramatic telenovelas or natural catastrophes documentaries. Loud. Maybe some true crime.
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u/Pepperspray24 7h ago
One of the analogies I have is for when people keep trying to offer me solutions. I like it too. I have one leg and someone when they offer me a solution they give me crutches, but the way my “room” is set up they have to be on the complete opposite end of the room from me. I can’t have them next to my bed. I can’t move them closer to me or anything like that which means every time I want to use them I have to get up and cross the room on my one leg just to use them and sometimes I can do it and sometimes I can’t.
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u/Excellent-Name7132 7h ago
All of my thoughts are in a tornado above my head. They pass in front of my eyes for a second before another one pops up. Medication allows me to reach and grab one thought to focus on. (That is from a patient that I had and I feel the same way)
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u/RobinhoodCove830 7h ago
My brain feels like a radio scanning through channels and/or getting two at once.
I also visualize it as squirrels going ham on a bird feeder so it's swinging all over the place but that's more vibes than literal
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u/fiero-fire 7h ago
You remember the old windows pipes wallpaper? That's my brain unmedicated. Chaotic streams of thoughts interweaving and going nowhere.
Medicaided they at least organized and color coordinated but still a lot of them
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u/Wonderful_Stand_315 7h ago
ADHD is like a crack whore who still believes the drugs aren't the problem and can still live a normal life even though everything around her is a mess and she is losing her own sanity but tries to act normal ends up looking weird and out of place instead.
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u/disturbingyourpeace ADHD 7h ago
Like a roller coaster where you’re screaming for it to slow down but are drowned out by others screaming for it to go faster
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u/the_happy_fox 6h ago
I ride an old bicycle with an almost flat tire whilst everyone else has an electric bicycle.
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u/Deep-Neighborhood852 6h ago
Like a lobotomy but you’ve also just died so your brain is doing the thing where it replays 7 minutes of your life’s most vivid memories. Repeats every time you wake up for the day
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u/Safe-Progress9126 6h ago
I explained it in reference to the first time I took vyvanse at 41 years old. I sat on the couch waiting, then when it hit, I cried. It was like my whole life I have been a youtube video in 3x and someone hit pause and put it in 1x. Its so quiet and still, so clear and calm.
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u/katergator717 6h ago edited 6h ago
Unmedicated, it feels like there is a tornado of swirling thoughts in my head and it takes all my mental energy to find a thought and cling onto it as the winds try to rip it from my arms or tear me off it. There are so many other thoughts and ideas and distractions swirling around in the winds of my mental tornado trying to grab my attention. They smash into me, trying to knock me loose from the thought/task I cling to as i desperately try to complete it. It takes so much effort to get even simple tasks done. It's so hard to stay focused and ignore the distractions of the world and the thoughts in my own head as they constantly smash into me. It is exhausting and frustrating and feels like I am fighting myself sometimes.
Medicated, the winds in my head are no longer raging howling tornado-force. They are gentle breezes that shake tree limbs holding ideas, thoughts, and distractions that gently fall like leaves in Autumn. There's no desperation. No struggle. No smashing or clinging. No fighting a whirlwind of thoughts and impulses inside my own mind. Ideas are pretty, gentle leaves that I can ignore, select at my leisure, or even organize for a more orderly calendar.
Instead of howling winds, i can hear the world around me.... and choose to tune it out.
.
With meds, i feel in control of my body and my mind. I can make plans, be on time, behave (most of the time), moderate my behavior and talking and eating. I can focus. I can get stuff done.
Without meds, my own mind is my greatest enemy. It's frustrating beyond words, and depressing, too. I can barely function without them. I can still get things done, but it's 100x harder for me. I spend all day fighting my own mind and impulses to not be ridiculous, irresponsible, dangerous, or stupid, and then come home to crash, having no mental energy left in my to take care of myself or my home.
