Comment by blueflow | Hacker News Reader

Comment by blueflow | Hacker News Reader

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I did not see environmental factors in your consideration.

I got ADHD and Autism diagnosed as teen, the diagnostic was rather solid. Got methylphenidate for some months. I ran away from home with 17, i moved together with my girlfriend (at 26) into an emotionally stable environment and... the symptoms disappeared. No jactation, no special interests, no masking. Everything just disappeared. A bit of stimming remains. And a horribly fucked up sleep cycles.

Had undiagnosed RAD and CPTSD for longer than i'm self-aware. Severe emotional neglect for my first 17 years. Parental rejection plays a big part in here.

I'd be like, maybe i'm just a special case, and nothing of this applies to other people. But i see other ADHD-havers being too similar to me, and that includes hypervigilance and silent walking, which are apt adaptions to certain kind of childhood environments.

Maybe too much gets diagnosed as ADHD that is not genetic at all...

CPTSD literally rewires your brain and "appears" in diagnostic tests as ADHD: lower arousal in prefrontal cortex, overactive amygdala causing fast emotional response, impacted hippocampus, dopamine disregulation, etc.

Stress changes the layout of your brain along with your body's chemical responses. With ADHD, genetics seem to play a larger role where you can lack the stressors and still end up with the same end result. I wouldn't be surprised that treatments would work across both CPTSD and ADHD.

> CPTSD literally rewires your brain and "appears" in diagnostic tests as ADHD

This seems unexpectedly one-sided to me. It could equally be that ADHD is CPTSD from something that current knowledge does not consider traumatic (yet).

The highly heritable aspect of ADHD makes that proposal a bit weird

CPTSD is inheritable by child rearing. Thats what makes trauma intergenerational. Runs through families like cluster B disorders.

Edit: I think in practice this looks like normalisation of neglect and violence within a family.

I am not sure the distinction goes in this direction. Rather than "shouldn't be diagnosed as ADHD" I would sooner say "ADHD should be treated in multiple ways"

It's very typical for there to be overlap between inevitability and environmental circumstances

The distinction might be useful for determining whether to prescribe stimulants. People with CPTSD should not get those.

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