Not Just an Excuse - Dopamine Channels

Dopamine Channels

We aim to visualize your metaphors/ analogies through video content for the Dopamine Channels.

The goal is to amplify the lived experiences of the ADHD community and to help people understand us a little better.

Or please call our voicemail line here:

+44 117 441 8898

We understand that making phone calls can be difficult for Neurodiverse peoples, so to help with the call-anxiety, this will be a one-way call to an answering machine - please talk for as long as you'd like.

*No diagnosis is required*

Please note: all voicemails will be recorded.

Selected metaphors will be transformed into video and audio clips, allowing your unique experience to be part of the conversation.

"My brain feels like/ sounds like it's full of bees.

On the outside I look calm and easy going. But inside my head all my thoughts feel like busy bees that don't have a moment to spare. There's so many of them, its a hive of activity, and I can't decide which one to focus on first. This highlights the aspect of lack of focus/ distraction. But can also relate to brain fog and decision making. "

Sophie - Taunton, UK

"My AuDHD brain looks like two people pulling a cord in opposite directions until one of them wins and it breaks, causing complete shut down (burn out)"

Iona - Bristol, UK

"My brain feels like that firework that sends wiggly lights off in lots of different directions. "

Jo - Bristol, UK

"My brain feels like a chemistry experiment. The classic 'volcano' vinegar and baking soda one. There is so much potential locked up in the reactants.... Sometimes the product formed is so messy, everything is coated in gunk and it feels like a disaster. Other times, its like when your teacher says 'just wait, you're going to love this' and the reaction doesn't happen or is just really underwhelmingly crap."

Ceri - Bristol, UK

"My brain feels like it has electrically energetic blue flames surrounding it an every time I get too many thoughts or overwhelmed the heat gets too intense and become flamin orange making it even impossible to approach a single task . But once regulated the flame go back to a calm energetic blue"

A1 Vanguard - Bristol, UK

"My brain feels like it is always trying to sabotage me.
My brain looks like it’s stuck together with some cheap tape that could fall apart being held up by a fraying string.
My brain sounds like I am in a room of 100 people saying negative things about me. "

Bethan - Bristol, UK

"My brain looks shooting an arrow at a target and realising that I’ve shot 4 at once.
My brain is a dream machine without any practical steps/instructions to produce the dreams in ways that are easy to follow."

Patrick - Bristol, UK

"My brain feels like busy chaos. It’s like multiple tvs playing at once, but also different music playing and repetitive film sound bites. "

Abigail - Bristol, UK

"It might look like a pogo stick, bouncing erratically from one place to another. Sometimes, it feels like I’m cruising along inside a tunnel, with hypnotic music everywhere. Other times, it feels like paddling a dinghy upstream with a handful of spaghetti."

Charlie - Bristol, UK

"My brain feels like a pinball machine with 100 balls. There’s a loud ding everytime each one hits a wall and they’re moving very fast. "

Siân - Staffordshire, UK

"Frozen in time and space. It's gone onto malfunction mode, the TV broke and the fuzzy lines are buzzing over the screen - it's hard to tell which programme we're meant to be watching. Buzzzzz buzzzz buzzzz aaaaarrrrrggghhhh."

Claudia - Bristol, UK

"My brain feels like a computer with 4GB of RAM, a huge hard drive and a filing system that can only access files if a similar piece of information is inputted. "

Anonymous - London, UK

"My brain feels like a three dimensional complex matrix of the whole universe which I experience all of the time all at once. Colours, sounds, feelings and thoughts are vivid and vibrant but there are so many connections it’s easy to get lost in there! I’ve always seen my brain function in a very visual way.

Thoughts, actions, learning and memories are never experienced in straight lines but in lateral exponential expanding explosions of neural connections which is why my brain gets tired so quickly from processing information or retrieving it. It means I can learn and know things with deep understanding without formal learning just by how many connections my brain makes with all information all the time. It also means I understand complex things with ease and see patterns that others miss. I have a powerful visual imagination and amazing hand eye connection which means I can pick up physical skills with exceptional ease and am most happy and at ease when my hands are busy and my mind active. But on a cognitive level it also means I can miss or struggle to retrieve basic information because my brain is so busy. To call that a ‘careless mistake’ is highly offensive and to hear that phrase in your formal assessment is so disabling and disappointing. "

Paula - Bristol, UK

"This question is to daunting to reply.

