Polyamory and the Friendship Litmus Test

Lately I’ve been trying to work out my feelings about nonmonogamy and metamours–specifically, how to articulate to partners what I’d like my relationships with their other partners to be like.

People who practice nonmonogamy can fall anywhere on a wide spectrum when it comes to relationships with metamours [1]. On one extreme, there are the “don’t ask don’t tell” folks–they don’t want to know anything, or hear anything, about a partner’s other partners, let alone meet those people. On the other extreme, there are people whose relationship “rules” include a stipulation that all their partners be friends with each other–or even be sexually/romantically involved with each other. This is, in my opinion, obviously unhealthy and coercive even if people technically “agree.” The other extreme is a little less obviously screwy, but still leads to a lot of misunderstandings and hurt in my experience.

Most people don’t take things quite that far in either direction, but many nonmonogamous people end up clustered on two ends of that spectrum, whether by “rule” or by happenstance. In some nonmonogamous relationships, metamours never really meet or interact, and partners tell each other the bare minimum about those other partners/relationships based on what they’ve agreed to. In others, metamours tend to be acquaintances or friends, leading to large “polycules” in which folks often hang out together, have game nights, and may even end up involved too.

I’ve often struggled with articulating my own preferences to my partners. On the one hand, I struggle with insecurity and negative automatic thoughts, which my partners tend to be well aware of. That makes them shy away from talking to me about their other partners more than they have to, even though I’ve expressed that polyamory is my choice for a reason and that I like the opportunity to work through that panic by approaching it directly.

On the other hand, I’ve also had a really hard time expressing things like, “I’d like to meet your new partner” or “It’d be cool if all three of us hung out sometime” because I worry that it makes me sound controlling. Of course, it isn’t–the reason I want to meet them isn’t because I need to “make sure that they aren’t a threat” or similar sentiments that I often hear from monogamous people wanting to meet their partners’ friends. I want to meet them because there’s a good chance that anyone my partner likes a lot is someone I’d probably enjoy hanging out with, and because knowing my metamours and having friendly interactions with them helps me reassure myself that I’m not getting abandoned.

The idea that you’ll probably like someone that someone you like also likes gets a bad rap in my communities sometimes; “friendship is transitive” is one of the Five Geek Social Fallacies that we all love to reference. [2] But while taking it to that extreme is indeed a fallacy, it’s also demonstratively true that I tend to like my friends’ friends, and my partners’ friends, and–when I get to meet them–my partners’ partners.

But then the little voice in my head says, “But why should your partner let you meet their other partners? You’re not entitled to that.” True. I’m not entitled to that, We Don’t Owe Each Other Anything, etc. However, I’m learning that expressing a preference or a desire to a partner isn’t the same thing as believing that I’m entitled to it. Otherwise, we’d all be horribly entitled every time we ask someone if we can have sex with them.

So crunching all of this over and over in my mind (I’ve been on medical leave for almost six weeks, so I’ve had plenty of time), I realized that there’s a much simpler way to make sense of this, and it helps me conceptualize other common issues in nonmonogamy, too. I call it the friendship litmus test.

The friendship litmus test is simply this: if this person were my partner’s friend instead of their partner, how would my partner communicate with me about this person?

Most of the time in committed relationships, we’d think it’s a little weird if a partner has a really cool new friend that they’re really excited about, but they just…never mention that friend. Like at all. Many people, no matter how secure they are in their relationship, might wonder if something boundary-crossing is going on.

Likewise, most people would find it odd if a partner has a new friend that they’re spending a lot of time with, but all they say about them is their name and that they’re meeting up with them on a given night. When I have a new friend I really like, I usually want to gush about that person to everyone I know.

It would be unusual if my partner had a close friend who’s important to them and I literally never met that person–not because the opportunity hadn’t come up, but because my partner intentionally socializes with them only when I’m not there, and never invites them along when we hang out together or with their other friends.

Sometimes these things happen incidentally, because my partner just hadn’t had much to say about their newer partner yet, or because that person’s schedule prevented them from hanging out, or whatever. But over time, it starts to feel weird. It starts to feel artificial. Like my partner is intentionally choosing to keep these parts of their life completely separate.

That approach may work for many people. But it doesn’t work for me, and the friendship litmus test is a helpful way for me to articulate that.

