The Real Definition of ADHD: Stuck, Not Lazy

Introductions: two ADHD coaches with lived experience

Danielle: We are back with ND OutLoud, part of ND Hive. We have taken a really, really long break. We took some breaks because we had some things going on. Watch some of our shorts if you want to catch up. Not important. But we are back, and I’m going to introduce myself again. I’m Danielle. I’m the founder and CEO of ND Hive, ND OutLoud, Capacity Works, and DanielleRalston.com. And what is all of that? Everything is about building better for those of us that are neurodivergent. Every single thing fits together. They’re all different wings of the same exact thing.

I have my MBA. I am an MSW. I’m not currently licensed because I don’t like rules. I’m also an ADHD-CCSP, and I am working on my PhD in behavioral psychology. And I am here to tell you: you can live differently. I promise that there is something different out there for you. If you are neurodivergent and you’ve just gotten diagnosed, or heck, you’ve been diagnosed a long time and are still trying to figure out your brain, we’ve got you, because we can help you live it in the practical everyday. So Shay, can you introduce yourself please?

Shay: Sure. I am Shay Woodward. I’m the director of coaching and people with ND Hive, and we are building things that I had been searching for for years, and I just found everybody within the last year. I have a degree in psychology, and I’m also a life coach and a relationship specialist, helping people learn how to communicate. Because we all know we have issues in the first place, and then let’s just add a little sprinkle of, you know, ADHD in there, and let’s see how that really does not work.

Danielle: Yes. And why are we experts? One, we have our degrees. We have fancy certifications. I actually have them on the website. I had AI count them from my file folder, and I have 77 coaching certifications. But want to know what my best certification is? I am ADHD. I am ADHD and autistic together. I am 50 years old, and I have lived this life for 50 years. So that’s why I can say with authority what we are all about to say. And Shay, what is your diagnosis?

Shay: ADHD. And it’s been a ride to figure this all out. I knew I was ADHD for probably the last decade or so, but the new components have shaken things up a little bit, in a good way. It’s been helping me understand myself more, and it’s really helped me communicate with my husband a lot better, which has been fabulous.

The clinical definition of ADHD misses the point

Danielle: That helps. Okay, so let’s dive in. We’re talking about: what is ADHD? We all know the clinical “what is ADHD.” No, let’s actually talk about what attention deficit is. If you are or have been diagnosed with ADHD and been told that you have attention deficit problems, and then you can sit down and read a 600 page book in one sitting, you don’t have attention deficit issues. You have activation issues. And the difference between those two things is the difference between hating yourself for 10 years and finally understanding how your brain works. Honestly, that’s the difference.

So we’re going to walk through one of the Authority Matrix pages and articles on our website, because I was tired of every definition of ADHD missing the point. If you follow us, you’re about to be finding a million different articles on our website, because I am sick of what the world is telling us. I’m done letting the world decide who we are. We need to be counter to the culture here at ND Hive. We don’t want to be hive minded. We want to be counterculture and have fun with it. So if you spend your days struggling, frustrated, not understanding why you can’t do things, let’s dive in.

The standard clinical definition of ADHD is persistent patterns of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. But what does it mean for the people we coach? This is why we wrote a new definition. ADHD isn’t a freaking focus problem. It is not. I promise it is absolutely not a focus problem. I can focus on whatever I want. Don’t ask me about my current hyperfocus. We will not discuss that now, because we’ll never get this episode done. ADHD is an activation problem. Your brain knows what to do.

Shay: You know what you need to do. Nobody needs to tell you what you need to do, unless you don’t want to think of it. We also have that problem, decision fatigue. That is a piece of it. But we know what to do. Our brain knows what to do. We just can’t start it.

Danielle: How many times have you tried? You’re like, I’ve got to get this done, I’ve got to get this done, I’ve got to get this done. And then somebody’s like, hey, let’s just do it. Ready, set, go. And for some reason, having somebody else say that to you gets you into that first step. It’s a first step problem. It’s not attention deficit. Do you have a deficit in your attention? Absolutely not. I’m paying attention to 9 million things at the same time. There’s zero deficit in attention.

