- Stay.
(mellow music)
I'm kind of wandering around,
a little foggy, a little fuged,
and then, you know, I have these moments of clarity
where I can just be present
and be useful and helpful and insightful,
and then it wears off, you know?
I can't tell you how many times my tutors,
my teachers, my friends' parents, would be,
"You know, you're so bright.
"How come you're having such a hard time?"
Like, "What's wrong with you?"
And you tell a kid that enough times,
and we're not talking like once or twice,
we're talking like hundreds over years,
you begin to feel like
no matter what you do, you're missing a step.
- [Narrator] By the time he graduated from high school,
Jeremiah Burroughs was determined
to find the step he was missing.
So he made a deal with himself.
10 years or 50 jobs.
If he couldn't figure it out after that,
he would go back to school.
- I did everything I could,
from being a taxi driver,
working in any fast food, delivery driver.
I got my insurance license
and I got my real estate license
right before the market tanked,
but I really thought that I was doing something wrong.
I was like, "This is just not working."
I wasn't getting the results I wanted.
- [Narrator] Somewhere around job 50,
Jeremiah landed in a job development center
that helped people with mental health challenges
and other disabilities.
- I saw people struggle with the things I struggled with,
but they had been given diagnosis,
and I suddenly started putting it together.
- So can you tell me a little bit about
the difficulties you have with time?
How does it show up in your everyday life?
- When you're late,
you become ashamed and embarrassed.
- ADHD is attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder,
and it comes in three flavors.
- [Narrator] There's an inattentive type
that involves problems with paying attention
and getting distracted.
The hyperactive-impulsive type
involves problems with self-control and hyperactivity.
And the combined type has elements of both.
- The biggest myths and misconceptions are around
that it's a boy thing and they'll grow out of it.
- [Narrator] In fact, ADHD affects men and women
in equal numbers.
It's just more likely to be diagnosed early in boys.
In the US, more than six million children
from two to 17 years old
have been diagnosed with ADHD.
It's common but complex.
Genes seem to play a role,
but they're only part of the picture.
- If you meet a child with ADHD,
it is highly likely that one or both parents,
or their immediate relatives,
grandparents, siblings,
also have ADHD, whether it's diagnosed or not.
(somber music)
And there's many adults who end up
seeking a diagnosis of ADHD
after their children are diagnosed.
- My oldest son was in first grade
and he was failing math,
and I knew he knew math.
I couldn't understand it
because I could go to take him to the grocery store,
he'd sit in the back of the cart,
and I'd put two bottles of soda in the cart
and he could tell me what their total was.
I went to the teacher and said,
"You know, I don't know why he's not doing well."
And she said, "Take him to the doctor and see," you know?
"See if he's got ADHD."
And the first thing the psychiatrist said was,
"Well, you need to read this book about ADHD,"
and I read all night long,
even though I had to go to work the next day,
and every few minutes, I would have an aha moment.
It's like, "Ah, now I know why I do this."
Here you go, baby.
- [Narrator] Fawn was in her 30s
when she was diagnosed with ADHD.
She'd spent a lifetime struggling
to direct her attention
to the right things at the right times.
- I'll go to the store and buy
mushrooms to put in the spaghetti I'm gonna make for dinner,
and that's the only reason I went there,
was 'cause I wanted mushrooms for my spaghetti,
and make the spaghetti and sit at the table
and realize I didn't put the mushrooms in.
- People with ADHD have all of the input
that all of the rest of us do,
but their prefrontal cortex,
which is the decision making,
has a terrible time filtering out unimportant stuff.
And so they're slower at it,
and so a lot of stuff is coming in,
so they talk about having racing thoughts
and being redirected and distracted by other things.
And it's really a brain effect
that the brain is having a hard time sorting and filtering
what things to pay attention to.
And medication, if people decide to try medication,
helps that part of the brain
be a more effective and faster filter.
- [Narrator] Medication is just one way to treat ADHD.
Like the disorder itself, the medications are controversial.
That's because they're stimulants, like cocaine,
that can be highly addictive.
But for some people, they can change life for the better.
- [Fawn] It made an amazing difference.
My production doubled at work.
Up until I was diagnosed, I was close to,
probably close to being
at least put on notice if not fired.
- I feel like I've gone on like a trolley ride
and I'm above the clouds,
so I have a view of things.
I can see it, I can make plans.
But when I don't think to take it,
and I joke that I need Adderall
to remember to take Adderall.
If I don't think to take it, I don't get anything done.
At first, I thought, "This means that like
"my entire life is gonna be unmedicated.
"I'm gonna be like living a half life."
But I started going to meet-ups and stuff
with other ADHD people,
and I met this really great woman named Christine,
and she talked about ADHD
like I'd never heard anyone describe it.
She didn't look at it like it was a disability.
She looked at it like it was a superpower
and it gave us the ability to look at things
from a different angle
and to come at things differently,
and casting it in that kind of a vision
changed how I looked at it,
and it didn't feel like I was afflicted anymore.
(relaxing music)
- [Narrator] In a sense, Christine might be right.
Some researchers have embraced the hypothesis
that ADHD is an evolutionary adaptation
to life as a hunter-gatherer.
In earlier times, it might have conferred an advantage.
When humans settled into farming societies
with less physical activity and less daily variety,
ADHD traits like hyperactivity or novelty-seeking
became less and less favorable.
- We have evidence that certain genes
are directly involved in what we call ADHD.
But they have their roots in migration and human evolution.
Under conditions of scarcity,
it doesn't pay to delay.
So if food's scarce because people are attacking us,
take the money and run.
If you don't know whether it will be safe right now,
then maybe move to find another place to go.
So you can see there's a cascade.
We have genes that equipped us
to try new things, to solve new problems.
We have a behavioral context
in our natural environment for growing up
that is not the way humans evolved.
We have a food supply
that is not what humans were supposed to eat.
ADHD, the way we see it today, is this mismatch.
- [Narrator] For Jeremiah, Fawn, and so many others,
having hunter brains in a farmer world
comes with some challenges.
But it also comes with gifts.
- They are often very open to new and different things.
They're ready to take on new projects.
They like fast-paced action.
Because they are seeking novelty
and they're seeking to keep their brain engaged.
- ADHD people have no fear.
- They don't like that.
- [Fawn] If I'd known when I was in school,
I would have made better grades.
I might have even gone to college.
But I wouldn't be here today where I'm,
you know, and have my wonderful husband that I met (laughs)
because of the things that I did.
You know, I got divorced and moved to,
first I moved to Las Vegas and didn't know anybody.
- We've been, you know,
taught that everyone has to fit into a box,
and we're not box people.
I have this gift, this ability,
and I can use it in the best way possible,
but it's gonna come and go,
and so I have to plan it out.
It's kind of like a harvest.
I have to plan when I'm gonna get ready
and plan when I'm gonna like reap it up,
and we'll see how things work out.