For me, having a partner insist on keeping their partners “separate” so that they never meet or hang out is a red flag. I instinctively distrust that kind of compartmentalization because it suggests that the partner distrusts me, distrusts their other partner(s), and/or isn’t actually very comfortable with nonmonogamy (and isn’t working on that). In a healthy relationship, it’d be normal for a partner to say, “I’m going to hang out with my sportsball buds and I’m guessing you won’t be interested in that.” It’s also normal for someone to say, “I’d like some time alone with [other partner/my friends/etc], so I’ll see you later tonight.” It’s utterly weird, though, for them to say, “I don’t want you to ever meet [partner/friend] or socialize with them.”

The friendship litmus test also helps me make sense of a lot of other poly situations. For instance, a lot of folks in the poly community debate whether or not it’s fair to ask/want/expect your partner to share intimate details about their other partners with you. Some people even have “rules” that they must disclose everything that goes on in their other sexual encounters.

Others–for instance, me–think that’s pretty fucked up, because that other partner didn’t consent to have details about their sex life–because it is also their sex life–shared with someone they have no intimate connection with, and may not even know. People who practice hierarchical polyamory [3] often discount the boundaries and feelings of “secondary” partners, and this is one common way that that happens.

Would it be appropriate for someone to tell their partner private sexual details that a friend disclosed to them without that friend’s permission? Most would say it’s not. So why is it okay when that friend is (also) a partner?

Admittedly, the friendship litmus test is probably only useful to a small subset of nonmonogamous people because it’s pretty much based on the idea that platonic relationships are not categorically different from romantic or sexual relationships. It’s an approach best suited to relationship anarchy [4]. But if it works for me, it probably works for others.


[1] A metamour is one of your partner’s other partners. I hate to get jargony, but there’s no non-awkward way to say that.

[2] http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html

[3] https://www.bustle.com/articles/161962-7-poly-terms-everyone-should-know-whether-youre-new-to-polyamory-or-monogamous

[4] https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/andie-nordgren-the-short-instructional-manifesto-for-relationship-anarchy


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Polyamory and the Friendship Litmus Test
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What ADHD Actually Is, Part 2

Since I wrote part 1 of this series, I’ve had a lot of wonderful positive feedback from people with ADHD and suggestions for topics to cover in the future. I’ll address more of those here!

(If you haven’t read it yet, part 1 covers the definition of executive function and how it explains ADHD symptoms, along with information about hyperactivity, depression and anxiety in people with ADHD, helpful resources, and how to go about getting a diagnosis and treatment. I recommend reading it first.)

What’s the difference between ADHD and ADD? 

Before 1994, when the DSM-IV came out, the acronym ADD was used to refer to what we now call the “inattentive type” of ADHD–that is, the type where you don’t have hyperactivity symptoms. [1] Now, however, the term “ADHD” is an umbrella term that covers all of the types. Just because the “H” is in there doesn’t mean you have to have hyperactivity symptoms to qualify for that label. “ADD” is outdated and only typically used by people who got diagnosed before 1994. But if it makes sense to you, you can obviously stick to it.

Personally, calling it ADHD regardless of type makes much more sense to me because very few people with the disorder don’t have any hyperactivity symptoms at all–they just might not look like the typical bouncing-off-the-walls stereotype, especially in girls and adults of all genders. Hyperactivity can also mean needing to fidget a lot, or preferring physical/manual activity to intellectual labor. It’s also possible for some people to suppress all of their hyperactive impulses, which means that their observable behavior wouldn’t qualify for the hyperactive type. That doesn’t mean the impulses aren’t there, though, or that it isn’t taking them lots of energy to suppress them.

Why is the prevalence of ADHD increasing?

It’s difficult to obtain accurate data on historical prevalence of mental diagnoses for many reasons–underreporting (especially when it comes to childhood disorders, which parents might want to keep under wraps due to stigma), different research methods, different diagnostic criteria, and so on. According to the CDC, ADHD prevalence really is increasing, but they caveat that claim in the same way I just did. [2]

There’s a difference between more people getting diagnosed with a disorder and more people actually having that disorder. Greater awareness and improved access to mental healthcare could both lead to increased rates of diagnosis, even if the actual prevalence of the disorder has remained the same. I do think that things like that are impacting rates of ADHD diagnosis.

But I also think that a greater proportion of people would qualify for that diagnosis than 50 or 100 years ago, and I think it has to do with the greater role that executive function plays in modern society.

