August 24, 2026 Everything you ever wanted to ask about ADHD, but kept forgetting to. 

Millions of people have received ADHD diagnoses and the numbers continue to climb, but our culture remains full of myths, stigma, and misinformation about just what it is and how it works. Andrew Coltrin offers a personable, readable guide, with facts that go beyond the basics to bring nuanced answers and advice you can use today. You already know that using a planner, a timer, and another to-do list won’t magically make you neurotypical—but what if you didn’t have to work quite so hard to fit others’ expectations?

This book is packed with supportive solidarity and solid strategies for ADHD folks, plus nuanced answers and new perspectives for parents, teachers, employers, friends, or partners. Coltrin’s writing is interspersed with comics, offering insightful (and funny) answers to questions about meds, diagnoses, overlaps with other neurodivergent conditions, and what are all these acronyms on social media anyway? The goal of it all isn’t to fix your brain, it’s to learn to work with it. By better understanding ADHD as one thread of the human tapestry, we can better understand each other and ourselves. 

Read on for an excerpt from Andrew Coltrin‘s ADHD FAQ, available now on our site or anywhere Microcosm titles are sold!

Introduction: Questions Related to This Book

Have you ever been diagnosed with ADHD?

Is this a question you have for this author, dear reader? Or is it a question someone has asked you, and you never followed up on it? Or you did follow up on it, only to find yourself getting some murky doctor-speak information, a stack of unread articles, and another stack of unused day planners—and even after all that, still struggling with the same struggles you’ve always struggled with?

Or maybe it’s a question you have about someone in your life. Which all leads to the scary-ish question within the question, “Should I ask a professional if I have ADHD?”

In all of these cases, I’m glad you found this book. You are who I wrote it for. I also wrote it for myself, because I’ve had all these same questions as a fellow ADHDer.

As a Neurodiversity advocate, I believe that ADHD is one of the many threads in the diverse tapestry of human existence. ADHD is part of who we Homo sapiens are as a whole, but it’s a part that has been hidden away and disguised with euphemisms, social masking, and a strange compulsion to hide any diversions from the neurotypical strands in the tapestry. And, history has shown, whenever humans try to hide a difference in themselves or others, there’s a lot of unnecessary suffering that occurs.

It’s amazing how much suffering a person will put up with if they have no idea that the majority of others do not suffer in the same way. Like most of my writing, my goal with this book is to increase understanding and to reduce suffering.

What makes me qualified to write this book?

Short answer: hands-on life experience coupled with insatiable curiosity. Long answer: I’ve been writing about neurodivergence and been an advocate for the Neurodiversity Movement ever since I confirmed my autistic nature back in 2012.

At that moment in clinical psychology history, it was the prevailing practice that a person could be either autistic or ADHD, but not both. So, the fact that I was, at that time, highly motivated to get an autism diagnosis effectively turned my attention away from my ADHD traits. But life experience kept bringing me into contact with ADHDers. As the Neurodiversity Movement grew, and more ADHDers found a place among the autistics who started it, we found we had a lot in common and a lot we could learn from each other. One autistic friend of mine pointed out that she’s observed a trend where autistic people often have a close friend who has ADHD.

In my work as a special education paraeducator, I’ve observed this phenomenon on the playground. With a decade and a half of working with students with a variety of disabilities, I’ve picked up some practical knowledge on what ADHD looks like from the outside, sussed out how it’s affecting students on the inside, and provided the right nudges and supports to help those students stay on track in the very challenging sensory environment of the typical classroom.

In the last couple years, my Neurodiversity social media feeds started bringing me more stories from people diagnosed with both autism and ADHD, which opened my eyes to the fact that it was a possibility to be AuDHD. Of course, memes and hashtags are far from official qualifications. When I started having extra trouble at work after a welcome addition to my family turned all my home routines upside down, I talked to some behavioral health professionals and my primary care physician. So, I got to confirm that, in addition to being autistic, I’ve been struggling to manage ADHD on my own and in the dark for almost fifty years. That’s got to count for something.

Who is this book for?

I want to make sure you know this book is for you. Big picture, this book is for anyone who is curious about ADHD. Of course, everyone’s curiosity is going to come from a different place. I know some readers will be looking at this book because they are curious if they themselves might have ADHD. Been there. Done that. I got you. Some readers will look to this book for answers to questions they have about family members who have been diagnosed. Sometimes those family members will be children. Parents have a lot of questions. I know. I’m a parent. And I have a child with ADHD. I got you. I also have some firsthand insight into how the school system works, and doesn’t work, for kids with ADHD. Oh boy, buckle up. And, adults with or without a formal diagnosis who want some tips on how to manage the things that come up in life? This book is for you too. Let’s go on a curiosity journey together.

How do I read this book?

I did not write this book straight through from beginning to end. I don’t expect anyone to read it straight through, but you can. That’s fine. Questions and answers are arranged into sections according to which domain of life they relate to. Sometimes an answer will refer to a question in a different section of the book.

It’s totally okay to jump around from section to section, letting your curiosity be your guide. If there’s a bit that doesn’t apply to you or doesn’t interest you, I’m not offended if you want to skip it. That being said, my goal is to write from a lived-experience perspective, in plain language, in a way that is accessible to as many people as possible. I will do my best to explain the complicated and science-heavy medical terms as they come up. I’ll also illuminate the hashtags and Neurodiversity insider terms that will undoubtedly pepper my writing.

Get all your ADHD questions answered with Andrew Coltrin‘s ADHD FAQ, available now on our site or anywhere Microcosm titles are sold!