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The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

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Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#201

Post by mattkrause »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #87
stavros wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, why? "Illness" sometimes is about the quantity, not the quality. If you enjoy the odd glass of wine once a week, you're fine, if you drink every hour of the day, not so fine.

But that's an orthogonal concern. Two people can easily display exactly the same quantity of, shall we say, ADHD-like tendencies. If one of them is a success for separate reasons, and the other one is a failure for separate reasons, why do we want to say that the failure, in addition to his other problems, also has ADHD? What do we learn from that? If the success has a lot more ADHD-tendency than the failure, how do…

Someone could certainly be a billionaire and also have ADHD.

The criteria is more like “but for this tendency, the patient would be/feel better, all else being equal.” A software engineer making $$$ could meet the criteria if their inability to focus keeps costing them promotions, launch their own company, or whatever their goal might be. A neurotypical buggy whip maker who can’t find or hold a job doesn’t qualify, even if he is obviously worse off overall.

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#202

Post by emmelaich »

There was a tiny article / amusing note in the Reader's Digest a long time ago.

A host was offended that the guest had brought a radiator with them - it was in the front passenger's seat in clear sight.

The guest explained that it was the only way they knew to make sure that it was off.

So, a somewhat old solution. But perhaps not so well-known.

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#203

Post by dionidium »

Ensorceled wrote: post #36

I remember a panel on a news program years ago where the one guest was a psychologist who was treating "untreatable" drug addicts by getting them "hooked" on running or weightlifting or martial arts. They would stop drugs but would instead be doing martial arts for hours a day or running 20 miles every morning. Then he would start treating the addiction personality and causes, but in many cases the patients would jus…

Similarly, the modern medical view of addiction is basically something like, "continued use in the face of adverse consequences." Laypeople really hate this definition, preferring to think of addiction as primarily a physio-chemical phenomenon, but the American Psychiatric Association has to say:

"Substance use disorder (SUD) is complex a condition in which there is uncontrolled use of a substance despite harmful consequence."

Source: https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/addiction/what-...

Most organizations that deal with addiction now operate using a similar definition.

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#204

Post by Zababa »

BirdieNZ wrote: post #188
Zababa wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because ADHD is a real situation for some people, and for others it's a way to legally take class-B stimulants. In some cases it's really clear, in some others it isn't. A few of my friends did better than me in school, and they had access to Ritalin. They were pretty good student while I was a problem child. I never really explored the option during school as I didn't really know how it worked and what ADHD was. I…

> Was it because it's a stimulant and it helps anyone? ADHD meds for non-ADHD students don't really help those students perform better academically. See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3489818/ They make you feel better, but not actually perform notably better.

From the article you linked:

> These data suggest that when people are given rote-learning tasks their performance is improved by stimulants.

Rote learning was (and still is) one of my big weaknesses. Tools like Anki help but going through them is way easier when I use stimulants. So maybe it depends on the student, but I'm wary of statements like "ADHD meds for non-ADHD students don't really help", it seems more to be pushing an agenda than telling the truth.

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#205

Post by ashleyn »

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…

I have this exact same phobia. Except it's having left the gas on the stove on or having bumped it. I bought a methane alarm and put it not too far from the stove. Now all I need to do to make sure there's not a gas leak in the house is just open up the camera and not hear the alarm.

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#206

Post by gwbas1c »

neutronicus wrote: post #94
gwbas1c wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> could only be diagnosed with ADHD if your life was worse than "the norm" Because ADHD is a real situation for some people, and for others it's a way to legally take class-B stimulants. Yes, people really do try their friends' ADHD medication, enjoy it, and then shop around doctors to find someone who will prescribe it. It's called "drug seeking," and doctors do flag patients who do it. This, BTW, is what happens wi…

I'm ADHD-diagnosed, and god damn do I wish I could just go to the store and get Adderall when I feel like I need it The fact that I have to call someone and get a prescription every month just makes it so that I go untreated for months at a time (kind of a cruel irony that ADHD treatment is gated behind the wherewithal to make a monthly phone call). And honestly I think modern life is probably such that most people c…

Maybe find another doctor?

The couple that referred me to my primary care doctor likes our doctor because it's very quick for them to renew their ADHD prescriptions.

BTW, I once tried 30 mg of Adderall and I felt like I would go crazy if I took it every day. I took it at 6:00 a.m. and I had heart palpitations, euphoria, and crazy insomnia past midnight. It's not really something that's as safe as coffee for the average person.

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#207

Post by robotresearcher »

sokoloff wrote: post #198
robotresearcher wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 have experienced a (partial) failure of this. On the takeoff roll, there’s a call out for “airspeed alive”. One day after leaving the airplane parked outside for a long weekend, I dutifully looked at a dead airspeed indicator and called out “airspeed alive” followed shortly by realizing the mistake and aborting the takeoff, but there’s a danger of looking and “seeing” what’s expected but not actually there.

Perhaps the call should be "Airspeed $X knots thus alive" to demonstrate that the airspeed is readable.

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#208

Post by shkkmo »

cowboysauce wrote: post #128
caethan wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scott has OCD. Search for "obsessive compulsive disorder" here: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/11/going-loopy/

That's strange. My impression came from his article about the Chamber of Guf where he talks about pure OCD, but it sounds like he's only read about it and never actually met someone with it. I wonder if the disconnect is in taking the story in an idealistic way vs a practical way. Like sure, if you had someone for whom that works utterly when nothing else works then yeah, do that. But I don't think that's a realistic…

I think it is clearly framed as a last resort rather than standard treatment:

> Here’s someone who was totally untreatable by the normal methods, with a debilitating condition, and a drop-dead simple intervention that nobody else had thought of gave her her life back.

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#209

Post by mhh__ »

Ensorceled wrote: post #36

I remember a panel on a news program years ago where the one guest was a psychologist who was treating "untreatable" drug addicts by getting them "hooked" on running or weightlifting or martial arts. They would stop drugs but would instead be doing martial arts for hours a day or running 20 miles every morning. Then he would start treating the addiction personality and causes, but in many cases the patients would jus…

I'm in the process of doing something about my symptoms that as far as I'm aware are ADHD, and people have said that to me, but I reckon I could be at least 5x more productive with help. The number of unpushed branches on my machine is proof of that.

Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)

#210

Post by [deleted] »

fpgaminer wrote: post #92
Ensorceled wrote: post #36

I remember a panel on a news program years ago where the one guest was a psychologist who was treating "untreatable" drug addicts by getting them "hooked" on running or weightlifting or martial arts. They would stop drugs but would instead be doing martial arts for hours a day or running 20 miles every morning. Then he would start treating the addiction personality and causes, but in many cases the patients would jus…

> Recently I was reading a book on ADHD and the author was quite adamant that you could only be diagnosed with ADHD if your life was worse than "the norm". In this view, if you have symptoms of ADHD but can, for instance, hold down a good job then by definition you don't have ADHD. I deleted the book from my Audible account. IANAP, but that sounds correct to me. I recall the DSM requiring negative impact on one's lif…

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