If you think about the types of things most people did for a living prior to the mid- to late-20th century, they didn’t require that much self-regulation. Farming, factory work, housekeeping, mending–these jobs are physically (and often mentally) demanding, but not in the same way as forcing yourself to spend hours at a computer correcting errors in a spreadsheet or researching funding sources. In fact, today, many people with ADHD strive in professions that rely on physical labor, creativity, lots of small bursts of social interaction, or other things that don’t require sustained focus on one thing.

It’s no accident that so many childhood ADHD diagnoses happen because a child can’t sit still in a classroom. Although our current education system dates to the 19th century (and has had shamefully few updates since then), children in the 19th century didn’t necessarily sit in a classroom from 8 AM to 4 PM. They missed school to help on the farm, taught younger classmates (think one-room schoolhouse), and left school altogether at much younger ages than today’s kids are required to stay until.

That doesn’t mean that our education system is the sole cause of increased ADHD prevalence, and that if we went back to some imaginary historic ideal, the prevalence would drop. (Although our education system is pretty shitty for a variety of reasons.) It just means that school and its demands on executive function often reveal ADHD symptoms that might’ve otherwise stayed hidden until later in life–for instance, when the demands of adulthood push people with undiagnosed ADHD to a breaking point.

Didn’t you say that overdiagnosis might still be a thing?

Yeah, I did. I mentioned in the first part of this series that a disorder can be both over- and under-diagnosed if we look for it in places it isn’t and don’t look for it in places it is. One place where we may look for ADHD too single-mindedly is in children who are “disruptive” or “unfocused” in school.

Plenty of researchers and clinicians have observed that children from violent and chaotic neighborhoods often get diagnosed with ADHD because they present with many of its symptoms. [3] However, in children as well as adults, those symptoms might also be coming from trauma, especially the complex trauma that develops when severe life stressors are constant from early childhood on. [4]

When the role of trauma is ignored, these children (who are typically from low-income families of color) often get slapped with the ADHD label, along with its cousin, oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). [5] Unfortunately, for children who are already bearing the burdens of racism and classism, these labels often serve to add on more stigma rather than help provide effective treatment. If you look at the criteria for ODD, they describe behavior that is completely rational and adaptive if many of the adults in the child’s life are violent, neglectful, and inconsistent. And if you look at the criteria for ADHD, they also describe what happens when undiagnosed PTSD limits your ability to self-regulate.

PTSD symptoms put a huge cognitive load on the brain. People with PTSD are usually hyper-vigilant, constantly looking for potential threats (often without realizing they’re doing it). Small disturbances or unpleasant surprises can cause strong reactions that seem excessive to others. When trauma comes from psychological abuse rather than physical violence or disaster, it can be even harder to notice when PTSD symptoms manifest.

A child who has complex trauma as a result of growing up amid violence and abuse is going to have serious issues paying attention in class and remembering their homework, along with maintaining healthy relationships with teachers and classmates and regulating their own emotions. On the surface, that can look like ADHD. But ADHD medication won’t help, and inappropriate use of ADHD medication on children can lead to those “zombie” symptoms everyone talks about. These kids need trauma-informed interventions, along with real structural changes that address racism, gun violence, poverty, and all of those myriad interweaving variables. No psychiatric label could possibly encompass that.

What’s the connection between ADHD and autism?

A lot of my friends have pointed out that they have been diagnosed with both ADHD and autism, and wonder what (if any) the connection between them is. I’ve also had lots of clients with both, although I obviously also know people with one or the other.

These disorders do co-occur more commonly than they would by chance alone. [6] Unlike mental illnesses, they both manifest in childhood and last for life (this is true even for people who don’t notice their ADHD symptoms until adulthood). They both involve executive dysfunction, and research suggests that some similar neural pathways may be involved in both. [7] They both tend to impact all areas of a person’s life, including school, work, relationships (platonic, romantic, familial, and others), self-care, personal pursuits, and so on.

This can make people stressed about figuring out which disorder they have, or if they have both. If this concerns you, remember that we made up these disorders and assigned sets of symptoms to them. They aren’t natural categories. Although diagnoses can be important for accessing treatment and support, the most important thing is identifying what it is that you struggle with and getting help with that.

If you have executive function issues, medication and/or coaching might help. If you have problems with talking over people and talking too much about your niche interests, it might help to get legitimate social skills advice (for instance, the excellent blog Real Social Skills [8]) or to seek out people who interact in similar ways to you. If you feel depressed or anxious as a result of the ways in which your disability impairs you or creates consequences for you in our (ableist) society, counseling can help.

