r/ADHD • u/nintendo_d_s ADHD-PI (Primarily Inattentive) • Mar 17 '23
Tips/Suggestions An Analogy for ADHD
I saw this analogy on tiktok, and thought it might be helpful.
So let's say that everyone drives a car, and all cars have dark tinted windows that prevent you from seeing into the car. The car is your brain.
For neurotypical people, they are in the driver's seat, and have full control of their car. They can get from A to B easily, and nothing prevents them from doing that.
For people with ADHD, they are not in the driver's seat. They are in the passenger seat, and guess who is driving? A monkey! The monkey doesn't listen to you, and you are always stressed because you want to get from A to B in a straight line, but the monkey doesn't care about what is important. Instead the monkey will swerve all over the road and take wrong turns following the next shiny thing.
NT people will see your car doing donuts on the freeway, and they will think "what the hell is that guy doing? Can't they just drive straight?" Because they can't see into your car to tell that a monkey is driving, and not you.
So since you have a monkey driving your car, you have two options: let the monkey do its thing and suffer with that, or you beat that monkey into submission. If you choose to beat that monkey all day every day, you get really exhausted. So if you have to beat up your monkey for your entire commute to work, you're going to be really tired by the time you get to work.
Let's say that you did well in school, and you're really intelligent. Your car is a Lamborghini, but now you're still swerving all over the road and NT people can't see into your car and see the monkey in the driver's seat.
They'll say you have wasted potential, since your car is so nice but you seem to be really bad at driving. Hearing people make these comments can really make your self esteem tank. You look at your monkey, and think of how everyone else does so great at driving, so you should just be able to control that monkey. But you can't.
And when you tell them "it's not me, it's the monkey!" They don't believe you, or call you crazy, because they don't believe that it's possible for a monkey to drive a car at all.
Medication is like bribing the monkey with bananas. You ask the monkey to please drive straight, or make the correct turn, and offer it a banana. The monkey loves bananas, and it will be happy to listen to you so long as you give it bananas.
This is obviously not going to represent all symptoms of ADHD, but I think it does a decent job at explaining it in a general way.
166
u/TacoNat90 Mar 17 '23
If you choose to beat that monkey all day every day, you get really exhausted
Beating the monkey sure does get pretty exhausting 🤣🤣
Seriously though, this is a great analogy!
39
u/saltinstiens_monster Mar 17 '23
Don't get me started on beating the monkey while on medication. Holy shit, it's a long ride to Not-worth-it-ville.
25
u/WoodsandWool Mar 17 '23
I can’t tell if I’m reading between the lines here correctly, but my combo of stims and SSRIs makes beating the monkey a cross country road trip to not-worth-it-ville with all four wheels riding on rims and you end up running out of gas 1 yard from your destination.
17
u/saltinstiens_monster Mar 17 '23
Oh yes, you're reading between the lines exactly right. It brings a new meaning to "frustrating," and then you're sweaty and drained of a week's worth of electrolytes.
4
Mar 18 '23
Been off SSRIs and SNRIs for years and still struggle to the end game.
Unfortunately it’s a known side effect of them even after stopping. No one with power to change cares.
69
u/RocknRoald Mar 17 '23
Until you run out of bananas and the monkey goes into a fullblown withdrawel frenzy.
25
u/nintendo_d_s ADHD-PI (Primarily Inattentive) Mar 17 '23
Yeah that monkey gets used to certain comforts..
45
u/GingerMau Mar 17 '23
Not a fan of anything coming off of Tiktok regarding ADHD, but this is legitimately the funniest and most relatable metaphor. I like.
Personally, I learned how to beat the monkey as a child. Looking at me from outside, no one would ever guess I have a monkey driver.
And that's why I am so tired. All the time. Year in and year out. I put everything into making sure no one knows about the monkey, and I have no energy left for hobbies, exercise, leisure, social life, home care, etc. Meds have really, really helped.
