ADHD CUREABLE? Trauma Related?

[IzzyBored]

youtu.be/lmKd5YbFVo8?si=UKO...(Not working as expected?)

my question on this video is: IF he's correct, then certain trauma therapies can cure ADHD at least in adults such as IFS or Hypnosis, maybe inner child work. Have any of you been cured of ADHD?

[STEM_Dad]

TL;DR - I do not believe that ADHD is "curable". I also do not think it is "caused" by trauma, but rather than trauma is a possible environmental factor in the development of the severity of ADHD, not the formation of it.

I would say that trauma therapy might be a "treatment, but not a cure". Here's why I believe so:

~~~~~

The research into ADHD reveals that the presence of symptoms due to an individual's neurology (the biological structure and function within the brain).

There is a definite genetic component, because ADHD is highly inheritable, but not everyone with a family history of ADHD will develop it.

There's also an environmental factor to why some people develop it, and probably affects how severe it is. Environmental factors include epigenetic factors. The potential factors are broad, but include:

• A father's lifestyle prior to their child's conception

• A mother's lifestyle and diet from their child's conception, throughout pregnancy, and breastfeeding after birth

• Whether a person is born premature &/or experiences complications during birth (aka "traumatic birth"); the more premature the birth, the higher the likelihood that a person will have ADHD

• How stable or unstable of a home environment a child grows up in, especially in early childhood. <= This is, most significantly, where trauma comes into play with the initial development of ADHD.

Trauma in later childhood, early adulthood, and even continuing throughout adulthood can influence the severity of ADHD, but cannot cause it.

Most experts in ADHD say that there is no cure for ADHD.

Some people "grow out of" ADHD:

For some people who are diagnosed with ADHD as children, their symptoms might decrease enough entering into adulthood that they no longer meet the requirements for a clinical diagnosis of ADHD. (They might still struggle with ADHD symptoms, but by not meeting the diagnostic threshold, they would have "subclinical" ADHD.)

TRAUMA & ADHD:

Trauma can be a significant trigger for the development and expression of ADHD. Adequate trauma therapy might, therefore, reduce the significance of the presentation of symptoms of ADHD, but will not remove the genetic and neurological predisposition of ADHD. =>Trauma therapy might be an effective treatment for some, but is not a "cure" for ADHD.

*I am not a medical or mental health professional. I am just a person who is very interested in science, and so I have read and researched ADHD extensively over the last few years, starting months before my diagnosis. What I have written above is based

on my best understanding, but I might be wrong on any of the particulars.

~~~~~

I do not believe that childhood trauma was a major contributing factor in the development of my own ADHD. I grew up in a home environment that was very stable, and my parents have always been very loving of each other and towards me and my siblings.

Note that my own definition of "trauma" has to do with severity of events and/or quality of living conditions. Based on my definition, I only experienced one significant traumatic event in my youth: a car accident when I was 9 years old.

• I did move several times as a youth, which might be a factor.

• My family did experience some income stability issues, starting when I was 12. {Update: the more I've thought about this today, the more I've realized that this has been a significant area of trauma for me. Throughout my adulthood, I have felt unsure of making monetary decisions. It's due to a Scarcity Mindset. Today, I realized that this, perfectionism, and imposter syndrome are the causes of my problems with project management at work.}

• My ADHD symptoms, based on my own recollection and what my parents have related, clearly go back to when I was 6, and were fully developed before my one big traumatic event.

Factors which likely caused my ADHD to develop:

• Some ADHD in the family (both sides). My dad likely had Combined ADHD as a child (but and diagnosis didn't exist when he was a youth). As an adult, he has exhibited mild to moderate ADHD traits. My mom has exhibited mild Inattentive ADHD traits, which became more prominent when she was suffering from the effects of stress or going through periods of depression. --- Neither of my brothers developed ADHD... just me

• My dad was a smoker from prior to the time I was conceived, up through my early school years. (He didn't smoke heavily, but he did smoke his pipe at least a couple of times a day.) Thus, my mom was exposed to secondhand smoke while she was pregnant with me. I was also exposed to secondhand smoke in my early youth. Nicotine exposure is a definite epigenetic factor in the development of ADHD.

• ACEs (adverse childhood experiences): My ACE score would be very low, maybe a 3 at the most, but i would have a score. As I mentioned above, I did move around several times in my youth. My family also experienced some economic instability. My mom did experience some mental health issues (mostly when I was in my later teens and 20s). And my dad was gone up to 6 months at a time when he was in the Navy, but kept in regular touch with me and the family.

