The Hair Dryer Incident (2014) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#131

Post by underwater » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 9:31 PM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #124

lazide wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is definitely not how it is defined through - it seems to be a straw man? The criteria is essentially ‘you meet these criteria AND it causes clear problems with your ability to live your life’. It doesn’t mean you have a bad job and X, therefore you have ADHD. Rather, you show ADHD traits and they get in the way (and cause you distress) in doing a job you otherwise would be entirely capable of doing. Or consiste…

That is absolutely not how strokes and broken bones are diagnosed. If one of your bones breaks, you have a broken bone. Whether it hurts, or stops you from doing things you'd like to do, is an unrelated question.

Someone close to me broke their arm, and had to have it pinned. As it healed the bone rotated and shifted slightly.

In discussing whether they'd need to try to correct this movement via surgery, the doctor very much said "it's a problem if it's a problem". When it fully healed the person had full use of their arm, so the doctor was satisfied with the outcome.

The doctor did also say that different countries had different philosophies on what they expected a healed bone to look like. In their experience Canadians were more likely to be OK with an imperfect solution, but Australians were more likely to want the break healed in a "like new" condition.

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#132

Post by teucris » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 9:34 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #82

teucris wrote: post #44

Having lived through OCD and come out the other side, I completely understand why the solution was considered bad. Sure, this solves the particular obsession. But the issue is that OCD is never satisfied. You develop rituals like this and they work for a while, giving your brain that little dopamine boost every time you look at the hairdryer in your car. But that dose diminishes over time, and soon taking the hairdry…

It's critical to find any intervention that works for a debilitating problem. If the hairdryer person lost their job because of it, they may not be able to continue ANY treatment and that might be the end of them. The first goals in DBT therapy are to stop behaviors that may interfere with therapy or kill the patient. Seems like a good approach to me. On a related note, I knew someone who had some very self-destructi…

No argument here. I just don’t think the other medical professionals are given a fair shake in the original quote.

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#133

Post by thaumasiotes » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 9:38 PM UTC

kdmccormick wrote: post #129

thaumasiotes wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is absolutely not how strokes and broken bones are diagnosed. If one of your bones breaks, you have a broken bone. Whether it hurts, or stops you from doing things you'd like to do, is an unrelated question.

I think you're missing the point. Let me be concrete. I'm diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Sometimes I feel axnious and euphoric, other times depressed and lethargic, both at extremes noticably deviant from the average person. This has caused all sorts of turbulence and distress in my personal and academic life. Being diagnosed allowed me access to therapy and prescriptions. There exist plenty of people who oscillate…

So when you find a person whose highs are higher than yours, and whose lows are lower than yours, and whose life is better than yours, that person doesn't have bipolar disorder, because they're not experiencing problems.

Which makes the idea of "bipolar disorder" meaningless. That person demonstrates that your problems are not caused by bipolar disorder. But the disorder is defined by you having problems, even though the problems come from somewhere else.

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#134

Post by function_seven » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 9:39 PM UTC

DanHulton wrote: post #99

aspyct wrote: post #83

I personally have problems with doors, and stuff that should be locked. I can never be sure I locked properly. Totally did backtrack unreasonable distances just to check if I had closed the door. It's all fine when it's my door. Worst case scenario, I get robbed. However it's more of a problem when it's someone else's door. Worst case scenario, they get robbed, and that's a different story. Or pets get out... Obvious…

Similarly, I used to get anxious about if I'd turned off the lights, locked the door, made sure the oven was off, etc at night. So now I count one number for each "thing" I do, and I know that I need to count up to 5 to "prove" I did it. Then, later in bed, I know I checked the front door because I know I counted to 5. You'd expect this would transfer to the "well, are you sure you counted", but I'm never actually an…

This is kinda funny, because I've had the opposite outcome. Well, "ish", because my situation isn't directly comparable.

When I'd leave the house in the morning, there were always five things I needed to have with me: Wallet, phone, badge, glasses, and smokes.

Once a month or so I'd get to work and realize I had left one of these at home. It was a tragedy to be caught an hour from home without my phone or glasses. It was annoying to be without my wallet, cigarettes, or badge.

So I decided to regiment this. Wallet always in the front right pocket, badge always clipped to belt, phone in left back pocket, cigs in front left pocket, and glasses in my backpack. I would pat each location and say out loud, "wallet, badge, phone, smokes, ... glasses".

It didn't work. I quickly just went through the motion of patting and saying without actually verifying the fucking things were there. The first time I forgot an item was a mini existential crisis. ("If I can't account for these simple EDC items when I'm trying to, what hope is there?")

WFH has solved the badge issue. ApplePay mitigates the wallet issue. Glasses are still forgotten sometimes, but my eyesight isn't that bad when I'm out and about (it was only terrible to be without glasses when I worked at a computer in an office). So I guess the situation just solved itself.

