Dr. Andrew Kahn Dreams of Chaos
Understood.org's Dr. Andrew Kahn is an ADHD-er who focuses on neurodivergence and he wants us all to have more grace for folks with neurodifferences.
Dreams of Chaos is a series of Q&As with folks who are engaging with chaos in their work. Sometimes that means they love the chaos and use it as an engine for creativity. Sometimes it means they struggle with the chaos and are trying to harness it in whatever way they can. I’m interested in the ways in which we, as people, acknowledge the messiness of living in the world. And I’m excited to share conversations with those are thinking about this as well.
This week on Dreams of Chaos, I caught up with Dr. Andrew Kahn, an ADHD-er whose work focuses on neurodivergent individuals and how to support their various wins and woes.
I first met Dr. Kahn a few months ago, over a phone call, and we hit it off right away. We had a lot in common, both professionals and parents with ADHD who see our neurodifference as a strength, albeit one that presents more than a few quirks and challenges.
I love this conversation with Dr. Kahn precisely because he spoke with a lot of fervor for the positive sides of an ADHD mind, but didn’t deny the struggles that come with having a differently wired neurology. We talked executive function and how that impacts parents and caregivers who have (or whose kids have) ADHD, we chatted about strategies for managing symptoms without meds (now Adderall is scarce), and we spoke about compassion and love for the chaotic and quirky folks in our lives.
As a person with ADHD who also specializes in ADHD and neurodivergence, how do you think about diagnosis?
As a psychologist, one of the things I don't like about medical and psychological science is the need to pathologise what people are going through. To me, my ADHD is merely my neurology. It's part of my identity. So, the more I know about myself — what I do well and what I do poorly — the more likely I am to manage those things.
Learning about how your neurology is different is important, not for the purpose of making excuses, but for creating the strategies and finding grace for yourself. For a lot of folks, it's also about finding community and getting information. One of the things I do in my role at Understood.org is to write articles on learning about ADHD and neurodivergence, and I always encourage people to use those resources to learn about themselves. The more you know about yourself, the better probability you have of being able to say, “Okay, now I know this isn't my strength, what can I do to navigate it? The neurotypical world expects me to do things I don't naturally do. How do I manage this?”
I like that philosophy — both radical self acceptance and attempting to harness the chaos. What are some of the good things about being a chaotic ADHD person?
Controlled chaos may be a better way to think about it. Chaos in and of itself definitely isn't a sustainable and happy state, but as someone who is embracing my differences, I think there are aspects of my ADHD that are also my strengths.
For instance, I notice things in my environment other people don't because I'm very attuned to stimulation and differences in what I see. My ADHD brain allows me to perceive more; as a psychologist, a lot of things don't get past me in a therapy setting. I'll notice the change in the tone of voice — a little upward inflection or something — and recognize it wasn't a confident answer. Being a hyper-observer is something I use to guide what I do in my day to day. And that’s just one example of how leveraging your differences can position you for success.
Being aware of where your strengths are can also help guide life choices. I don't do a seated office job for most of my day — I engage in movement all the time. Acknowledging that difference allows me then to put myself in positions for success, instead of trying to force a circular peg into a square hole. Self awareness can really help.
It’s important for me to talk about my differences, because that allows people in my environment to think about the other people they know and be a little bit more compassionate in terms of those differences. ADHD is, in many cases, an invisible difference for so many of us adults.
It really is — until we mess something up or forget something crucial. Then it’s not so invisible anymore.
Exactly. I always use the term controlled chaos when I’m talking about ADHD. You know, if I give my chaos a place to live safely then it's really helpful. If I throw all order to the winds, I'm going to be a very unpleasant person who doesn't show up, who is late, who doesn't pay his bills, who doesn't take care of things and is perpetually feeling bad about themselves. It’s about balancing it.
[The chaos of ADHD] also means I'm able to connect things more creatively, because I'm not a purely linear thinker. I go from idea to idea to idea because my cognitive associations are much more inventive. Having a different perspective is a major advantage for problem solving. If you put a bunch of neurotypical people in a room to solve a problem, you're going to pretty much come up with a set array of answers to that question. Throw some neurodivergent people into the mix, allow them to be free and who they are, and you're going to come up with incredibly creative ideas a neurotypical brain isn't going to think of. We see it in all kinds of arts, in tech, anywhere where people don't have to see things the same way.
Talk to me about executive function, which seems to be a super trendy word I’m not sure everyone really understands. How does it impact parents and caregivers, especially?
