r/ADHD Feb 27 '25

Discussion ADHD is like having 300 TV channels in your head - and someone else has the remote

This might be my favorite ADHD metaphor.

I’d love to hear yours! How do you describe ADHD in a way that makes people go, ‘Oh, now I get it’?

Drop your best metaphor in the comments and let’s build a little library of ways to explain the ADHD experience.

Really looking forward to your thoughts!

1.5k Upvotes

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150

u/drewthefemale Feb 27 '25

I used the same analogy (at age 14) trying to explain to my grandma how my mind works. It's like there are dozens of televisions stacked on top and beside each other, playing different channels. One in particular is always playing random music. Most of the time I can only focus on one at a time, and it's not typically the one that is playing reality.

78

u/BonesMalone2 Feb 27 '25

The constant music channel hits hard.

19

u/-AllCatsAreBeautiful Feb 27 '25

What is with all mine being 80s songs I actually hate? One of my longest standing earworms now is Kiss ... I WAS MADE FOR LOVING YOU BABY whyyy

14

u/drewthefemale Feb 27 '25

The songs you hate are all kept in a mental VHS tape that is stuck in one of the TVs... You'll never be able to get it out 🤣

8

u/CozySweatsuit57 Feb 27 '25

I hate that song lol

3

u/Ghost-Bitch Feb 28 '25

... and toniiiiight, I wanna give it all to you...

2

u/CaptainLollygag Feb 28 '25

Mine keeps reverting to the Led Zeppelin channel for almost 3 weeks now. I used to like Led Zeppelin.

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5

u/tooawkwrd Feb 28 '25

The current song playing on my channel is Pink Pony Club. It is....incessant..

7

u/drewthefemale Feb 28 '25

Thank you sarcastically for syncing our radio station 😭

2

u/tooawkwrd Feb 28 '25

I'd be ECSTATIC to sync up with another station if you have any recommendations....

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15

u/Electrical-Proof-242 Feb 27 '25

Love it! Your description makes my ylvanse benefits dissapear instantly 😂

10

u/3506 ADHD-C (Combined type) Feb 27 '25

I like the music analogy. I've put it this way:

Every day, every hour, every minute, every second of my life, an overwhelming orchestra of tens of thousands of soloists on tens of thousands of instruments plays in my head, with every single note completely improvised, conducted by a toddler without any sense of meter, a piacere forte fortissimo.
Sometimes, I'm able to follow one random melody line of one soloist, but mostly it's just lots of noise.

  • a piacere = at pleasure (the performer is not bound to follow the given rhythm exactly)
  • forte = loud, strong
  • fortissimo = very loud

6

u/CaptainLollygag Feb 28 '25

THIS IS HOW I'VE ALWAYS DESCRIBED MY BRAIN. Literally, for decades now. Sorry for yelling, but I'm in my mid-50s and thanks to excellent masking I wasn't diagnosed until about 3 years ago.

2

u/jeebs1057 Mar 02 '25

Not so loud next time, my kids are asleep. Lol

3

u/Mirabelle_Lisette Feb 28 '25

Shit. At least once a week the tune the princess whistles in shrek gets played in my head on repeat. I’m not like a big shrek fan or anything but my sister and I watched the movies a good bit when we were young…

It’s never a song I actually love and enjoy :,)

Whoever has the remote is laughing their ass off.

181

u/420Entomology Feb 27 '25

I definitely have the remote, the pause button just don't work.

36

u/Electrical-Proof-242 Feb 27 '25

Lucky you! What about volume?

42

u/420Entomology Feb 27 '25

Maxed out, i can totally change the channel tho.

27

u/BLUEBANANAAA594 blorb Feb 27 '25

for me i only have the next channel button, once i change i can’t go back

9

u/420Entomology Feb 27 '25

That's interesting, so what about radio i can't turn this thing off i got like 10 songs playing at the same time all the time, only thing I find that works is blasting Spotify through headphones to drown out the other music that's playing in my head.

3

u/-AllCatsAreBeautiful Feb 27 '25

What about when you go so far forward that you come full circle 😎

2

u/BLUEBANANAAA594 blorb Feb 27 '25

it will take millennia to go full circle, and the list resets every day

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u/chesterfieldkingz Feb 27 '25

It's like constantly hitting the go back 15 seconds button on podcasts and audio books. Which I also do constantly with podcasts and audiobooks

8

u/Electrical-Proof-242 Feb 27 '25

People should have those, too

2

u/Certain-Dust-2082 Mar 03 '25

lmao i rewind tv shows and podcasts so much i could never watch them with someone else. and when i do i have no idea whats going on most of the time

15

u/[deleted] Feb 27 '25

I was gunna say, I think its that we have the remote, but there's too much on at the same time that we wanna watch. And sometimes when we need to be watching a documentary on nutrition that's on a specific time slot we get stuck on a rewatch of Dude, Where's My Car for the 35th time.

2

u/-Speechless Feb 27 '25

I've seen commercials for tvs playing 4 different channels at once. that's what it's like lmao

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5

u/UnidentifiedBlobject Feb 27 '25

Batteries are dead and I keep meaning to change them out.

1

u/TumbleWeed75 Feb 27 '25

I never had a remote. Lol.

