Trevor Noah Brilliantly Describes His ADHD

This short video is simply to alert you to a fantastic interview that Neal Brennan conducted with Trevor Noah. In it, Trevor brilliantly discusses his having ADHD, its relationship to his depression, what is happening in his mind when he is distracted or impulsive, and even how he believes many comedians have ADHD. I am sharing this with some comments of my own praising him for his courage to confide about his ADHD and related conditions and his spot-on description of this disorder.

Here is link to Neal Brennan's YouTube Channel and this short clip from his much longer interview on his Blocks Podcast:

[ToniHinton]

I told my grandson recently that the reason why we take medication for ADHD is because attention is like the water from a garden hose. When we're unmedicated, it's like having your thumb over the end -- the water goes all over the place. When we take our meds, we remove the thumb and then we can direct the flow to where we want it to go.

[JWildberry]

I'm autistic (possible ADHD too), and this is why I love talking to people with ADHD. They follow me when I suddenly branch off mid-conversation, and I follow them when they do it. It makes the conversation feel so...alive. And a lot of people with ADHD speak at x1.5 speed, which is great!

[sarahhartnett]

One of the weirdest things about getting a late diagnosis of adhd is realizing that most other people don’t think like this… and revisiting the many moments in my life where people have looked at me like I was an alien and finally understanding why I got that reaction. It wasn’t in my head. And my fear of being rejected for being weird or annoying or flaky or over-the-top isn’t actually irrational social anxiety- it is a reasonable, learned response to living with frequent social rejection and/or being misunderstood.

[constantius]

I think ADHD is also prevalent in comedians because it lets you quickly make associations in your mind that turn into jokes. For most of us they are just intrusive thoughts that distract us, but for comedians they can be developed into material.

[FocusFrameMD]

Great interview.
I wish more people talked about the lack of sense of continuity with ADHD. Going to the gym, making life changes, resolutions of any kind, really. The impermanence of will and sentiment...
It's hard because the Me that so badly wanted to make X change or do Y thing simply disappears to time, and im left simply with the unticked boxes that remain on the to-do list of that thing and those unticked boxes alone can lead to self-torture.
This resonate with anyone else?

[jamiejohnson]

I'm a 911 dispatcher.

I don't think I'm better at my job than people without ADHD. But ADHD is less of an impairment in an environment that forces me to focus and where impulsivity looks like quick decision making. All I have to do is show up on time to work - that's the hardest part. And then the rest of it is so interesting, novel, dynamic, that it flies by without me realizing I've missed a lunch sometimes. I don't have to plan ahead, everything is happening RIGHT NOW, or 30 seconds from now. No organizing - just typing what's happening, really, and being fast on computers is easy because of the computer addiction I've had for over a decade.

That said I'm fortunate enough to have ADHD without anxiety/OCD/depression. Other common comorbidities might make the job quite hard.

Might be a decent career to look into for the ADHD women especially. I know I could never do a physical job like a policeman, fireman, etc, I'm too short and small and not strong enough. Pays substantially more in urban environments, try to find a department where the dispatchers are included in the cop union, better benefits.

[trevorfell]

When Russell said, “way to go Trevor”, it felt as though he was personally endorsing me and is exactly what I’ve been needing to hear☺️

[robertahardy]

I loved the explanation that it’s not a lack of attention, it’s an inability to control where your attention goes. I often get lost in thought during a conversation. The most embarrassing thing is when I ask the person a question, and they start with a long, rambling answer, and my wanders so that I don’t even hear the answer when they finally get to it. What distracts me the most is my phone. I may go to my phone to check the weather report, but I get distracted by something else, and after 15 minutes I put the phone down, walk into another room, and then realize I still haven’t looked up the weather. Sometimes it takes 3 tries to get the weather!

[HawthorneHillNaturePreserve]

I’m in tears. 60 years old, undiagnosed and untreated unknowingly, struggling my whole life. I excelled only because of my intelligence, but had to struggle twice as hard. Trevor is so intelligent and so spot on it made me cry. I always feel like nobody understands. I need help. I don’t know where to get it. 😥

[Scientist]

It’s doctors like Russell Barkley that illuminated ADHD for me. I had a lifetime of behavioral problems in school, always disruptive behavior, combined with learning issues, I was not in a great place come high school.

I focused on sports in high school, got a scholarship to college, and when college came around I was diagnosed with adhd. My sport ended up getting dropped by the college, and this combined with the diagnosis was such a powerful thing for me that I felt I could do a “hard” major even though I was so behind due to ADHD…


10 years and a disregard for difficult things later I have a PhD in theoretical physics. Folks that didn’t know me back then have no idea…

[jennytorlage]

I absolutely hate background music in restaurants and shops and public spaces because I cannot tune out from it, so I'm trying to converse or shop while I'm also fully listening to the music. Same for having a radio going or trying to speak to someone while there is a conversation happening close to you.
Hello from South Africa Trevor!