• These are probably the most significant trauma factors in my youth, besides the car accident which was a definite traumatic event. I haven't needed any therapy about the accident, but I probably would have benefited within the months following it.

For the most part, I would describe my childhood as "golden", almost "idyllic". I have many happy memories of my youth. It wasn't until reaching adulthood that I really began to experience severe difficulties in life.

My early marriage was traumatic, as I was thrust into the working world, scrambling to provide for my own family, while learning to help my wife deal with the effects of her own childhood and early adulthood trauma. --- If trauma "causes" ADHD, then she would have it worse than me. Instead, she seems like she might have mild borderline personality disorder (BPD), which can look like ADHD in youth, but also often has ADHD as a comorbidity. She definitely doesn't have ADHD traits now, or for most of the last 15 years, besides mild impulsivity, but in her youth might have been diagnosed with Hyperactive-Impulsive ADHD that she mostly grew out of...but it seems more like BPD to me. (We're divorced now, as of early 2022, but still interact regularly because we are co-parenting.)

[STEM_Dad in reply to STEM_Dad]

I also think that people promoting "cures" for ADHD do more harm than good.

It's true that certain biological conditions can be cured, but if a condition exists because of the inherent structure and function of a person's neurology, then they cannot be cured.

If a person requires ongoing or repeat therapy, then they are not cured. (From what I understand, most people who have a history or trauma have to repeat the therapy every so often.)

However, if a person can add enough structure, routine, and effective lifestyle changes into their life that they no longer need to take ADHD medication... then I would consider that as effective treatment.

• Some people have mild enough ADHD that they can do this. I don't think that I'm one of them. I know too well what I was like before medication.

[STEM_Dad in reply to STEM_Dad]

However, I do think that trauma therapy is necessary for many people, both with and without ADHD. I highly recommend it for people who have experienced trauma in their life, especially early childhood trauma or any type of relationship trauma (family or romantic relationships, especially).

For people with ADHD who have experienced trauma, which is a lot of people, trauma therapy could lead to a significant reduction in severity of ADHD symptoms.

The goal with treating ADHD is to reduce the symptoms, to reduce the negative impact which ADHD has on their life.

One of the goals of trauma therapy is to reduce or eliminate the continuation of trauma that is passed down from one generation to the next. Generational trauma, if left unchecked, can continue down to family line, and spread out to other families via relationship trauma.

But because of the epigenetic and environmental factors in developing ADHD, treating trauma adequately and early enough could lead to a reduction in the incidence and severity of ADHD in the next generation.

[Greenbeeps in reply to STEM_Dad]

Hi STEM_Dad

I love your answer and it very much goes along with my understanding of ADHD

I’m a mental health nurse and very much believe there are many people diagnosed as having BPD/EUPD when in actual fact they have ADHD or both.

Unfortunately the ADHD possibility isn’t explored due to a lack of understanding of it and to me the ADHD symptoms prevent a person from grasping the therapy, retaining skills, understanding the process. This and the poor confidence means they get stuck in the diagnosis and symptoms of their BPD/EUPD. If their ADHD was treated it would help calm their minds to work through the traumas that created their BPD/EUPD symptoms.

However, if I’ve suggested this there has been a negative response that the persons BPD/EUPD SYMPTOMS would worsen. To me this is down to a lack of understanding of the medication and if it has been mistakenly used (eg a person was prescribed it and they didn’t have ADHD) or the denial of ADHD existing or still believing ADHD looks like a small boy running amok in the classroom.

What are your thoughts?

[STEM_Dad in reply to Greenbeeps]

I'll send you a private chat about what I believe to be my experience with BPD. It's a lot, and there's some stuff in there I prefer not to share too openly on the forum.

Suffice it to say that, I believe there is a strong correlation with BPD and ADHD (people with BPD very likely have ADHD), but that simply having ADHD does not make someone likely to develop BPD:

1) I've read that many people who are diagnosed with BPD were diagnosed with ADHD as children.

2) I've also read that people with BPD most likely have a parent who has BPD or NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder).

I do not think that there is a strong connection between having ADHD and developing any form of personality disorder.

However, I do think that I've read statistics that having a personality disorder is more common with people who have some type of neurodiversity, when compared to the neurotypical population.

[STEM_Dad in reply to Greenbeeps]

I know that there has been a lot of talk within the ADHD community about Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD).

