The original wording that makes up the ADHD appreviation is misleading and one of the reasons why it took 30 something years to first of all even suspect, let alone diagnose my neurological condition.
We do have to remember ADHD is a spectrum and while it’s one of our most researched neurological disorders, the pathophysiology is still not completely clear. It’s very hard to study a living brain and try to find out how the sylinders fire up at different times, and if those responses are in fact normal or not.
Sidenote: I’m not a doctor but I have over 30 years of field experince inside my brain.
From what I understand; the ADHD brain is lacking of norepinephrine and possibly has problems and miscommunications within the neural pathways that are linked to executive functioning, attention, impulsivity and hyperactivity.
Saying someone with ADHD can’t pay attention and stay focused on anything is just plain wrong and it misleads even those who actually do have ADHD and hinder them from getting help. We can and do pay attention but the problem is regulating said attention.
From my own experience I can tell that I am in fact often focusing on the wrong thing and hyper aware of some little nuisance like a clothing tag or someone chewing. On a good day though when my brain seems to have been able to stash away some extra norepinephrine and decides to barf it all out at once, it feels like I’m on top of the world; I’m super focused on a fun project, I get so much done at once, I’m brilliant, shiny and strong, I don’t need food, drink or sleep. But then there is the crash, I’m all out and shut down like a robot.
I think when we talk about understanding and managing ADHD we should shift our focus (eh eh) from ”lack of attention” to ”regulating attention”. I believe that would be better understood both by the person with ADHD, and the normies around them.
Overall the communication between a so called normal brain and an ADHD one is quite hard because neither can quite understand how the other can or can not just decide on what to focus on at will.
This is an unfiltered diary of anything and everything related to a personal ADHD journey. In true neurospicy fashion, the entries will shapeshift according to who-the-fuck-knows-what-and-when. Try to keep up.
