ADHD & IFS: Rethinking ADHD, From Deficits to Neurotype
When I discovered my ADHD in my late 30s, it reframed my life. This blog explores ADHD through the strengths-based VAST lens and how IFS therapy helps us unburden shame and work with our true wiring. ADHD isn’t broken; it’s a neurotype that deserves understanding.
When I first began really learning about ADHD in my late 30s, I didn’t expect to see myself in the work. I didn’t see it coming.
In my late 30s, I was learning more about ADHD for my clients. I’d been working with neurodivergent folks for years, and we always “got” each other. I thought that was just because I was easy-going, accepting of difference, (and maybe a little bit unconventional). Me? ADHD? Not on my radar. I had the same tired images in my head as everyone else: naughty boys who can’t sit still in class.
Meanwhile, my actual life was… well.
Procrastination that sometimes felt like my body had been unplugged.
Bursts of “get it all done right now” energy, followed by days of crash-and-burn.
A desperate need for space and rest to be creative, but an inability to start unless something was on fire.
Blurting things out that landed wrong for fear of forgetting what I wanted to say a split second later.
SO many impulsive decisions that cost me time, money, and relationships.
I’d developed a whole catalogue of explanations over the years as I waded through my issues in many different therapies: childhood traumas, perfectionism, and "unhelpful thinking styles". They all kind of made sense, but none of them made all the pieces fit.
The Lightbulb Moment
One day, listening to a video I was “just dipping into for work” (and cleaning the kitchen at the same time), it hit me: Oh…wait... this is me?!
The thought was a rush of heat through my chest. Relief. Grief. And this weird, dizzy disorientation. I sat with it, rewatching the video, still in a stunned sort of silence. Because if this was true, if I’d been ADHD all along, then so many of the stories I’d told myself about who I was, and why, were… wrong.
And because I am me, I did what any self-respecting ADHDer does in the throes of a new discovery: I hyperfocused.
I took the deepest of dives and absorbed everything I could about this potential reality. Again and again, from books to Instagram, to psychological theory, there it was. Here I was, and it all made sense.
This lit a fire in me, one that still burns brightly, wanting people to understand ADHD beyond the stereotypes. Because once you understand ADHD as a neurotype, not a set of deficits and disorder, the whole story changes.
ADHD is Not a List of Deficits
One of the first things I realised was how inadequate the name ADHD really is: “Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder”,
...Ouch!
Four words that manage to make us sound both incapable and irritating.
The mainstream definition is still based on the medical model: inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity. These words come from diagnostic manuals designed to categorise distress symptoms, the struggles that show up when a neurotype like ours meets an environment built for someone else.
It’s no wonder that ADHD is so deeply misunderstood. This is ADHD unsupported, and it is real and hard to live with in a world not designed for you. But distress symptoms aren’t the same thing as the innate ADHD neurotype.
VAST Possibilities
I’m not the only one who thinks ADHD is a terrible name. Psychiatrist and ADHDer Dr Edward Hallowell has suggested we scrap it altogether in favour of VAST - Variable Attention Stimulus Trait.
VAST recognises that our attention isn’t deficient; it’s variable. We can pay deep, sustained attention when something is interesting, novel, or urgent, and we can struggle to muster focus when it isn’t. This reframing puts the emphasis on howour attention works rather than labelling it as broken.
It also captures the “game of two halves” so many of us know: hyperfocus and creativity on one side, distractibility and time-blindness on the other. Both live in the same brain. Both are part of the package. VAST shifts the conversation away from pathology and towards possibility, something ADHD desperately needs.
It’s not perfect, but to me, VAST feels less like a diagnosis and more like a map. My attention isn’t deficient. It was variable. I could pay intense, sustained attention when something was new, urgent, or deeply interesting, and I could utterly fail to engage when it wasn’t.
That wasn’t laziness. It was wiring.
VAST landscapes offer so much potential...
Before I Had the Words
Looking back, the signs were everywhere:
My school reports: “Bright but easily distracted,” “Could do better if she tried harder.”
The everyday spirals: forgetting my own therapy because I was absorbed in something, realising the cat had unravelled my crochet project, tripping over laundry I’d dumped halfway to the machine, burning dinner because I’d wandered off to “just quickly” check an email.
I didn’t know what to call it back then. I just thought I was too much, not enough, and constantly getting it wrong.
I was clever enough to get through, and that was true all the way up until my PhD years. Then it all fell apart; there was no structure except the one I was supposed to set myself. I didn’t know my neurotype, and everyone around me was confused at my sudden and abrupt stalling. It took years of working on the shame and confusion of what had happened before I felt able to return to studying, and still without the understanding that it was my wiring that had meant I struggled.
Of course, I still wonder what it would have been like to know this then, and whether it might have meant I could have asked for the support I needed to flourish then, instead of crumbling.
