Scatter Brain - Maybe it sounds glib to suggest that a complex neurodevelopmental disorder is having a moment, but if you haven't noticed that ADHD is everywhere these days, you haven't been, well, paying attention

Five years ago, hardly anyone was talking about adult ADHD. Now it's all over social media, and self-diagnosis is rampant. How a complex neurological condition became the new superpower

- By Courtney Shea- Photo illustration by Collen Nicholson - Photography by Justin Poulsen

In 2014, researchers in Florida pitted a group of mice with ADHD against their neurotypical peers. The rodents were trained to make their way through a maze-from a noisy, distressing environment to a cozy escape pod, with a bunch of alternative paths jutting out along the way. Two weeks in, the "normal" mice had memorized the most direct route from A to B. Meanwhile, the ones with ADHD continued to get there via a series of unnecessary diversions-like middle-aged women bouncing between the jam and souvenir shops on their way out of wine country. This was to be expected: ADHD is, in the simplest possible terms, an inability to tune out distractions and stay on task. What was remarkable was that the mice with ADHD completed the course in the same amount of time as their competitors. Only they wasted more energy, made more mistakes, and arrived at the final destination feeling so wrecked and frazzled that they just wanted to get drunk or go to bed. Not that I'm projecting.

People with ADHD will cite this research as evidence of our ability to achieve the same things as other people. While that may be true, I like the mouse experiment because it articulates another important aspect of having ADHD: it's exhausting-the time and energy that go into the most basic tasks, the cycle of guilt and self-flagellation that accompanies an inevitable series of fuck-ups, the relentless internal dialogue between theme that must exercise total vigilance to keep life from flying off the rails and the other me that is programmed for derailment.