The ADHD brain is a chaotic place of random starts and stops that few understand if they haven’t seen it up close and personal. Like…so up close and personal they live there and can’t escape. How do explain the tornado that is ADHD to people who don’t have it?
For me, it’s like a bounce house, every ball a thought and someone gave faulty leaf blowers to a bunch of overstimulated children before unleashing a back of wild dogs inside. I can’t grab one thought without another smacking me in the face. Or, on the flip side, it’s like a train careening wildly down a track. When something disrupts me, it’s like the track ahead abruptly shifts and my super train can’t slow down so it just crashes in a flaming heap.
But I asked readers on the Little Miss Lionheart facebook page how they explain what it’s really like to live inside an ADHD brain and they explained it better than I ever could. So here’s what it’s really, actually like to have ADHD. Share with your friends and family so they get you a little better. 😉
What does it Really Feel Like Inside the ADHD Brain?
“Feels like emptiness. Waiting for thoughts to load is just a cursor blinking on the screen. I know I’m supposed to be remembering something but it’s just a blank space. Then 2 hours later *boop!* it loads way too late.” –Melissa
“Like a really active plasma ball constantly pinging and making connections and always on.” –Hayley
Like the staircases at Hogwarts, but in fast forward and I never know where the next will lead.
“My brain is a huge sea of molasses. Everything I attempt is through molasses. I can only think in detail about what is right in front of my face, and even then it is slow and elusive. The rest is just oozing everywhere with no substantial detail. Then, hyperfocus kicks in, and there is a sphere of clarity around me. Sometimes the sphere lasts for several hours while I am motivated by a deadline. Then the molasses closes in again.” –Deanna
“Like I am trying to drive a car with the parking brake on. I can get some places but it takes A LOT of gas and a really long time and sometimes I am stuck at the bottom of a hill and no amount of stomping on the gas pedal can get me up the damn thing. Oh, and the radio is on but all the stations are overlapping and fading in and out.” –Michelle
“It depends upon the day and season of my life. Currently (51 years old and overwhelmed on all fronts) it feels like I’m attempting to navigate through a field of quick sand. Everything I need to do is weighing me down. If I take a step, I sink farther down. I can’t seem to make any progress. As a result, more “to do’s are added to the load, which is so discouraging and I feel more despondent. So much of it is stuff that’s out of my control, but it’s still on my plate to manage it. VERY OVERWHELMING!!” –Annette
“I picture mine as an office with all the papers flying in the air, as if the windows are open and a breeze blew through and sent the whole room into a mess. Then once everyone gets started cleaning up ANOTHER breeze blows through because someone forgot to close the window. So you have to start all over. Repeat forever. When I meditate I envision the same way, only the office is empty and the one person left is trying to close down for the day and sort all the papers and sweep the floors. All the papers are thoughts or tasks.” –Britt
I'm an air-traffic controller, and it's my first day on the job at LaGuardia. But I haven't had any training, and all I have for guidance is a bunch of mimeographs from 1973.
“It Alternates between a constant and ever changing to-do list, random music lyrics (commercials, real songs 
) and straight emptiness. It is rarely quiet because there is always an open browser page somewhere that I just can’t seem to find.” –Mindy
“Sometimes it’s a thousand browser tabs open, some repeating stuff because I can’t find the original tab etc. Other times it’s intrusive thoughts like trying to cross a road and seeing in my head myself getting hit by a car and having my entire body tense in response. Like pop up ads from hell I guess. And then somehow there are times where I feel like I’m on an endless loading screen. It’s actually kind of peaceful if I weren’t trying to accomplish something at that moment.” –Michelle
“That’s a really good question…that I’m going to have a real good think on. Right now, it’s like I have a million ways to describe it yet my mind is blank.” –Holly
I feel like I have a hundred eyes and ears and they're all taking in something different.
