[owens99]

A lot of people in the comments appear to have a misunderstanding of ADHD and sleep disorders. It is possible to have both conditions simultaneously, and likely very common. ADHD is a condition defined by a sustained period of symptoms, not underlying causes or biological tests. It is 100% consistent for someone to have ADHD in one environment and not in another. This is how it is viewed in psychiatry. If you spend many years as an accountant focusing on detailed work in your job, but you can’t focus to complete your work, you may be diagnosed with ADHD and treated with medicine. If you then change careers to be an artist in a creative field, but face no dysfunction or difficulty in completing your work, you would no longer be diagnosed. The same applies to having a sleep disorder and then getting it treated. Though it is not clear if sleep disorders in childhood cause irreversible changes to the brain.

[ntsplnkv2]

A key factor in ADHD diagnosis is symptoms appearing in multiple areas of life.

I am a tech consultant and I also play the piano. My ADHD makes it hard for me to do both, one a hobby I love, another work I do to pay the bills - the idea that you posit makes it seem like a motivation thing but that is hardly the case with ADHD.

[thrav]

Just to be clear, your diagnosis may change, but you’re not any less ADHD (assuming you actually were in the first place). ADHD is a product of the brain developing in a different way. It’s not contextual, even if it’s most obvious symptoms might be.

[owens99]

I’m sure there is disagreement among some doctors over this, but ADHD in the current medical literature is not defined by brain function, it is defined by sustained dysfunction in life situations.

[thrav]

The brain forms differently in ADHD individuals. Certain regions have slower or stunted growth. If you’d like to know more, it’s explained in the beginning of this lecture: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SCAGc-rkIfo

[fatnoah]

>Just to be clear, your diagnosis may change, but you’re not any less ADHD (assuming you actually were in the first place). ADHD is a product of the brain developing in a different way. It’s not contextual, even if it’s most obvious symptoms might be.

My son had fairly extensive two day evaluation for ADHD. The test itself was not even close to finding out how things worked in everyday life. It was activities and exercises designed to understand how his brain worked. It was super-enlightening to me to get an idea of what challenges he was facing. Simply having the evaluation and having the results shown and explained did wonders for our ability to support him in school and beyond.

In any cases, this is a really long-winded way to agree with you. It's about how your brain works, not about functioning in life situations. That said, some situations will make it more or less apparent that your brain works in a certain way.

[thrav]

Check out Dr. Barkley’s 30 essential ideas for ADHD parents, and know that either you or your spouse are also ADHD, even if you’ve long since learned to cope and overcome.

[fatnoah]

Absolutely. Going through the process made it clear to my wife that she'd been coping with ADHD for a long time. It also made me realize that I was outnumbered. ;)