adhd and the search for a why
Image: Brano via Unsplash
where does this thing even come from?
Let’s say you suddenly had a load of unbooked, unplanned, uninterrupted time on your hands.
And let’s say you chose to spend every bit of it wading through as many of the books, articles, posts and papers you could possibly handle – all in the name of understanding the complex subject of ADHD a little better.
In this highly unlikely (and more-than-a-bit-weird) scenario, you would presumably set out keen as mustard.
An inquisitive – perhaps even recently diagnosed – ADHD-type in search of enlightenment about the inner workings of their own head.
And why not?
I’ll tell you why not: because after just a few hours, your dreams of finding neuro-nirvana would slowly choke and die in a fog of wtf.
Just as you got to grips with the writings of one revered and respected expert, you’d stumble upon a contrary opinion that takes the first one out at the knees.
By day two, you’d be convinced that the only certainty here is uncertainty. And then you’d just go and cut the grass. Or something.
Stripped to the bare-bones, no-frills version of its definition, ADHD is ‘a persistent pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity that interferes with functioning or development’.
No-one’s disputing this. (Well, no-one other than the ‘just-another-another-name-for-laziness’ brigade, but my laptop doesn’t have the battery life for me to deal with that lot right now.)
This official blurb is, after all, lifted straight from the hallowed pages of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (fifth edition).
There’s also close-to-universal agreement that an oddity in the production and retention of brain chemicals – together with differences in brain structure – is what’s actually going on physiologically.
But the million dollar question of why ADHD affects some people and not others has never been quite so decisively answered.
It’s often said that the condition is a predominantly heritable one, baked into the story of someone’s life well before birth.
This is an explanation made all the more accessible through some appealing builds, like Thom Hartmann’s idea that the condition can be traced back some ten thousand years.
Then, he offers, the hunters within tribes, which had by now abandoned their nomadic ways and settled, remained the risk-taking outliers in the gang – those out on the hunt keeping alive specialist qualities like razor-sharp alertness, intense focus and original thinking.
All traits that us ADHD-types carry today – passed down through the generations from our Mesolithic ancestors.
Whether this is biological fact or useful metaphor has been neither proven nor disproven to any useful degree. All I know is that I’ve met very few ADHDers who need peer far up the family tree to spot several classic traits of the condition in action.
What’s more, statistics on the likelihood of an ADHD-type sharing their divergence with at least one relative are easy to come by, averaging out at a probability of somewhere around four times as likely.
Some pretty compelling alternative explanations are also offered – some even challenging the notion that pure-play genetics is the single, sole determiner of one’s ADHD.
The physician, Dr Gabor Maté, is among the more convincing voices here, framing ADHD as a developmental delay brought on by negative experiences in infancy.
Genes providing the potential for what might happen; specific environmental stresses making it actually so.
Throw in a few other theories that are out there – such as some suggested pre-birth causes, and the hard-to-dismiss claim that modern-day stresses and overstimulations are possible contributors – and the waters become even less clear.
Whether genetic, developed, or a combination of the two, the ‘why’ behind ADHD has been fuelling positive debate for decades.
In today’s culture of improved mental health awareness, it’s a topic that’s finally spilled outside of the scientific literature and is now being considered in more mainstream channels.
With that, comes the chance for ADHD-types to bring meaningful insight and first-hand opinion to the table – which, I say, is a good thing.
Don’t hold your breath for any kind of wholesale unanimous conclusion to be reached soon, mind you.
Better to give all sides of the ADHD anomaly a fair hearing.
Hold each opinion up against your own unique experiences.
And lean in towards those thoughts and ideas that resonate best.
Good luck with all that reading, though.
Copyright © Kevin Exley 2023
You should not regard the information contained in this article/post as being, or as a replacement for, professional medical advice or treatment. The words contained herein represent the thoughts and opinions of the author, who is not clinically or medically trained.