A couple of weeks ago, I was at the Brothers Helping Brothers Firefighter Health & Wellness Conference, listening to Beth Flaherty talk about ADHD in the fire service. I’ve never been diagnosed with ADHD, and sitting through one conference presentation doesn’t qualify me to diagnose myself. Having said that, by the time Beth wrapped up, I’d pretty much diagnosed myself about 12 times. Every time she described how people with ADHD can think, process information, get consumed by an idea, act on impulse, lose interest, chase something new or lock onto something so hard that everything else disappears, I was sitting there going, “Yep, that’s me,” and “That’s me, too.”
Then I started thinking about how many firefighters I know who seem wired the same way. Maybe it’s everywhere and I’m just noticing it now, but a lot of what she described sounded like a regular shift. We work in a job built around stimulation, problem-solving, pressure, unpredictability and making decisions with incomplete information. We can go from sitting around the kitchen table with a coffee to processing 10 different things at once before the bay door is all the way up. I have to wonder whether some brains just make more sense in that environment.
ADHD is a lot more complicated than being distracted or having too much energy. It can involve attention regulation, impulsivity, restlessness, emotional regulation and something called hyperfocus, where you get so absorbed in something that interests you that the building could be on fire and you wouldn’t notice. Probably a bad example for this crowd. There are different presentations and different levels of impairment, which is why recognizing a few traits in yourself is a long way from a clinical diagnosis.
Some of those same tendencies can turn out to be pretty useful. There’s research connecting ADHD traits with creativity, high energy, interest-driven focus, risk-taking and entrepreneurship, which would explain a few things about me. I shoot from the hip with ideas all the time. I go with my gut on a lot of decisions. I can see something in my head before it exists, and once I can see what it could become, I have almost no fear about starting it. I don’t spend six months trying to convince myself I’m capable of something. I think, yeah, I can do that, and I figure out the how along the way.
The Upside of a Brain That Won’t Sit Still
I think a lot of firefighters are built like that. Look at how many people in this job run a landscaping company, a construction business, a training company, a gym or some other side hustle on their days off. I doubt every one of those started with a 40-page business plan and three years of market research. Somebody looked at something, thought, “I can do that,” and did it.
That same instinct has a downside, and most of us have seen it in the driveway. One minute your truck is running perfectly fine and the next minute you’re buying another one, and somewhere between those two moments your brain built an airtight case for why this absolutely had to happen. The same thing goes for business decisions, spending, arguments with your partner, parenting, taking on one more project or saying yes when your plate is already full. Every one of those decisions can feel completely rational in the moment, because the brain making the call is the same brain writing the argument for it.
Dr. Russell Barkley is one of the best-known ADHD researchers out there, and his book Taking Charge of Adult ADHD should be on the shelf of anyone who’s recognized themselves in this column so far. The second edition came out in 2021 and gets into emotional self-control, time management, work and relationships, which covers most of the places this stuff shows up for us.
Barkley describes ADHD as a problem of “doing what you know.” In other words, the knowing part usually isn’t where things break down. You can understand the consequences and even hear your own voice telling you to pump the brakes, and whatever’s sitting in front of you still wins. He also talks about ADHD as a problem of self-regulation across time, where the future has a hard time competing with whatever feels important right now. Maybe that’s why some decisions don’t feel impulsive at all while you’re making them. In the moment, buying that truck can feel like the most logical thing you’ve ever done, and it’s only later you realize your brain already reached a verdict before the rest of you showed up for court.
When Impulsivity Helps and When It Hurts
The research on ADHD and entrepreneurship shows that push and pull, too. Hyperactivity and impulsivity have been linked to stronger entrepreneurial tendencies, while inattention tends to cause trouble when it comes to keeping alive what you’ve already started. Starting something and putting up with the boring parts of keeping it going are two very different jobs.
There’s also firefighter-specific research that deserves more attention than it gets. Recent work has found that firefighters with higher ADHD symptoms tend to have more trouble with emotional regulation, along with higher levels of anxiety, depression and PTSD. Nobody’s saying ADHD causes those things. It’s an association, and it makes me wonder what happens when a brain that already runs hot spends 15, 20 or 25 years soaking up this profession.
What I really want to figure out is how you tell the difference between harnessing something and having it harness you. For me, part of the answer might be whether I can put a little space between an idea and acting on it. Can I still finish something after the excitement wears off? Can somebody I trust tell me I’m making a bad call and actually get through to me? Is the way I’m operating costing me money, sleep, relationships, family time or my ability to be present when I’m not at the hall?
I don’t want to lose the part of me that sees what something could become and moves on it fast. That part of me has built a lot of things I’m proud of. I’m also starting to understand it needs some guardrails. Sometimes my gut is right, and sometimes my gut is just an impulse with a really good sales pitch.
Learning to Work With Your Brain
I’m going to dig a lot deeper into ADHD, because I have a feeling this conversation matters in the fire service. Maybe some of these traits make certain people incredibly well suited to parts of this job, and maybe the exact same traits cause problems at home when nobody ever learns how they work. Someone with ADHD might make a hell of a chief or be the calmest person on a working fire. The question is what happens after the call clears and you still have to live with every decision your brain talks you into.
If any of this sounds a little too familiar, there’s an easy place to start. The Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale is a screener developed with the World Health Organization, and CADDRA, the Canadian ADHD Resource Alliance, makes it available for free. It takes a couple of minutes to complete and gives you something real to bring to your doctor. It’s a screening tool, so it can tell you whether a conversation is worth having, and the diagnosis still has to come from a professional. Between that and Barkley’s book, you’ll know more about how your own brain runs than most of us ever took the time to learn.
The truth is, the same wiring that can be your biggest asset can also get the better of you if you never learn how it works. The more I learn about my own brain, the less I care about slapping a label on it and the more I want to understand when to trust it and when to challenge it. The same brain that can make you damn good at this job can make a mess of things outside of it. If ADHD is part of how I’m wired, I don’t want to change it. I want to understand it well enough to use what makes me better without letting those same tendencies run my life.
GUT CHECK: 3 Questions for the Ride Home
1. Can you stay completely locked in on something that interests you for hours, but struggle to start something important that should take 10 minutes? Does your brain seem to care more about what is interesting, new or urgent than what actually needs to get done?
2. How often do you already know the smarter move and still find yourself doing the other thing? Saying yes when you’re already overloaded, buying it, starting another project, interrupting, firing off the text, or making the decision before you’ve given yourself enough time to think it through?
3. If you went back far enough, would you recognize the same person? The kid who daydreamed, talked too much, forgot things, procrastinated, got bored easily, had a pile of unfinished projects or could completely disappear into something they loved. Or did this version of you show up later, after years of interrupted sleep, stress, trauma and life in the fire service?
None of those answers can diagnose ADHD, but if you’re recognizing a pattern, the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS) from CADDRA is a good way to start that conversation with your doctor.
