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How I Run a Company with ADHD

andrewaskins.com

391–400 of 515 posts

Re: How I Run a Company with ADHD

#392

My reaction to this article has been... complex. ----- Bah! Another article about ADHD. ADHD's over diagnosed and not not as big a problem as people make it out to be. But, I'm curious all of a sudden, so I might as well read it. > For the first 19 years of my life I knew I was lazy. Yeah, I'm pretty lazy too. That's just who I am, though. I don't have ADHD... > So what, you can't stop bouncing your leg at the restau…

>I currently have 52 open tabs on my laptop and another 37 open on my desktop. What about the second desktop?

Hahaha. Just the two computers for me, plus maybe 1 tab open on my phone. Luckily, my phone isn't as addictive to me as it is for other people. I type at 120wpm and having to slow all the way down to 30wpm on a phone stabs me to my very soul.

My evernote and bookmarks are overflowing, though.

Re: How I Run a Company with ADHD

#393

My reaction to this article has been... complex. ----- Bah! Another article about ADHD. ADHD's over diagnosed and not not as big a problem as people make it out to be. But, I'm curious all of a sudden, so I might as well read it. > For the first 19 years of my life I knew I was lazy. Yeah, I'm pretty lazy too. That's just who I am, though. I don't have ADHD... > So what, you can't stop bouncing your leg at the restau…

A lot of Twice Exceptional* people get labeled lazy. It may not be ADHD. It may be some other hidden issue. In the vast majority of cases, people who get identified as an adult seem to be tremendously relieved and empowered by having a better label than lazy. * https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twice_exceptional

I went the other direction. I had no problem with being called lazy or calling myself lazy. It was a familiar and comforting crutch, like slipping into an old pair of sneakers. I only got B+ on the test? No worries. I could have gotten an A had I actually tried and wasn't so lazy. But, I couldn't be bothered, because I'm lazy.

The fact I may have an incurable mental illness (and that I could be branded as such) terrifies me.

Re: How I Run a Company with ADHD

#394

My reaction to this article has been... complex. ----- Bah! Another article about ADHD. ADHD's over diagnosed and not not as big a problem as people make it out to be. But, I'm curious all of a sudden, so I might as well read it. > For the first 19 years of my life I knew I was lazy. Yeah, I'm pretty lazy too. That's just who I am, though. I don't have ADHD... > So what, you can't stop bouncing your leg at the restau…

> ADHD's over diagnosed Source?

No source. It's stream of thought. That's literally what was going through my mind when I read the title. I have no idea if it's true or if I just read a clickbait headline once and it stuck in my head.

Re: How I Run a Company with ADHD

#396

My reaction to this article has been... complex. ----- Bah! Another article about ADHD. ADHD's over diagnosed and not not as big a problem as people make it out to be. But, I'm curious all of a sudden, so I might as well read it. > For the first 19 years of my life I knew I was lazy. Yeah, I'm pretty lazy too. That's just who I am, though. I don't have ADHD... > So what, you can't stop bouncing your leg at the restau…

It was the same for me... except my tab counter is at 1399 and rising. I should probably see a psychologist someday.

My browser tends to crash at around 1000.

Re: How I Run a Company with ADHD

#397
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have ADHD. There are other serious neurological issues connected to ADHD. It's a very misunderstood disorder with a broad spectrum of identifiable symptoms that could indicate ADHD. If you are heavily medicating with caffeine, then that can be a signal. I was using Pseudoephedrine and caffeine to self medicate and stabilise my moods and behaviours. That was before I got prescribed Ritalin. But as the article says,…

How, as an adult, did you get a doctor to diagnose ADHD? Every time I've brought it up with a healthcare provider, I lay out my difficulties and coping mechanisms, and the conversation ends with them saying "Well, it sounds like it's not much trouble for you. Anything else?" I just don't know how to make them get it. I feel like I have so much potential for success, but I can't harness it.

I was just diagnosed about a year ago, at age 38. I'd suspected for years, but was mired too deep in depression to do anything about it. Finally I had my depression under control, and with the help of my wife (I'm terrible at making appointments!), made an appointment to see a psychologist who specialized in ADHD.

He interviewed me about my symptom history for an hour. Pro tip! Make yourself a list of all the things you want to mention to the psych. I wish I had brought a list, because after I left I thought of so many more examples I had wanted to bring up.