1

u/NoraEmiE Feb 28 '25

This!😭

51

u/Snoooort Feb 27 '25 edited Feb 27 '25

Nah, you do have the remote but you choose to watch Cartoon Network all the time when stressed.

And you know you do this, you know you can change the channel but somehow it stays on Cartoon Network until you see something interesting and then you watch the History Channel for 8 hours and sleep becomes optional.

When you finally fall asleep you promise yourself to switch to all the channels the next day. But when you wake up, the first thing you see is Cartoon Network on tv and have the remote in your hand… and it starts all over again.

22

u/Electrical-Proof-242 Feb 27 '25

The ADHD version of Sysyphus 💪

8

u/TumbleWeed75 Feb 27 '25

And you know you do this, you know you can change the channel but somehow it stays on Cartoon Network until you see something interesting and then you watch the History Channel for 8 hours and sleep becomes optional.

Funnily enough this has happened to me, I've watched an entire show twice in one sitting, until I randomly came across something else interesting and watched that for the rest of the day and night.

Then I couldn't find anything else interesting, so I watched the same entire show in one sitting again. LOL

1

u/Certain-Dust-2082 Mar 03 '25

I cant tell you how many times in my head before sleep, "I"M GOING TO DO THIS TOMORROW! I HAVE TO!"

Next morning i wake up and that channel i wanted to switch too is offline and no where to be found. So cartoon network it is... lol

44

u/milfordloudermilk Feb 27 '25

My mind has a mind of it’s own and I control neither

8

u/Electrical-Proof-242 Feb 27 '25

Wow, I really like this one 😂

4

u/TumbleWeed75 Feb 27 '25

Lol I love this.

3

u/Mental-Sky6615 Feb 28 '25

Takes me out a walkin' when I'd rather stay at home

39

u/Bonnelli72 Feb 27 '25

I feel a bit like Bowser in MarioKart: if I can get up to speed and lock in it's a blast, but it's hard to change direction and most of the time I'm just getting derailed, slipping on banana peels and getting hit by turtle shells

11

u/Electrical-Proof-242 Feb 27 '25

Bowser is for the pros - as they say, ADHD is living life on Hard Mode.

11

u/-AllCatsAreBeautiful Feb 27 '25

I always play Toad (IRL?) ... fast acceleration, great around corners, & way too easy to derail.

Both work!

6

u/Bonnelli72 Feb 27 '25

Toad works too! Maybe the better general analogy is that having ADHD is like always playing (being) a character with super uneven stats... great in some situations but really challenging to deal with in others

4

u/-AllCatsAreBeautiful Feb 28 '25

There we go! This makes better sense. "I'm the best!" flattened immediately by minor interruption

3

u/CozySweatsuit57 Feb 27 '25

Oh my god. I always used to play as King Boo (same weight class so same thing) and this resonates deeply!

3

u/Certain-Dust-2082 Mar 03 '25

Shells and bananas everywhere, and every day your car randomly goes a different speed and you have no control over how fast it goes.

27

u/Civil_Explanation501 Feb 27 '25

Sometimes when I would be teaching/lecturing, I would get overlapping sentences trying to come out of my mouth at once. Like ten different trains trying to go through one tunnel at once. I would always have to stop, breathe, and just force myself to slow down to let the stupid trains through one at a time.

4

u/Hopeful_Sleeping4772 Feb 28 '25

Yes! Trying to finish a thought is like playing mad libs with ten drunk people.

For each completed linear thought, I have to fend off “related anecdote/relevant line of poetry/emotional response/tortured metaphor/frustration at the whole process/bits of grocery list/anxiety about listener’s response/managing voice volume/appropriate eye contact/random chewing gum jingle.”

3

u/Jasmine7698 Feb 28 '25

This happens to me daily at work. I’m in a problem solving role so I instantly see multiple solutions / issues and they all try to come out of my mouth at once…

16

u/grlie9 Feb 27 '25

For working memory, especially if I'm getting verbal information, I compare it to grocery shopping without a cart or basket. The amount of items I can carry in arms is limited & it takes more energy. Eventually, I come to a point where my arms are full. When that happens I have to put something to pickup something new or stop picking things up all together.

For my general brain, I describe it as a place with no clocks or calendars & no secretary. Medicine basically puts a temp secretary in my brain for a few hours but, for the most part, it is a new temp everyday who has no idea what, how, who, why, when, or where anything is. The temp from the day before never does much to let tomorrow's temp know relevant things from today. Often, they aren't that great at being a secretary &vsometimes they don't even care because it will be someome elses problem tomorrow. It is better than no secretary but I still need an actual secretary.

6

u/Electrical-Proof-242 Feb 27 '25

Maybe you could give them a new name everyday, as a sign of respect

3

u/Certain-Dust-2082 Mar 03 '25

So true, i have 20 people yelling at me in my head 24/7. The medicine ads a secretary for the day, to manage all the yelling people. but sometimes hes absolute dog shit at his job, and other times hes so hyper focused he forgets to tell me what else needed to be done and all of a sudden 6 hours have went by and im just reading reddit... lol

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u/Melodic-Desk5521 Feb 28 '25

I’m not ashamed to say how frequently I physically represent that analogy, consistently confident that I really only came here for two things.

I can carry so many things at once. I should really just get the darn basket.

