I picked up this book in the hopes of getting a deeper dive into ADHD, and I feel like this wasn’t really what I was given. I had previously read Taking Charge of Adult ADHD, and that was a reasonable, science-backed primer. It wasn’t deep, but it was a crash course with special given to medical treatment. This book, instead, recommends medicine, but it seems to be much more about everyday beyond or in addition to medication.

Such a book is fine, in principle, but this went into each topic with far more detail than necessary. In fact, it’s challenging to see this book as being about ADHD at all. Going by this book, I would imagine that ADHD is a form of neurodivergence that simply intensifies things that everyone experiences. It’s a primer on how to live life, and that’s great, but isn’t really what I was looking for.

To make matters worse, I’m not sure that it even gets ADHD right. I could be totally off-base, but it seems to me that ADHD is not a mere intensification of certain aspects that everyone lives. Instead, it is a qualitatively different experience. This ultimately stems from issues with relating to neurotransmitters–dopamine, most significantly, but also norepinephrine and serotonin. The frontal lobe seems to be especially badly affected by it, and it seems to run somehow out of step with the rest of the brain.

There is one thing that is really good about the book, and it’s the extensive coverage given to meditation. For many with ADHD, meditation seems to be an absolute lifesaver, and I suspect it is because of the way it causes different brain parts of the brain to work in concert. If I remember correctly, Richard Jones, in An Introduction to the Study of Mysticism, argues that mystical experiences generated by both meditation and psychedelics lead to different lobes coordinating in ways that they normally do not. This is exactly the sort of thing that those with ADHD would find useful. I’ve also found that other SSRIs are helpful in getting my own ADHD under control. I have the triple-whammy of ADHD, depression, and being without a thyroid. As a result, my tendencies are really intense, and hitting the depression and thyroid problems with medication lightens much of the load exacerbating ADHD.

I apologize for the digression, but these were some of the things I thought about as I read the book. It might be worth reading if this is your first time learning about ADHD, but there are other books out there.