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Attention
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Psychology
6 min read

Paying attention to ADHD– is it really just a fad?

Media fixation with ADHD caught Henna Cundill’s eye, so she decided to investigate its struggles and superpowers.
From a darkly shadowed face, a single illuminated eye stares.
Brands&People on Unsplash.

In a feat of irony, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (commonly known as ADHD) is now getting a lot of attention. For example, between 28 and 31 January The Times newspaper published one article per day about ADHD. Intrigued, I looked back over the past few months, and I found that The Times has averaged 8 to 10 articles per month which are either partly or exclusively about this topic. These range from celebrity diagnoses to handwringing over the “troubling rise” in incidents of the condition, to concerns about parents gaming the system to get their children disability payments or extra time in exams.  

With all this media hype, it is little wonder that some commentators are inclined to dismiss ADHD as a fad. Scroll through the comments beneath each article, and you will reliably find the rallying cry of, “We didn’t have ADHD in my day!” followed by the patient responses of those who try to correct this fallacy.  

While the high public profile of ADHD is new, the condition itself is not. As early as the mid-1700s a Professor of Medicine called Melchior Adam Weikard was describing patients who were “unwary, careless, and flighty” – behaving in ways governed by impulse, and showing poor skills in punctuality, accuracy, and having an inability to complete tasks, to the detriment of their mental health. His description is of its day. For example, and somewhat amusingly, Weikard (himself German, but at this point living in Russia) also described his patients as follows:  

Compared to an attentive and considerate person such a jumpy person may act like a young Frenchman does in comparison to a mature Englishman. 

Even so, Weikard did not unconsciously adopt all the prejudices and stereotypes of his context: he broke firmly with existing medical consensus when he diagnosed these patients as having a “dysregulation in cerebral fibres” – rather than attributing their difficulties to astrological misalignments or demon possession.  

By characterising ADHD as a brain-based condition, Weikard was ahead of his time, and we’ve come a long way since then. This is not the place to chart the whole biography of ADHD, suffice to say that when someone rolls their eyes and declares dismissively, “We didn’t have ADHD in my day…” – they are either over 300 years old or not talking like a mature Englishman, even if they read The Times.  

The negative side of the condition as being in a constant fight with one’s own thoughts and senses – these are doughty opponents, they always know where to find you, and they only sleep when you do. 

Another thing that is not new, despite what cynical commentators might seek to imply, is the treatment of some aspects of ADHD with medication.  

Doctors have been prescribing amphetamines to patients with ADHD since at least the 1950s. Yet now those medications are in short supply. Contrary to the media hype, fewer than 1 in 10 people with an ADHD diagnosis take prescribed medication, but for some of those who do it can be a lifeline – calming down a washing machine mind that is stuck on constant spin.  

One acquaintance of mine has taken to anxiously touring the local pharmacies, driving to neighbouring towns and villages, desperate to get her prescription filled.  

Another is passing her own tablets on to her son, whose prescribed supply ran out sooner. Sharing prescription medication is, I am duty-bound to add, an illegal practice – but it is hard to expect a parent to medicate themselves whilst seeing their own child struggle to attend school, to complete exam papers and to just generally feel (and I quote) “like a normal person.”  

People who have ADHD sometimes describe the negative side of the condition as being in a constant fight with one’s own thoughts and senses – these are doughty opponents, they always know where to find you, and they only sleep when you do.   

This is not to overlook that there are positives to ADHD too – it is often pointed out that the condition entails a degree of “superpower.” A person living with ADHD may have an incredible ability to focus on one difficult problem to the exclusion of all else, and thus solve it, perhaps devising creative solutions that elude those with a more pedestrian style of thought.  

Also, it is common for people who live with ADHD to be dynamic conversationalists, with high social intelligence and empathy, priming them for success at tasks like broadcasting and debating. Many elite athletes also live with ADHD and say that they able to strive for excellence due to their restless energy and resilience in the face of tough training regimes.  

