If you don’t have ADHD, it might be hard to know how best to communicate with your friends/family that do have ADHD. Even with good intentions, you may say something that unintentionally triggers some deep shame and pain. This guide is a quick lesson on some of the things you should avoid saying to people with ADHD.
Yeah I really appreciate you putting this together like this. It’s simple on the surface but you’re pointing at something people usually miss, the inner experience of attention and intention in ADHD, not just the visible behavior.
What makes this article strong is that it quietly corrects a big misunderstanding about attention. People think attention is like a switch, you just flip it on with willpower. But the mind doesn’t work that way. It’s more like a bunch of different processes pulling attention in different directions at once. In meditation psychology you see this clearly, attention naturally gets captured by whatever has the strongest pull in the moment, even if your intention is somewhere else . That’s why someone with ADHD can deeply want to do the right thing and still feel blocked. Your post explains that gap in a very human way. It helps people see this isn’t laziness or lack of care, it’s a difference in how attention is regulated, and understanding that changes the whole conversation. Really appreciate you sharing this 😊🙏
Hi Jesse! I just posted kind of a strange piece, a real-time record of how my attention issues manifest while trying to read with ADHD. Not sure it’s the perfect format for Substack, but I’d love to hear your thoughts.
This hits because it names the real damage — not the symptoms, but the shame that builds when intentions are constantly misunderstood.
ADHD isn’t a lack of effort or intelligence, it’s a mismatch between how a brain works and how the world expects it to work.
Assuming good intentions shouldn’t be radical, but for people with ADHD it often is.
Articles like this matter because they shift the focus from “fixing” us to actually understanding us. So thank u for that!!
Yeah I really appreciate you putting this together like this. It’s simple on the surface but you’re pointing at something people usually miss, the inner experience of attention and intention in ADHD, not just the visible behavior.
What makes this article strong is that it quietly corrects a big misunderstanding about attention. People think attention is like a switch, you just flip it on with willpower. But the mind doesn’t work that way. It’s more like a bunch of different processes pulling attention in different directions at once. In meditation psychology you see this clearly, attention naturally gets captured by whatever has the strongest pull in the moment, even if your intention is somewhere else . That’s why someone with ADHD can deeply want to do the right thing and still feel blocked. Your post explains that gap in a very human way. It helps people see this isn’t laziness or lack of care, it’s a difference in how attention is regulated, and understanding that changes the whole conversation. Really appreciate you sharing this 😊🙏
Hi Jesse! I just posted kind of a strange piece, a real-time record of how my attention issues manifest while trying to read with ADHD. Not sure it’s the perfect format for Substack, but I’d love to hear your thoughts.