Attention, Interrupted: The Chemical Life of ADHD (Part 1)
A detailed analysis of how the chemistry of ADHD breaks the Volition Equation, and why we just can't keep our %$#! together.
Important Note: I am not a doctor, and nothing in this article or on this blog should ever be thought of as any kind of medical advice, because it most certainly is not. Please don’t try this at home.
Note: If you aren’t able to afford to go paid at the moment but really want to read this, please just get in touch and I’ll make it work :)
Update: Please see update note in the section titled SLC6A3 for some corrections.
ADHD is having a moment. When I was diagnosed at age 12, there was “ADD” and “ADHD”; for me, it was the former, but that is now considered “ADHD inattentive”. In the very late 90s/early 2000s, it was thought to be a rare condition. In fact, it was only just starting to become looked at as more than a childhood condition. The “common wisdom” was once that it was “grown out-of” by late adolescence. We now know they couldn’t have been more wrong: ADHD is a life-long disorder. It can’t be willed away, nor grown out-of, nor does “taking responsibility for yourself” make it magically disappear (despite what I have been told many times in my life by many well-meaning individuals).
Today, we know it is a lot more common, and may in fact be under-diagnosed even still. Over the years, as we’ve seen a number of “alternative” approaches to treating ADHD fail one by one, the most effective treatments still standing throughout have been pharmacological, with extremely similar methods of action. Why? What exactly does medication do to achieve such positive results in the vast majority of patients? Why do a small subset of people have such negative experiences with it? Why do some people not respond at all? Does this tell us anything about what’s happening chemically in the ADHD brain?
I will get some things wrong, though I have tried to stay as close to the latest science on this as I can, and so this theory I think will make a lot of sense. Also, bear in mind that science is constantly moving forward, and there’s no way one little guy like me could read *everything* written on this out there, but I try.
This post is Part 1 of a multi-part series. First we are going to explore what is happening at a chemical and biological level to disrupt the ADHD mind. In Part 2, I will explain why the mechanisms of action for many ADHD medications can be so effective, but also why and how they sometimes fail. There may be more parts, and who knows, maybe we’ll turn it into an ongoing series; but I promise you, especially if you have or know people that have ADHD, you will gain a whole new appreciation for your brain and a greater sense of acceptance, seeing it for what it really is. I will also be adding audio versions not too long after publishing, which should make it easier to consume for those of us that are unmedicated ;)
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