Writing with ADHD

This is a response to Geraint Evans's “This is how an ADHD person actually writes.” Start there if you can.

I'm a terrible writer

Or at least, I've convinced myself of that my whole life. What I write flows awkwardly. I've never understood all the rules, or how to make writing sound immersive and natural. It ends up verbose and it wanders. I mix tenses constantly.

I never understood why I write the way I do until the beginning of this year, when I found out that I have rather severe inattentive ADHD.

Then I came across Geraint's tweet, and it blew my mind. It was the first time anyone had described the way I write. Reading the replies under it, from lots of ADHD people who recognised themselves too, I realised I wasn't alone. Honestly, you should probably read his article instead of this one, but I'll try to add my own thoughts on top of it.

At the end of his article Geraint names four traits that show up in ADHD writing, so I'll use them as my structure. (Sorry if the structure doesn't hold. You know. ADHD. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

• Impulsivity: “Impulsivity & rushing through tasks - I need to say this now!”
• Attention to detail: “Yeah, probably fine, ill just post it.”
• Being socially inappropriate: “Sorry, why do I have to change how I communicate when you clearly understand what I mean?”
• Feeling misunderstood.

Impulsivity

Gotta go fast. My flavour of ADHD means a mind that is full of ideas all the time. You know the expression “drinking from the fire hose”? It's like that, for eight or more hours a day, every day, before I run out of energy completely and crash. (That's a topic for another time.)

Even sitting down to write this, it's hard to move on to the next sentence, because there are 18 ways I could continue this one, and 14 of them probably change the subject.

Each idea feels incredibly pressing, like the entire world should hear about it. Then I tweet it, or bug a coworker, or tell my partner, and find no interest at all.

So writing with ADHD means TONS of editing passes, even on a few paragraphs. I've usually crammed so many ideas into a small space that it's overwhelming and disjointed to read. It's hard to follow because I've left out the framing in between. That context is in my head, and I forget that other people can't see it.

Too much passion

With that many ideas, and a passion for a topic that burns hot and fast, I often oversell things or frame them wrong.

I once wrote an email to a director at the company I worked for, flagging a product decision as “unethical,” because I believed strongly that we were getting it wrong. It was a bad decision. But “unethical” was the wrong framing and the wrong severity. Would craft and inclusivity both suffer from it? Yes. Was it any more or less serious than the thousands of decisions the company made every day? Not really. In the moment, though, it felt like the most important thing in the universe, and my passion was turned up to 11.

Luckily, that director was very empathetic. They explained to the email thread what I probably meant, and why I was overreacting, without being condescending. It opened my eyes, and I've always remembered it. Stick with the people who will call you out with love. They'll help you grow enormously.

I feel like I've explained absolutely nothing here, so it seems like a great time to move on.

Attention to detail

Geraint's line nails it: “Yeah, probably fine, ill just post it.” Somehow this sits alongside the last trait, feeling misunderstood, even though the two pull in opposite directions.

For me it shows up in one of two ways. Either I write for hours, trying to get something right, or concise, or understandable, until I get frustrated and hit post. Or I write something in 30 seconds and send it without reading it back.

I could never write papers in school. When I tried to edit a long piece, I didn't edit it. I rewrote the whole thing on every pass. In the end I started writing papers a few hours before the deadline, so I wouldn't have time to fret over the content or the style. I often got better grades and responses by putting out a first pass than by trying to write the way other people would easily understand. Of course I couldn't do that. My brain doesn't work that way.

Deadline adrenaline

I call that “deadline adrenaline,” and I've come to lean on it in every part of my life. I'm not sure if it's strictly an ADHD thing or a me thing.

Deadline adrenaline means leaving something so late that I'm basically fucked if I don't finish it in the next few hours. School papers, project deadlines, even packing up a house or submitting documents: a lot of things in my life get done this way.

It lets me pull off tasks that seem impossible, with ease. But it can make it hard to work well with other people. My managers are always terrified, and then shocked when I turn around an entire project in a day, or finish what looked like an impossible amount of work in a short time.

It's part of the ADHD cycles I go through, which I'd like to write about separately. The short version: when I'm not on medication, I go through pretty severe cycles, roughly daily and roughly monthly, in energy, creative output, focus and more. That makes it very hard to work with others when my creative or energy highs don't line up with where they are. When my highs do line up with a project or a collaboration, people are often amazed by how much I make and how good it is. And then, probably, confused a week later when I can't seem to make two screens.

That was a tangent. On to the third trait.

Being socially inappropriate

This one is straightforward for me. First, I recognise that I'm VERY, SUPER privileged to be able to work this way.

I don't work with people or companies that require me to do things a certain way. Need to dress a certain way? Nope. Talk or write formally? Nope. Maybe that seems messed up, but it's how my brain works.

I've been lucky to find a career where I could design a way of working that suits me and still brings people value. I think many ADHD people never get the chance to show what they can do, because they can't engage with the world the way the world wants them to. I was lucky to have some incredible teachers and mentors who saw value in me despite a “weirdness” I couldn't name until recently.

We leave a lot of great people behind because they can't, or don't, work the way the world expects. If my only options had been a suit and tie, or being on my feet in retail at 8am, I'd still be in my parents' basement. (People in retail: you're the unsung heroes, doing some of the hardest work for completely unjust pay. Thank you. I hope the way you have to work improves in my lifetime.)

I've always done worst when I tried to fit myself into the mould of “normal.” I come across as just an OK-ish designer. In the past few years I've found real success by leaning into being myself, unapologetically, even though I know that can be hard to work with and around. I have the utmost respect for managers and leaders who can take odd-shaped puzzle pieces like me and work out where they fit.

Feeling misunderstood

The biggest one. For me, feeling misunderstood is the root of almost all the social problems ADHD brings.

If I feel someone didn't understand what I said, here come ten minutes of explanation of that one statement, while the group slowly edges away from the odd guy.

Post something online? “People will pick apart every statement.” “Don't post that, people won't understand what you mean.” The self-censorship that comes from fearing being misunderstood is socially crippling, and it's bad for your career.

When I worked at Facebook, I always struggled with one expectation: as you become a more senior designer, you build a public following and start to have an impact on the industry. Even thinking about that was crippling, because of the fear of saying or doing something wrong and being cast out.

For an ADHD person, feeling misunderstood is TERRIFYING. There are a thousand minor slights and awkward moments I still think about every week, begging in my head to go back and explain or correct them.

Wrapping up

Even starting this wrap-up, I feel like I've written a lot of disjointed stuff that people won't get much out of. I'm putting it out anyway, because I'm trying to get better at challenging my assumptions, and to learn more about myself and my ADHD by sharing with others and getting feedback.

This wandered away from writing a bit. But writing is HARD for ADHD people. I'm trying to do more of it to get better, and to work out how these four things affect my writing and how I can improve it.

I wrote this in one pass, so apologies for any problems with spelling, flow or anything else. (That was true in 2021. This version has been edited since.)

I hope it's interesting or useful to someone.