Although there’s a lot of cool research going on involving brain scans and other relatively new techniques, that doesn’t actually explain why some people develop ADHD and/or autism and others don’t. It’s possible that the same set of root causes, both biological and environmental, can contribute to the development of both disorders.

Why can people with ADHD sometimes focus really well/get things done?

Remember, ADHD isn’t about being “unable to focus” or get things done. It’s about executive function. When a lot of executive function is needed to complete a task, people with ADHD will struggle with it. But when it isn’t, they may do very well.

Some situations in which people with ADHD may be very efficient or productive include:

  • when they’re really interested in the task
  • when it’s about to be due and panic kicks in
  • when it involves working with others
  • when they’re given a lot of structure

So, let’s examine each of these. Everyone has an easier time focusing on things they’re really interested in as opposed to things they find boring, and everyone generally finds it effortful to exercise their executive function. People with ADHD just find it harder than others. When you’re really interested in the task, you may not need to use executive function to do it. (You may need it to plan for or structure the task, though, which is why people with ADHD sometimes have difficulty accomplishing their over-arching goals even with stuff they’re really interested in.) Unfortunately, having issues with executive function can also make it more difficult to tear your focus away from something, which is why people with ADHD are prone to what’s called hyperfocus–spending too much time immersed in something to the detriment of other things that need to be done, including basic needs.

Remember, getting really into things you like doesn’t mean you don’t have ADHD. In fact, it could be good evidence that you do have it.

These principles also explain why so many people with ADHD procrastinate. It’s not just that they can’t get themselves to do the task in advance–it’s that procrastination works, but at a cost. When it’s the night before the 15-page paper you haven’t started is due and you’re completely panicking, executive function may no longer be necessary to get yourself to do the task. Other brain regions and processes take over–perhaps, for instance, the amygdala, which is involved in the processing of fear.

Social tasks can also be easier for people with ADHD to complete. The other people in the group may help them with staying on task, structuring the project, and perhaps doing the really boring parts that they don’t want to do. When working independently on a task, people with ADHD are liable to get stuck when they can’t motivate themselves to do a particularly boring or difficult task, or when they simply don’t know what the next step should be and get distracted by something more interesting before they figure it out. A team member may help them cross this hurdle.

Finally, people with ADHD may do very well with tasks when they’re given a lot of structure rather than having to create that structure for themselves. A person with ADHD may love their work (or studies, or whatever) and have few issues focusing on it, but effectively completing complex tasks requires being able to structure them–break them down into smaller tasks, put those tasks in the right order, and keep the big picture in mind rather than getting bogged down in one specific tiny part of the project. (Sometimes called microfocus, this can really get in the way of one’s goals.)

That kind of mental task requires executive function, too. Many people with ADHD do better in high school than in college because there’s more structure built in. For others, college provides enough structure, but work doesn’t provide enough. Still others luck out and find jobs in which structuring your own tasks isn’t required. That’s why many people with ADHD do well in or even enjoy working in retail or food service–as long as they can regulate their emotions well enough to avoid lashing out at irritating customers.

In sum, there are all kinds of situations in which the role of executive function is more minimal than it is in others, and many people with ADHD can thrive in these situations. That doesn’t negate the fact that they have a disability, or that it might still take them lots of effort and trial-and-error to get to that point.

People with ADHD can also learn to utilize the exact types of things that are hard for them–remembering to write things down, using planners, and so on–to make up for what they’re lacking in executive function. That, along with some other stuff I promised to get to (i.e. gender and ADHD), will be discussed in a future installment of this series.


[1] https://www.additudemag.com/slideshows/add-vs-adhd/

[2] https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/timeline.html

[3] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/07/how-childhood-trauma-could-be-mistaken-for-adhd/373328/

[4] https://www.nctsn.org/what-is-child-trauma/trauma-types/complex-trauma

[5] https://www.additudemag.com/oppositional-defiant-disorder-odd-and-adhd/

[6] https://www.additudemag.com/is-it-adhd-or-asd/

[7] https://nyulangone.org/news/tracing-neural-links-between-autism-adhd

[8] https://www.realsocialskills.org


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What ADHD Actually Is, Part 2

What ADHD Actually Is

ADHD (or ADD, as it used to be called) is such a misunderstood disorder, especially among adults, that I figured I’d dedicate an article to clearing up misconceptions and helping folks who suspect they have it figure out what to do next.