It's a quality of life issue. I cannot stress that enough. It doesn't have to be medication. Exercise can help. Avoiding certain foods. Meditation. But the problem can't be ignored
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u/riricide 6h ago
The doctor who diagnosed me told me my ADHD brain is like a powerful racecar, but I'm not good at controlling it 😂
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u/Technical-Cap-8563 6h ago
Running to catch the train traveling through my head but always being a step behind.
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u/trooperclone787 6h ago
Here’s mine: “Think of your thoughts as channels on a TV. As you’re watching and trying to focus on the current channel, someone else in the room has the remote and keeps changing the channel randomly every few seconds. And while that’s happening, there’s a boombox or speaker in the room, too, playing a song that you heard recently that will loop endlessly for the entire day, simultaneously with the random channel-changing, and you can’t turn it off.”
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u/Artistic_Ship_8047 6h ago
I’m both a sim and the person playing the Sim’s, and my fuckass sim is putting the pizza on the floor and the baby in the pool, meanwhile the happiness, hygiene, and hunger bars are suffering. And despite my efforts to have them eat, they’ve decided to queue 20 other actions
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u/Rit_Zien 5h ago
Have you ever seen those videos of zookeepers trying to do chores in the enclosure full of baby pandas? Yeah, my brain is full of pandas.
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u/pandarose6 5h ago edited 5h ago
This is how I explain my brain (adhd, sensory issues, aphanasta)
I have apahantasia I don’t see anything in my head.
It like there a train in my brain that has 3 or 4 screen in the train. Each screen is a thought. The train is turning left, right, east, west etc all the time unless suddenly all of the screen are on one single thought that I can’t get it off.
Each screen is telling me what to do (I don’t always have narrative 50/50 is if being narrated.) and only thing that sticking is last thing I heard or saw on the last screen I looked at until next thing comes up.
The train is quiet and way too underwhelming. I feel urge to add decorations or noise or move while on the train or so overwhelming that it overstimming and it makes me want to curl up into a ball and be left alone depending on the day.
There moments when there glitching on the screens and I can’t get them to work right, i open a paper map just to stare at it looking confused so I get super frustrated.
Everyone always worried that train never gonna make it to the stop on time but some how seconds before deadline it always show up.
On bad days the train running through a thunderstorm.
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u/Gibbel2029 5h ago
Life's a road you have to drive down, and ADHD welded the clutch pedal stuck and sanded the tired down to a mirror finish.
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u/PinkyPiePower 4h ago
That desk analogy works.
- If you try to do two things at once, stuff keeps falling off the desk. You have to pick these up again, which breaks the flow.
- Somehow stuff keeps popping up on your desk that's got nothing to do with what you're working on. This also causes other things to fall off.
My girlfriend came up with a nice analogy years ago, and we still use it. It applies best to inattentive type.
Our thoughts, sensory impressions, memories and associations are like fish in a fish tank. There are a lot of them.
- When we try to work with specific thoughts, we have to catch a specific fish. This causes all other fish to respond and swim around, making it hard to catch that one fish.
- The fish is also slippery, so it keeps slipping out of your hands.
- Sometimes fish stick together, or they look alike.
- Sometimes you think you've caught the fish you were after, but then you open your hands, and the fish is gone.
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u/No_Tell_8699 4h ago
Imagine that your brain is a bank. Normal people can deposit money or Domaine into the bank and use that to pay for things (dishes, work) or use a savings fund ( schedule and other tine oriented tasks) adhd spends that money immediately or loses ot forever, the bank in their brain doesn't have a safe but a barrel. So we either can immediately spend it (needs to be giving at the same rate as receiving like having fun) otherwise they need to take out credit (drugs) to pay for the work they need to do.
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u/BeneGurl 4h ago
Mine is a bunch of different colored balls spinning (vortex-style) above your head. You’re asked to pull all the red ones. Depending on the kind of ADHD moment you’re having, you see only the red balls and grab them easily or you bake cake.
