A Pilot's Guide to Flying a Brain Like Mine
Patrick BoardmanThe Book
ADHD: A Pilot's Guide to Flying a Brain Like Mine
A Memoir
Part memoir, part manifesto — this is the book for every mind that's been told it's too fast, too scattered, too much. Written by Patrick Boardman, licensed pilot and Assistive Technology Professional, from the cockpit of lived experience and grounded in peer-reviewed research.
What This Book Is About
A flight plan for the ADHD mind
Patrick Boardman spent most of his life being called lazy, careless, and too much — a smart kid who couldn't explain why the things that came easily to everyone else nearly destroyed him. It took a near-drowning in a Louisiana boat channel, a career built on an instant of wordless certainty, a marriage nearly lost to a list of every way he thought he'd fail, and a therapist's four quiet words — "you have ADHD" — before he finally understood the brain he'd been fighting his entire life.
ADHD: A Pilot's Guide to Flying a Brain Like Mine is not a manual. It's the true story of what happens when a restless mind finally gets the right instruments — told through the childhood that shaped it, the military service that structured it, the marriage that tested it, the crisis that nearly ended it, and the seventeen traits that, once named, changed everything. Grounded in named clinical research at every step, this is a memoir for anyone who has ever been told their brain is broken, when it was only ever flying differently.
"Your brain isn't broken. It's just flying differently."
— From the introduction
Chapter Preview
What's waiting inside
The Brown Water of Louisiana
A near-drowning in a Louisiana boat channel becomes the first, wordless lesson in surviving one moment at a time.
Sergeant Nightmare
Becoming a Drill Sergeant at nineteen — and discovering that structure and stakes can turn chaos into precision.
A List for Kim
A handwritten list of every way his brain might fail her — and the woman who read it and stayed anyway.
The Hole
The darkest six weeks of his life, and the single phone call that brought him back.
ADD is Awesome
Seventeen ADHD traits, reframed as superpowers — and a direct challenge to the reader to stop apologizing and start flying.
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