ADHD & ME - PART 2 - HYPERACTIVE-IMPULSIVE
3 Types of ADHD
The symptoms of ADHD can be categorised into 3 types of behavioural challenges:
- Predominantly inattentive (difficulty concentrating and focusing) – ADHD-I
- Predominantly hyperactive-impulsive – ADHD-HI
- Combined type – ADHD-C
I have been diagnosed with ADHD-C.
Hyperactivity Traits
- Restless and/or edgy
- Noisy
- Interrupter/disrupter
- Talks excessively
- Doesn’t wait for the question to finish before blurting out an answer
- Can’t queue
Other Traits
- Irritable with a quick temper
- Low stress tolerance
- Risk taking
ADHD Hyperactivity Misconceptions
For me, prior to having any inkling that I might have ADHD myself, it was the hyperactivity element of the condition that I was probably most aware of in others. We probably all remember the classic primary school disruptor that was a pain the backside, always running around, making a lot of noise, disrupting class, disrupting playtime if you were doing something that wasn’t a full on, 100 mile an hour activity. This is in part a true depiction, but it is far too simplistic.
When reading that description, if it reminded you of anyone, I bet it was a boy? Do you remember the girl who was always looking out of the window, or still working away on a task when everyone else had finished? The one you probably think of as being ‘book-ish’. The lay-persons assumption is generally that more boys have ADHD than girls, which is completely wrong, it just tends to manifest itself in different ways. That’s not to say that there aren’t boys staring out of the window of course, or girls who want to play football instead of talk about stuff, everyone is different, but in general this is how the most obvious set of ADHD traits show up.
The result is that girls and women have often been overlooked, even misdiagnosed, because too much of the research that has gone in to ADHD in the past has been aimed towards the hyperactive boy. This balance is now thankfully being redressed and more females of all ages are getting a correct diagnosis and the subsequent help that is needed. This was evident in a small way the first time that I attended an online drop-in session hosted by ADHD UK, a charity aimed at adult ADHD diagnosis, where I was staggered by the number of women in their mid 40s upwards that had recently been diagnosed with ADHD as their journey through menopause had exacerbated their traits to a point that they could no longer be overlooked. I will be researching this more and blogging about it.
ADHD HYPERACTIVITY & ME
So how does this part of the diagnosis manifest itself in me? I wasn’t necessarily the overtly hyperactive boy that I described above, actually very few are, they just get all the headlines! I did, and still do exhibit the traits in more subtle ways:
- I can never sit still, I am nearly always shaking my leg, tapping my foot or my fingers are fiddling with something, sometimes all 3 are happening at once. I used to make the floor in my old office shake because I couldn’t sit still, so when I had an early start once a week my poor colleague who was there with me used to get driven mad until more people came in and the vibrations of my leg shaking etc were nullified by the movements of others. I can’t stop looking at the time, or out of the window, or anywhere but the place I am meant to be focussing on, which links in with the inattentiveness outlined in part 1 of this blog. Our dogs get fed up with me because I can’t stop myself indulging in some low level tormenting in some little way, nothing nasty, just blowing on their ears, or tickling the pads of their feet. My wife wants to kill me sometimes when I can’t sit still and leave her alone. Just last weekend I was visiting my 82 year old mother who has dementia and is blind and she told me off for fidgeting, so it’s clearly been a lifelong thing.
- All that fidgeting can create noise. The tapping, rustling, banging etc drives people mad. At school I used to roll pencils along my desk, or click my pen, those parker ones were the best!
- If I have something I need to ask or share I can’t wait for people to finish what they are doing before they give me the attention that I need. I’ll stand at their shoulder and make them aware that I am waiting. This isn’t narcissistic, this is because if you make me wait a minute I’m concerned that I’ll forget why I am there. This trait clashes with my Asperger’s, because on the flip-side you really don’t want to interrupt me when I am focussing on something because I’ll bite your head off! From the outside it is totally hypocritical, but it’s how my head works.
- When I myself get talking the rules change, there are no boundaries about what is excessive or what isn’t. This can apply to length, volume or appropriateness of the content of the subject at hand. If you try to interrupt I’ll speed up and get louder to crowd you out until I’ve made my point, and I won’t pick up on it if it is frustrating, offending or boring you. This is massively affected by my Asperger’s too, it’s a major trait of that condition.
- I’ve never been good at letting anyone finish what they are saying, as soon as I think I know where they are going I have a tendency to interject because I can’t be listen to all those extra unnecessary words when I already know the answer, and if I don’t blurt it out there and then I’ll forget it. I don’t admit to this often, but sometimes when I do I am wrong, but that’s usually because I’ve heard what I want to hear.
- I can’t queue. I just can’t, it drives me mad, I feel physically riled, I flex my jaw and stand there kicking my heels. I regularly start to queue for something then have to walk away because I find it frustrating. Again, this is another Asperger’s crossover which gets exacerbated.
The ‘Other Traits’ are clear in me too.
- I have always been short tempered, easily riled or irritated, snapping at the most important issues in the world at that particular moment, only to look back when I’ve calmed down and realise that I’ve just gone full Hulk on a jam jar lid (and probably still lost, but I loosened it for you!).
- Low stress tolerance is an interesting one that I hadn’t realised was an issue for me until about 12 years ago, when issues at work that should have provoked a fight or flight reaction in fact brought on a complete shutdown. I am now aware that this is how my brain works, but I still haven’t figured out how to deal with it yet.
- The riskier end of risk taking was covered a bit in part 1 of this blog on ADHD and Me, but there’s the smaller stuff too. That piece of work that I decide not to check before you send it in at the very last minute, that gap that might not be a gap after all at a roundabout, that quick single cut that I need to make with my table saw that I don’t bother with PPE for as it’s just a quick job.
Summary
The Inattentive traits in part 1 of this 2 blog series clearly have had the bigger impacts on the overall direction of my life, with many of the hyperactive traits seeming more of a nuisance factor overall, but that shouldn’t be seen as me underplaying them, they’re there all of the time, from when I wake up to when I go to sleep, and it’s frankly exhausting.
Within these two sets of traits there is a balancing mechanism going on. For example, the more I try to focus to overcome inattention and focus on something, the more I twitch my leg. It’s a recognised strategy that allows me to divert the excess energy that would have gone in to a mental distraction in to a physical movement, and equally, if I need to sit still and not fidget then my mind will head off in many different directions at once and I’ll tune out, so all those years of being told to sit still at school where clearly counterproductive. To me, it’s feels a bit like playing the drums, the beat has to come out somewhere, and if the left hand is tied up then the right foot will jump in.
Next week – Asperger’s and me.
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