Ask HN: How did an adult ADHD diagnosis help you?

> Anyways, what exactly do you think you have to gain by being "diagnosed" with ADHD? Except for an "excuse" for your problems?

Please don't dismiss mental illness this way.

After my diagnosis, I felt like ADHD became my superpower. I know how to play to my strengths rather than my weaknesses. I know if I have an interest in something, I can dive into it and produce great output, and for tasks that need doing which aren’t interesting, I have coping mechanisms and medication if necessary.

I decided against medication for a few reasons, but to deal with it is a daily exercise. I have to put up guardrails or I can lose hours / day with distracted activity. I find it’s tightly correlated to how much time I spend on technology.

Meditation, prayer, down time from technology (physical news paper and Economist in the mornings) all help to start the day focused. I’m considering re-arranging the house to have a room dedicated to technology and everything else in the house be low-tech, higher quality forms of recreation (books, musical instruments, board games, etc). That will, in theory, allow me to put time boundaries on how often I’m around technology. Another big thing I did was stop drinking. I did an A/B test at the start of 2020 - 2 months not drinking followed by 4 months of drinking, and by June I decided I was done. I still taste different things if my wife has one or I’m making drinks for others, but haven’t had a full drink since last June. NA beers have been great.

Books that helped me: make time, essentialism, digital minimalism, (an extreme but easy read recommended on here) - “better off”

Part of my hesitancy for medicine was that I didn’t want it rooted in self-improvement / optimization. I think there was some burn out mixed in and I was looking for the next step to optimization with medicine. I figured it would be better to fix the system rather than over-optimize for what I was doing. If I can’t naturally deal with it, then maybe I shouldn’t be running that hard.

If I get two-three hours of focus now per day it’s great.

Perfect is the enemy of the good, and I am generally happy and see no need for that much optimization. If it was really impacting my work and life, I’d reconsider medicine.

For me it helped me realize that I not normal.

I excel at certain things (creative thinking, handling unexpected situations) and I'm hopeless at others (following through on plans that doesn't have to be acted on daily).

I have decided to not use it as an excuse and told my wife so so she doesn't feel sorry for me.

I've decided to exploit my disability for all that it is worth: I deal with tricky customers at work because it is easy for me, I wake up before certain others goes to bed etc etc. I am different and I not only accept it but actively enjoy it and take advantage of it.

Also I know I speak out more easily than others so I accept that I should raise my treshold for when to speak out.

My life has become better after doing this.

Oh, and not a bad word about Ritalin, but be aware that for some it works wonders, for others it has nasty side effects (muscle tension, weight loss) and also the exact brand and capsules makes a difference (yes, they are supposed to be identical but I guess it is something about the microbiome because I have seen it too many times no so.)