Stop Trying To Fix ADHD People
Six things people say or do that don’t help people with ADHD.
People mean well when they send me the latest articles on how to cope with ADHD. But telling ADHD people to get organized is the same thing as telling a depressed person to cheer up. It doesn’t help and makes matters worse for the one with the issue.
I can tell pretty fast whether someone “gets” ADHD. A lot of self-help articles are written by people who don’t “get” the ADHD person even when it is a psychologist being quoted or doing the writing.
The problem is people who do not have ADHD applying their style of thinking to us. It does not work.
Here are some things we don’t need.
We don’t need to know how to get organized. Many of us can be extremely organized for short periods of time. The basic “how to get organized” is a very simple thing that most adults know. If it were just a matter of getting organized, there would be no ADHD. Sometimes what appears to not be organized, is organized. People with ADHD see the world differently, and we may see an organization where you do not.
We don’t need to be told how to plan our time and avoid distractions. There are not many people better at planning than me. I have my main plan, plan B, and Plan C. Planning is not very difficult, and most adults with ADHD can plan anything that needs to be done. I enjoy planning and thinking about all the things that could go wrong. I don't get anxiety over what could go wrong. It spurs me to think of what I will do if that bad thing derails the plan. As a result, I am a pretty good planner. Execution suffers at times because of ADHD, but planning is not the problem. Often ADHD people are better at handling a situation that is getting out of control one who does not have ADHD.
Education is not the answer. I don’t need help with my workspace. I don’t need help with decision making, or how to clear out clutter whether the clutter is mental or physical. Knowing what to do does not help. We already know what to do, and if we could do that we would and there would be no issue. Recently I was struggling to write because I had at least 20 good ideas and could not settle down into one of them. Someone tried to help by telling me to just pick one or to decide which one was most important. I held off the temptation to say something like, “no shit Sherlock.” If I could do that I would do that.
The latest discovery, which is usually nothing more than recycled nonsense like “just do better.” Something has been a problem for a few thousand years, but some guy wants us to believe he has found a secret that no one else has ever thought of in recorded history. Always be suspicious of the snake oil salesman. He has a secret alright, but the secret isn’t what he is selling.
The simple solution to a complex problem is always suspect too. It’s like promising overweight people they can lose weight with this magic pill, without changing their eating habits or without exercise. If it sounds too good to be true, there’s a really good chance that it isn’t. These are the articles that tell ADHD people to get organized or try to teach them how to not be distracted with simple solutions.
Snake oil doesn’t work, and magic tricks don’t either. They also don’t work when mixed and well shaken.
ADHD isn’t a real thing also pops up now and then. It is like telling gay people if they would just try a little harder they would not be gay anymore. I’m not gay but I know enough about it to know that isn’t the case. It is hard to understand if you don’t have it. Just like it is hard to understand “gayness” if you are not of that predisposition. It is hard to understand the ADHD mind if you don’t have one. Saying it isn’t real shows ignorance and pisses off ADHD people.
What do we need?
The thing I need most is simple understanding and acceptance. Don’t try to help by doing one of the things above. No matter what your suggestion is, I have probably heard it before.
Just accept the fact that we cannot sit still, or stop moving. We can’t stop looking around the room while you are talking. Accept it that we are listening even if we are not acting like we are.
We see the world differently than you do. That is not a bad thing, and we are not wrong. There are some advantages to ADHD. It is just that our society says we are not “normal,” and you know how our society refuses to accept anyone outside the norm.
If we are having a bad ADHD day, the best thing you can do is leave us alone, and don’t try to help. We will be ok tomorrow.
The takeaway
ADHD people are different. There is starting to be a debate in the medical community on whether it is even an illness. It is a different way of seeing the world. Don’t offer suggestions and try to fix us. Just accept us as we are. That is the best thing you can do for an ADHD person.
Here are some more of my ADHD stories
James Jordan is a freelance writer who lives in the midwest. ADHD is a subject of interest, and I believe it is not an illness at all.
You may see my website here