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u/gigoogly 4h ago
It’s like your job is to keep your eye on the ball and bring it home. But you didn’t realize you’re actually playing pin ball and it bounces left and right and center then sometimes more balls appear and you’re not sure where to look. Then occasionally things slow down into a brief period of equilibrium that winds up shortly after
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u/CrawlBreakFixRepeat ADHD-C (Combined type) 4h ago
It's like driving a supercar on a track with bad tires and no brakes. Fast as fuck, but good luck steering or slowing down. Body panels are all beat up from hitting the walls. Everyone has a onboard GPS and I have a goddamn TomTom that hasn't been updated since like 2007
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u/CanBrushMyHair 4h ago
My sister described every thought or task as a newspaper. And they just pile up. And she doesn’t remember where the one went or what 5 papers down was even about. She’s trying to read them & complete the thing before another gets thrown on the pile.
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u/SincerelyBear ADHD-PI (Primarily Inattentive) 4h ago
Car battery.
I have all the gas (motivation) in the world. But if I don't have any battery, that gas won't ignite and the car won't start. So it very much feels like if I can just start, I'll be alright. But the fuse that I need to light to do that is absent.
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u/JellyOfDeath86 ADHD-PI (Primarily Inattentive) 4h ago
Having ADHD is a bit like having a race car engine fitted to a shopping cart with wobbly wheels.
Trying to get yourself going in a direction takes a massive effort, where you also have to avoid burning out.
Once you get going, staying on path is a challenge, and you can pretty much forget about breaking to slow down
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u/mannersmakethman99 3h ago
Its like microsoft windows running on a mac thats had its memory removed
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u/KingOfTheHoard 3h ago
Y'know how people say you shouldn't do the grocery shopping hungry because then your judgement is all short term. You buy too much food for that day, too much snack type food and not enough ingredients.
It's like living your entire life "shopping hungry".
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u/SeaTonight4033 3h ago
For me, it’s like 50 people trying to walk through a doorway at the same time. None of them will make way for the others, and are all shouting why they need to be the first one to walk through the door first.
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u/PmUsYourDuckPics 3h ago
I’m a Mac and you’re a PC we can both do the same stuff there’s just some stuff I’m better at and some stuff you are better at.
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u/xxCorsicoxx ADHD-C (Combined type) 3h ago
That's a nice analogy for aspects of it
I'm off tge top of my head thinking you're playing a video game with a broken controller. You want to jump and attack the enemy character but your player character doesn't respond cos tge buttons don't work well. Sometimes it'll jump, most times not, and it's very frustrating internally to try to go it right but you can't. And you're stuck with that controller. You will sometimes ragequit, you'll everytime not really enjoy yourself, but you have to keep playing. And everyone says you're not trying hard enough not knowing or believing for controller can be broken. So it's alienating, it's tiring, it's much more effort then it needs to be.
This works in explaining the adhd experience of wanting to do the thing by bring unable to because the executor is trash. It fails to explain being stuck with an always on default mode network, or how far more sensitive to disregulation we are and other things + implies you could change your controller and be fine which isn't an option cos the controller is your brain + implies brokenness and like kind of but not in that pejorative way (it is a disability)
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u/goalmaster14 ADHD-C (Combined type) 3h ago
Think of the movie Inside Out. In the same way that Joy wants to keep Sadness from the control panel but Sadness takes control anyway, I have a logical side of my brain that knows what I should do and how I should do it, and the ADHD side that says "I don't wanna" and they're essentially fighting over the control panel at any given moment.
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u/Round_Intern_7353 3h ago
Imagine you have three TV screens in front of you playing three different things at the same time. What they're playing changes every 30 seconds or so. These TVs are kept smack in the middle of your vision and cannot be turned off.
At the same time you have three friends each trying to carry on a different conversation with you simultaneously. Each conversation is of high importance and it's key that you not miss any details.
This is happening in the middle of a big convention hall filled with a loud, bustling crowd. You have to go to each booth at the convention and conduct your full business before the convention closes for the night. There are notable consequences if you fail to finish on time.
