Three Brains, One House: Living (and Creating) in Organized Chaos

Oct 8, 2025

If you visit our house today, you'd be forgiven for believing that a LEGO convention, a vintage fair, and a creative agency collectively thought they'd move in together and forgot to unpack.

There are camera lenses on the counter, retro collectibles waiting for their facebook market photoshoot, a couple of half-built LEGO sets on the dining table, and bins—literal bins—of color-sorted bricks stacked in the corner like some kind of postmodern sculpture.

And no, we’re not dirty people. We’re just visually loud.

See, there are three of us here: me, my wife Cynthia, and seven-year-old grandson Kai—and all three of us are neurodivergent. ADD all the way through. Three brains wired for curiosity, creativity, and chaos. It's like a snow globe you live in that somebody shook… and then everybody agreed it looked good that way.

My Mess, Her System, His Tornado

Cynthia's a LEGO whisperer. She's the kind of person who'll pick up a Rubbermaid bin of mixed bricks at a garage sale and somehow deconstruct just which sets it originally came from—right down to the mini-figures. Then she'll spend hours sorting and categorizing, creating order from disorder. She's a by-the-book LEGO fanatic.

Kai, on the other hand, builds from pure instinct. He'll make a spaceship out of helicopter kit, add wheels from a truck, a dragon tail, and a mini-fig sticking upside down on top, and it's a "flying base of doom." Then he'll drop it randomly somewhere in the house and then move on to free build something else.

And me? I'm caught in the middle. I love the idea of structure—systems, order, straight lines—but my brain lives in the gray area where creativity and distraction share a bunk bed. My workspace is a design show crime scene: neat stacks of projects left undone, cameras sitting in wait for my next nudge of inspiration, sticky notes that form a constellation only I can interpret.

The thing is, Cynthia's "order" can jumpstart me, and my "creative piles" can drive her bananas. In the meantime, Kai's whirlwind LEGO tornado splits the middle, touching no bin or floor tile without a tornado of its own. It's beautiful and crazy-making all. And whatever you do, don’t ever open our closets.

The ADD Dance of Organized Chaos

If you're neurodivergent, you recognize this dance. Our spaces reflect the way our minds operate—rapid, non-linear, emotionally attached to particular objects, and powered by dopamine.

ADHD and creative behavior studies pretty much say we're novelty junkies whose working memory is a sieve. We seek out stimulation because our dopamine equipment doesn't hum along baseline; we need newness, texture, and material reminders in order to stay engaged. (Clinical ADHD manuals on clutter control actually refer to this as "visual cueing and externalized memory.")

And those piles, bins, and projects? They're not mess. They're our operating system.

Cynthia’s sorted LEGO bins are her way of creating dopamine through completion—tiny wins, visual satisfaction, a sense of mastery. Kai’s chaotic builds are the opposite side of the same chemical coin—novelty, freedom, and imagination feeding the same circuitry.

And me? I hover between the two poles, collecting things and ideas, stuffing space with visual information so I won't forget them. If I can't see it, it doesn't exist. Out of sight, out of mind isn't a cliché—it's a survival fact when your head is as much a mess as mine.

That's why "organized chaos" works. until it implodes.

When the System Crashes

Here’s where it gets tricky. What feels like “flow” to one of us can look like “implosion” to another.

Cynthia’s version of chaos is a 10,000-piece LEGO project mid-sort—systematic, categorized, temporarily messy but deeply purposeful. Kai’s is an explosion of imagination across every horizontal surface. Mine is… well, visual entropy with intent.

But when our universes bump against each other—when her garbage cans overlap his trash and my photography gear finds itself somewhere in between—that's when the peace treaty breaks down.

She'll say, "I can't think in this chaos."

I'll say, "It's not chaos—it's progress."

Kai will grumble, "Grandpa, you crushed my ship."

And to be honest, he's probably right.

It's not that we're fighting over neatness—it's control and comfort.

ADHD brains crave stimulation, but of our own choosing. Other people's stimuli are equivalent to static. That's why my cluttered desk doesn't bother me, but Cynthia's antique-flip prop table is like a whirlwind in the corner of my eye. And vice versa.

