Considering the way a person with ADHD functions in the world is different, it should come as no surprise that how a person with ADHD thinks is different as well. And not just in the rapid-fire speed of thought we’re known for. The uniqueness of an ADHD mind goes much deeper than that, infiltrating the types and structures of thoughts we have, how we process them, and the content of our thoughts as well.
Understanding these unique differences can help us better understand the nature of our challenges. But just as importantly, it can help us see ways in which the differences in how a person with ADHD thinks can be an asset.
You might think I’m crazy saying that or you might be cheering me on, depending on your own experiences with ADHD. But stick with me either way and I’ll do my level best to show you how our struggles can also provide a uniquely valuable perspective that only we can give.
Disclaimer: Keep in mind that several of these differences may be more associated with Inattentive Type ADHD or Combined Type. Primary Hyperactive types are less likely to have these elements of thinking differences. That’s not to say their struggle is easier, however. Just different.
How a Person With ADHD Thinks: 11 key differences
We’ve already established that a person with ADHD thinks at the speed of light, so let’s consider that ‘a given’ as we move through this list. Our thoughts come so fast they interrupt each other and before we can make sense of a thread, we lose it. So, they’re fast. But that’s probably not surprising. However, keep that in mind as we move through the differences in how a person with ADHD thinks.
These will not apply equally to every ADHDer. You may see yourself in some points but not in others. Some points may be very relatable while others might be more an occasional experience. Just like symptoms are on a spectrum and we have different combinations of them, the same is true for how we think.
1. ADHD Brains Think in Fragments
Because ADHD (unmedicated) thoughts are so fast and they interrupt each other so much. how a person with ADHD thinks is fragmented. If you’re a ‘think in words’ kind of person, that might literally mean you think in sentence fragments. “I should go do…oh I forgot about the thing…the…wait, what was I doing?” If you’re a visual thinker, it might look like partially formed images that come and go so quickly you forget where they started.
Thinking in fast, racing, interrupting fragments like this is a big reason we struggle to get much done. It’s why we can find ourselves in the middle of 5 different projects but not making any real progress on any of them. It’s a bit like trying to follow a television show’s storyline while a toddler is in charge of the remote.
2. ADHD Brains Easily Lose Track of Thoughts
The ADHD struggle with poor working memory means we’re constantly losing track of mental threads we want to hold on to. In other words, how a person with ADHD thinks is not only fast and fragmented, it’s forgetful, too. Trying to do math in my head is a perfect example of this. I have to remind myself of the numbers I’m working with every two seconds, so by the time I’ve finished one part of the problem, I’ve already forgotten the numbers I started with. I go back and remind myself only to forget where I left off in solving the darn thing and have to start over.
Between fragments and forgetfulness, it’s easy to see why we have to work harder than other people only to get less done. Constantly fighting with your brain to let you have a single full thought without losing track of it is exhausting and uses up a lot more mental energy than people realize.
Related: When You Think it’s Anxiety, But it’s Really ADHD
3. How a Person with ADHD Thinks is at a Disconnect With the Feelings Those Thoughts Inspire
Yet another reason we struggle to get things, especially boring or complicated things, done. Other people have the benefit of thoughts and emotions aligning; we often don’t. For instance, if a neurotypical person has a deadline coming up in a few weeks and they know they’re going to be busy until then, they may decide they need to get that project done early so it’s out of the way. Then, whether or not they want to do the thing, their body responds with a prompt to act. They know it’s important and their body backs that up with the feeling that it’s also important.
When you have ADHD, mind and body are often on separate pages. You know it’s important to get the project done before it’s due. It may even stress you out. But the part of our brain that prompts us with the felt importance or urgency doesn’t show up until crunch time. It’s often the rapidly approaching deadline that finally kicks adrenaline into over drive. It’s that adrenaline that finally gets all our functions on the same page. Likewise, we don’t get the same satisfaction at ticking something off our to-do list. That feeling is part of what motivates a neurotypical brain to do things they’d rather not do.
At the end of their hard work, non-ADHDers get the satisfaction of having accomplished something. There’s actual enjoyment of the home they worked so hard to clean. For someone with ADHD, all we typically get is mild relief that the thing is over. That hardly provides any motivation to do it again in the future the way it does for others.