3

u/grlie9 Feb 28 '25

I do that too thinking I won't buy as much that way. Instead I end up buying a container to carry stuff around the store too (at places where thats possible).

1

u/Equivalent-Net7646 Feb 28 '25

I love this groceries analogy.

17

u/N2dMystic88 Feb 27 '25

I couldn't focus enough to read through this.

3

u/Electrical-Proof-242 Feb 27 '25

Sorry it's really too long...

7

u/N2dMystic88 Feb 27 '25

lol! It's not that at all, it's a rough one today. My brain is on over-overdrive.

15

u/justinsurette Feb 27 '25

I have 3 squirrels, One is emotional, One is always horny, The 3rd one is driving the ship and is easily distracted by the other 2……

11

u/sklaudawriter Feb 27 '25

I have a lot of symptoms but the best analogy is the middle of the opening of Neon Genesis Evangelion where everything is flashing by.

5

u/-AllCatsAreBeautiful Feb 27 '25

Are you sure it's not Evangelion and Rammstein ?

https://youtu.be/eXLLLWiBmoU

😝

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u/okayseriouslywhy Feb 27 '25

I'd like to imagine you also have the kickass theme song playing too

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u/TumbleWeed75 Feb 27 '25

My metaphor is a TV show's title: Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Meaning I pay attention to everything everywhere all at once and there's no off switch. Oversimplified that's basically what ADHD comes down to. Paying attention to every stimuli at the same time, an overabundance of attention, and it's not a deficit of attention.

I see my screen and all the colors on reddit, I'm typing these words, my thoughts, I hear my keyboard, I feel the texture of the keyboard (which I dislike). I'm looking at the wall behind my monitor, my white bathroom door, my desk it's texture and color, the lamp, water bottle, while also paying attention to the light coming in from my window, the washer going, feel and see my clothes, smelling food, and hearing the TV on all the way downstairs....all at the same time.

7

u/SheenaMalfoy Feb 28 '25

This is by far the most relevant one for me, holy shit. It's not that the sensations are any different from what anyone else feels. It's that I can't tune out the "unimportant" ones to focus on the things that "matter." Everything matters. Everything is important. And thus, everything gets attention.

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u/CaptainLollygag Feb 28 '25

I've never felt so heard as I do now. This is how I will start explaining it when it comes up.

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u/Dry-Description-9154 Feb 27 '25

My brain has two hard drives that both need to be running all the time or they both go offline. One side has a browser open with 150 tabs and I spin through them like a prize wheel. The other side is used for work, socializing, conversations, household tasks. The side with the prize wheel is shinier and gets more of my CPU.

2

u/Electrical-Proof-242 Feb 27 '25

May I ask you if you use meds? And if yes, what do they do with the prize weel hard drive?

2

u/Dry-Description-9154 Feb 27 '25

I just started Adderall yesterday, so no change yet. Not sure if I need to build up some help from the Adderall, or if that's not the med for me.

2

u/Formaltaliti Feb 28 '25

May need a higher dose. Stimulants are supposed to work right away to some degree.

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u/-AllCatsAreBeautiful Feb 27 '25

Nicely nuanced with the all-or-nothing aspect.

Also IRL I have 58 tabs open on Firefox right now.

Gotta occupy one CPU so somehow the excess spills over to the other... ish? I don't think my extension of the metaphor works. But yeah, I do need to occupy some part of my brain in order to focus on The Thing (conversation, task, whatever)... like giving a shiny thing to Inner Kid Me so Right Now Adult Me can do stuff uninterrupted.

I'm all over the place here.

You said it best!

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u/CrepuscularCow ADHD-HI (Hyperactive-Impulsive) Feb 27 '25

Great topic, love this! I wonder though if the metaphors for inattentive, hyperactive, and combo might be different. I was diagnosed with the combination type, but my hyperactive symptoms are much more severe. I read this metaphor on someone's blog that I liked (my own wording since I can't find it again): Brains are like oceans full of floating bottles with messages inside. A non-ADHD brain can choose which (most important) bottle and message to fish out and read. An ADHD brain picks a random bottle.

I'd add to that: From my personal experience, and maybe more specifically to hyperactive ADHD, it's more like a tsunami filled with bottles and messages is hitting you at all times, and you're trying to act on all those thoughts chaotically. If you have it severely, you live in a constant state of burnout, meaning you're always drowning in an ocean of messages in bottles bombarding you. My sense of inattentive is that you randomly get a bottle, and if it's one your brain likes, you'll hyperfocus on it and forget to go back for a new bottle, even if your boat is sinking while you read up on Saskatchewan basketeers or whatnot. But maybe this is just a difference in processing speed and personality vs. a difference between hyperactive and inattentive.

I'd love to hear from others on that though, since I'm into trying to understand inattentive ADHD and how it differs from what I seem to have.

4

u/Equivalent-Net7646 Feb 28 '25

I’m combined type and I think both are true. I get a tsunami of bottles so I’m constantly in burnout but then one bottle will have purple glitter and it reminds me to go find that one Care Bear online that I haven’t bought yet and next thing I know I have been on Pinterest for 5 hours hyper-focused on some cottage core posts or something.

I also feel sometimes text messages feel like a real tsunami. I’m drowning in literal messages and can’t reply when I’m already in burnout.

