Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › What ADHD actually is
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.
That is why so many capable people get diagnosed at university, or in a first job with real responsibility, at the point where the workarounds finally run out. If that is you, the crash can feel like proof that you were fooling everybody all along. It is closer to the truth to say the demand went up past what you could quietly compensate for.
Qur’an and Sunnah
In God's eyes, the most honoured of you are the ones most mindful of Him (Quran 49:13). Worth is not set there by how sharp anyone is, which takes some of the weight out of the whole question.
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلنَّاسُ إِنَّا خَلَقۡنَٰكُم مِّن ذَكَرࣲ وَأُنثَىٰ وَجَعَلۡنَٰكُمۡ شُعُوبࣰ ا وَقَبَآئِلَ لِتَعَارَفُوٓاْۚ إِنَّ أَكۡرَمَكُمۡ عِندَ ٱللَّهِ أَتۡقَىٰكُمۡۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ عَلِيمٌ خَبِيرࣱ
People, We created you all from a single man and a single woman, and made you into races and tribes so that you should recognize one another. In God’s eyes, the most honoured of you are the ones most mindful of Him: God is all knowing, all aware
Qur’an 49:13read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A European consensus statement from a large expert group holds that adult ADHD is common and remains underdiagnosed and undertreated in many countries. Late recognition in adults is the norm rather than a special case. It is expert agreement rather than a study of who gets missed and why.
Kooij JJS, Bijlenga D, Salerno L, Jaeschke R, Bitter I, Balázs J, Thome J, Dom G, Kasper S, Nunes Filipe C, Stes S, Mohr P, Leppämäki S, Casas M, Bobes J, Mccarthy JM, Richarte V, Kjems Philipsen A, Pehlivanidis A, Niemela A, Styr B, Semerci B, Bolea-Alamanac B, Edvinsson D, Baeyens D, Wynchank D, Sobanski E, Philipsen A, McNicholas F, Caci H, Mihailescu I, Manor I, Dobrescu I, Saito T, Krause J, Fayyad J, Ramos-Quiroga JA, Foeken K, Rad F, Adamou M, Ohlmeier M, Fitzgerald M, Gill M, Lensing M, Motavalli Mukaddes N, Brudkiewicz P, Gustafsson P, Tani P, Oswald P, Carpentier PJ, De Rossi P, Delorme R, Markovska Simoska S, Pallanti S, Young S, Bejerot S, Lehtonen T, Kustow J, Müller-Sedgwick U, Hirvikoski T, Pironti V, Ginsberg Y, Félegyházy Z, Garcia-Portilla MP, Asherson P. (2019). Updated European Consensus Statement on diagnosis and treatment of adult ADHD.. European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Cleverness hides the difficulty until the load gets big enough that hiding it stops working.
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
With ADHD, self-management usually runs a few years behind the birthday. Expecting a child to handle what other children their age handle sets you both up to fail.
In any quiet practice, dhikr, prayer, sitting still, your mind will go. The practice is not staying put. It is noticing you have gone and coming back, however many times that turns out to be.
ADHD tends to surface at the points where life asks for more organising: a new school year with seven teachers, the first term at university, a first job, a promotion into managing other people.