So, you have ADHD

When you or someone in your life is diagnosed with ADHD, it’s natural to freak out a little bit. You start to make a lot of meaning out of those four little letters. The truth is that there are as many versions of ADHD as there are people who have it, so there’s not a lot of sense to be made in making assumptions, but there are some things we can break down. Let’s talk about what it might and definitely does not mean to have ADHD.

Beginning with the (nonsense) name:

Attention

Deficit

Hyperactivity

Disorder

Every word is nonsense. Honestly, this is such a poorly named condition. It’s very misleading and causes a lot of misconceptions.

The first two words, attention deficit, make us think this “disorder” is mostly about attention. It definitely is not. People with ADHD are not bad at paying attention. They are not even necessarily bad at focus. Their brains tend to want to do lots of things at once, so it may seem, from the outside, that they are distracted and unfocused. Just like the rest of us, however, this mostly depends on how interested they are in the subject at hand.

My kids have no problem focusing on books, games, TV shows, even homework assignments that they are interested in. It’s when they have little to no interest that their brains wander away. Just like everyone, right? So, what’s the difference between them and someone without ADHD? Simply put, someone without ADHD has a better shot at forcing their brain to focus on the uninteresting thing. Someone with ADHD, no matter how hard they try, might not be able to make their brain do that trick. Focus is a muscle that we all have to exercise, so just like everyone else, ADHDers can get better at this skill with brain development and practice. Meds can also help. But, in the end, we all have to be patient. Be patient with yourself, be patient with your kid.

Ok, the next word in this acronym: Hyperactivity. Again, such a weird label to place. Not everyone with ADHD experiences hyperactivity, and those that do usually outgrow it by adolescence. This created the misconception that ADHD is something you could outgrow. It is not. As the brain changes and develops, the symptoms of ADHD will change, but the ADHD brain will not magically become non-ADHD post adolescence. Sorry.

And perhaps my least favorite word of the four: disorder. To my mind, ADHD is far too common to be considered a “disorder.” It is really a different way for human brains to operate. They develop differently, a little more slowly in some ways, but they also work quickly and are capable of different kinds of thought. Why stigmatize that with a word like “disorder?”

Dr Russell Barkley suggests that a better name for ADHD would be “Executive Function Delay Disorder.” Or, even perhaps “Working Memory Disorder.” He says that it is basically a developmental delay. So, as most people’s brains level off in executive function development in their mid twenties, people with ADHD will take until their early thirty’s to reach ultimate frontal lobe maturity.

To me this means that having or loving someone with ADHD means getting really good at patience and self acceptance. The best way to improve in any area is to be patient and kind with ourselves. The best way to alleviate the anxiety that almost always accompanies ADHD is to be patient and kind. With ourselves, with our loved ones, with the people who do not understand what it’s like to have a brain that works differently. Then, start gathering tools and get to work. We got this.