2

u/CrepuscularCow ADHD-HI (Hyperactive-Impulsive) Feb 28 '25

Yessssss the text messages. And then there's email. I sort of hate technology, because I do feel like it makes living with my brain even harder than it would have been fifty years ago. Literal messages in bottles are being thrown at you so constantly.

I keep my phone in do not disturb mode now, and once or twice a day (while on my meds ha!) I deal with them all at once. I figure if it's important and time sensitive, people will call. I also stopped doing social media for the most part. It helps.

4

u/TheNudeNeedle Feb 28 '25

Omg this resonates so much, it’s not just WATCHING the tvs, it’s definitely like you’re chaotically thrown into a new play that you probably know the lines to but if you blink you’re on a new set, in new clothes, with a new character trying to do that role justice. lol your description really hit it head on with me with the overwhelm and tsunami of thoughts, they aren’t just bobbing in an ocean, they are smacking me in the face while I try to deal with them lol

3

u/CrepuscularCow ADHD-HI (Hyperactive-Impulsive) Feb 28 '25

Yeah, I feel like the TV thing doesn't quite capture it all, for some of us at least. I'm not just watching, I'm impulsively acting on everything (or trying to) while also feeling everything very intensely. It's so exhausting being me.

3

u/Certain-Dust-2082 Mar 03 '25

although I have a combination of both types, my inattentive symptoms are more pronounced. I've always tried to tell people, my brain legit NEVER turns off. The power button on the remote is broken. Only thing that fixes it are ADHD meds or alcohol. Then i get a brief relief from the constant bombardment of bottles clanging together.

I do live in a constant state of burnout. I experience ADHD paralysis quite often. My brain still is going 10000 mph at all times with 50 different bottles clanging into one another (maybe that's the hyperactive part) But you are correct in the fact when i get a random bottle I'm feeling good about, I absolutely hyper focus and never go back for the 2nd bottle. Very frustrating as I really cant help it.

My issue with the bottles is, if I get a bottle that im not feeling good about, every other bottle looks beautiful and shiny and i focus on those instead of the bottle I was given. That manifests mostly as daydreaming about the other bottles or entertaining any random thought out of 10000 that come up, or the smallest things start grabbing my attention constantly such as, oh theres a bird outside, oh yeah whats the song i heard earlier let me look that up, damn my stomach is hungry lets go make food. The bottle just sits there collecting dust.

7

u/im_nobody_special Feb 27 '25

Oooooh, I have one. This is how I explain it.

You know how people say that their ducks are in a row? Well, I don't have ducks, I have, squirrels they're not in a row, they're at a rave.

2

u/Worried-Notice3566 Feb 27 '25 edited Feb 27 '25

Underrate comment. "squirrels at a rave" lmfao!

https://media.tenor.com/jQfmNt7bNyoAAAAM/squirrel.gif

7

u/Mr_Stimmers Feb 27 '25

I always described it as a child turning the tuning dial on the radio in my head, but the multiple TVs is definitely a more accurate analogy.

7

u/ohsodave Feb 27 '25

I feel this, or someone is playing a part of a song you like, over and over, but it won't go to the next verse, then a new song comes on and that asshole, changes it to yet another song.

3

u/-AllCatsAreBeautiful Feb 27 '25

MY MILKSHAKES BRING ALL THE BOYS TO THE YARD // YES, WE HAVE NO BANANAS!

Just like Homer:

https://youtu.be/DKQ-Q5FqZNo

6

u/Steamed_Jams Feb 27 '25

Hey I was watching that!

5

u/eat-the-cookiez Feb 27 '25

I only have the shit channels that run shows like “you suck and everyone hates you” and “omg let’s run through the what if scenarios of this bad thing” and “ let’s analyse a traumatic experience from the past abs relive the emotions”

2

u/Equivalent-Net7646 Feb 28 '25

That is good old RSD. (Rejection sensitivity dysphoria) Yup same here.

4

u/anomalous_cowherd Feb 27 '25

Once I was in a group of people having a discussion and someone else butted in with a question. I carried on with the discussion then when the other person spoke I answered the question while still listening to the first talker.

They asked a second question and someone else with a mischievous streak noticed and asked their own question as well.

I handled all three in turn, correctly, and all three of them kept asking more and I kept answering.

They were all impressed that I could do it but to me it wasn't that hard, it was just the same as what went on in my head most of the time, the distractions and multiple streams were just externalised!

4

u/mlinbur Feb 27 '25

Yep, pretty sure it's a toddler with my remote

2

u/Electrical-Proof-242 Feb 27 '25

What does he like most?

4

u/-AllCatsAreBeautiful Feb 27 '25

Bluey. And cringing about some crap that happened 20 years ago...

1

u/Worried-Notice3566 Feb 27 '25

Haha, mine was toddler-based as well. :)

4

u/hlcnic ADHD-PI (Primarily Inattentive) Feb 27 '25

For me it’s like being in the middle of a crowd but I can hear everyone too clearly

4

u/ParkingHelicopter863 Feb 27 '25

It’s like being in a room with multiple people who are scrolling TikTok at full volume

4

u/camyland Feb 27 '25

The censor on your remote is broken and will turn other devices on in your household. Sometimes, it even turns your neighbors stereo on, and they knock on your door and interrupt your show to tell you to use your remote to turn it off.

