In my last post, I discussed the Executive Functions and how they relate to my personal experience with ADHD. I demonstrated the interconnected matrix of how I view this entanglement that the executive functions can create through ADHD, but I didn’t cover every aspect of those executive functions.

In this post, I want to discuss in detail the effects that ADHD has on our ability to control our impulses. There are positive and negative aspects of this characteristic, and my personal understanding may not thoroughly demonstrate what other ADHD individuals experience. This is my experience.

I remember my first taste of freedom. I lived on a rural country road on the Western side of Vermont. This particular area of Vermont is dominated by rather flat tracts of land that lend themselves to farming. The street I lived on extended for several miles in a fairly linear fashion. This street is where I first started riding my bicycle and, as is typical, I didn’t start doing it when other kids did. Where other kids around me were learning at about five years of age, I didn’t learn to ride until I was eight. It just didn’t matter to me until then, but when it did, I came alive.

I rode that street back and forth, day in and day out. Once I tasted the freedom, I couldn’t let it go. My bicycle became my “escape.” Whenever the pressures of life became too much, when I experienced boredom or restlessness, I would jump on my bike and ride off. This soothed the innermost parts of my mind and helped me cope with the doldrums of my life.

Without knowing it, I was self-medicating.

This behavior continued throughout my life. Everything became a game for me. If I couldn’t make something fun, I didn’t want to engage in it. The better I could apply a sense of fun, i.e., a stimulus-response that excited my neural pathways, I became restless, fidgety, and distracted.

This restlessness had its place, and it benefitted me in many ways, but it readily became overwhelming. Too much mental noise and I would need to compensate.

As I grew older and learned what behaviors excited me, I turned toward these behaviors, and they took on new meanings as I developed new skill sets such as playing video games, driving cars, climbing trees, and jumping off cliffs. Adrenaline played a significant role in how my brain reacted to situations. If I wasn’t engaged with an activity, i.e., felt little to no stimulation from said action, then my distractibility would come, but when I felt said stimulation, I would hone in on tasks with a tenacity few others could apply.

Life became a balancing act of moderating these two extremes. For me, I became an adrenaline junky of sorts. I couldn’t live the cliff jumping, parachuting, bungee jumping sort of lifestyle, but I could drive fast, take risks, and otherwise engage in what others considered “risky” behaviors.

I’ll never deny that my behaviors were riskier than what many of my peers seemed to engage in, and I certainly could have made mistakes the same as anyone else, but what people on the outside couldn’t see was that I had an ability other people didn’t seem to have. I could process considerable amounts of information; in any given situation, I would weigh the risks (as best as any human can), and come up with a conclusion that was right for me. I didn’t know how I did it, or why. I didn’t even know if others could do it, all I knew was that I could and that I felt a need to do so; that it “improved” my brain’s capabilities, cut out the noise, and allowed me to feel accomplished. What I could do, others rarely could.

I’ll give you an example.

One day a friend of mine and I were driving to school, but we weren’t doing it in the “normal” fashion; no, we were racing down the road at eighty plus miles an hour and faster. As we approached a railroad crossing, with me in the lead, I quickly analyzed the following scenario.

The train was already across the intersection, there were two civilian vehicles and a log truck on the side of the road I could observe. On the other side? I didn’t know, but I did know where these vehicles were most likely to be located,.i.e., I considered the probabilities and understood that there existed a more-than-likely chance everything on that side of the intersection would be right where it was supposed to be.

I measured the gap between me and the intersection, my rate of speed, the distance needed for the train to clear the tracks, and the train’s visible speed. I did all of this in a split-second and understood that I could, at the rate of speed I was traveling, squeeze my vehicle through all of these obstacles, negotiate the small chicane of the roadway, and come out the other side, in my lane, with minimal risk. Because I was familiar with the road, I knew my car would lose the smallest amount of traction across the railroad, and I knew how I wanted to compensate.

I could measure and feel all of these things in a matter of moments without understanding how I knew all of it. To me, it was a simple math problem written out in word format; if a train is traveling at x miles per hour, and has y distance to travel, can a vehicle traveling at eighty-five miles an hour negotiate this intersection. For me, the answer was quite simply a resounding yes. The only variable that created risk was that I didn’t actually know what was on the other side of the train.

This is just one example of many that I have in my life where I could “see” what other people could not. I could observe and measure situations other people couldn’t. They didn’t seem to have the capacity or desire. Where I wanted to move fast, make connections, and process information with an intense curiosity, others were content to wait, think linearly, and be fed information.

I tell you all of this to better understand why it is that ADHD individuals can seem impulsive. In a way, we are, but some of us are vastly intuitive and calculating. We process information differently, and so for us, it doesn’t feel impulsive. For us, it is an extension of who we are and what it means to have a brain that functions differently than everyone else’s.

With all of that said, I do want to indicate that I do not condone this type of behavior; driving fast and taking risks should be done in a closed environment with proper safety measures. Although I engaged in these behaviors and survived, I am sure others did not. I understand the risks I took, and I understand the consequences those risks could have led to; I could have hurt myself and others.

What I needed was an outlet. I needed for someone to understand who I was, what I was doing, and why. Unfortunately, I didn’t have that, and so I “acted out.”

Perhaps in another ten, twenty, or thirty years, society will better understand what it means to be ADHD, identify it sooner, and provide a better support system for dealing with it. Medication and behavioral therapy is one approach, but what if we lived in a world where ADHD individuals had “playgrounds” that catered to their tendencies and understanding of the world? What if we got more creative and stopped trying to push them into a way of life that causes them, and everyone around them, pain and frustration. What if we applied our efforts and resources to another means of living for these people?

In my mind, it makes sense.