Given the mixed bag of struggles and superpowers, there is a raging debate about whether ADHD should even be considered as pathology, or just as a neurodivergent way of being human. I suspect there is no right or wrong answer to this – for each person who lives with ADHD it depends on their own experience and how they feel it helps or hinders them to live the life they choose. Neither is it a binary choice: more than one of my own acquaintances who live with ADHD has described themselves as being in a “love-hate relationship” with their neurodivergence.   

ADHD challenges me to unfold my mind too – to become ever more aware and appreciative of the fact that there are many ways to be human. 

Neurodiversity, like any kind of diversity, challenges the way we live to together in communities, choosing or refusing to show empathy towards those who are perceived as ‘other’. There are several places in the Bible where human interconnectedness is likened to the human body – made up of many different parts, with each member dependent on the other for the wellbeing of the body as a whole. In one of his letters, St Paul wrote, “If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? Or if the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?” Society needs problem solvers, communicators, high achievers, even while society also needs people who can structure, plan and maintain consistency – and above all, society needs these different neurotypes to work together with a certain amount of mutual understanding and trust.  

Reflecting further on the body metaphor, Paul also wrote this: “If one part of the body suffers, the whole body suffers with it.” It is estimated that about 5 per cent of people in the UK has ADHD, so it is likely that includes someone you know. The majority don’t take regular meds, but if you are connected to someone who is usually reliant on these, the next few months may be a time of particular stress and anxiety, as the current medication shortage is expected to continue into late spring. This affects not just those living with ADHD, but all of us, as we live together in our families, communities, and networks. Not everyone chooses to be open about having an ADHD diagnosis, but if they are, now might be a good time to ask them how they experience this condition, both with its positives and negatives, and how you can support them if they are managing without their usual prescription. 

The body metaphor, and Paul’s teaching around it, reminds us that diversity is no accident, God has always been attentive to those who feel divergent or far from the centre, as Jesus affirmed when he announced his ministry would be for the poor, the prisoners, the disabled and the oppressed. The psalmist too, observes that God’s attention and concern for us is so complete, that one is “…hemmed in, before and behind” – even if one strays to the very ends of the Earth, or drives to the pharmacy in the next village. Thus, while the media circus may be new, we can be sure that God has always been attentive to those with ADHD, and wider society is called to be likewise. 

Writing for The Times, Esther Walker describes ADHD as “…the health story that keeps unfolding.” Well, certainly every time I unfold my newspaper, there it is again. But ADHD challenges me to unfold my mind too – to become ever more aware and appreciative of the fact that there are many ways to be human: usually complex, sometimes difficult, often brilliant, and always interconnected.  

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Hospitality
5 min read

How a nation opened its arms to refugees

Fascinated by Polish hospitality extended to Ukrainian refugees, Tory Baucum delves into its nature.

Tory Baucum

Tory Baucum is the director of the Benedictine Center for Family Life, Benedictine College, in Atchison, Kansas.

A helper in a yellow vest reaches up to a open train carraige window while offering a bottle. The side of the carraige is covered in graffiti.
A Polish volunteer hands water to Ukrainian refugees at Przemyśl, Poland.
Mirek Pruchnicki, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How does one explain three million refugees in Poland but not one refugee camp? Even the experts find it hard. Dr Marc Gopin of the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University, and a world expert on refugee crises, says in 30 years of work among refugees he has never seen anything like it.  

In December 2022 I was visiting early responders near the Ukrainian-Poland border. One man (whom I’ll identify as Slawomir) was particularly heroic in his efforts to whisk fleeing Ukrainians to safety. Upon introduction, he asked if I wanted to know how he did it. I replied,  

“What I really want to know is why? Why did you risk your livelihood, even your life, to rescue people whom you did not know? Indeed, even people with whom you share a hard and sometimes bitter history?”  

He had no answer. He could only manage a shrug and murmured,  

“I just had to.” 

This conversation, with variations, could be told repeatedly. By all the accounts I’m aware of Poles are acting inexplicably heroically. It merits investigation and understanding beyond the anecdotal.  

So why then has Poland played such a heroic role in this global crisis? 