But what I do have is 2,477 tabs open in my brain. Multiple of them are playing different kinds of music. The one I’m currently on is frozen. I don’t know where all the sounds are coming from. Where’s that tab I actually need? I know it’s here. I just can’t find it. And then I get stuck because I’m trying to find it, and I need that thing, and I can’t find that thing, and how do I make myself find that thing? There are all of these things going on at the same time, and I can’t focus in on the one thing. That is being ADHD. It’s not a lack of attention.

Shay: It’s an excessive amount of attention. It feels like little bombs are being dropped on you all day long. Not always exploding things, but there’s always that sense of things going. You never can just stop and close your ears and not hear anything. Whereas people that don’t deal with ADHD are able to say, “Oh, here’s my task list. Let’s start with task one, then task two,” and go down one by one. But us, it’s more like, here’s task one, we’re starting task one. Okay, but what about that part over there that could go into task one? Let me check that out over here. And then this one over here. And don’t forget we’ve got the clock ticking in the background, and kids crying or talking, or co-workers singing along with their music. All those things are coming in all the time, and we don’t necessarily have the capability of pushing it all back and having that one vision of where we’re going.

Stuck on the couch: 135 thoughts for one action

Danielle: On the page on the website, I talk about sitting on a couch. I know I need to get up. I know I need to go to my desk and start working on things. I know I need to, but I’m stuck. I’m completely and totally stuck thinking about how to get up, what I’ve got to do to get up. The process of getting up is so overwhelming. And do you want to know why that is? You’ve heard me talk about this on podcasts before. For every one action for a neurotypical person, and one action for a neurotypical person is “get up, get ready, go to work in the morning,” for me, to get out of bed is 135 thoughts. To take a shower is another 135 thoughts. To brush my teeth is 135 thoughts. To get dressed is 935 thoughts. To go out and make coffee and have breakfast is 5 bazillion thoughts. To get to my desk and remember what it was I was supposed to work on is another 9 million thoughts. By the time I even get here, I’m exhausted.

And then there are days I’m sitting on the couch and the thought of thinking all of those thoughts is just exhausting. It’s stuckness. It’s not being chaotic. It’s not being unable to focus, because I know exactly where my end goal is. But my brain and my body are not on the same team. And I know I keep saying stuckness, but this is executive dysfunction. That’s one of the clinical terms for it.

The thing that most people get wrong about ADHD is the chaos. They think it’s all chaos, the 47 tabs, all of the things. But the chaos is a symptom. The problem is being stuck. So Shay, what do you tell clients who are just stuck? Obviously this is one of the big things ND Hive exists for, to help you get unstuck. But what do you say to somebody who is just sitting there and can’t get unstuck?

What a coach actually says when you cannot start

Shay: First I’ll ask them, what is it that you have to do? What are the things? Do you have this list that’s 5,000 things long, or do you repeatedly write the same list over and over again? And what is it that you’re stuck in? Because we’re not all stuck in the same way. Some of us are stuck because there’s so much to do. Some of us are stuck because we’re fatigued with decisions. Some of us are stuck because we’re just overwhelmed with life in general. We’re overtired. We haven’t been eating. All the little things. So we address some of those issues first. “Have you eaten anything lately?” Well, no. Okay, let’s try that first. Then they go and eat, and we check back with them.

Another way is when they tell me what’s on their list. If it’s something big, like “I’ve got to read 10 chapters in my book.” And people are like, well, just start reading. That’s not easy to just do. So I’ll say, okay, how about you go read one page and then come back. Let’s start with just one page. Break your big things down into small tasks. “I have to clean my house, it’s such a mess.” Okay, one step. Go around, pick the trash up off the floor.

Danielle: I think part of the problem is even thinking of that. We could tell somebody to break it down into little tiny steps, but you can’t always do that on your own. And this is the foundation of the Hive: never live life alone. I need permission from somebody else to tell me what to do. Or I need the instructions from Shay: just read the one page. Just pick the socks up off the floor. Do not look at your whole entire bedroom that needs to be cleaned. Just pick up the socks. That’s all you’re doing right now.