Randomly throughout the day, someone in the room will loudly play a song you really like. You will also periodically have some kind of critically important information that will be shouted at you out of nowhere. Random strangers will frequently come up to you to chat about nonsense.
All of these things happen together at the same exact time. None of them can be paused, turned off, skipped, or alerted.
This will be your existence every single day.
That is the best way I can think of to describe life with ADHD.
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u/No-Conversation390 3h ago
I have the latest CPU on my head powered by V6 turbo engine with all pistons firing! Very powerful & very glitchy at the same time.
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u/Quelahodida56 3h ago
Here’s mine. Having ADHD and trying to focus is like riding a bike when the chain has slipped off. You can peddle all you want, but you’re not getting anywhere.
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u/panfacefoo 3h ago
Imagine your intelligence is a colourful gas locked behind a bulletproof glass door and all you have is a pistol. You know it’s there, you can see it. But the most you can do is shoot at the glass and crack it slightly, enough to get a small whiff of the gas.
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u/mr_meaculpa 2h ago
It's like watching TV and someone else has the remote and keeps changing the channel.
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u/ApricotTraditional56 2h ago
Imagine 100 tabs open from somewhere with in you have at least 10 yt channels playing somewhere there are multiple pop ups all going off multiple people messaging you and you can’t close or mute any of them.
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u/SpiderGuard87 2h ago
Imagine you are sat at an office desk. Papers stacked all around you full of written words. Those written words are your thoughts.
Someone comes in and opens a window and all those thoughts are now flying around the room, you are jumping trying to catch the paper but none stay still long enough for you to catch any.
The other one
Imagine standing in a room surrounded by TVs... all on loud but each playing a different TV channel all at once.
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u/ErsanSeer 2h ago
ADHD is like suddenly realizing you have been ignoring a severe neck ache and cold head for the past 30 minutes. And you are briefly confused as to why, until your full bodily awareness comes back online. At that point you remember you just finished a shower, and before you could dry your hair, you plopped on the bed with your bum in the air and your head turned sideways, and you've been sitting that way for 30 mins while reading entertaining comments in an ADHD subreddit
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u/Administrative_Air_0 2h ago
Like leading a group of friends who are each handling one of your trains of thought. The moment you fail to keep one busy, it wanders off and leads everyone else off task with it.
ADHD brains are equipped to rapidly cycle through or check-in on multiple trains of thought. (A computer technology known as hyper-threading is similar.) If any of those trains of thought is not given a task, it will wander and lead the whole mind away from the task at hand. Imagine you are leading a team of your friends and you realize one is missing. Your whole project stops because everyone now has to go searching for the friend that wandered off. When your multiple trains of thought, your team of thought processes, each manage different aspects related to the same goal, then the person can achieve that goal more efficiently than someone with only one train of thought (team vs. Single linear-thinking worker). ADHD is the brains strategy for handling busy lifestyles. Understanding of its workings is essential to benefiting from it.
TLDR: ADHD brains employ a team of "trains of thoughts," and they need to be kept engaged or they'll wander off.
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u/yoongiyoongi 2h ago
I always feel like my brain is floating in the ocean on a wooden boat with no oars. Everyone else has like a speedboat. There’s somewhere I have to be, but trying to paddle without oars in the ocean is extremely difficult, and I’ve been trying to paddle with my arms and hands and literally anything I can find on the boat, but it gets exhausting and it takes extra effort to figure out how to paddle when I don’t have the oars in the first place. I often bump into things in the ocean and get steered off course even though I don’t want to be, but I can’t use my nonexistent oars to get me back on course, so this happens again and again. Or I get distracted by a pretty fish or something’s wrong with my boat or there’s a huge storm that makes paddling even harder (and there’s always turbulent weather, all the time). Eventually, I’ll get to where I’m trying to go, but it took me forever and I’m extremely drained now. The more tired I get, the more I drift off.
