Living With Adult ADHD: Explained In Comics
Chasing a life where everything is exciting and nothing is boring
ADHD CHRONICLES
Chasing a life where everything is exciting and nothing is boring
If I had to summarize my ADHD experience in one sentence it would be this: Chasing a life where everything you do is exciting and avoiding everything that could be even slightly boring. October is ADHD awareness month and I think it’s time I tell you how ADHD affects my everyday life — in comics (because who has the patience to read a text without pictures).
ADHD stands for “Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder”. It is usually associated with hyperactive children but in reality, ADHD affects all ages and it doesn’t have to make you visibly hyperactive at all. You see, your brain can be “hyperactive” in that it makes it hard for you to decide where to direct your attention. Since this makes ADHDers easily distractible, we crave highly stimulating activities that can keep our attention.
Most of the time, these highly stimulating activities are not physical, like I’m not talking extreme sports or adrenaline rush. Most neurodivergent people (aka Autism spectrum + ADHD folks + other neurodevelopmental conditions) will consider very specific activities personally stimulating to them. For example, I find writing this article very stimulating at this moment. But if it goes on for too long, I might get bored with it and leave it…and then completely forget about it (I do need to publish it during October though, so I’ll set a calendar reminder for this).
Here are 5 selected aspects of adult ADHD you might have not heard about. If you find yourself in these, first follow me for more content (hopefully more articles coming up this month), and second, especially if you feel like you are struggling on a daily basis, schedule an appointment with an ADHD psychiatrist who can officially diagnose you and offer you treatment. And even if you don’t have ADHD, I’m sure you will relate to some aspects, 2022 is the age of distraction after all.
What causes ADHD? A digression for science nerds
The current hypothesis about what causes ADHD is that our brains lack appropriate amounts of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that (in my words) makes you want to do things. It’s kind of like your brain’s personal coach telling you to do stuff you have to do and making you feel good when you do them. This is from Wikipedia: Inside the brain, dopamine plays important roles in executive functions, motor control, motivation, arousal, reinforcement, and reward.
Sounds very important, if you ask me. So, having too little dopamine just makes you try and get it by doing something pleasurable and stimulating because it’s during these activities that dopamine gets released naturally. So, ADHD is basically a struggle between trying to only do pleasurable things, when life expects you to do many boring things on a day-to-day basis.
1. Routine everyday tasks are extremely difficult to execute.
Routine tasks, especially household and admin chores are my personal worst. There is nothing more boring, dopamine/life/energy-sucking than having to do the same tasks over and over again. And when as an ADHDer you don’t want to do a task but you know you have to, you would do anything to stop it…
The reason we get abnormally tired after eventually completing a task we didn’t want to do is that it took us an enormous amount of work to muster the willpower to actually do it. ADHD can be truly exhausting. It often feels like you are tired from just living. Unless you are doing something very exciting of course, in which case it feels like unstoppable energy.
2. ADHDers get easily bored and want to skip to fun stuff immediately
The bread and butter of ADHD is a complete and utter lack of patience when things get ever so slightly less interesting than what you expected. Even at the smallest hint of boredom, we are already out of the picture.
3. ADHDers can easily come up with new ideas but find it difficult to execute them.
This comic ended on a positive note (yay!) because I thought a lot about this issue and came up with some tentative solutions. Besides acknowledging that ADHD sends you on creativity spurs with an unusually high number of new ideas every day,* I developed one more strategy to try and execute some of my ideas.
*Digression for psych nerds: If you don’t have ADHD, you might be wondering why we get so many ideas at once. Well, our brains are racing all the time (hyperactive remember?), we are thinking about so many things at once because we are trying to get that sweet dopamine release by experiencing something new and exciting. And new ideas just emerge and they can be very exciting indeed…But working on them for longer periods of time? Not so much.
Back to my strategy: Instead of leaving my idea in the perpetual draft stage, I try to lower my barrier to completing the task. For instance, I decided to draw this comic very simply, therefore lowering my mental barrier of wanting to make it look perfect, which would just stress me out and never allow me to finish it.
If I wanted to make it all perfect and nice, I would’ve never done it. ADHD just doesn’t grant me the kind of patience required for detailed and beautiful drawings (on most days at least). So, I do what I can and it makes me feel at least a little bit productive.
4. ADHDers easily forget about stuff.
The following rule sums up how I experience pretty much everything: What is in my sight is on my mind. Out of my sight, out of my mind. No wonder I forget things, right?
5. Our behavior often doesn’t fit in within the established social norms.
Often forgotten, this point is extremely important because many ADHDers just feel like they don’t fit in within the social roles attributed to them. In turn, this can affect our sense of identity, belonging, and self-confidence about who we are.
People with ADHD are often fidgety and can’t sit in one position for a long time. My legs just need to be on top of my chair!
I was always told that women should act polite, sit in a polite way (spreading your legs is only reserved for men), know everything around the house, be into decorating stuff, and just keep themselves “pretty”…
All of this started when I got asked to choose pronouns and I suddenly felt uncomfortable self-identifying just as a woman or any gender for that matter. I thought a lot about why this is and realized it has to do with my ADHD — induced behaviors considered to be more “masculine” than “feminine” in traditional society.
But why are many ADHD characteristics considered “masculine”? Well, pleasure-seeking and chasing a life where everything is exciting is something society associates with men and not women. Women are discouraged from seeking pleasure in high-excitement activities, instead, they are encouraged to pay attention to often unnecessary details and beauty. But my attention just never goes there.
I often felt like something was wrong with me for not enjoying thinking about makeup, decoration, wedding planning, etc. But you know what, there is nothing wrong with me! Because we are leaving all these shitty gender stereotypes behind, right?
In the end, I am happy that I have at least one presentation of ADHD that I am totally proud of: I do not feel like a woman in all those stereotypical ways. I get to be pretty in a natural way and sit the way I like. Genders aside, that’s who I really am.
The end
These were only 5 aspects of ADHD I selected for this article. I have many more in mind that I want to share with you, so follow me for more articles on mental health and ADHD!
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And check out my other articles about ADHD:
Can’t Catch a Ball? ADHD Confessions In Comics
Poor motor skills, perception, and body awkwardness explainedmedium.com
Dealing With Adult ADHD Through Humor
Learn how to make jokes and draw comics for mental health. This is the written version of my Medium Day talk, video…medium.com
Being Neurodivergent Explained in Four Comics
The single factor that explains why I act baby-ish, play with toys, and can occasionally “predict” the end of the worldmedium.com
How Comics Help With My ADHD
With comics included!medium.com
Owning ADHD and Coping With It: In Comics
I rarely read books, but when I do, it’s because I want to write one.medium.com
Living With Adult ADHD Is Spooky: Explained in Comics
Muahahaha — 4 spooky things that might happen to ADHDers and other innocent souls this Halloweenmedium.com
Why Everything Takes Longer When You Have ADHD (In Comics)
Welcome to the world where “crying over spilled milk” is interpreted literally and having fun is the only solutionmedium.com
ADHD Heart Is the Best Decision Maker: How I Always Know What I Want (In Comics)
And I want it now. On repeat, please!medium.com
ADHD Xmas In Comics
How to embrace being ADHD during Xmasmedium.com
A Guide to Being a Happy Pessimist In 2023
New Year’s tips in comicsmedium.com
I Spy, I Draw: How Art Makes You More Mindful
ADHD hack against racing thoughts: Draw anything you observemedium.com