Shay: And the other component was, I said “come back and let me know.” There’s a reason and a purpose for that. Part of it is to help them recognize and gain those awarenesses, so they can start learning those little things on their own, so they don’t necessarily have to use us all the time. The other aspect is that little hit of dopamine when they see that they’ve accomplished something. Dopamine is a huge thing in our world. That’s something that helps us move forward in the boring things. If we see that end result that’s going to give us the feel goods, then we can sometimes get over that stuff.

Hyperfocus proves it is not a focus problem

Danielle: Something that I hear from new potential clients, or people who are in denial that they have ADHD, is “Well, I can’t be ADHD because I can hyperfocus.” Sorry. It’s not a focus problem.

Shay: It’s not a focus problem. We’ll say something to Danielle and then crickets for a while, and that’s fine. That lets us know she’s in her hyperfocus mode, doing something that she finds very important, or a next step in whatever she’s working on. And it doesn’t always have to be work. We can hyperfocus on kids, on cooking, on sewing, on work.

Danielle: Star Wars.

Shay: It could be anything.

Danielle: And that’s okay, because on the page I talk about six mechanisms of ADHD. Interest, novelty, and urgency are some of them. I’m not going to go into all of them, because there are too many. But when you understood that you needed interest, a challenge, novelty, and urgency, what shifted for you in understanding your ADHD?

Shay: It has to be fun. And I think that’s the big part of it: what do we classify as fun? What do we classify as novelty? It goes along the same lines as somebody saying, “Oh, just go relax. Just chill.” Besides the fact that I want to punch somebody for saying that to me, it’s because I don’t necessarily know how to do that according to what everybody else is telling me to do. They’ll say, “Go relax, go lay down and take a nap.” Uh, no. Does that really work? For some people it’s fantastic, but for some of us who can’t shut our brains down, going and laying down, what does that do? It just increases it. Say the three of them again. My brain was going so fast trying to get to the answer.

Danielle: Interest, challenge, novelty, and urgency.

Shay: Okay. Interest, challenge, novelty, and urgency. When I figured those out, it made it a lot easier for me to do the things that weren’t necessarily the fun side, because it brought the fun side to it. Even in our creative things, the creative side and learning new stuff isn’t necessarily interesting for all of us, or it feels very hard. But when we do it and we get to that point and we see the novelty side of it, like the end result, it’s great.

Dopamine is fuel: how to make yourself do the taxes

Danielle: The thing that came up a lot over the last month, obviously, is taxes. Okay, great, but I can’t get my taxes done. That’s not interesting, novel, or challenging. Well, it’s challenging, but challenging in a terrible way. So how do I make myself do it? Bring some dopamine into it.

Shay: Yes, absolutely. And I’ve done this so many times with people. Okay, go get your favorite drink. Go get your favorite snack food. Do something goofy and funny. Turn on your favorite music. Get some dopamine. The dopamine can be such a small thing, too. It could be just something as simple as a favorite piece of candy, or a nice piece of chewing gum in a flavor we like, or a nice drink.

Danielle: Or the tumbler that you love. For anybody wondering what’s on my tumbler, it’s little bees.

Shay: And I’ve got bees on my coffee mug. Or I have stickers on another mug. And yes, I have multiple mugs, and I have a cute cup.

Danielle: Do you need three drinks? What toys do you have on your desk? I took a picture and posted it on Instagram: how do you get ready for a podcast recording marathon? I have all kinds of fidgets in front of me. You have to bring dopamine into it. Dopamine is something that we need. It is our motivation factor, and ADHD brains have fewer receptors for picking up dopamine, and we need faster uptake of it because we burn through it faster. It’s just a bad combination. That’s how our brain is wired. But we need to translate that into what it actually means at 9:00 a.m. on a Tuesday when I’ve got to get something done. And the words “just be more disciplined,” “write it down,” “get a planner”? Those do not work.

Shay: Do you know how many planners I used to have sitting in my house? I even had a friend who had 30 planners in her house. How many have we bought with the intention of using them to help organize us?