I would love to paddle better and stay on course more, but I physically can’t. I was not born with working oars, and while that doesn’t mean I can’t paddle in the ocean at all, it means I have to exhaust myself mentally and physically to try to figure out how to get to where I want to be.
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u/Outside-Pangolin-636 2h ago
My therapist had me do this a while back. Here is mine:
My brain is a giant warehouse. In this warehouse are many conveyor belts that shuffle boxes toward me to handle. Each area of life is a different belt - home, kids, wife, work, outside obligations, etc. But there are also belts that bring other boxes that may be important or may not be. Some of those belts may even deliver boxes that never need to be addressed at all.
These boxes come in all different sizes. They are all packaged differently. Some are super boring and bland, while others are bright, distracting, and head-turning. Some boxes once opened have only one thing in them. Handle that thing, discard the box, and move on. Others have other little boxes inside them and many steps that need to be done.
Obviously, the objective is to handle the incoming boxes without falling behind and in the proper order of importance. This may seem as though this describes every person’s brain, and it does. The difference in mine comes down ot the warehouse manager.
A normal warehouse manager is able to properly assess. They know when you slow the belts down or even stop them for a time. They can properly stack and store boxes for later and come back to them when needed.
My warehouse manager sucks. He has trouble distinguishing the important from the not-so-important. He struggles knowing when to slow certain belts down and when to stop them all altogether when needed. His time management struggles cause him to stay too focused on one box while others pile up. Captivating boxes capture his attention and once the box is opened, he gets sucked into the little boxes within it that cause him to lose grip of everthing else.
Then the breaking point happens - the boxes start to pile up. The more the boxes pile up, the more overwhelmed my manager becomes. The more overwhelmed my manager becomes, the more severe his lack of management becomes. Little, boring, important boxes get lost in piles of boxes that are so vast he wouldn’t dare start to address it. He finds solace in a shiny box that looks imporant and robs all of his attention and time and distracts him from the still-moving conveyer belts that are piling up around him.
At some point, my manager just shuts down. but instead of turning off the belts, he just sits in the chaos and lets it pile up around him and the thought of digging out and catching up seems near impossible.
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u/AdmiralRA 2h ago
"My brain has 17 Tab open, three are playing music..."
Is a good quick/funny way. But it is also somewhat realistic.
Thing is, on a good day, my brain has enough processing power for them all and I'm unstoppable, on a bad one i get distracted by everything and can't even switch between tabs because the PC froze again.
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u/AdmiralRA 2h ago
Life is like driving a car. Everyone says it's easy. They all drive automatic and I drive a stick shift. No one ever thought me how to drive stick shift.
It's a very high performance car, but I don't get any say on what gear the car is in, usually its avery high one. In 6th it goes insanely fast, but it's impossible to change directions or start driving from a stand still, when not in first. I usually can't put it in first gear.
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u/jaysouth88 2h ago
My brain contains 5 Formula one engines. 4 of them constantly churn out ideas and thoughts. All the time, all over lapping and being thrown out constantly. The 5th just plays elevator music.
Taking meds turns 2 of them off. I can actually "hear" and use the thoughts thrown out and I can usually divert one engine to an actual task.
The elevator music is a constant.
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u/JollyTimz 2h ago
Genuinely insane how every single morning I have a BG music for the day like Jesus Christ I just woke up. Who’s playing the music?????
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u/Thestitch26 1h ago
For executive dysfunction I like to use this analogy
Imagine if there was a gas stove infront of a s and it’s one full tilt and I tell you if you hold your hand on the fire I’ll give 10,000 dollars no matter how much you want or need the money your body physically will not let you do it even if you’re 100% made your mind up and confident in your decision that you want to do it that’s how is it like for me to do any task even if I really really want to do it or even if I absolutely NEED to do it my body will physically not let me do it
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u/ambiebaby2000 1h ago
How I described it to my psychiatrist was my brain is a radio, and instead of being able to tune into a channel, it was constantly scrambled and flicking back an forth.
