ADHD on vacation: When rest does not look like stillness
By the time we arrive in McCall, Idaho, a small, quiet lake town that feels like the epitome of relaxation, which is exactly what we need, even if it is not what we naturally are, I know this vacation will not look like rest in the traditional sense. It will look like neurodivergent family life.
There are fourteen of us: my wife, our two children, my parents, my brothers, their wives, nieces and one nephew. Many of us live with ADHD, diagnosed or clearly recognizable. The patterns show up everywhere: fast thinking, emotional reactivity, difficulty following plans, and ideas that arrive faster than they can be completed.
As an ADHD coach, and as someone living with it, I have come to understand that the real tension is not attention itself. It is switching between internal states. One is a state of activation. It is fast and loud. It tracks risks, urgency, pressure, expectations, unfinished tasks, and imagined consequences. The other is a state of presence. It lives in the immediate: sensory experience, connection, fun, warmth, now.
