When yellow paint is mixed with blue paint, then green paint is made. When antimatter and matter collide, they annihilate each other. When a positive charge meets a negative charge, they attract. The results are predictable and repeatable.

From my own scientifically verifiable observations, when two people with ADHD meet, a cascade of inevitable events occur. This is how things invariable play out for me, when I meet a new ADHD chum.

We Discuss Our Meds

It doesn’t matter if I know of them, or if I’ve been introduced to them by a close and trusted friend, or if they are a complete stranger – within minutes of meeting another person with ADHD, I am discussing my medication with them. And they have told me all about theirs.

We will know the type, we will know the dose, and we will know the effects of each others meds. We will know about any other medication we’ve tried along the way. We’ll talk openly about the psychiatrist who prescribed them, and how easy or difficult it was to get the prescription.

It’s our getting to know each other chat. Other people talk about sports or weather. We talk about controlled substances. We are feeling each other out, so we stay on the comfortable ground of Ritalin days and Dexamphetamine nights.

We Overshare

Once we’ve established our respective prescription drug regimes, then we can move onto more general oversharing. 

Within the first ten minutes, they will have told me about all recent romantic breakups, any and all divorces, a summary of every mental health care intervention my new friend has ever had, any pending legal cases or run ins with the police, and a headline summary of every disciplinary they’ve had in their career over the last five years. That’s the minimum – it is likely to be much more.

And I will have shared all my gory details too. Whether either one of us has listened or remembered any of this is an entirely different matter, which leads nicely onto …

We Talk (Lots)

It’s twenty minute in and we will be talking extremely quickly. There’s a lot to say and if the other person is talking then that’s OK – we can both talk at the same time. It’s important to get it all out, and there is no time to waste; no pausing, breathing or listening is required.

If we are with any non-ADHD people (friends, partners, colleagues etc..) then that’s unfortunate. We are so excited to meet our new best friend that we have forgotten all about them. Everyone else is excluded. All other human beings are exposed to two rapidly expressed monologues which occasionally collide with each other, then bounce off into new non-intersecting directions. 

Everyone else in the room is sick of us.

We Make Grand Plans

Things are hotting up now. This is the most interesting person I have ever met and we have so much in common. They feel the same way. Our universes are colliding in the most unique and precious way possible; the intersection of wonderful minds. It’s time to make plans.

Notebooks are produced, laptops are brought out and phones are checked. There are half a dozen amazing and vital projects that we simply must collaborate on immediately. The talking becomes even faster and all connections to practical considerations weaken and break. We outline our join enterprises, but of course make no concrete commitments, or put any dates in the calendar. This is big picture stuff we are doing here – the minutiae of real world concerns can come later. A lot later

We Get Overstimulated And Have To Lie Down

Things are winding up now. It’s likely we’ve been talking for over an hour and any other plans we’ve had for the day have been pushed back, or entirely forgotten about. With a final flurry of oversharey grand plan creation, we depart.

Immediately we both feel tired and a little bit ill. Our necks have tensed up and our eyes are still moving rapidly from side to side. We’ve become massively overstimulated. We need a lie down in a dark room, with eyes shut and pillows clutched to our faces. 

The stars have burned too bright, we were too fast and too young, and we have flown too close to the sun. Exhaustion beckons and we can’t bear to be in other peoples company. We must be alone for a few hours – or if our new friend has been particularly amazing and stimulating – a few days. Oops.

We Don’t Follow Through On Any Promise

Many things were said, many projects were initiated and many promises were made, and we meant them all. But we are quite tired now, and some of the projects aren’t as wondrously world shaking as they first appeared and the others seem like quite hard work.

We meant to follow through on what we promised, but that first email never quite gets written, and that first text never quite gets sent. And we don’t have too much time, and there are other more pressing (and exciting) things to do. 

We mean to get round to it, but weeks and months pass and we don’t, and we feel vaguely guilty, then we forgive ourselves, and then, finally, we forget.

We Meet Again Three Months Later And Repeat

And then we meet again and immediately forgive each other for all the broken promises, stillborn projects, and forgotten schemes.

And this is so great that we’ve bumped into each other again. And this person is amazing, and thinks just like me, and has all kinds of fantastic ideas. Let’s get our notebooks out and write everything down. We really must do some of this together.

Photo by Piermanuele Sberni on Unsplash

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