Busting the 9 Biggest Myths and Misconceptions About ADHD

Albert Einstein once said, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

One of the greatest innovators till date, Albert Einstein is one human being who we can affirmatively say has made a difference in the world. There is not a person today who would doubt this Nobel Laureate genius… but many sources allege that he took longer to learn how to speak. Moreover, some even say he was considered “slow” for his age.

How does this relate to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)? Quoting Dr Leela Magavi, “every individual with ADHD whom I have had the pleasure of treating has something special to offer. For my kids who ask me if this diagnosis means they are not smart, I remind them that this is not the case. Albert Einstein was suspected to have ADHD and as were other notable people…”

This raises the question of what such statements say about ADHD when it comes to the layman’s understanding of it? To explore this question, it would be useful to uncover the reality behind some myths and misconceptions about it.

1. Myth: “ADHD is a mental health condition”

ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition, which means that one has differences or changes in the development of their brain and nervous system. One is born with ADHD. People with ADHD frequently have comorbidities - which means co-occurring conditions and issues - such as Autism Spectrum Conditions or other neurodevelopmental conditions, and mental health issues like Depression or Anxiety.

Moreover, the neurodiversity movement offers a different perspective on ADHD, Autism, and Learning Differences like Dyslexia. Rather than being “disorders”, Judy Singer - who created the term, suggests that these conditions are just reflective of differences in brain wiring - and can in fact be beneficial in certain situations. Clearly, there is more to ADHD than “deficits”. Perhaps this leads to an even bigger point that needs to be made: everyone has strengths and weaknesses, whether or not they have neuropsychiatric conditions.

2. Myth: “You can be “cured” of ADHD”

This myth is particularly problematic because it suggests that ADHD is something that needs to be “cured”. Although people with ADHD have struggles, more and more of them are identifying as neurodiverse/neurodivergent. The neurodiversity movement suggests that ADHD and other conditions are not something to cure, but rather just differences in thinking and being in the world. Moreover, some of us see our neurodiversity as an essential part of our identities. For example, some might say “I am autistic”. That’s why people-first language isn’t necessarily preferred when it comes to neurodiversity. It’s always good to ask because each neurodivergent person might feel differently.

So one might now ask, “Then what is the purpose of medication?”. ADHD expert - a psychiatrist who also has ADHD - Dr. Ned Hallowell says, “…Untreated ADD is sort of like having near-sightedness without having eyeglasses. And then as you get treatment, you get eyeglasses and all of a sudden you can focus…”

3. Myth: “Children can outgrow ADHD”

As explained earlier, one has ADHD their whole life: there are literally differences in their brain and nervous system development from birth. Although some say children can “outgrow it”, the truth is that the symptoms might present differently in adults.

Their executive functions will finish developing somewhere between the age of 25-30, so they will find it easier to cope with typical ADHD challenges, and hormonal levels will be more stable. Importantly, as they grow older, they might get better at coping with their symptoms. This in turn could lead to less distress and fewer challenges with daily functioning.

Children don’t truly “outgrow it” as this isn’t exactly possible. Another major issue is the diagnostic criteria for ADHD which is more reflective of how symptoms look in children than in adults. For example, in adults, hyperactivity might look more like mental restlessness, or a person’s fidgeting is more subtle. Nevertheless, one can still have ADHD in adulthood, and more and more people are being diagnosed late because their symptoms weren’t identified early on.

Alternatively, one might no longer meet the diagnostic criteria, but technically, they will still have ADHD traits. The purpose of diagnosis is to ensure that a person receives appropriate support if they are struggling. However, science suggests that rather than people either having a “disorder” or not, all human beings have traits that lie on different parts of a bell curve. People with an ADHD diagnosis are on the extreme end: they have more traits than the average person.

