ADHD Insight Hub

An articulate teenager is not necessarily a teenager who can explain themselves.

This distinction matters particularly with ADHD.

When a distressed teenager says “I don’t know”, adults often respond by asking more questions.

What if that is exactly the wrong moment for more questions?

I’ve written about what may be happening between the experience and the words and why a teenager who can talk for hours may genuinely be unable to tell you what’s wrong.

🔗Full article is here: https://adhdinsighthub.com/teenagers/adhd-teenager-cant-explain-feelings/

I’ve lost count of how many conversations I’ve had with people with ADHD that include some version of:

“I don’t realise I’m hungry until I’m starving.”

“I don’t know I’m tired until I can’t function.”

“I think I’m fine — and then suddenly I’m completely overwhelmed.”

I experience some of this myself.

But I’ve become increasingly interested in whether “not noticing” is always the right explanation.

Sometimes the signal was there.

We noticed it. Briefly.

It just wasn’t important enough to interrupt whatever had our attention. Or we knew exactly what we needed, but couldn’t make the transition to doing something about it. Or we had become very good at overriding the signal and carrying on.

That distinction matters.

Because “I can’t listen to my body” and “my body has to become extremely loud before it changes my behaviour” are not quite the same problem.

I explored this in my new article on ADHD and interoception — including what the research currently tells us, what it doesn’t yet tell us, and what I keep seeing in real life.

ADHD and Interoception: Understanding Your Body - ADHD Insight Hub Explore the connection between ADHD and interoception to understand emotional and physical sensations more effectively.

One thing I’ve learned from coaching people with ADHD:

Sometimes the problem isn’t that they can’t clean.

It’s that they can clean too much.

Six hours. Entire cupboards reorganised. Storage boxes ordered. A complete reset.

And for a brief moment there is enormous relief:

“Right. Now I’ve got my life together.”

Then ordinary life returns. The system slowly slips. And what was simply a messy kitchen becomes evidence of something much bigger:

I’m failing again.

I’ve become increasingly interested in that jump — from “my environment is messy” to “there is something wrong with me.”

Because once shame enters the picture, cleaning is no longer really about cleaning.

It becomes a cycle of chaos, overcorrection, hope, exhaustion and self-judgement.

And I think we miss something important when we respond by giving people another organising system.

I wrote more about what may actually be happening underneath this cycle here.
https://adhdinsighthub.com/adults/adhd-and-cleaning-chaos-overcorrection/

ADHD and Cleaning: Tips for a Tidy Home - ADHD Insight Hub Explore the connection between ADHD and cleaning. Discover tips to maintain an organised home despite distractions.

“I don’t understand myself. I really wanted to do it.”

I hear versions of this sentence surprisingly often in coaching.

A new project. A course. A job. A hobby. Even something someone genuinely cares about.

At first, there is energy, curiosity, ideas.

And then… nothing.

The interest disappears, and very quickly the explanation becomes personal:

I never finish anything.
I’m unreliable.
Why can't I just make myself do things?

But I’ve learned that one of the most useful questions we can ask in coaching isn't:

“How do we make you try harder?”

It's:

“What changed?”

Was the novelty gone?
Did it become repetitive?
Did the challenge disappear—or become overwhelming?
Did something that felt chosen start feeling like an obligation?

That conversation is often much more revealing than another productivity strategy.

I wrote about ADHD and interest some time ago, but increasingly I think understanding our relationship with interest is one of the most important pieces of understanding an ADHD brain.

🔗https://adhdinsighthub.com/adults/how-to-keep-someone-with-adhd-interested/

Many of my AuDHD clients tell me the same thing:
“I crave the buzz…but then I need to escape”.
It’s not about being inconsistent. It’s about the nervous system changing state faster than we expect.
That’s the AuDHD stimulation paradox.
In my latest article, I explore why this happens, why it’s so misunderstood, and what actually helps.
Link in the comments👇

One of the things I've learned through coaching neurodivergent women is that what looks like a midlife crisis is often something very different.

Many women tell me they suddenly feel lost, disconnected from themselves, or unsure who they are anymore.

But as we begin to explore their experiences, a different picture often emerges.

Years of adapting.
Years of meeting other people's expectations.
Years of not fully understanding their own neurodivergence.

What they're experiencing isn't simply a crisis. It's often the point where the old ways of coping stop working, and they begin asking a very important question:

"Who am I when I stop trying to be who everyone else expects me to be?"

I wrote more about this in my latest article because I think this experience deserves far more recognition than it currently gets.

I hope it helps some women feel understood—and perhaps a little less alone.

Neurodivergent Midlife Identity: A Deep Awakening Explore the challenges of neurodivergent women facing a midlife identity crisis shaped by their unique neurological experiences.

Everyone thinks you're coping.

You're hitting deadlines.
You're smiling in meetings.
You're producing good work.

So why does it feel like your entire working day is held together by stress, panic, and invisible effort?

Many successful professionals aren't struggling because they're lazy or incapable.

They're working twice as hard just to appear "normal."

I wrote about one of the most misunderstood experiences I see in coaching.

🔗Link in the comments

For years, we've explained why neurodivergent people find everyday life exhausting through the lens of executive functioning.

That's certainly part of the picture.

But I think there's another layer we rarely talk about.

Many neurodivergent people don't just complete tasks - they spend much of the day translating the way their brain naturally thinks into systems designed around a different cognitive style.

Turning big-picture thinking into bullet points.

Turning natural rhythms into fixed schedules.

Turning creativity into measurable outputs.

After a while, it's not just the work that's exhausting.

It's the constant translation.

This idea became the starting point for my latest article, where I explore what I call translation fatigue - the hidden cognitive effort of navigating a world that often wasn't designed with neurodivergent minds in mind.

I'd love to know whether this resonates with your experience.

🔗Link to the article is in the first comment.

Most people think anger starts with shouting.

It usually starts much earlier.

It starts when you're trying to stay patient...
while filtering out noise,
remembering ten things at once,
switching between tasks,
holding back frustration,
and pretending you're coping.

By the time someone says,
"Why are you overreacting?"

they're often seeing the final 5%.

Not the 95% that came before it.

This is one of the reasons anger can look different in people with ADHD. It isn't simply about having a "short temper." More often, it's the result of a brain that has been working overtime long before anyone notices.

Understanding that doesn't excuse hurtful behaviour.

But it does change the conversation from:
"What's wrong with you?"
to
"What pushed your nervous system beyond its capacity?"

Whether you're someone who experiences this, loves someone who does, or simply wants to understand emotional regulation better, I hope this article offers a different perspective.

Link in the comments.

Hvala Unframed Talks i CIM Forum kotor na pozivu i prilici za ovaj razgovor.
Pričali smo o neurodivergentnosti, maskiranju, stigmi, preduzetništvu i o tome šta se dešava kada ljudi godinama pokušavaju da budu neko ko nisu. Nadam se da će ova epizoda doprineti boljem razumevanju različitih načina na koje ljudski mozak funkcioniše.

Koliko Ljudi Živi Sa ADHD-om, A Misli Da Je Problem U Njima? - Dana Džamić | EP16 Gošća 16. epizode 🗣️ Unframed Talks podcasta je 🎙️...