There's always music playing from somewhere else on repeat that you can't turn on or off, and it's likely a very random song on repeat you haven't heard for 2 years.

Furthermore it's a roku remote that has preset apps on the bottom and they'll switch your TV to a new app in the middle of the show right after you've settled in to watch something after you fixed the neighbors stereo.

The TV then freezes because your remote switched applications multiple times too quickly, and you can't remember where you were in the show to go back to it. So you give up.

4

u/Talmadge_Mcgooliger Feb 27 '25

This was a TV commercial in the 90s around the same time as the one with the the egg that said "this is your brain, this is your brain on drugs"

i remember making fun of it all the time.

5

u/beebooba Feb 27 '25

I always liked this one: ADHD is a Ferrari brain with no brakes

5

u/DonkeyKongTattoo Feb 27 '25

Mine is a both a joke and a metaphor. … How many people with ADHD does it take to screw in a lightbulb? … I like bikes

3

u/Electrical-Proof-242 Feb 28 '25

This is soooo good, I'll remember it forever!

5

u/James324285241990 Feb 28 '25

Everyone has a little secretary in their brain. She's responsible for looking at stimulus and deciding if it's important, and sending it to you, or if it isn't, and putting it in a file for later or throwing it away.

She's also responsible for scheduling your day and telling you when you need to do things or be places.

When you have ADHD, that secretary has an empty gin bottle in her desk. It wasn't empty 10 minutes ago.

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u/BonesMalone2 Feb 27 '25

But also in a hall of mirrors….filled with smoke.

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u/Electrical-Proof-242 Feb 27 '25

Awesome, thanks!!

3

u/undeterred_turtle Feb 27 '25

sometimes it's more like the remote is lost in the couch and I can't reach it but as I sit or move, my butt presses on it and it flips through a hundred channels, inevitably landing on something depressing or banal.

3

u/Electrical-Proof-242 Feb 27 '25

So the butt is our unconsciousness?

2

u/undeterred_turtle Feb 27 '25

lol only speaking for myself, but it's just my best approximation for the chaotic spirit that actually seems to steer my attention

3

u/sl0wburned Feb 27 '25

I love this. I always described it as a slot machine reel that never stops.

3

u/Electrical-Proof-242 Feb 27 '25

Yes!!! And so: Nothing to win for us

2

u/-AllCatsAreBeautiful Feb 27 '25

Nah sometimes you get a "feature!" & it goes into its own screen (hyperfocus) & you get hella coins before inevitably losing them all as you just keep on spinning.

3

u/MyLittleTarget Feb 27 '25

Given that I have queued up the following: Reddit, The Sims 4, a basket of laundry, a YouTube video, and an interesting article on story structure, I'd say you are correct. Which one am I going to change to in the next minute? Who knows!

3

u/Electrical-Proof-242 Feb 27 '25

The Sims never die... played the first one centuries ago

3

u/LongjumpingAffect451 Feb 27 '25

That’s a good metaphor! Except throw in another screen with Subway Surfers on it lol.

I usually describe my head as sounding like 2-3 people talking over each other about different things while a song loops incessantly in the background.

2

u/resonantbellworld Feb 28 '25

Is the song thing a known ADHD symptom? I haven't been diagnosed but have some other symptoms, and I also have wondered for a long time whether it's normal that I have songs stuck in my head 90% of every day, to the point where it prevents me from focusing on other thoughts or ideas when needed.

1

u/Electrical-Proof-242 Feb 27 '25

Whats your most recent song?

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u/foratte Feb 27 '25

too many tabs open! And i just keep opening more until i have enough and close the window, leaving me worse off :(

3

u/One_Yesterday_1320 ADHD-C (Combined type) Feb 27 '25

Its like a stereo in your head with one song on repeat till you forget the song in your head

3

u/tittychittybangbang Feb 27 '25

Before I got diagnosed I would tell my GP I feel like a guest in my own mind. Like my brain is the hotel and some weirdo is like “hey come in!” And I’m like “umm this is MY brain? You get out?” And they’re like “No please come in there are many people waiting to meet you!” And then I go in and it’s 70 weirdos all speaking different languages like it’s the tower of fucking babel and then someone ties me up so I can watch them destroy literally everything while I’m politely asking them to please release me and explain what the fuck is going on

3

u/Afraid_Succotash5181 Feb 27 '25

I have the remote but I ripped out the buttons fidgeting

2

u/Jasmine7698 Feb 28 '25

This is real… and if I didn’t my 8 month old puppy ate it because I was hyper focused on something else and forgot to keep an eye on her.

3

u/Enough-Strength-5636 Feb 27 '25

You know the trippy drunk Dumbo scene at the end with several cars and trains going every which way? Yeah…Those are my five Trains of Thought in my head. The only difference is that they hardly ever crash. Welcome to my life with ADHD. This is why I struggle with concentrating. I can do it, it just takes a lot of effort to do so.

3

u/dirk_funk Feb 27 '25

mine is more like a radio. and any word that is in the lyrics of a song will immediately make that song play in my head.

3

u/paprikahoernchen ADHD Feb 27 '25

My mind is hyperactive. ... My body is not.

