1/2: Eveline's view on AD(H)D
October is AD(H)D awareness month. What does the majority of us actually know about the disorder: how it manifests itself, which difficulties our friends, colleagues or co-students with AD(H)D face, and how we can best help them? UM master’s student Eveline van Eerd recently started a crowdfunding campaign to support the development of female students with AD(H)D. 8 months ago she got diagnosed with AD(H)D herself at the age of 21: a life changing moment. In two consecutive stories, she takes us along the symptoms and daily life struggles, as well as the persistent prejudices, in order to raise more awareness: an important first step towards change.
‘Sorry, I’m a little ADHD today, I really can’t concentrate on the lecture.’
‘Sit down, you’re so ADHD.’
‘I think we all have trouble focusing sometimes, you just need to try harder.’
Whether you have AD(H)D or not, chances are you’ve heard one of the above lines before: the term ADHD is widely used in various situations, often incorrectly. How many people do actually experience symptoms of the disorder? Many of us still seem to think it’s only applicable to young, active boys: and that is precisely the problem.
AD(H)D or Attention Deficit (Hyperactive) Disorder is a chronic neurodevelopment disorder that begins before the age of 12. We still don’t know entirely how it works, but the most recent status is that AD(H)D is a deficit of dopamine which mainly impairs the prefrontal cortex in the brain; the part that is responsible for concentration, emotions regulation, short-term memory, speech comprehension and executive function.
Everyone can have problems to focus or forget where they put their keys: that is simply human. The difference lies in the frequency, but also why it happens differs. Someone without ADHD, a neurotypical person, might forget where they put their keys this morning because they were busy with others things and might have trouble focusing today because they are a little ego-depleted and already had some pretty uninteresting tasks they had to finish at work. A person with ADHD, however, will regularly forget where they put not only their keys, but literally any item that is not in sight. This is also known as “object permanence’’. If an object is not in the eyesight, the existence of the object is gone in the mind of someone with ADHD. They did not forget where they put the key because they were busy; the brain simply wiped the memory of the key ever existing.
Not being able to focus is an entirely other issue. The ADHD neurosystem is what we call ‘interest based’: this simply means that due to the shortage of dopamine, the brain is always chasing it. If a task does not provide the dopamine seeked, the brain will look for a different way to get it - by walking around, looking at a funny video or doing a task that is complete unrelated to the task at hand, but seems way more interesting.
I have spent nights in a row researching the best way to crochet a sweater and when it came to the crocheting itself, the excitement of something new was gone and so was the dopamine. On to another project which I will probably never finish!
So now that we know what AD(H)D is, we need to talk about another big issue; research on women with AD(H)D. 3 out of 4 diagnoses are on men, even though AD(H)D has not been proven to be a disorder men are more prone to get. This means that somewhere in the process things are going very wrong. Therefore, all knowledge we have on AD(H)D - the symptoms, diagnosis and treatment - is based on men. How are we supposed to identify symptoms of AD(H)D in women, properly diagnose them and then give them adequate treatment? We can’t.
October is AD(H)D awareness month and this year I will use this month not only to raise awareness, but to make sure action is finally taken in the matter. Help us make the academic world an equal place for women with AD(H)D!