08/11/2025
This is a great read!
The article explains that people with ADHD are not being rude when they interrupt but because their fast and urgent thinking makes ideas feel fleeting and if they don’t say it there and then it’s gone!
It asks us to think of an ADHD as a cognitive difference and not as a lack of respect or as a deficit.
With empathy, patience and flexibility ADHD communication can be understood as connection and not disruption.
ADHD and the Urgency to Speak: Why Interrupting Isn’t About Rudeness
One of the most misunderstood aspects of ADHD communication is the tendency to interrupt others. To an outside observer, this behavior can appear impulsive, inattentive, or disrespectful. In reality, it is rarely about dominance or disregard — it’s about the neurobiology of attention, memory, and emotional urgency.
The ADHD brain processes information differently. It is fast, associative, and non-linear. Ideas don’t arrive one at a time in an orderly queue; they rush in all at once, competing for expression. While one person is still speaking, an individual with ADHD may already be connecting their words to a dozen other thoughts, memories, or insights. The result is an overwhelming sense that if they don’t speak immediately, the idea will vanish — lost to the constant current of new stimuli.
This is what the image captures so perfectly: “Say it now or it’s gone forever.” For someone with ADHD, this is not an exaggeration; it’s a lived truth. Working memory — the mental system that temporarily holds and manipulates information — is often impaired in ADHD. This means that even a few seconds’ delay can cause a thought to disappear completely. Interrupting, then, is often an attempt to preserve clarity, not to steal attention.
The Mechanics Behind the Impulse
In neurotypical communication, there’s a natural rhythm — listening, waiting, responding. For people with ADHD, this rhythm can be difficult to maintain, not because they don’t care, but because their cognitive processes operate in bursts of engagement. The brain struggles to filter, prioritize, and retain information simultaneously, creating a sense of internal urgency.
When someone with ADHD interrupts, it can be the result of one or more of the following:
Working memory limitations. The brain struggles to hold onto a thought while continuing to process incoming information.
Hyper-associative thinking. A single word or phrase might trigger multiple tangents or memories at once.
Dopamine-seeking behavior. Speaking out offers an immediate sense of stimulation or relief, whereas waiting can feel unbearable.
Fear of being misunderstood. Past experiences of losing track or being dismissed may heighten the need to express oneself quickly.
Each of these mechanisms reveals that the behavior isn’t about a lack of social awareness — it’s about a brain that operates on a different timeline of thought retention and expression.
The Social Cost of Misinterpretation
Unfortunately, this difference is often misread as self-centeredness or immaturity. Many individuals with ADHD grow up being told they’re “bad listeners” or “attention seekers,” which contributes to deep-seated shame. Over time, this leads to social anxiety and self-censorship — a constant monitoring of one’s own speech, often to the point of silence.
Yet silence brings its own challenges. When ADHD individuals suppress their instinct to contribute, they often disengage mentally. The energy required to not speak can be so consuming that they lose track of the conversation altogether. What looks like inattention is, in fact, an overcorrection — the result of years spent trying to conform to neurotypical conversational norms.
The Paradox of ADHD Communication
ADHD communication is full of paradoxes. People with ADHD may interrupt others yet simultaneously feel deeply empathetic and attuned to emotion. They might dominate a conversation but later ruminate for hours about having done so. They may appear scattered when, in reality, their mind is racing to connect and relate.
This emotional reciprocity — the desire to connect through shared experience — is often mistaken for narcissism. In truth, when someone with ADHD interjects with “That reminds me of…,” it’s not an attempt to redirect the spotlight; it’s an effort to join the conversation meaningfully. They are saying, in essence, “I understand you. I’ve been there too.”
Unfortunately, that nuance is often lost in translation. What they perceive as engagement can be heard by others as interruption. This disconnect frequently strains friendships, partnerships, and professional relationships.
Shifting the Lens: From Judgment to Understanding
The key to improving communication with individuals who have ADHD lies in reframing our interpretation of their behavior. Instead of labeling interruptions as rudeness, we can view them as expressions of cognitive difference.
People with ADHD can work to become more aware of conversational timing, but they also need environments where communication is flexible and forgiving. Pausing before speaking is a skill — one that can be learned — but it takes patience from both parties. Similarly, writing down a thought during a conversation can help preserve it without derailing the discussion.
For friends, colleagues, and family members, empathy is crucial. Recognizing that an interruption is not a dismissal but an overflow of thought changes how we respond. Instead of frustration, we can respond with curiosity — asking the person to hold their idea and return to it later, or explicitly signaling when it’s their turn to share.
For individuals with ADHD, self-compassion is equally vital. They must learn to distinguish between communication patterns that are harmful and those that are simply different. The goal isn’t to eliminate their natural way of speaking but to navigate it with greater awareness and flexibility.
The Value Hidden in ADHD Expression
What’s often overlooked is that the ADHD style of communication — fast, tangential, emotionally charged — can also be deeply enriching. Conversations with ADHD individuals are rarely dull. They are full of unexpected connections, humor, and originality. Their minds move quickly, weaving together disparate ideas into patterns that others might miss.
This spontaneity is part of what makes ADHD communication unique and creative. When given space to express themselves without shame, people with ADHD often become some of the most dynamic conversationalists — energetic, insightful, and deeply human.
But for that to happen, the environment must shift. The world must learn to accommodate the ADHD rhythm, just as it does for other neurodiverse traits. Communication should not be measured by conformity but by connection — by the willingness to listen, adapt, and understand that not every mind speaks in the same cadence.
Interrupting, in the context of ADHD, is not a symptom of arrogance; it is a reflection of cognitive urgency. The ADHD brain operates on a fragile balance between expression and loss — between saying something now or losing it forever. Understanding this changes the conversation entirely.
The next time someone with ADHD interrupts you, consider that they are not trying to dominate the dialogue — they are fighting to hold onto a fleeting thought in a constantly moving stream of consciousness. They are not disregarding your story; they are connecting with it.
Once you see ADHD through this lens — not as a deficit of attention but as a difference in regulation, timing, and expression — the interruptions stop feeling like intrusions. They become what they truly are: evidence of engagement, connection, and the extraordinary way an ADHD brain experiences the world