One answer I’ve by given Poles, is that they have experienced what the Ukrainians themselves are now going through. Their own history of PTSD has primed them to empathize with effects of the shock and awe of an aggressor’s invasion - indeed, of Russian invaders. A scholar at the Jagillonian University said to me of their two 20th Century invaders - the Germans and Russians - most Poles preferred the Germans. Having just visited Auschwitz I found that incredible. “Oh, the Nazi’s were wicked, but they were civilized in their wickedness. Russians show no constraint whatsoever,” she said.  

Poles also know abandonment, such as when they fended for themselves as the neighbourhood bullies took turns pounding them. The 1944 Warsaw Uprising, ending in the razing of Warsaw, could have been averted if the West had intervened. But Poles were betrayed by those they believed were friends, or at least, allies. We weren’t. So, Poles are constitutionally unable to simply stand by and watch atrocities. But other European neighbours can and still do.  

So what makes the Poles’ response so extraordinary beyond its rarity?  

As we probe deeper - beyond collective experience - we hit Polish character. Character is durable. Ever since the late 18th century when Poland was partitioned by three neighbouring Empires (Prussian, Russian and Austria-Hungarian), Poles have been in survival or nearly survival mode. In the 1770s Swiss political theorist Jean Jacques Rosseau wrote an epistolary tract warning the Polish government that if these empires succeeded in “eating you then you must never let them digest you.” For nearly two hundred years the Poles learned that culture and faith keep a people together when even the state buckles. Culture and faith make a people indigestible. These lessons, learned in the crucible of multiple failed uprisings and even death camps, steel the Polish people to do the truly remarkable deeds the world now witnesses.  

Poland’s long partitioning and occupation baked in their collective experience. At his recent visit to Kyiv and Warsaw American President Joe Biden singled out the Poles for their heroism. It was a first in this particular crisis.  

But can we dig deeper still for an answer to why Poles have acted in such a remarkably generous manner?? For it’s not only singular and durable but it’s also a theological response. This answer requires a little history to absorb.  

Many Polish people possess a heroic - even radical - hospitality. The ultimate cause of Polish homes, hostels and hotels welcoming the stranger can be proffered: their faith in God. The Poles have a saying:  

“When a neighbour is under your roof then God is under your roof.” 

 In the 12th century Boleslav the Bold had Bishop Stanislav murdered while celebrating mass (let the English understand). The Poles turned against their king and embraced Stanislav as their martyr and patron. To be received back into the good graces of his people, Boleslav placed a Benedictine foundation in every Cathedral of the land. Rule 53 of Benedict’s Rule states that monks are to receive every stranger as Christ. The common saying of the Poles (if a neighbour is under your roof then God is under your roof) has its roots in this ancient act of royal penance. This Christian practice of hospitality was the core strategy of the Christianization of Poland. In the history of Benedictine evangelization through Christian hospitality we’ve finally hit the bedrock of the Polish response. 

They understand people need not only justice but also transcendence in order to flourish. Or even survive.

However, it would be a stretch to say the Poles’ extraordinary response to their neighbours in need of shelter is simply the triumph of the distinct Benedictine character or even more genetically of Catholic sensibilities. Nothing this complex is that simple. All these factors are integrated in this moment. But after five visits to Poland since the third day of the initial invasion, I’ve concluded the Poles are, by and large, a uniquely virtuous people. Not morally virtuous - original sin is distributed evenly, even amongst Poles. But they are theologically virtuous: they are people shaped by faith, hope and love. They understand people need not only justice but also transcendence in order to flourish. Or even survive. 

Their great 20th Century saint, Pope John Paul II, during the Stalinist occupation, taught them the practices of Domestic Church. The domestic church is nothing less than the family faced outward in love. Christianity began as a domestic movement. Writing to residents of Rome, St Paul greets the Christians who gather weekly in each other’s homes). In moments of great distress Christians have been known to revert to these root realities, these primal instincts. Not always, of course. But in February of 2022 and for the many following months they have. In Poland.  

We are sitting on the most amazing story the world has mostly not heard about. I’m grateful to tell the world what I’ve seen unfold before my very eyes. I wish my telling was adequate to the Poles’ heroism. For as they modestly tell it “we just have to.”  

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