I only need to confirm my e-cig is with me. Everything else is either I remembered it or "oh well". And if I quit that, then I'm free :)

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#135

Post by rootusrootus » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 9:42 PM UTC

Johnny555 wrote: post #117

aspyct wrote: post #83

I personally have problems with doors, and stuff that should be locked. I can never be sure I locked properly. Totally did backtrack unreasonable distances just to check if I had closed the door. It's all fine when it's my door. Worst case scenario, I get robbed. However it's more of a problem when it's someone else's door. Worst case scenario, they get robbed, and that's a different story. Or pets get out... Obvious…

I used to work with someone who had that same problem with door locks, he'd sometimes leave work to make sure he locked his door. This was well before the days of ubiquitous web based home security cameras, but he rigged up a video camera and a video capture card on his PC to take a picture of the door (and door lock) and post it on a web page every minute. So he could easily check to verify that the door was closed…

Can't speak for anyone else, but for me the electronic lock was enough. At least after I'd used it a few times and got a feel for how reliable the indication was.

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#136

Post by tibbydudeza » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 9:43 PM UTC

In my case it is my remote garage doors.

Sometimes worry that I did not press the button on the remote to close them when I left home so I would drive pass my home again after dropping off the kids at school.

Fortunately distance to school/home/freeway to work is within a few minutes of each other.

Later installed an IP camera - told the wife it was for home security and not monitoring the garage doors.

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#137

Post by Zababa » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 9:49 PM UTC

kaibee wrote: post #81

dantheman wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let people take whatever medicine they want.

So like, in theory, yes, but in practice, now everyone has to take Adderall just to be able to keep up with their coworkers.

Would you apply the same reasoning to caffeine and nicotine? Should we ban both? You're also seeing the world as a competition between people ("keep up with their coworkers") but I believe most people are actually trying to make a living (no need to take adderall if you are already satisfied with what you have).

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#138

Post by robotresearcher » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 9:51 PM UTC

aspyct wrote: post #83

I personally have problems with doors, and stuff that should be locked. I can never be sure I locked properly. Totally did backtrack unreasonable distances just to check if I had closed the door. It's all fine when it's my door. Worst case scenario, I get robbed. However it's more of a problem when it's someone else's door. Worst case scenario, they get robbed, and that's a different story. Or pets get out... Obvious…

There's a very helpful method for being confident that you did something right, and while it may not be enough for people with compulsive disorders, it's great for many situations:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_and_calling

I think it works by recruiting more of your body & brain to the task of attending to something.

Maybe the anxious could video themselves doing it, and watch it back later.

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#139

Post by cosmojg » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 9:59 PM UTC

fpgaminer wrote: post #119

cowboysauce wrote: post #70

I've read most of Scott's blog posts and he rarely mentions OCD and when he does it tends to be "this is what I think people with OCD experience" and not "this is what my patients have told me" which leads me to believe that he is not an expert in OCD. I have OCD and it's ruined my life in ways that are hard to articulate. Which is why I can point out two good reasons why what's being described might not be a good id…

I think what you wrote perfectly describes the correct approach to mental health _in general_. Not just OCD, but also many other mental disorders like anxiety, and just emotions in general. Trying to ignore or repress our thoughts and emotions just serve to "give [them] strength". It's a life lesson I wish a lot more people knew. [NOTE: This thought got me going on a random train of thought below, not really directed…

What you're describing lines up well with recent research[1] on multi-agent models of mind. You might be interested in internal double crux[2] and internal family systems[3] more generally. These are techniques for managing mental health very similar that which you describe, and they build primarily upon the idea that the mind is best treated as a collaboration among multiple subagents.

[1] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/i9xyZBS3qzA8nFXNQ/book-summa...

[2] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mQmx4kQQtHeBip9ZC/internal-d...

[3] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5gfqG3Xcopscta3st/building-u...

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#140

Post by dasyatidprime » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 9:59 PM UTC

robotresearcher wrote: post #138

aspyct wrote: post #83

I personally have problems with doors, and stuff that should be locked. I can never be sure I locked properly. Totally did backtrack unreasonable distances just to check if I had closed the door. It's all fine when it's my door. Worst case scenario, I get robbed. However it's more of a problem when it's someone else's door. Worst case scenario, they get robbed, and that's a different story. Or pets get out... Obvious…

There's a very helpful method for being confident that you did something right, and while it may not be enough for people with compulsive disorders, it's great for many situations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_and_calling I think it works by recruiting more of your body & brain to the task of attending to something. Maybe the anxious could video themselves doing it, and watch it back later.

I've had a lot of success with this for things like closing doors and taking medication, as my memory gradually wanders off into the misty lagoon. Especially the “as needed but at most once every 24 hours” kinds of medication that can't be handled with a pill organizer—with the timing information included in the call. Point to the bottle (or if out of range, hold the pill up, or otherwise physically emphasize the object), say “Taking a symptomstoppidine on Thursday morning” or such.