how to eat a
Waffle
with adhd
how to eat a
Waffle
with adhd
what is adhd?
Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a brain-based condition that affects all aspects of someone’s life. Often attributed to an under-stimulated pre-frontal cortex, the area of the brain that governs executive function, someone with ADHD may experience inattention, hyperfocus, and the feeling of having a brain with a “Ferrari motor but bicycle brakes.” These challenges can make even the simplest task feel like a Herculean obstacle. Let’s use making breakfast as an example.
Someone with a “neurotypical” brain will wake up, feel hungry, and decide to have breakfast. She’ll go into the kitchen, open the freezer, take out the box of waffles, close the freezer, pull out two waffles from the box, put the waffles into the toaster, press “Toast,” close the box of waffles, put it back into the freezer, close the freezer, take a plate out of the cabinet, take a fork and knife from the drawer, go to the refrigerator, take out butter and syrup, close the fridge, put everything on the table, set it, take the toasted waffles from the toaster, sit down, and eat.
the process is a bit different with an adhd brain!
Someone with an ADHD brain will wake up, feel hungry, and think, “I should make something to eat.”
- She’ll go into the bathroom, brush her teeth, and go downstairs to the kitchen.
- She’ll see yesterday’s mail on the counter, smack herself on the forehead, and remember an unpaid bill.
- She’ll go into the room where her laptop should be, hunt through the piles of papers on the floor, find it, take it back to the kitchen, and put it on the counter.
- She’ll remember she’s hungry and opens the freezer, intending to have waffles.
- She’ll see the salmon filet she bought the other day and think, “Yum. I’ll have salmon for dinner tonight.”
- She’ll take the salmon out of the freezer and put it on the counter, where she sees the laptop and remembers she needs to pay that bill.
- She’ll open the laptop and turn it on.
- Her stomach will growl and she’ll turn back to the freezer, noticing she left the door open. Again.
- She’ll pull out the box of waffles, close them, walk to the toaster, take out two waffles, put them in the toaster, press “Toast,” and put the box on the counter.
- She’ll go back to the laptop, log into the bank website, see her account is overdrawn, groan, “Not again,” search frantically for the log-in information for her investment account, find it in a digital list she made five years ago called “Important,” and schedule a transfer to the bank. It’ll take three days to clear. Her bank session expires and she’s logged off the website.
- She smells something burning. The waffles!
- She goes upstairs, searches for her purse and keys on the floor next to the bed, finally finds them, comes back downstairs, goes out the door, remembers to lock it, gets into her car, planning to get a bagel, finds she’s out of gas, goes back inside and crawls into bed.
author
Gayle M. Gruenberg
Gayle M. Gruenberg, CPO-CD® is the Chief Executive Organizer of Let’s Get Organized, LLC, an award-winning professional organizing firm based in Bergen County, New Jersey. Gayle is the creator of the Make Space for Blessings™ system. LGO works with busy families to help them find more time, space, money, and energy and connect their lives to their core values through being organized.