helpful(?) metaphors to describe ADHD to the NTs
Mar 26, 2016 22:28:10 GMT
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marionk likes this
Post by anopheles on Mar 26, 2016 22:28:10 GMT
Nt = neurotypicals.
I think in metaphor, and a constant stream of words ticker tape across the back of my eyes, and I've used these to help others understand our... euphemism.
I'd like yours too, as mine are naturally informed by my experience.
The ADHD brain as a Sprinter
Imagine you are a sprinter. You have the tight physique of a 100m specialist, you were born to run. Your very soul cries out to run fast.
You are on the starting block. The gun fires... And you run off at an angle. No matter how you try, you can not run in the line provided.
That's what's it's like to know you have 'a good brain', a high iq, fizzing with ideas and energy and you can't get it to go where the rest of you wants it to. Worse, no one is aware you are largely a passenger trapped in your own head. It's the brain equivalent of the body with cerebral palsy.
The Ferrari metaphor(not mine, apart from one addition).
We have Ferrari brains but with bicycle brakes and (my bit) shopping trolley steering.
The living room and kitchen metaphor for attention difficulties.
Imagine you are watching a fascinating tv program. Maybe they building up to reveal the murderer! You need to do something in the kitchen, say putting the dog out. You try to walk backwards, you try to do the job by standing in the threshold, animal in hand, trying to open the back door with your free hand.... You may rush to the back door, but you rush back to the living room only to find later the dog is on the counter and the kettle is out the back.
You inside world is the living room and the outer world is the kitchen (or vice versa), we try to straddle both rooms and fail badly. Sometimes, with hyperfocus, we are trapped inside or outside one room or the other.
The AI metaphor
Imagine a machine that has to learn every task itself, from scratch, everyday. Even tasks that it has done before requires almost learning from scratch, when something changes.
This explains how we can not understand, if not guided or through many trials and errors that Register (the words and style of language you use) needs to change depending on context. That risqué joke you tell your friend shouldn't be told to your boss/mother/arresting officer. Nothing comes naturally to a lot of us, including social skills.
That'll do.
I think in metaphor, and a constant stream of words ticker tape across the back of my eyes, and I've used these to help others understand our... euphemism.
I'd like yours too, as mine are naturally informed by my experience.
The ADHD brain as a Sprinter
Imagine you are a sprinter. You have the tight physique of a 100m specialist, you were born to run. Your very soul cries out to run fast.
You are on the starting block. The gun fires... And you run off at an angle. No matter how you try, you can not run in the line provided.
That's what's it's like to know you have 'a good brain', a high iq, fizzing with ideas and energy and you can't get it to go where the rest of you wants it to. Worse, no one is aware you are largely a passenger trapped in your own head. It's the brain equivalent of the body with cerebral palsy.
The Ferrari metaphor(not mine, apart from one addition).
We have Ferrari brains but with bicycle brakes and (my bit) shopping trolley steering.
The living room and kitchen metaphor for attention difficulties.
Imagine you are watching a fascinating tv program. Maybe they building up to reveal the murderer! You need to do something in the kitchen, say putting the dog out. You try to walk backwards, you try to do the job by standing in the threshold, animal in hand, trying to open the back door with your free hand.... You may rush to the back door, but you rush back to the living room only to find later the dog is on the counter and the kettle is out the back.
You inside world is the living room and the outer world is the kitchen (or vice versa), we try to straddle both rooms and fail badly. Sometimes, with hyperfocus, we are trapped inside or outside one room or the other.
The AI metaphor
Imagine a machine that has to learn every task itself, from scratch, everyday. Even tasks that it has done before requires almost learning from scratch, when something changes.
This explains how we can not understand, if not guided or through many trials and errors that Register (the words and style of language you use) needs to change depending on context. That risqué joke you tell your friend shouldn't be told to your boss/mother/arresting officer. Nothing comes naturally to a lot of us, including social skills.
That'll do.