How I Learned To Trust My ADHD
Are you having a hard time adjusting to knowing you have ADHD? Sucks, doesn’t it? It’s hard to see now, but it does get easy and down-right fun. Want to find out how?
Disclaimer: I am not a scientist or medical doctor. If you have suspicions that you have ADHD or ADD, then you should invest in yourself and get tested. The more questions you have to ask the doctor during testing, the more you will get out of the testing process; as the medical doctor exists to assist you to make more effective use of what you have, rather than wishing for what you do not have.
With that disclaimer out of the way, onward to my ADHD journey.
What Is ADHD and ADD
There have been some recent new discoveries in ADHD and ADD. The old theory of ADD and ADHD assumed that there was a genetic down-regulation of the expression of dopamine receptors in brain neurons. It has now been found out by scientists using mouse neurons that ADHD and ADD are actually caused due to the dopamine neuron receptors possessing genetic mutations that make them more efficient in the uptake of dopamine from the cleft of the neurons.
Due to dopamine being used by the brain to regulate motivation and other things, we ADHD’ers and ADD’ers do not have enough dopamine in the neuron cleft long enough to reset our brain executor workloads. Hence, the always moving to different subjects and focus points unless we are extremely passionate about something.
My Journey
Imagine for a moment going for decades with failures of failing out of 3 times at college, jobs, etc. Now imagine all the self-loathing that builds up for those decades. There is a way out of it. Let me tell you how I found out I have ADHD.
I have Diet-Coke to thank for detecting I have ADHD. A person who has normally operating dopamine receptors will never get agitated over drinking one two-liter bottle of diet coke in 8 hours that happens to have a sweetener called aspartame in it. Aspartame happens to be the commercial name for Phenylalanine, which is the precursor to L-DOPA, which then is the precursor to dopamine.
Yes, you guessed it, I was by accident self-medicating for my ADHD without realizing it. Turns out that one-half of the phenylalanine in diet Coke plus some co-factor vitamins is the correct dose for me to fully get my ADHD under control.
What Are The CoFactors
What are the co-factors? Here is my list:
- I get phenylalanine by using the On-The-go sugar-free drink mixes which have Phenylalanine in them.
- Dark chocolate, 90% Cacao. The 10% cocoa has a cofactor that acts as an antagonist to dopamine receptors. The 90% Cacao also has an antagonist cofactor that slightly blocks dopamine receptors.
- Vegetable Organic Juice to get the B6, B12, and B9 vitamins.
- L-Carnitine
- Maca Tea for the L-Theanine content
- L-Glutamine as dopamine components are brought together in the Gut to produce L-DOPA and
glutamine helps the gut do that.
High protein diet to get tryptophan and serotonin.
It’s easier for me to do it that way to better control my L-DOPA dosage rather than prescribed drugs or L-DOPA via velvet beans.
My ADHD Creative Trust Process
Those things to control my ADHD do not eliminate ADHD or ADD even; it’s that it lowers the effects enough that I can use other processes and frameworks to make effective use of what I have.
Processes such as I switched from a mainly passive consumption lifestyle to a maker, creator, writer lifestyle. It really does reduce and destroy the previous several decades of self-loathing. Because I still have the jump from subject to subject non-stop; I have to put something in place that turns that into something I can leverage.
This is where writing and note-taking come in, as it is normal for both ADHD’ers and ADD’ers to feel that everything is connected. I use the Zettel-Kasten note-taking system and my VSCODE-IDE to write notes constantly daily. With that constant writing AND revisions of that writing comes the TRUST part.
The Trust My ADHD Part
I was able through writing both code and notes in a 120-day period to come up with work-in-process outlines to 5 flutter development books. Yes, I will be working off-my-ass in the next 3 years to get them published; but, it’s fun to see how it emerges from nothing to a full comprehensive development book series on Flutter App development.
All I had to do was trust all my subjects hoping would produce via my writing and note-taking processes. And, to boot, I became one of the top 2000 writers on the Medium platform for June and will do it again in the month of July.
The key seems to be not to focus on the outcome; but, to just ask what I enjoy and dislike about the journey and improve that instead of over-focusing on the outcome.
Conclusion
It sounds counter-intuitive; you need to lean into your ADHD, not lean back from it.
About Me, Fred Grott
I am a reformed Android, Java, Kotlin, and Front-End developer. I am a reformed ADHD’er and Code and Design Cowboy.
The Flutter Plugins I contribute to are:
Flutter Platform Widgets
https://pub.dev/packages/flutter_platform_widgets
Catcher
https://pub.dev/packages/catcher
Some useful guides are:
Flutter Perfect SetUp
https://readmedium.com/flutter-perfect-setup-c5462b412f78
Flutter Expert IDE SetUp
https://readmedium.com/flutter-expert-ide-set-up-25791ce690c
Globals Dart File IS An Anti Pattern
https://readmedium.com/globals-dart-file-is-an-antipattern-92975320e30c
Functional Programming in Flutter, Sandbox Your Functions
https://readmedium.com/functional-programming-in-flutter-sandbox-your-functions-ee679d3db7d5
Expert Catcher SetUp For Flutter Apps
https://readmedium.com/expert-catcher-setup-for-flutter-apps-a9ee3a6a9e08
And I am the nut starting to write a Flutter Dev App series of books during COIVD. Not only that, but I am organically creating my Flutter Developer Book chapters via Medium article writing.
The more formalized almost ready for book code is at:
https://github.com/fredgrott/ddi_flutter
My writing approach is somewhat different. The only way to master Flutter And Dart together is to do uncomfortable work. That is, every week to stretch me in mastering new things daily and expanding my thinking models tool-set.
Learning about state management, it means that I have to build state management demos with benchmarks fully naked and then build them with all the boilerplate including Flutter Platform Widgets and full testing.
With the UI itself, it means building a full UI catalog of UI solutions for col screen layout cases seen in top apps. It then means generating graphical layered pieces of screens for mockup tools.
On the CS-wise level, it means becoming an expert at reactive, including the advanced libraries. This intersects with state management, as specific reactive approaches have a role to play in statement management.
If you join me in building the exact stuff I am talking about, you will be Flutter Expert after building all this stuff.