I have always had a passion for learning about mental illness and getting to know people who suffer from mental illness to help understand the behavioral patterns associated with certain mental disorders. I personally live with ADHD, and that already gives me a unique perspective on psychological treatment, because certain disorders can cause a heavy detriment in your life without being outright destructive. A lot of people like to say that: “Everyone is a little ADHD.” as if ADHD is a disorder so simple that it can be summarized by someone getting distracted very frequently and easily, but that barely even scratches the surface of the true nature of the disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is a gross misnomer of what ADHD is actually like, any person with ADHD can tell you that they can easily pay attention to anything they find highly stimulating and enjoyable, because attention cannot be in a deficit, as it is not created by any substance in the brain. ADHD does make choosing what you pay attention to more difficult to control, but ADHD is really about a difficulty to regulate motivation, the ADHD brain has low dopamine levels. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that gives us the feeling of pleasure and reward from completing a task. The resulting effect on the ADHD brain is a constant effort to reach equilibrium of dopamine, in other words, the ADHD brain is in constant search of stimulation, and this means that the brain is drawn to the fastest and easiest source of dopamine, like YouTube videos, video games, and all manner of quick fix vices. This is why people with ADHD are accused of being lazy, when it’s really akin to a chemical dependency, these quicker sources of dopamine have a strong psychological effect because they are easier to do since they don’t have as many steps that become individual tasks that have to be completed to attain the dopamine reward. But there is a way for people with ADHD to achieve stimulation without having to work for it, and that is by consuming things that are chemically similar to dopamine, people with undiagnosed ADHD can develop caffeine addictions as a method of self-medicating without knowing, caffeine and ADHD medication both give the ADHD a level of stimulation that balances the levels of dopamine in the brain, making it so that the seeking of stimulation can be put aside and difficult tasks become more appealing. I have seen many people, and have experienced myself, the life changing difference that comes when you get an ADHD diagnosis and a prescription of the right medication, I’ve seen friends grades go from Bs, Cs and Ds, to about straight As after getting the medicine they needed all along. I have found that ADHD is criminally under diagnosed in women and some men, I hope to be able to make a personal effort to get people the life changing diagnosis that allows to function more like a normal human.