A Neurotype, Not a Disorder
If we strip away deficit-based language, we can describe ADHD more accurately as: -
Neural hyperconnectivity - our brains light up in more places at once, which can mean creativity, complexity, and big-picture thinking.
Monotropism - the capacity to focus intensely on a narrow range of interests, often for long stretches, when something truly matters to us.
An interest-based dopamine system - our brains release dopamine for things we care about, not just for things we’re *supposed* to care about. (And even then the receptors take more stimulus to fire, and it fades more quickly than in a non-ADHD brain.)
Holotropic sensory gating - a tendency to take in more sensory input at once, which can mean noticing detail others miss (and getting overwhelmed more quickly).
Variable processing styles - switching between bottom-up (detail first) and top-down (big picture first) processing depending on the task and the moment.
This framing changes everything. Instead of starting from “how do we fix the deficits?” we can start from “how do we work with the brain we’ve got?”
Why Language Shapes ADHD Self-Understanding
Language isn’t just descriptive; it shapes how we see ourselves. If you’ve ever been called lazy, disruptive, unreliable, or flaky, or heard those labels in your own head, you’ll know how quickly words can sink in as truth.
Terms like “disorder” and “deficit” carry baked-in assumptions about what’s normal, valuable, and right. They position ADHD as a deviation from the ideal rather than a valid way of being.
In the neurodiversity paradigm, we talk about ADHDers rather than “people with ADHD.” This isn’t a semantic quirk, it’s about recognising that ADHD isn’t an add-on, it’s woven through every part of us.
When I work with clients, I mirror their language. If they say “I have ADHD,” I follow their lead. But I’ll also gently introduce identity-first language, like “ADHDer”, as a way of trying on a different, less pathologised self-image.
When I first heard someone describe ADHD as a “possibility brain” (Tamara Rosier, I’m looking at you!) it stopped me in my tracks. It was the first time I’d heard my way of thinking described without apology. My tendency to think in every direction at once didn’t sound like a flaw, it sounded like a gift.
The Social Model of Disability: Shifting the Blame
The medical model of disability assumes the problem lives inside the individual the person’s brain, body, or behaviour is what needs to be “fixed” so they can function in society. The focus is on diagnosis, treatment, and correction.
The social model of disability flips this perspective. It says that people are disabled not so much by their differences themselves, but by the barriers in the world around them, physical barriers, yes, but also attitudes, expectations, and systems designed for only one kind of mind or body.
For ADHDers, that might mean:
A workplace that demands constant focus for long, dull tasks without breaks.
Schools that reward quiet compliance over curiosity and movement.
Social rules that penalise speaking out of turn or jumping between topics.
These are all environmental barriers. They turn an ADHD brain from simply “different” into “struggling.”
Change the environment, build in flexible deadlines, varied types of work, sensory-friendly spaces, and suddenly, much of the disabling impact disappears.
Left-Handedness Over Time
This isn’t just theory, we’ve seen it before.
A hundred years ago, left-handedness was considered a defect to correct. Left-handed children were punished, retrained, and shamed into using their right hand. In cultures where this still happens, left-handedness appears rare. In cultures where it’s accepted, the numbers “magically” rise, not because more people are being born left-handed, but because it’s no longer being erased.
That’s what happens when we stop punishing difference. Rates of recognition go up. Lives open out. And the “problem” was never the left hand in the first place.
ADHD Through the IFS Lens
I discovered IFS about the same time I discovered my ADHD. IFS (Internal Family Systems) gave me a way to see how living in a neuronormative world had shaped my own inner system.
When your life has been shaped by constant correction, misunderstanding, and pressure to “try harder,” certain parts will take on heavy roles: -
Managers may become relentless taskmasters, perfectionists, or people-pleasers, trying to prevent failure at all costs.
Firefighters may step in with impulsive decisions, addictive behaviours, or sudden withdrawals to shut down discomfort.
Exiles may carry the shame of feeling “too much” or “never enough,” often rooted in childhood experiences.
In therapy, we can help these parts understand the innate ADHD of the system not as a flaw to be managed, but as a difference to be worked with. We don’t aim to unburden ADHD itself because it is not a part. We seek to heal and unburden the shame, fear, and self-blame attached to it.
Why This Matters, and What’s Next
When ADHD is framed only as a disorder, we miss the richness of what it brings. We also risk reinforcing the very burdens that keep ADHD systems stuck in cycles of fear, shame, and self-criticism.
IFS gives us a way to work with the whole system, not just to improve productivity or reduce symptoms, but to help every part feel understood, respected, and unashamed. But, only when the therapists also understand that ADHD is so much more than the stereotypes. I'm on a mission to keep educating around this.... and so are many others... but we have a long way to go!
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