3

u/chair_ee Feb 28 '25

A game of brick breaker, with a thousand balls (thoughts) bouncing around the whole time. Trying to follow one little ball in the sea of them is impossible. Many of the balls are important tasks I need to accomplish, but they get dropped just as easily as the random research on early 1900s Scottish doctor Elsie Inglis. The ones I’m able to properly bounce back are basically happenstance.

3

u/johnnyjimmy4 Feb 28 '25

My metaphor for "over diagnosis" is.

Comparing it to mining for gold.

At first it was mined by finding it on top of the ground.

Then maybe digging near where they found it.

Then recognising when they have found it in the past, meaning they could find it in similar places.

Then digging, and separating the extra materials.

Sometimes finding lots of small pieces is still valuable

With ADHD it was once considered a lack of discipline. Then we discovered it was a different way of thinking.

Then we discovered of we check the kids, one of the parents might have it (that's where we are now, in the future we will ask the parents)

Adhd is not just bouncing off the walls with too much energy. It can be attention too

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u/Lichtbergmagic Feb 28 '25

I am a car.

Everything is great. Super paint, wide tires, good engine, leather interior, sound system. Everything is good.

But.

Only third gear works.

When I'm driving around town, it works, but as soon as I have to slow down or get on the highway, it gets difficult.

And the final boss: parking.

3

u/Ieatpigeonz3 Feb 28 '25

Ever heard of back rooms? It's like being eternally trapped there looking for a door to the world.

3

u/rjcc Mar 01 '25

It's not an insanity to concentrate, it's a lack of control over it. Like the hubble telescope locking on to stars at random

2

u/1ceHippo ADHD-PI (Primarily Inattentive) Feb 27 '25

I like this metaphor a lot because its very true. This is usually the reason I can’t focus, fall asleep, or stay asleep.

2

u/Gray_Gray_Gray Feb 27 '25

Me experiencing the same thing while sleeping )-:

2

u/Ok_Perspective_575 ADHD with ADHD partner Feb 27 '25

Excellent analogy!!

2

u/DaronBlade360 Feb 27 '25

This might be more towards OCD but...

I'd say it's like leaving the TV on telemarketing and my remote is always out of battery, sometimes I get the strength to get up and change the channel by pressing the buttons on the TV, but I end up on another annoying TV program that's repeating something over and over!

3

u/Electrical-Proof-242 Feb 27 '25

Have you bought the Ab Belt?

2

u/elleantsia Feb 27 '25

It’s like being in a large room with many people talking at once in different constantly changing volumes.

Except they’re all my voice (for the most part) and music is playing whatever part of a song is stuck in my head over and over.

AND there’s a large white board with a todo list of many items that you can’t quite read the individual words but it’s there lol

1

u/Electrical-Proof-242 Feb 27 '25

Can you see how it fills up all the time at least?

2

u/Valdaraak Feb 27 '25

I usually say "imagine having 5-10 youtube videos playing at the same time and none of them are muted."

2

u/[deleted] Feb 27 '25

Facts

2

u/TH1813254617 ADHD-PI (Primarily Inattentive) Feb 27 '25 edited Feb 27 '25

In my case, there are 300 TVs, but the vast majority are playing static.

I do have the remote, but they only work for the TVs not playing static. I also need to aim the remote right for it to work.

Also, since I'm a multisensory aphant, the stations that do work are audio-only. I guess radio stations are an apter analogy in my case.

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u/fernleon Feb 27 '25

This is a great definition

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u/Jantra Feb 27 '25

Whoever has my remote, can you please get me off the music station that only has two songs playing on it right now on repeat?? Except it's only one verse/chorus of each, not even the whole song!

2

u/MentallyDivergent123 ADHD with ADHD child/ren Feb 27 '25

Commenting to follow

2

u/tomb241 Feb 27 '25

My mind is like a nonstop highway in the night

2

u/N0ra_R0ra Feb 27 '25

And the signal is shit

2

u/Worried-Notice3566 Feb 27 '25

Talking to a therapist once, I said it's like there's a toddler in my head that has all the intelligence and creativity needed for my work and an adult trying to control him. He said, "so it's hard to make the toddler do what you want it to?" and I said, "no, I'm the toddler!"

While not really an analogy, I explain it as #1 if I'm interested in it, I enjoy it way more than most people. #2 If I'm not interested, it causes me way more stress than most people and #3 I'm constantly interested in new things. Just 1 and 2 would be fine, just 3 would be fine, but 1, 2 and 3 suuuucks.

2

u/TH1813254617 ADHD-PI (Primarily Inattentive) Feb 27 '25 edited Feb 27 '25

Since I have multisensory aphantasia, I'm going to use a radio analogy:

In my case it's like being surrounded by hundreds of radios stuck on high volume in a dark room. There are only a couple of helpful stations that are constantly and rapidly changing the frequency they're on. In case you haven't used a radio. A radio that's on and not tuned to a station will play static.

You can only fiddle with one radio at a time. You do not know the frequencies of the channels. None of the radios can access all the frequencies so there's no guarantee the radio you're fiddling will work. There is also no guarantee any useful station is active when you need it. You need to do this while trying to block out all the hundreds of other radios playing static. To make things worse, some radios are broken and emit ear piercing buzzes every now and then; a few are locked on stations playing harmful, hateful statements; one sometimes plays loops of music.

