I Could Not Visualize Code Until I Stopped Treating My ADHD With Stimulants

One of the hardest things about ADHD, is that if we do not have it under control, we have problems visualizing.

Now, despite the name of the term visualization; it’s not referring to visual perception with our eyes. Instead, we are talking about something in meta-land, how our brain connects memories together in an organized manner. In fact, one of the common symptoms of ADHD is lack of visualization.

For example, musicians’ as they learn to play an instrument can hear a piece of music for the first time and go to their instrument and play it all the way through on the first try. Or some describing word wise how some physical shapes fit together would frustrate even me with my controlled ADHD as I am not able to visualize it.

Yes, even the art form training that students in art and design schools go through never worked for me, as that visually seeing the different physical forms combined never went past my visual cortex.

And, in coding it’s just as bad as I have trouble even translating UML diagrams to code form. I cannot even recall code at all that well, either.