Inattentive Behavior in Boys with ADHD During Classroom Instruction [pdf]
psy.fsu.edu
psy.fsu.edu
My mom decided I must have bipolar disorder just like my grandmother. At age 10 I was put on psychiatric drugs and that persisted for over 20 years. Any time I exhibited any intense emotion I would get yelled at and then it would probably trigger a fight.
As an adult I began to describe my experiences in my own words and doctors quickly undiagnosed me. 2 decades of doctors appointments, drugs, emotional abuse, dismissal, confusion.
There is no moral to this story.
People tend to think of ADHD as a focus issue. It’s more of a memory issue with corresponding compensation behaviors. Extreme ADHD is like watching the movie Memento, except the focal span is condensed from 5 minutes down to about 12-25 seconds and only about a third of the memories are lost. Imagine pouring a glass of milk and half way through you have forgotten you are in the middle of task until there is a mess. The most obvious indicator is misplacing things several times a day. Other indicators include strange repeated behaviors to compensate for memory loss like hiding things in weird locations so you can find them later only to have forgotten that you have hidden things and then run out of those things and not know where they are.
You might want to visit with a doctor to be evaluated for ADHD. There are medications that help, but they differ by person and medication with side effects.
Also, check out this channel, "How to ADHD." Here is her playlist on 'What is ADHD?' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMWtGozn5jU&list=PLvq9Tp5JZ8...
This is my biggest hindrance, illustrated: https://adhd-alien.tumblr.com/post/186747323969/my-totally-u...
However, a single person could have the same size <insert brain parts> as the average of 1,000 ADHD people and still not have ADHD, and a person could not have a significantly different sized <insert brain parts> and have ADHD.
To date, there is not a single biological marker nor empirical test that can be used to diagnose ADHD beyond a reasonable doubt.
But the reasons for faulty software are not necessarily understood.
(difference between a fault in structure vs. a fault in function)
It’s why it tends to show up in early childhood, and ‘get better’ as they get older and learn how to defend themselves and avoid the destructive people and environments that are gaslighting them into doing things that are decompensating for them (actually, for everyone - which is why normal people are often not in those environments). Or not, if they aren’t allowed to leave.
It’s also why the medication ‘stops working’ sometimes - the problem folks in the environment ramp up the abuse until the target is back in the confused/can’t remember what is going on state where they can be controlled.
When in an actually good environment, and directed in a way that they can/will do the things they need to do to take care of themselves appropriately, all of the memory issues, emotional regulation issues, etc. become quite manageable or even disappear. There is often a lot of PTSD though, which requires special help.
The challenge is that when abuse and destruction is present (but ‘not allowed to be seen’) from an early age, people develop protective blind spots for it.
It’s normal and ‘not abuse’, near as they can tell. And narcissistic abuse is all about not being seen - at least by anyone who can or will do anything about it.
And if it’s a parent doing it, seeing it requires rejecting a caregiver and role model - not an easy or often safe thing to do.
Depending on how long it was ongoing though, it could be years or decades to recover.
Abuse and neglect in the home is often the genesis of childhood "mental illness" but the industry can do jack-all about the home life of children.
ADHD, bipolar, and PTSD are clusters of disparate symptoms, different with every child. They are chiefly the symptoms which annoy and inconvenience parents, caregivers, school teachers and administrators. Therefore, the drugging of children is oriented toward suppressing and/or eliminating these annoyances so that the people in authority can go about their business without having said authority challenged by uppity children who act out.
My niece was not yet in 8th grade before the Catholic school proposed to drug her as well, and I know full well what sorts of domestic troubles she had undergone throughout her short life. I pity the children who endure such things but can't escape them. What are we going to do, break up 60% of families because their parents suck and they are permanently damaging all their offspring?
It's tragic, and it's left me with the prospect of lifelong therapy to become normal, but there is healing and hope, and people do get better, despite the setbacks and damage caused by drugs, clinics, and hospitalization.
One thing I would like to add - the medication can be the least bad option, if or when the situation is not actually addressable in a useful way otherwise.
When someone has bad pain, unless it meaningfully is helping them to have it, it’s cruel to not give them pain medication. It just makes everything else harder.
Same for ADHD meds.
Untreated ADHD is worse than treated ADHD in every significant metric, at least for any given moment, as fighting an already lost battle against circumstances outside of your control isn’t going to be better than finding a way to somehow tolerate or cope with them.
The challenge comes when the circumstances can actually be addressed in some other way that can actually make things better - leaving, fighting back (successfully!), having an authority figure with the actual strength and resources to actually help instead of making it worse, counter manipulating/lying, finding a way to take ownership of the shit and somehow make it work, etc.
Which, knowing the actual right course of action is nearly impossible for the person being victimized, and is rarely in the list of options being considered by said authority figure when it’s a kid involved. But, kids are resourceful and while we may not be happy with how they do it, for all of human history they’ve been figuring it out - or dying trying.
