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Ask HN: How did an adult ADHD diagnosis help you?
91–100 of 401 posts
Re: Ask HN: How did an adult ADHD diagnosis help you?
#92It's helped me understand the pros and cons of an ADHD diagnosis, it good to know that you're not alone in a sea of neurotypical people. It's helpful to understand ADHD and share your learning with people who are close to you. For me and it seems like you as well, the challenge hasn't been with work and life in general but more with relationships with people closest to me - read up on RSD. It's also fun to understand…
Thank you, I will certainly look into this.
Re: Ask HN: How did an adult ADHD diagnosis help you?
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, if _things_ distract you easily, it's one thing. Notifications are DESIGNED to distract you, if they do, that's not an indicator of anything. ADHD is more like "I was cooking dinner and got distracted by the idea of cleaning the toilet, so here I am buying new socks. Oh, the unfinished dinner is still on the counter."
Your example is a pretty extreme caricature; I suspect many of us are more familiar with the slower but broader version of this sequence where we gain and lose interest in careers/partners/lifestyles with alarming and exhausting frequency.
For some it's not a caricature. For me is how my life looks like without meds. But yeah, ADHD is probably a spectrum.
Re: Ask HN: How did an adult ADHD diagnosis help you?
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a counterpoint, I was diagnosed with ADD (now known as ADHD-PI) a couple decades ago as a child and initially took medication for it, but complained about the effects and so my parents agreed to stop giving me medication. This kind of decision seems manageable at the time if you're bright enough that you can skate through school regardless of how much work you actually do. You cannot skate through adulthood this w…
lose focus on dull activities This doesn't sound like a mental illness, but rather a part of the human condition, don't you think?
It all lies on a spectrum. No one likes doing something dull but with ADD it can become so intense as to be debilitating. You always procrastinate to the last second on everything, sometimes far past the last second. Left untreated you attain a reputation as a lazy flake and it affects your work, your relationships, etc.
Re: Ask HN: How did an adult ADHD diagnosis help you?
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a counterpoint, I was diagnosed with ADD (now known as ADHD-PI) a couple decades ago as a child and initially took medication for it, but complained about the effects and so my parents agreed to stop giving me medication. This kind of decision seems manageable at the time if you're bright enough that you can skate through school regardless of how much work you actually do. You cannot skate through adulthood this w…
lose focus on dull activities This doesn't sound like a mental illness, but rather a part of the human condition, don't you think?
Yes, and no. Yes, because people do get bored. No, because with ADHD, you can’t even force yourself to focus despite the boredom. Bribes, identification of potential consequences, punishment - none of these work.
Re: Ask HN: How did an adult ADHD diagnosis help you?
#96About the same here. ADD was being said instead of ADHD.
I learned to recognise the signs. I think just being aware of something going on your mind is enough to cure.
ADD/ADHD, I don't see it as a decease, more as a gift. Take the good things and learn to recognise the bad.
I always worried why I would have amazing productive hours and then sometimes days of inproductivity. Now I now (and everyone around me) that I'm best when in these 2 states. It took a lot of mental stress away by just accepting instead of trying to change.
It was also very important to let my surroundings know how my clock ticks. Really high highs and sometimes pretty long lows. In the end I get the job done and thats what matters.
Re: Ask HN: How did an adult ADHD diagnosis help you?
#97Related: FDA Approves Video Game Based on UCSF Brain Research as ADHD Therapy ... > https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/06/417841/fda-approves-video-...
Re: Ask HN: How did an adult ADHD diagnosis help you?
#98My doctor tells me that there is some theories that ADHD may be an evolutionary response to dangers in our environment. (like avoiding lions or being alerted to changes in weather) When I think about it this way I feel better about rejecting medications (or accepting them). Personally just understanding the pros/cons of ADHD has helped me identify some of my shortcomings. For example, I can focus for days on the wron…
Thank you! I do agree that, researching, I see that there are things that have been nagging me for years, but not enough to really need a fix. I work in technical and creative capacities, so I don't to dull an edge with medication.
Re: Ask HN: How did an adult ADHD diagnosis help you?
#99Slightly different perspective: I was diagnosed as a child, but had assumed I had "mastered it" and went off meds and let it go for several years. What I've come to realize is that I've still had it, just that I've structured the parts of my life that I could around it and let other parts suffer for no real reason. That kind of fell apart (the rest of the way) when my wife had her second child and a few days before I…
ADHD is a disease/difference of executive function-- how your internal world interfaces with your external world. It totally makes sense that you had a tough go of it when you experienced major life changes.
Re: Ask HN: How did an adult ADHD diagnosis help you?
#100Living in Europe, my perception (AKA: anecdotal / unscientific / non-measured) is that most of the ADHD-diagnosed people I know live in the US, while I only know one European person in my network who received similar diagnosis from a professional psychiatrist. Counterintuitively, I know way more European people than Americans, which makes my perception feel even more skewed. I very well know that my sample(ing method…
One hypothesis is that, in the country where you live, there is more stigma around ADHD in adults and it is more frequently ignored or dismissed.
It is an easy condition to ignore —- adults with ADHD are frequently not very “hyperactive” because even if they were as children, they’ve learned to modulate that behavior through experience.
The traits of inattentive-only ADHD are often written off as laziness when in reality that person is experiencing executive dysfunction that makes prioritization of tasks difficult. A common feature of ADHD is to be frequently paralyzed by indecision.
It’s not uncommon for those first diagnosed as adults to be completely blindsided by the disorder.