ADHD uncensored: The realities of living with ADHD

By Youth President James Carver 

So, if you’ve been following my work till now, you will know I write a lot about experiences of other conditions. But I have never really gone into details about my own life and living with ADHD. This might be a hyperfixation at 11:44pm at night but this is that story. 
 
Living with ADHD is an interesting experience, you have highs and lows, ups and downs. I’m going to take you through a few common ones. I’ve also left in the random thoughts that popped into my brain when writing this. 
 
Where to start, ooo a banana, ADHD is a neurodivergent condition that impacts a person's ability to regulate attention, emotions, and thought processes. Ahh, my other half has just spoken and I’ve lost my hyper focus urm letter, letters, letters. 

Living with ADHD can be incredibly crippling, you have to contend with times of activity paralyses where you know you have x,y,z to do but whenever you want to do anything you can’t physically move. For me this typically occurs in the morning but it can happen at anytime of the day. Yes, hyperfocus is coming back. 
 
Often, the ADHD brain is in flux and we need physical prompts to tell us to clean the house, or take out the bins, generally to take care of ourself. For me, my brain has a certain threshold for dirt and anything above that and I’ll get a message telling me “it’s time to clean” and I will proceed to go on a 2 hour cleaning session; unless someone distracts me by saying “you know you could”… it’s like that scene in Doctor Who: The Power of Three where the doctor cleans a hall, paints a garden fence, and does football tricks in about 30 minutes because he’s bored; that is the ADHD brain. The corporate nature of the world tells us that we need to do something but our brains nope out because we cannot get a dopamine fix. 
 
So, I’ve mentioned dopamine fixes quite often and thought I’d explain what these are. People with ADHD have trouble regulating the dopamine centres of the brain; this is the reward centre that helps to regulate attention and stuff. People with ADHD have naturally less amounts of dopamine in their system than other people and we need to find ways of topping it up to continue to engage properly; this is usually done by doing something silly, or telling a joke… yes, those who are with me in meeting that’s why I tell jokes. My brain literally tells me “your dopamine is low, tell a joke” and when I try to revolt the brain turns into Emperor Palpatine and says “do it”, other ways of getting a dopamine fix is though sharing our ideas outload or doodling. It’s all about ensuring you create enough dopamine to get you though the day. 
 
Ok, that’s enough negatives for now, it’s time for some positives, which is going to be difficult because people with ADHD are the world best worst critics. Anyway, where was I. The vast amounts of energy. Some of you might see me getting up, being distracted, or running about to places and it’s generally time trying to get down my energy levels so I can sleep the next night (like I’m not doing at the moment) and sometimes I can be so energised I speak for hours while I’m meant to be sleeping; I especially used to do this when I was younger (sorry Mum). Anyway, there are ways I channel my hyperactivity and that is in the form of organising; when I have the energy, I can be an excellent organiser and get work done hours before a deadline. This is because I am constantly working on it and adapting my day multiple times. Say I’m in a meeting, well when I do this I may also answer an email or write a report, and I’m still able to recite back to you what you said for about 10 minutes; most of the time. This is how we do it, the ADHD brain is so good at multitasking that we can do these things without even noticing. 
 
Another positive is that I can vibe check rooms. Literally, I can walk into a room and tell my the atmosphere if I’m in danger or not, although I cannot read emotions directly (someone please tell me how that works). Before you go, “oh no the youth President believes he’s psychic” please be assured that I’m don’t. I just pick up on minute details in a room and can tell if it’s a happy scenario or a sad one. I’ll try to describe the difference between the two. A sad scenario is like a rainy day and I feel depressed, a happy scenario is like a warm summer day and you can feel the energy radiating off people. This is the thing people with ADHD are empaths which mean although we can read emotions, we can pick up on them. 
 
Anyway, it’s getting late and if I don’t stop now I’ll never finish; maybe I should write a book. Yeah, a big Green book called “uuurrrrmmm” sorry mind went blank, it does that. I know I usually sign off with a big powerful message but it’s past midnight and blah blah, so please just let people with ADHD do our thing and Ta-dah it will all finish well. 
 
This is James signing out, peace.