First, some general principles that organize my thoughts on ADHD:

  • ADHD is a developmental disability, not a mental illness. (More on this later.) This means that it begins in childhood and lasts for life. Individual symptoms might wax and wane, and your environment may be more or less conducive to the way your brain works, but ADHD doesn’t get “cured.”
  • Therefore, you do not “age out” of ADHD. If you were (accurately) diagnosed with it as a child, you still have it.
  • It’s possible for a condition to be both over- and under-diagnosed. That’s not contradictory at all. It just means that we’re looking for it in places it isn’t, and we’re not looking for it in places it is.
  • Having ADHD does not mean you have to take medication, and not being helped by ADHD medication doesn’t mean you don’t have ADHD. Those are separate questions, and there are effective strategies for ADHD besides medication.
  • ADHD has neural substrates [1] (I hate using jargon, but there’s honestly no better way to say “a specific thingie happening in your actual physical brain blorb that relates to the behaviors or subjective states you experience and others observe,” so from now on, that’s what “neural substrate means), but like all disabilities, it’s also socially constructed in many ways. That means that culture and community influence how ADHD symptoms are expressed and understood. That means that we shouldn’t be surprised when ADHD presents differently in women, people of color, etc. Rather, that’s exactly what we should expect.

So, what is ADHD exactly? Here’s the only explanation that matters:

ADHD is a disorder of executive function.

That’s it. ADHD is not about being hyperactive, forgetting things, interrupting people, losing your homework, or any other specific symptom. You can have ADHD without exhibiting any of those classic behaviors, but everyone with ADHD experiences impairment of their executive functions.

What is executive function?

Executive functions are the brain processes that help you decide what to do and when to do it. Many of these processes take place in the prefrontal cortex, a region of the brain that evolved relatively recently and helps us with higher-order cognitive tasks.

There are lots of different executive functions, especially if you get really specific with it, but here are some examples:

  • inhibiting impulses that you don’t want to act on
  • temporarily storing information that you need to use or process (a.k.a., working memory)
  • choosing what to pay attention to
  • ignoring distracting stimuli, whether internal or external
  • figuring out what steps it would take to accomplish something
  • having a sense of how long things take (for instance, when you should start getting ready in order to leave on time in order to get somewhere on time)
  • sorting relevant information from irrelevant information
  • switching smoothly between thoughts or tasks (a.k.a., cognitive flexibility)
  • adapting quickly when a plan falls through or new information becomes available
  • paying attention to and noticing your feelings and impulses

All of us, including people with executive function issues, do these mental tasks all the time. Often they happen without conscious effort. For instance, when you read a book without getting distracted every time a car drives by outside, you’re using executive function skills. When you get dressed and leave the house in the morning, you’re using executive function skills.

There are many different components to executive function and they involve different parts of the prefrontal cortex, and other brain regions too. Executive function can be impaired by many other things besides ADHD, such as autism, inebriation, sleep deprivation (or, in my case, narcolepsy), and basically any mental illness. However, when you have depression, the executive function issues resolve when the rest of the depression symptoms do. When you have ADHD and depression, the mood issues might go away but the executive dysfunction remains.

How does executive dysfunction explain ADHD symptoms?

Let’s look at some typical symptom descriptions from the DSM-V criteria for ADHD [2]. First of all, I hate these because most of them are worded in a way that’s specific to children, and most of them just sound really negative and stigmatizing. But it’s what we have for now.

For instance, the phrase “makes careless mistakes” often comes up. “Careless” implies that the person does not care enough about the task, which is why they made the mistake. But that’s not how ADHD works. A person with ADHD might make a “careless” mistake for a number of reasons:

  • They were having trouble choosing what to pay attention to, and did not notice that they were making a mistake.
  • They didn’t realize that the area in which they made the mistake was relevant. It may be obvious to you, but it wasn’t obvious to them, so they didn’t make an effort to avoid the mistake.
  • They forgot a crucial piece of information that they would’ve needed to avoid the mistake and didn’t know how to go about finding out, or didn’t notice that they’d forgotten until it was too late.
  • They couldn’t make an accurate estimate of how long the task would take, and made the mistake or allowed it to remain in their rush to get the task finished.

