ADHD, a Lifelong Struggle (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: ADHD, a Lifelong Struggle (2018)

#351

Post by volkl48 » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 4:46 AM UTC

munk-a wrote: post #256

wahern wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Warning: there can be a honeymoon phase where after diagnosis and beginning medication you enter this ecstatic period of normalcy on the one hand and insane productivity on the other. Don't get lulled into complacency. Use this period to improve lifestyle routines and get to a place where you can cruise at a better pace than you otherwise might once the acceleration stops. By lifestyle I don't mean some of the things…

Not to be too depressing, but there are two factors that can contribute to this honeymoon phase that I'm aware of: 1. Weight change, either bulking on muscle or fat can change your optimal dose for medication... And it's my opinion (and totally just my opinion) that starting to treat ADHD usually leads to a weight gain, either by getting you more able to exercise or increasing your activity and caloric intake. 2. Res…

> 1. Weight change, either bulking on muscle or fat can change your optimal dose for medication... And it's my opinion (and totally just my opinion) that starting to treat ADHD usually leads to a weight gain, either by getting you more able to exercise or increasing your activity and caloric intake.

Stimulant medications are strong appetite suppressants, and if not specifically paid attention to, the usual concern is weight loss.

To the point that an actual medically approved use of certain stimulants is for weight loss. You can in fact be prescribed meth (Desoxyn in the US when it's coming from a pharmacy and not the backseat of a 1996 Chevy Caprice) by your doctor for obesity if nothing else is working for you.

Speaking to personal anecdotes, while unmedicated there's always been a certain quantity of accidentally skipped meals, with medication I could go the day without eating much of anything and not be particularly bothered.

On the other hand, I'm better at sticking to structure with medication and eating at normal mealtimes more often, even without a hunger impulse. I do still wind up having to mentally (or otherwise) tally what I've eaten in the evening and sometimes shoveling in a pile of extra calories because it obviously wasn't enough.

So there are pulls in both directions, but IMO I'd say the weight loss is more likely to accidentally happen.

> 2. Resistances, stimulants build up resistances pretty quickly for most people so if you're unlucky you'll likely be med hopping for several years until you run out of options or find a winner - if you're lucky and don't build up a resistance then you're probably set for life.

The usual advice I've always been told is to not take it if there's times you don't need it. If I'm going out to have fun for the day on a weekend, or taking an unstructured vacation for a week or the like, I typically don't take it.

I don't think it fully resets those resistances, but it's allowed me to continue to get a noticeable benefit out of a steady, middle of the road prescription.

Re: ADHD, a Lifelong Struggle (2018)

#352

Post by amp108 » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 5:02 AM UTC

rustybelt wrote: post #51

Thousands of words and no mention of diet. I was diagnosed ADHD in 5th grade, tried just about every medication out there, and never landed on a workable long-term solution until I modified my diet. Medication always had mixed results. Many allowed me to focus and better control impulses, but the emotional crash at the end of the day was too much. Others caused insomnia or palpitations. Cutting sugar and limiting car…

The problem for me with changing my diet is that (a) it takes sustained concentration to change habits, and (b) it takes real planning and scheduling to do something like keto. Guess what I'm bad at, since I have ADHD?

Re: ADHD, a Lifelong Struggle (2018)

#353

Post by FlyingSideKick » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 5:06 AM UTC

I have ADD and consider myself somewhat successful (top 2% income earner) but always beat myself up for what I could achieve. My career has mostly been a long string of failures with me being extremely “lazy” but with a few home runs which is what I’m known for. I don’t really “work” more than 8 hours a week until I get passionate about something and then I crank on it without break until the kindling has been lit where then I hand it to others for the day to day. ADD has been very hard on my marriage too.

Re: ADHD, a Lifelong Struggle (2018)

#354

Post by hnick » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 5:13 AM UTC

DudeIsJammin wrote: post #303

rubyn00bie wrote: post #188

I was somewhat recently diagnosed with ADD and the diagnosis has truly changed my life. I, for the first time, in roughly 12 years of writing software professionally, am able finish a project enough to open source it-- and I am days away from being able to do so. It feels insanely good. Like something I've only dreamed of as silly as that is, and I don't even care if folks use it (it's not that good), but it's the fa…

I sometimes wonder how much gaming, and stimulating websites like youtube, reddit play a roll in actually creating ADHD. It's kind of a chicken or the egg situation, do people have ADHD and because they have ADHD they are more susceptible to gaming addiction? or do they become addicted to these sites/games which then creates ADHD type symptoms. Not saying ADHD isn't an actual thing, but I've noticed a reoccurring the…

It probably doesn't help, but I'd view it as self-medicating in many cases.

Perhaps to turn your comment on its head, people like my wife don't get much out of a place like Reddit so they don't visit it, while the ADHD crowd is constantly on there trying to up their dopamine levels.

Re: ADHD, a Lifelong Struggle (2018)

#355

Post by hnick » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 5:17 AM UTC

penagwin wrote: post #65

munk-a wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's another weird factor. Ritalin is an upper and it's stigmatized to take an upper - either your performance, judged by coworkers, will be equivalent or below theirs and the stimulant is seen as the only thing keeping you in your job (which can get super depressing internally) - or, if you're doing well in your position, it can breed internal and external doubt as to whether your performance would just be normal…

> Ever spent a day off staring at a wall dreading the possibility that you might waste a day until you realize the sun has gone down? Yup, so much fun. This is literally every Saturday for me. I'm thinking about keeping my Ritalin by my bed. I don't understand why it's so difficult and it makes me really frustrated - I just can't get out of bed. I try to wake up and my mind goes "naw". I sit up to get out of bed, sit…

I struggle with a few things, and probably some things from your list, but no diagnoses yet.

