ADHD in Everything Everywhere All At Once
The lead character: Evelyn is a worse case scenario.
She's a prisoner of her ADHD. She's struggling. She's spinning plates. And she's at the limit in what she can do, but frustrated by mediocrity. In all her parallel lives we see echoes of her unrealised potential.
In some ways failing would be better - by letting the plates drop, you are freed of their obligation. But you do have a few broken plates, and sometimes that's hard to accept as necessary.
Evelyn hasn't failed yet. Her plates are starting to wobble, but they haven't yet dropped. This is why she's the chosen one. Because for her, any change is an improvement. A step up. Freeing her from obligations, or driving her to a choice.
This is why Waymond's letter is an important plot point - it looks like a set up for the later confusion about what they are talking about.
But actually it's him showing his insight and wisdom early. It's one plate he can "push" and help release Evelyn.
So we see her struggling with focus on taxes. On trying to do a bunch of different tasks badly. Of a failing tax audit, when she just can't focus on the important but boring agent in front of her.
And most of all the multiple short lived business ideas/hobbies she's trying to write off for tax purposes.
Joy also has undiagnosed ADHD. That's the heart of the plot. That intergenerational conflict between too people with difficulties in life, but because of that difficulty can't support the other.
Because they neither of them realise the other is struggling, because they don't recognise that something isn't normal. That's very common with ADHD, because it has a genetic component and a fairly high heritability.
But ADHD undiagnosed and untreated and unsupported can lead to Depression.
Jobu Tobaki is the personification of ADHD overload and burnout turning into nihilistic and destructive depression. What she says later on is that she just wants it to stop, and she can't take any more.
The Bagel is a representation of suicidal ideation. The call of the void. The desire for things to "just stop".
Part of why she is chasing Evelyn is a sense of self destructive vindication, but also pushing away the one person who might be able to stop her. Because she doesn't want to be stopped.
Depression is what steals away Joy.
And she cycles through the different masks in her destructive nihilism because she doesn't really understand who she is. She's a million different pieces. A cacophony. And an exhaustive overload.
It has to be this Evelyn though. The one at the lowest point. The one that might truly understand and be lured by the call of the void.
That's also why Evelyn can fight back - every jump is "better". She's a well of unrealised potential. That's what the line about how she can do anything because she's bad at everything is about. She's literally the 'seed' of all the other potential Evelyns can grow from.
Waymond though... He's her coping strategy. And his insight is crucially important.
Ironically perhaps the Alpha Waymond just doesn't understand. The reason they are losing the fight is because of his aphorisms of "just focus" is also a symbolic "how not to ADHD". "just focus" doesn't work. It can't work. Alpha Waymond is the 'hollywood lead character' trope, but can't win this war.
But by doing something other than "just try harder" is Evelyn taking control of her ADHD. Owning and accepting it, rather than struggling against it.
That makes her powerful - it unlocks a lot of her potential, and makes her nearly as strong as Jobu. She handily faces down everyone else.
But can't stop Jobu that way, because in doing that she makes herself exposed and vulnerable to the call of the void as well.
Waymond has to show her how to fight. You can't defeat depression with force. You can't bully it into submission. None of Evelyn's warrior spirit can help. It never could. That's what created Jobu in the first place. She wasn't capable of that sort of fight.
"You think because I’m kind that it means I’m naive, and maybe I am. It’s strategic and necessary. This is how I fight."
Waymond - her Waymond - is silly, he tries to make people laugh, and tries to be kind rather than clever. To be gentle rather than driven.
By learning that lesson - to fight with kindness. To pick up the googly eyes, to show a bit of silliness as the antidote to despair, she is able to reach Joy and pull her back from the edge of the void.
To show her how the "chosen one" who is the worst case scenario still thinks she matters. Who might have made mistakes, they have hurt and caused problems, but never intended it, and is ready to hold onto her despite everything.
And that's the finale really. The heart of it is that fighting with acceptance and kindness is exactly the way to defeat the despair that ADHD brings into your life. That ADHD doesn't go away - they don't fix either of them - but that with depression 'under control', it becomes something they can live with.