ADHD Opposites

Many of  the wiser scientists and researchers define ADD as a dis-regulation of attention, which comes close but not close enough to a definition I hope for. I see people with ADD as being neurologically "less-controlled", which is not necessarily a bad thing. This lesser control of the brain means a much wider variation in which parts of the bain are dominant, which parts are more active and which parts are under-active. So many people with ADD show behaviours at opposite extremes, some are hyper-active physically, some not at all, some struggle with focus, some not at all. But the tricky thing with ADD is that many people move from one extreme to another, sometimes distracted, sometimes hyper-focused depending on the subject of interest (or boredom).

There seem to be many axes where an ADDer may find themselves at either end of a scale, sometimes fixed there and sometimes moving from one end to the other. My ADD partner is so different from me that sometimes I'm amazed we have the same "disorder", we are opposites on some ADD traits but share many ADD too. Here is a short table of these opposite traits, with the more energetic, mainly positive traits on the right. These traits may correspond in part to the categories of hyperactive/inattentive but overall there is little correlation:

I tend to consider myself inattentive, primarily because I have low activation, quiet mind, poor motivation, boredom, low mood and tend to procrastinate. But then I am talkative, never day-dream (but always read, watch tv, talk etc) and I am impulsive (just less obviously impulsive than if I was very energetic). I think many ADDers, if they put themselves on these axis would not fit neatly on either side either. All ADD traits seem to come from differences in Executive Functions and dopamine regulation across the brain, though ADD life with low activation, energy and procrastination is probably more due to issues with nor-epinephrine.

What is interesting about these opposites is that they explain pretty clearly why people are confused by ADD due to such poor definition and cetegorisation by the DSM and show how ADD traits can lead to both severe problems as well as amazing gifts. If you are bored, impulsive and depressed, life may be very hard indeed but if you are hyper-active, creative and passionate then you may be a pretty successful entrepreneur or inventor.