Danielle: All of them. I now have a rule for planners: they have to be undated. Because I might use it for one day, I might use it for two weeks, I might not touch it for three years, but it’s undated, so I can come back to it and use it, and there’s no guilt there. There is a lot of dopamine in buying pretty planners, and I let myself do that now. But now I have an understanding of why my brain wants that. I might want a different texture of paper. I might want a different color paper. I might want a different texture of notebook cover. I might want something with stuff all over it, or something with nothing on the page, just a blank page. I might want somebody to tell me how to write things down.

Shay: Right. And don’t forget the pens that have to go with it. One day you might want your Mickey ear pen, another day you might want the Pooh pen, another day you might just want the big pen. It’s what works for you. The problem is that we try to fit into all of what we think we should be doing according to what’s considered normal.

There is no normal: stacking one habit 9,000 ways

Danielle: But what’s normal? There is no normal. And learning that I can stack 9,000 different ways to do one habit was life changing for me. I can use a different color pen, a different color paper, a different kind of paper, a different planner, a different place in my house to sit and do it. A different mug, a different pair of headphones. I have four different kinds of earbuds and three different kinds of headphones, because I need the sensory differences between them in order to create dopamine for myself and have that novelty.

Shay: That sensory part has been interesting to watch and observe in myself, once I started understanding that it isn’t just that I’m irritable. It isn’t just that I want to be difficult, which is a lot of what we’re taught. “Just wear the jacket, it’s fine.” No, it really isn’t. It’s itchy. It makes me feel like I’ve got weights on my shoulders, whatever the sensory thing is. I always thought it was me. Technically it was me, it was the way my brain was working, but not acknowledging it. Being okay with it and saying, “How can I do this differently? How can I do it so that it’s okay for my senses?” allows that part of my brain not to be over here freaking out and pulling energy away from decisions and the things I’m trying to get done.

Danielle: Understanding the sensory piece is a big one, and we’re not going to dive into the sensory piece too much here, because that’s a much, much longer conversation.

Internal mode, action mode, and the sticky switch

Danielle: But the other thing that we always need to understand, and doctors and therapists don’t talk about this enough, is that ADHD brains have two modes. We have an internal mode and an all action mode. It’s all internal or all action, and we have a sticky switch between them.

Shay: Yes, we do.

Danielle: So what does it look like when somebody gets stuck in internal mode? Not talking to anybody, not wanting to ask for help, can’t ask for help, not doing anything, literally stuck on the couch in burnout, in frustration, in “I know I should do this” mode. About 50 percent of the time when you’re stuck in internal mode, you’re stuck in an inaction, frustration, shame loop. The other 50 percent of the time it’s “I’m done, I’m tired, I’m exhausted, I need a total shutdown internal mode,” or “I’m in sensory overwhelm and I can’t deal with anybody and I need an internal day.” All of those are fine. Did you just hear me? All of those internal modes are fine.

And then we have action mode, where we’re either hyperfocusing on one particular thing, or we’re not focusing on anything, we’re on 9 million things, and eventually maybe one of those 9 million things might actually get done. And that’s okay too. Part of why understanding that all of those modes are okay matters is because we’ve been told they’re not. We have been told that we’re lazy, we’re stupid, we’re irresponsible for that internal mode. And in action mode it’s “why can’t you just get organized and get something done? Why can’t you do the right thing instead of the hyperfocus thing?” There’s a lot of shame that goes with all of those things.

Your brain is not broken. You’re just wired for a different fuel system. Literally, we need different fuel than other people do, and the world keeps handing us regular crappy gas when we run on very specific premium gas. I want you to hear that illustration again. The world is handing you crappy, disgusting old gas to try to run on, the kind that’s going to shut down the lawnmower. Your brain runs on premium, the best gas. And when it’s running on the best gas, it’s running at optimal level, and you are unstoppable. That doesn’t mean we can do that every single day, because that best gas runs our brain and our body out of energy. But your brain isn’t broken. It just needs a different type of fuel. And the fuel is dopamine. It’s serotonin. It’s novelty. It’s urgency. It’s all of these things.

Why standard productivity advice fails ADHD brains

Danielle: Here’s where I’m going to try not to get on my soapbox. This part is going to make most people uncomfortable, because every productivity book, every habit stacking method, every “just build another routine” piece of advice fails. It either fails immediately or it takes two weeks to fail, depending on how our brain is doing. So, on productivity advice, and you and I have talked about this so many times, what is the most well-meaning advice that made you feel like actual trash as an ADHDer?

