- 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.
