ADHD: Notes From Opq

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a developmental difference in attention regulation, impulse control and activity level, present before age twelve and showing up in more than one setting.

Also called: Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADD, Attention deficit disorder.

ICD-10 F90 · ICD-11 6A05

Personal reflections, not clinical guidance, and not a substitute for any of it. Just what I keep thinking about while building this.

September 2026

If only I had Adderall

Opq studied Pharmacology (BSc Pharmacology, btw), so he read about a wide variety of drugs. Adderall, an amphetamine, was one of them.

A little backstory. A lot of the time, I'd fail to start a study session. I couldn't get fully into the concepts I was trying to grasp. Or something more exciting was going on. Or I'd simply decided, without noticing, that it wasn't time to read yet. Lots of things had made my attention span very low.

I blamed ADHD. I thought, if only I could get Adderall right now, I'd be laser focused. I'd lock in.

It was brainrot

News flash. No, I obviously didn't have ADHD. I was suffering from chronic brainrot. I knew this. And I still felt like I needed Adderall. Sigh.

Don't confuse a big drop in attention span caused by brainrot with ADHD. If you've read the earlier tabs properly, you know why by now.

Don't go by the name

Don't use layman knowledge to decide what a mental health condition means. ADHD is one of those conditions whose name doesn't do justice to what it actually is. It's not too little attention. It's having no say over where your attention goes.

The third contested opening

Depression opens on the serotonin story. Anxiety opens on the overactive amygdala. ADHD opens on low dopamine. By now that's a pattern, and I think it's the most honest thing about these pages.

The explanation everyone has been given is usually the simplest one. The simplest one is usually the one that doesn't hold up.