Here’s another example: “often interrupts.” People with ADHD might interrupt others for different reasons, too:

  • They got so excited about what they wanted to say that they were unable to inhibit the impulse to speak.
  • They know that because of their impaired short-term memory, they will forget what they want to say if they don’t say it now–and they lack the cognitive flexibility to quickly find another way to solve this problem without interrupting.
  • They find it difficult to switch smoothly between speaking and listening.
  • They failed to pay attention to the fact that the other person was still speaking.

Other criteria for ADHD are simply examples of executive dysfunctions themselves, but sometimes diagnostic criteria aren’t very useful because they tend to describe how other people experience the person with ADHD, not how that person experiences their own life and their own mind. For instance, one of the most common things I hear from people with ADHD is “I just feel constantly overwhelmed, like I can’t manage my life and keep up.” That’s nowhere in the diagnostic criteria, and if you said it to a therapist they might assume depression or anxiety. (Which many people with ADHD have, more on that later.) But that’s the feeling that results when your executive functioning doesn’t match what your lifestyle demands.

What about hyperactivity?

Hyperactivity is kind of the red-headed stepchild of ADHD symptoms. Many people with the disorder don’t have it at all (though you wouldn’t know it from stereotypes and media representations), and it’s not necessary for the diagnosis. The DSM deals with this by dividing ADHD into “types”: inattentive type, hyperactive-impulsive type, and combined type. You can still have symptoms from the other category to be one of the “types,” you just have to be predominantly that “type.” It’s kind of confusing (and in my opinion, unnecessary).

Hyperactivity doesn’t initially seem to have anything to do with executive dysfunction, except perhaps in the case of impulsive behaviors. What about executive dysfunction would cause a person to need to fidget, or to talk very quickly or feel restless all the time?

I’m not convinced that ADHD as we currently think of it is all one disorder. I think it’s two that often go together: one that I’d call executive dysfunction syndrome, and another that some researchers already call reward deficiency syndrome.

(Unfortunately, one of these researchers is using the term to promote some dubious claims about genetics and substance addiction[3], but I’ll be using it more generally.)

I don’t want to get too derailed by talking about dopamine, but in a nutshell: when we do or experience things we enjoy, certain brain regions release the neurotransmitter dopamine–especially if the reward was unexpected in some way. The chemical is a sort of a signal to the body to seek out more of the thing.

We know that people vary in how much and under what circumstances their brains produce dopamine, as it’s linked to all kinds of neurological/mental conditions. But it’s possible, too, that there’s a sort of spectrum–for some people, a relatively small reward is enough to trigger a noticeable burst of dopamine, while others need much more.

Maybe people with hyperactive traits are those who need much more–so they’re always on the go, always moving, just to feel as engaged and interested as others may feel just from petting a cat or listening to the rain. And it would make sense, because dopaminergic pathways[4] are involved in executive function, too.

Anyway, that’s mostly (somewhat scientifically-based) speculation, and it doesn’t really matter. The point is, some people with ADHD struggle with hyperactivity, and some don’t. Executive dysfunction is really the core of the disorder.

And what about depression and anxiety?

If you have ADHD, you almost certainly have lots of symptoms of depression and anxiety, too. You may even qualify for the formal diagnoses of those disorders. Think about it: for your entire life, you’ve struggled to accomplish what others see as basic functions. You may have failed classes, dropped out of educational programs, gotten fired (or quit to avoid getting fired) from jobs, lost friends and partners due to executive dysfunction, and generally failed to accomplish what you want to accomplish. Worse, if you’ve been undiagnosed, you haven’t even had the language to explain to yourself (much less to others) why you failed at those things. You’ve probably internalized others’ opinions that you’re lazy, “stupid,” unmotivated, and unlikely to amount to much. Unless you come from a very privileged background, you’re probably terrified about your future and have no idea how you’re going to pay the rent given that you can’t “adult” well enough to get things together.

The thoughts that therapists consider indicative of depression and anxiety–“I’m a failure,” “Nothing’s ever going to work out,” “What if I lose this job/relationship/apartment,” “There’s no point in even trying anymore”–might actually be very “realistic” thoughts for a person with undiagnosed, untreated ADHD to have. Cognitive behavioral therapy teaches people with depression and anxiety to question their automatic thoughts and see how “irrational” those thoughts are. But what if you have very good evidence that you’re probably going to lose your job and alienate your partner, because that’s how it’s been for your whole life?

