ADHD is not an inability to focus, it's an inability to direct and control one's focus at-will.
The ADHD brain is always seeking dopamine and constantly seeks out the most "exciting" thoughts. When you are actually into something and engaged, the brain is producing dopamine (the reward chemical) and so an ADHD person will hyper-focus on that thought/activity intensely for long periods of time, barely noticing the time as it passes.
This is one of the reasons, in my opinion, a lot of people in the software field are ADHD. Being able to sit at a computer and code for 12 hours while having it feel like 2 is not normal, per se. Hyper-focus allows us to be amazingly productive at this job. It's a gift as well as a curse, however, because it's that same hyper-focus that can keep us playing a video game far longer than we should even when we cognitively know we need to stop.
In people with ADHD, the executive brain function has a very hard time overriding the impulsive side of the brain. So, if the brain is getting its dopamine fix due to playing the video game and you're running late for an important meeting, it's going to be super hard to override it even if you cognitively know that being late to this meeting is a very bad thing.
What I find even more interesting than that, though, is that being late is stressful, and stressful thoughts are, as far as the brain is concerned, exciting! It's a double edged sword; as soon as the stress of being late is more exciting than what you're doing, you'll get up and leave. Until then, you'll sit in denial and read Reddit or HN or play your video game.
This is also one of the reasons ADHD and Anxiety tend to be co-morbid, I believe. Anxious thoughts are "exciting" for the brain so we tend to fixate on them.
So yeah, transition, in general, is very hard for those with ADHD.
When I was first diagnosed I did not really believe the psychiatrist. My impressions of ADHD were all wrong. Once I understood what ADHD actually was, everything clicked. 30 years of my life suddenly made sense. ADHD isn't "the crazy hyper kid in the corner who does bad in school and can't concentrate long enough to form a coherent thought because SQUIRREL!" the way I thought.
The ADHD brain is always seeking dopamine and constantly seeks out the most "exciting" thoughts. When you are actually into something and engaged, the brain is producing dopamine (the reward chemical) and so an ADHD person will hyper-focus on that thought/activity intensely for long periods of time, barely noticing the time as it passes.
This is one of the reasons, in my opinion, a lot of people in the software field are ADHD. Being able to sit at a computer and code for 12 hours while having it feel like 2 is not normal, per se. Hyper-focus allows us to be amazingly productive at this job. It's a gift as well as a curse, however, because it's that same hyper-focus that can keep us playing a video game far longer than we should even when we cognitively know we need to stop.
In people with ADHD, the executive brain function has a very hard time overriding the impulsive side of the brain. So, if the brain is getting its dopamine fix due to playing the video game and you're running late for an important meeting, it's going to be super hard to override it even if you cognitively know that being late to this meeting is a very bad thing.
What I find even more interesting than that, though, is that being late is stressful, and stressful thoughts are, as far as the brain is concerned, exciting! It's a double edged sword; as soon as the stress of being late is more exciting than what you're doing, you'll get up and leave. Until then, you'll sit in denial and read Reddit or HN or play your video game.
This is also one of the reasons ADHD and Anxiety tend to be co-morbid, I believe. Anxious thoughts are "exciting" for the brain so we tend to fixate on them.
So yeah, transition, in general, is very hard for those with ADHD.