The other day, while browsing the psychology shelves of my local bookstore, I saw a book about ADHD entitled “Faster Than Normal.” For better or for worse (probably both, in different ways), this is the opposite of my experience. If I were to write a memoir about my own ADHD, I would call it “Slower Than Normal.”

In fact, I sometimes wish I had the hallmark symptom of hyperactivity that most people associate with ADHD, so I could kick my lugubrious brain into high gear and actually complete a few tasks on my ever-growing to-do list (although I have no doubt this is a case of “be careful what you wish for”). 

My ADHD is the “primarily inattentive” type, or what used to simply be called ADD – imagine the spacey kid staring out the window in the classroom, not the wild child who can’t stay in his seat or stop interrupting. We’ve come a long way from the stereotype of the boy who’s bouncing off the walls, and now understand that there are different subtypes and presentations of this disorder. Unfortunately for me, we hadn’t reached this level of enlightenment when I was in school, and thus I wasn’t diagnosed, because I could sit still – catatonically still, since I was often present only in body, my mind far off in my daydreams.

I’ve often heard ADHD described as having a brain that’s like a race car with no brakes. I’d like to offer a contrasting analogy for the experience of ADHD-PI (primarily inattentive). For me, ADHD feels like driving a sluggish car in a snowstorm, on slippery roads, with low visibility. The gas tank is low, and the dashboard is blinking and beeping. And, just for good measure, let’s add some rowdy children in the back seat and an angry spouse in the passenger seat.

I want to drive straight, I want to get to my destination, and I want to accelerate and brake properly, but my car just won’t do it. When I try to drive in a straight line, my steering wheel jerks right and left from under my fingers, and my wheels slip over the snow. When I try to accelerate or change gears, sometimes my car just won’t budge, or the wheels can’t get a good grip on the slippery road. 

It’s easy when I’m going downhill, but when I try to drive uphill, the car gets stuck, or sometimes even rolls backwards. Just driving on a flat road is difficult above five miles per hour. If I try to push harder on the accelerator, my low fuel light comes on. Once I’ve gotten some momentum going, it’s hard to stop, because when I press on the brakes, the tires won’t grip the road. I’m trying to stop, I can see the red light ahead of me, and I don’t want to get rammed by the traffic coming at me from my right, but the car is out of my control. 

I’m trying to see the road, but there’s snow pummeling my windshield faster than my wipers can clear it away. The windshield is fogging up, and I try every combination of the defogger, the heat, and the AC, but to no avail – the fog remains. 

As I’m trying to handle all this, I have a frustrated, impatient passenger next to me. “Hurry up, we’re running late!” “Why can’t you just clear your windshield?” “Why are you driving so slow? Just go faster! Just push harder on the gas pedal!” “You were going perfectly fast when you were going down that hill back there. I don’t understand why you can’t go fast now.” “Why aren’t you driving straight?” “Why can’t you just stay in your lane? You’re drifting all over the place!” “Didn’t you see that stop sign? Why didn’t you brake?” “We’re running late, what’s wrong with you?”

Then comes the chorus from the back seat: “I have to potty!” “Are we there yet?” “I’m bored!” “I’m hungry!” “I’m tired!” “Look out the window!” “Now look out this window!” “Watch me!” “I can’t hold it anymore, it’s coming out!”

The psychologist and ADHD expert Russell Barkley brilliantly states that, instead of calling it “Attention Deficit Disorder,” it should be called “Intention Deficit Disorder.” In ADD/ADHD, there is an interruption in the chain from intention to action. The desire to focus, pay attention, and get organized is in tact, but the machinery leading to follow-through gets jammed. Just having more willpower and trying harder is absurdly insufficient, just as it’s insufficient for a driver to just want to drive better in the snow. The problem isn’t in the wanting, nor is it in the effort – it’s in the execution. 

We all take Driver’s Ed when we start driving. There’s a special course offered, though, for severe weather driving, which isn’t required, but is immensely helpful for learning to safely navigate through snow, ice, and heavy rain. Having ADHD is like living in a strange reality where everyone else is driving in clear weather, but somehow your car exists in a parallel universe where it’s snowing, but no one else can see the snow. You took Driver’s Ed like everyone else, so what’s wrong with you?! 

What’s truly effective in learning to drive the ADHD car is not more intention, but to take the winter driving course, and to continue taking these courses. What’s needed are skills and strategies. If my wheels are stuck, it doesn’t help to just press harder on the gas; I have to have the awareness and skill to know how to get the car moving. If I can’t see, I can only speed up the wipers so much; I just have to get used to that level of visibility. If I can’t stop the car effectively, I can’t just “brake faster” or “brake harder,” because then I’ll slip all over the place. Instead, I have to learn how and when to brake – I have to get the feeling of the snow. If the car spins out, I can’t jerk the wheel around in a panic; I need to learn the proper technique to gently and effectively steer the car into safety. I also need to equip my car with as many gadgets and safety features as I can to help me out – GPS, blind-spot monitors, a backup camera, automatic headlights, and so on.

The driver isn’t the only one who needs education, though. What if our passenger understood that we were driving in a snowstorm? What if, instead of badgering us and nagging us, they could help us navigate, they could be a second pair of eyes for us, and, most helpfully, they could be a good source of company, to reassure us, keep us calm, and give us confidence?

As for those kids in the back seat, we all know that just yelling at them to shut up won’t do much good. Berating them, calling them names, or hitting them is not a good long-term strategy. Nor should we give them free rein, since they’ll just end up playing with the windows, crawling over the seats, and spilling food everywhere. Effective parenting is required, with its own set of strategies and tools – so, again, education is what’s called for, not brute force.

Finally, a crucial aspect of driving well in the snow is accepting the reality of the conditions. Instead of stressing ourselves out trying to get somewhere in the time it “should” take us to get there, or the time it would take someone else to get there, we need to accept that it’s snowing and leave early, since we know we will be driving slowly, will take some wrong turns, and will have to stop to let the kids use the bathroom. Before we even leave, we need to prepare our car by scraping the ice off the windows and shoveling the snow around our wheels. It doesn’t matter that “everyone else” can just jump in their car and go. In their universe, it isn’t snowing.

Ultimately, in addition to all our strategies and tools, we need to have some compassion with ourselves, because as hard as we try, as much as we are prepared and skilled, sometimes the weather is just out of our control. We can do our best to plan and predict, but in the words of Nicolas Cage’s character in The Weather Man, “I don’t predict it. Nobody does, ‘cause it’s just wind. It’s wind. It blows all over the place! What the fuck!”