Why Do People With ADHD Talk So Much?

"Don't interrupt me." "Let me finish." "Listen to me for once."

I have heard these sentences a lot, and in each of them I felt the same thing: they are right, and I had not meant to do it.

At some point you learn to be quiet. But you usually do not learn what the problem is, and because you do not learn it, you cannot solve it; you only hold yourself back. This article is about what happens in between.

Three separate mechanisms

1. The brake works weakly.

In Barkley's (1997) theoretical framework, what is placed at the center of ADHD is behavioral inhibition: the ability to hold back a response.

Its counterpart in speech is this: the distance between the sentence that comes to mind and the sentence that comes out of the mouth shortens. Interrupting here is not a decision to be disrespectful; the decision stage is never lived through, the sentence comes straight out. You get the chance to think "why did I say that" after the sentence is out, not before.

I described the wider version of this mechanism in the article on impulsivity in ADHD.

2. If you do not say it, it disappears.

The study by Kofler and colleagues (2010) shows that working memory capacity is more limited in ADHD.

The practical result is this: you know you will not be able to hold what you want to say until the person in front of you finishes their sentence. So you say it right away. Waiting means losing the thought.

When I learned this, a lot fell into place. The person who interrupts is not hurrying; they are trying to rescue something. In me this is so marked that while listening to the other person I rehearse the sentence in my mind, and because I am rehearsing it, I miss what they say. So even being quiet can lead to not listening.

3. Interest speeds things up.

When a topic of interest is opened, speech speeds up, lengthens and gets more detailed. The small signs that the other person's interest has run out are missed: shorter answers, a glance at the clock, the body turning toward the door.

In me this happens most in the subjects I love most, and at exactly the moment I feel best. The conversations I am most ashamed of afterwards are those too; because in that moment I stop looking at the person in front of me and look at the topic.

Interrupting most often does not mean "I'm not listening to you." It means "if I don't say this now, it will go."

The visible results

• Interrupting. The most frequently complained-about behavior. I covered the details in the article on interrupting during arguments.
• Jumping topics. One sentence calls another and the conversation forgets where it started. I am the one who asks "what were we talking about?"
• Oversharing. Sharing very private things with someone you have just met. It appears in the glossary as oversharing, and it is the item that produces the most regret the next day.
• Monopolizing the conversation. Filling most of the conversation and only noticing it when you get home.
• Missing things while listening. Getting lost not while speaking but while listening is part of the same picture.

The review by Wehmeier and colleagues (2010) shows that difficulty in the social and emotional area in ADHD has a marked effect on quality of life. So this does not stay a small matter of manners; it affects the relationships themselves.

What works

Take notes on paper. Have a piece of paper with you during the conversation and write what comes to mind in a single word. This one thing removes the "if I don't say it, it will be lost" pressure and makes waiting possible. Since I began doing this in meetings, my number of interruptions has gone down visibly.

Wait for the sentence to end, then count to three inside. It feels artificial and it works. After a few weeks the need to count lessens, because waiting becomes a habit.

Ask before you speak. "I'm going to tell you something but it may take a while, is now a good time?" This sentence takes the conversation monopoly out of being a problem, because it gives the other side an option.

Make it a rule to ask one question. Asking the other person a question after what you have told balances reciprocity. I made this a rule because it does not come naturally to me. The reason is not disinterest; it is being absorbed in the subject.

Agree on a signal with people close to you. Deciding with someone you trust on a silent way of saying "I've gone on too long just now." That way the warning stops being embarrassing and becomes a system.

Use voice messages. If there is something long to tell, moving it to a channel the other person can listen to whenever they want eases us both. It leaves the timing to the other side without suppressing the need to tell.

Do not hold yourself back too much. This may be the most important item on the list. Falling completely silent looks like a solution but it means giving up being yourself. The goal should not be to become quiet; it should be to build reciprocity.

A one-line setup for meetings. Set aside a column at the edge of the notebook and write "things I'll say" at its head. Everything that comes to mind goes in there in a single word. When it is your turn to speak you look at that column. Most of the time you find you do not need to say half of the items; because the topic has already closed.

The good side of this

I do not want to leave this article only as a list of flaws to be fixed, because that is not half the picture.

Someone who talks a lot is also the person who starts the conversation. The one who says the first sentence in a quiet room, who opens a chat with someone they do not know, who breaks the tension in the room. This comes from the same mechanism too.

Making quick associations is the same. Jumping from one topic to another is sometimes scattering; sometimes it is making a connection nobody else has made. In my own work my best ideas come exactly from those jumps.

The point does not seem to me to be destroying this trait. The point is to build small devices that remind me the person in front of me is in the room too.

When you need to look at something else

The speeding up of speech is not always explained by ADHD, and it is important to write that.

If there is a period in which speech has sped up in an unusual way, the need for sleep has decreased, ideas come one after another and the person feels unusually energetic, this picture needs a separate evaluation. I covered the distinction in the article on ADHD or bipolar.

The distinguishing point is usually continuity: in ADHD the speed of speech has been this way since childhood and does not show periodic change. If it appears as a distinct period, you need to tell a specialist about it.

The shame part

Talking a lot is one of the most frequent sources of retroactive shame. Coming home and replaying the conversation in the mind again and again is a common experience, and in me it usually starts around midnight.

That replaying you do alone has no function: the conversation is over, the other side has most probably forgotten it, and what remains is only a weight that you carry. What has worked for me is to stop counting that night as a moment of evaluation. If I really need to fix something, it comes to mind in the morning anyway.

I covered this cycle in the article on shame and self-compassion in ADHD, and its counterpart in relationships in the article on ADHD and relationships.

Let me end by saying one thing: the only thing that makes waiting possible is knowing you will not lose what you want to say. The paper in your hand provides that, and for me that paper has proved far more reliable than willpower.