Shay: Oh gosh. I’d say the first one would be, “Well, if you just write it down, you’ll get it done.” My dad was very much a task person. He’d walk around with a card in his pocket and pull it out. When we couldn’t get things done, or we didn’t get it done in the timeline that he thought we should have, he’d get frustrated, or if he’d have to repeat himself. I see that in a lot of parents. “Well, I have to keep repeating myself. Can’t you get it the first time?” That one was a nasty one. Well, apparently not, if you’re telling me three or four or five times. Or they’d give you a list of things, come back, and be like, “Why didn’t you get it finished?” It wasn’t until my kids were diagnosed with ADHD that I even figured out myself. That’s when I started figuring out, oh, that doesn’t work for me. Why would I think it would work for them?

Danielle: Or we forced ourselves into doing it. We forced ourselves into neurotypical patterns. We were traumatized, beaten with it maybe, sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively, with productivity advice. Even as kids, we were taught that we have to be productive to be successful. No, not in the same way you do. We just do things differently.

I had to learn, going back to college and getting my degree while I had a little one who was neurodivergent (he’s 29 now, so he’s not little now), that it’s one task at a time, with all the details of the task. “Go clean your room” is not a task. “Go pick up your dirty laundry and put it in the hamper” is one step. “Bring me the hamper” is step two. “Go get the dirty dishes out of your room and put them in the sink.” It’s that automatic thinking, that just because I tell you what the end result of the task is, you must know all the steps in it.

Shay: Yep.

Danielle: Most neurodivergent people don’t. Even I don’t. I’m a 50 year old neurodivergent coach with however many certifications and degrees, and I still need somebody to give me all of the steps to a task. On one of my best days, I can absolutely process that out, and that’s not a problem. But only on a good day.

We all learn by watching, not by being handed a list

Shay: And how many of us are visual learners too? We have to see what you’re talking about. Sometimes you have to walk into the room with the child and say, “Pick up your socks like this,” and do it. And then boom, it connects, and then they can do it.

Danielle: And you might have to do that five or six times with them in a row before they remember how to do it on their own. But you want to know what? So does a neurotypical child. Children and adults all learn by watching, not by reading a book. You don’t hand your 2 year old a book to learn how to use a fork and a spoon. You show them how to use the fork and the spoon. And that is the same for every brain. I don’t care the age of the brain. Talk to an 80 year old who does not have dementia, who is in perfect health. If they’re learning something new, handing them a computer or a smartphone, you have to show them how to do it. Show them, not explain. And I’m talking about somebody who’s extremely intelligent, sharp, and able to do anything. You still have to show them.

You have to show a 22 year old how to navigate a college campus. They need directions. They need to understand how college works, because they don’t know when they get there. That’s why so many college kids fail their freshman year: nobody is showing them how to do it. We learn by watching. And adults and people in the world expecting a neurodivergent brain, which needs a few more steps in there, to just learn and absorb by osmosis, for something that doesn’t exist? That is ableist and traumatizing. And again, a neurotypical person learns the same way too. We all learn the same way.

Shay: It’s also the fact that it’s setting them up to fail. Whether it’s neurotypical or neurodivergent, we set them up to fail if we think handing them a piece of paper that says “here are the things you need to learn” means they’ll automatically understand just from that list.

Danielle: And we’re not here to set people up to fail. We are here to teach, to educate, to help, and to find the ways that your brain is working. I get so frustrated when I hear people say, “Well, if you have ADHD, then it’s the same as everyone else who has ADHD.” I’m sorry, no. My ADHD is different than your ADHD, and it’s different from their ADHD. It’s not one size fits all. You’ve met one person that is neurodivergent? Congratulations, you’ve met one type of neurodivergence. End of story. There are three of us in our house, my husband, myself, and my son, and there are 12 kinds of neurodivergence between the three of us, I swear, some days.

