I struggle to pay bills on time, save money, and ensure I have clean clothes to wear on Monday. I rarely leave home without returning at least twice to retrieve forgotten items, and Iβve burned thousands of dollars on lost valuables and penalties for unpaid fines. I forget peopleβs names within seconds of them being introduced.
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Iβd long believed laziness to be the cause and more effort the cure. Decades of frustration and internalised rage have contributed to low self-esteem, masked by bravado and self-deprecation.
At the heart of ADHD lies dopamine, a neurotransmitter affecting mood, motivation and attention. It regulates thoughts, emotions and behaviours, and helps us plan and organise, among other things. ADHD is attributed to dopamine dysregulation, but other neurotransmitters are also involved. An ADHD diagnosis requires evidence of inattention or hyperactivity during childhood. It was all hidden in plain sight among my old school reports.
My prep teacher said I was bright but βoccasionally lazyβ and tended to daydream. Being βeasily distractedβ and inattentive were common refrains throughout primary school, but things started to get wild in secondary school.
My year 8 textiles teacher complained of me gleefully sabotaging othersβ sewing machines. The metalwork teacher called me a βsafety riskβ to myself and my classmates. My English teacher called me βrelentlessly incorrigibleβ. I recall a food fight in home economics being a highlight.
I excelled at tasks I found interesting or easy, but I was otherwise bored and ravenous for stimuli, so created my own. Reading those reports brings me tears of laughter, but also a sense of sadness at being misunderstood. I donβt blame anyone. Knowledge of neurodivergence has come a long way since then.
Fuelled by fear, in year 12 I applied myself sufficiently to scrape into law school (a score of 90 was enough back then). The dean wrote to congratulate me on my first semester contract law exam, but the sheer effort needed to study left me burnt out. I remained mired in mediocrity for the remainder of my course, graduating a year or more after most of my peers.
Whatβs puzzling is that I can sometimes work intensively through the night without so much as a drop of caffeine. Iβve learned this is called hyperfocus β a tendency among ADHDers to fixate or become immersed in what they find interesting. I love that state, but the sleep deprivation inevitably catches up.
There are also different flavours of ADHD. Some find it debilitating. Others manage to mask the symptoms and compensate, but the effort can be exhausting. Anxiety and depression are common companions, and Iβm acquainted with both. Twenty-five yearsβ worth of intermittent therapy has brought me mixed results. Some psychologists helped me through difficult times, but none proposed ADHD as a possibility.
Caffeine, nicotine, alcohol and recreational drugs all cause dopamine surges, and substance abuse is two-to-three times more common among those with ADHD. One former therapist suggested I get a girlfriend as a remedy for the binge-drinking problem I had at the time.
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Thereβs a spectrum of opinion about ADHDβs causes. Some say distractibility and impulsivity are evolutionary adaptations that were useful in hunter-gatherer societies. Others blame unresolved childhood trauma and criticise mainstream psychiatry for reducing ADHD to genetics and brain chemistry.
What do I think? The human brain may well be the most complex object in the known universe, and everyoneβs is different β whether due to nature, nurture, or both. Thereβs always more to know and perspectives will no doubt change as knowledge deepens. But all that really matters right now is whether diagnosis and treatment improve my life.
Some influencers peddle a dopamine detox as an alternative to medication. Fasting from activities like social media, YouTube, coffee and sex can help address dopamine dysregulation, they reckon.
We could all benefit from curbing technology from hijacking our attention, but the dopamine detox has virtually no scientific basis. By contrast, ADHD has proven highly responsive to stimulants like Ritalin, which have been around since the 1950s.
My psychiatrist agrees ADHD is overdiagnosed, which makes me inclined to trust their advice. So yeah, Iβm taking the medication, but the treatment is 50 per cent pills and 50 per cent skills. Luckily, I can (only just) afford some ADHD coaching on top of the eye-watering out-of-pocket costs of the cardiovascular assessments, psychiatrist consultations and medication required.
Itβs early days, but Iβm more productive, derive more pleasure from work, and the tide of chaos is slowly receding. But most importantly, my diagnosis has opened a door to self-forgiveness.
Gary Newman is the director and producer of How to Capture a Prime Minister. He was previously a policy advisor and journalist.
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