> When my ADHD colleague’s tasks were overdue and dragging the critical path, her response was not what I expected, which would have been to slash the scope just to get completion of core functions in the deliverable. Instead, she’d start new extraneous tasks, and insist on getting my feedback, which I think required praise.

The ADHD brain can't break down tasks into bite sized chunks in some situations. You should have given the praise. Possibly also of taken over and assisted in, one-on-one, breaking those tasks down. my reasoning for this is that the ADHD brain needs reassurance and dopamine hits. She wasn't getting ANY from herself and the only way she saw to get something, even if it was negative, was to make the scope larger and make it more novel or interesting. dont even ask if she wants help in breaking down a project. just do it. do it before hand. if you're all on a team at work or whatever then help eachother out actively.

EDIT: do you know what is the most fun for people on the ADHD spectrum (and i think just engineers in general but there is a critical difference)? planning out a thing. making that list. coming up with ideas. sketching it out. everything up until DOING THE ACTUAL THING. there is no reward in that. nothing. no one is going to see us struggling and working and doing the repetitive task or coding or whatever the thing is. but hell, our brain lit up like a christmas tree when we were together with everyone talking about ideas for the thing. that was awesome!

> I declined to comment, fearing making things worse by unveiling criticism instead of the desired praise. I just said sorry, I can’t put my attention to that at this point; I must focus on the one thing I’m doing myself now so I can make my own deadline.
> She was furious, and withdrew, then abandoned the project.

i would have been PISSED off if you did that to me. oh, so you're so fucking good at things that you just DECIDED that you can't pay attention to the thing i'm struggling with. mister/miss no struggles? oh you gotta fuckin' focus? great cool, guess you only care about yourself and your deadline even though we're fucking collegues and not rivals! I QUIT!

that's... what i'd say...

> Another friend who has an ADHD diagnosis and an education about useful clinical responses, told me that what I saw was common. She said it’s “the cycle of shame”, which she herself had repeated in the past ad nauseum before she’d obtained assistance from new clinical approaches.
> What is the cycle of shame? I took it to mean that the ADHD colleague knew the task overrun was deliterious to the project, but was powerless to respond other than to start a fresh (extraneous) task, which only made matters worse for the team, but apparently more tolerable for herself in the short term, but ultimately she had to live with the shame?

cycle of shame is REALLY hard to describe because its per individual. but everyone pretty much with ADHD is a failure in their head. no matter how successful we are. no matter how many little wins we structure for ourselves. at the end of the day we are broken, physiologically, our brains aren't giving us what we need from the tasks we do. even in a perfect situation where we dont need to work and only find our own joy in life there just is a general "ugh i know i have all these fun hobbies and projects that i myself have set up for myself to do but i cant do anything. no i'm not depressed. i have absolutely zero in the tank for even enjoyable things. i have no volition left." every hit of dopamine that matters is exogenous or from extremes but not from the everyday monotony.