Empathy Intervention – Jackson Combs

Anyone who has a sibling knows that it’s normal to get in fights with them, and my brother and I are no different. Often times, my brother would be doing anything, from homework to playing video games, and I would try to give him tips on how he could do things better, or make things easier for himself. He would mostly ignore me, and this was frustrating to me as well as him, because I just couldn’t stand to see him do something that I thought was wrong. I would plead with him to listen to me as it would make his life so much easier, but of course he didn’t and inevitably we would get into a fight. What’s different about my brother, however, is that he has ADHD and his brain simply doesn’t work the same way mine does. I always knew he had ADHD, but I recently learned about myself that I was otherizing him. Since then I’ve tried to learn a lot about how ADHD brains work, but that doesn’t compare to being inside his brain specifically. Even still, I feel as if I have more of an insight as to how his mind works, and I can better understand why he makes the choices he does.

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