Of all the crappy ways that ADHD fucks up the lives of people who have it, this is the one that flies lowest under the radar. To quote Dr Barkley again, this particular symptom of our brain disorder is the “impaired capacity to delay gratification.” Or as I like to call it — ‘yes I want the doughnut’.

I’m incapable of putting anything off, particularly if it meets my brain’s fucked up need for the stimulus it’s not getting from my dopamine deficiency. Today for instance I pulled into the 7-Eleven to get some petrol, bought myself four Krispy Kreme doughnuts and had eaten them all by the time I was a couple of kilometres away from the petrol station. Yes I’m overweight. No I shouldn’t have eaten them. Did I suffer from pangs of guilt as I wiped the crumbs of sugar off my t-shirt? No I did not.

This particular symptom also manifests itself as poor impulse control. I’m that guy you see in the supermarket constantly switching queues in the hope of getting my groceries bagged quicker. I’m the guy you see switching lanes to try and ‘beat’ the traffic. I’m the dude that will walk away completely from long lines in the post office. And heaven help you if you try and queue-jump on my watch, motherfucker!