Matthews 1

Drew Matthews

Lisa Cook

English 1201.208

21 March 2021

What is ADHD and how does it affect the people that have it?

It is noted that ADHD is quite possibly one of the most misunderstood and easily

dismissed mental illnesses, yet 4.4 percent of the United States and 3.4 percent of the global

population suffer from it. What exactly is ADHD and how does it affect the daily lives of the

nearly fifteen million Americans that have it?

Over the past 120 years ADHD has gone through many name changes, including minimal

brain dysfunction, hyperactive child syndrome, and hyperkinetic reaction of childhood, to name

a few. The names kept being changed but the symptoms always remained the same, little boys

who were unable to sit still and be quiet. It was not until 1980 when the diagnosis was updated to

ADD or attention-deficit disorder. Since then ADD has been used most to reference the disorder

despite being updated again in 1994 to ADHD or attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (Sarkis

12).

The simplest way to describe what ADHD is, is to say that it is a dopamine deficiency.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, or a chemical in the brain that signals pleasure. It also helps in

controlling executive functions such as thinking and planning. According to Stephanie Sarkis,

author of the book Adult ADD: A Guide for the Newly Diagnosed, it is nearly impossible for

people with ADHD to find motivation and follow through. Because of the lack of dopamine,

those with ADHD do not have an innate sense of reward for finishing a task, therefore the
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pleasure that others receive from checking something off a to do list does not resonate the same

way for them. This leads them to coming across as lazy, inefficient, or even in some cases

unintelligent.

According to Dr. Thomas E. Brown, one of the leading experts on attention and

behavioral disorders, ADHD has no correlation to a person’s intelligence. What others might

perceive as lower intelligence or aloofness, might just be someone with ADHD struggling to pay

attention. Dr. Brown goes on to say, “People with ADHD have a problem with ‘staying tuned,’

it’s like trying to watch TV and you’ve got four different stations all coming in at the same time

on one channel, and it gets kind of hard to separate the signal from the noise” (ADD/ADHD).

This affects many aspects of their lives, whether they are trying to pay attention in school but

cannot help staring out the window, or reading a book and realizing they have no clue what they

just read on the last three pages, or even struggling to remember why they just walked into the

kitchen.

One of the biggest issues that most adults with ADHD struggle with is not even knowing

they have it. ADHD is highly hereditary. 25% of every person with ADHD has a parent who has

it, the other 75% have a direct relative that has it (ADD/ADHD). A lot of adults do not even

realize they have it until they have a child that has been diagnosed. When a child is born to an

adult that has ADHD, there is a 70% chance that that child will also have ADHD (Boomsma, et

al).

A lot of times, adults do not even recognize that they could have ADHD until they leave

home. They get jobs or go off to college and realize that they struggle with being motivated and

keeping themselves organized. This is when they have the widest range of responsibilities

without being able to shy away from the ones they may not be as good at (ADD/ADHD). People
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with ADHD struggle more with educational, occupational, and societal functions than those

without it (Bangma, et al). They struggle with anxiety and depression and as a result find

impulsive and irresponsible ways to self-medicate. Adults with ADHD are more prone to risky

driving, risky sexual behavior, and substance abuse (Bangma, et al).

The biggest issue for impulsive behavior when it comes to adults with ADHD, is

financial responsibility. Impulsive behavior does not always mean risky behavior. Most of the

time it is based around a need for instant gratification. Adults with ADHD show a significant

increase when it comes to impulse buying and spontaneous decision making than those without

(Bangma, et al). Because there is such a high focus on instant gratification, adults with ADHD

are not very good at planning for the future. They are less likely to save for retirement or even

take advantage of a savings account (Bangma, et al). This causes them to struggle financially and

often leads to them being more financially dependent.

One major misconception about ADHD is that it only affects males. Females are just as

likely to receive an ADHD diagnosis. In fact, due to poor impulse control women are more prone

to impulse buying than men with or without ADHD (Bangma, et al) and are 4 times more likely

to have an eating disorder (Sarkis 85).

While there is no cure for ADHD there are many treatments that can help. Cognitive

behavioral therapy or CBT and pharmacotherapy, which is behavioral therapy combined with

medications, have proven to be very effective (Tsai, et al). According to Dr. Brown, if people

with ADHD are given the right dosage of the right medicine, the chemical reactions in the brain

can work much better and help them function better.

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Works Cited

“ADD/ADHD | What Is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder?” Performance by Thomas E

Brown, YouTube, Understood.org, 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouZrZa5pLXk.

Accessed 5 March 2021.

Bangma, Dorien F., et al. “Financial Decision-Making in a Community Sample of Adults with

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Connolly, Maureen. “ADHD in Girls: Why It's Ignored, Why That's Dangerous.” ADDitude,

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March 2021.

“Dopamine: What It Is & What It Does.” Edited by Smitha Bhandari, WebMD, WebMD, 19 June

2019, www.webmd.com/mental-health/what-is-dopamine. Accessed 26 March 2021.

Flippin, Royce. “Hyperfocus: The ADHD Phenomenon of Intense Fixation.” ADDitude,

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