Related: You Mean THAT’S An ADHD Thing? 9 Fascinated Things You Had No Idea Where ADHD
4. How a Person with ADHD Thinks is Often Overly Literal
While this trait is more commonly associated with autism, we ADHDers are often overly literal as well. To be clear, I am not saying we always or only think this way–we’re figurative and imaginative, too. But sprinkled at random, we find the tendency for ADHDers to think too literally.
When Charity presenters say “give what you can,” my poor little overly literal brain has a meltdown. How much is “what I can”? Technically I could empty my bank account for them, but since no one else is doing that, I assume it’s not what they mean. It wasn’t until my husband pointed it out that I understood that they mean “give what you feel comfortable with.” It didn’t occur to me that they were being figurative.
If someone asks you to grab the biggest box in the closet and you come back with nothing because there were only bags inside, you’re being overly literal. If you get hyperfixated on being somewhere at the exact time agreed upon to the point that you have to text if you’re going to be even a (literal) minute late, you’re being overly literal. And yes, that example is one from my personal experience, thank you very much.
There are a ton of ways this literal thinking pattern shows up. From what I’ve noticed in myself and others, this thinking style is often inconsistent and unpredictable for us. We don’t use it all the time or in every situation. It usually pops up on us out of nowhere.
5. How a Person with ADHD Thinks is Often Dualistic in Nature
There several distinct ways ADHDers think dualistically, meaning divided in two opposing or contrasting positions. We tend to think in black and white, all or nothing patterns, for instance. We either find ourselves completely obsessed with something or we are so uninterested we dread even looking at it. Even our sense of time is dualistic–things are either happening right now or it’s like they don’t even exist.
This dualism makes it difficult for us to find balance or middle ground with things. Note that I didn’t say impossible–because that’s not true–but difficult. Sometimes to the point of feeling impossible. This dualism means that we often struggle with rigid thinking or rigid thinking patterns which contributes to perfectionism, poor frustration tolerance, poor self esteem, feelings of helplessness, etc… because middle ground and balance are usually where we find answers, strategies, emotional relief, or wiggle room.
I’ve put a lot of work into being more flexible mentally and I’ve gotten a lot better at it. But even so, I often have to fight through the dualism, fight the overly literal initial interpretations, and the ‘either/or’ tendencies in order to find flexibility. Those patterns are our natural tendency, so even getting good at flexibility, you’ll often have to fight for balance or middle ground before you find it.
6. ADHD Thoughts are Either Slippery or Sticky With Little in Between
Sometimes our struggle is keep track of thoughts. Other times it’s letting go of them. Our attention is either broad and shallow or pointed and deep. Broad and shallow is what I call slip ‘n slide thinking. It’s when your attention is everywhere, noticing every little random thing around you. You aren’t thinking long or deeply about any of the things you notice. Your thoughts are on a slip ‘n slide–in and out quickly, then onto something else.
This is what people refer to as having a deficit of attention. It isn’t a deficit, though. It’s simply dysregulated. You have a lot of attention, you just can’t apply it where you need it and or keep it there.
Pointed, deep thought is hyperfocus. The brain funnels every ounce of attention into a single direction to the exclusion of anything else. Getting lost in hyperfocus feels like you’re Alice falling into wonderland. You might forget to eat or drink; you may not realize you have to go to the bathroom, even urgently. When I’m in hyper-focus, people can talk to me, call for me, even yell at me, and it doesn’t even register that they’re in the room.
Hyper-focus is often productive, churning out creative, unique work. Going this pointedly deep into a single topic means we often know more about it than others. When we create something with that knowledge, it is often more specific and thorough than other people’s work.
This is why we know a lot of random trivia. We follow our interest down convoluted, all consuming rabbit holes. Sometimes that depth of knowledge is invaluable; other times, its more like a mental trivia junk drawer.
7. ADHD Thinking Can Be Obsessive, With or Without Anxiety
Besides Hyperfocus, obsessive thinking is another type of ‘sticky’ focus ADHD thinkers often struggle with. These obsessive thoughts are like a magnet or a boomerang. Every time we try to shift our focus, it snaps back to the obsessive thought.
