I have ADHD, specifically the inattentive type. While I’ve kind of known this since early to mid adolescence, I’ve only been diagnosed since I was 23. For almost the entire time, I’ve tried to think about what it means to be a healthy, high-functioning person who also happens to have ADHD. I won’t pretend I have The Answer, or even really An Answer, or that I’m someone who you should listen to on the subject. Really, I’m only writing this for my own benefit, because it’s been on my mind a lot recently and I find writing helps me collect and process my disorganized, rambling thoughts into hopefully more organized, slightly less rambling ones.

I’ll start with what I think being a high-functioning person with ADHD is not: being the same as someone who doesn’t have ADHD. Try as I might — and believe me, I do try — I will never be like my (amazing, beautiful, tough-as-nails) wife, who does not have ADHD. The way she keeps track of things, is always on top of her stuff, and just generally “has it together.” That’s just not going to be me, and trying to make it so only leads to anxiety, depression, and burnout. (Please note: me saying this shouldn’t imply I don’t still chase this state. I do, and it leads to exactly what I said it does.)

ADHD is something that I can’t will out of existence, whether through grit, self-flagellation, or good intention. It’s a lifelong disability that will always affect who I am and how I show up in the world. Just as someone with a readily apparent physical disability like missing a limb won’t be able to be the same as someone who doesn’t have those conditions, so too will I never be able to be the same as someone whose brain chronically can’t produce the right cocktail of neurochemicals.

Let’s look at what being healthy might show up as, through the lens of a frequent occurrence in my life: someone tells me I’m not doing Good Enough at Getting Stuff Done. Because my ADHD is largely invisible, that means the people around me will understandably have a hard time reconciling the uniquely awful ways my ADHD shows up with the fact that, by all outward appearances, I’m a perfectly normal adult male. And, equally understandably, that’s going to frustrate them. And even those who are absolutely brimming with patience are going to get overwhelmed at times by this, and that frustration is going to spill out at me, sometimes as a trickle, sometimes as a flood. They might tell me how upset I’ve made them, because I clearly don’t care about their needs. I’m a Bad Person, a Lazy Person. That if I just Try Harder, I would be Better and they wouldn’t be this mad at me.

When this happens, there are two different ways I could respond.

First, I could take this personally, clam up, lash back out, defend my position, or tell them they’re being insensitive or not understanding what I’m up against. For a lot of my life, this is what I’ve defaulted to, because, like most people with ADHD, I have an outsized sense of fairness. And doggone it, it’s just not fair to expect me to do what you do, because I’m dealing with things, and those things mean I can’t do what you want me to, and you really need to understand that, because if you did, you wouldn’t be saying the things you are to me! This approach works about as well as you’d expect. In other words, not at all.

The second way to respond would look something like this: I could listen, breathe, and reflect back to them what they’re saying. I could validate their feelings and acknowledge that I’ve hurt them. I might tell them that they’re speaking in an unkind way to me, and could they please tone it down, but I do so kindly and plainly, not responding in anger. I’m calm, grounded, and centered (at least outwardly). I’m able to be present with this other human being and see they are hurting, and crying out for help. I don’t fall into saying how sorry I am, how I hate myself, or how I keep trying and it’s so frustrating to me that it’s still not working. Instead, I just hear them out, make them know I’ve heard them, and then take some time to reflect on what they’ve said and whether I should change anything about how I’m working in the real world in response. Do I need to talk to my psychiatrist about adjusting my meds? Try to tweak something about how I’m managing my to-do list? Ask for help from someone like a coach, therapist, or even just a friend? Also, how am I feeling after that conversation? Am I berating myself? Am I falling into a guilt or shame spiral? If yes, what do I need to do about that? (Because if I have learned one thing in my four plus decades on this Earth, it’s that unprocessed emotions — especially those toxic ones like shame — are poison, and they will absolutely keep me from being the kind of person I’m capable of.)