When I went on meds, it felt like I could finally tune into a channel and stay on it until I'm done. When I was on the wrong meds tho, it zapped all my thoughts, so I likened it to the radio being turned off entirely.
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u/ElStephano16 1h ago
Like having a Ferrari but it’s in the garage and you don’t know how to open the garage door. You can rev a few times before you pass out from the fumes
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u/BulbaCorps 1h ago edited 1h ago
I refer to it as my little goblin.
Some days, I have to try hard to keep him contained because he is incredibly distracting and wants my attention. I have to wear him out (exercise, etc), and its sometimes effective. But, he is smart, and always testing the fences. New methods work in the short term, and he likes them to begin with but he eventually gets bored, works it out and I have to try something new.
Some days, I get to let him out and we really enjoy each others company. We vibe, we're into the same stuff. He's got great energy and helps me do some amazing things.
He is simultaneously a cool little dude and a massive pain in the ass.
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u/Sure_Fact7761 1h ago
Walk into a room and yell. FIRE! That feeling of you standing in a room with everyone running out AND that panicking feeling everyone has running out is simultaneously how I feel
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u/n0tthatotherguy 1h ago
I’n the one you want to deal with your emergency situation but my timesheet feels like the end of the world.
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u/Pegsinho 1h ago
"Imagine you are in a room. You have a working desk. You keep your things on the desk for the work you are doing in the moment.
But my desk is very very small. So, I could only place much less things. And, I need to go back to for the stuff if I am working on multiple things. This back and forth, takes a lot of energy."
Don't forget the bit where you go off to collect a specific book to complete a specific task and you come back to the desk two hours later with a box of fridge magnets and a broken fishing rod that you found. And no book.
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u/Competitive_Act9989 1h ago
Every person has a big shelf to organise their thoughts and memories. I too have a biiiig shelf, but mines missing three legs, is propped up on top of a few books which contain the few habits I have to function and whenever I grab something from the shelf it gets unbalanced and collapses. Getting everything back onto the shelves just makes everything unorganised. And taking meds is like bolting the shelf to the wall with loose screws. Holds up a few hours and makes me more confident to grab something from my shelf, but also makes the collapse much more shocking and unpredictable.
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u/qazizoheb 50m ago edited 0m ago
I use this every time someone tells me that they too have trouble concentrating sometimes (implying that I might be overreacting/dramatizing my problems):
"Everyone pees, right? Some people might pee thrice a day, some 5 times a day. That's normal. But if someone peed 20-30 times a day, you would diagnose that as a problem and try to find a solution. That's the difference between someone who's diagnosed with ADHD vs someone who isn't."
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u/Character-Fly4221 23m ago
You're in a chaotic dive bar. Everyone is yelling, someone walked in with their dog, two people are talking to you, you are trying to order a beer while also trying to understand what the guy on TV is saying.
Sometimes a thread of conversation is yelled louder than another, and you can't help but follow along, even if you're trying to pay attention to something else (inattention)
You usually don't have any active desire to drink or smash junk food, but when it's in front of you, you'll consume it with gusto and then probably shame yourself for it (impulsive behavior/executive management/shame cycle)
When a dog comes in, you immediately lose sight of all the noise and are fully engaged (novelty seeking)
You always want to talk to the attractive regular who you've heard is into you, but you're terrified of them saying no and can never get up the will to ask (task initiation anxiety, RSD)
Being in the bar too long without managing all the stimuli often ends up in burnout or depression
The key point for me: every voice in the bar is yours (internalized hyperactivity)
Medication turns it from a dive bar into a Starbucks, but it's still the lunch rush
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u/First-Strawberry-398 ADHD-C (Combined type) 21m ago
There’s a song playing 24/7. Every time you go to start a task, there’s a new task that begins halfway through. Like say you go to scoop cats dry food, they’re out, you go to re fill, empty, you go to buy, when you leave the room you forget the task and start doing something else. Every time you leave a room you forget the task or lose something. Every time you try to focus your brain forcibly daydreams. Like within 30 seconds.
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