[alv]

The biggest blessing with being diagnosed is being able to advocate for yourself when you run into people who want to belittle/disrespect you. You don’t want to be treated like you’re special because you have ADHD but you want to be understood and be treated with respect just like others expect to.

[zackersquackers]

Yes, I really enjoy that well known people with ADHD are speaking more openly about it--helps to shed all the confusion, myths and misapprehensions about how someone with ADHD struggles. Knowing is so damn important and when I was diagnosed at age 43 in Dec 2022 it was the most cathartic experience of my life--to finally understand why my anxiety and depression of 30 years wasn't properly treated despite me seeing psychologist and psychiatrists off and on since I was in high school. It ALL started to make sense, all the screw ups all the abandonment, feeling out of place, etc. It sucks to have lost a lot of years buried under a million unfinished projects and damaged relationships, but now that I know and can contend with my distractions in a better way, I haven't really been depressed in almost 2 years.

[karlat]

I realized I have ADHD in my 40s. I can look back and see how it has affected literally my whole life.
The best thing the diagnosis has done for me is that I no longer have the self-loathing I used to have. I have compassion for myself.

[sacrilegiousboi]

Every person I knew at Uni (especially girls) with a shopping list of mental illness diagnoses like anxiety, depression, OCD, bipolar type 2, BPD, eating disorders eventually went on to get diagnosed with ADHD.

Getting medicated for ADHD completely turned all their lives around in terms of functioning and mood.

[Elspm]

When I was at school I ended up with depression because I simply could not piece together how much effort I felt I was putting into organisation and just failing. School teachers would tell me I was lazy because I didn't do homework, while I was one of the most enthusiastic students in class. They would say "just write it in your diary", which I forgot every single day, and I forgot that I should check when I got home. I was devastated, but would somehow manage to pass by freaking out right before exams.

I was the only teenager buying books about organisation, and it just was not happening. That plus the emotional disregulation meant I had suicidal ideation every time I forgot my keys for the house.

The only way I managed to make life work was by using anxiety and shame. It's so obvious to me how depression and anxiety become co occurring conditions with ADHD. The world is scary and distressing when your brain is so unreliable for no apparent reason. The diagnosis gives me an explanation - it's a massive help.

[jeannielemesurier]

Thank you. I'm a 68yr old female and just diagnosed with ADHD. I'm so good at masking after over 60 years I don't actually know when the symptoms are present and actually I don't know who I really am anymore as my whole life feels like its been one big lie. So watching videos like yours is really helpful to my learning journey into me,

[apembertonfowler]

My husband and I have been married for ten years. He was diagnosed with ADHD two years ago at the age of 69 after a year of marriage counseling going nowhere. He takes aderall which helps but it’s still very frustrating for both of us. I don’t know how he managed all this time or if our marriage will work out, but hearing Trevor talk about it helps me understand that I can’t take his distractions personally. It’s just so hard to have a simple conversation with him, let alone an important one. Thank you for this video. For all of you who have children that show signs of ADHD, have them tested so they can start treatment at a young age. I think that may help them not to suffer in adulthood the way my husband and the ppl who love him have. ✌🏽🙏🏽

[pattywarner]

When I was in school I thought I was dumb. I couldn’t remember the assignment and either lost my homework. I just accepted that.
Luckily someone convinced me that I must be an artist of some sort since I don’t use the other part of my brain much so I became a hairstylist and a very good one. At the height of my career and had clients lined up to get in for weeks. I had an appointment book and would look at it everyday in the morning to know who I was doing that day.
I was so good at cut and color that my clients put up with so many cancellations and I was always running late which made my clients think that I was fabulous! When I was too distracted and messed up a color they would say how brilliant I was at whipping up a new color. For some reason I could remember formulas I used on clients. I remembered every color without writing it down. I’m 64 and I’m just starting to realize that my depression and anxiety has come from having ADHD and OCD.
The only reason I’m finding this out is because I’m a grandmother of 3 and my daughter said she doesn’t want to be the mom I was, always late, never following through. The shame and quilt I put on myself made me try to make up for it by over promising things that I wanted to do but just couldn’t!
So I would drink to numb the pain. I was always the happy funny talented mom hairstylist, always had great stories.
Now I have to figure out how to not do that to my grandchildren.
This is such a sad disease.
The good news is that I don’t drink anymore and I’m educating myself on how to move forward in the third part of my life.❤️

[bropoke]

Im a woman and i just got diagnosed about 3 weeks ago. Ive been diagnosed with depression, generalized anxiety, social anxiety, and (i dont think its an official diagnosis) have had trauma induced severe depressive episodes. I notice so many things about myself that i thought were just things i mess up because i suck. Turns out my depressive episodes are really adhd burnout. Theyre a lot shorter now that i know how to care for myself properly and that theres actually a way out other than waiting to feel better