How I Learned To Trust My ADHD

Are you having a hard time adjusting to knowing you have ADHD? Sucks, doesn’t it? It’s hard to see now, but it does get easy and down-right fun. Want to find out how?

Disclaimer: I am not a scientist or medical doctor. If you have suspicions that you have ADHD or ADD, then you should invest in yourself and get tested. The more questions you have to ask the doctor during testing, the more you will get out of the testing process; as the medical doctor exists to assist you to make more effective use of what you have, rather than wishing for what you do not have.

With that disclaimer out of the way, onward to my ADHD journey.

What Is ADHD and ADD

There have been some recent new discoveries in ADHD and ADD. The old theory of ADD and ADHD assumed that there was a genetic down-regulation of the expression of dopamine receptors in brain neurons. It has now been found out by scientists using mouse neurons that ADHD and ADD are actually caused due to the dopamine neuron receptors possessing genetic mutations that make them more efficient in the uptake of dopamine from the cleft of the neurons.

Due to dopamine being used by the brain to regulate motivation and other things, we ADHD’ers and ADD’ers do not have enough dopamine in the neuron cleft long enough to reset our brain executor workloads. Hence, the always moving to different subjects and focus points unless we are extremely passionate about something.

My Journey

Imagine for a moment going for decades with failures of failing out of 3 times at college, jobs, etc. Now imagine all the self-loathing that builds up for those decades. There is a way out of it. Let me tell you how I found out I have ADHD.

I have Diet-Coke to thank for detecting I have ADHD. A person who has normally operating dopamine receptors will never get agitated over drinking one two-liter bottle of diet coke in 8 hours that happens to have a sweetener called aspartame in it. Aspartame happens to be the commercial name for Phenylalanine, which is the precursor to L-DOPA, which then is the precursor to dopamine.

Yes, you guessed it, I was by accident self-medicating for my ADHD without realizing it. Turns out that one-half of the…