ADHD and Me

Ok, I started and then bored myself. To be continued...

I got a formal diagnosis a couple of years ago. To say it explains a lot would be a massive understatement. I'd like to give my personal take.

What is ADHD?

The condition categorized as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is almost certainly not what you think. For starters, the naming is way off from what there is. I saw a discussion on this somewhere in the socials, someone made the point that it's named for how it impacts other people, irrespective of the condition itself. The poster offered an alternative "Can't sit still disorder". Better, but it still doesn't capture much.

The medical profession is very bad at this kind of thing. Psychiatry hasn't quite got out of the Victorian era, it still bears the scars of that motherlover Freud. The DSM-5 definition isn't very helpful :

A persistent pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity that interferes with functioning or development, as characterized by...

...a lot of failings.

And it's wrong from the get-go. Ok, I'm heavily influenced by my own bag here, but I'll have a stab :

• ADHD is the result of a set of genetic deviations from the norm, carried by (my guess) 5% of the human population, with various levels of expression (these are in the same ballpark as autistic traits, a lot of overlap)
• it is characterized by distinctive cognitive traits, strongly associated with attention
• hyperactivity is a feature, but this is typically internal, outward expression is commonly blocked as a learnt behaviour, this is the notion of "masking"
• it is orthogonal from general intelligence though markers for what is considered intelligence are common : learning difficulties and/or "gifted" attributes are common

I believe there's a strong argument to be made that human civilization depends on these particular kinds of neurodiversity for its existence. A recent paper suggested that the traits were beneficial in hunter-gatherer societies as the carriers might explore new regions, potentially finding more sustenance.

My Diagnosis

It's hilarious how long it took me to figure it out. I think I was 59 (61 now, I think) before it went down on paper. I've been under a psychiatrist on and off for decades. The diagnoses always started with my tendency for heavy drinking. Of course anxiety and depression topped the billboard, followed by bipolar and hints of psychosis. I've had a crazy pharmacopiea over the years, even before looking at self-medication. But those bits were all symptoms. The primary root cause was that I had a hyperactive head.

A stupid thing on my part is that a friend Reto had actually identified the traits in me a couple of decades ago, even gave me some Ritalin before I was due to have some conference duties. But I didn't believe it. I don't have the motor bits associated with hyperactivity. I really enjoy (some) social situations, which kind-of ruled out the autistic/formally-known-as-Aspergers spectrum.

Something compelled me to take another look, I had a go at the Adult screening test which is really quick but gives results strong correlated with the whole pile of ADHD traits. I told my shrink about this, I did a very lengthy paperwork test, I was given a look that said "we've got a right one here".

Another source of amusement is how slow on the uptake my parents were. Both teachers, in fact my father lectured on (art) therapy for people with special needs. My older brother has traits in a similar domain, but has done alright with his eccentricities, channeled into the creative arts. I'm reasonably certain my father has some of the odd genes.

Caroline had a story about my dad meeting this friend Sean (the fiddler) out in a shopping street. They got into conversation, then mid-sentence my dad just wandered off. I'm guessing he saw something in a shop window.

My mother died last December, and I'm kinda annoyed that although we were very close, she was still clueless about my neurodiversity. I'd tell her I was stuck with something, she'd predictably retort with "well everyone finds that hard work, you just have to do it". Useless. Her side of the family are riddled with eccentricity, neurodiversity too. I only found out last year my cousin from the states (a talented writer) has the same diagnosis as me. Her father, my Uncle Doug, had a reputation as a heavy drinker, but if you look more closely, he did exactly what I did, latched on to alcohol as self-medication.

Whelmed

I'll have to fill this out later. It's overwhelming. I live in a continuous state of being overwhelmed. Normal things, obviously - tidying the kitchen. But I also have a tendency to do things that I find difficult. As I type, in the background I've got Claude Code working on Semantic Web memory for large language models. It's a hard problem.

More amusement. By trade I'm a computer programmer. I was ever so lucky to discover this stuff as a teenager, it's (allegedly) a kind of work I can do. But I am so mediocre at it. Pretty good head for systems, day-to-day coding, rubbish.

If there were a credible form of intelligence test, I believe I'd land average, or maybe just below average. But if something gets my attention, I'm not letting go. Like a very ill-tempered Jack Russell. The code I'm working on now is an extension of things I worked on 25 years ago. I got into coding AI in the 1990s, so funny it's now The Thing.

The Booze and Stuff

Yeah, this deserves its own section. I did spend most of my adult life with a legitimate medical diagnosis of alcoholic. I still drink a lot more than medics advise, but here's where recognising my neurodiversity really came in handy. Switching from wine as my go-to to beer was a good step, I no longer have the physical horrors.