Tips from an ADHD Coach: Why do we feel consistently inconsistent?

Are there parts of your personality that seem to contradict each other? Do you struggle to set expectations for yourself because your reactions, behavior, or emotions can be unpredictable?

This week on Tips from an ADHD Coach, Jaye talks about how, with ADHD, we can be consistently inconsistent—often showing extreme behaviors that seem to contradict each other. Listen for insights and tips that can help!

We love hearing from our listeners! Email us at adhdcoachtips@understood.org

• How to get motivated with ADHD

(00:40) Tanica’s quote

(01:30) ADHDers can often feel full of contradictions

(03:32) Common reasons ADHD can make us less consistent

(08:42) What can we do to be more reliable going forward?

(11:10) Recap

Jaye: Do you have parts of your personality that seem to be the complete opposite of other parts of your personality? Do you find it hard to make expectations for yourself because how you will react, behave or feel can sometimes be unpredictable?

This is "Tips from an ADHD Coach," and I'm your coach, Jaye Lin. Today, we're talking about how with ADHD, we can be consistently inconsistent with lots of extreme behaviors that seem to contradict themselves. We're gonna hear from Tanica, who shared with us how inconsistencies in her behavior affect her life.

Tanica: So, I can be very extroverted and maybe even like attention, but my social battery runs out quick, and I love being alone and need to be alone to recover from the day. I also have social anxiety for someone who can be extrovert, and I love being affectionate, but I also get overstimulated by someone being in my personal space. It feels very tiring because I don't feel grounded with the inconsistencies, and it leaves me with questioning who I am and why I'm wired this way.

Being inconsistent makes me unsure about decisions I need to make. Or even how I feel about my relationships and how I show up as myself. It makes me not want to make plans for the future because I don't know if things will change. I think masking contributes to these differences, and not wanting to appear unhinged or weird because of how all over the place I might seem.

Jaye: Every ADHD person has a different set of personality traits and behaviors because we're all different people. But almost everyone I know with ADHD seems to be frustrated with how inconsistent they seem to be. What Tanica shared is extremely common. Being social and wanting to be social, and at the same time having a lot of social anxiety and running down their social battery quickly, requiring recovery time alone. And as she said, wanting affection, but also at times not wanting affection. Here are some other common contradictions.

"Why can't I focus on this passion project today when I was so excited to work on it last week? Why do I feel so blah and bored with this vacation when I was so excited about it before it started? Why am I so scatterbrained right now when I was so laser-focused an hour ago? Why does this room feel overwhelmingly loud when I've been fine in noisier spaces before? Why do I dread cooking myself dinner when I love cooking?"

As Tanica mentioned, these inconsistencies can make us feel exhausted, question our self-identity, and destroy the trust we have in ourselves, our decisions, our feelings, and our relationships with others. It can make us feel anxious about making plans because it can make us way less confident in our ability to follow through. It can make us feel like we need to hide parts of ourselves from others because, as Tanica adds, she doesn't want to appear quote unquote unhinged or weird because of her contradictory behavior. It can be so frustrating because these inconsistent behaviors don't seem to be predictable or make any sense.

But here's some good news. If we look at how ADHD affects us, the contradictions start to make a lot more sense. When we look at the patterns of inconsistencies in our lives, we can actually make more accurate predictions about our behaviors, capacities, and moods going forward.

Let's look at common reasons ADHD can make us less consistent. The first is differences between how we operate in go mode versus how we are at our baseline. Brains that are neurotypical tend to have dopamine and other neurotransmitters at levels that are more regulated, which supports more consistent executive function, emotional regulation, sensory processing, and overall functioning across the board. Put simply, there's usually not a big difference between a neurotypical person's baseline and go mode when it comes to brain function.

With ADHD, since we normally operate with lower levels of dopamine, we tend to be at an understimulated state at our baseline. This means that at our normal mode, our brains are lower in executive function, emotional regulation, sensory processing, et cetera. When we get boost of dopamine, it supercharges our brains. This can happen with a boost of adrenaline, like with an impending deadline, as well as when we become competitive, curious, interested, or dream about possibilities.

So, when Tanica wants affection, but sometimes can't deal with people being in her personal space, it could be because at baseline, she experiences sensory processing challenges or other executive dysfunction, which can increase the discomfort she feels with having someone so close. And being scatterbrained sometimes and laser-focused other times can be explained by us having lower executive function at baseline, which can make it harder for us to hold onto a bunch of stuff in our heads and connect the dots, something that is not so challenging at higher dopamine levels.

When we're overwhelmed in noisy spaces, despite being excited and happy in others, it's probably because of what kind of noisy space it is and in what state we're in. If we're in go mode, like at a launch event or a concert we're excited about, our brains are better equipped to process that noise. We also tend to do a lot better when we feel like we have the freedom to do something about what's happening to us. This is what we call having autonomy.

So, if we choose to go to a loud concert, we have a better chance of being able to handle it. We can get dopamine from opportunity and autonomy. If we feel the loud room is something that is happening to us, and there's nothing we can do about it, it's much more likely for us to be overwhelmed with sensory input. The same thing goes for scratchy clothing that feels unbearable. When we are determined to wear an outfit that isn't as sensory-friendly, but makes us feel gorgeous, we tend to be more OK with it.