Meds grant you some volume control over the radios and calm down the broken ones. You still need to fiddle with the radios and deal with the changing stations, but you can do so in peace. Meds also slow down the speed that the stations move across frequencies, making them easier to track.

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u/jsundqui Feb 27 '25

I really only have one radio station that is always on. That is the inner monologue in my head. Sometimes I even have the monologue out loud speaking with myself (not in public places). Does anyone have this kind of thing instead?

I have add+ocd so it's a bit different.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 27 '25

While your doomscrolling Reddit

2

u/satored ADHD-C (Combined type) Feb 27 '25

This is a good analogy. People will ask, like foggy brained? And I'm like no, everything is clear but there's like 19373937 things at once

2

u/Significant_Yam_4079 Feb 27 '25

I'm in a roomful of people. Some interesting, some not.

I can hear a part of a conversation that's interesting and so I try to focus on that convo, but I can hear other convos nearby that may be interesting, maybe not.

And I can't decide who and/or what to listen to.

2

u/CreatedInError Feb 27 '25

It’s like an old style radio with a dial tuner. You’re trying to listen to a certain station but someone keeps spinning the dial back and forth. You’re getting static, dead air, other songs, and just blips of the song you want to hear.

2

u/New_Abalone_6569 Feb 27 '25

I like to think my brain is a giant sorting (sieve) machine with different layers, the one on top catches the biggest stuff and the items that I think about have different sizes. Thoughts, ideas and tasks are what my brain sieves through to capture whatever that is deemed important.

It's very annoying because you know what is important but your brain doesn't capture it in the top layer and the thought/task just falls down into other categories.

Literally slipping through the cracks hahahahahaha

2

u/phoenixheart1111 Feb 28 '25

My brain is a jukebox on shuffle, but someone spilled coffee on the buttons, and now it's just playing random songs at full volume.

2

u/DookieDanny ADHD Feb 28 '25

I explain it like picture a merry go round with people getting on and off and then double it.

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u/IcecreamSundae621 Feb 28 '25

I love that analogy. I always tell people it’s like having 100 tabs open on the computer and I remember each and every one but I can only focus on one but I force myself to manage 15 at the same time. Then I become overwhelmed at some point and get the “not responding” message. After all the tabs crash, my mind is blank then slowly I start re-remembering each one and sometimes I forget a few. 🙂

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u/speckledpumpkinn Feb 28 '25

My sister told me once "It's like a radio that's on in my head 24/7 and it keeps switching stations." and that was how I first suspected that I also might have ADHD lolol

2

u/universe93 Feb 28 '25

ADHD is dirty brain with yucky grime and slime, try to clean dirt comes back. I take ADHD medicine I have clean smooth brain.

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u/FireInHisBlood ADHD-HI (Hyperactive-Impulsive) Feb 28 '25

I always equated it to having 50 browser tabs, half of them are frozen, there's some porn in there somewhere, and I can't tell where the music is coming from.

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u/sauce_xVamp ADHD-PI (Primarily Inattentive) Feb 28 '25

music will not stop playing in my head. 5 radio stations at all time blaring.

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u/airysunshine ADHD-PI (Primarily Inattentive) Feb 28 '25

It’s like, when you’re trying to play a game on your Switch, but the controller has joystick drift and the battery is dying on it

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u/CryptoThroway8205 Feb 28 '25

Someone made a monkey on a ship analogy on youtube. The monkey steers you sometimes and you don't always have control of it.

2

u/Melodic-Desk5521 Feb 28 '25

Unmedicated, I either have an AM/FM radio stuck on seek, or several stations all playing at once.

The more overstimulated I am, the more it all starts broadcasting at once.

When I eventually found the right treatment, the radio was silent. Weirdest thing I’ve felt at first, then it was so peaceful. Now, I choose the station most of the time. I’ve surrendered to my noise 🤷🏻‍♀️

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u/Basic-Selection-1892 Mar 03 '25

Do u mind sharing meds that helped you?

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u/am_cruiser Feb 28 '25

Not diagnosed yet, but very probable case and in line for the tests.

It's like my mind is a horse carriage I'm sitting in as a passenger. There's no coachman, it's dark, the road winds along a steep mountainside, and someone's dosed all six horses pulling the carriage with m3th.

2

u/xisagama Feb 28 '25

I have inattentive ADHD, so ever since I got diagnosed 6 years ago I see my brain as a search engine, not like Google or Microsoft Edge, more like Firefox filled with unnecessary plug-ins, extensions, and browsing data that makes it run slowly no matter what troubleshooting you try. There are always the same tabs, all of them are buffering, a few are playing music (same verse though), some tabs randomly load and their content makes you horny all day long, some tabs are random questions you needed answers to, some tabs are blank and buffering but the buffering all of the sudden becomes so hypnotic that you end up looking at an empty tab for minutes if not hours, you get random notifications from tabs you didn't even know you searched, you can't block pop ups, and no adblocker is effective enough. Oddly enough, I wasn't the one that opened all those tabs, or at least I don't remember that happening, but I did see 2 or 3 squirrels playing on the computer, 1 squirrel always gets too sensitive that tabs aren't loading quickly enough or not at all, another squirrel is getting horny, and the third one is distracted looking at the other two but dancing to the rhythm of one of the tabs playing music.

