Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › What ADHD actually is
Ask yourself two questions: how did I actually do, and what do I think I could have done. The gap between those two answers is real, and it is usually where the grief sits.
Most people can name that gap within seconds, which tells you they have been carrying it a long time without saying it. Writing both answers down turns a vague sense of waste into something with a shape, and something with a shape can be grieved rather than just endured. If you work with people, asking this is often more use than any statistic you could offer them.
Qur’an and Sunnah
He raises some of you above others in rank, to test you through what He gives you (Quran 6:165). What you were given, and what you managed with it, is the shape of your own test rather than a comparison you lost.
وَهُوَ ٱلَّذِي جَعَلَكُمۡ خَلَٰٓئِفَ ٱلۡأَرۡضِ وَرَفَعَ بَعۡضَكُمۡ فَوۡقَ بَعۡضࣲ دَرَجَٰتࣲ لِّيَبۡلُوَكُمۡ فِي مَآ ءَاتَىٰكُمۡۗ إِنَّ رَبَّكَ سَرِيعُ ٱلۡعِقَابِ وَإِنَّهُۥ لَغَفُورࣱ رَّحِيمُۢ
It is He who made you successors on the earth and raises some of you above others in rank, to test you through what He gives you. [Prophet], your Lord is swift in punishment, yet He is most forgiving and merciful
Qur’an 6:165read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A long term follow up of 515 children into young adulthood found that reports of how someone was doing differed depending on who was asked. A person's own account of their capacity is one of those sources, and it holds information the record does not. The study was following outcomes rather than testing this as a question to ask.
Swanson JM, Arnold LE, Molina BSG, Sibley MH, Hechtman LT, Hinshaw SP, Abikoff HB, Stehli A, Owens EB, Mitchell JT, Nichols Q, Howard A, Greenhill LL, Hoza B, Newcorn JH, Jensen PS, Vitiello B, Wigal T, Epstein JN, Tamm L, Lakes KD, Waxmonsky J, Lerner M, Etcovitch J, Murray DW, Muenke M, Acosta MT, Arcos-Burgos M, Pelham WE, Kraemer HC, MTA Cooperative Group. (2017). Young adult outcomes in the follow-up of the multimodal treatment study of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: symptom persistence, source discrepancy, and height suppression.. Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Naming the distance between what happened and what could have happened lets you mourn it instead of carrying it as proof you are lazy.
When not to
If naming this opens grief that does not lift after a few weeks, that is worth taking to a therapist rather than sitting with alone.
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
If thoughts of ending your life turn up, tell someone that day. Do not wait to see whether they pass, and do not wait until you can explain them properly.
If work keeps going wrong in the same way, ask for the expectations in writing before the next thing goes wrong. What is obvious to a manager is often not obvious to you, and a written version can be checked.
ADHD does not come with extra intelligence, and it does not take any away either. What being bright does is buy you time, because you can work around it for years before anyone notices.