That’s why it’s very important for people who think they might have ADHD to dig beneath these thoughts and urge their mental health providers to do the same. Antidepressants, anti-anxiety meds, and therapy that’s focused on these symptoms can provide a bit of relief to someone with ADHD, but it won’t do much, and it won’t help with the ADHD symptoms. And that’ll only reinforce the belief that nothing will ever get better.

The good news is that medication, therapy, and lifestyle interventions that are targeted specifically at ADHD are very effective. Even knowing (or suspecting) that you have ADHD can immediately make things better, because it lets you stop blaming yourself and helps you access advice and support that’s helpful. So while your negative thoughts might be “accurate” in a sense–maybe you really have failed at basically everything you’ve tried, and maybe right now you’re failing too–with the correct diagnosis, all of that can change, and it can change quickly.

What should you do if you think you might have ADHD?

For starters, don’t invalidate your suspicions just because a professional hasn’t diagnosed you (yet). Most diagnoses happen because the patient noticed something first.

Unfortunately, when it comes to ADHD, a lot of medical professionals have their own biases which aren’t helpful to anyone in this situation. Be prepared to advocate for yourself a bit. The good news is that once you’re referred to the right professional, you shouldn’t have to keep advocating for yourself. They will advocate with you.

If you have a primary care doctor, tell that doctor about your concerns and ask to be referred for a neuropsychiatric evaluation.[5] These tests are performed by doctors with MDs or PhDs in clinical psychology, and they’re the primary way to diagnose ADHD. They’re also quite accurate because they measure neurological processes that can’t be faked or altered intentionally. So while some people feel nervous about not being believed when they say they have ADHD symptoms, these evaluations are a great way to put that concern to rest. You can’t fake these results just because you want stimulants.

If you don’t have a primary care doctor, but you have a therapist or psychiatrist, same thing. But if you’re not seeing any medical professionals, I’d actually suggest taking the counterintuitive route and setting up a primary care doctor first. They’re sometimes more likely to have a quick referral for a neuropsych eval available.

If you are uninsured, keep in mind that large medical systems and university hospitals often have substantial financial aid available. For instance, Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center, where I get everything from my annual flu shot to my cancer surgery, provides assistance to anyone whose income is under 400% of the federal poverty line. Some people end up getting their care almost, or nearly, for free.

Most counties also have free or sliding-scale mental health services for uninsured residents. I’m employed by one of those. Our clients get counseling, case management, vocational assistance, psychiatry appointments, and other services mostly for free, and their medication is free, too, through a charitable pharmacy. The only issue with that is that charitable pharmacies won’t stock all psychiatric medications because some are very expensive. Stimulants tend not to be available, but that may not be true for every county.

(Also, here’s my regular reminder that until they have repealed the ACA, they have not repealed the ACA. If you can, apply for insurance this fall.)

Getting diagnosed can be helpful even if you don’t want medication. But even if you don’t get diagnosed, there are lots of ways to cope with your symptoms, whatever they’re technically called. If you have a therapist, explain to them that you’re struggling with executive function and ask them to work with you on that. If you can afford it, you can also work with an ADHD coach[6]. It’s an emerging off-shoot of life coaching that specifically focuses on the challenges faced by people with ADHD. (I actually hope to get trained as an ADHD coach someday when I can afford it.)

Besides that, two books I recommend to everyone who has or might have ADHD are:

  • More Attention, Less Deficit by Ari Tuckman [7]
  • ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life by Judith Kolberg and Kathleen Nadeau [8]

Here are some articles that people I know have found helpful:

Many people also find the ADHD subreddit helpful.

This article is already getting super long, so I’ll save all my other thoughts for part 2. (A preview: why prevalence of ADHD is increasing, what connection (if any) there is between ADHD and autism, how ADHD affects relationships and emotional processing, and why people with ADHD are sometimes very good at getting certain things done!


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_substrate

[2] https://images.pearsonclinical.com/images/assets/basc-3/basc3resources/DSM5_DiagnosticCriteria_ADHD.pdf

[3] http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2015/06/10/strange-world-reward-deficiency-syndrome-part-1/#.WrphwP0lExF

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dopaminergic_pathways

[5] https://www.med.unc.edu/neurology/divisions/movement-disorders/npsycheval

[6] https://www.adhdcoaches.org

[7] https://www.amazon.com/More-Attention-Less-Deficit-Strategies/dp/1886941742

[8] https://www.amazon.com/ADD-Friendly-Ways-Organize-Your-Life/dp/1138190748/ref=dp_ob_title_bk


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What ADHD Actually Is