ADHD and Steps

A long time ago I worked with a wonderful therapist at my internship site (Hi Doug Bisbee!) who had a great way of explaining ADHD processing. He would tell a couple,

“A mind with ADHD sees all the steps to something at once, and it can feel really overwhelming. For instance, take hanging up your coat in a closet. You have to open the closet, take out the hanger, put the coat on the hanger, put the hanger back in the closet, and shut the closet door. 5 steps. Now imagine hanging your coat on a hook. One step!”

If you or your partner are struggling to do something that seems simple (putting toilet paper back on the roll, hanging up clothes, unloading the dishwasher, applying for jobs) take a moment and consider if it’s a multi-step process and could be feeling overwhelming.

I want to be clear here - I’m not saying that in the moment someone is conscious of feeling overwhelmed by hanging a coat up. I’m saying that our brains are geared towards efficiency, and if something registers as too hard or a pointless waste of energy, the brain usually dismisses it or finds a hack. For me, a person without ADHD, I’m very neat and tidy. But, when I go to the grocery store and see something on the list I don’t need until next week, I’ll very quickly think, “eh, leave it till next time”. My brain is making that split second decision to not waste time or energy on something non-essential. My husband, however, will make that extra effort to get every single thing on the list into the basket.

Take-away:

If this step-jamming resonates with you, I’d encourage you just to work on awareness with this. Maybe try re-framing your partner’s “messiness” away from a lack of care for you, and towards how their brain processes steps. Can the coats go on a hook instead of in a closet? Can the towels go on a hook instead of a bar? Eliminating steps can be helpful in getting things done.