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Counselling and ADHD

I recently completed a training course all about ADHD and supporting adult clients with ADHD.

While the main focus was on adults, one module was about ADHD in children, and how to support them through school. As I was listening, the speaker noted that a lot of children who would now be diagnosed with A.D.H.D. were instead diagnosed as B.A.D. I was worried – what did the B and A stand for in this new ‘disorder’ that I had never heard of? It took me quite a while to realise that the speaker was saying that a lot of children who have ADHD are often thought of as bad, or naughty, children.

An adult with ADHD might well remember that the way they were as children annoyed adults, they were judged to be ‘bad’ children, and told that they were difficult or a problem. Now as adults, they are in many ways the same as they were as children, but it is their own internal voice that is criticising them inside their own heads.

ADHD stands for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. I wish it wasn’t called a Disorder, as it’s a way some brains work. However, the Disorder part of the name does give us an idea that having this type of brain can make life more difficult – as some of the behaviours that we value in our societies are particularly hard for someone with ADHD.

The Attention Deficit part of the name sounds like it means that people with ADHD can’t pay attention to things – when in fact, someone with ADHD will likely know that they can pay so much attention to certain things that they’ll be unable to do almost anything else! It might only be the boring things that they can’t pay attention to. And the Hyperactivity part of the name reminds us that in the past we thought of ADHD as being what was wrong with the children who couldn’t sit still for any length of time, and some people with ADHD might have noticed that they prefer to be moving in some way if possible.

Some of the experts on my course said that a better way to think of ADHD is as difficulty with Time – people with ADHD might typically think of Now and Not Now, and other times, especially future times, don’t feel very important, interesting or real. Some experts talked about ADHD being a difficulty with Executive Functioning – which is a pretty broad array of things we do in our brains, and includes self awareness, inhibition, working memory, emotional regulation, planning and problem solving. And others focussed more on the need for more ‘dopamine hits’ in the brain for someone with ADHD – so someone with ADHD might find that they are attracted to something immediately distracting because it will satisfy their brain, as they get a hit of dopamine, a ‘feel good’ neurotransmitter, released.

If you are someone with ADHD, maybe one of these ways of thinking about it feels more right for you than the others, or maybe none of them are quite right. Perhaps a mixture suits you and your brain. I wonder if you have an internal critical voice in your head though that rejects these ideas, and instead is insisting that you are the problem, that there is something wrong with you, and that you are a bad person. That wouldn’t be uncommon, as these are the messages we have been given all our lives: good people are organised, sit still, don’t get distracted, do the things on their To Do list, tidy up after themselves, start tasks and finish them… the list could go on and on. It might take a conscious effort to establish an alternative list for yourself: good people are kind, helpful, listen to their friends, give compliments, have time for others… again, this list could also go on and on!

Getting to know what your particular challenges are can be helpful – and you could approach this as an investigator or an observer, someone who is gathering information about what works for you, what is easy for you, and the opposite. Once you know a bit about what you’re like, and what your brain responds to, hopefully you’ll find some strategies, tips and tricks that will help you with your every day life. Something that counselling, or journaling, or exploring personal development with a friend can help with, is learning to accept what your brain is like. If you can find ways to give yourself the unconditional love that you deserve, and to quiet that internal critic, these strategies might make more sense, and life with ADHD may well become a lot easier.

Some resources that might be helpful:

https://add.org/resources/ The Attention Deficit Disorder Association

https://www.adhdadult.uk/resources/ ADHD Adult UK

https://www.self.com/story/adult-adhd-resources Blog post with a ton of links

https://adhduk.co.uk/adhd-useful-resources/ ADHD UK