The variability in ADHD symptoms and treatment response remains unexplained and is irritating me. I am somewhat foggy from being awake all night with my child, who has the flu, combined with the cognitive churn that comes with restructuring a neural model beneath the ToE.
I never particularly gelled with either ADHD folks or autistic folks (or other folks for that matter, ha!) but somehow it turned out I had both conditions, from a clinical perspective. AUDHD is the emerging name for this combined presentation, and it flies under the radar a lot of the time.
This is super-high-level and just to get it out of my mind so it stops looping and I can sleep. The split will obviously be less coarse than this. I am not a neuroscientist. I want neuroscientists to look at this and criticise it so I can put their feedback into the churn.
For context, refer to [howhumansthink]. A more formal write-up will probably follow.
Hypothesis :
There are two primary ADHD profiles: one geared more toward D1-weighted phasic reactivity and another to D2-weighted tonic dynamics. They present similarly despite arising from opposite underlying dynamics.
D1 dominance producing stable but overly sticky attractor states
D2 dominance producing flexible but overly labile states
Symptom distinctions
Distractibility, inattention, forgetfulness
D1: thoughts fall repeatedly into the same minima
D2: thoughts are cleared too fast, breaking the chain
Daydreaming
D1: planning and goal-directed thought
D2: imaginal content and inhabiting the scaffold
Hyperfocus
D1: autistic-style hyperfocus driven by deep minima and sustained single-object focus
D2: hyperfocus used to push D1 signalling so thoughts anchor more before consolidation
Note-keeping and excessive talking
D1: offloading loops to get closure
D2: exporting insights in line with the nibbana-protocol insight cycle
Rejection sensitivity
D1: amplified reward-learning from approval
D2: less pronounced; usually trauma-related
Alcohol use and addiction
D1: dopaminergic reinforcement strengthens reward-learning
D2: alcohol used to suppress neuroplasticity (slowing D2 consolidation) while leveraging dopaminergic effects to increase D1 encoding
Restlessness and fidgeting
D1: movement used to stimulate D2 signalling
D2: pressure to export thoughts before they dissolve
Disorganisation
D1: relatively mild
D2: rapid flushing produces a premature sense that a task is complete
Impatience, interruption, urgency to act
D1: release valve for looping thoughts and persistent minima
D2: micro-insight completion that feels like 'done', prompting immediate output
I will let this gestate.
This is why we need imaging instead of just 'try and see' with diagnostics and drugs.
/jb202511180631