I don’t usually write lists, but this one felt like the simplest way to say something I believe. I’ve got ADHD, and I’ve also been loved by people who have it.
This isn’t the “ADHD is a superpower” post.
This is the grounded version.
The one where keys get lost, time gets weird, and the emotions show up ten minutes early and loud enough that everybody in the room has to deal with them. And also the one where life gets more honest, and a lot more tender than you were braced for.
If you love an ADHDer, you already know: it can be a lot.
Here are ten reasons you might actually be grateful, even on the days you’re also tired.
They make life feel less fake.
If they’re excited, you’ll know inside of four seconds. If something’s off, you’ll know that too, usually before they’ve worked out what it is themselves.
It isn’t always convenient.
But you’ll never sit in the car afterward running the conversation back, trying to figure out what they actually meant.
They notice things other people miss.
The one detail in your story you almost left out. The second the mood in the room changed, ten minutes before anybody else caught up.
They’ll take one look at your face and know, before you’ve said a word.
They can’t do it the normal way.
Nobody asked for a new way to do it. They found one anyway, because the normal way was boring.
Half the time it’s a mess.
The other half you’re standing there going “how did you even think of that?”
They can turn “a normal moment” into a story.
There’s a running commentary the whole way, and a sign with a typo on it that’s going to get quoted for the next six months.
They won’t try to fix you.
Fall apart in front of them and nobody rushes in to fix you, nobody hands you a tissue and starts problem-solving out loud, nobody asks if you’ve tried breathing exercises, because they have been on that floor themselves more times than they’d admit and they already know the only thing that helps is somebody sitting down on it with you.
So that’s what they do.
They sit down. They stay as long as it takes.
They’re generous in strangely specific ways.
You mentioned once, six months ago, that you like Fresca. Now it’s in the fridge every time you show up.
It’s almost never the wrapped gift with the ribbon. It’s the aggressively heavy bag of Pizzeria Pretzel Combos that nobody else on earth would have thought to buy you.
Which means they were standing in the middle of a grocery store thinking about you.
They are fun on purpose.
Nine at night, nothing planned, everybody already in sweatpants, and somebody has to be the one who says let’s just go.
You’ll be wrecked the next day. You won’t care.
They try hard, even when it looks like they’re not trying.
Getting out the door on time meant a running argument in their head that started two hours before you noticed anything.
So if they made it, they made it.
They’re brave enough to start over mid-sentence.
“Wait. That came out sideways. Let me try that again.”
It comes out clumsy the second time too. They keep going anyway.
They love hard. Not always neatly. But genuinely.
They’ll disappear for three days when they’re overwhelmed and answer nothing. They’ll forget to text back and then send you eleven in a row at midnight. They’ll miss the thing that mattered to you and then remember something you mentioned two Christmases ago that you’d forgotten yourself.
None of it is about how much they love you. All of it is about how much they had left that week.
And you will never once wonder where you stand. That’s the part that doesn’t go quiet, even when everything else has. If you’re in, you’re in, and you’ll feel it in your chest before anybody says a word about it.
As someone with ADHD, I can tell you this list is only a sample. There are a hundred more, depending on the person.
If you’re reading this and thinking of someone specific, tell them which one made you think of them.
And if you’re the ADHDer reading this every one of these is about you. Somebody in your life has already noticed.
—R. Michael
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Nice one it made me remember a friend going to share this with him.
I already do. No, not you, but I love you too. It won't let me post a picture.