Show Notes
“Isn’t everyone a little ADHD?” If you have ADHD, you’ve heard it. Maybe you’ve felt the flash of rage, and the sadness underneath, because the question can make it sound like your life-altering brain difference is being reduced to a personality quirk. But there’s a more thoughtful version that could be worth asking: Is ADHD a spectrum?
Psychiatrist and writer Dr. Awais Aftab, author of the newsletter “Psychiatry at the Margins,” helps host Rae Jacobson untangle what that word “spectrum” actually means. A spectrum doesn’t mean everyone is a little bit ADHD. But he helps explain how we draw the line between neurodivergent and neurotypical, and what it really means for something to be a “disorder.” They get into why diagnosis rates may be rising in a world of 1,000 emails a day, the role of medication, and why changing environments won’t help everyone equally.
Rae also gets honest about the whiplash of ADHD narratives, from “broken” to “superpower” to “we’re all a little like this,” and about rebuilding a sense of self along the way. It gets emotional.
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