Attention DEFICIT is a misleading term. It’s more an issue of not being able to willingly direct your attention.

That’s why ADHD brains hyperfixate on something and we’re are unable to switch to something else, even though we KNOW we should/want to/have to do the other thing - we can’t direct our attention away from the thing our brains are hyperfixating on.

What sometimes looks like rapid “task switching” is again the inability to direct our attention so it flips around uncontrolled.

This also often leads to a weird state of paralysis where we’re doing absolutely fuck all because we can’t activate our attention properly but we’re yelling at ourselves on the inside to DO THE FUCKING THING YOU FUCKING LAZY SHIT.

For ADHD brains to be able to consciously, actively direct attention, there needs to be some immediate reward. It can’t be some vague reward that might come in the future, like “you won’t have back pain when your old (so exercise!)”. That doesn’t work.

For me (and others, I hear), it’s often the thought that others are depending on me doing The Thing. That’s why I was absolutely insanely good at organising shit in my last job - my coworkers depended on me having prepared all kinds of data. Without this reward, I am completely useless at organising stuff.

Unless it’s interesting, of course, which is again an immediate reward.

Does this sound in any way like you?