November 7, 2024 • 49 mins
Today, the conclusion of the two-part episode on ADHD.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, everyone, In case you're listening to these episodes out
of order, we gave a heads up in episode one
that we have a kind of a grown up talk
about ADHD in these two episodes, So we wanted to say,
if you're a parent with a kid who has ADHD,
maybe listen to it yourself first before you share it
with them. On with the.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Show, Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's
Chuck and Jars here again and we're starting up part
two of our double episode on ADHD.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
That's right, And if you remember in part one we
discussed ADHD.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Some people have it, some.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
People don't, and we're going to talk right now about
how you can figure that out, and that's called diagnosis.
Right now, where we are scientifically is that the biggest
factor on whether or not you have ADHD or not
is hereditary. If you have kids and you have ADHD
as a parent, your kid has about a fifty percent
(01:08):
chance of having it as well. And like we mentioned
in the first part, a lot of adults from especially
our generation Gen Xers, are now getting diagnosed in their
thirties forties, fifties because they found out that their kid
has ADHD and they're like, wow, little Chucky Junior looks
(01:29):
a lot like big Chucky.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, that's a symptom. I thought that was charming exactly.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Cattle's a bug.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
And even if they don't recognize it in them, there's
a one hundred percent chance that their spouse will be like,
I really think you have this too.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Yeah, but there are some other factors, right.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Yes, there's issues during pregnancy, that's a big one, usually
exposure to alcohol or tobacco, premature delivery, if you didn't
weigh very much when you were born, if you were
exposed to lead as a kid, if you had a
brain injury as a kid. There's a lot of concern
about some other stuff. I think you said at the
(02:09):
very outset of part one. There isn't any research that
suggests watching too much TV or living in a go
go go world. There is some research that suggests that
blue number one and Blue number two food dies may
actually at least exacerbate ADHD symptoms, But for the most part,
(02:30):
they think it's a combination of genetics, the environment you
were raised in, and then possibly like actual environmental factors
like being exposed to lead or your mom, you know,
smoking when she was pregnant with you.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Yeah, and just to kind of clear up the TV
and the screen thing, watching TV or being on screens
too much or too much TV quote unquote isn't going
to help give you ADHD, but there is a connection there.
If you are a kid with ADHD, the pool toward
a screen is going to be way stronger than a
(03:06):
kid who doesn't have it. That short attention span is
gonna really crave like the flashy graphics that video games
or cartoons can deliver you, it'll deliver that steady dose
of dopamine. They've done studies, it was. I found one
a large study of five year olds that compared tension
(03:27):
span of kids who watched less than thirty minutes per
day of TV with those who spent more than two
hours in front of a TV, and of course we
mean you know, screens basically.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
And pretty dramatic results.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
The kids who watched the most TV had almost an
eight times more of a chance of meeting the ADHD
diagnosis criteria, and it even outranked other things that cause
attention problems like you know, lack of sleep or parents
stress eutonomic stress stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
So there's a link. It's not going to get you ADHD.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
But if you have a kid with ADHD, then you
should probably just monitor screens even more. You know, you
should be doing that anyway, but maybe even more so.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah, because those sites are designed to release dopamine and
train you to come back and do it again and
again and again. And so kids with ADHD who don't
normally have a flood of dopamine when they get it,
they really learn to do that thing that gives them
that dopamine, which again doesn't give you like a feel
good rush, It just comes along with that and tells
(04:33):
your brain this is a really important thing to do,
so do it again and again and again.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
It's also like the age of your kid is really
important when you're trying to diagnose if you're pre preschool
aged or younger or I guess that counts as all
ages younger than preschool, but.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
That that can be a lot tougher because there are
other developmental delays that may look like ADHD that change
and you may not be able to get a good
diagnosis until they're you know, six, seven, eight, years old,
and even when they're older, like you know, teenagers.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
You got to rule out a lot of stuff like.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Learning disabilities, mood disorders, if you have like vision or
hearing problems or a sleep disorder. A lot of that
stuff can can fool you into thinking you have ADHD.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
So it can be tricky, it can be.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
So there's two lists. There's an inattentive list and then
there's a hyperactive list. Yeah, and each one has I
think nine like criteria things like you know, you lose
things frequently, you appear to zone out while people are
talking to you, stuff like that. And if you have
six out of the nine on the inattentive list, you
(05:43):
have inattentive type ADHD. If you have six out of
nine on the hyperactive list, you have hyperactive type ADHD.
And if you're really running up the numbers and you've
got six of nine on inattentive and six of nine
on hyperactive, you've got the combined version of ADHD. Adults,
(06:04):
it's the same thing, although the criterias adjusted a little bit.
For you know, runs around rambunctiously in class. You don't
do that, but say you feel restless at it during
meetings like it's really hard to sit still.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
You may be mentally doing that exactly.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
I would love to jump up and spin in a circle,
right right, But a kid will actually do that. Where's
the adult in the meeting will just struggle through that exactly.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
So the criteria is essentially the same, it's just kind
of adjusted for adults, and then for adults it's five
of nine yeah, for either lists. And then also with kids.
When you're diagnosing kids, you look at their educational records,
you talk to their parents, you talk to the guidance counselors.
You get as much information as you possibly can to
(06:48):
properly diagnose somebody with ADHD, because there's not one like
here's our ADHD test, whether it's a blood test or
a written test. You're basically pulling all of these disparate
info together to put together like, Okay, this kid has
ADHD and it's this kind Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
And that's why you know, parent teacher conferences are super valuable.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
I think when you first start to have to do
that stuff.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
You're just like, oh God, kill me, I gotta seriously, like,
because your experience is from when you're a kid, Like
what a waste of time.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
But it's not at all.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
When you go in there as a parent, you know
how your kid is at home. You don't know how
they are at school because you don't have a little
camera in their classroom where you can just sit around
and watch what they're like.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
So rich parents do, right, Yeah, maybe so, but.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
You can really glean Like I think when you have
challenges with a kid at home as a parent, you're
dying to know if it's just you or if it's
just the way it is at home. In other words,
obviously not just the parent's fault, but you're wondering. So
you're you're like when we get in there with Ruby's teachers,
we're always just like, so, what's going on?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
What was she like? Does she have trouble with this
or that?
Speaker 3 (07:56):
And sometimes it's like, yeah, she has the same trouble
with this or that at home, And sometimes it's like no,
it's not at all at school.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
And so it's really super enlightening.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Yeah, that is super enlightening. Does it make you feel
better or is it more just like it just answers
the question that you have.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Yeah, just I think you know, knowledge is power, So
just knowing that stuff that.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Dude, we should start doing that with you and Jerry.
They needed to be adult versions of parent teacher conferences.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Oh that's a great idea, you know, I would be
so anxious.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Oh no, it'd be good. We do it over drinks.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Okay. One other thing, you can find a lot of
really great accurate diagnostic tests on sites like TikTok, which
have lots of misspelled words in the title. So those
are always really great to test whether you have ADHD
or not.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Be aware of that. I mean, social media stuff can help.
There's lots some good resources. But what was that study?
Like half of that stuff on TikTok was just wrong?
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah, if I think fifty two yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
When it came to this, yeah, more than half.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Yeah. So one of the big questions that we're still
answering today, and if you haven't picked up that we
don't have a full grasp of ADHD in any way,
shape or form yet. That's correct. But one of the
factors that we're trying to figure out is the prevalence
of ADHD among kids and among adults, and it's kind
(09:18):
of all over the map. It does seem like we're
starting to kind of zero in a little bit. We're
figuring out like the criteria to really like to really
diagnose ADHD, and it seems like the numbers are starting
to get a little smaller as time goes on and
we get a little better with recognizing ADHD.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Yeah, and correct me if I'm wrong, because I know
that you found some other numbers, but we'll just go
through them and you can just say.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
If I'm wrong.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Between ages of three and seventeen, so school age kids
in the US United States of America, around ten percent
have been diagnosed with ADHD. That number does get bigger
with age because a lot of times you won't get
tested until a little later, and some you know, diagnostic
testing requires money, and sometimes a lot of money.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
I mean, you can do.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Like a just a sort of a psychiatric evaluation maybe
if your kids go into a therapist or something, and
they may just look at criteria and ask a few questions.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
But if you want like.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
A real deal diagnostic diagnostic evaluation, like those aren't cheap.
And that sucks because, like these numbers are kids who
have been diagnosed because they were able to be diagnosed.
So I'm sure there are a lot of situations where
that's not possible.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
There's also a shortage of psychiatrists in the United States,
so it's often there's a long wait list to even
be seen from that psychiatrist, so you have to pay
a lot of money too. Not all psychiatrists specialize in ADHD,
so you really need to find from an even like
smaller pool to choose from of psychiatrists. And then also
(11:05):
once they diagnose you that the outlay of money is
not over there, like you have to keep seeing them
and they charge you every time for that. And psychiatrists
are medical doctors, so their fees are not on the
par or on the order of a psychologist or a therapist.