Mental health authorities have demarcated a cut-off point that indicates that people with ‘X’ number of traits are considered to have challenges that are severe enough to warrant a diagnosis and professional support. That doesn’t mean that everyone has it, but to quote Plomin (2016), “Abnormal is normal”. Once again, this affirms the fact that ADHD is just part of unique variations in human experiences. After all, normal is in fact arbitrary.

4. Myth: “People with ADHD just need to try harder… they’re just lazy”

ADHD is caused largely by genetics, which means, for the most part, we cannot blame people with ADHD for struggling: they are actually trying extremely hard.

People with ADHD have an “interest-based” nervous system, which means that they don’t feel the importance of an activity. For example, as much as one might understand that logically, it is important to meet a deadline, they don’t feel the importance internally. They only feel the pull of what they’re interested in or are challenged by. This is why procrastination is common because time pressure can give a person the motivation they need to complete a task.

Underlying differences in dopamine and noradrenaline, which are neurotransmitters or chemical messengers in the human body, are one of the reasons for difficulties with motivation in ADHDers. People with ADHD are less sensitive to reward, or rather, activities that trigger these neurotransmitters, making a person feel excited and motivated (in simplistic terms). They need more neurotransmitters to feel any incentive or a sense of drive compared to neurotypical people: i.e. people who are not neurodiverse/neurodivergent. This is why, taking an example, time pressure often provides the push a person needs to get something done: the stress of the situation floods a person’s brain with neurotransmitters.

So in summary, there are genuine biological differences in people with ADHD that cause them to work differently. Rather than being lazy, the problem might be society’s assumption that everyone should behave in the same way. With the right strategies, a person with ADHD can adapt and get things done, just like neurotypical people.

5. Myth: “ADHD is caused by bad parenting”

As mentioned earlier, ADHD is highly heritable. In simple terms, genes significantly contribute to a person developing ADHD, and there are many different ways in which they do so. In the interest of keeping this explanation simple, there is no single common genetic variant that causes ADHD as many different genes each contribute tiny amounts (polygenicity). There are other genetic mechanisms but we will not be discussing them today.

However, no neuropsychiatric condition is 100% caused by genetics. This means that there are environmental factors that can contribute to causing ADHD, but more research needs to be done to conclusively establish this.

Importantly, bad parenting is never going to be helpful for a child. So although bad parenting is not necessarily a cause of ADHD, it could worsen a child’s symptoms and lead to other problems.

6. Myth: “Only little boys can have ADHD”

The way that many collectively understand ADHD isn’t always representative of the truth. ADHD is more than “hyperactive little boys running around in classrooms”. Moreover, it can look different in people who have succeeded academically or in their careers. People identifying as females tend to get diagnosed less frequently than those identifying as males, and they often have the predominantly inattentive subtype. This subtype is characterized by more difficulties with focusing for continuous periods of time, procrastination, difficulty starting a task, and forgetfulness among other things.

One can still have ADHD if one’s not hyperactive or impulsive! Some traits of this include interrupting people as you have so much to say, trouble staying still, having trouble waiting in the queue, and racing thoughts. Since not all clinicians are aware of the individual differences between people with ADHD, they might not be checking for solely stereotypical notions of ADHD while assessing a person… Unfortunately, a person with ADHD might go under the radar despite their struggles.

Crucially, the tools we use to measure ADHD symptoms or traits are likely to be biased towards people identifying as males. This means that research to develop ADHD measures has mostly been conducted in people identifying as males, and more so in children. However, if a scale is developed based on this restricted sample, it won’t capture how ADHD presents in other groups: people identifying as females, adults, people who are high achievers in school, etc.

All in all, it’s very much possible that some people who have ADHD are just not being identified. Estimates of how common ADHD is depends on how ADHD is measured, but they don’t necessarily reflect the truth. Many are going undiagnosed.

7. Myth: “ADHD is a learning difference”

ADHD falls under the neurodevelopmental conditions category in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Version 5 (DSM-V; American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Another group of neurodevelopmental conditions which fall under the broad umbrella of neurodiversity, such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, or dyscalculia, are categorized as ‘Specific Learning Disorders’.

