Comment by Apocryphon
2 years ago
Maybe there's just overlap between CPTSD symptoms and ADHD, not that they're literally the same thing.
2 years ago
Maybe there's just overlap between CPTSD symptoms and ADHD, not that they're literally the same thing.
Both PTSD and ADHD (and any other mental "disorder") are _defined as_ a list of symptoms, and do not imply different root causes.
see e.g. "The hidden links between mental disorders" https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-00922-8 available on sci-hub
"Since the 1950s, psychiatrists have used an exhaustive volume called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, currently in its fifth edition. It lists all the recognized disorders, from autism and obsessive–compulsive disorder to depression, anxiety and schizophrenia. Each is defined by symptoms. The inherent assumption is that each disorder is distinct, and arises for different reasons. However, even before the DSM-5 was published in 2013, many researchers argued that this approach was flawed. “Any clinician could have told you that patients had not read the DSM and didn’t conform to the DSM,” says Hyman, who helped to draft the manual’s fifth edition. Few patients fit into each neat set of criteria. Instead, people often have a mix of symptoms from different disorders. Even if someone has a fairly clear diagnosis of depression, they often have symptoms of another disorder such as anxiety. “If you have one disorder, you’re much more likely to have another,” says Ted Satterthwaite, a neuropsychiatrist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
This implies that the way clinicians have partitioned mental disorders is wrong. Psychiatrists have tried to solve this by splitting disorders into ever-finer subtypes. “If you look at the way the DSM has evolved over time, the book gets thicker and thicker,” says Satterthwaite. But the problem persists — the subtypes are still a poor reflection of the clusters of symptoms that many patients have. As a result, the world’s largest funder of mental-health science, the US National Institute of Mental Health, changed the way it funded research. [...]"
Yes, they do imply different root causes. PTSD requires a root cause of experiencing trauma. ADHD is not PTSD because it is not caused by trauma, and therefore therapy to deal with childhood trauma will not benefit people with ADHD.
It is, however, very true that they can look the same. I work with kids who have been through trauma and it is only on the order of years since people started recognizing that in these kids, many ADHD symptoms were caused by trauma and could be reduced or go away entirely with trauma-specific therapy.
Therapy to deal with childhood trauma can absolutely benefit people with ADHD. Having ADHD doesn't magically make you immune to PTSD or other impacts of childhood trauma. It just means you also have ADHD. I know this because I have both ADHD and C-PTSD, and the ADHD was very, very present by the time the trauma started. Trauma symptoms exacerbate ADHD symptoms, and often vice versa. Both need to be treated. If kids' ADHD symptoms improve with trauma treatment, that doesn't necessarily mean they never had ADHD. It just means their overlapping symptoms might be less difficult to handle or, just as likely, mask. Ignoring the reality of overlap between trauma and ADHD serves only to erase people who have both. It benefits no one.
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