They're four or five times more on average. Probably I'm
(11:25):
pulling that out of thin air, but it's very clear
that you're going to pay more for your psychiatrists than
you would for a therapist.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Generally still boys are more likely to get that diagnosis
than girls, about thirteen percent to six percent. There's also
variations by race. I believe the highest percentage Black kids
are at twelve percent, ten percent for White kids, eight
(11:54):
percent for Hispanic kids, and three percent for Asian children,
which is just super interest.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
It is interesting, for sure, and there's got to be
some clue in there somewhere like, Yeah, that seems like
there's that's weird that there's a difference because I think
all of those numbers were for kids in the United States.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
I think globally they've come up within a twenty seventeen
study across the world that five almost five point three
percent of kids have ADHD. And there's a there's a
question like, Okay, is this over diagnosed because I said
that the prevalence rate seem to be kind of getting
a little smaller as we zero in better and better.
(12:35):
But the diagnostic or the rates of diagnosis have really
picked up where they really did at the beginning of
the twenty first century. Between two thousand and five and
twenty fourteen, diagnoses of kids with ADHD doubled, doubled. That's crazy.
That's a huge increase doubled. It's almost like one hundred
(12:57):
percent more.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Yeah, And you know, there's just no scientific consensus right
now on whether it's an over diagnosis or whether it's
just we know more now and there's less stigma. There's
more kids getting tested now there. You know, the criteria
changed in twenty thirteen from the DSM four to the
d S m five as far as that threshold, So
(13:22):
all of those things probably factor in.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
To the doubling.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
I would think, Yeah, one thing though, if you are
taking your kid into be tested, make sure that it's
since they kind of evaluate the kid against the expectations
of their grade level. If they're young for their grade, Yep,
that needs to be taken into account because they can
easily be misdiagnosed because they're actually not at that grade
(13:47):
level yet, because they're not of that age quite yet,
even though they're in that grade.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Yeah, and with COVID kids, you know, potentially missing out
on depending on what happened where you were, on a
lot of valuable school. So yeah, it's important to look
at because because Ruby is young for her grade, so
in some cases she's like eight or nine months younger
than some of her classmates. And then when you throw
(14:14):
even though she did COVID kindergarten, which was a real boon,
they did their best, they it wasn't like regular school. Still,
so teachers and educators are having to sort and parents
are having to sort through all of that.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Still chuck.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Just to kind of give a hat tip to some
of our listeners in other countries, I saw that the
NHS says in the UK five percent of kids have ADHD.
In Australia they estimate six to ten percent of kids
have ADHD, Canada rich five to seven percent.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Not bad eh.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
And then our friends in Germany can expect a percentage
of four point three three for the number or for
the percentage of kids that have ADHD in that country.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Funderbar.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
So what about adults, because as we now realize, adults
have ADHD too, or they probably had it in childhood
and it was just undiagnosed and they just didn't get
diagnosed until later in life. That's typically what happens.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Well, my friends, let's take a break and find out
those results right after this.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
Definitely should.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Childhood each other?
Speaker 4 (15:29):
Y s K. Lately I've been learning some stuff about
insomnia or aluminia. How about the one on border like
disorder that are nder border that one before, but it
was so nice I learned this.
Speaker 5 (15:51):
Why everybody listen, all right?
Speaker 3 (16:06):
What a cliffhanger that was our adult listeners on the
edges of their collective seat seats seat collective seat.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Yeah, collective, yeah, because it's collective, collective soul.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Collective soul. That's a good one.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
The rate of the condition into adulthood is all over
the map. Some you might look at one thing that
says about five percent, because you know, that's kind of
what it is for kids, ish, and then you might
read something else that said, now like seventy five percent
adults have it. It's really really startling when you start
looking into this as an adult. There was a study
(16:45):
from twenty twenty one that found that it can fluctuate
over time, and you know, it's kind of what I
was talking about being on a spectrum. But about nine
percent of those diagnosed as kids, they said, had quote
unquot fully recovered in young adulthood. So I don't know
if what that means though that that like our systems
(17:08):
in place such that they've learned to manage it.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Yeah, that's the weird thing is there's no known cure
for ADHD. All of the stuff that we use for
is just managing it. But I think one of the
reasons also that they were like it's just a childhood
disorder that you outgrow is because some people actually do so.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
You actually can way, so that maybe the nine percent
or part of that nine percent.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
I guess, But to pull one of your old old
school wards and it seems shinky to me, like I
don't understand how. Yeah, I don't understand how you could
outgrow something that arises from your brain being literally different
than other people's brains. Yeah, I don't get it. But
maybe we just don't don't understand it quite yet. But
(17:51):
it is true. I'm not one hundred percent sure, but
for the most part, it does seem like if you
have ADHD as a kid, you have it as an
adult as well.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Yeah, and if you're in a adult with ADHD, you're
probably seeing it play out with organization and focus, you
know a lot of times with your job, but in
just in your life as well, because it's always there.
You might have some pretty severe mood swings. You might
be a procrastinator a lot of times, you're misdiagnosed because
(18:20):
it might make you really anxious. So there's like, now
you have anxiety or it might really bum you out
with these mood swings, and they might say, oh, you're
just depressed. All of that could just be ADHD or
a kill morbidity.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Yeah, and we'll talk about cole morbidities in a second.
I got it. But with adults, you know, again, the
adults don't get up in meetings and run around the
table and they're like, just go ahead, I'm listening, you know.
Instead great, they're just going to sit there and just
you know, use all of their energy to not do that,
and then also to try to focus on what's being said.
(18:55):
And then girls with ADHD, Chuck, tend to fall through
the cracks much more frequently for a couple of reasons,
but the main one that I saw is that girls
are so expected to be like demure and quiet and
self possessed that girls learn to mask their symptoms earlier
(19:16):
than boys do, who can get away with being more
rambunctious than girls can, so it goes undetected. And then
finally when they grow up and have a family, there's
like I can't there's too many plates, I can't do this.
I'm just exhausted and I'm not doing any of this
the way that I'm supposed to be. And they'll usually
(19:38):
get diagnosed with depression and then anxiety or something like that,
but if they find the right doctor, they'll be properly
diagnosed as ADHD.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
For sure.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
You mentioned comorbidities. Autism is a very interesting one. Thirty
to eighty percent of people with autism spectrum disorder are
also diagnosed with ADHD. In about twenty to fifty percent
of people with ADHD also have autism spectrum disorder.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
And you're just like, why aren't they the same percentages?
But it turns out that ADHD is actually more common
than autism, so that, yeah, is solved.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
For sure, and there's a lot of overlap there.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
I think before twenty thirteen with the updated criteria in
the DSM five, they thought that was like a mutually
exclusive thing, and some people this is much the minority
for sure, but there are some researchers that do think
it's just sort of a single condition manifesting in a
couple of different ways. But most researchers don't think that.
(20:42):
They think it's like, you know, two separate things that
live alongside one another a lot of times.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Right, And Chuck, I just I just realized, I don't
know if we've shouted out Livia this whole time yet
for helping us out with this one. But she did
a great job.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
She did a great job. And before I forget the other.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Thing, as far as ADHD and autism spectrum disorder is,
you're more likely to just do better if you have
one or the other than if you have both. That
may feel intuitive, but I think it was you know,
Bear saying.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Did I interrupt and interject that Livia thing.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
No, it's fine.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Depression is another one, Chuck. I think kids with are
people with ADHD are five times likelier to have depression
than neurotypical peers, and they're not exactly sure why. A
lot of people are like, well, it's obvious. I mean, like,
it can be a really hard life to have ADHD,
especially when it's undiagnosed and untreated, so of course people
(21:48):
have depression. Other people are like, no, we're talking about
actually like clinical, like brain based depression. It's possible that
there's actually they share similar roots in the structure of
the brain, and that might account for it that there's
a lot of overlap physically between depression and ADHD.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
And about forty percent of kids, and I think we
touched on this a little bit in Part one, also
have anxiety, which just makes it all tougher to deal
with because it kind of feeds on itself. Thirty to
fifty percent of kids with ADHD fit the criteria for
a couple of other conditions, one called oppositional defiant disorder
(22:29):
and conduct disorder, which we should maybe cover.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
We could probably cover both of those in one episode
at some.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Point, we should. Man One of the most heartbreaking things
I've ever seen in my life was on a plane
and this kid was just kicking the back of my
chair and on stop hard. And I turned around to you, like,
what the heck's going on?
Speaker 2 (22:52):
You said, don't Josh, no, right, And.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
The parents were there with them, and they just gave
me a look like what do you want us to do?
We can't do anything. Yeah, And I've never seen two
people look more tired and more defeated in my life.
And their kid was probably only three or four, and
it was just like, like I still today, I just
feel so bad for those people because that's your kid,
(23:17):
and like there's not a lot of understanding or treatment
with that, and certainly not out in the general public,
who turns around like you know, what are you doing?
Why is your kid doing that?
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (23:27):
And in the old days, like you would tie your
kid to a plane seat or something a barbaric like.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
That, yeah, which I'm sure helps a lot.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
All right, So.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
If you don't have ADHD, like me, It helps you
grow older because you do get a little wiser and
you do gain empathy, hopefully at least I have. Yeah,
so it's hard to put yourself in someone's shoes until
you are close to someone with ADHD and then it,
(23:58):
like I said, it really benefit it's everyone you can
if you can lead with empathy and understanding, like in
your case with that kid even and that's coming from
someone with ad ADHD recognizing maybe this behavior and a kid.
