Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Getting assessed and diagnosed
Eating that runs away from you, and eating you cannot stop once it has started, turn up alongside ADHD more than people expect. Usually it is doing a job rather than proving a weakness.
The pattern leans towards bingeing rather than restricting, which fits: it belongs with the difficulty of stopping something already in motion. Often it is steadying a mood too, which is why it repeats so reliably. If food is part of your picture, it belongs in the assessment, even though it feels like a separate and more embarrassing subject.
Qur’an and Sunnah
I do not pretend to be blameless, for man's very soul incites him to evil unless my Lord shows mercy: He is most forgiving, most merciful (Quran 12:53). Joseph names what is in him and lands on mercy rather than disgust.
۞وَمَآ أُبَرِّئُ نَفۡسِيٓۚ إِنَّ ٱلنَّفۡسَ لَأَمَّارَةُۢ بِٱلسُّوٓءِ إِلَّا مَا رَحِمَ رَبِّيٓۚ إِنَّ رَبِّي غَفُورࣱ رَّحِيمࣱ
I do not pretend to be blameless, for man’s very soul incites him to evil unless my Lord shows mercy: He is most forgiving, most merciful.’
Qur’an 12:53read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A meta-analysis found young people with ADHD show impairment across several domains of emotion regulation, not only attention and activity. That widens what the diagnosis is describing and makes a mood-steadying habit less surprising. The pooled studies are of young people and measure regulation rather than eating, so the link drawn here is a reasonable inference rather than a tested finding.
Graziano PA, Garcia A. (2016). Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and children's emotion dysregulation: A meta-analysis.. Clinical psychology review doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
A behaviour that reliably changes how you feel will keep coming back, whatever you have decided about it.
When not to
If you are making yourself sick, using laxatives, or eating so little that you are unwell, that needs medical attention now rather than waiting on an ADHD assessment.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Ask about food two generations back. What the parents were like about it, what the grandparents were like, what the rules were at the table.
Try not to ask why. If the person knew why, they would probably have sorted it out already, and the question tends to land like an accusation.
When something did not get done, find out which half broke. Did they not know what to do or when? Or was the plan fine, and the moment for doing it came and went?