Column: Do we all have ADHD now?

Individualism is sticky

Installment #4 of the Wondering (and Wandering Column). Read more here about my intentions behind this column.

Question: You’ve mentioned a bit about the number of people you hear saying that they have been diagnosed with ADHD, and that it all makes sense. I have too. I’d love to hear more of your thoughts on this.

Dear Reader and Everyone Else,

First, my scope of practice: I’m not a doctor, medical researcher or sociologist.

I am, though, an observer of patterns and language, plus a highly sensing canary who has always felt much of the collective undercurrent before others do—for better or worse. Recently, a younger cousin of mine explained the norm of ADHD in her peer group. Medication has greatly helped many of them. We were also joking together about how this same generation lives a dual or triple screening existence. I can’t unlink those two facts. Some of my middle-age women friends are also discovering their ADHD. I’m watching and wondering. Everyone’s diagnosis is their own journey. I don’t believe an outsider, like me, can weigh in with an opinion on someone’s reality. In my own life, though, I’ve experienced how a diagnosis can both save you and shackle you, often in that order.

Back to wondering.

My one big question:

Is the sudden prevalence of ADHD at large an individual issue or is it indicative of a systemic problem? Or both? I worry when masses of people take “it”—anxiety, ADHD, depression, overwhelm—on as something “wrong with me” that “I have to fix because I am broken.” Yes, we all must take responsibility for ourselves; yes, we all have different neurochemistry and genetics and circumstances; and our bodies are usually responding to the environment. Collectively, we are swimming in a wild soup of distraction. It makes sense to me that, in the last decade, we all feel less able to focus and less generally okay. Might someone’s tendency toward ADHD be amplified or even awakened by the pace of modern life, the 4,568 pings on a phone per day, the lack of seasonal or daily rhythm, the lack of containment around when and where information finds our eyes and hearts, the too-many individual responsibilities without adequate communal support? I often ask myself: if I was living in 1956, anywhere on the globe in any setting, would my brain feel as tired and fried and amped as it does now? Nope. It wouldn’t. Does the rise in ADHD diagnoses mean that it has always been there but unnoticed (especially in women) or that it’s increasing due to external factors or.. both?

Two great resources:

• I found Dr. Jolene Brighten’s article on ADHD super helpful—lots of good information here.

• If you want to go deep, Stolen Focus by Johann Hari is a comprehensive look on attention from a journalistic lens. I appreciated his ability to continually question himself and seek multiple opinions. He look at zoom-out collective solutions and individual smart choices. What he learns about ‘task switching’ made me weep for all of our brains. I’ve known it somatically for a long time but to have science facts back up my intuition was both gratifying and devastating.

Case study: me.

I focused easily as a child and as a young adult. I’m saying that because, even for someone who likely has no underlying propensity for ADHD, I struggle. Motherhood + career working challenged my focus. But five years ago, when social media because a part of my work life, I became a wide-eyed, strung-out alley cat. My use of Instagram was minimal comparatively, but sensitiva I am. I stopped it all and that helped. I could actually feel my brain unwinding and my attention coming back in full technicolor to my tactile world. But texing and emailing and the subterranean pace of modern life still frazzle me. Sometimes, when my youngest Bo Neve is recounting a long and winding story about which kids are joining in her fairy world on the school playground, I wonder where I am. Am I paying taxes and preparing to wash dishes and thinking about my next workshop pitch and the dentist appoint I forgot? Am I listening to her with one ear and tuned out with the other? Not unusual for parents, and I don’t enjoy the chronic buzz inside my body. It doesn’t feel like life-force. So, I step away from the frenetic river—a lot. I make choices that feel counter to the cultural direction. Maybe others can hang gracefully with this pace. Maybe the reason I can’t would suggest that, in the end, I do have ADHD! I have no idea.

Flippant language is an indicator for me.

When someone says “Love you” to every new person they meet, I wonder. Do they? What and whom do they really love? How do they say “I love you” to someone when it’s an actual explosion in their heart. Can they? Why is this phrase so casual for them—what does it really mean to them, do they feel it when they say it?

When I say “It’s so funny” at the start of every story, why? Did I learn somewhere to giggle and try to soften whatever is about to come out of my mouth. What happens when I catch myself and don’t use that phrase.

When people say, “I’m so ADHD” or “It’s so ADHD", I cringe. Not at them but at the fact that we as a people have made this condition, this way of existence, this suffering something to mock in ourselves. As in, of course. As in, isn’t everybody? As in, ha ha it’s just the way it is.

What are we normalizing ADHD?

If we put rats in a cage full of beeping sounds and a stick that was poking them incessantly toward task after task with bright lights that prevented full sleep, might they struggle with focus?

Might they collapse?

Might they give up?

For you, dear reader, how does this all land?

*****We have tons of healers and doctors and social wise people in this community. I welcome your thoughts here. Please share. These issues need ample voices.