Without that, the medication just leaves someone stuck in a broken situation, albeit better functioning. Which is better than being stuck and not! But less than ideal.
ADHD treatment has so much better long term outcomes when it’s medication + therapy, rather than either just on its own, and I think that is why.
The medication can give someone the strength (chemical or not, it still helps) to actually do the other work and see it through. Even when it’s really hard and scary.
That said, nature vs nurture, selection bias, etc.
Has that been established? This says causes are uncertain: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/attention-deficit-hyperactivit...
Ever seen someone with ADHD fixated on something? Memory is not a problem within that topic.
But I still can't remember where I put my wallet, phone and keys.
I was this person. I watched my dad be the person all his life, watching my mom both enable and resent him for it. Then I realize what a nuisance he was to those around him, and how embarrassing it was that he seemingly can't take care of himself.
Now I have a cross body "man-purse", I've traveled half a dozen countries in a year and haven't lost a single thing. My wallet, my keys, my yubikey, my sunglasses, my backup meds, they have exactly one place they're allowed to be, and they're always there when I go to grab them.
Most ADHD sufferers do not experience apathy but instead intense anxiety as their executive function is at odds with their goals.
It's not a matter of simply thinking your way out of what is a very real, biological disorder. The ADHD brain fundamentally lacks the same dopamine receptors as a normal brain, among other mutations. These mutations have elaborate psychological manifestations.
Some of us are able to improve with sustained practice, but even reaching a state of sustained practice can be a Sisyphean task for many.
Can confirm. This is an extremely good way of putting it.
I'm leaving the house, I grab the purse. It cut down multiple-times-a-week adhd-fueled returns home to one a month. Has this cured my ADHD? No! Has it made literally every day of my life easier and more manageable because I'm not stressed about forgetting something, or making my partner late to work? Absolutely!
Many of my ADHD friends still struggle with this, and I even on occasion will let a few dishes stack up on my desk while working for long bouts of time.
A lot of ADHD issues stem around the delayed reward system getting screwed up, and the best antidote for this is extreme proactiveness, doing everything immediately. It's too easy to wake up, say "I'll brush my teeth in a few minutes" and then hyperfocus for 16 hours straight until you fall asleep.
ADHD is its own worst enemy and building coping mechanisms or changing habits can be incredibly difficult when the nature of the disorder involves difficulty with sticking to new routines. This can be compounded heavily if there is comorbidity with OCD, PTSD, etc.
I have an issue with executive function. And I often hate myself for it. "Caring" has never helped.
That doesn't mean you care and everyone doesn't, it means you figured out a way to avoid the issue entirely.
Yeah, I have ADHD and a purse. Idk why this is somehow a controversial thing to say. I can sit here and say wah, or I can figure out better tools that work for me.
I used to lose sunglasses monthly, lost my wallet more times than I can count as an adult, missed appointments, constantly had to "go back" for something I'd forgotten or left behind. Constantly.
I have to be more pro-active than other people but I realize I'm just going to get downvoted more for suggesting that ADHD and symptoms are manageable and have workarounds.
That kind of self-discipline and solution come naturally to people with exceptionally high conscientiousness even if they have minor ADHD. For people with serious ADHD and these kinds of rituals don’t work because the will to consider and apply them is completely absent. It isn’t a personality defect. It’s impaired hardware.
Without the intense focus, sure there is a working memory issue. What's actually happening is the working memory is being lost to rapid context switching.
I did have a biology teacher that marked me down because I “didn’t look like I was paying attention” in class because I didn’t look like how most people focus on a lecture, but I retained as much info as anyone.
There is a greater than 60% overlap in symptoms between ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorder. The distinction is as clear as ADHD is more directly tied to memory issues and ASD is not while ASD is more directly tied to lost processing of social framing and ADHD is not.
This means that brain signals are not carried correctly, and the signals may be carried to the wrong part of the brain. This, in part, leads to the well known symptoms of ADHD afaik.
So memory definitely a secondary issue.
Although persons with ADHD have lesser DRD2 and possibly lesser DRD4 receptors using prescribed medication to raise serotonin production reduces the urge to hyper stimulate and thus drives behavior towards a more normal homeostasis, which then also solves for the forgetfulness.
Do you have more resources that educate about ADHD from this perspective?
If you are concerned that you might have ADHD I recommend an evaluation by general physician.
I took the WAIS-IV and was told that I do not "technically" have an IQ since I have ADHD and the tests are not designed nor calibrated to measure intelligence in populations other than neurotypicals. Doesn't mean I cannot be given a score, just that it's not technically "accurate."
I am quite dubious of IQ testing to begin with. But for the sake of adding to your comment, I had 2.5 standard deviations between some of my scores. I was significantly stronger in my VCI and PRI than my WMI and PSI.