The adult ADHD trap

I was on the bus recently and bored when I decided not to ignore but to answer one of those online questionnaires about adult ADHD. It was on Facebook, I think. Question 1) Am I easily distracted? Well, yes. 2) Am I often late? 3) Do I regularly forget appointments? Yes and yes.

By the time I had arrived at work I had signed up to something called Impulse brain training. And in a few days I was quite sure that I’d been bravely suffering with undiagnosed ADHD for decades. I was half-caught in the adult ADHD trap, though I didn’t know it yet.

Are you always late? Do you let people down? Don’t worry! Don’t sweat it! That’s just your ADHD

I asked my brother and my friends what they thought and instead of laughing, they nodded sadly. Yes, yes. They’d seen the online tests too and it all made sense. In fact they were reasonably sure they all had ADHD too. All brave sufferers together, it turned out. I began to read enticing accounts of the soothing effect of Ritalin (a stimulant) and Adderall (an amphetamine) on the ADHD brain and to wonder, given the great and growing demand and the national shortage of medication, how I might get my mitts on some.

If the trap didn’t close on me, I owe it to a news story I saw last Friday out of the corner of my eye: ‘ADHD drugs significantly raise risk of heart disease in adults.’ It was as if I’d woken up on a surgeon’s table to find myself about to undergo an unnecessary op. How did I get here? Why was I even considering the nasty drugs? Why have so very many other adults done just the same?