ADHD from the inside | Toby Shaw | TEDxYouth@ISPrague

adhd is when you start with one task and ends up with 10 tasks open in front of u , and u cant help it

Adhd is basically not knowing where to start or what to do next, let alone how to do it, then forgetting how to do or start it after someone already explained it to you, then you leave the activity mainly because you've already given up from all of the other past experiences, never returning until it's too late. Did I mention this repeats for every activity?

you know you have ADHD when you're watching this video and suddenly your mind wanders off to few different matters and your eyes looking around the room and suddenly you're remember... oh yeah i'm currently watching this vid

How many of you read the comments, while you listen, and continue to fight the urge to wander to something else even if a part of you wants to finish? 😎

I often get this feeling that when we talk about ADHD, it gets put off as something that's easy to live with, something that you just need to figure out and when you do it is this amazing gift that makes you so amazingly creative and succesfull, while when they talk about other mental illnesses that really have a lot in common with ADHD, such as bipolar disorder and autism, it does get treated as a rough thing. It frustrates me. For me, ADHD is indeed something that sits deeply in my personality, but it's definetly not something that helps me in life. It frustrates me, that just because there are many people who have it, ADHD gets treated as something that you should not see as an illness. I have ADHD and for me, it IS a terrible mental illness that has ruined my life more than a couple of times, and I'm just 19 years old! I know that without ADHD I would be able to get a degree, to do what I want to do in life. I have all these amazing original ideas that most ADHD people have but because of my ADHD I can't finish anything, I can't put these thoughts into real work! And it's terrible! I was treated for ADHD. I had a psychologist and half the time I had no idea wtf I was doing there.... and my medication did more harm than good. At some point my psychiatrist told me he had nothing else that he could do for me. So no, it's not easy for me. I dropped out of university because of my ADHD. My relationship of 2 years ended because of my ADHD. I left the house because of all the fights I had with my parents about my ADHD. It frustrates me so much, that this is treated as something common and easy to handle, while for me it's an every day battle against myself!

I started focusing how on almost every sentence he said started with “Now”

Did you know that on a iPhone the max number of tabs that can be open in sufari is 500; I learned this with my adhd.

All these ADHD symptoms are due to an impaired frontal cortex. A sluggish dopamine & norepinephrine system. It is genetic. This causes the adhd brain to act the way it does. Untreated it can easily lead to addiction and a range of negative symptoms if not treated properly. Toby was diagnosed young so I'm not surprised his 'cons' are quite mild. My 'cons' were unemployment and decades of addiction.

I am so happy that he mentioned the quiet type, ADD, that gets called lazy. Just to put it out there if parents are watching this for their kids; this calm quiet daydreaming maybe easy to tears type is common in girls but not exclusively of course. I get called lazy and here is why. On the outside I am sitting around doing nothing, but in my brain there is a massive universe or factory trying to figure things out, process, problem solve, eager thirst for learning interesting things, philosophy about life and the world (if clouds weigh so many thousands of tons then why can it fly is an example of something I was pondering once, then I looked it up and learned it.) And lots of other things. Sometimes I am doing nothing to try to unstress the stress and anxiety from the overload of information, and sometimes I do nothing because of my physical inability to make decisions easily or quickly so I can't decide what to do or which order, or I want to go do something really bad but can't get started so I get anxiety about never getting my body to move. There have been many times where I have cried in thirst because I couldn't get my body to get up and get water; it can be that extreme. I'm not lazy, I'm occupied. Now, that being said, in return from all the thinking, processing and learning from looking up random stuff I am now known as "the human dictionary" and my brain and senses are my strength. So if you are here reading this for your child my hottest tip is that visual learning is commonly easier than verbal. Show what you mean, draw it, find pictures or videos explaining. Give breaks in the homework, our attention can be amazing but only in short bursts and how short varies. Have the child answer questions while jumping on one leg if the child struggles to stand still and make it a game. If you can make it interesting enough and really cool did you know's then it is more likely to stick the first time. Likely, not guaranteed. And you might know a habit of maybe watching the same movie a million times, don't sigh or complain, the guilt from rolling eyes is awful when you are a child.

I hyper focused on this, this made me feel like I’m not the only one

It's more like when you try to file the sound of the bus, you accidentally put it in a shredder because suddenly your brain is paying attention to the bright yellow on the taxi right next to you. It's important to note the lack of short term memory that people with ADHD constantly struggle with.

You did a very good job explaining this disorder Son. I was diagnosed very late in life, so I have the baggage of past hurts and now discrimination of acknowledging, publicly, I have ADD. Always a work in progress.

My friends say I act like a drunk toddler when I don't take my ADHD pill. To be quite honest, I agree with them.

I have severe ADHD. If I drive, I will be focused on driving along with a hundred thoughts that I forget to take the turn towards my home.. I drive straight past my house which I have lived for all my life. I always miss the stop in metro and go forth and back. And theses are just one of the things I go through all My life. But there is one more side to the coin. I was always first in my class and passed B. Tech in Mechanical Engineering with distintion from a very reputed university even though I don't right notes. I don't even know the portion of my exam till the last night, but manage to completely study a subject in one night from other people's notes. On the night before my exam, my hyper concentration becomes a blessing. But I can never listen in the class or if I listen, then I cannot complete my notes.. My handwriting varies from page to page and is never consistent. I have two patents for my designs of a robot and an aerator. I can only listen to one person at a time and cannot consentrate on a group of people. Since my mind is engaged in thaughts, I will hear people asking me things, which I store in to my mind and will answer them after my thought process ends, which result in me giving an answer after few minutes.. I forget all things which is relevant for day to day life like my key, wallet, area where car is parked, place where my shoe was left.. Etc but retains all the information which I have interest on such as world affairs, history, science etc...

How ironic... within the first 38 seconds, I had already opened up a game of Solitaire on my computer as he said, "it is a common misconception that those with ADHD can't concentrate at one thing at one time..." Whoops.

A good clear explanation for those who don’t understand. I have described it as trying to grasp thoughts out of a cyclone of words, sights and sounds. Or like trying to concentrate in a room of 1000 people talking loudly.. one thing I know for sure, we do love a metaphor 👍🏻😁

I was expecting the comment section to be people screaming ADHD is fake. Even Sir Ken Robbinson in his famous Ted Talk - Do schools kill creativity?- he made a joke insinuating ADHD is not a disorder and completely a made-up disease. I wish I could invite them to live like me for one day and they will understanding what an invisible disability it is.

There was great value in this BUT one thing I want to correct is that for us low key over organized who prefer to stay home it is a coping mechanism. We are NOT lazy. My type just uses being lower key to manage stimulus. Please never call an ADD/ADHD person lazy for how they do something differently. Some struggle to put themselves out there and some struggle to not be as outspoken. Just ..... different types of ADHD thats all and fighting daily for balance. 👍😇

I cant even pay attention to this guy talking about adhd

I'm watching this instead of doing the chores I'm supposed to do