By the way, when I say that feeling like we have autonomy can give our brains a boost that helps us regulate sensory input, this does not mean we need to try hard enough or we need to be strong enough to bear it. Putting pressure on ourselves to do something or forcing ourselves to put up with something are not the same as feeling empowered to make choices for ourselves. The difference is feeling like I should versus I'm excited to. Having autonomy tends to give us boosts of motivation, and feeling like we don't have autonomy tends to create a lot of resistance for us. It's much easier to do something we get to do versus something we have to do.

This is why it's common for someone who likes cooking to feel dread about making dinner on a weekday. It's easy when they get to cook something, and not as easy when they have to cook something. And to go one step further, we tend to have more dopamine, excitement, and focus when doing things that make us feel good about ourselves, and have the opposite effect when those things make us feel bad about ourselves. That explains why some of us can't seem to do something that we used to love doing, especially after experiencing failure or shame around doing that thing.

Another reason ADHD can make us feel more inconsistent is the intensity that comes with having higher levels of dopamine. Like I said, it can supercharge us, but because we normally operate on lower levels of dopamine, it tends to feel really, really good when we get more of it. This makes it easy for us to go overboard because we want more, more, more dopamine, which increases with our intensity. But we can't stay at that intensity, so we tend to exhaust ourselves, like Tanica running down her social battery quickly and having to retreat to being alone.

Or when we hyperfocus on a passion project, we can be so intense about it that we neglect some basic needs in other parts of our lives, requiring us to take a long break that prevents us from going back to it due to difficulty switching gears when we're at our baseline. The intensity when brainstorming and dreaming up possibilities can also explain why many of us feel let down when we start experiencing a new relationship following a big crush, a vacation we've spent a lot of time planning, or a promotion we've been gunning for.

That intensity makes us go hard at creating a fantasy because fantasizing feels really good, but makes experiencing that thing we fantasize about feel less good after our dopamine levels settle down. All these behaviors we saw as inconsistent can look a lot more consistent when we understand the effect ADHD has on our brain function, interest, intensity, and motivation.

Now that the inconsistencies we experience are less mysterious, what can we do to be more reliable going forward? First, I'd like to remind everyone that being completely consistent and predictable is not only impossible, but also pretty boring. With brains that like to solve challenges and think of opportunities, being 100% consistent probably wouldn't feel that great in practice, and it might only seem like a goal because it feels out of our reach. A little bit of variety isn't usually a bad thing, but we do wanna be able to trust ourselves and follow through on things. There are patterns we can pay attention to that would allow us to make better predictions and potentially even avoid pitfalls.

I highly recommend working with an ADHD coach to identify your individual patterns, then create strategies for intentional outcomes. For example, I know that if I go full blast at socializing in big group settings for more than a few hours at a time, I can swing back into being an introverted hermit. So, if I'm allowing myself to do that, then I block out the next day for some rest and recharging. Or I can schedule in time during that socialization period for me to step outside for fresh air so I can pause and assess my energy levels.

I know that I'm less motivated to cook on weeknights, so I keep my pantry and freezer stocked with ingredients for quick and delicious meals I keep in my back pocket, which infuses opportunity and problem-solving back into my night. I know I get overwhelmed in loud spaces, so before I go into them, I pump up my excitement levels and remind myself that I am more capable of regulating my senses if it's my decision. Or I put in earplugs. Either way, I am the captain of my destiny. I know that I can get itchy with certain clothing, so the whole time I'm wearing it, I'm basically telling myself, yeah, girl, slay, slay, slay.

And then also pack an outfit change that is soft and comforting, so I don't have to put up with it if it gets to be too much. It's important for us to identify why our behavior is different in certain scenarios. Not only does it allow us to be more accepting of what is happening with us, but it also makes managing these behavioral differences more effective, so we can do more of what we intend to do because we can know ourselves pretty well and we can a lot, especially when we feel like we are capable of doing both.

It can be frustrating when our behaviors seem to be inconsistent and unpredictable, but when we understand how ADHD affects us, these inconsistencies turn out to be quite consistent and can be more predictable. We are more likely to be focused, more able to process sensory input, and figure things out when we have higher levels of dopamine in go mode. And all of those things can be more challenging for us when we are at baseline, having autonomy and having the freedom to do something about what's happening to us can give us a boost of dopamine that can make things that were challenging or unbearable easier for us to manage because it's much easier to do something we get to do rather than something we have to do.

Having a high intensity in go mode can exhaust us after a while, so it's possible to swing into low intensity recharge mode after we've overdone it. All of these are reasons why ADHD can drastically change our behavior depending on the situation. But if we pay attention to the patterns of behavior in our lives, we can not only better predict what our behavior will be in the future, but also be more effective in our intentional efforts toward how we show up in the world.

You've been listening to "Tips from an ADHD Coach" on the Understood Podcast Network. If you have a challenge you're facing, we'd love to hear about it. Send us an email or voice memo at ADHDcoachtips@understood.org. You can check out the show notes to find links to anything mentioned in the show and more resources.

This show is brought to you by Understood.org. Understood is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia. If you wanna help us continue this work, donate at Understood.org/give. "Tips from an ADHD Coach" is produced by Jessamine Molli and Margie DeSantis. Jesse DeMartino edits the show. Video is produced Calvin Knie. Samiah Adams is our supervising producer, Briana Berry is our production director, and Neil Drumming is our editorial director. For Understood.org, our executive directors are Laura Key, Scott Cocchiere, and Seth Melnick. And I'm your host, Jaylen. Thanks for listening.