RSD can cause some people to have huge emotional outbursts of anger.

While I think the BPD only affects a smaller percentage of the ADHD population (which I'll guess at around 10-15%), I think that RSD affects a larger percentage (again a guess of 50-70%). I'm not sure if I've read statistics on these, and I wouldn't be surprised if I'm far off the mark.

Probably more my opinion is that: all people with ADHD experience emotional dysregulation; the majority experience RSD sometimes; roughly half experience RSD regularly; and for some it is to the level of being a personality disorder.

(But I also am sure that I've met some people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder who didn't seem to have a bit of ADHD about them. They were extremely attentive and composed, very much the opposite of ADHD, yet completely narcissistic.)

[Frodoles in reply to Greenbeeps]

I have a daughter that was diagnosed by a well respected psychiatrist. Having spoken to a GP who told her she would have known when young and it wasn't ADHD! Born in early 80's there were signs but no one including me her Mum, saw them as significant. Fortunately when they got worse she actually sort out a diagnosis, or not. But she very definitely has ADHD. The medication had helped enormously but as people in the UK know too well there are huge shortages of the medication. That has added great stress. I really feel for these people. She has been prescribed a different drug which she is going will be just as successful, fingers crossed.

[Netjester]

So my psychiatrist/neurologist is working with me towards, "re-training" the brain. It's not a cure, but his studies, at a very prestigious university, showed great progress in the ability to re-train the brain to improve your memory and attention. I, for one, can say that I have seen a lot of improvement over the years. It's definitely not a quick fix and requires continual work, but I feel so good about how I've improved that I'm not off stimulants.

[STEM_Dad in reply to Netjester]

Prior to my ADHD diagnosis, I tried almost every tip, trick, technique and methodology that I came across, in order to improve my memory and attention. I had very little progress.

Mind you, I wasn't meeting with a professional... I couldn't afford to do so. I was learning from books and tapes, recorded seminars, and eventually from web articles and YouTube videos.

I also tried supplementing with vitamins and other dietary supplements.

Overall, the best outcome that I gained in attention and memory was only 1/10th of the benefits I experienced after only 5 days of taking Adderall XR.

But Adderall, as helpful as it was, still didn't treat my ADHD needs well enough. Not even at higher dosages that made my heart rate elevate (tachycardia).

I'm twice as well treated on atomoxetine. (It's not for everyone with ADHD, but definitely meets my needs.)

Treating my ADHD with medication has made it so much easier to learn new skills and apply myself better. I still have a lot of work to put in, but at least I feel like I'm making progress (or more able to make progress).

[kshapiro]

you can really easily find charts that overlap symptoms of ADHD and trauma. They have loads of symptoms in common. And many (most?) people with ADHD have trauma that exacerbates their symptoms. That's extremely true of myself - learning how to deal with that trauma was crucial to me being able to grow and develop as an adult. But dealing with my trauma didn't cure my ADHD, it just made it a lot easier to cope and take care of myself and be a part of my community.

I think there's probably a lot of people out there who misdiagnose themselves with ADHD when they have trauma, bc they don't want to acknowledge their trauma, but I don't think there's a ton of psychologists or teachers or whatever telling traumatized kids they have ADHD. In my experience psychs want to rule out other dxs first before they'll even consider ADHD or any other developmental disorder. Which is kinda annoying considering how much overlap and co-morbidity there is.

[Momsteady]

Great question, I’d like to see what people have to say about this topic.

[FredaN]

I'm not convinced by anything that claims to cure ADHD. If you've experienced trauma and have ADHD, then having treatment for the trauma is bound to have a knock-on affect on the ADHD inadvertently (assuming it works). I had a therapist in 2020 who tried treating me for PTSD, although it's not something anyone else has mentioned. It didn't do anything for me personally. I think the understanding of why some of us have ADHD is nowhere near the point where we could find a reliable "cure". And so many of us are late diagnosed, which causes a lot of trauma in a some of us. I'd just be happy with feeling better than I do right now (although that's another complicated and frustrating story!)I have the added complications of autism, depression, anorexia and OCD in addition to ADHD. I find some autistic traits and OCD compensate for ADHD ones, like being organised and always way too early for things. In many ways I think it just makes my mind like a tug of war contest where everyone loses.

When I was very first assessed for mental health issues over 2 decades ago, BPD was mentioned once in passing by the initial nurse I saw, but never again. I was briefly misdiagnosed with bipolar, but mostly just puzzled most psychiatrists and psychologists.