swbluto wrote:
Quote:
Anyway, ADHD is not within "normal variation" as far as emotional goes - Barkley wants to get emotional dysregulation into the DSM-V definition of ADHD because of impulsiveness and a lack of neurological function in many people with ADHD that relates to controlling your social behavior on the basis of consequences. Or how NTs use particular parts of the brain to self-regulate their behavior whereas these areas are typically inactive in people with ADHD, forcing them to adapt by working through part of their brain that involves emotion, meaning that emotions are typically raw in comparison to NTs, closer to the surface, and much less likely to be inhibited before causing problems. NTs are typically unsympathetic toward ADHD difficulties because "everyone deals with that" and they don't get that it is a difference of magnitude.
Oh, poppycock. ADHD people can accurately express and interpret happiness and other emotional states just as well as the average person. Sure, I guess there might be differences in the ability to inhibit ones behavior, but wearing your heart on your sleeves hardly makes ones outside of "normal variation" in nearly the same way as autistics are.
I didn't say anything about not being able to express or interpret happiness. I said that people who have ADHD have impaired emotional regulation. I am referring to actual research that has described how an ADHD brain works, which as it turns out is not how an NT brain works. It's not simply a matter of "wearing your heart on your sleeve." I live in a household with four other people who are diagnosed with ADHD, and one who may have it but is not diagnosed. One of them leaves the bathroom unlocked because she has on occasion locked the door and forgotten how to unlock it. She is not stupid - far from it - but her behavior and need for coping mechanisms is pretty clearly outside of typical.
"Differences in the ability to inhibit one's behavior" can be pretty extreme in ADHD