ADHD and Dopamine Deficiency
Written by Qadeem Zieman on Newswav.com
If you happen to know someone with ADHD, like a family member, a friend or a partner who is diagnosed with this disease, understand that it is not a form of egoism.
Many people make a mistake by misunderstanding the meaning of this disease, some may come to think that a person is egoistic or ignorant, due to the following reason, and that is when you see a person diagnosed with ADHD about to get something done that has been longing for a while, for example doing the laundry or some other chores around the house or even workplace, and you tell them how to do it, or tease them about it, the response given by them are not as pleasing as they may have the potential to drop everything and not get anything done at all.
People with ADHD do not operate normally as their minds are set differently from normal people.
To a normal person when given that kind of response or treatment, it may seem to be that they are being egoistic, or ignorant for not being able to take criticism…
But the thing is about people with ADHD and Autism, they have this one thing called, ‘Pathological Demand Avoidance’, or (PDA) in short.
When they are faced with that kind of situation where they are being told what to do, their Dopamine level could potentially drop, especially ADHD-diagnosed people, who in this case, face a daily battle with dopamine deficit.
So when they finally have the amount of dopamine or the motivation needed to get a chore or a task done, the last thing you want to do is cause the dopamine to crash back to square one.
For this particular reason, there could be a high chance of them losing motivation, as well as mood and crashing the dopamine level resulting in them ignoring and refusing to do the task for at least another 3 months before revisiting when their dopamine level increases back to normal.
And while some people try to relate to their way of thinking, please try to understand that their behaviour is not the case of egoism, but more about the crashed dopamine level.
To avoid this from happening that could potentially jeopardise your relationship with them, please try to understand them more, and learn how to communicate with them better.
When these kinds of situations occur, it is best and safest to not say anything and just walk away, let them be, and they’ll do it when they feel like it.
