Friends! It’s nearly 17:00 and nearly dark! The perfect time to finally start my Monday post!
Seriously, though, after pointing out that telltale ADHD approach to my goal days last time, I did actually consider starting this one over the weekend.
But that’s as far as I got.
So, once upon a time, I was going to compare some of the differences between the primarily inattentive and combined presentations of ADHD. And I’m potentially going to finally do that now, but to quote the official ADHD creed: no promises. It may be more like the dangerous business of stepping out a Hobbit’s front door.
Who the fuck knows where we’ll end up.
Right. So, aside from just general curiosity and the inescapable need to analyze things, my interest in the differences regarding the most prevalent and impactful symptoms, common comorbidities, and outcomes of these two presentations is twofold. Actually, technically threefold.
First, because girls and women seem to more often present with primarily inattentive symptoms, leading to vastly lower rates of diagnosis and treatment–and considering the plethora of adverse outcomes living with undiagnosed and untreated or under-treated ADHD leads to, that’s fucking criminal.
(Bonus points if you also think of this scene from Three Amigos every single time you encounter the word “plethora,” especially if you can’t help but say it out loud in El Guapo’s accent every time, too. It’s akin to the fact that I absolutely cannot say the word “Ricola” without immediately following it up with this. We’re all currently experiencing our first cold virus in almost two years–wah-wah–and I was texting with my sister this morning about my wicked sore throat, telling her at least my menthol Ricola really help. But then my brain refused to allow me to move on with our text conversation without also singing it, so I had to send her a voice memo of me doing so. It was only two seconds long, though, so she at first assumed I did it by accident and thought maybe she shouldn’t listen to it in case it was just me farting or something. But of course she immediately changed her mind and listened to it anyway because farts are pretty revered in my family. And even though it wasn’t, in fact, me farting, she was extremely pleased with her decision.)
Where were we?
Oh, yes.
Second, because while girls and women are more likely than boys and men to present with primarily inattentive symptoms, and conversely, boys and men are more likely than girls and women to present with combined symptoms, the primarily inattentive presentation is still more prevalent in every age group amongst both females and males, save for the preschool cohort (which is dominated by the hyperactive-impulsive presentation, making perfect sense to anyone who’s spent any amount of time around even the average three-year-old).
And third, because while my husband and I both have the combined presentation of ADHD, our children both have the primarily inattentive presentation–our daughter and our son. Which I find endlessly fascinating, really, considering they are each our gender-matched carbon copy in almost every way, looks being the main outlier for my contribution. My husband’s genes absolutely dominate in that arena, and although they don’t really look that much alike, they both still somehow look just like him. I’ve literally never been told by an adoring stranger or an acquaintance or even really by family members or close friends that either of my children look like me. You need only talk to my daughter for a few seconds, though, to confirm the girl is most definitely mine.
But as I’ve mentioned before, while ADHD is highly heritable, environmental factors can and do play a role in the whether, when, and how of gene expression relating to ADHD, especially in utero. And seeing as they’re twins and shared double-occupancy lodgings for the better part of a year, there’s no telling how much of that joint experience contributed to their ADHD presentations.
Also, fun fact: I LITERALLY JUST REALIZED THAT LAST BIT WHILE TYPING OUT THE FIRST BIT.
Also, ALSO, fun fact: I have really strange and particular everything typing habits and rarely if ever use caps lock, but was super proud of myself just then for deciding to use it to make typing that out easier. You know, in the spirit of trying something new. However, after I hit the caps lock key, I still proceeded to hold shift down with my pinky as I typed the entire thing out because I apparently instantly forgot I had finally decided to use caps lock for once.
I also believe that means it’s time for intermission so I can pop some Benadryl and pass out and come back to this in the morning seeing as it’s, well, technically already morning, meaning I’ve missed my deadline anyway.
And yes, sometimes it does actually take eight hours to type 800 words when you have ADHD or you’re a parent or–winner winner chicken dinner–both, with a hefty dash of illness-all-around sprinkled on top.
WAIT.
Holy shit, you guys (which, by the way, I fully acknowledge is terribly not inclusive, but godsdammit, it’s a challenging one to let go of. I mean, I have started using “y’all” as a replacement, but to be perfectly honest, I feel like a total fraud whenever I do so because I in no way have Southern ancestry. However, this line of thinking led me to look up the precise etymology of “y’all” and holy shit, you guys [I couldn’t help myself], there are instances of it being used in England in the seventeenth century. And although it seems to have only been used as a way to modulate prose, not as a common-use pronoun in itself, I can at least claim English ancestry, for sure, so I feel way better about using it now. See, it’s these kinds of breakthroughs that constitute the real benefits of a forever-wandering brain.)
Right, the record scratch: I realized I could technically just, you know, post this right now. As is. In all its dizzying meta glory. As a painfully accurate example of the way this particular ADHD brain operates.
I mean, it makes me wildly uncomfortable on several levels because it’s all over the place and incomplete and not at all what I intended to post. But I did invoke the ADHD creed before I really got going, so it would be quite dishonest of anyone to say they were completely unprepared for the eventuality of being left to hang in the gale-force winds of my weirdness.
And really, the damn thing is over a thousand words as it is, so what am I honestly going to do with it tomorrow? Add more words?
Don’t tempt me.
Ware the Words 