If two or more ADD/ADHD people live or work together, you don't have messy rooms—you have competing dopamine economies. Everyone's trying to reach balance, but with different exchange rates.

How the Science Explains Our Storm

Jumping into the research gave me words for what we live day to day.

ADHD is not about "messiness" in the villainous sense—it's about executive function, the brain's project manager. It's the system that plans, prioritizes, sequences, and gets it done. When it's underpowered, even small decisions—where to place a thing—can clog the works. You tell yourself, "I'll do it later," but later never comes.

Insert the ADHD feedback loop: messiness causes overwhelm → overwhelm disables executive function → things stack higher → shame creeps in. (We will come to that one in the next series. It has a chapter of its own.)

Physiologically, there's also a stress reaction. Studies on "clutter anxiety" discover that cluttered environments elevate cortisol levels, the body's stress hormone. That's why I can walk into the same room with Cynthia and have our nervous systems leap instantaneously—each of us tuned to a different frequency of "too much."

And sensory overload. Neurodiverse brains feel visual noise more intensely. Clutter isn't just cluttered, it's noisy. Our brains are directed towards each incomplete task and each object's emotional tag. No wonder creative intensity comes in bursts—it's not sloth; it's bandwidth triage.

Love, Lego, and Dopamine

The irony is that what overwhelms us is the same thing that bonds us.

We both have the excitement of "the hunt"—her finding an old camera in a garage sale or me finding an out-of-the-ordinary bit of creative technology. That hit of dopamine is pure magic. It's curiosity earned.

Kai’s in that same loop, just smaller scale. He’ll rummage through bins for an hour to find the exact transparent blue 1x2 brick that “makes it fly.” Then he beams. That’s dopamine, right there in a seven-year-old grin.

So while the house looks like chaos, it’s also connection.

Cynthia’s sorting calms her. Kai’s building frees him. My tinkering feeds me.

We're three ADD brains trying to balance, create, and occupy space—and somehow it holds together, even when it's crazy.

When "Too Much" Becomes… Too Much

Every now and then the balance shifts. It's usually little things that set it off — one too many boxes in the hallway, a new camera I "swear I'll put away later," or Kai announcing the living room rug is an airport.

We'll look around and sort of sigh at the same time.

It's not that we mind the mess in itself. It's the noise of it — the visual white noise. Every thing is like calling out to us, gently whispering: hey, don't you remember me? you were meant to fix/sort/list/build me…

That's the nasty part. The same things that get us moving also guilt-trip us. They have unstatisfied energy.

And when you’ve got ADHD, that energy gets heavy, fast.

Research talks about “clutter anxiety” — how the brain, especially an ADHD brain, reads a messy environment as unfinished business. The visual cues pile up, overloading working memory. Your executive function — the part that plans, prioritizes, and follows through — gets hijacked. Suddenly, you’re not just looking at stuff. You’re feeling it.

And when that mental weight hits a critical mass, it's like your brain blue-screens. You crash.

For Cynthia, that usually looks like hyperfocus mode — she'll work for hours sorting, cleaning, re-categorizing bins until everything is snapped back into place. I'm the polar opposite. I'll freeze. I'll start a dozen "cleanup" micro-tasks and finish zero of them. Kai… well, Kai just keeps building right on through. Smart kid.

The Emotional Whiplash of Mess

It’s wild how fast that switch happens: from “look at our creative haven” to “I can’t breathe in here.”

I’ve learned that it’s not about dirt — it’s about control. Or more accurately, the illusion of control.

As soon as things begin to stack up, our ADHD brain thinks that means lost momentum. Each uncompleted task feels like a judgment of our ability, even when it's not. That's where the emotional aspect creeps in — guilt, frustration, self-blame.

We’ll sometimes project that onto each other too. I’ll glance at her side of the room and think, how can she work in that?Meanwhile, she’s eyeing my gear pile thinking, he’s one camera short of a landfill.

But deep down, it’s not about the other person’s mess — it’s about our own overwhelmed systems.

That's when I try (and fail) to inhale and remind myself: we're all just struggling to self-regulate.

Cynthia's getting organized.

I'm fiddling.

Kai's building.

Different iterations of the same coping mechanism.

