ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)
There are a lot of misconceptions with people who have ADHD. Most of the symptoms start to show when people are growing up so sometimes can be missed or misdiagnosed. Like all of the other conditions we talk about on Yormind, you might have one or a couple of the signs and symptoms but that doesn’t necessarily mean you will get a diagnosis. Chris talks a little bit about it in chat chit where he may show some signs of ADHD but it doesn’t mean he is diagnosed. He knows certain things helps these signs and symptoms so tries to focus on them things.
Signs
- Restlessness
- Trouble concentrating
- Acting on impulse
- Sometimes hyper focused on a certain task
- Talk too much
- Forget or lose things a lot
- Daydreaming
You don’t just grow out of ADHD. You can experience these symptoms growing up and they can be sometimes mistaken for ADHD but you will have it for your life. Lots of people with ADHD have very normal lives, certain circumstances may just be more of a challenge.
Causes
- Neurodiversity – just a fancy word of saying that peoples brains work in a different way
- Problems during pregnancy
- Low birth weight
It is not completely clear from person to person why ADHD exists.
I have a couple of friends who have ADHD who have all gone to university and successful in the fields they study and work (one in psychology and the other in Law). So it really doesn’t have to be seen as a problem. It may just be in some situations that someone’s ADHD might make anxiety or other mental health problems a bit harder to deal with if you don’t have certain coping mechanisms and ways of relaxing in place.
For Harry, he struggled to focus in school unless he had a heavy book on his lap. Doing something sensory as simple as this made him grounded in his seat and calmed him enough to concentrate.