While people often have more than one neurodevelopmental condition, ADHD is not a specific learning disorder even though one might have trouble with learning because of their ADHD symptoms. This is because they have different causes.

For example, in the case of ADHD, there are delays in the development of their prefrontal cortex, and this, as mentioned earlier, relates to delays in the development of executive functions. Also, there are inconsistent levels of key neurotransmitters in the brain (dopamine and norepinephrine) which distinguishes people with ADHD from those without it. ADHD is often considered a medical condition because there are changes in the body that can be addressed with medication: i.e. neurotransmitter levels.

In contrast, Bailey (2020) mentions that the “neurological differences” in specific learning disorders “affect the ability to receive, store, process, retrieve, and communicate information”. Various parts of the brain are not with each other communicating effectively.

8. Myth: “People with ADHD can’t pay attention”

“Attention deficit” doesn’t represent ADHD as accurately as “attention inconsistency” or “attention dysregulation” does. Firstly, people with ADHD don’t have a filter like a neurotypical person when it comes to attention. While a neurotypical person sees one leaf, a person with ADHD might see the tree, the forest, the bugs on it, etc. They hear the birds chirping and my footsteps on the ground… the list goes on.

Essentially, people with ADHD have a wide attentional focus: they can pay attention to many different things. This is helpful in problem-solving as they can see the connections between seemingly unrelated things. They often have multiple perspectives because they naturally have a tendency to see the big picture. That’s just how they usually think!

Furthermore, people with ADHD can in fact focus, sometimes so strongly that their surroundings cease to exist: they are only concentrating on the activity capturing their interest. This state is called “hyperfocus” and is extremely common in people with ADHD.

As outlined above, people with ADHD feel interest rather than importance, and interest helps them to focus. Hyperfocus can sometimes lead to a flow state, but not always as one can’t control when it happens. A person’s interest might be captured by organizing their room, for instance, and they might feel the need to get this task immediately done even if it isn’t something they actually want to or need to do. This “capturing of interest” can be involuntary because of ADHD biology.

On the other hand, hyperfocus can be beneficial if the person is able to get important tasks done. For example, right now, I’m hyper-focusing on writing this article because it interests me. I would say this is a flow state because I’m really focused on what I’m doing and I’m enjoying it. Though I’m finding this task somewhat challenging I still feel capable of completing this task. These are some features of a flow state.

9. Myth: “People with ADHD aren’t smart”

ADHD has no relationship with intelligence, a construct that is anyhow complex and controversial. What does intelligence mean anyways? Contrary to this misconception, people who are “gifted” sometimes have ADHD too, and this is called “twice exceptionality”.

Quoting a blog by ADHD expert Dr. Stephen Faraone, “Smart people can have ADHD. Their high IQs will help them do better than the average person with ADHD, but they may not achieve their potential without appropriate diagnosis and treatment.”

Some Concluding Remarks

I reiterate everybody has strengths and weaknesses, including people with ADHD. It is important for us to take on a more holistic perspective as at the end of the day, these are human beings too. Looking at the big picture, how can we as a society be more inclusive of variation in brain wiring and human experience?

To conclude, let me ask you this: Are people with ADHD being judged for their ability to climb trees when perhaps some are better suited for swimming or running?

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Biography

An aspiring clinical psychologist, jovialButterfly6752 is a neurodiverse, verified, Adult and Teen Listener certified in Active Listening levels 1-4. Having graduated from various 7 Cups Academy Programs including the Group Leadership & Dynamics and Development Program, 7 Cups Internship, Quality Listening Program, Leadership Development Program, Building Community Program, and the Content Development and Management Program, Jovial was an active community leader, listener and user in various roles. They aim to foster a holistic perspective to mental health through professional and personal development. You can find them on 7 Cups enthusiastic about everything mental health!