Guest Author - Megan Dlugokinski

As the holiday season is upon us it is a good time to appreciate all the good things in our lives. For one who has to deal with the day to day struggle of ADHD it seems ironic to think of ADHD being a gift or the fact that it has any good qualities at all. There are many things that ADHD brings to the receiver of this ‘diagnosis.’

Just a few of the many gifts ADHD brings are:

• Intuition – the ability to know things that others do not know and not knowing how they know the information but still finding it helpful in daily life

• Creativity – those with ADHD have a prolific gift to creativity. The need to create ‘something’ is almost as strong a need as breathing is.

• Sense of humor – there is something about those of us with ADHD that gives us the unique ability to find humor in almost every situation, except for our own foibles but then again those are usually funny AFTER the embarrassment wears off.

• Idea Generating – this gift goes almost hand in hand with the creativity gift. Ideas are a dime a dozen for those with ADHD. There are always more ideas than there are hours available to do anything with them. Then again not all of the ideas are worth pursuing!

• Compassion and empathy – Those with ADHD have a great capacity for caring for and understanding the struggles of others. They have an ability to see things from many different perspectives that can help bring understanding and clarity to a situation. This isn’t always apparent in one's own life however.

• Persistence & Resiliency – With so many struggles it can be tough to keep starting over and trying to get it right. Luckily these two traits enable the ADDer to keep going.

• Hyper –focus – one of the best gifts the person with ADHD has is the gift to hyper-focus, or put their focus on one thing at the expense of everything else for an almost unlimited time period. The unique ability of an ADDer to put something off until the last minute and then pull double time to get it complete. The gift of adrenaline and intense focusing helps the ADDer avoid the negative consequences that would inevitably follow if they didn’t complete the task.

• Problem solving abilities – The ADHD brain is wired for divergent and expansive thinking that gives them the ability to link seemingly unrelated items in a new and unique way that can solve many problems and create new possibilities where none existed before.

• Uncensored honesty
• Child like sense of wonder and adventure
• Drive
• Talk and think ‘on their feet’
• Flexible
• Independent


These are just a few of the many gifts and talents that those with ADHD possess. Many of the seemingly undesired traits can become a gift with the right support, the right environment and positive encouragement.

I am learning to enjoy my gifts and to change my life so that ADHD becomes more of a gift and less of a struggle. This is one of those life lessons that have been learned the hard way but I am grateful for it nonetheless. I just hope that I can help others learn how to use the positive traits more and minimize the negative traits so that life flows easier and is more joyful because of not ‘in spite of’ ADHD.

Happy holidays everyone! Learn to find joy in each day no matter what life brings you and you will find that life brings you more and more of ‘the good stuff’.