Here’s a list of common features and traits associated with ADHD (Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder). Note that not everyone with ADHD experiences all of these, and they can present differently in different people.
Contents
🌪️ Cognitive and Emotional Traits
- Black-and-white thinking (also called all-or-nothing thinking): Seeing things in extremes; something is either perfect or a failure.
- Emotional dysregulation: Intense emotions that may be hard to control or quick shifts in mood.
- Rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD): Extreme emotional sensitivity to perceived rejection or criticism.
- Impaired working memory: Difficulty holding information in mind for short periods.
- Time blindness: Trouble estimating or feeling the passage of time.
- Poor sense of time: Procrastination and deadline-driven motivation.
- Impulsivity: Acting without thinking, interrupting, or making snap decisions.
- Hyperfocus: Getting intensely focused on tasks or interests, sometimes to the point of forgetting basic needs.
🧠 Mental Processing Style
- Anthropomorphizing: Attributing human-like traits or emotions to objects, animals, or abstract concepts — possibly linked to emotional imagination or empathy overflow.
- Creative/associative thinking: Making unusual connections, often leading to creative problem-solving.
- Thought jumping / tangential thinking: Conversations or thoughts may jump between seemingly unrelated topics.
- Sensory sensitivity: Over- or under-reactivity to sensory input (sounds, lights, textures).
- Paralysis from overwhelm: Struggling to start tasks due to too many steps or unclear priorities.
📚 Behavioral Patterns
- Task avoidance / procrastination: Especially with tasks that are boring, repetitive, or unclear.
- Poor follow-through: Starting projects with enthusiasm but struggling to finish them.
- Forgetfulness: Forgetting appointments, names, where items are, etc.
- Disorganization: Trouble managing time, physical space, or tasks.
- Low frustration tolerance: Getting easily overwhelmed or irritated.
💬 Social and Communication
- Interrupting: Talking over others, often out of excitement or fear of forgetting a thought.
- Difficulty with listening: Mind wandering or missing details in conversation.
- Masking / people-pleasing: Especially in women or those diagnosed later in life.
🌀 Other Nuanced or Lesser-Talked-About Traits
- Anthropomorphizing (again!): Sometimes part of a deeper emotional or imaginative life.
- Object permanence issues: “Out of sight, out of mind” — forgetting about things or people when they’re not visible.
- Intense interests / “micro-hyperfixations”: Short, passionate bursts of obsession with topics or hobbies.
- Perfectionism: Wanting to do things “just right,” often clashing with executive dysfunction.
- Internalized shame or guilt: From repeated failure to meet expectations (self or others’).