Sometimes overthinking, overwhelm, or paralysis are related to a lack of trust in our ability to handle situations in the future. Here’s what you can do about it.
Do any of these sound like you?
You avoid emails, because when you do eventually write an email it takes you a long time and ends up being long and complex, and/or because you are overwhelmed thinking about the response you will get and the tasks that you may need to do once you receive the response.
You have trouble making phone calls, because it takes so much work to prepare for any possible thing that could be asked of you by the person you are calling and/or a fear that the phone call will generate more tasks for you to do.
You have trouble creating things that will be seen by others (presentations, blog posts, articles, academic papers, etc.) because you want to make sure your words perfectly convey what you mean and that every possible question/argument anyone might have is addressed.
If so, you might be trying too hard to have an entire conversation all by yourself before the conversation even starts, because you don’t trust that your Future Self will be able to hold up their end.
In all of the above scenarios, we are trying to communicate information to others, and possibly get information from them. But for a number of ADHD-related reasons, we might not trust ourselves to be able to respond to anything unexpected that comes out of the communication. So, we try to get the entire experience over with all in one go, which means spending time and energy overpreparing and overthinking every possible contingency, comment, or question we might have to deal with, and trying to address them all (or avoiding because that’s a lot of work!). Or, we might expect something to come out of the communication, like follow-up tasks, and be overwhelmed at the thought of then having to deal with those tasks.
Distorted thinking about our future capabilities is a common and normal ADHD experience
This may look like underestimating our future abilities, as in these scenarios, or overestimating them (“I will have more time and be more motivated to do this thing I don’t want to do at some undefined later time.”) Because of the difficulty many ADHDers have of relating to ourselves realistically throughout time, I like to talk about the “Present Self” and the “Future Self” as distinct and separate people.
We do this because:
We experience time as “Now” or “Not Now,” and it can feel like “Not Now” doesn’t exist
We have inconsistent access to our strengths
We have past experiences of being misunderstood/getting things wrong (and don’t remember all the times things went right because of Negativity Bias)
We may experience Rejection Sensitivity and the tendency to see any miscommunication/error/friction, real or perceived, and however slight, as our fault and a big deal.
But the truth is, your Future Self:
Will become the Present Self and actually exist;
Is more capable than you give them credit for;
Has better information than you do about how handle whatever comes out of the communication; because they
Know exactly what problems/obstacles/issues need to be addressed, versus your Present Self who is trying to prepare for (and worrying about) every possibility.
And finally, no one is judging your Future or Present Selves as critically as you are, and in the unlikely event they are, that’s their problem.
What might it look like to embrace your future capability versus operating from a place of distortion? Here are some examples:
Phone calls
Distorted - Spending time trying to think of and prepare for any possible question or issue that could come up, writing a full script, avoiding altogether because of how much prep it feels like it takes/dread over all possible future tasks.
Embracing future capability: Gather the information you know for sure you need, perhaps make a brief list of the bullet points you need to hit or get out of the call so you don’t have to rely entirely on your working memory, and then trust that your Future Self is capable of having a conversation, problem solving, and saying “I don’t know, I’ll get back to you,” if necessary. This way, you only have to address whatever actually arises/do whatever needs to be done after the call, rather than trying to prepare for all infinite possibilities in advance.
Emails
Distorted - Writing lengthy, greatly detailed emails trying giving all possible context the recipient might need and may or may not already have; trying think of and address any questions the recipient might have before they can ask.
Embracing future capability -
Ask yourself, what is the goal of this email? What is the bare minimum that needs to be conveyed to get to that goal? Remember that the recipient can ask questions, and your Future Self will know which questions they actually have that need to be addressed, versus your Present Self trying to address all possible questions
Alternatively, ask yourself: does all of this information need to go in an email or would it be easier to have a conversation about it? Then, schedule a time for the conversation/call/video conference by sending a calendar invite or an extremely brief email, and make sure the meeting goes on your calendar. This gives you structure for any prep time you do need for the conversation by providing a finite deadline, and making the conversation more likely to happen than an email that can keep getting pushed down on your list. You might still end up writing an email to recap after the fact, but it will likely be briefer and easier because you already know exactly what needs to go into it and can leave out the rest.
Articles, Presentations, Papers, Etc.
Distorted - Trying to include everything that could ever be said about a topic, and running up against time limits, page limits, word count, attention limit of your audience, etc., not to mention the finite amount of time and energy you have to spend on any given project.
Embracing future capability - Recognize that time is finite and you can’t actually say everything that could possibly said. Think of whatever you are doing as part of a greater conversation - people who are interested can and will respond to you, and then you can respond to them in turn! If you want to share more than you have the time or space to convey in this particular instance, consider giving people a way to opt in to engaging with you (contact info, Q&A post-presentation, office hours, etc.). Then you can go deeper with the people who are actually interested/invested enough to take you up on it!
I literally had to have this conversation with myself to make this blog post happen, because I have ADHD too.
I want to give a million real-life specific examples, and dive into a bunch of related topics, and spend hours making sure what I already said came off how I meant it, but then this blog post will never get published! So I am reminding myself that all communication is part of a conversation, embracing the existence of the future and the reality that my Future Self will be capable, and hitting “Publish” so that the conversation isn’t just a theoretical one I’m having in my head by myself.
