I don’t really believe it’s a spectrum. I believe that you either have a dopamine processing deficiency, or you don’t. I think the differences we see are the result of how well some of us learn to cope, or devise self protecting strategies.
I mean, there may be slight differences, but I wouldn’t call it a spectrum, at least in the way that autism is, where you have mildly socially incompetent people to nearly non functional people.
I was undiagnosed bipolar for over 40 years, masked by my success in employment and entrepreneurship, which lasted about 2-5 years every stage, when tedium became unbearable, and had to look for other challenges to fuel my dopamine. No one, even myself, connected the dots between my intense drive, and the following depressive stage, and the next jump. I finally crashed hard, and sought a psychiatryst. Once properly medicated, my mood swings normalized, the ADHD symptoms were unmasked.
Now we are working on dialing in meds for ADHD. Pretty hard to balance.
In my case I belive I don’t more or less ADHD than others, but that I was good at (extreme) damage control.
The problem is that “ADHD” is not defined as a dopamine processing deficiency. It’s defined as a cluster of symptoms that exceed a certain level. Those symptoms could be related to dopamine processing, or something else! So you’re not wrong, in any real sense, but you are wrong by the definition set out by those who say what ADHD is.
A very dear friend, who is a psychiatrist, says that the DSM is mostly to help GPs to identify symptoms, to be able to send people to the psychiatrist, not to actually diagnose.
I hate that in a sense you’re right. The problem is that in a practical sense it’s become so much more than that, too. So due to the law of unintended consequences, the psychiatrists that wrote the manual have built their own prison (if you’ll excuse the mixed metaphors).
To me, it seems that psychiatrists/psychologists need one manual for GPs, another manual amongst themselves, and a third written to placate US insurance companies. Right now they all use the DSM because it’s the only thing.
I don’t really believe it’s a spectrum. I believe that you either have a dopamine processing deficiency, or you don’t. I think the differences we see are the result of how well some of us learn to cope, or devise self protecting strategies.
I mean, there may be slight differences, but I wouldn’t call it a spectrum, at least in the way that autism is, where you have mildly socially incompetent people to nearly non functional people.
I was undiagnosed bipolar for over 40 years, masked by my success in employment and entrepreneurship, which lasted about 2-5 years every stage, when tedium became unbearable, and had to look for other challenges to fuel my dopamine. No one, even myself, connected the dots between my intense drive, and the following depressive stage, and the next jump. I finally crashed hard, and sought a psychiatryst. Once properly medicated, my mood swings normalized, the ADHD symptoms were unmasked.
Now we are working on dialing in meds for ADHD. Pretty hard to balance.
In my case I belive I don’t more or less ADHD than others, but that I was good at (extreme) damage control.
My opinion.
The problem is that “ADHD” is not defined as a dopamine processing deficiency. It’s defined as a cluster of symptoms that exceed a certain level. Those symptoms could be related to dopamine processing, or something else! So you’re not wrong, in any real sense, but you are wrong by the definition set out by those who say what ADHD is.
I hate the DSM.
A very dear friend, who is a psychiatrist, says that the DSM is mostly to help GPs to identify symptoms, to be able to send people to the psychiatrist, not to actually diagnose.
I hate that in a sense you’re right. The problem is that in a practical sense it’s become so much more than that, too. So due to the law of unintended consequences, the psychiatrists that wrote the manual have built their own prison (if you’ll excuse the mixed metaphors).
To me, it seems that psychiatrists/psychologists need one manual for GPs, another manual amongst themselves, and a third written to placate US insurance companies. Right now they all use the DSM because it’s the only thing.