Stop Finishing My Sentences (Even If You're Right)

Working in a creative agency full of ADHD and neurodivergent brains is... amazing. Also chaotic. Also sometimes rage-inducing, but in a deeply loving way.

There’s this thing that happens—especially between ADHD folks—that I’ve come to recognize like clockwork. Two people mid-convo, both caffeinated, both excited, both riding an idea wave. One person starts a thought—let’s call them “me”—and the other one, also me in a different meeting, jumps in halfway through and finishes the sentence.

And here’s the kicker: they’re usually right. Which somehow makes it worse.

See, when your brain works like mine, talking isn’t just about sharing an idea—it’s about forming it. Speaking it out loud is the process. That’s how it gets real. It’s not fully cooked until it’s traveled from brain to mouth to air. So when someone jumps in and wraps it up before I do, even if they nail it, it feels like they just grabbed the steering wheel while I was still merging. Like—congrats, you predicted where I was going, but I was still enjoying the drive.

And if you’re ADHD too, you get it. You’re not trying to be rude. You're just excited. Your brain saw the pattern, zipped three moves ahead, and blurted it out like a game show buzzer. I do it too. We all do it. It's basically our agency’s unofficial communication style: well-meaning interruptions and five people trying to speak at once, none of us finishing a sentence in linear time.

But man, it can be exhausting.

Especially when you’ve got a room (or Slack thread, or Zoom call) full of creatives who all think by externalizing. We talk to shape the idea, not just to share it. That back-and-forth? It’s sacred. It’s messy and nonlinear and sometimes one of us launches into a metaphor involving ducks or time travel and somehow it makes sense by the end. But only if we get to finish the thought.

And then... there’s the client meeting.

The Client Meeting Spiral of Death

It’s one thing when this happens behind the scenes, in the creative war room, where everyone’s bouncing off the walls and finishing each other’s thoughts like it’s some kind of ADHD improv game. Annoying? Yes. Chaotic? Definitely. But at least there’s a shared understanding that we’re all functioning on the same scrambled brain frequency.

But in front of clients? That’s where things get dicey.

You’re mid-thought, building up to something important—maybe it’s a pitch angle, maybe it’s a strategic point that’s finally starting to crystallize in your head. You’re doing that thing where you talk your way into the idea, letting it reveal itself one word at a time. And then... someone from your own team jumps in. Finishes your sentence. Says the wrong thing. Or the almost right thing, which is somehow worse.

Now the rhythm’s broken. The thought derailed. Everyone’s suddenly looking at them—and your idea, the one you were still shaping, is now hovering somewhere in the ether, unfinished and unspeakable. And you’re sitting there blinking, trying to rewind your brain like a VCR that just ate the tape.

Because again, this isn’t just about ego. It’s about the process. About how the act of saying something is how it becomes real. If someone jumps in and cuts that short, it doesn’t just feel like a rude interruption—it feels like something vital got stolen. And now you’re stuck trying to recover a mental breadcrumb trail that already blew away in the wind.

It’s incredibly frustrating. Sometimes even painful. Because what started as excitement or support ends up hijacking the exact process we rely on to do our best thinking.

So What Do We Do?

Honestly? I wish I had a perfect answer. We’re all doing our best out here, ping-ponging between hyperfocus and distraction, trying to collaborate in ways that respect each other’s weird, wonderful processing styles.

But here’s what I’ve started telling my team—especially the ones wired like me: Let each other land. Even if you know where they’re going. Even if you’re excited. Even if you think you’re saving time or helping clarify.

Because it’s not always about being right. Sometimes the magic is in the pause, the breath, the mess of getting there. Interrupt that, and what was supposed to feel like a spark just feels... interrupted.

And none of us are here to kill sparks. We’re here to light fires.

More From This ADHD Circus Tent

If this story made you nod, laugh, or aggressively point at your screen like “yes, that’s me”—you might like a few of these other brain-scrambled adventures from the creative trenches. Same flavor, same chaos, maybe even a duck metaphor or two.

The Broken Clock of Friendship: ADHD,
Time and the Myth of Neglect
Three Brains, One House

FURTHER READING, SOURCES & DEEP DIVES:

https://www.healthline.com/health/adult-adhd
Healthline - Medically reviewed guide spotting ADHD in adults, including the "compulsion to finish other people's sentences" and impulsive communication patterns.

https://chadd.org/attention-article/adhd-in-relationships-finding-intimacy-when-the-world-feels-very-different/
CHADD Attention Magazine - How ADHD impulsivity and communication challenges affect relationships, with practical strategies for connection.

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2024/04/adhd-managing-emotion-dysregulation
American Psychological Association - Research on emotional dysregulation in ADHD, explaining why interrupting and impulsive comments happen.