All these ADHD memes have several times made me think if there’s a light version?

But from what I understand everyone can experience ADHD “symptoms” from time to time, but people who are diagnosed with it have symptoms that are several orders of magnitude more intense.

Think of it like this.

Your whole life your foot has been getting more and more swollen. You don’t know why. It impedes every facet of your life but it’s never consistent. Some days it is swollen and hard to run on. Other days you can sprint no problem but standing still is what hurts. Other days it is killing you no matter what you do. But you push on and over years you learn to adapt, humans are good at that. You find ways to relieve the pressure when the standing days happen, find ways to keep running even if you want to tear off your limb. You get through it. You make do. You’re never comfortable, you’re never fine, you’re never completely okay but you make do and you’ve come to terms with that.

And then one day someone sees your foot and says “Oh, that’s arthritis. Yeah there’s some meds you can take that will massively reduce pain, swelling, allow you to run and stand whenever you want. Just gotta find a doc to help with it.”

Are you going to keep running on that foot? Or is it even the slightest bit worth it to try and get a little relief after suffering for so long?

It’s weird, isn’t it? I was diagnosed as an adult, just a couple of years ago, and it was surreal how much sense it made of my entire life. I’m now on guanfacine which makes me feel like I have a superpower, but it’s really just being able to remember things, notice more things, and concentrate for more than two seconds.

I feel like the more you understand how your brain works, the more you learn how to work around it.

Full disclosure: I’m not diagnosed, but on a waitlist for ADD - for over a year now and it’s not moving, but I digress. I am diagnosed with autism though.

To me it feels like my brain is a wildwater. You can’t control it, but if you change the environment around it, you can guide it into useful directions. I’m lucky that by now the people around me have accepted it and are able to laugh with me when I fuck up. We have a lot of systems in place to reign in the worst effects, and the more we get used to it the easier it gets not to fall into traps and not to be unreliable.

I guess I’m working on my skills as a mindbender who tricks my brain into being useful while still allowing it to get that dopamine?

It’s not that you don’t have attention, what your lacking is the control over your attention. This means that you have a harder time directing your attention to what is “necessary”.

The result of this might be not being able to focus your attention on something, but it can show also as not being able to shift the attention away from something.

It’s actually not two different sides but rather the same.

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There are certain aspects of ADHD that would be disordered in any societal structure.

I have been so hyperfixated on something that I have been completely oblivious to my own body’s signals. As a result I have had accidents, developed UTIs, ended up in the ER with electrolyte imbalances, and dislocated several joints.

ADHD and joint Hypermobility are closely linked and while more studies are needed to understand exactly why and how, a lot of people with ADHD also meet criteria for Hypermobility spectrum disorders. In my case, I’ll be focused on a task and I won’t realise I’m clenching my jaw too firmly until the sudden sensation of undeniable pain sweeps over me and I realise my jaw has dislocated. Or ill be struggling with transitioning from a task to a rest, even though my knees are in agony, I can’t seem to force myself to stop.

ADHD is also inherently linked to circadian rhythm disorders, and while yes, delayed sleep phase disorder is only truly a disorder if you’re forcing yourself into a 9-5 lifestyle, ADHD sleep issues are more than just the shifting of the phases. A lot of people with ADHD will describe the sensation of sleep as being “passing out”, because of the way our brains (fail to) regulate dopamine, the way serotonin and melatonin is secreted to create drowsiness is also impacted.

I don’t get tired or sleepy, I get headaches and blurred vision and spasms in my back, and then I know that I can fall asleep if I lie down. I take sublingual melatonin tincture (I find it works better than tablets) and it’s such a strange phenomenon because about 15 minutes after I take it I feel my eyes are heavy and my body is calm and my mind ia slower, aka, sleepy. I don’t experience that without the help of supplements.

And sure there’s the argument that you “people with ADHD used to be on night watch duty”, but sleep deprived people make shit guards. If I’m not physically able to fall asleep until I’m “overtired”, and if being tired makes my ADHD symptoms worse, then I’m no good for anything.

It’s also not like hyperfixations are a super power (God I hate that way of framing things) I can’t choose when or why they happen. If I could, I’d be good at just job, instead, I’m loosing all sensation in my feet because I’m stuck in a fixation trying to pick at the skin on my thighs because I spotted one single ingrown hair while I had my pants down sitting on the toilet. Now it’s 40 minutes later, my alarm is going off in the other room, and I’m frozen, unable to transition away from this task.

ADHD is a spectrum, and for many people there are strengths, but it’s most definitely a disorder and for a lot of people, even if we lived in the most utopian ADHD friendly society, there are still internal issues to face.

For the record, I am unmedicated and always have been due to a heart condition, so maybe my view on the condition would change if I had different treatment and management options available to me.