It is early on a weekend morning and I am feeling edgy and agitated, finding myself increasingly annoyed with all of the first-thing tasks that need to be done and then, layered on top of those, the extras that this particular weekend morning has brought in terms of mundane household management. None of it is especially difficult or unusual, but everything feels irritating and I can feel myself becoming less patient as the morning goes on.
Then my daughter asks me to let her know if she can help with some of the preparation for a family BBQ we are having later, a rare and overdue chance for our family to share a meal together, and I snap at her. I hear it immediately and I hate when that happens because I don’t want my frustration spilling onto the people I love, particularly when they haven’t done anything wrong. My daughter is actually offering to help me yet somehow my irritation comes out in her direction. Of course, I apologize right away and tell her that this has nothing to do with her, because it doesn’t and then I essentially put myself on a timeout.
I sit down and try to stay with how I am feeling rather than continuing to move through the morning increasingly agitated, because by this point I am curious about why I am reacting this way. There isn’t anything upsetting happening and the intensity of my frustration doesn’t really make sense in relation to what I am being asked to do. It doesn’t take me long to figure out that all I want to do right now is write, although even want doesn’t quite capture it because I am being deeply pulled to write. My mind is already moving in that direction, ideas are forming, sentences are beginning to take shape and what I want to do with this quiet weekend morning is sit down with my computer and follow wherever all of that is trying to take me.
Instead, before I can get to writing, there are a number of things I need to take care of first, most of which I would rather not be doing anyway. Once I recognize how strongly I am being pulled toward something I deeply want to do and how frustrated I am by everything that seems to be standing between me and getting there, my agitation starts to make much more sense. Understanding myself as AuDHD has helped me recognize these moments for what they are, rather than just seeing the tip of the iceberg which is the irritability and impatience.
When My Attention Has Already Gone Somewhere
For me, there is a big difference between wanting to do something and the kind of pull I can experience toward something that has captured my attention and interest. Writing does this to me. When there is something I want to explore, I can begin working on it long before I sit down at my computer; thoughts start connecting, phrases appear, and something I have been thinking about suddenly makes sense in a different way. By the time I actually have the opportunity to write, I may already be deeply engaged with what I want to say.
The concept of monotropism has helped me understand some of this. Monotropism describes the way attention can become deeply concentrated around a smaller number of interests or areas at a time, something many autistic people recognize in themselves. ADHD can bring something different to the experience, with attention often strongly influenced by interest, novelty, urgency and stimulation. For me, the combination can create an incredibly strong pull toward something that has captured my interest, where my attention doesn’t just prefer to be there but feels drawn there with an intensity that can be difficult to redirect. I can have an extraordinary amount of energy, focus and capacity available for the thing pulling me in while shifting my attention toward something mundane can require far more effort than the task itself would seem to warrant.
What makes this difficult is that I am not trying to find the motivation to do something; I already have it, and in abundance, but it is directed somewhere other than where I need it to be in that moment. I can feel ready to begin, know exactly what I want to do and have ideas actively unfolding, while at the same time needing to keep pulling myself away to attend to things that feel far less compelling. The stronger that pull becomes, the harder those necessary shifts can feel, and that ordinary task can begin to feel like an enormous obstacle between me and the thing I am already deeply engaged in and, in that moment, want to be able to give myself to completely.
When Irritability Is Information
What I am learning is that the irritability itself can be useful information. Rather than assuming I am irritated by whatever happens to be in front of me, I am getting better at recognizing it as a signal to stop and become curious about what is happening underneath it. Sometimes there is a gap between what I think I am reacting to and what is actually creating the frustration.
There was a time when I would have been much more likely to assume that whatever was directly in front of me was the problem: the task was annoying, the interruption was annoying, the question was annoying or the person asking the question was annoying. Understanding myself differently has taught me to pause when my irritation feels bigger than the situation in front of me, because sometimes the thing I am reacting to is simply where the frustration happens to land rather than where it began.
That was true with my daughter this morning. Her question wasn’t the reason I was agitated; she happened to ask it when I was already there, and because I hadn’t yet understood what was building inside me, some of that agitation came out toward her. Instead of continuing to push through, I needed to stop and ask myself what was actually going on. Was I tired or overstimulated, holding too many unfinished things in my head, or simply lower in capacity than I realized? Or was my attention already so deeply engaged somewhere else that every additional demand to pull myself away from it was adding to the frustration?
As soon as I gave myself enough space to ask the question, I knew. I was already deeply engaged with writing and wanted to stay there while my morning required me to keep directing myself elsewhere. The tasks themselves weren’t really the problem; it was the accumulated frustration of repeatedly having to move away from where I so strongly wanted to be.
And this morning, I realized I also had a choice. I don’t always. There are plenty of times when something needs to be done, someone needs me, or life simply doesn’t allow me to follow where my attention wants to go. But today, when I looked more carefully at the tasks I had decided needed to happen first, I realized they could wait for an hour. So rather than continuing to fight against the pull toward writing, I gave myself that hour. I let the tasks sit, opened my computer and wrote, knowing I could come back to everything else afterward. Sometimes understanding what I need doesn’t mean I can give myself all of it, but this morning I could give myself some of it and that made a difference.
Understanding Without Explaining Away the Impact
Understanding why I snapped at my daughter doesn’t mean I am comfortable with the fact that I did. My AuDHD helps me understand what was happening inside me, but it doesn’t make her responsible for my frustration. For me, self-compassion and accountability can exist together: I can understand why something happened without explaining away its impact, and I can take responsibility without turning that responsibility into shame.
This morning, pausing helped me recognize what was happening before I carried that frustration any further. I apologized to my daughter, realized that some of what I had decided needed to be done could actually wait, and gave myself an hour to write before returning to the rest of my morning. I don’t always have that choice, but today I did.
So, I opened my computer and began to write, and this article is what came out. Later today, I know I will find my way back to the book I am so deeply pulled to keep editing, but for now I can return to the rest of my day knowing I haven’t had to ignore that pull completely.
If you recognize yourself in any of this, I’ve created a companion worksheet to help you pause when everything suddenly feels irritating and get curious about what might actually be happening underneath it. You can find it attached here.