Check recent research in the area of childhood trauma causing persistent/permanent long-term and adult neuropsych issues and you'll find things. But it's something I figured out for myself many years ago. When mentioned to ADD people, many will immediately resonate to it..."yeah! that's JUST what it feels like!". Which they don't tend to say when hearing the 'usual' descriptions of ADD.
'ADD' is entirely a typical gov/academia opposite-to-truth naming... It's not a -deficit- of attention...it's a freaking SURFEIT of attention!
One is trying to track sixteen things at once...continuously...endlessly. That's fight/flight. Continuous hyperawareness...continuous fear.
Consider how the lateral amygdala is supposed to have pretty dense interconnect with the mPFC. That's specifically so that the executive can control the emotion...damp the fear....turn off the anxiety. Now consider how that interconnect is so thinned in ADD people. That's a physical manifestation of early chronic stress...i.e. fear-state.
Also common...high trait-anxiety...high cortisol...high CRF, and their concomitant disorders. One could more accurately call it "childhood PTSD" I suppose.
States which are made intense and/or chronic EARLY in development tend to become THE state of being. The daily norm....the default state. I believe the changes in the brain to be both structural and epigenetic. Both of which are quite difficult to change/fix, sad to say.
The other conclusion I've come to after many years of research is that ADD is a cover-all name for many different syndromes of differing etiologies. Much like 'autism' has now become so 'inclusive' that it's almost useless as a reference to cause, or even symptoms.
Frankly, the best thing I've ever tried is Xanax!under the tongue...instant change, relief, concentration. More effective than any "ADD drug" ever made. It's just that one can't -live- that way (xanax every 4 hrs...every day of one's life).
Too bad the CRF-antagonists haven't panned out (so far anyway).
Rico
Makes sense why sedatives help my focus issues but not stimulants.