Despite my not bringing a list, he said near the end of the hour that if he had to make an immediate diagnosis, then yes, he would say I had ADHD. I took home a test (it was around 350 true/false questions) that he wanted me to take to rule out any other diagnoses that might be an issue.

I took the test and returned to him in a week. We went over the test results (nothing unexpected) and he diagnosed me with moderate ADHD-PI (primarily inattentive). He wrote me a letter to take back to my GP to try medication, and my GP handles my Adderall prescription now.

ADHD is a lifetime condition, and having symptoms since childhood is part of the diagnostic criteria, so when you're making your list, make sure you're including your childhood. I was very smart, and coasted through grade school with excellent grades, but there were still signs even then. Like when in 5th grade I just stopped doing any work for an entire semester. They threatened to hold me back from 6th grade, and I made up all the work in a single afternoon, sitting in the teacher's office while the rest of my class was on a field trip. Or all the times I would get in trouble for "not listening to the teacher" because I was hyperfocused on reading a book and literally was not even aware that I was being spoken to.

Re: How I Run a Company with ADHD

#398

It’s interesting to see how hard if is to separate ADD from ADHD by a description of traits or behaviors. I have ADD and pretty much recognize myself in a lot of this. It’s almost impossible to focus on anything that is not interesting “right now” and what is “interesting” changes in cycles spanning a few weeks. During a cycle I become completely absorbed, you know, not eat, not sleep and not being communicative, abs…

Yes to everything, especially about having kids!

Many responsibilities in family life are uninteresting. Often I have to be patient for weeks in order to work on something I find interesting. Months ago I found a great programming project to work on. However, I'm caught in a period in which my wife is working a lot of extra hours, leaving me to deal with cooking, house repair, running my daughter to activities, finances, etc. I also work full-time as a developer. On top of it, I'm the president for my daughter's basketball league, which requires a lot of attention to administrative tasks. I'm perpetually at odds with my desire to work on the interesting project and getting done what needs to be done.

I'm coming out of a mini-depression now. As an example of what it's like, several weeks ago I was sent a link to post to our league's FB page. The link pertains to an event next weekend. Posting would have taken under 5 minutes, but I shied away from it until yesterday. The thought of one more trivial task in my day completely paralyzed me for weeks, but I felt increasing anxiety and the depression worsened.

In my younger days, I would have ignored needs to focus on what made me feel happy at the time. Nowadays I feel too anxious when I do so.

Re: How I Run a Company with ADHD

#399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of Twice Exceptional* people get labeled lazy. It may not be ADHD. It may be some other hidden issue. In the vast majority of cases, people who get identified as an adult seem to be tremendously relieved and empowered by having a better label than lazy. * https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twice_exceptional

That's a label I've never heard of before. My younger self checks every single one of the boxes in the strength/weaknesses table. I graduated college with a 2.2GPA entirely on my ability to score really well on all the exams I managed to show up to. I failed freshman composition 3 times in a row since it was the only class where tests were not part of the grade. As an adult, I find that laziness had become a learned…

Holy crap, that sounds almost exactly like my college experience except I dropped out after my major/department was cut from the university.

As far as "getting by" and laziness as a learned behavior, I always worked hardest on my hobbies throughout K-12, so as an adult I've gotten to the point where my hobbies have become my careers. I started building PCs and running Linux on my own in High School, along with playing music, so now I'm a software engineer/musician. Software is one of the few careers where you can go on an insane research binge on a whim and actually be praised for it, and performing music is one of the only things that I've ever done that fully quiets my mind. Something about the adrenaline of being on a stage really helps with my ADHD-Inattentive type; guess it's just like a stimulant.

"Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life", etc

Re: How I Run a Company with ADHD

#400
post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The burden of proof falls on the one making the non trivial claim. I don’t need to prove the null hypothesis.

Wait, what, I'm not the GP, but: Which claim are you referring to here? 1. Your unsubstantiated claim of ADHD being overdiagnosed 2. GP's unsubstantiated claim of "Every X knows Y" The null hypothesis must be "ADHD diagnostic criteria has high specificity", because without that it's not diagnosis. What evidence do you have to demonstrate low specificity?

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