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u/Hour-Percentage-8798 Feb 28 '25

I thought for a second, ‘that’s not really me’ but I think i’ve gotten so used to the constant barrage of negative thoughts that I just assumed everyone has it.

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u/jonmilo Mar 01 '25

I use a variation of this: I say it’s like having a television with 10-30 channels in my head and although the television can only show one channel at a time, I can hear every channel all the time. There is a remote, but I very rarely have control over it except when I’m medicated, at which point I might be able to focus on the right dialogue that matches up with the sound I wanted to hear.

2

u/Golintaim Mar 03 '25

My brain is ruled by a council, there's me the rational one that knows what needs to be done, there's the negative jerk. Who just trolls me at random times, the clown that shouts out fun and funny connections, random science questions man, and a five year old....the five year old handles the agenda, there is no changing it

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u/Silly_Impression_309 Feb 27 '25

I recently described it to my mother (I was recently diagnosed & am now taking meds that are helping so much!) as an LA highway with completely stopped traffic and horns honking constantly, some cars driving off the road. Now traffic is flowing much more smoothly :)

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u/EmEffBee Feb 27 '25

Hah this is so true! I'll be right in the middle of something and then be like oh yeah, that other thing!

1

u/CelestineCrystal Feb 27 '25

i can’t explain it yet it’s that difficult to encapsulate

1

u/y3i12 Feb 27 '25

My attention is a magnet that is randomly attracted to things for any amount of time.

Hyper fixations bouncing without control, sometimes it does not exist and the magnet kinda dies.

1

u/cherryp0pbaby Feb 27 '25

Love this explanation. It really is lol.

1

u/Realistic-Ad6287 Feb 27 '25

Adhd is like having a sport car with bicycle breaks

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u/SadCoconut_ Feb 27 '25

My brain is the internet with a bunch of tabs open.

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u/spaghetti_was_here Feb 27 '25

same I feel thew same

1

u/Clean142 Feb 27 '25

We need a new sub just for adhd metaphors .

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u/-Speechless Feb 27 '25

don't forget the radio station that's also on and flips at random

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u/tabuu9 Feb 27 '25

I can just put on Meathook from Doom Eternal. Am I lucky?

1

u/LaraXLust Feb 27 '25

Accurate. lol

1

u/Markus_Bond Feb 28 '25

My analogy is that I have atleast 10 voices in my head all talking at once about different things

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u/SLYRisbey Feb 28 '25

That is sooo similar to the way I describe it! 🧡

1

u/jerenstein_bear ADHD-PI (Primarily Inattentive) Feb 28 '25

Hey, this is also how I've always described my ADHD lol

1

u/gamrboi99_ Feb 28 '25

As someone with both types of adhd I completely agree with this 1000% but the TV channels are either really hyper fast paced or slow sit around and do nothing shows.

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u/Mysterious-Grape-633 Feb 28 '25

For me I always tell people it's like having on wet socks. You have on these wet socks. You can't take them off, but you're running late for the day so you put your shoes on and go throughout your day. People are talking to you and trying to make conversation with you, but you can't focus or hear what they are saying because all you can think about is how comfortable the wet socks are...and they strangely become even more wet. And for an even more odd reason, you can't take them off. This is at least how it feels for me.

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u/saandinista Feb 28 '25

About my brain fog I'd tell people it's like when you're opening internet explorer. It takes ages to load and it's so frustrating you click a thousand times and it gets all worse because you have to wait for a thousand pages to load at the same time.

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u/brungoo Feb 28 '25

It's like going 3000 mi an hour imo

Or a conversation starts off like a stream and then my mind gets a waterfall of information and I forget the point I was going to make

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u/LearnToolSwim Feb 28 '25

Yeah that is truly a good metaphor for it.

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u/Keyann Feb 28 '25

ADHD is like having 300 TV channels in your head - and someone else has the remote

AND each of the 300 channels are at a different volume setting

1

u/SavingsStatus9664 Feb 28 '25

"metaphor? what's metaphor again? oh it's that type of figure of speech. wait how can I 'create' a metaphor from my adhd experience? okay uhhhh..."
*gets distracted*
when I say something like this, they'll get it or at least have an idea.

1

u/f4ngel Feb 28 '25

Remember that line in that friend's song "you're always stuck in second gear". Well it's not like that. It's like being stuck in top gear, with no breaks, maybe the hand break works sometimes. The other gears exist but can't be engaged, and hill starting on top gear is nigh on impossible.

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u/pawyer25 Feb 28 '25

I've said it feels like multiple people talking all at once but your comparison explains that better. Physically, it feels like a beehive - that vibrating, buzzing, restless feeling that prevents your whole body from relaxing. Even if it's in the mind, you feel it in your forehead, neck tension, behind the eyes, ear ringing. And when I lose my train of thought, it feels like trying to find someone lost in a crowd - helpless and overwhelming.

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u/CircuitSynapse42 Feb 28 '25

This is one I’ve used often, but adding in that each channel is broadcasting in another language. Meds and compensation strategies are like giving me the remote control son can decide which channel to tune to and turn on captions.

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u/CheerfulButterkitty Mar 05 '25

I love the Ted Talk "Tim Urban’s TED Talk, Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator"

Even though it's not directly talking about ADHD I feel like it hits the nail on the head for certain aspects