ADHD and OCD – All About The Awesomeness

ADHD and OCD are complete opposites in a lot of ways.  OCDers are all about the details and ADHDers are all about the derails.  It may seem like these two thought patterns would work diligently (and with much force) against each other.

And, sometimes that is the case.  For example, when my OCD pushes me to get all dressed up for a presentation…and then my ADHD pushes my coffee cup in my lap.  Or when my impulsive ADHD organizational purchase doesn’t fit exactly right or won’t hold the things it’s supposed to, so my OCD perfectionism declares the purchase worthless…but my OCD hoarding tendencies won’t let me throw it out…so the mess just gets bigger.

I can also see where an ADHDer and an OCDer might run into trouble due to a lack of understanding.  Let’s say an ADHDer and an OCDer are working on a project together.  An OCDer might be very driven to get all the details in order at the beginning and an ADHDer might be very driven by the bigger picture, taking off in a million different directions.  If the two are stubborn enough (which ADHDers and OCDers definitely can be), the differences could really slow the project down.

So, yeah, ADHD and OCD can clash, but I digress.  The point of this particular post is that sometimes the two can actually compliment each other and do really awesome things.

Case and point?  My obsession with creative t-shirt designs.  My OCD obsesses over the details, but these designs would be nowhere without the ADHD derails and creativity.

You just gotta look for the positive, ya know?