Conversation

Really interesting chat with a clinician about ADHD and his philosophies regarding it and medication just now:

He didn’t think it’s a disorder unless we say it is, I.e. it’s causing us problems and we haven’t got a way around it.

Does think adult ADHD is different to child ADHD, and likes to say ADH (without the D for disorder) is part of who we are, naturally. He doesn’t work with children / assess them, though, so a caveat there.

Does believe in working with our nature, and also using medication as and when needed: when it feels like a disorder or stopping us from doing what we genuinely want to do. But shouldn’t be used as a productivity tool.

He suggested ADHD medications could help us to “understand what you’re working towards”. Like a journey of understanding. Remove / reduce the distractions and we find out what we’re left with when those obstacles are no longer taking up all that time and energy, and we find out if what we are left doing with our time and energy is what we want after all.

He was very strong about saying it is not about us “not being capable”. Medication is a way to support a journey of finding out what we want to be doing.

Most interesting viewpoint was the idea that ADHD is a coping mechanism for strong emotions, I.e. after some kind of traumas it became a way of coping with strong emotions, then became something like a habit of the subconscious kind (not literally the same as a habit). Said it’s not about dopamine lack, but challenges in its ‘availability’ at the right time because dopamine is often accessible with distractions / night before deadlines etc. We learned to distract ourselves from things that cause negative emotional consequence - and as adults that includes things that we think MIGHT cause negative emotional consequences. The latter means it can look like self-sabotage (my words). He said that for this reason (predicting potential negative consequences), distractions tended to be more likely when we are doing things we care a lot about. I.e. there’s more to lose if it goes wrong, so we distract ourselves to cope with the fear of failure (my interpretation). We/others might assume we don’t care about something enough if we’re too distracted when actually the opposite is likely true.

[SECOND EDIT to add: learned this subconsciously, not a conscious choice, not like a regular habit either.]

When he shared this last part I asked if he thought people could potentially cure themselves of ADHD if they addressed the emotional parts, address trauma, found better coping mechanisms - a tricky and loaded question, I know, but I felt he was almost ‘going there’ anyway…

He didn’t answer directly. I believe that was on purpose. He instead kept talking about ‘ADH’ being who we are now as adults, or not being a disorder by default, or bad. That it can be and is good. Was talking about working with our nature, not against it and definitely not trying to hide who we are for other people.

Interesting! Lots to ponder. He had a fantastic way with words.

I’m curious about other ADHD-ers thoughts on this.

I haven’t read or heard similar ideas but I’d love to know if books or blogs exist that talk about theories and philosophies like this. [Edit to add: NOT necessarily looking for anything focused on ‘cures’!! 😅 But on ADHD generally, ADHD life philosophies, ADHD wellbeing, non-medicated ways of supporting ourselves, etc. I already read a lot about autism, so this is just about ADHD, perhaps including AuDHD. Cures is a big, hairy, topic I am happy to avoid!]

@actuallyadhd @actuallyautistic @actuallyaudhd #ADHD

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