What does this phrase describing people with ADHD mean?

Factual Questions
1

The phrase in question is “driven by a motor.”

I’ve seen this phrase at least a dozen times, both to describe people who have ADHD and as a question on self-evals about ADHD, and I’m not sure what it’s getting at.

I suspect it means something like always on the go or energetic or tireless, but it feels like there’s a nuance I’m missing because why would you put it this way - with its suggestion with the words “driven by” that something external is forcing/compelling action - if it simply means the person has a lot of energy?

2

I’ve heard that expression, and I pretty much agree with you.

I think the intended meaning is “obvious” on the surface, but when you look deeper it doesn’t really make a lot of sense. After all, cars do not have hyperactivity problems and they are all driven by motors, and human beings do have “motor” like body parts, namely muscles, that perform an analogous function to a car’s motor

Is there a belief or observation that people with ADHD tend to shake? Could there be an analogy with a vibrating motor?

3

I would say that it implies they can’t stop doing whatever it is they’re being compulsive about, rather than that they have a lot of energy to do it.

4

ADHD encompasses both the hyperactivity variety and the garden variety attention deficit type.

The phrase you mention seems to be an attempt to capture the symptoms listed under the rubric of ‘hyperactivity’ at the link.

5

Yeah, I think the bit that’s missing is won’t/can’t stop, whether they or anyone else want them too. Driven by a motor that has no off switch perhaps.
Driven by a perpetual motion machine might be better.

6

I was going to protest that unlike OCD we can stop, but I’m not sure that’s exactly correct, actually. I can force myself to stay put and be very still - like say in an hour meeting with my boss and grandboss - but doing so makes me anxious, and I can resist the urge to go somewhere else while say cleaning a room, but only for so long…maybe that’s not “can” after all.

That, coupled with the fact that many hyperactive kids and adults don’t sleep much (unless I’m sick I sleep 5.5 to 6 hours a night even when I have days off) maybe “have no off switch” would be a more apt way of getting the idea across than driven by a motor.

7

:dubious: Why is “obvious” in quotes?

8

The people writing the evaluations seem to think it’s obvious, since they don’t bother explaining what it means.

I’m also confused by the phrase, if that helps at all.

9

My 22 year old stepson is diagnosed with ADHD. I would never describe him as driven by a motor, unless one was referring to his constant crisis and inability to cope with them.

He is a very hard worker, but I do not see ‘hyperactivity’. He also suffers from anxiety disorder and OCD, I understand there is a spectrum involved here.

10

Yes. ADD and OCD can very often be 2 sides of the same coin. I think its very confusing that the ADD designation is no longer used and that it has been rolled into ADHD such that you now have to specify which sub variety you mean. But regardless, they all do still seem to be in the same family.

BTW, OCD, I’m pretty sure, is no longer considered an anxiety disorder, but I think it does obviously have a lot of the same characteristics.

11

One thing people have remarked about to me (I have ADHD-PI) and I’ve noticed in my students with ADHD is the constant, never ending fidgeting if we’re in a situation where we have to sit for an extended period. I used to tap my fingers or a pencil rhythmically, but that makes noise, and it annoys other people, so I rerouted my fidgeting to jog my knee. This is silent, but if I’m not paying, I’ll end up with my leg against some part of the table or desk, and I’ll rattle it endlessly until someone screams at me.

The explanation I’ve read for this is that the ADHD brain is actually underactive, making it difficult to focus (focus is one of the executive functions of the prefrontal cortex, because it screens out distracting stimuli). Jiggling or bouncing or clucking the tongue or whistling or other “motor”-driven fidgeting is actually the person trying to bump the brain into more activity through self-stimulation. It makes sense to me.

12

I agree that the writers of the evaluations need to explain this phrase better.

13

Actually, the car engine analogy works pretty well if you think about it in the terms of keeping a vehicle still. Without the brake or accelerator pedals being depressed, most cars will move forward. Now, imagine that engine idled at or near it’s maximum speed.

That’s the concept that phrase is describing: that, without some sort of conscious effort to be still while bored, folks with the most common variety of ADHD need to be always moving or doing something. And when you do apply an effort to slow down the pressure builds up making it progressively harder to keep still.