But it can be hard if you don't have it
to understand this stuff.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Yeah, So people like low empathy generally with people walking
around who know about autism or probably like yeah, that's
that's that has to do with autism. Turns out it's
a huge symptom with ADHD too, and probably the exact
same stuff applies to people with autism. But with ADHD,
it's not that you don't care, you couldn't care less
(24:39):
or whatever. You do care. You just either lack the
ability to, like you said, put yourself in that person's situation,
so your empathy can be triggered, or you lack emotional empathy,
which is where you're like, oh man, that's terrible that
that happened to you, but I'm not feeling empathy, Like
(25:00):
I don't feel it. That's the difference. They're not sure
how many people with ADHD have low empathy and exactly
how it works, but it is a huge problem because again,
like they're if you can't if you can't empathize with people,
that's a basic human thing, and that will really cut
down on the number of connections you have with people.
(25:22):
Because if somebody's telling you something and they've just you know,
inserted that pop like the end of it, and like
this is what happened, and you're like, oh uh, like
you're just taking their words at face value and you're
losing the emotional component. It's missing, it's not landing on you.
And they're just like, well, what is wrong with you?
Speaker 4 (25:40):
What?
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Like you did you not hear what I just said?
And you can stop and think about it and be like, oh, yeah,
that's crazy, but like in the moment, it's not, it's
not there.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Yeah, yeah, totally another And this is something I never
knew anything about until we started researching this, but false
memory or falty memory can.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Be issue if you have ADHD.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
And it's not just well I just don't remember things
as they really were.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
It can literally be like a false memory.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
They've done tests with kids and they showed that kids
with ADHD are much more likely to remember things that
weren't on a list. And this is sort of the
key here. Not only that, but be really emphatic that
those memories were correct and trying to defend those memories.
And that can be not only a frustration, but a
(26:33):
real challenge, especially as you get into adulthood to sort
of be able to construct your autobiography of who you are,
because that's all based on your memories.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yeah, because if you can accept that you have false
memories and that you embellish stuff that you don't remember
inadvertently you don't know that you're doing this, you start
to question all of your memories, like which ones are true,
which ones are made up. That's a huge problem individually,
but also as far as relationships go. You're accidentally inadvertently
gaslighting the people that you're like, no, that totally didn't happen,
(27:06):
or you said this, I didn't say that. And to
get to a point where you can trust the other
person's version of events what you're doing, you're having to
disavow your own version of reality and rely on somebody
else's version of reality. And that's probably the hardest mental
(27:29):
thing a person can do in their life, is abandoned,
like just like not trust their view of reality and
be like, okay, I trust your version instead. It's one
of the hardest things you could possibly ever do. And
that's what it requires to not accidentally gaslight people and
not get arguments all the time because your memories are false.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Yeah, and I imagine you know, you keep kind of
going back to this. How so much of this can
lead to a lack of ability to connect with people
in different ways. I imagine when you find your person
or your person's in your life, it may be maybe
a smaller number than it would have been otherwise, but
I'm I would think that maybe some of those connections,
(28:11):
because so much trust is involved, can be even deeper sometimes.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Yeah. Oh, for sure, if you can find somebody that
you feel like you can be yourself around and just
let your guard down and they accept you as you
actually are, you hang on to those people for sure.
And that's true whether you have ADHD or autism. For sure,
Like if that's how whenever you find those people. But
it's like you said, they're going to be much fewer
and farther between because you're lacking that initial easiness of like,
(28:39):
oh I like you, Oh I like you too, Let's
start hanging out more and cultivate a friendship naturally without
even thinking about it. Each relationship is a lot of
work for people with ADHD. So yeah, of course you're
going to have fewer of them.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
You and these are you know, we're kind of going
through just sort of like what it's like to live
with it. So some of these our downers, but you
are more I believe, twice as likely to be injured
in life if you have ADHD, which sounds kind of weird,
but it makes sense. You know, if you're distractive or distracted,
or if you're impulsive, if you take more risks, that's
(29:15):
going to lead to more injury in life. There's also
this very very strange thing called the ADHD sway, where
it's a literal physical imbalance, a postural imbalance that's associated
with ADHD, which could be a short stuff on its own, maybe.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
I think so you have found this hilarious video I
think on Instagram of somebody saying, like, what it's like
walking next to somebody with ADHD. And because the ADHD
person will accidentally walk in front of you or walk
like kind of sway too close to you or something
like that, you end up the guy who's like walking
along next to this girl who's talking to him, and
(29:57):
like he ends up having to like climb over like
a jungle. It ends up having to walk through a
bush and like all this all this stuff, and the
person with ADHD is totally oblivious that all this is
going on. But it's because of that that ADHD sway.
They don't as far as I know, no one knows
exactly what it is, but they think it could have
something to do with the differences in brain structure, has
(30:18):
something to do with the balance as well, because it's
in the brain as well as in the ears.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Fascinating. All right, we're in.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
The act one, two, three, four, five, We're headed toward
the act six.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Wow, is this the one where the guns go off?
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (30:33):
I hope not.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
So we're headed toward act six and we will talk
more about the destruction of masking behaviors right after this.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Definitely large chrysk.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
Lately, I've been learning some stop about in.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
Volume.
Speaker 4 (31:01):
How about the one on border like disorder orner before
but it was so nicety e.
Speaker 5 (31:14):
Body listen.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
Stop.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
So Chuck, you promised that we're going to talk about masking.
So I feel like my back's against the wall. I
have to start talking about masking, which I will right now.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Okay, okay, are you masking right now?
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (31:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (31:39):
I think at all times people with ADHD mask to
varying degrees. For sure. I feel very comfortable on the episode.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
But you know, yeah, I didn't mean to put you
on the spot. I was kind of just joking. What
is masking? Let me ask you.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
That masking is camouflaging your symptoms to blend in better.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
And how bad can that get? And how bad is
that for somebody?
Speaker 1 (32:03):
In some ways it's necessary and needed just to navigate
the world just to blend in and not to blend
in like don't look at me, but to seem but
to be able to interact with people in levels that
they're not like, huh, what's wrong with you? They're paying
attention instead to what you're saying or you know, the
value that you have. Yeah, you have to if you
(32:23):
have ADHD and autism. A lot of neurotypical disorders, if
not all of them require you to mask to be
able to just kind of live in the world. Right,
So in that sense, it stinks. And there's a lot
of I think you kind of mentioned it either earlier
in Part one. Some employers are starting to create more neurodiverse,
inclusive workplaces where it's just like, just be yourself. But traditionally,
(32:47):
if you want to just make it in the world,
you have to mask to some degree, right, And so
in that sense that's okay, or at the very least
that's not the most insidious version of masking. The problem
with that is that starts to carry over throughout other
parts of your life, and you find that you eventually
develop a version of yourself that you assume other people
(33:10):
would prefer to be around, and in a lot of
cases you're probably correct. And so in addition to, you know,
all of the exhaustingness that it keeps from not you know,
getting up and running around the conference table during a
meeting and being like, now go ahead, I'm just keep going,
I'm listening you. You. Also, your self esteem takes a
real nose dive because what you're training yourself is that
(33:34):
your you is not good enough. You have to you
have to hide yourself for people to accept you or
value you. That's the most insidious part of masking.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
Yeah, I can't imagine that to even It can get
so bad where you lose your sense of self because
you're masking so much. Obviously, something like this can manifest
in bad ways. Swings, anger, those are symptoms that can
be associated with ADHD because of the masking, and you know,
(34:10):
regulating those mood swings. Being unable to to be sort
of generally in a stable emotional state can be very,
very challenging, and that takes a lot of energy. And
that's part of the fatigue that can come along with
ADHD is you're if you're always on or playing a
role that you think you should play to fit into
(34:31):
work or life for the world, it's got to be exhausting.
Speaker 4 (34:35):
It is.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
So you're more irritable, So you're more prone to like
get mad at somebody who cut you off in traffic,
whereas like a neurotypical person might be like, huh, that
guy's having a bad day, or what a jerk or
something like that. You know, Yeah, you add all this
stuff together, and research consistently shows that people with ADHD
have lower self esteem and lower self compassion too than
(34:59):
neurotypical people. And that's yeah again, like I said, it's
a really insidious part of ADHD and just being neurodiverse
in general. Again, it's not just ADHD people who have
to mask. Anybody who isn't neurotypical will feel like they
have to mask at least in some situations unless they
make a conscious decision not to do that. It's almost
(35:23):
like resisting an impulse and just being like, I am
going to be me in every situation, and to tell
you the truth, I'm not even sure that that's possible.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Yeah, and resisting impulses one of the challenges anyway.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Right, Yeah, exactly, good point.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
So you know, as far as families go, we already
mentioned that that can you know, family members maybe on eggshells.