Now, in reality, my response is almost never one of those two extremes. It’s usually somewhere in between; on good days, it’s more the second, and on not good days, the first. So let’s examine that second one, because I think that encapsulates most of what I’d currently say being high-functioning with ADHD looks like.

• I work very hard and deliberately to believe that I’m a good human being, despite the fact that to many people my actions might say otherwise. Therapy is a big part of this, but it’s something that takes considerable work outside of that space too. As a result, I don’t take it personally or get defensive when someone is criticizing me, especially someone I really care about. Living with ADHD is fundamentally living in the tension between who you want to be (good intentions) and who you are (mixed results). Of course, this is the human condition in general, but I would posit that those of us with ADHD live it to a degree someone simply cannot fathom who hasn’t themselves experienced it. If at any point my belief that “I am a good human being” falters, the whole ship falls apart.
• I take responsibility for what I’ve done (or more likely what I haven’t done), full stop. I don’t give reasons why it didn’t happen, or why it’s unfair to expect me to do it, or all the other things I did instead that were Good Things. It’s not that there aren’t valid reasons, because ADHD is a true disability and it makes things that are easy for other people incredibly hard. But deploying that in the moment someone is telling me how hurt they are isn’t only ineffective, it’s also unkind. And taking responsibility doesn’t mean I’m not a good human being; it just means that I did something that wasn’t in service of the values I live by, and that’s on me to do my best to make up for. The phrase I like to sum this point up with is something I constantly tell my (both ADHD) kids: my ADHD isn’t my fault, but it is my responsibility to manage and respond to the best I can. (If I don’t believe I’m a good human being, how easy is it to take responsibility without seeing it as being also my fault?)
• I continually work to try and make things just a little better. Not perfect, not even great; just a little better. I take steps when people who matter to me tell me things aren’t working. I try changing my meds a little to see if it helps my focus. I add a new reminder to my phone to help me remember to look at a list of things that need doing. I make that therapy appointment I’ve been putting off. ADHD makes this both very necessary, and very difficult. Necessary because although my brain needs structure to function, it simultaneously rebels against it in ways both subtle and insidious. Difficult because it requires introspection, awareness, and — most challengingly — perseverance through Hard Things. It’s much easier for me to chase easy dopamine or avoid Hard Things, including the very act of thinking about how to be a little better. (If I don’t believe I’m a good human being, why bother to try and improve?)
• I give myself compassion and grace. So much grace. Failure is inevitable, and when it does happen, the fastest way back from the abyss is by extending myself compassion and grace. Failure doesn’t mean I failed at being a good human; it just means I failed to live up to what I’m striving for in this moment, and there’s always the next moment to start again. It’s because of this constant cycle — fail, pick up the pieces, start again — I think those of us with ADHD are, contrary to what people might think of us, some of the grittiest, toughest people alive, because very few people experience the kind of repeated, deeply hurtful, easily personalizable failure that we do. That’s where the compassion and grace comes in, because without those I’ll fall into the Pit of Despair and have my life sucked out of me by Count Rugen’s machine. And grace doesn’t mean it’s okay that I don’t show up in the way someone needed me to; it means it’s okay that I messed up and that I don’t need to spiral into self-pity afterwards. (If I don’t believe I’m a good human being, why would I deserve grace and forgiveness?)

To try and keep things short, I’m stopping there. If I can do these things — work deliberately to believe I’m a good human being, take responsibility but not accept fault, continually work to make things a little better, and give myself grace and compassion — on a consistent basis then I’m probably being about as high-functioning as I can be. Not just when someone is telling me I’ve hurt them, but living as someone with ADHD. Sometimes the natural result of this is that I show up in the world as closer to what people want and need me to be; sometimes those two things are disconnected, and that’s okay. Because, actually, being a high-functioning person with ADHD is about how I model that perserverence and toughness that ADHD demands of me. How I show up when things are hard, or when I’ve hurt my wife or my kids. I don’t really believe this yet, but I’m working on it.