There are things ADD is, and there are things ADD isn’t.
Even those of us who “have” ADD or “are” ADD or whatever don’t always fully understand what it is and isn’t. But any one of us who hopes to fully communicate this part of themselves to an intimate partner or friend must not only understand it well, but be able to share it effectively.
So let’s talk about that. We’ll lead off with ADHD coach Jessica McCabe:
“ADHD is a terrible name for ADHD. It creates a lot of confusion. We don't have a deficit of attention! What we have trouble with is regulating our attention!”
Thom Hartmann, author of The Edison Gene, takes it a step further: not only is ADHD not a disorder, it’s an essential set of skills that enabled humanity’s survival in prehistoric times, giving rise to the “hunter-child” - the seeker/explorer who, in the millennia before the dawn of civilization, could seek out food for the tribe.
ADD is neither a deficit nor a disorder, in this view, but a magnificent benefit.
What’s going on inside this benefit?
It turns out that ADD/ADHD isn’t the result of bad parenting or video games or our atrocious modern diet; nor is it a mental disorder or “condition”.
It’s the expression of a handful of genes that we’re born with, and which we pass on to some of our children. Variations of two of these genes – DRD2 and DRD4 – determine how our brains process the neurotransmitter dopamine.
Dopamine plays a vital role in... well, just about everything that goes on in our brains. It produces a signal, a kind of ding! that sounds in our heads, signaling satisfaction, ‘rightness’, or ‘all is well!’ This ding! is all over the map, where our nervous systems are concerned: it plays a role in executive function, in motor control, in learning; it is the underpinning of motivation and reward; it is essential to arousal and sexual gratification. We couldn’t function as human beings without it.
That dopamine ding, upon which so much of our moment-to-moment existence depends, is more difficult to achieve in our ADD brains. Our variations of those genes mentioned above express as lower dopamine receptivity in our nervous systems; put another way, we have a harder time getting to the ding!
To get that ding!, that ‘rightness’ signal, we need more input from the environment; we scoop into the world with both hands, seeking the stimulation that takes us to satisfaction. Others achieve their ding! much more quickly and with much less input. And so, to them, we seem obsessive.
They can turn on the radio and get their ding!
We must write “Hey Jude”.
They can watch TV and get their ding!
We must paint “Starry Night”.
They can play a video game and get their ding!
We must build a computer.
There’s much more to say about how ADD works in our brains to produce the kinds of people we become, but that will follow. This particular bit of sharing can be summarized for a partner or friend like this:
“There’s a lot of misunderstanding out there about what ADD is and how it works. It’s not really a ‘disorder’, and people like me don’t lack attention – we just have less control of where our attention goes. It’s because we’re born with some genes that motivate us to seek out the new-and-different, sometimes to the exclusion of matters that are important but unstimulating. ADD isn’t something that’s wrong with me, it’s something that right about me in a special way. It helps me see beautiful things in the world that others might miss. I hope I can show you how that happens, over time, and share with you what I find!”
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