Everybody is different. And here’s a superpower. Neurodivergence itself is not a superpower, I’m not saying that, but we do have superpowers inside of neurodivergence. Do you know a neurotypical person is basically the same all the time? That can get kind of boring. A neurodivergent person is different every day. Okay, that’s also part of the chaos of neurodivergence, my brain works differently every day, plus sensory overwhelm, hormones, all of that stuff in there. But that’s where we thrive. We have a different operating system, and that’s okay.

Borrowing motivation: body doubling and community

Danielle: So if your brain is different every single day and you don’t know how to recognize those patterns or get out of stuckness, here’s what helps: body doubling. Accountability. Community. Right now, I’m body doubling. I have it on a separate computer over here, and I’m watching. There are two members entertaining each other right now. They are talking everybody’s ears off because they are hyperfocusing together, and they are keeping each other moving and providing the structure that they needed today. Two others are getting work done while just listening to that chatter in the background. And then we have somebody else who has everything muted and just has people on screen. He posted this morning, “It is so good to be here with other people. I’m getting so much done and I can’t even hear you.”

Shay: Isn’t that interesting? We don’t necessarily need to be engaged. We just need to have somebody there.

Danielle: It’s fascinating. So if I had to print something on a t-shirt: ADHD is an activation problem, not an attention problem or a motivation problem or a productivity problem. Are those symptoms that can go along with neurodivergence? Yes. We all have symptoms. So when a client comes in and says, “I cannot get motivated today, I just have no motivation today,” what do you tell them?

Shay: I let them start rambling and chattering and talking, because sometimes they just need to verbalize it out. They need to say what’s on their mind. Once that’s dumped out, then I’m like, “Okay, so what is the first thing that you need to do today?” Well, I have this, this, this, and this. Okay, that’s great, but you can’t do all five at once. What’s the first? They’ll give me their first. I’ll say, “Okay, do you feel like you can start doing that now?” Some will say, “Yeah, I just needed to have somebody there.” Great, then let’s start. Some are like, “No, I still just don’t feel like it.” Okay, tell me more.

Sometimes it’s just allowing them to have their feelings, what they’re really feeling in that moment, and then being able to say, “Is there anything else I can help support you with?” “I just need to do it.” Okay, so how about I say 1, 2, 3, go, and you jump up and do it, and then come back and tell me. It could be the smallest thing or the biggest thing. It could take somebody 2 minutes or 2 hours. It’s, one, allowing them to feel what they need to feel. Two, allowing them to be able to just say, “I don’t want to today.” And if they say that, then we ask, “Is it high priority today? Do you really have to have it done today?” “Well, yeah, I’m on a deadline.” Okay, then we go down that route. Or, “No, I really don’t.” Okay, is there something else that’s high priority, and that’s why you’re in a little bit of conflict and stuck?

Danielle: Everything Shay said is absolutely what we walk somebody through. But here’s what this boils down to: if you don’t have motivation, come borrow somebody else’s. Somebody else will walk you through it. You don’t have to do it alone. We are one of the few cultures in the world that isolates and tries to make you figure out how to do things on your own. Almost every other culture, women clean their homes together, do the laundry together, quilt together, cook together. I grew up in a very Italian family. We did everything together. If you live in Italy, or all over Europe, there are third spaces where you get together to have conversations and do things with people. You work in community and you live in community. We don’t do that here in the US.

Shay: And after a lot of isolation a few years back, from something that was pretty traumatic for the whole world, I think it exacerbated it so much more. Trying to reconnect, we have a connection issue in the first place being ADHD, and then on top of it, trying to re-establish some of those connections can be really difficult. So why not come into the Hive and be able to establish new relationships? You may not currently have anybody you can count on, you can talk to, you can feel better with. Why not start there?

Danielle: Absolutely. Okay, so what is ADHD? It’s an activation problem. That’s it. So you’ve listened to us, and you’re like, “What’s next?” Come to ndhive.com and join us. Coaches that are on demand and available to you, and body doubling, all week long, plus a million and one resources, or at least there will be a million and one. I’m still building, I’m still writing, I’m getting there. Come join us, because you don’t deserve to live life alone. You deserve to live life in a community that gets you, understands you, and is not going to judge you. Have a good day, everybody.