There have been studies that have shown that you may
have a lower parental warmth and especially maternal warmth toward
a kid with ADHD, which is super sad, more stress,
(35:59):
more depression they found among among mothers especially, And if
you have like one neurodiverse child, one kid with ADHD,
and two or three other kids or just one other
kid who is neurotypical, that can be really challenging for everybody,
including the neurotypical kid. And they have found adults with
(36:22):
ADHD have about a twice as likely a chance of
getting divorced as a neurotypical couple.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Right, So, yeah, there's a lot of challenges just in
living everyday life at home, even not even just at
work or at the mall or something like that. There's
some other real bummer downsides to having ADHD. As a population,
you're very susceptible to addiction because again, like these things
(36:51):
flood your brain with dopamine, so you learn to do
those over and over and over again. So it's really
easy to get addicted to just about anything if you
have ADHD. There's a study of people who were in
treatment in the US. I can't remember when it was conducted,
but they found a quarter of them had ADHD and
another quarter. Between twenty four percent and sixty two percent
(37:13):
of homeless people in the US were found to have
ADHD despite again only maybe three point one percent of
adults globally having the disorder, so they're disproportionately represented in those.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
Yeah, for surations. So here's the good news, everybody.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
We've been through five acts and a third of some
good things, some bad things, and real challenges.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
We cried, we laughed, we cried.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
For sure, it's a very, in fact, one of the
most highly treatable conditions or disorder.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
I don't even like saying disorder, you know.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
But I guess that's how they list it that you
can have. There are a few things you can do
treatment wise. There is coaching, there's therapy, and there's medication.
You may try one of these things, you might try two,
you might try all three. As an individual or a parent,
if you're helping your kid through the situation.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Well that's the most effective usually is all three of those.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
Yeah, I mean, medication can be very effective.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
As of twenty sixteen, sixty two percent of kids in
the US that are diagnosed were on medication, thirty percent
of those were only on medication, thirty two percent were
on medication and behavioral treatment, and fifteen percent shunned the
medication and just did behavioral treatment.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
And that's kind of understandable for a parent to make
a decision, and that many parents to make the decision
like I don't want to put my kid on speed. Yeah,
because again, like central nervous system stimulants are the go
to drug for treating ADHD because it really really works.
It's like flip a light switch, I understand, where like
(39:03):
just even from the first dose, you're like, oh, this
is what it feels like to be neurotypical. And one
of those stimulants that is prescribed one type adderall vivance straterra,
they are literal amphetamines. So the idea of putting your
kid on amphetamines really does not sit right with a
lot of parents, even though the state of understanding the
(39:26):
consensus in the professional ADHD community, despite a lot of
non professionals giving contrary advice for information, Yeah, study after
study has shown that kids on stimulants for ADHD treatment
do not get addicted to those stimulants, Like it just
(39:49):
doesn't happen. And then it also doesn't set them up
for increased addictions later in life, and it may actually decrease.
Some studies of show the proneness to addiction of other
stuff later in life even too. And I don't want
to be just like a lackey for psychostimulants as ADHD treatment.
(40:10):
There's a lot of different info out there, but from
what I could tell when I researched it for this.
The professional community generally agrees they are not harmful to
be on, even long term.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
Yeah, there are a couple of kinds. There's immediate release
medicines that's sort of as needed, like a maybe up
to four hour effective time window. You may crash really
hard after that or get really tired or depressed after that.
There are extended release medications that's sort of the morning
(40:44):
pill that can last all day. Sometimes sometimes it's six hours,
sometimes it's up to sixteen. Sometimes people tag team those
take that pill in the morning and then either as
needed or in the afternoon or evening one of the
immediate release medicines. And you have to get screened, you know,
for something like this. They're going to do like a
(41:06):
cardiovascular screen for health risks and stuff like that. But
it's sort of I believe they haven't found link to
cardiovascular disease, right, But didn't they there was something about
the heart you found that was contrary to that, right.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Yeah. There's a study in the Journal of the American
Medical Association that I think from like twenty twenty three
that was like, actually, we studied some dudes in Sweden,
and it seems like they were at an increased risk
of cardiovascular disease from long term psychostimulant use for ADHD.
So again it's possible that we just don't know enough
(41:43):
or people haven't been on it long enough. But again,
these things were developed in the fifties and kids have
been on them since the seventies eighties at the latest
when they started putting them on well effectively speed to
treat this stuff. And there doesn't seem to be a
lot of research that suggests they are harmful.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
Right, if you don't respond well of those, if the
side effects are no good, there are other medicines that
you can take that are not stimulants alpha antagonists sometimes
sometimes like they found that some medications to treat high
blood blood pressure like clonidine, have you know, improved ADHD symptoms.
(42:26):
So you know, talk to your doctor if this is
something you're interested in, and you know, just we're not
medical professionals, so you know, speak, speak to your doctor
and like really do some research and dig in. It's
you know, putting your kid or your adult self on
a on any kind of medication, it's not something to
take lightly. So just you know, really really dig in
(42:47):
there and ask questions.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
For sure, and no no shade on you if you're
a parent, that's like, I don't care what you say.
I'm not putting my kid on speed for sure, totally
totally get that. Like I respect anybody's to about that,
because it doesn't mean that you don't care about your kid.
I respect anybody's decision about stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Of course.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
So I said that the most effective I guess approach
to treating ADHD is not just medication, but also different
types of therapy and then also some other interventions like
exercise and nutrition, and when you put all that together,
it's much easier to treat ADHD symptoms. And one of
(43:27):
the first things, especially with kids with ADHD, is family training,
where you teach the family how to teach the kid
how to act and behave like what's expected of them,
what the consequences are, and not just the kid, the
whole family is supposed to fully understand and be very
clear on all of the house rules and the structure
(43:49):
of the family. And I guess so the younger kids
can effectively tell on the kid with ADHD when he
misbehaves or she does. And I saw the authoritative parenting
type is the most effective, which was described as high
control with high warmth and high support. Oh interesting, but
also that means okay, so high warmth, right, does that
(44:12):
mean that some parents make a decision to not be
warm to their kids, like they think that that's the
best way to raise kids?
Speaker 3 (44:18):
Well, I mean, sadly, sure there are all kinds of parents,
but I feel like that probably high warmth probably means
extra warmth, like being really attuned to providing that extra
warmth would be my.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
Guests on fire, like a furnace of a parent.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
You mentioned exercise.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
Of course, that's good for everybody when it comes to
mood regulation and your brain functioning at its highest. But
for sure, if you have ADHD, it can increase dopamine,
it can improve your executive functioning. If you have a
lot of pen of energy, especially if you're a kid,
(44:59):
you know, with hyperactivity, exercise can really can really help
for sure.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Coaching is another one too, this therapy obviously, but coaching
is huge in the ADHD community because you're not like, Okay,
what's wrong with you, Let's figure out all your traumas
and stuff like that. It's like, okay, you're having trouble
with time management, Let's figure out what works for you
for getting better at time management. It's a it's a
legitimate way to approach ADHD symptoms. So are productive strategies
(45:30):
where that will probably also come out of coaching sessions.
And one thing that you'll learn very early on is
phone calendars that are easily accessed, that you can put
reminders on all the time, alarms on your phone, anything
that can remind you can become like second nature to
use it to really help you navigate ADHD symptoms and
(45:52):
remember important stuff.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
Systems, baby, that's the key, that's right, Getting systems in
place ADHD or not. Systems are just the older I get,
the more I realize it. If you don't have a
system in place, then you're just you're just flailing.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
You know. You got to get a system. They did,
you know, outcomes are pretty good.
Speaker 3 (46:15):
There was a survey This is a little bit old,
but it's you know, I think it's probably still pretty
pretty on par. But twenty twenty twenty twelve, twenty twelve
survey of three hundred and fifty one English language studies,
So I guess this is like a meta analysis of
long term outcomes of people with ADHD found that seventy
two percent of people treated had improved outcomes when it
(46:36):
comes to everything from self esteem to fewer accidents behind
the wheel, less rates of addiction, anti social behavior, increased employment,
increased academic success. So seventy two percent if you are treated,
that's that's great, that's really successful.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
Yeah, there's a lot of good resources too for ADHD.
There's a researcher named Melissa Orlov. She holds marriage seminars
that really kind of paint ADHD in an almost exclusively
positive light. And if you were a couple that's tried
like traditional marriage counseling, you've been like, this isn't working.
It's because that stuff's geared toward neurotic typical people. Hers
(47:19):
is geared toward neurodiverse people. Melissa Orlov is very frequently
criticized as being overly positive about ADHD. There's a researcher
named Gina Perla who came out with a much more
balanced look. It seems like an ADHD called is it
You Me or adult ADHD, which is a yeah. And
(47:39):
then Russell Barkley has written a lot of books too
for kids and parents and adults, and he was the
president of the American Psychological Association for a while, so
he's no slouch no, And again, be very wary of
who you're listening to on social media. But there are
psychiatrists who specialize in ADHD who post a lot on
(48:00):
social media. And Kim be really helpful on Instagram too
that I wanted to shout out Perry Nichols mandanis it's great.
And then the psych doctor Md. Sasha Hamdani, she has
ADHD yourself and she wrote a book called Self Care
for People with ADHD.
Speaker 3 (48:17):
All great resources, and you know what, let's skip listener
email all together and just encourage people to support one another,
dig into those resources, try and lead with empathy and understanding.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
You get much further in life. And rate and review
our show.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
Well put Chuck very nice. In the meantime, if you
want to get in touch with us, you can email us.
