I really love your content and find this topic interesting, especially as an ADHD adult with plenty of past trauma. All I ask is you either speak louder or get a microphone nice and close so I can hear you better ☺️ lol. thanks for the content

Thank you for sharing your experience and expertise. I'm beginning to look at PTSD, having been correctly diagnosed ADHD as a mature (or immature adult, depending on one's point of view). I find the denial of ADHD and the blame casting onto mother irritating. Having consumed too much info over the last 3 years since diagnosis about ADHD and cluster b personality types I ended up seeing a KZfaq talk by Sam Vaknin, a self confessed narcissistic academic/therapist (who also appears high in psychopathic traits and highly manipulative, from my armchair diagnostic position). He is also a mother blamer, linking bad mothering to ADHD/ASD, narcissism and through to ASPD. It is clear I come from a line of diverse neurodiverse people on both sides who have been masking behind some reasonably elevated IQ and quirky, though generally pro-social enough behaviours. Within the neurodivergence we have survived as best we could, finding the homogenised 'neurotypical' populations ways far more traumatic than our own ways. That being said the issue is family members ending up on the edges of society by either moving physically far to the side or up to the top of organisational pyramids, where one is more surrounded by either failed or successful cluster b personality types. However to be in the middle is equally bad as then you are surrounded by middle of the road neurotypical gangs who en masse become psychopathic, aggressive and manipulative if you transgress their social constraints that, as neurodiverse people, are impossible to navigate successfully. Despite all that we're NOT a bad bunch with bad mothers self perpetuating our own misery in each successive generation. Nothing like what Sam Vaknin tries to convince others of. It's frustrating because I listened to a lot of his talks and did get a great sense of a lot of things from him, but he's so manipulative within his discourses. Watching people falling for it in the comments is quite disturbing. It's often the case that an expert seems to have a great grasp of the basics and some good novel insights. But then they switch subtly from reasoned sciencey logic to an increasingly unsupported personal view. If you follow there, you're becoming a cult member. I've seen it over and over again in lots of fields. If they've written a book it normally transitions from refreshing insight to their own unsupported ideas from chapter 3 or 4 for some reason. I often end of thinking that they should have stopped there. Then the book would have been amazing, insightful and above all safe for consumption. But perhaps stopping there wouldn't satisfy their ego and also possibly wouldn't feel like enough of a book? So now I prefer to listen to people like you who obviously monitor your personal dark triad better than the 'stars' of the field and work faithfully within sciencey ways and leave out the gimmicky presentation. I don't even care that you haven't got a proper microphone x.

Thanks for commenting on Gabor Mate`s book. It is a very interesting and well written one, but trauma response can't be the only or major cause in all cases of ADHD. Its good to be reminded by an expert such as yourself that trauma response is not the only, or the major cause of ADHD in all cases. My uneducated guess is that complex trauma can, however, exacerbate it significantly and vice versa. I have ADD-like problems and CPTSD, but early trauma included 2 major head injuries. I might even be autistic. None of this was ever acknowledged, let alone evaluated or treated and that lead to more trauma, more head injuries, and sometimes to abusive and exploitative relationships and employment situations. It is a vicious circle. That's the reality of it. It's my opinion and experience that d.i.y. practices including somatic, breathwork, meditation, and writing help a lot. I'm also going to try to learn some cognitive/behavioral skills. But professional assessment and treatment/therapy would surely help even more and would have prevented a lot of suffering and dysfunction had these been undertaken, ever, but especially early on. I think now I might be too old, and too broke ( in more ways than one). Keep cracking those jokes, Doc.

Great info. Deep. Thank you so much.

The DSM-5 is a absolute mess that caters to Insurance companies & pharmaceutical companies, the head of creating the DSM-5 was also creating a medication working for a pharmaceutical company & some of the Dr's on the board either walked out or were kicked out for disagreeing with the result of this conflict of interest. She was creating a drug to treat addiction, so anyone who takes pain medication or opioid of any kind is an addict. If a 80 yr old a with zero history of touching addictive substances or addictive behavior gets bone cancer & is dying, she is EXACTLY the same as someone using heroin for "recreational" purposes!!! So her new drug is appropiate in ANY situation where opioid are used!! This is insanity. There are more examples than I can list. So how does one treat PTSD in a child when it's based on the DSM-5? Give them medication for ADHD? The symptoms overlap & why has PTSD risen in children along with ADHD? Depression? Anxiety? WATCH " Social Experiment: Children 2.0" & this current generation of youth becomes clear.

Clonidine helps me well

Say a shrink caused me ptsd by misdiagnosing me with bipolar kidnapped me for a week then interrorgated me for hours and my avodance is avoiding getting stuck in rooms with doctors how do you work around this to get help?

So we are talking of ADHD symptoms from different causes.

How to distinguish between trauma such as CPTSD, which is avoidant as you say, from schizoid personality disorder, which is also avoidant?

Is the treatment with amoxetine or guanfacine for CPTSD for life or limited in duration?

I've heard that 5mg olanzapine is given off label for both PTSD and SAD? And that for night terror associated with PTSD hydroxizyn is prescribed at dosages up to 60mg?

Gabor Mate says that trauma, and in particular, the mother's inability to form a secure bond with the child due to her own issues, is the cause of ADHD, not diagnosable PTSD symptoms in the child per se.

My 2nd question is why ADHD is not recognized in Europe as a mental disorder?