Somewhere near the heart of the problems ADHD presents is one of activation energy.
This is often expressed in the ‘importance-led’ vs ‘interest-led’ dynamic.
In a neurotypical brain a thought can come in saying ‘this thing is really important’ and that will release enough dopamine to motivate action. It will fill the motivational cup enough to trigger an action and the person will do the needful thing.
Due to the chemistry and structural differences inherent in the ADHD brain, the ‘this thing is really important’ message simply isn’t enough. I have struggled my entire life with knowing what needs done and crawling up the walls doing everything but that thing. We all do. Not only does the needful-ness not fill the motivational cup, but it can often create an aversion due to the associate emotional baggage.
The exception that proves the rule is of course, the crisis. When what’s important is also urgent and dire enough to wake the panic monster and drive me into an all nighter or similar over the top behaviour.
Thank you Tim Urban of wait but why for the diagram, can’t recommend his work enough.
One of the ways many ADHDers manage this situation is by burning dirty fuel - emotionally speaking.
See, negative emotions are incredibly motivating. Anger, fear, shame, spite… these are powerful levers. Losses hurt far more than wins help, and we will work much harder to avoid them - if we let ourselves feel it.
So many of us learn to lean into them. To do the emotional work of making what feel like molehills into mountains. To amplify those negative emotions because that’s one of the few ways internally available to close the gap, fill that motivational cup, and actually have the activation energy to do what needs done.
As implied by the ‘dirty fuel’ analogy, this comes with some costs. Burnout is a common one. Not only because you wind up living in perpetual crisis mode, but because you’re also putting in the emotional work to generate that crisis energy in the first place. And since our brains reinforce the circuits we use, it can be incredibly hard to turn off. Among the many mis-diagnoses many face along the way, anxiety is incredibly high on the list (especially in women). The self generated crisis can become a semi-permanent identified with feature of who we think we are.
I went the other way.
Somewhere in the long road of childhood I learned to value my equanimity very highly, almost obsessively. It didn’t always work, but I worked at it. Everything all around was chaos, a sea at storm, so I had to hold myself calm. If I let every outside event throw me off my game I’d never have a moment’s peace. I learned to avoid these powerfully motivating emotions, to let them pass and leave me behind, to not get swept up in their current.
But.
Shutting down these powerfully motivating emotions also comes at a cost. The emotional energy they provide wasn’t available, and the activation threshold frequently went unmet. With disastrous consequences.
Pushing down negative emotions - i.e. depressing them - helps lead to another common problem pattern and misdiagnosis.
Denying myself the motivation that makes sticks effective, and frequently losing interest in carrots, I have historically performed woefully below my capabilities. This is also a disastrous consequence.
Now, on the one hand, my current bid for diagnosis and medication should help with that whole activation energy thing. That’s kind of what the stimulants are there for - to give us the dopamine needed to finish filling the cup and be able to do something just because it needs doing.
On the other hand, that’s not a tool available to me yet, and I have shit that needs doing now, not in a few months time. Or, actually, more like a month ago.
In an ideal world, I’d be able to harness my internal green energy. The natural internal forces and flows of interest would be harnessed and powering a live in line with who i am and how I work.
To carry the analogy forward, I haven’t built the infrastructure for that. I haven’t built that life, or those systems within it. The winds and flows of my interest are instead battering against the frail shelter I’ve been able to build. Floods and hurricanes and scorching droughts tearing down faster than I can build up.
Like a developing nation, in desperate need of an energy revolution, I think I need to start burning more dirty fuel. It might be the only way to get the surplus I need to build the infrastructure to harness the clean energy of interest.
It’s a somewhat disheartening thought. I’m not a fan of the pollution it brings, the feeling of feeling those emotions. If nothing else it’s deeply uncomfortable. Who decides they need more fear? More anger? More desperation? Where’s the line between managing your emotions and denying them so much you become complacent? So much you lack self preservation? So much you forget your will to power?
The consolation, I suppose is this - coming at this as a adult I know that the goal is to integrate these parts of my shadow, to harness and grow through them and accept them as part of me, and build through them to something more whole. To tap the energy I’ve ignored and leverage it to build the systems that will stop them from running amok in me and in my life.
Can I hold the fear gently enough for it not to be the mind killer? To fight when the need arises?
Time to find out.
Thank you for reading.
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