Sorry, I Have a Follow-Up Question… and Another

By Michelle Labine, PhD

September 2025

“So anyway,” I said to a friend recently, “that’s why I’ll never buy another scented candle.”
Without missing a beat, I immediately followed it with, “Do you think pigeons have regional accents?”

Smooth, right? This is what living inside my AuDHD brain feels like: seamless to me, slightly dizzying to others.

Conversation Parkour

I’m not someone who talks nonstop. I can be very quiet deep in thought, observing, letting silence have its space. But when I do talk, things get… lively.

My brain doesn’t wander slowly; it vaults. One idea sparks the next, and before I know it, I’ve jumped from candles to pigeons to the psychology of accents to whether animals have cultural traditions. To me, it feels like following a perfectly logical path. To others, it’s like watching someone teleport mid-sentence.

I’ve started to call it conversation parkour. You think we’re walking down a calm sidewalk, and suddenly I’ve leapt off a wall, rolled, and landed on a completely different street.

AuDHD Brain Logic

I’ve come to see this quick flipping as a very AuDHD thing:

• ADHD gives me the spark-jumping. I don’t just connect dots, I connect constellations. One sentence leads to five directions, each begging to be explored.
• Autism gives me the depth. I want to know all the details. It’s not enough to know pigeons have accents, I want the research, the sound samples, the evolutionary backstory.
• Together it’s curiosity on hyperdrive. My conversations are part improv comedy, part TED Talk, and part “random shower thoughts.”

The “Wait… How Did We Get Here?” Moments

It’s not unusual for someone to stop me mid-story and laugh: “Hold up, how did we get from scented candles to pigeons?”

That’s when I have to play detective and retrace my own steps:
“Candles make me think of smoke alarms, which reminds me of apartments, which reminds me of city living, which makes me think of pigeons, which makes me wonder if pigeons in Paris sound different than pigeons in New York…”

And honestly, when I explain it like that, people usually get this spark in their eyes because who hasn’t wondered if animals have dialects? Sometimes my quick flips unlock curiosity in others, too.

From Self-Conscious to Self-Amused

For years, I felt self-conscious about this. I’d leave conversations wondering: Did I lose them? Did I jump too fast? Did I seem scattered?

But now, I’m starting to find the humour in it. My zigzag brain doesn’t just keep me entertained, it often makes other people laugh, and sometimes it leads to fascinating, unexpected conversations. Sure, it’s not always tidy. But it’s alive.

Instead of shaming myself for “jumping around too much,” I’ve started reframing it: maybe this is simply how my curiosity shows up in the world. And maybe it’s less about being too much and more about being a lot and a lot can be wonderful.

Next time you’re with me, don’t be surprised if we start with candles and end up with pigeons because curiosity, after all, is meant to be shared.