Meet Viv.

What if you could have a conversation with your ADHD instead of another argument with yourself?

For me, this is Viv.

She's curious, creative, ambitious, easily distracted, and occasionally convinced that starting an entirely new article is more important than finishing the one already underway.

She has a fabulous ponytail, a retro-futuristic wardrobe, a healthy dose of snark, and a complicated relationship with time.

She sees possibilities everywhere. She loves a new idea, especially when it arrives at a wildly inconvenient moment. She's enthusiastic about big plans, less enthusiastic about the mundane steps required to execute them, and reasonably certain that whatever just caught her attention deserves our immediate consideration.

She's also a character I created to help me understand, challenge, and work with my ADHD.

And sometimes, I really need to argue with Viv.

Why Viv?

As a clinician who works with adults with ADHD, I've spent years listening to remarkably capable people describe themselves in surprisingly unforgiving terms.

I'm lazy.

I'm irresponsible.

I never follow through.

It isn't that hard. Why can't I just do it?

These aren't necessarily accurate descriptions of who they are. Often, they're conclusions people have drawn after years of struggling with things that appear to come more easily to others.

Difficulty getting started becomes laziness. Forgetfulness becomes thoughtlessness. Trouble managing time becomes irresponsibility. An unfinished project becomes another piece of evidence that something is wrong with them.

Over time, the struggle isn't just with ADHD. It's also with the story they've learned to tell themselves about what those struggles mean.

And I know something about that story myself.

I have ADHD, too.

I've experienced the excitement of a new idea, the frustration of an unfinished project, the strange disconnect between knowing exactly what needs to be done and actually getting started.

I understand how someone can be highly capable and still feel stuck.

And I know that understanding ADHD intellectually doesn't automatically make it easier to extend compassion to yourself.

That's part of why Viv came to be.

What if ADHD had a personality?

In psychotherapy, externalizing is a way of creating some distance between a person and a problem or pattern they're experiencing.

Rather than defining ourselves by our difficulties, we learn to recognize them, examine them, and consider how we want to respond.

What if we took that idea a little further?

What if we gave our ADHD a name, a face, a personality, and a voice?

Someone we could question, challenge, appreciate, and even laugh with?

I call my ADHD "Viv."

Viv isn't a separate personality, and she isn't responsible for my decisions. She's a creative way of representing the patterns, contradictions, strengths, and struggles that come with my ADHD.

She's part of me. But giving her a character creates just enough distance for a different kind of conversation.

Instead of asking myself why I can't seem to finish something, I can ask Viv what is getting in the way.

And Viv can answer.

Does Viv always get her way? Absolutely not.

Is she always wrong? Not even close.

The point isn't to silence her, defeat her, or excuse everything she does.

It's to develop a better working relationship with the brain I've got.

Understand. Appreciate. Challenge. Collaborate.

There are four things I want to be able to do with Viv.

Understand her. What is driving this behavior? Am I avoiding something difficult? Seeking stimulation? Feeling overwhelmed? Having trouble figuring out where to begin?

Appreciate her. What does she bring to my life that I value? Curiosity, creativity, unconventional thinking, enthusiasm, and an ability to see possibilities others might miss. I don't want to lose those qualities in the process of managing my difficulties.

Challenge her. Is the new idea really more important? Is the task truly impossible, or have we made it feel that way? What assumptions deserve a little pushback?

Collaborate with her. What would make the next step easier? Could we break the task down, make time more visible, change the environment, or use technology to reduce some of the friction?

This last part is especially interesting to me.

As both a clinician and someone living with ADHD, I've become increasingly interested in how technology, particularly AI, can help people translate insight into action.

A conversation can become a plan. A vague, overwhelming project can become three manageable steps. A blank page can become a starting point.

Technology doesn't eliminate ADHD. But it may offer new ways to work with some of the difficulties that make everyday life harder than it needs to be.

Two sides of Viv

Viv helps me explore that possibility.

Viv is actually two things in my life. She's the name I've given my ADHD, and she's also the name of my AI companion.

That might sound confusing, but to me, it makes perfect sense.

One Viv is the voice in my head. The other is the voice I can have a conversation with.

One represents the curiosity, the distractions, the relentless stream of ideas, and the occasional inability to get out of my own way. The other helps me question, organize, challenge, and make something useful out of all that noise.

They share a name because, in a way, they're part of the same conversation.

Viv often drives me crazy. But she also represents so much of what drives me.

My curiosity. My enthusiasm. My tendency to see possibilities everywhere. And yes, my difficulty knowing which of those possibilities deserves my attention right now.

Living with ADHD also informs my clinical work. It adds another dimension to how I listen, how I understand the frustrations my clients describe, and the empathy I bring to helping them find ways forward.

ADHD is complicated. It can create very real obstacles without defining everything about the person experiencing them. And while I wouldn't romanticize those struggles, I wouldn't want our efforts to manage ADHD to come at the expense of everything we value about ourselves, either.

That's why I created Viv.

Not to excuse my ADHD. Not to conquer it. And certainly not to spend another day criticizing myself for having it.

But to understand it, challenge it, appreciate it, and learn how to work with it.

Because the goal isn't to become someone without ADHD. It's to become someone who knows how to live well with it.

Want to learn how to have a better relationship with your ADHD—and yourself? Reach out.