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In comparison, everyone I know on antidepressants are massively deficient in certain areas and refuse to work on them.
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> Why would a huge chunk of the population have a imbalance of brain chemicals? That's what I think about from time to time as well. I have ADD and take meds for it. But I'm pretty sure that I only need these meds to be able to work in an open-space, corporate IT environment with dead-lines, responsibilities etc. Without meds I get overwhelmed and panicky quickly, when taking them they turn me into kind of an office…
Same here, man. It’s for the reason you described in your first paragraph. Working in a soul sucking corporate office space is so painful for certain personality types. For me at least, I’ve always thought it would be cool to be a delivery driver or someone who’s out and about everyday moving around… but I stuck with IT because it makes astronomically more money. So sitting at a desk all day will require me be medica…
And a desk job with a fun coding project to do (fun coding usually doesn't pay as well) was fine for years. Hyperfocus was nothing but upside except for having to do taxes or do he occasional tedious task.
But when you get too good at your domain, and you have 10 unrelated coding projects, even if they are all fun, adhd is no longer your friend. #include wife and kids and doctors appointments and birthday parties and ... Adderall helps now. I need to turn off my hyper adaptation quite often now.
By will alone I set my mind in motion, but I need amphetamines to slow it. It is like we were born as mentat and instead need drugs for everything except that.
Related: https://lithub.com/aldous-huxley-foresaw-americas-pill-poppi...
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> Why would a huge chunk of the population have a imbalance of brain chemicals? That's what I think about from time to time as well. I have ADD and take meds for it. But I'm pretty sure that I only need these meds to be able to work in an open-space, corporate IT environment with dead-lines, responsibilities etc. Without meds I get overwhelmed and panicky quickly, when taking them they turn me into kind of an office…
I believe the same thing. In fact, I believe people with ADD have a natural advantage in pre-modern settings. We are built to run long distances, outsmart prey, and forage. A distraction isn’t a distraction on that environment, it’s awareness and quickly thinking through possibilities and avenues of success.
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For what we've been reading this last years, it's not like antidepressants are worthless, it's like antidepressants aren't doing what we think are doing. The "depression is lack of serotonin" theories seem to have less and less base every day, but SSRIs don't only act on serotonin (just review their side effects). I've done, mostly, vortioxetine and sertraline. For some of us, some SSRIs or SNRIs work. Some don't. Pr…
I completely agree. I believe we have no idea how these drugs work at the moment. For one, serotonin receptors are _everywhere_, notably the gut, which also has a strong relationship with emotional state. And as you point out, they don't just affect serotonin. Given we have a whole bunch of drugs that attempt to be serotonin selective, but where each one affects different people in different ways, it seems likely to…
Because modernity hasn’t been an unmitigated success. In the pursuit of abundance, we’ve made all sorts of trade offs that we are now realizing have had unintended consequences to mental and physical health. Every leap forward has felt like progress but has underlying negatives. The world has trade offs!
The move from agrarian to industry to service/knowledge based economies, as an example, has produced countless benefits, but as another commenter mentioned: sitting at a desk certainly isn’t as healthy as moving in the fields. Being in big urban environments to facilitate the new economy has produced amazing culture and a more inclusive community, but at the cost of tight-knit lifelong social networks, noise and air pollution, crime, etc.
I’m not saying yesteryear was better - I’m pointing out the trade offs that were made and how we are now recognizing some of the costs. Perhaps the pendulum needs to swing back to some degree to ease these costs if we as a society aren’t happy with the price paid. There is a return policy!
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I believe the same thing. In fact, I believe people with ADD have a natural advantage in pre-modern settings. We are built to run long distances, outsmart prey, and forage. A distraction isn’t a distraction on that environment, it’s awareness and quickly thinking through possibilities and avenues of success.
If anything it is more of an attention surplus than an attention deficit.
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Not really, I'm just saying you are your neurons and their configuration and function. If not, what are "you"? There's nothing else but the state and mechanics in your brain and their interface with the world. I appreciate for some, this fact is scary. For some, it undermines odd outdated ideas of soul or spirit. That doesn't make it less true. Sometimes this complex, organic, non-deterministic, environment coupled,…
> If not, what are "you"? There's nothing else but the state and mechanics in your brain and their interface with the world. I would say that’s only probably correct. Plenty of people would say you are completely wrong. I’m undecided, personally.