One thing that always goes through my head is just feeling like society is made for a model of human that just isn't me. There's a society out there that would suit me great, but I missed the boat on that. It was probably in the distant past before things got big, noisy, and complicated.

Re: ADHD, a Lifelong Struggle (2018)

#356

Post by fouc » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 5:18 AM UTC

munk-a wrote: post #213

fouc wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone share how Ritalin helps with the issue of attention switching? How does it reduce distractibility?

My best personal description of it would be something like... my brain is constantly thrashing and offloading caches - with Ritalin the context switches still happen but the prior task doesn't get booted out of memory... so it's sort of like imaging running across a marshland, where every time you hit water you lose... the Ritalin might be like logs across streams, it isn't that suddenly you're always running across…

The initial computer-based analogy seems useful.

I definitely do notice a sort of forgetfulness around the context of a project, particularly the reasons/motivation for doing it.

Thinking about this, I wonder if ADHD people struggle with being project managers? Especially when it's important to mentally keep track of the big picture and the contexts around various tasks.

--

I guess this is sort of different from working memory though, or it's more subtle (because I definitely don't have any actual forgetfulness, it's easy for me to remember things etc)

Re: ADHD, a Lifelong Struggle (2018)

#357

Post by hnick » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 5:22 AM UTC

rustybelt wrote: post #51

Thousands of words and no mention of diet. I was diagnosed ADHD in 5th grade, tried just about every medication out there, and never landed on a workable long-term solution until I modified my diet. Medication always had mixed results. Many allowed me to focus and better control impulses, but the emotional crash at the end of the day was too much. Others caused insomnia or palpitations. Cutting sugar and limiting car…

I'm going to go talk to a psych this year if I can stop putting it off but one thing I started on a whim a last year was take iron supplements. Apparently my mother (diagnosed ADHD in her 60s) had iron deficiency so maybe I do too.

After just a day or two I experienced very unusual (for me) clarity. I googled and apparently it can help ADHD symptoms.

I definitely ate enough meat and various other things, so I'm not sure what the supplements did or if they're a placebo. Perhaps I just process iron poorly and need a big hit at once.

Re: ADHD, a Lifelong Struggle (2018)

#358

Post by Mirioron » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 5:23 AM UTC

vsgzusnex wrote: post #218

Mirioron wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I don't understand is - why is it a problem that somebody performs better on medication? Life isn't sports or a game. It's not a competition. Shouldn't people be happy that someone else can keep their life together? That's less of a burden on society. > Ever spent a day off staring at a wall dreading the possibility that you might waste a day until you realize the sun has gone down? That sounds silly and boring.…

This seems like wishful thinking. We all have a place in the hierarchy of our societies and your performance certainly impacts your position. Don't believe me? Decide to stop working. Eventually you loose your job, can't pay rent, and become homeless. You will find yourself falling down the hierarchy pretty fast. Not trying to make any kind of judgment about this being good or bad. Just trying to point out reality. T…

I get the idea of the hierarchy, but why does performance matter? Performance matters because we want to promote those that generate value the most. This correlates with improving the world for everyone. If your coworker invents cold fusion, then yes, she's going to be promoted over you, but the long-term effect is that you're also going to be better off because of that invention. Most improvements to the world are just smaller, but they're still there.

Re: ADHD, a Lifelong Struggle (2018)

#359

Post by Mirioron » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 5:30 AM UTC

viklove wrote: post #174

insertnickname wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a capitalist economy, others doing well generally benefits you. It's not zero-sum.

Sometimes you benefit from others doing well. Sometimes you are hurt by it. It's not as simple as you make it out to be. Globalization, for example, is zero-sum for many people. Since we're now buying from , people who did that here lost their jobs. It's absolutely a competition. In capitalism you have to fight for your right to feed yourself, and if you are in the bottom x% of society, you quite literally have to li…

>Globalization, for example, is zero-sum for many people. Since we're now buying from , people who did that here lost their jobs.

Considering that those are some of the hardest and most dangerous jobs, it probably is better for you that it's done somewhere else for cheaper. This means that everything that depends on those jobs, such as the price of food, will also be cheaper for you. You can learn another job and do that. I realize that many people don't really want to do that, but it is an improvement for society.

>In capitalism you have to fight for your right to feed yourself, and if you are in the bottom x% of society, you quite literally have to live on the streets.

This is true by definition, because if you are homeless then you're by definition poorer than somebody that is not homeless. Essentially, it's not an argument, but I do understand that there are poor people under capitalism, but they are much better off than poor people 100 years ago, and they're much better off than middle class people 150-200 years ago. Society, especially the US, is so rich that almost anyone has a supercomputer in their pocket. All western countries offer lots of support for the homeless and poor.

Re: ADHD, a Lifelong Struggle (2018)

#360

Post by Mirioron » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 5:31 AM UTC

mtnGoat wrote: post #308

insertnickname wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a capitalist economy, others doing well generally benefits you. It's not zero-sum.

not sure i agree on that, a good capitalist will try to own everything he can... how does that help anyone but himself?

Because the way they would have to do it is by offering people something even better in return. In a voluntary trade both sides end up better off, because both sides get something they want more than what they give away.