“When it’s really acting up and I’m having trouble formulating actual thoughts, it‘s like my brain has… shrunk almost? Like it’s had some of the brain stuff sucked out and it’s shriveled a bit. It’s like what I imagine radio static feels like. When I’m having the opposite problem with a million thoughts, it’s like having Jack Black live in my brain. He’s just vibing and doing his thing while continually giving me post it notes with all sorts of reminders on them at unpredictable rates and levels of importance or urgency. Absolutely chaotic energy. They pile up and make it near impossible to sort through, so I just grab one and go with it. But a lot of times I drop it or he knocks it out of my hand and slaps another in its place. So then the first thing doesn’t get finished and I’m off with the next one. Absolutely exhausting. 
“Like a tornado. Information goes in, then gets lost to the winds, never to be seen again.” –Holly
“Like all this overwhelming info is coming in. But then immediately disappearing. An important appointment for next week? Nah, we’re not saving that. The full names and seating arrangements of colleagues from a job I left 10 years ago? Yep, I can tell you all of that.” –Emma
It's like maintaining ten subjects in one conversation at once.
“Like I have hundreds of internet tabs open at all times that I’m constantly flipping through and can’t find what I’m looking for.” –Michelle
“It’s like walking into an old-school stereo store (or the electronics department of Sears, back in the day), where every radio/music player and every TV is on at once, and all playing something different. If I focus on on one thing (hyperfocus), the rest becomes background noise that can still be overstimulating. If I don’t focus, I hear it all and my attention is constantly moving between them.” –Crystal
“Often noisy. The other morning I woke up and instantly my brain started playing 
“A room full of mouse traps loaded with ping pong balls…and someone dropped one to start the chain reaction.” –Lynn
“Mine is like a steady stream of cars in 20 different lanes all going 100 mph. A constant hum in my brain and I hope I grab the right ” car” for what I intend to do…or that the right ” car” loops around back when I remember that was the one I want.” –Alyssa
“Like a sheaf of papers that were dropped and put back disordered. On Vyvance? Like an endless scarf billowing out one at a time… But endlessly.” –Marissa
“It feels like a room where 100 bullets have been shot and they’re just bouncing off the walls and having to dodge them flying around. Kinda like when Brian and Stewie from Family Guy get locked in the bank together.” –Amanda
Silly string. One thought layers on top of the other until there is a 12 foot wide pile of mush and I can't find where I started.
“Like every thought is a pea on spinning circus plates that must be immediately addressed before they fly off or the plates crash to the ground.” –Shelley
“On a rough day, like everything in my existence is on fast forward. Yes things happen quickly and that’s cool but I miss so much information and skip important things whilst being hyped and wide-eyed and slightly perplexed.” –PJ
Silly string. One thought layers on top of the other until there is a 12 foot wide pile of mush and I can't find where I started.
“Like going up a steep hill. Getting started is a challenge but then the momentum created by the hyper focus part of my brain makes it hard to stop tasks and do anything else.” –Kimberly
“A cross between Gringott’s bank vaults and the warehouse of doors in Monsters Inc. it’s a bumpy ride, with lots of twists and turns and you eventually end up where you intended, but not without several side quests along the way.” –Shelley
“It feels like a song is stuck in my head, and I have to finish it before I can move on…BUT it’s several tasks all at once. It’s like several songs not leaving my mind unless I want to think about them, and people are mad or upset with me for not finishing any of them when I wanted to finish them so badly. So many ‘songs’ stuck in my head. I wish I could choose one to play, and that I could finish it when I choose to. –Stephanie
Like the glass elevator from Willy Wonka with Scrat from Ice Age chasing his elusive acorn inside and all hell is breaking loose...with me inside too *send help 🏳️🏳️*
Connect with Me
Little Miss Lionheart readers are geniuses, don’t you think? Which ones do you relate to yourself? Better yet, how do YOU describe the inside of your ADHD brain?
Don’t forget to share this article with all your peeps—neurodivergent and otherwise! And follow for more.
This is really useful and I agree with it- except for one thing. I was diagnosed at the age of 65, after thinking I was broken all my life. If you have this condition, you’ll know about RSD. So you’ll also perhaps understand how upsetting it is to be labelled in a negative way when your name is Karen.