I don’t really believe it’s a spectrum. I believe that you either have a dopamine processing deficiency, or you don’t. I think the differences we see are the result of how well some of us learn to cope, or devise self protecting strategies.
I mean, there may be slight differences, but I wouldn’t call it a spectrum, at least in the way that autism is, where you have mildly socially incompetent people to nearly non functional people.
I was undiagnosed bipolar for over 40 years, masked by my success in employment and entrepreneurship, which lasted about 2-5 years every stage, when tedium became unbearable, and had to look for other challenges to fuel my dopamine. No one, even myself, connected the dots between my intense drive, and the following depressive stage, and the next jump. I finally crashed hard, and sought a psychiatryst. Once properly medicated, my mood swings normalized, the ADHD symptoms were unmasked.
Now we are working on dialing in meds for ADHD. Pretty hard to balance.
In my case I belive I don’t more or less ADHD than others, but that I was good at (extreme) damage control.
The problem is that “ADHD” is not defined as a dopamine processing deficiency. It’s defined as a cluster of symptoms that exceed a certain level. Those symptoms could be related to dopamine processing, or something else! So you’re not wrong, in any real sense, but you are wrong by the definition set out by those who say what ADHD is.
I don’t really believe it’s a spectrum. I believe that you either have a dopamine processing deficiency, or you don’t. I think the differences we see are the result of how well some of us learn to cope, or devise self protecting strategies.
I mean, there may be slight differences, but I wouldn’t call it a spectrum, at least in the way that autism is, where you have mildly socially incompetent people to nearly non functional people.
I was undiagnosed bipolar for over 40 years, masked by my success in employment and entrepreneurship, which lasted about 2-5 years every stage, when tedium became unbearable, and had to look for other challenges to fuel my dopamine. No one, even myself, connected the dots between my intense drive, and the following depressive stage, and the next jump. I finally crashed hard, and sought a psychiatryst. Once properly medicated, my mood swings normalized, the ADHD symptoms were unmasked.
Now we are working on dialing in meds for ADHD. Pretty hard to balance.
In my case I belive I don’t more or less ADHD than others, but that I was good at (extreme) damage control.
My opinion.
The problem is that “ADHD” is not defined as a dopamine processing deficiency. It’s defined as a cluster of symptoms that exceed a certain level. Those symptoms could be related to dopamine processing, or something else! So you’re not wrong, in any real sense, but you are wrong by the definition set out by those who say what ADHD is.
I hate the DSM.