You can send us that email to stuff podcast at
iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 5 (48:49):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (48:52):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hello, everyone, In case you're listening to these episodes out
of order, we gave a heads up in episode one
that we have a kind of a grown up talk
about ADHD in these two episodes, So we wanted to say,
if you're a parent with a kid who has ADHD,
maybe listen to it yourself first before you share it
with them. On with the.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Show, Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's
Chuck and Jars here again and we're starting up part
two of our double episode on ADHD.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
That's right, And if you remember in part one we
discussed ADHD.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Some people have it, some.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
People don't, and we're going to talk right now about
how you can figure that out, and that's called diagnosis.
Right now, where we are scientifically is that the biggest
factor on whether or not you have ADHD or not
is hereditary. If you have kids and you have ADHD
as a parent, your kid has about a fifty percent
(01:08):
chance of having it as well. And like we mentioned
in the first part, a lot of adults from especially
our generation Gen Xers, are now getting diagnosed in their
thirties forties, fifties because they found out that their kid
has ADHD and they're like, wow, little Chucky Junior looks
(01:29):
a lot like big Chucky.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, that's a symptom. I thought that was charming exactly.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Cattle's a bug.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
And even if they don't recognize it in them, there's
a one hundred percent chance that their spouse will be like,
I really think you have this too.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Yeah, but there are some other factors, right.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Yes, there's issues during pregnancy, that's a big one, usually
exposure to alcohol or tobacco, premature delivery, if you didn't
weigh very much when you were born, if you were
exposed to lead as a kid, if you had a
brain injury as a kid. There's a lot of concern
about some other stuff. I think you said at the
(02:09):
very outset of part one. There isn't any research that
suggests watching too much TV or living in a go
go go world. There is some research that suggests that
blue number one and Blue number two food dies may
actually at least exacerbate ADHD symptoms, But for the most part,
(02:30):
they think it's a combination of genetics, the environment you
were raised in, and then possibly like actual environmental factors
like being exposed to lead or your mom, you know,
smoking when she was pregnant with you.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Yeah, and just to kind of clear up the TV
and the screen thing, watching TV or being on screens
too much or too much TV quote unquote isn't going
to help give you ADHD, but there is a connection there.
If you are a kid with ADHD, the pool toward
a screen is going to be way stronger than a
(03:06):
kid who doesn't have it. That short attention span is
gonna really crave like the flashy graphics that video games
or cartoons can deliver you, it'll deliver that steady dose
of dopamine. They've done studies, it was. I found one
a large study of five year olds that compared tension
(03:27):
span of kids who watched less than thirty minutes per
day of TV with those who spent more than two
hours in front of a TV, and of course we
mean you know, screens basically.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
And pretty dramatic results.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
The kids who watched the most TV had almost an
eight times more of a chance of meeting the ADHD
diagnosis criteria, and it even outranked other things that cause
attention problems like you know, lack of sleep or parents
stress eutonomic stress stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
So there's a link. It's not going to get you ADHD.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
But if you have a kid with ADHD, then you
should probably just monitor screens even more. You know, you
should be doing that anyway, but maybe even more so.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah, because those sites are designed to release dopamine and
train you to come back and do it again and
again and again. And so kids with ADHD who don't
normally have a flood of dopamine when they get it,
they really learn to do that thing that gives them
that dopamine, which again doesn't give you like a feel
good rush, It just comes along with that and tells
(04:33):
your brain this is a really important thing to do,
so do it again and again and again.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
It's also like the age of your kid is really
important when you're trying to diagnose if you're pre preschool
aged or younger or I guess that counts as all
ages younger than preschool, but.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
That that can be a lot tougher because there are
other developmental delays that may look like ADHD that change
and you may not be able to get a good
diagnosis until they're you know, six, seven, eight, years old,
and even when they're older, like you know, teenagers.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
You got to rule out a lot of stuff like.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Learning disabilities, mood disorders, if you have like vision or
hearing problems or a sleep disorder. A lot of that
stuff can can fool you into thinking you have ADHD.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
So it can be tricky, it can be.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
So there's two lists. There's an inattentive list and then
there's a hyperactive list. Yeah, and each one has I
think nine like criteria things like you know, you lose
things frequently, you appear to zone out while people are
talking to you, stuff like that. And if you have
six out of the nine on the inattentive list, you
(05:43):
have inattentive type ADHD. If you have six out of
nine on the hyperactive list, you have hyperactive type ADHD.
And if you're really running up the numbers and you've
got six of nine on inattentive and six of nine
on hyperactive, you've got the combined version of ADHD. Adults,
(06:04):
it's the same thing, although the criterias adjusted a little bit.
For you know, runs around rambunctiously in class. You don't
do that, but say you feel restless at it during
meetings like it's really hard to sit still.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
You may be mentally doing that exactly.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
I would love to jump up and spin in a circle,
right right, But a kid will actually do that. Where's
the adult in the meeting will just struggle through that exactly.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
So the criteria is essentially the same, it's just kind
of adjusted for adults, and then for adults it's five
of nine yeah, for either lists. And then also with kids.
When you're diagnosing kids, you look at their educational records,
you talk to their parents, you talk to the guidance counselors.
You get as much information as you possibly can to
(06:48):
properly diagnose somebody with ADHD, because there's not one like
here's our ADHD test, whether it's a blood test or
a written test. You're basically pulling all of these disparate
info together to put together like, Okay, this kid has
ADHD and it's this kind Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
And that's why you know, parent teacher conferences are super valuable.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
I think when you first start to have to do
that stuff.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
You're just like, oh God, kill me, I gotta seriously, like,
because your experience is from when you're a kid, Like
what a waste of time.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
But it's not at all.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
When you go in there as a parent, you know
how your kid is at home. You don't know how
they are at school because you don't have a little
camera in their classroom where you can just sit around
and watch what they're like.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
So rich parents do, right, Yeah, maybe so, but.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
You can really glean Like I think when you have
challenges with a kid at home as a parent, you're
dying to know if it's just you or if it's
just the way it is at home. In other words,
obviously not just the parent's fault, but you're wondering. So
you're you're like when we get in there with Ruby's teachers,
we're always just like, so, what's going on?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
What was she like? Does she have trouble with this
or that?
Speaker 3 (07:56):
And sometimes it's like, yeah, she has the same trouble
with this or that at home, And sometimes it's like no,
it's not at all at school.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
And so it's really super enlightening.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Yeah, that is super enlightening. Does it make you feel
better or is it more just like it just answers
the question that you have.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Yeah, just I think you know, knowledge is power, So
just knowing that stuff that.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Dude, we should start doing that with you and Jerry.
They needed to be adult versions of parent teacher conferences.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Oh that's a great idea, you know, I would be
so anxious.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Oh no, it'd be good. We do it over drinks.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Okay. One other thing, you can find a lot of
really great accurate diagnostic tests on sites like TikTok, which
have lots of misspelled words in the title. So those
are always really great to test whether you have ADHD
or not.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Be aware of that. I mean, social media stuff can help.
There's lots some good resources. But what was that study?
Like half of that stuff on TikTok was just wrong?
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah, if I think fifty two yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
When it came to this, yeah, more than half.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Yeah. So one of the big questions that we're still
answering today, and if you haven't picked up that we
don't have a full grasp of ADHD in any way,
shape or form yet. That's correct. But one of the
factors that we're trying to figure out is the prevalence
of ADHD among kids and among adults, and it's kind
(09:18):
of all over the map. It does seem like we're
starting to kind of zero in a little bit. We're
figuring out like the criteria to really like to really
diagnose ADHD, and it seems like the numbers are starting
to get a little smaller as time goes on and
we get a little better with recognizing ADHD.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Yeah, and correct me if I'm wrong, because I know
that you found some other numbers, but we'll just go
through them and you can just say.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
If I'm wrong.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Between ages of three and seventeen, so school age kids
in the US United States of America, around ten percent
have been diagnosed with ADHD. That number does get bigger
with age because a lot of times you won't get
tested until a little later, and some you know, diagnostic
testing requires money, and sometimes a lot of money.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
I mean, you can do.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Like a just a sort of a psychiatric evaluation maybe
if your kids go into a therapist or something, and
they may just look at criteria and ask a few questions.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
But if you want like.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
A real deal diagnostic diagnostic evaluation, like those aren't cheap.
And that sucks because, like these numbers are kids who
have been diagnosed because they were able to be diagnosed.
So I'm sure there are a lot of situations where
that's not possible.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
There's also a shortage of psychiatrists in the United States,
so it's often there's a long wait list to even
be seen from that psychiatrist, so you have to pay
a lot of money too. Not all psychiatrists specialize in ADHD,
so you really need to find from an even like
smaller pool to choose from of psychiatrists. And then also
(11:05):
once they diagnose you that the outlay of money is
not over there, like you have to keep seeing them
and they charge you every time for that. And psychiatrists
are medical doctors, so their fees are not on the
par or on the order of a psychologist or a therapist.