Don't have the energy to.

I'm tired."

Paulina - Bali, Indonesia

"Feels and looks like a tangled fog.

It feels like I can't grasp onto any emotions or feelings properly"

Ryan - Bristol, UK

"My brain looks like a slot machine, constantly whirring with random symbols.

My brain feels like a colander.

My brain sounds like 7 radios playing at once.

My brain feels like a magnet, attracting the wrong things.

My brain feels like a dopamine desert.

My brain feels like a creative jungle. Beware, very few ideas will get out alive.

My brain feels alone, and it doesn't understand why.

My brain feels unique in its aloneness.

My brain feels like a double edged sword.

My brain looks like it has superpowers, but it also has superweaknesses. "

Dominic - Bristol, UK

"My brain feels like space in firstly the way it’s so large and full of the unknown, full of potential but no way for me to slow down the ship to see what’s there, at the same time empty space and sometimes I really do just feel lost, on a mission but the only one that can see it, always craving more time, always rushing, never present. My brain looks wartorn but there’s something lucky about it. My brain sounds like multiple people fighting to talk at once."

Anya - London, UK

"My brain feels like a never ending rollercoaster. My brain looks like a tornado. My brain sounds like a crowded bar during happy hour."

Ash - Boynton Beach, Florida, USA

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"A rollercoaster of chaos and stillness"

Anonymous - Long Island, NY, USA

"My brain feels like
A ball of yarn that’s vibrant, tangled, and endlessly textured. Each thread represents a thought, idea, or spark of creativity. Sometimes, the threads connect in unexpected ways, creating beautiful patterns, but other times, they knot and twist, making it hard to find the end. There’s an energy to it—constant motion, like fingers itching to knit something new before the current project is done.

My brain looks like
A kaleidoscope bursting with surrealist imagery—each shift reveals a new combination of colors, shapes, and ideas that never fully repeat. It’s like walking into a room filled with the Brooklyn Bridge archway: strings of lights glittering, ideas crossing like cobblestone paths, and arches framing boundless creative potential. There’s a sense of organized chaos, where beauty emerges from the mess.

My brain sounds like
An electric guitar solo, improvised and unrestrained. It shifts from soulful melodies to wild riffs, unpredictable but captivating. Layered over that are snippets of conversations, songs, and plans, like a radio flipping through stations. It’s noisy, sure, but there’s always a rhythm to it—a hum of productivity and potential, even in the chaos."

Leah - Manchester, UK

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"A tangled ball of wool. I can only get to short bits that aren’t within the knot. I can’t unravel it. Just access whatever is at the front of the tangled ball of wool. If I try to pull it… it gets more knotted. So I just have to process the bits that I can get to."

Cordi - Manchester, UK

"My brain feels like chat gpt and Gemini being used by someone else. It is constantly just generating huge amounts of information."

Jimmy - Birmingham, UK

"I tell people to imagine a cross road, a wide cross road with 4 lanes of traffic each way but no system. So there are vehicles everywhere and there's music playing every other car. Some are broken down and causing issues, some are trying to ram others out there way. It's constant and it's chaotic.

(I also tell people that my brain when I'm medicated is the exact same volume of traffic and there's still music and beeping but there's a traffic light system in place and it's ordered)"

Kelly - Straffordshire, UK

"A never ending stream of consciousness. I am always thinking of 100 scenarios and possible outcomes. It’s all i know! I sometimes can’t believe people don’t spend as much time up there thinking."

Jon - New York, New York, USA

"My brain feels like 100 ping pong balls forever bouncing in every direction at once. By the time I decide which ball(thought) to fixate on, my attention is captured by another."

Anonymous - Highland Rand, CO, USA

"Feel like windows 95. Looks like chaos, sounds like fireworks"

Josh - Bristol, UK