Yeah, so executive function is the sorting, retrieving, organizing of information that leads to the actions of planning, execution and knowing when a task is done. When we think about the classic ADHD in children, the chaos seems sort of obvious — not doing multi step tasks, being scatterbrained — but for adults we only see the outcomes of it. For a parent [or caregiver], it really comes into play. You're tracking doctor's appointments, school or after school activities, meal planning. You suddenly notice the permission slip is on the refrigerator and they're supposed to go to the museum today. For a parent with an executive functioning deficit, which is one of the key parts of an ADHD diagnosis — that deficit leads to so much chaos and stress.
With ADHD being at least partially genetic, there are plenty of households where parents and kids both have an executive function deficit. How does this get compounded?
It's people's chaos feeding off of other people's chaos. If you are neurodivergent parents and you've got a neurodivergent child who leaves everything out, who forgets where they put things — it leads to so much tension and difficulty in functioning. Parents need self-knowledge and awareness of what they need to be successful, otherwise it's just going to be spiraling between you and your child, or you and your partner, or whoever else is in your home.
Oof. So what are some non-pharmaceutical things folks with ADHD can do to set themselves up for success?
The first and most important thing strategically to do is to make sure you have a good sleep schedule. It takes more energy to fuel an ADHD body, to do the neurological activities an ADHD person does. Our cognitive load is always too high, and doing basic daily tasks always feels demanding because of our chaos. So, we need to have adequate fuel and we need to sleep better.
Another strategy I find really helpful is also the use of timers to help you track what you're doing with your activities. ADHD makes us sort of time blind. We can fall into activities and not realize we've been doing them for hours or get distracted and not realize we've been off task for long periods. I run a timer that goes off every 15 minutes, and every time it rings I reassess what I’ve done. That reconnects my brain to the clock because my internal clock is less functional until I bring an external cue.
It’s important to build structures, rituals, and habits to help you be successful, but it’s never about creating such a rigid set of parameters you can't function. It's about creating guardrails and categories of skills in times you can use that allow you to shift and keep yourself functional. Rigidity is the enemy to feeling calm. But if you can connect a hard-to-remember task to a regular, routine activity, and you do it consistently, it makes the harder task less mentally demanding. The trick is connecting things. It helps us remember items the ADHD brain wouldn’t remember in isolation. And if you're trying to get yourself back on track, it’s ok to take a break. Have an impromptu little dance party, put on some music, and give yourself the opportunity to control the chaos while creating an environment you find pleasant. Those little dopamine hits give you an opportunity to refocus and re-engage.
Lastly, meditation, calming and mindfulness are great tools. If you don't do anything to calm your high stimulation levels, they're just going to get higher and higher and higher. At some point in the day you’ll melt down, or freak out, or yell at someone. Mindfulness and calming strategies, if used regularly, perpetually bring those sensory experiences down. They also create grace for yourself. Especially as a parent, if you don't give yourself permission to be imperfect, to be who you are as a neurodivergent individual, then you're going to perpetually put yourself down and feel badly about yourself. Mindfulness and calming activities are great for reminding yourself on a regular basis: I can affect my neurology and calm. I can give myself grace because I know how my neurology is different. I can be my whole self as opposed to my reactive, angry, irritable self.
What would you say to someone who reads this article and says, “It's too much. I can’t do all that”?
The first thing I would say is to start with self care. Start with mindfulness and calming activities, because you can't possibly imagine things being better until you have an arousal level and a calmness level that lets you consider what's going on around you. Then it’s really about evaluating how you're going to create the manageable structures for your daily life. Just pick one or two simple things. You know, as a parent, I can tell you if I fail once or twice in rapid succession and don't do self care, I'm going to spiral. I'm going to do things that make me feel ashamed. This is not about remanufacturing your life. It’s about selecting doable strategies you can have success with. And success is contagious as failure.
Dr. Andrew Kahn, PsyD, is a licensed psychologist specializing in working with people who think and learn differently. In his role as associate director of behavior change and expertise at Understood.org, Dr. Kahn focuses on ADHD, autism spectrum disorders, anxiety, general learning and behavioral challenges, and learning and social-emotional functioning. For nearly 20 years, Dr. Kahn worked within the public school system providing training, evaluations, direct consultation, and therapeutic support to students, their families, and staff. He has worked closely with underserved communities struggling with the impact of poverty, food insecurity, and limited access to educational support. Additionally, he supported school committees to develop policies on mental health, suicide prevention, and access to learning interventions.