They're four or five times more on average. Probably I'm
(11:25):
pulling that out of thin air, but it's very clear
that you're going to pay more for your psychiatrists than
you would for a therapist.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Generally still boys are more likely to get that diagnosis
than girls, about thirteen percent to six percent. There's also
variations by race. I believe the highest percentage Black kids
are at twelve percent, ten percent for White kids, eight
(11:54):
percent for Hispanic kids, and three percent for Asian children,
which is just super interest.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
It is interesting, for sure, and there's got to be
some clue in there somewhere like, Yeah, that seems like
there's that's weird that there's a difference because I think
all of those numbers were for kids in the United States.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
I think globally they've come up within a twenty seventeen
study across the world that five almost five point three
percent of kids have ADHD. And there's a there's a
question like, Okay, is this over diagnosed because I said
that the prevalence rate seem to be kind of getting
a little smaller as we zero in better and better.
(12:35):
But the diagnostic or the rates of diagnosis have really
picked up where they really did at the beginning of
the twenty first century. Between two thousand and five and
twenty fourteen, diagnoses of kids with ADHD doubled, doubled. That's crazy.
That's a huge increase doubled. It's almost like one hundred
(12:57):
percent more.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Yeah, And you know, there's just no scientific consensus right
now on whether it's an over diagnosis or whether it's
just we know more now and there's less stigma. There's
more kids getting tested now there. You know, the criteria
changed in twenty thirteen from the DSM four to the
d S m five as far as that threshold, So
(13:22):
all of those things probably factor in.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
To the doubling.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
I would think, Yeah, one thing though, if you are
taking your kid into be tested, make sure that it's
since they kind of evaluate the kid against the expectations
of their grade level. If they're young for their grade, Yep,
that needs to be taken into account because they can
easily be misdiagnosed because they're actually not at that grade
(13:47):
level yet, because they're not of that age quite yet,
even though they're in that grade.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Yeah, and with COVID kids, you know, potentially missing out
on depending on what happened where you were, on a
lot of valuable school. So yeah, it's important to look
at because because Ruby is young for her grade, so
in some cases she's like eight or nine months younger
than some of her classmates. And then when you throw
(14:14):
even though she did COVID kindergarten, which was a real boon,
they did their best, they it wasn't like regular school. Still,
so teachers and educators are having to sort and parents
are having to sort through all of that.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Still chuck.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Just to kind of give a hat tip to some
of our listeners in other countries, I saw that the
NHS says in the UK five percent of kids have ADHD.
In Australia they estimate six to ten percent of kids
have ADHD, Canada rich five to seven percent.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Not bad eh.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
And then our friends in Germany can expect a percentage
of four point three three for the number or for
the percentage of kids that have ADHD in that country.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Funderbar.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
So what about adults, because as we now realize, adults
have ADHD too, or they probably had it in childhood
and it was just undiagnosed and they just didn't get
diagnosed until later in life. That's typically what happens.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Well, my friends, let's take a break and find out
those results right after this.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
Definitely should.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Childhood each other?
Speaker 4 (15:29):
Y s K. Lately I've been learning some stuff about
insomnia or aluminia. How about the one on border like
disorder that are nder border that one before, but it
was so nice I learned this.
Speaker 5 (15:51):
Why everybody listen, all right?
Speaker 3 (16:06):
What a cliffhanger that was our adult listeners on the
edges of their collective seat seats seat collective seat.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Yeah, collective, yeah, because it's collective, collective soul.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Collective soul. That's a good one.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
The rate of the condition into adulthood is all over
the map. Some you might look at one thing that
says about five percent, because you know, that's kind of
what it is for kids, ish, and then you might
read something else that said, now like seventy five percent
adults have it. It's really really startling when you start
looking into this as an adult. There was a study
(16:45):
from twenty twenty one that found that it can fluctuate
over time, and you know, it's kind of what I
was talking about being on a spectrum. But about nine
percent of those diagnosed as kids, they said, had quote
unquot fully recovered in young adulthood. So I don't know
if what that means though that that like our systems
(17:08):
in place such that they've learned to manage it.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Yeah, that's the weird thing is there's no known cure
for ADHD. All of the stuff that we use for
is just managing it. But I think one of the
reasons also that they were like it's just a childhood
disorder that you outgrow is because some people actually do so.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
You actually can way, so that maybe the nine percent
or part of that nine percent.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
I guess, But to pull one of your old old
school wards and it seems shinky to me, like I
don't understand how. Yeah, I don't understand how you could
outgrow something that arises from your brain being literally different
than other people's brains. Yeah, I don't get it. But
maybe we just don't don't understand it quite yet. But
(17:51):
it is true. I'm not one hundred percent sure, but
for the most part, it does seem like if you
have ADHD as a kid, you have it as an
adult as well.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Yeah, and if you're in a adult with ADHD, you're
probably seeing it play out with organization and focus, you
know a lot of times with your job, but in
just in your life as well, because it's always there.
You might have some pretty severe mood swings. You might
be a procrastinator a lot of times, you're misdiagnosed because
(18:20):
it might make you really anxious. So there's like, now
you have anxiety or it might really bum you out
with these mood swings, and they might say, oh, you're
just depressed. All of that could just be ADHD or
a kill morbidity.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Yeah, and we'll talk about cole morbidities in a second.
I got it. But with adults, you know, again, the
adults don't get up in meetings and run around the
table and they're like, just go ahead, I'm listening, you know.
Instead great, they're just going to sit there and just
you know, use all of their energy to not do that,
and then also to try to focus on what's being said.
(18:55):
And then girls with ADHD, Chuck, tend to fall through
the cracks much more frequently for a couple of reasons,
but the main one that I saw is that girls
are so expected to be like demure and quiet and
self possessed that girls learn to mask their symptoms earlier
(19:16):
than boys do, who can get away with being more
rambunctious than girls can, so it goes undetected. And then
finally when they grow up and have a family, there's
like I can't there's too many plates, I can't do this.
I'm just exhausted and I'm not doing any of this
the way that I'm supposed to be. And they'll usually
(19:38):
get diagnosed with depression and then anxiety or something like that,
but if they find the right doctor, they'll be properly
diagnosed as ADHD.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
For sure.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
You mentioned comorbidities. Autism is a very interesting one. Thirty
to eighty percent of people with autism spectrum disorder are
also diagnosed with ADHD. In about twenty to fifty percent
of people with ADHD also have autism spectrum disorder.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
And you're just like, why aren't they the same percentages?
But it turns out that ADHD is actually more common
than autism, so that, yeah, is solved.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
For sure, and there's a lot of overlap there.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
I think before twenty thirteen with the updated criteria in
the DSM five, they thought that was like a mutually
exclusive thing, and some people this is much the minority
for sure, but there are some researchers that do think
it's just sort of a single condition manifesting in a
couple of different ways. But most researchers don't think that.
(20:42):
They think it's like, you know, two separate things that
live alongside one another a lot of times.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Right, And Chuck, I just I just realized, I don't
know if we've shouted out Livia this whole time yet
for helping us out with this one. But she did
a great job.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
She did a great job. And before I forget the other.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Thing, as far as ADHD and autism spectrum disorder is,
you're more likely to just do better if you have
one or the other than if you have both. That
may feel intuitive, but I think it was you know,
Bear saying.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Did I interrupt and interject that Livia thing.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
No, it's fine.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Depression is another one, Chuck. I think kids with are
people with ADHD are five times likelier to have depression
than neurotypical peers, and they're not exactly sure why. A
lot of people are like, well, it's obvious. I mean, like,
it can be a really hard life to have ADHD,
especially when it's undiagnosed and untreated, so of course people
(21:48):
have depression. Other people are like, no, we're talking about
actually like clinical, like brain based depression. It's possible that
there's actually they share similar roots in the structure of
the brain, and that might account for it that there's
a lot of overlap physically between depression and ADHD.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
And about forty percent of kids, and I think we
touched on this a little bit in Part one, also
have anxiety, which just makes it all tougher to deal
with because it kind of feeds on itself. Thirty to
fifty percent of kids with ADHD fit the criteria for
a couple of other conditions, one called oppositional defiant disorder
(22:29):
and conduct disorder, which we should maybe cover.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
We could probably cover both of those in one episode
at some.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Point, we should. Man One of the most heartbreaking things
I've ever seen in my life was on a plane
and this kid was just kicking the back of my
chair and on stop hard. And I turned around to you, like,
what the heck's going on?
Speaker 2 (22:52):
You said, don't Josh, no, right, And.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
The parents were there with them, and they just gave
me a look like what do you want us to do?
We can't do anything. Yeah, And I've never seen two
people look more tired and more defeated in my life.
And their kid was probably only three or four, and
it was just like, like I still today, I just
feel so bad for those people because that's your kid,
(23:17):
and like there's not a lot of understanding or treatment
with that, and certainly not out in the general public,
who turns around like you know, what are you doing?
Why is your kid doing that?
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (23:27):
And in the old days, like you would tie your
kid to a plane seat or something a barbaric like.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
That, yeah, which I'm sure helps a lot.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
All right, So.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
If you don't have ADHD, like me, It helps you
grow older because you do get a little wiser and
you do gain empathy, hopefully at least I have. Yeah,
so it's hard to put yourself in someone's shoes until
you are close to someone with ADHD and then it,
(23:58):
like I said, it really benefit it's everyone you can
if you can lead with empathy and understanding, like in
your case with that kid even and that's coming from
someone with ad ADHD recognizing maybe this behavior and a kid.