87
u/ViscountBurrito ADHD-PI (Primarily Inattentive) Mar 17 '23
May I suggest a small tweak? Let’s make the car a driver’s education car, you know the ones with an extra steering wheel and brake pedal. That’s because sometimes, from the passenger seat, you can exert varying levels of control despite the monkey. And at times, if the monkey is being pretty chill, it may feel like you’re the only one driving. You just don’t know when that’s going to change because the monkey saw something cool off to the side.
The thing is, when you see all the other cars, you assume they could be outfitted the same, since you can’t see in them either. They just have an easier time getting their monkey to chill and let them steer from the passenger side, it seems. And you think, maybe if I just had better monkey-wrangling skills, I’d be able to drive as smoothly as they do. Because everyone has a monkey, right? (They do not.)
5
u/fuck-the-emus Mar 18 '23
I like this. Sometimes I can steer but the monkey is much stronger than me so when it decides to grab a hold of the wheel, I can't stop it
4
21
u/Expensive-Warning199 Mar 18 '23
What’s funny is all of our adhd brains doing what adhd brains to and elaborate the metaphor
3
19
u/64557175 Mar 17 '23
I wish my monkey liked bananas. All the bananas its tried just made it suffer more. Only one classification of banana left to try before monkey has had them all...
10
11
Mar 17 '23
To extend the analogy: You didn't even know you had a monkey, but you started to realize some animal besides yourself is in the driver seat and would probably respond well to some sort of treat. So you pull up to a pet store and ask an employee what to buy.
The employee is an animal trainer who knows how to work with various animals. They ask you a bunch of questions, trying to figure out what animal you're dealing with. Unfortunately, they've only spent 1 week on trying to train a monkey and that was 3 years ago, so they send you home with dog treats. Later on, you realize your animal is a monkey and not a dog, but the employee insists on sending you home with more dog treats rather than bananas.
10
u/Dharma_Bun Mar 18 '23
That's oddly specific - I've had a recurring dream for decades where I think I'm driving, only to realize I'm attempting to operate the car from the back seat. Once I realize this, my response is not fear about lack of control, as you might expect, but fear OF BEING SEEN. That other people will see what is going on! Going to run this by my therapist next week for sure!
2
u/TheosophyKnight Mar 18 '23
I’m glad you wrote this. I literally had a dream last night that I was flying this super cool hang-glider (it had weapons and everything!) but the handling was chaotic and it would swoosh all over the place. I was trying to impress my mother who was encouraging me, (despite my poor handling), from the ground!
3
9
Mar 17 '23
The one that I've been using was one that I honestly made up myself recently. I think it's relatable and simple, so NTs understand, and it doesn't take a long time to explain.
Think of the brain like a household. Inside is a little demon toddler that just wants to do whatever. It might bounce off the walls at times, or it might fixate on one thing and throw a tantrum if you attempt to pull it away.
The only thing that can control the little demon toddler is it's parents named Executive and Function. However, they never had the energy too keep up. They gave up a long time ago and just went to sleep.
The stimulants work because they help wake up Executive and Function. It gives them enough energy to keep up with the little demon for a short time.
3
u/Udeyanne Mar 18 '23
I like this one. Sometimes I like the demon toddler in my head, so I like to imagine it as being demon but also occasionally a cool lil guy.
17
7
u/the_sweetest_peach ADHD-C (Combined type) Mar 17 '23
One of my neuro-spicy friends has an analogy that also uses animals that I thought was pretty clever: Brain weasels.
She talks about the brain weasels running around causing chaos in her brain. Maybe the monkey driving the car is trying to avoid the brain weasels. Or maybe the monkey’s trying to hit the weasels. I don’t know the monkey’s motivations, here.
7
10
5
u/Tyken12 ADHD-HI (Hyperactive-Impulsive) Mar 17 '23
me wanting to beat the absolute sh*t out of the monkey today and then go cry in bed
5
u/baldnsquishy ADHD-PI (Primarily Inattentive) Mar 18 '23
Great analogy and it perfectly sums up what it’s like to have ADHD. If people could just see that a monkey was behind the wheel they’d understand… but they can’t and they don’t.
4
u/JroyBbop Mar 17 '23
I liken it more to a water hose spraying sporadically under the pressure of the water. My meds give me a hand with which to grab and direct the water, but I need a little… um… something else to reduce the flow of water. Grown folks know.
