ADHD: Individual, Systemic, or not "a Thing" at all?

From time to time I read articles — and watch videos/interviews — about ADHD, and how it sometimes seems like our entire society suffers from ADHD.

It's a topic "of interest" to me because I have had a short little span of attention since childhood. As such, I keep feeling like the term and diagnosis has been usurped by popular culture.

Whereas I can definitely appreciate the case for society being ADHD-like, it still leaves the unanswered question of whether or not the problem is less about actual ADHD — the condition — than about the fact that we have created a world with so many things to keep up with that more and more people are simply unable to manage.

Consequently, when faced with a sense of feeling perpetually overwhelmed, we become scatterbrained and forgetful and manifest as being afflicted with ADHD. Which is not to say that ADHD isn't a real condition... it very much is, but perhaps for far fewer people than those who are handed the diagnosis.

Let's be real here: the technological evolution over the past 50 years has been far faster than our genetic and physiological evolution over the same time period.

Being from a generation that knew life before the Internet, what I find myself missing the most is actually having time without input, as a way to reset my brain and maintain some level of mental health. But that's a luxury that simply isn't available in my world, anymore.

Sure, we can make the argument that today's under-25s have never known anything different and they have adapted, but the physiology below that fact is not a whole lot different from that of their parents... but they are just forced to keep up regardless, much like kids growing up in a war zone are forced to accept bombs falling and shots fired as "normal." But that doesn't make bombs and bullets a normal way to live your life.

My point being that just because you know how to navigate an environment doesn't mean that you are naturally adapted to do so. For example, simply living with heightened cortisol levels (which has attendant health risks) is not the same thing as developing actual brain pathways that move faster and more efficiently than previous generations.

As someone who grew up with actual ADHD before it was even much of a condition, I have become pretty well versed with the difference — which is substantial — between actually having issues with keeping yourself focused on just one thing, and being frantic and scattered because you have too many things going, all at once!

I fear that much of what is labeled as "ADHD" in this day and age is little more than being overloaded by what we are trying to label "normal life."

I suppose we could get into a long philosophical debate over whether or not we are "better off" because of all the things we are now surrounded by and need to keep track of... and I expect the most viable conclusion might be that "it depends on temperament"... natural "Type A Energizer bunnies" are faring OK, while those of us of a more slow and methodical bent are struggling.

I first got interested in this particular topic some years ago after reading several White Papers that asserted that there IS no such thing as "multitasking." We "task switch" quickly, some of us more adeptly than others, but multitasking is a corporate buzzword invented to drive people towards more productivity.

I remember feeling a great deal of relief at reading some actual science behind an uncomfortable feeling I had been intuiting.

Where does this leave us?

It seems to me it leaves us with a world where we are "masking" the fact that life has become unsustainably overwhelming by slapping an "ADHD" label on anyone who isn't managing... perhaps because it's easier for parents to face the possibility that "Little Johnny" has a condition than he is simply not capable of handling the number of inputs being loaded onto him.

Of course, I recognize that I am in a tiny minority nobody really wants to hear from... but I reckon that I can at least add my perspective to the data stream as an alternate possibility to consider.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great remainder of your week!

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Created at 2024.12.11 18:58 PST
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