But it can be hard if you don't have it
to understand this stuff.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Yeah, So people like low empathy generally with people walking
around who know about autism or probably like yeah, that's
that's that has to do with autism. Turns out it's
a huge symptom with ADHD too, and probably the exact
same stuff applies to people with autism. But with ADHD,
it's not that you don't care, you couldn't care less
(24:39):
or whatever. You do care. You just either lack the
ability to, like you said, put yourself in that person's situation,
so your empathy can be triggered, or you lack emotional empathy,
which is where you're like, oh man, that's terrible that
that happened to you, but I'm not feeling empathy, Like
(25:00):
I don't feel it. That's the difference. They're not sure
how many people with ADHD have low empathy and exactly
how it works, but it is a huge problem because again,
like they're if you can't if you can't empathize with people,
that's a basic human thing, and that will really cut
down on the number of connections you have with people.
(25:22):
Because if somebody's telling you something and they've just you know,
inserted that pop like the end of it, and like
this is what happened, and you're like, oh uh, like
you're just taking their words at face value and you're
losing the emotional component. It's missing, it's not landing on you.
And they're just like, well, what is wrong with you?
Speaker 4 (25:40):
What?
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Like you did you not hear what I just said?
And you can stop and think about it and be like, oh, yeah,
that's crazy, but like in the moment, it's not, it's
not there.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Yeah, yeah, totally another And this is something I never
knew anything about until we started researching this, but false
memory or falty memory can.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Be issue if you have ADHD.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
And it's not just well I just don't remember things
as they really were.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
It can literally be like a false memory.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
They've done tests with kids and they showed that kids
with ADHD are much more likely to remember things that
weren't on a list. And this is sort of the
key here. Not only that, but be really emphatic that
those memories were correct and trying to defend those memories.
And that can be not only a frustration, but a
(26:33):
real challenge, especially as you get into adulthood to sort
of be able to construct your autobiography of who you are,
because that's all based on your memories.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yeah, because if you can accept that you have false
memories and that you embellish stuff that you don't remember
inadvertently you don't know that you're doing this, you start
to question all of your memories, like which ones are true,
which ones are made up. That's a huge problem individually,
but also as far as relationships go. You're accidentally inadvertently
gaslighting the people that you're like, no, that totally didn't happen,
(27:06):
or you said this, I didn't say that. And to
get to a point where you can trust the other
person's version of events what you're doing, you're having to
disavow your own version of reality and rely on somebody
else's version of reality. And that's probably the hardest mental
(27:29):
thing a person can do in their life, is abandoned,
like just like not trust their view of reality and
be like, okay, I trust your version instead. It's one
of the hardest things you could possibly ever do. And
that's what it requires to not accidentally gaslight people and
not get arguments all the time because your memories are false.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Yeah, and I imagine you know, you keep kind of
going back to this. How so much of this can
lead to a lack of ability to connect with people
in different ways. I imagine when you find your person
or your person's in your life, it may be maybe
a smaller number than it would have been otherwise, but
I'm I would think that maybe some of those connections,
(28:11):
because so much trust is involved, can be even deeper sometimes.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Yeah. Oh, for sure, if you can find somebody that
you feel like you can be yourself around and just
let your guard down and they accept you as you
actually are, you hang on to those people for sure.
And that's true whether you have ADHD or autism. For sure,
Like if that's how whenever you find those people. But
it's like you said, they're going to be much fewer
and farther between because you're lacking that initial easiness of like,
(28:39):
oh I like you, Oh I like you too, Let's
start hanging out more and cultivate a friendship naturally without
even thinking about it. Each relationship is a lot of
work for people with ADHD. So yeah, of course you're
going to have fewer of them.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
You and these are you know, we're kind of going
through just sort of like what it's like to live
with it. So some of these our downers, but you
are more I believe, twice as likely to be injured
in life if you have ADHD, which sounds kind of weird,
but it makes sense. You know, if you're distractive or distracted,
or if you're impulsive, if you take more risks, that's
(29:15):
going to lead to more injury in life. There's also
this very very strange thing called the ADHD sway, where
it's a literal physical imbalance, a postural imbalance that's associated
with ADHD, which could be a short stuff on its own, maybe.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
I think so you have found this hilarious video I
think on Instagram of somebody saying, like, what it's like
walking next to somebody with ADHD. And because the ADHD
person will accidentally walk in front of you or walk
like kind of sway too close to you or something
like that, you end up the guy who's like walking
along next to this girl who's talking to him, and
(29:57):
like he ends up having to like climb over like
a jungle. It ends up having to walk through a
bush and like all this all this stuff, and the
person with ADHD is totally oblivious that all this is
going on. But it's because of that that ADHD sway.
They don't as far as I know, no one knows
exactly what it is, but they think it could have
something to do with the differences in brain structure, has
(30:18):
something to do with the balance as well, because it's
in the brain as well as in the ears.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Fascinating. All right, we're in.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
The act one, two, three, four, five, We're headed toward
the act six.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Wow, is this the one where the guns go off?
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (30:33):
I hope not.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
So we're headed toward act six and we will talk
more about the destruction of masking behaviors right after this.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Definitely large chrysk.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
Lately, I've been learning some stop about in.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
Volume.
Speaker 4 (31:01):
How about the one on border like disorder orner before
but it was so nicety e.
Speaker 5 (31:14):
Body listen.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
Stop.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
So Chuck, you promised that we're going to talk about masking.
So I feel like my back's against the wall. I
have to start talking about masking, which I will right now.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Okay, okay, are you masking right now?
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (31:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (31:39):
I think at all times people with ADHD mask to
varying degrees. For sure. I feel very comfortable on the episode.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
But you know, yeah, I didn't mean to put you
on the spot. I was kind of just joking. What
is masking? Let me ask you.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
That masking is camouflaging your symptoms to blend in better.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
And how bad can that get? And how bad is
that for somebody?
Speaker 1 (32:03):
In some ways it's necessary and needed just to navigate
the world just to blend in and not to blend
in like don't look at me, but to seem but
to be able to interact with people in levels that
they're not like, huh, what's wrong with you? They're paying
attention instead to what you're saying or you know, the
value that you have. Yeah, you have to if you
(32:23):
have ADHD and autism. A lot of neurotypical disorders, if
not all of them require you to mask to be
able to just kind of live in the world. Right,
So in that sense, it stinks. And there's a lot
of I think you kind of mentioned it either earlier
in Part one. Some employers are starting to create more neurodiverse,
inclusive workplaces where it's just like, just be yourself. But traditionally,
(32:47):
if you want to just make it in the world,
you have to mask to some degree, right, And so
in that sense that's okay, or at the very least
that's not the most insidious version of masking. The problem
with that is that starts to carry over throughout other
parts of your life, and you find that you eventually
develop a version of yourself that you assume other people
(33:10):
would prefer to be around, and in a lot of
cases you're probably correct. And so in addition to, you know,
all of the exhaustingness that it keeps from not you know,
getting up and running around the conference table during a
meeting and being like, now go ahead, I'm just keep going,
I'm listening you. You. Also, your self esteem takes a
real nose dive because what you're training yourself is that
(33:34):
your you is not good enough. You have to you
have to hide yourself for people to accept you or
value you. That's the most insidious part of masking.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
Yeah, I can't imagine that to even It can get
so bad where you lose your sense of self because
you're masking so much. Obviously, something like this can manifest
in bad ways. Swings, anger, those are symptoms that can
be associated with ADHD because of the masking, and you know,
(34:10):
regulating those mood swings. Being unable to to be sort
of generally in a stable emotional state can be very,
very challenging, and that takes a lot of energy. And
that's part of the fatigue that can come along with
ADHD is you're if you're always on or playing a
role that you think you should play to fit into
(34:31):
work or life for the world, it's got to be exhausting.
Speaker 4 (34:35):
It is.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
So you're more irritable, So you're more prone to like
get mad at somebody who cut you off in traffic,
whereas like a neurotypical person might be like, huh, that
guy's having a bad day, or what a jerk or
something like that. You know, Yeah, you add all this
stuff together, and research consistently shows that people with ADHD
have lower self esteem and lower self compassion too than
(34:59):
neurotypical people. And that's yeah again, like I said, it's
a really insidious part of ADHD and just being neurodiverse
in general. Again, it's not just ADHD people who have
to mask. Anybody who isn't neurotypical will feel like they
have to mask at least in some situations unless they
make a conscious decision not to do that. It's almost
(35:23):
like resisting an impulse and just being like, I am
going to be me in every situation, and to tell
you the truth, I'm not even sure that that's possible.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Yeah, and resisting impulses one of the challenges anyway.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Right, Yeah, exactly, good point.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
So you know, as far as families go, we already
mentioned that that can you know, family members maybe on eggshells.
