That’s quite frequent. My Not-a-doctor, simplified understanding is:

Caffeine doesn’t target processes related to dopamine but it’s a stimulant. Outside of hyperfocus mode, ADHD brains are constantly understimulated because the lack of dopamine makes things not feel engaging and interesting. This is why our thoughts race, our brain is struggling to find ALL THE THINGS (thoughts, hobbies, worries, plans, memories) that might give it the stimulation it needs.

Since coffee is a stimulant, the brain gets what it’s looking for and doesn’t need to race through all the possible thoughts, it’s happy. The two main problems are:

• Coffee doesn’t have a controlled release or amount of caffeine, so the effects can be at points unpredictable (peaks, crashes, jitteriness, sudden releases).
• Since it doesn’t affect dopamine production/intake/etc, it doesn’t help with the “uuuughhhh I can’t be bothered to do this” that happens when the brain can’t see/understand there is a reward.

My fiancé has combined type nominally, but other than racing thoughts and some stimming, he’s definitely the quiet type. I would say that’s probably the case for many (most even?) AuDHD people, as autism doesn’t usually go hand in hand with the endless social battery that the ADHD stereotype portrays.

So the topics discussed are sci-fi, and politics. Not technology then.

Who’s “Glenn” and why does he belong in “Technology”? Is he a robot?

What does this post about people ramblings have to do with Technology?

Most people tend to develop coping mechanisms that help them pass as non-ADHD individuals, by lowering their standards for what they can achieve in life and by accepting the abnormally high amounts of stress that hiding their ADHD causes them.

Psychologists call this “growing out of ADHD”.

It’s not exactly this but have you considered barefoot shoes? They have a super-thin sole so they naturally take some height off you, compared to “normal” shoes. I wear them for completely different reasons (as a cis man who has found these to help with feet pain and posture after being a kid with flat feet), but I thought you’d appreciate the tip.

Groundies make them with “normal” looking soles, but it’s all an optical illusion - they have a strip around them so the sole looks “thick”, “normal” and “fashionable”. Essentially a less exaggerated version of that drawing:

Caveat: they’re more niche and therefore expensive. Also not everyone enjoys the idea of walking without cushioning and feeling the texture of the ground.