Why Developers with ADHD Get Stuck (and How AI Actually Helps)

When I was a developer, I was terrified of someone seeing my screen.

I sat in the corner, angled my monitor away, and constantly glanced over my shoulder. Because I had ChatGPT open basically all day.

I wasn’t using it to write my code. I was using it to understand it.

When I got stuck, I’d lose whole afternoons. Not taking a break. Just… not there. Phone in hand, code on the screen, going nowhere. Too stuck to work, too ashamed to stop.

And at some point, the problem would stop being the ticket. The problem would become me. I’m slow. I’m stupid. I shouldn’t be here.

I’d try to understand it “properly.” I’d draw diagrams, then more diagrams, then realise I’d drawn the exact same one I started with. And still didn’t understand.

People would say “just read the documentation.” But it felt dry, dense, almost nonsensical. My interest-wired ADHD brain couldn’t make anything stick, so I’d just sit there feeling more and more like I was the problem.

There’s a “figure it out yourself” culture in tech that’s meant to encourage independence. But it can leave some of us sitting there, quietly spiralling and feeling ashamed of not knowing.

So I avoided asking for help. And for my ADHD brain, that spiral wasn’t occasional. It was the default.

When I did ask my mentor, it was always okay. Same question twice, message whenever, no judgement. Even before my ADHD diagnosis, he could see that I didn’t think in the same way as him.

But he couldn’t be there all the time. And the other people I asked? Sometimes I’d walk away feeling worse than before I’d asked.

Before AI, I felt like I was drowning a lot of the time. Documentation was a wall of noise, pull requests were overwhelming, and I felt too much shame to ask someone to explain Kubernetes for the fifth time.

So when I started using AI, it wasn’t about avoiding the work. It was about trying to access it.

I used it to break things down into steps that actually made sense to me, to explain the same concept in different ways until something finally clicked, to use analogies so abstract logic would actually stick. It reduced the cognitive load just enough that I could actually engage.

But I felt like I was cheating. I felt like a fraud.

Looking back, I see it differently. I wasn’t avoiding thinking. I was trying to think.

For neurodivergent people in tech, AI isn’t a shortcut. It’s an accessibility tool.

Someone commented on one of my posts recently: “AI closes the open ADHD loop.” And that really stuck with me.

Because I remember that feeling so clearly. Being right on the edge of understanding something, and then it just slipping away again. That state where you can’t move forward, but you also can’t quite explain why you’re stuck.

Having something that can meet you where you are and help you bridge that gap – that’s what made the difference.

There were loads of comments from other people saying similar things. Using AI to build a big picture when everyone else assumes the context is obvious. Using it to rephrase things in a way their brain can actually process.

Same thread, different stuck points.

And what I kept coming back to was this: without that support, I wasn’t more motivated or more capable. I was just stuck.

That’s the bit that gets lost. We’ve been taught that struggling is how you know you’re doing it properly. So when something reduces the struggle, it can feel wrong, even when it’s the thing that actually makes the work possible.

There’s a difference between avoiding thinking and being able to think at all.

One thing that’s come up again and again in conversations this week is that a lot of neurodivergent people aren’t struggling because they lack ability. They’re struggling because the way work is structured doesn’t match how they think.

Without support, that shows up as being stuck, overwhelmed, or quietly disengaging. And it gets misread as a performance problem when it isn’t one.

The work itself in tech often suits neurodivergent brains. But the structures around it don’t.

So the real question is: how many people have we lost, or made feel like they don’t belong, because the “right way” to learn didn’t match how their brain actually works?

I’m an ADHD coach working with neurodivergent people in tech, and I also work with teams through talks and training. If this is something you’re seeing in your team, or something you’re experiencing yourself, you can book a free call on my appointments page.