We're all in search of dopamine, calm, and a feeling that our world is—if not tidy—at least our own.

The Difference Between My Mess and Yours

One of the most fascinating things that I've learned is that ADHD mess is very individualized.

My mess" is a system.

"Your mess" is a threat.

It's like we each have a personal map of importance folded away in the chaos. I can show you precisely which pile holds the notebook with the cool product sketching I did last month. Cynthia can rummage through a box and pull out the one stray piece from a 2013 LEGO set without having to search. Kai can recall which dinosaur guards which space station.

But if somebody else rearranges it? Out of luck. That mental map is broken instantly. It's not stubbornness; it's neurology. ADHD brains work powerfully with spatial memory—where we recall something was in our line of sight, not merely in our heads. So when something gets moved, our memory link is broken, and lo and behold, we're off spinning around in perplexity and frustration.

That's why Cynthia and I have learned (slowly, and sometimes the hard way) Dont mess with my space…lol

We coexist better if we respect each other's systems—however insane they seem.

When the Clutter Starts to Talk Back

And then, naturally, there is the quieter, darker alternative.

Once clutter lingers long enough, it starts to whisper. Not really, of course, but you sense it: that low growl of unfinished, that whisper of not enough.

That's the yucky stuff no one wants to talk about. That steady loss of self-esteem that comes from hovering over the same mess and wondering, Why can't I just…?

It ain't laziness. It's executive dysfunction. The brain's task manager just freezes up. And if you live in a neurodivergent household, that freeze can spread. If one person gets stuck, the others can catch on. The vibe changes. It's quiet but real.

We've all had those nights — when everything feels heavier than it is. The piles look bigger. The house feels small. That's when I remind myself (and sometimes out loud, because, well, ADHD): "We're not messy. We're just overloaded."

And nine times out of ten, that's the truth.

Finding the Reset

This is what we must do to collaborate on or some of what has worked for us—not perfectly, but well enough to keep the boat above water:

Micro-zones. Everybody has their "creative chaos" zone. No judging, no intrusion. If it's in your space, it's sacred. Beyond your space, it's fine to reboot.

Visible storage. We all understand that bins and boxes have to show what they contain. If we can't see it, I mean come on, it could just as well not be there. Out of sight = out of mind = six more copies bought next week.

The 10-minute reset. We try to have one quick reset a day. No marathon cleaning, but more like "let's make it 10% more breathable." It is enough to lower the stress level without killing our dopamine buzz.

Double up. If we feel like it is impossible—to clean Kai's room, for instance—we double up. It is incredible how having another person present in the room shifts the motivation chemistry of the brain.

The "good enough is done" rule. Perfectionism is the enemy of progress. 80% done is a win. Go grab yourself a drink.

Do we always follow it? Not by a long way. But when we do, the house hums differently. It is as if the mess has its twinkle back instead of smothering.

Living in the Storm

What I’ve realized—after years of trying to “fix” the chaos—is that the goal isn’t to eliminate it. It’s to learn how to live inside it without drowning.

Our chaos tells our story. The LEGO towers, the half-listed vintage finds, the camera gear, the creative projects—they’re proof of motion, curiosity, and imagination. They’re the artifacts of three active minds building worlds in real time.

There is something lovely in that. It's not tidy, but it's real.

And the older I get, the more I think the true victory isn't a perfectly tidy room—it's a silent one. A place where we can see and draw strength from, not defeat.

Sometimes that involves laughing at it. Sometimes it involves stomping on a LEGO and grumbling curses under my breath while Cynthia tells me, "See? It wouldn't have occurred if it was in its right place."

But most of the time, it involves acceptance.

This is what we are.

Three ADHD brains in one home, spinning around each other's chaos and imagination, trying to love the process not the perfection.

The Next Thing I Need to Say

If there's still a ghost that quietly slips in, though—it's shame.

It's what accompanies on the ride with ADHD. It's a whisper more seductive than the mess sometimes.

But that's another day.

Because for the present, I'm choosing to see the mess as motion.

It's evidence we're living, we're making and creating, we're still curious.

And if that means the floor remains a little loud and the table a little busy—eh, count me in.

This is our type of order.

Handsome, tiring, and very, very human.

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