There have been studies that have shown that you may
have a lower parental warmth and especially maternal warmth toward
a kid with ADHD, which is super sad, more stress,
(35:59):
more depression they found among among mothers especially, And if
you have like one neurodiverse child, one kid with ADHD,
and two or three other kids or just one other
kid who is neurotypical, that can be really challenging for everybody,
including the neurotypical kid. And they have found adults with
(36:22):
ADHD have about a twice as likely a chance of
getting divorced as a neurotypical couple.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Right, So, yeah, there's a lot of challenges just in
living everyday life at home, even not even just at
work or at the mall or something like that. There's
some other real bummer downsides to having ADHD. As a population,
you're very susceptible to addiction because again, like these things
(36:51):
flood your brain with dopamine, so you learn to do
those over and over and over again. So it's really
easy to get addicted to just about anything if you
have ADHD. There's a study of people who were in
treatment in the US. I can't remember when it was conducted,
but they found a quarter of them had ADHD and
another quarter. Between twenty four percent and sixty two percent
(37:13):
of homeless people in the US were found to have
ADHD despite again only maybe three point one percent of
adults globally having the disorder, so they're disproportionately represented in those.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
Yeah, for surations. So here's the good news, everybody.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
We've been through five acts and a third of some
good things, some bad things, and real challenges.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
We cried, we laughed, we cried.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
For sure, it's a very, in fact, one of the
most highly treatable conditions or disorder.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
I don't even like saying disorder, you know.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
But I guess that's how they list it that you
can have. There are a few things you can do
treatment wise. There is coaching, there's therapy, and there's medication.
You may try one of these things, you might try two,
you might try all three. As an individual or a parent,
if you're helping your kid through the situation.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Well that's the most effective usually is all three of those.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
Yeah, I mean, medication can be very effective.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
As of twenty sixteen, sixty two percent of kids in
the US that are diagnosed were on medication, thirty percent
of those were only on medication, thirty two percent were
on medication and behavioral treatment, and fifteen percent shunned the
medication and just did behavioral treatment.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
And that's kind of understandable for a parent to make
a decision, and that many parents to make the decision
like I don't want to put my kid on speed. Yeah,
because again, like central nervous system stimulants are the go
to drug for treating ADHD because it really really works.
It's like flip a light switch, I understand, where like
(39:03):
just even from the first dose, you're like, oh, this
is what it feels like to be neurotypical. And one
of those stimulants that is prescribed one type adderall vivance straterra,
they are literal amphetamines. So the idea of putting your
kid on amphetamines really does not sit right with a
lot of parents, even though the state of understanding the
(39:26):
consensus in the professional ADHD community, despite a lot of
non professionals giving contrary advice for information, Yeah, study after
study has shown that kids on stimulants for ADHD treatment
do not get addicted to those stimulants, Like it just
(39:49):
doesn't happen. And then it also doesn't set them up
for increased addictions later in life, and it may actually decrease.
Some studies of show the proneness to addiction of other
stuff later in life even too. And I don't want
to be just like a lackey for psychostimulants as ADHD treatment.
(40:10):
There's a lot of different info out there, but from
what I could tell when I researched it for this.
The professional community generally agrees they are not harmful to
be on, even long term.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
Yeah, there are a couple of kinds. There's immediate release
medicines that's sort of as needed, like a maybe up
to four hour effective time window. You may crash really
hard after that or get really tired or depressed after that.
There are extended release medications that's sort of the morning
(40:44):
pill that can last all day. Sometimes sometimes it's six hours,
sometimes it's up to sixteen. Sometimes people tag team those
take that pill in the morning and then either as
needed or in the afternoon or evening one of the
immediate release medicines. And you have to get screened, you know,
for something like this. They're going to do like a
(41:06):
cardiovascular screen for health risks and stuff like that. But
it's sort of I believe they haven't found link to
cardiovascular disease, right, But didn't they there was something about
the heart you found that was contrary to that, right.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Yeah. There's a study in the Journal of the American
Medical Association that I think from like twenty twenty three
that was like, actually, we studied some dudes in Sweden,
and it seems like they were at an increased risk
of cardiovascular disease from long term psychostimulant use for ADHD.
So again it's possible that we just don't know enough
(41:43):
or people haven't been on it long enough. But again,
these things were developed in the fifties and kids have
been on them since the seventies eighties at the latest
when they started putting them on well effectively speed to
treat this stuff. And there doesn't seem to be a
lot of research that suggests they are harmful.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
Right, if you don't respond well of those, if the
side effects are no good, there are other medicines that
you can take that are not stimulants alpha antagonists sometimes
sometimes like they found that some medications to treat high
blood blood pressure like clonidine, have you know, improved ADHD symptoms.
(42:26):
So you know, talk to your doctor if this is
something you're interested in, and you know, just we're not
medical professionals, so you know, speak, speak to your doctor
and like really do some research and dig in. It's
you know, putting your kid or your adult self on
a on any kind of medication, it's not something to
take lightly. So just you know, really really dig in
(42:47):
there and ask questions.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
For sure, and no no shade on you if you're
a parent, that's like, I don't care what you say.
I'm not putting my kid on speed for sure, totally
totally get that. Like I respect anybody's to about that,
because it doesn't mean that you don't care about your kid.
I respect anybody's decision about stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Of course.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
So I said that the most effective I guess approach
to treating ADHD is not just medication, but also different
types of therapy and then also some other interventions like
exercise and nutrition, and when you put all that together,
it's much easier to treat ADHD symptoms. And one of
(43:27):
the first things, especially with kids with ADHD, is family training,
where you teach the family how to teach the kid
how to act and behave like what's expected of them,
what the consequences are, and not just the kid, the
whole family is supposed to fully understand and be very
clear on all of the house rules and the structure
(43:49):
of the family. And I guess so the younger kids
can effectively tell on the kid with ADHD when he
misbehaves or she does. And I saw the authoritative parenting
type is the most effective, which was described as high
control with high warmth and high support. Oh interesting, but
also that means okay, so high warmth, right, does that
(44:12):
mean that some parents make a decision to not be
warm to their kids, like they think that that's the
best way to raise kids?
Speaker 3 (44:18):
Well, I mean, sadly, sure there are all kinds of parents,
but I feel like that probably high warmth probably means
extra warmth, like being really attuned to providing that extra
warmth would be my.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
Guests on fire, like a furnace of a parent.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
You mentioned exercise.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
Of course, that's good for everybody when it comes to
mood regulation and your brain functioning at its highest. But
for sure, if you have ADHD, it can increase dopamine,
it can improve your executive functioning. If you have a
lot of pen of energy, especially if you're a kid,
(44:59):
you know, with hyperactivity, exercise can really can really help
for sure.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Coaching is another one too, this therapy obviously, but coaching
is huge in the ADHD community because you're not like, Okay,
what's wrong with you, Let's figure out all your traumas
and stuff like that. It's like, okay, you're having trouble
with time management, Let's figure out what works for you
for getting better at time management. It's a it's a
legitimate way to approach ADHD symptoms. So are productive strategies
(45:30):
where that will probably also come out of coaching sessions.
And one thing that you'll learn very early on is
phone calendars that are easily accessed, that you can put
reminders on all the time, alarms on your phone, anything
that can remind you can become like second nature to
use it to really help you navigate ADHD symptoms and
(45:52):
remember important stuff.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
Systems, baby, that's the key, that's right, Getting systems in
place ADHD or not. Systems are just the older I get,
the more I realize it. If you don't have a
system in place, then you're just you're just flailing.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
You know. You got to get a system. They did,
you know, outcomes are pretty good.
Speaker 3 (46:15):
There was a survey This is a little bit old,
but it's you know, I think it's probably still pretty
pretty on par. But twenty twenty twenty twelve, twenty twelve
survey of three hundred and fifty one English language studies,
So I guess this is like a meta analysis of
long term outcomes of people with ADHD found that seventy
two percent of people treated had improved outcomes when it
(46:36):
comes to everything from self esteem to fewer accidents behind
the wheel, less rates of addiction, anti social behavior, increased employment,
increased academic success. So seventy two percent if you are treated,
that's that's great, that's really successful.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
Yeah, there's a lot of good resources too for ADHD.
There's a researcher named Melissa Orlov. She holds marriage seminars
that really kind of paint ADHD in an almost exclusively
positive light. And if you were a couple that's tried
like traditional marriage counseling, you've been like, this isn't working.
It's because that stuff's geared toward neurotic typical people. Hers
(47:19):
is geared toward neurodiverse people. Melissa Orlov is very frequently
criticized as being overly positive about ADHD. There's a researcher
named Gina Perla who came out with a much more
balanced look. It seems like an ADHD called is it
You Me or adult ADHD, which is a yeah. And
(47:39):
then Russell Barkley has written a lot of books too
for kids and parents and adults, and he was the
president of the American Psychological Association for a while, so
he's no slouch no, And again, be very wary of
who you're listening to on social media. But there are
psychiatrists who specialize in ADHD who post a lot on
(48:00):
social media. And Kim be really helpful on Instagram too
that I wanted to shout out Perry Nichols mandanis it's great.
And then the psych doctor Md. Sasha Hamdani, she has
ADHD yourself and she wrote a book called Self Care
for People with ADHD.
Speaker 3 (48:17):
All great resources, and you know what, let's skip listener
email all together and just encourage people to support one another,
dig into those resources, try and lead with empathy and understanding.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
You get much further in life. And rate and review
our show.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
Well put Chuck very nice. In the meantime, if you
want to get in touch with us, you can email us.
You can send us that email to stuff podcast at
iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 5 (48:49):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (48:52):
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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Josh Clark
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