This isn’t just rumination. ADHD obsessive thoughts are not always anxiety producing. Once, my teenaged neices thought it would be hilarious to sing the Little Einstein’s theme song at the top of their lungs in my car. I thought it was over when I took them home. It was not. I have that song stuck in my head for two weeks. Two WEEKS, I tell you! I wanted to rip my hair out.
Sometimes this obsession shows up during transitions. The ADHD brain struggles to ‘jump tracks’ quickly. When we need to shift our focus, our brain fights to stay on its current track. It can take me upwards of 30 minutes or more before I can get my brain to fully transition to something else.
This can show up in a variety of ways. It’s not uncommon for us to listen to songs or watch shows on repeat. I’ve been known to listen to the same song for hours. Or watch the same movie every day for a month. It’s obsession, plain and simple.
Related: Do I Have ADHD or Anxiety? Here’s How to Tell
8. A Person with ADHD Thinks in Unending Thought Chains
By ‘thought chain’ I mean that unending string of ‘this made me think of this, which made me think of this’. While everyone’s brain does thought chaining, a person with ADHD struggles to turn it off. People without ADHD have a natural thought structure that monitors chaining and cuts it off when necessary. That boring but important work meeting? Their brain monitors for chaining and brings their attention back. Ours…does not.
That obviously causes us problems. These unending chains are a big reason we struggle to pay attention. It’s why we struggle to stay focused on the task, issue, or thing in front of us. It leads to too many thoughts and often not enough solutions or resolutions, which can encourage anxiety.
Here’s the interesting thing, though. Those unending thought chains are also why people with ADHD think more creatively than other people. It’s why we make connections others don’t see. and have more out of the box ideas or strategies. Since our brain doesn’t limit association chains, our creative ideas and connections are unlimited as well.
These thought chains are like tree roots. Ours spread far and wide and pick up resources others may not have even realized were a possibility. Because of their unlimited branching, these thought roots may feel tangled and uncontrollable. They create difficulty for us, but the positive trade off is the depth and breadth of resources and ideas we can gather and put together.
We’re known for out of the box thinking and the unending thought chains are a big part of why we think more innovatively.
Related: ADHD Exposed: 30 Metaphors Explain Exactly What it Feels Like Inside an ADHD Mind
9. How a person with ADHD thinks is not Linear. It’s Curvilinear
Linear thinking is the tendency to think in steps. You start with an idea and go from point A to point B to point C, and so on. Linear thinking is more organized, practical, and efficient, making it easier to act on ideas. The trade off with linear thinking is that while things get done and they’re clear and organized, this style of thinking often leads to less innovative results. You get it done, but what you’ve created probably isn’t new or different.
How a person with ADHD thinks is anything but linear. It’s curvy, winding, and unbound. In other words, it’s curvilinear. Curvilinear thinking drops you in the middle of an idea and your brain has to scramble for a place to start, end, and organize everything in between.
It’s like getting dropped blindfolded in the middle of the ocean. If you manage to get your bearings without losing all your steam in the process, whatever you create will be unique and unlike anything else. No cookie cutter, regurgitated cliches for you. Unfortunately, if is the key word. With all its ‘middle of the idea scrambling’, curvilinear thinking is more overwhelming and harder to act on.
Einstein is a good example of the benefits and drawbacks of curvilinear thinking. He wasn’t a prolific scientist. He didn’t create new theories every other day. Before the work that made him famous, he couldn’t even hold down a job. He had one major groundbreaking claim to fame and it took a huge chunk of his life.
Einstein stumbled across a question that led him down a deep and all-consuming rabbit hole–eventually leading to the theory of relativity. He had a curvilinear thinking pattern and I believe that was necessary for his discovery.
10. ADHD Thinkers are Matrix Thinkers
Similar to curvilinear thinking, matrix thinking is less organized but far more creative thought processing structure. IMatrix thinking is another distinctive aspect of how a person with ADHD thinks. I understand it like this: If curvilinear thinking is the mental equivalent of being dropped in the ocean, matrix thinking is the chaotic way we scramble within that idea ocean. Matrix thinking goes from point C to point F to point B to point R before making it back to point A. Thought chaining and rapid association leads a matrix oriented brain to make broad connections between ideas and to see the overlap between them when others don’t. Again, matrix thinking is disorganized, non-linear and messy. It chases common threads across different ideas, different domains, etc…recognizing overlaps and connections others miss.
