Zac discusses being able to understand some of the symptoms that his ADHD created in childhood. Not being able to sustain mental effort in early assignments in school. When something was not stimulating enough to hold his attention in childhood he often encountered shame-based accusations of being lazy, stupid or destructive.

Zac also discusses the often neglected, positive coping strategies and behaviours which ADHD may produce. Zac also refers to the book, “Delivered from Distraction: Getting the Most out of Life with Attention Deficit Disorder“, by Edward M. Hallowell (Author), John J. Ratey (Author). It covers some of the advantageous characteristics of ADHD. Creativity, “out-of-the-box” thinking, a zany sense of humour, the highly intuitive style just to name a few.

Olga explores anxiety as a secondary symptom or co-morbid disorders that present as a result of untreated ADHD. On average children receive as much as 10X negative feedback from adults. Over time, depending on the personality of the child and depending on if the child has supportive adult figures in their life; children can suffer anxiety or depressive disorders. As an example, Oppositional Defiant Disorder has often been linked to the constant negative feedback which, over time can produce an anti-authority reaction in adulthood.

Olga asks Zac about his experience with medication in reference to ADHD or ADD symptoms. Zac mentions that there are scary ideas out there about it but he has had a good experience with it and he is able to “adult” now. He also shares that his wife mentioned(probably in jest) that it may have saved their marriage. He goes on to note the saying that. “Pills don’t teach skills”, suggesting that there is really no replacement for learning the coping skills or behaviours associated with a problem. The idea is that the best outcomes will come from a treatment that is both, behaviourally based interventions and medication.