Hello, everyone. So today we're going to talk about the diagnosis of ADHD and talk a little bit about that and try to help you towards some sort of understanding around what it is and how it affects our brain.

We feel that that understanding is vital in coming to terms with ADHD. Remember, we're not trying to cure anything here, we're not trying to necessarily find solutions. It's much more about understanding and acceptance, we find that the more you understand and accept diagnoses, the easier it is to recognise behaviours and be more understanding of ourselves. So we recognise also that some of you will know a lot of this and perhaps a great deal more. But we also want to ensure that everyone's up to scratch because there may be a number of people out there still coming to terms with their diagnosis.

So looking at the definition of what ADHD is, as most of you will know, it stands for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It's a condition that affects the part of the brain that is responsible for planning, focus regulation, and executing tasks. Studies show that ADHD affects around four to 5% of adults in the world. That's around 3 million in the UK, and 15 million in the US. So it's highly prevalent. And I think it's important to know that as it highlights that we aren't alone with this, it's really common and normal.

So there are three different subtypes of ADHD. The various symptoms of ADHD, are correlated into these types. Though, it's important to remember that we're all different and do experience subtle differences in how these symptoms present themselves. That's especially true for men and women who experienced much larger differences in how they present symptoms, but that's definitely a conversation for another day.

Subtype one is inattentive type, and as the name suggests, it's associated with difficulty focusing on and finishing tasks. You might have heard of the term ADD, especially in the US, it still gets bandied around a lot. And we feel it's perhaps overused at times, which isn't always helpful. Clinically, it's a dated term and no longer used in the UK. These days it's known as inattentive type. Other symptoms might include daydreaming, being easily distracted, forgetfulness, constantly switching between tasks, and maybe not being able to follow instructions.

On that note, I'm going to share a little story with you, which still makes me chuckle. I remember my meeting with the psychiatrist the day that we were discussing whether or not I had ADHD. I remember it very clearly, for one of the reasons being that it was very strange for me to be on the other side of the couch, and I'd made a comment about that before we began. And he looked at me and he asked me the question, straight off the bat, what makes you think you have ADHD? And I'm pretty sure he'd never heard this answer before. And I don't really know where it came from it just, I just sort of blurted it out. And I said, put it this way, Doc. If a Marvel comic book villain, had kidnapped my three young children, and held them in an abandoned warehouse, comic book style, strapped to a bomb, and gave me an hour to rescue them. If my rescue plan involved in any way, asking some somebody for directions, my children would die. He looked slightly bemused by that answer, I can understand that.

I guess what I was really saying is that the more I need that information, the more I need to listen, the less likely my brain is going to do that. It's far more likely to reject the information. I think it's important to mention that this is a difficulty in regulating attention. Inattentive type is more about attention inconsistency. One might quite often struggle to write one short email, but conversely, they might be able to focus on a single task for eight hours straight. That's known as hyperfocus. More about that on another audio.

The second subtype is hyperactive type. And these symptoms include having potentially poor impulse control, answering people's sentences is something I do sometimes that really frustrates me. Fidgeting, speaking at inappropriate times, interrupting people, and perhaps this constant feeling of being driven by a motor. Impulse spending is also a common symptom. And often consequences are an afterthought to the action itself. It has been suggested that the term hyperactive is an unhelpful and confusing term that is more commonly associated with impulsivity rather than hyperactivity. We at Stimuli feel that this feeds into the stigmatising and societal expectations and narratives of that stereotypical badly-behaved school kid. Again, not necessarily helpful.

And then lastly, there's is the combined type. That's the final subtype. And this is the type that a majority have who have been diagnosed. I personally have combined type. People with combined type experience a mixture of both inattentive and hyperactivity or impulsive symptoms. Now you're probably wondering why, why does my brain work this way? And how did this happen? We'll get onto that in another audio.

I realise that that's a lot of information to cram into a short audio, so definitely feel free to re-listen to it a number of times until it's all sunk in. Also, you can find this information and more in the Stimuli community resources. You can also ask any questions at any time in the community.