You probably have heard of ADHD. Maybe you know someone that has ADHD. But what is it? ADHD stands for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and it is a neurological disorder that effects a person’s ability to focus. Even though being named this, the “Attention Deficit” is kind of misleading because people with ADHD don’t have a “deficit in attention,” they just can’t regulate their attention. That pretty much means that a person with ADHD, for example, can play video games for hours but if they have to do homework, they won’t be able to focus and finish the homework.

There are actually 3 types of ADHD, there is inattentive ADHD, hyperactive ADHD, and if you’re really lucky, there is combined ADHD, which is just inattentive and hyperactive combined. There are probably some of you that might be saying, “What about ADD?” And you would be wrong. The problem with “ADD” is that it is an outdated term that doctors don’t really use any more. ADD used to be a term to say ADHD but with out the Hyperactivity part, but researchers found out there is really no difference. So if someone has ADD they technically have ADHD now, and to be more specific they have inattentive ADHD now.

ADHD is also apart of the neurodivergent family. Neurodivergent is a term that describes people whose brain works differently. That means that any neurological disorder like Autism, OCD, Dyslexia, or Bipolar is under the neurodivergent umbrella, and because all of these disorders are under an umbrella, if you have one you might have another. Most of you might be reading this and thinking, “But I don’t have ADHD, or Autism, or anything like that,” and you would be in luck. Neurotypical is a term that describes people whose brain work normally, which means, for example, because you don’t have ADHD, you can focus on anything at any time you want. One funny thing is that for me and other people that have ADHD, we can’t imagine what it is like to be neurotypical. Most ADHD people think that it is bizarre to just be able to focus on anything at any time.

Not to get off topic, but there is a theory I really like on why people have ADHD. The theory goes like this, a long time ago when humans were hunter/gathers, the ADHD brain was the normal brain. I know that sounds weird but if you think about how good ADHD is for survival, it makes sense. First off, you are always aware of your surrounding and secondly your better in stressful situations. But as humans became more farming and industrialized, there was no reason for being always aware of your surroundings and better in stressful situation because life was now calm and you didn’t need to hunt any more, so people with those traits just get labeled as weird and different. And that continues on today, where people with ADHD have problems focusing on the right things.

So now you know the basics of ADHD. If you thought this was interesting there is a lot more symptoms to ADHD besides not being able to focus. If you look up the “ADHD Iceberg,” it will show you what people think ADHD is and then what ADHD actually like with most the symptoms listed. There is also CHADD, a website run by the CDC about ADHD. Or maybe you could find out what another neurodivergent disorder is, like Autism. Just so you know, I am not trying to diagnose you in any way, I’m just sharing information on an interesting disorder that I have.