I was chatting with a friend—an adult with ADHD—and noticed a pattern that felt oddly revealing.
He had started out with a simple plan: vacuum the apartment. But halfway through, something else in his line of sight suddenly looked more urgent. Then that led to another problem, and then another. Each interruption pulled him a little farther off course, until the vacuum cleaner itself ended up abandoned in some forgettable corner.
So I asked him, “What were you doing in the first place?”
He had to think about it for a while before remembering: he had been vacuuming. He just had no idea where the vacuum had gone.
It struck me as a strangely good test:
Where did my vacuum cleaner go?
His home was full of objects that had landed in places that made no apparent sense: a pepper shaker on the bathroom sink; an electric shaver on the shoe cabinet by the entryway; a drinking glass on the shelf beside the toilet.
And yet, inside that disorder, there was also a kind of operating logic. Ask him where the hand towel is, and he can tell you immediately: draped over the treadmill handle.
But more than the vacuum cleaner itself, another question stayed with me.
Why are more and more adults starting to suspect they have ADHD? Why does that suspicion seem to be spreading? And when we talk about ADHD now, are we talking about a medical condition, or about a way of living that is becoming increasingly common in modern life?
Those are the questions I want to keep thinking about over the next few days.