There are different structures of matrix thinking. For some people, their thoughts function like a spiral in which they come back to the same idea many times but at differing layers and with different associations each time. For others it’s like a rapidly branching tree with branches growing far and wide or a large puzzle you’re constantly fitting smaller pieces into.
Matrix thinkers absorb information from the world around them. Their brain then holds onto that information to factor into later thought chains and associations. Matrix thinkers are often creative problem solvers and innovators with good pattern recognition skills. Of course, the downside to this type of thinking is the chaos and lack of order can become overwhelming. Because of this, it doesn’t lend itself to the ‘type A personality level of productivity’ our world often expects from us.
11. ADHD Thinkers Are Usually Overthinkers
If you think about it in light of everything we’ve covered so far, it only makes sense that ADHDers overthink.
- We have more thoughts than most people
- Those thoughts zoom in so quickly they interrupt each other
- The thoughts are disorganized, half baked fragments that lead to a thousand different seemingly random places
- Thought chaining means we are never at a loss for identifying more and more concerning possibilities potentially looming
- And being dropped in the middle of all of this uncontrollable thinking means we lack some of the information needed to get ourselves out of anxiety
Is it any wonder we overthink? I mean, honestly. It’s practically built into our brain. This is especially true for Inattentive or combined type ADHD thinkers. People who are primarily hyperactive are less likely to overthink. While they still tend toward the more creative thinking styles, hyperactive types struggle less with the chaotic aspects of our thinking. That’s not to say they have it easier; just a little different.
A Quick Note on Overthinking vs Deep Thinking
It can be challenging to tell the difference between our deep thinking (the sticky focused, thought chaining kind that can identify way more actual challenges than the people around us are able to see), and overthinking. Poor interoceptive awareness adds to that challenge. Unfortunately, it’s just as difficult for other people to recognize our deep thinking from our overthinking.
But despite the challenge, I think it’s important that we figure out how to tease them apart. Deep thinking is what leads to innovation–we don’t want to shut that down even if other people don’t know how to appreciate it until it’s cohesive and beneficial. Overthinking, though? It doesn’t bring anybody any benefit, least of all us. Learning to shut that down is essential to our wellbeing.
I’ve come to recognize that when I’m overthinking, I feel like I’m stuck inside a maze, running in circles but getting nowhere. Deep thinking feels more like I’m playing chess, identifying potential scenarios and their effects in my head before I decide on a move.
A Quick Tip on Battling Overthinking
When I recognize the circling maze of overthinking, I start looking for an exit door. Many times I get trapped in overthinking because I’ve put up unnecessary barriers for myself that feel inherent, but aren’t. So I look for places I’ve assumed something has to be a certain way or can’t be a certain way.
Am I trying to avoid something that can’t be avoided? Am I assuming I have to avoid something that I actually don’t? Or I ask myself if the problem is as important as I’m making it out to be. There have been times I’ve been so overwhelmed with overthinking and feeling anxious and exhausted only to realize the thing I’m overthinking isn’t actually that important in the scheme of things.
When all else fails, sometimes I have to step away from the problem entirely before I can see where my false barriers lie.
That’s a wrap!
There are so many ways how a person with ADHD thinks is different than the way other brains think. Some of them make life hard on us; others can become an asset to us if we learn how to mitigate the downsides and let our brain do its thing. Learning these differences has been a great help to me in re-processing how I understand my ADHD struggles.
It is the ADHD brain’s struggle with regulation that produces my frustrating symptoms, but it’s also that exact mechanism that makes my thinking more creative and innovative. I hold both qualities in high esteem and while I could do without the struggles, I’m glad I have those strengths to build on. That doesn’t mean the struggles aren’t hard and it doesn’t mean that they don’t matter because ‘hey look, here’s a bright side.’ It just means that every rose has its own particular thorns. And the unruly way how a person with ADHD thinks is thorny to say the least. Thankfully, it comes with a few pretty roses, too.
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