What’s it like to have ADHD?
I recently started reading a book called The ADHD Advantage by Dr Anders Hansen. I’ve not finished it yet, but the first chapter does include an extremely helpful description of what ADHD is like.
Hansen explains that ADHD brains have fewer, less effective dopamine receptors than neurotypical brains, so ADHDers find the world around the much more boring than others.
This explains an awful lot of ADHD behaviours. In particular, it has helped me to understand why I am so distracted and impulsive: my brain is constantly bored and is desperately searching for quick hits of dopamine.
It also explains hyperfocus: if my brain finds what it deems to be an endless source of dopamine - like a video game, a challenging piece of work, or something new and interesting to learn - it is highly motivated to keep doing that thing in order to avoid the boredom that would result from stopping.
It’s the most helpful “root cause” explanation of ADHD I’ve heard so far, and certainly helps me to understand how I can control my attention. ADHDers can help ourselves by making the world less boring, using sound or other “background stimulation” to keep our brains occupied.