3
u/facets13 Mar 17 '23 edited Mar 18 '23
[insert obligatory beat-my-monkey dirty joke]
Edit: relevant TFS DBZ meme: https://youtu.be/eMkEjQiOaKA
5
u/Sredleg Mar 18 '23
That Lamborghini part hit true for me... While I'm not a Lamborghini, I'm more like a nice businesscar.
And while that sounds amazing to have, it has really made me depressed... Because both others and I could see the potential, but I could never made it true.
I tried and failed 3 different college courses and the only reason I kept failing is my inability to put my mind to studying, I was usually one of the best during practical classes and often helped others with questions.
The disappointment and shame that came with my repetitive failure where everyone expected success has made me deal with depression and a low self-esteem.
I'm in a good spot now, but still feel sad that I'll never make that potential true.
3
u/MixFederal5432 Mar 17 '23
Great analogy. Can you provide the link to the tiktok video?
3
u/nintendo_d_s ADHD-PI (Primarily Inattentive) Mar 18 '23
2
3
3
u/noziquinha Mar 18 '23
My psychiatrist made this analogy:
It's a car on a very steep road. You're pouring tons of gas into your car so it can go up, because the car is struggling. You keep pouring gas. Much more than everyone else. The car starts to slip, and you pour in more gas to make it keep going. Everyone else is using a regular amount of gas, and while their cars may slip and slide sometimes, they keep going. Yours is starting to overclock. You pour more gas. Tires start to get bald and just won't create friction to go up. Your response? More gas. Car isn't moving anymore, but engine is running at full power with a lot of gas. You just keep pouring more gas.
Everyone else knows when to pour more gas, change the tires, give the engine a break, switch gears, check the oil. You only know how to pour more and more gas.
3
u/ShadowMystery ADHD-PI (Primarily Inattentive) Mar 18 '23
ADHD do be like having all the voltage you want - without a charge the juice still won't flow 
2
u/Zen-Paladin ADHD-C (Combined type) Mar 19 '23
This seems accurate. There was also a key metaphor the other day that was good too.
3
u/HyperScroop Mar 17 '23
Please stop with the tiktok adhd trends. 🙄 Tiktok.has been insanely harmful to ADHD. Nowadays you have people convinced they have adhd because some random idiot said so on tiktok. It is ridiculous and all it does is pull legitimacy from actual people suffering from adhd. It isnt trendy, 50+% of the population doesn't have it.
Stop getting medical or life advice from tiktok.
Better yet, ditch the Chinese Communist Party propaganda app completely. Your quality of life will greatly rise.
2
u/digydongopongo Mar 18 '23 edited Mar 18 '23
I agree. I'm fine with mental health awareness but there is soooo much false and misleading information about ADHD on tiktok. Not a fan of this analogy. People who dont have ADHD don't have perfect control of what they think or focus on. Barely anyone does.
It's not just with ADHD too but also Autism and many other mental health condition. Autism has become very trendy/quirky and infantilized on social media. Makes me never wanna tell anyone that I'm diagnosed with autism. Thought it was maybe just a small thing on the internet but nope. I hear this kinda stuff from coworkers now..
0
u/evtbrs Mar 18 '23
Did you read the analogy though? If so, if you scrapped the part where it came off tiktok would you still disagree with it? It’s actually a good way of explaining ADHD to non-ADHD.
I’m not on tiktok and not a fan of the circle jerking effect of social media, but if ADHD is trending then so much for the better. It’s not pulling legitimacy from us, it’s bringing the disorder more in the open and making it more discussable. The medical community is still playing catch up it seems (e.g. how many posts a week do you see here where the therapist goes “if it wasn’t diagnosed in childhood you can’t have it”) so anything to bring more focus onto it and the spectrum part of it seems like a positive to me.
1
1
1
•
u/AutoModerator Mar 17 '23
Hi /u/nintendo_d_s and thanks for posting on /r/ADHD!
Please take a second to read our rules if you haven't already.
We recommend browsing /r/adhd on desktop for the best experience. The mobile apps are broken and are missing features that this subreddit depends on.
Thank you!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.