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My ADHD founder toolbox

hypatia.ca

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Re: My ADHD founder toolbox

#51

Post by throwawaaarrgh »

I diagnosed when I was like... 8 years old. From then to 17 I was on various meds, finally gave them all up. So for about 22 years I've coped with ADHD without meds. I am a Staff Engineer and make a good living, respected in my field.

Regardless of anything else, I think the key thing to remember about ADHD is that you do not need to be a high-performing human being, at all, in life. You will forget things and get distracted and not get as much done. So what. You are still intelligent and caring and dedicated and responsible and a hard worker. You probably put more effort in (when you get around to it) than many others without the condition. And you will do about as well as everyone else, on average. And this is fine. Do not put pressure on yourself to live up to what someone else can do. Only do what you can do, in your time, and be at peace.

Re: My ADHD founder toolbox

#52

Post by rtpg »

Regarding meds, are people willing to share what kind of doses they are on? I take 27mg of Concerta, and I remember talking to someone taking like... 5x that? And being quite shocked, but there's always that curiosity about what dosages makes sense.

Re: My ADHD founder toolbox

#53

Post by ReaLNero »

throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #51

I diagnosed when I was like... 8 years old. From then to 17 I was on various meds, finally gave them all up. So for about 22 years I've coped with ADHD without meds. I am a Staff Engineer and make a good living, respected in my field. Regardless of anything else, I think the key thing to remember about ADHD is that you do not need to be a high-performing human being, at all, in life. You will forget things and get di…

Why did you stop taking meds? Curious what would be your reasons against it.

Re: My ADHD founder toolbox

#54

Post by thesausageking »

nyanpasu64 wrote: post #3

I tried signing up for Inflow, but noped out when it asked to fill out survey questions and supply an email address.

Same. It's like it was designed specifically to make it hard for ADHDers to sign up. Little information about the service or what I'm signing up for or what it costs, the "get started" button opens a new tab on a different site, etc.

I bookmarked it with the intention to go back. However, I know realistically I won't.

Re: My ADHD founder toolbox

#55

Post by triggercut »

listenallyall wrote: post #46
triggercut wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Weirdly, he was there due to some sponsorship related to disabilities because he had ADHD. Can I ask why you find that weird? ADHD is, and is also comorbid with other learning disabilities. ADHD has so many dimensions and interrelationships between those dimensions that everybody's lived experience is different. If you know one person with ADHD, then you know one person with ADHD, you don't know everyone with ADHD.…

If 2 clinical experts, 3 psychiatrists and dozens of psychologists didn't think you had ADHD, but eventually one person did, how do you know with certainty you actually have it?

Before explaining it's important to note that even if it wasn't intended to be, comments such as this can be incredibly harmful, especially with people who are preparing too to get diagnosed, or who have recently been diagnosed. Doubting your diagnosis (or any mental health diagnosis) is an incredibly common and damaging thing for treatment. Please be mindful in avoiding activating that negative belief.

It's not that they didn't think I had it. It never occurred to them that it might be the problem, for several reasons. I presented very clearly suffering from MDD and general anxiety and have been medicated for that my entire adult life. But in fact the MDD and anxiety were just symptoms of living undiagnosed and trying to live as best I could with what worked for me.

Re: My ADHD founder toolbox

#56

Post by resonious »

bitexploder wrote: post #11
triggercut wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Weirdly, he was there due to some sponsorship related to disabilities because he had ADHD. Can I ask why you find that weird? ADHD is, and is also comorbid with other learning disabilities. ADHD has so many dimensions and interrelationships between those dimensions that everybody's lived experience is different. If you know one person with ADHD, then you know one person with ADHD, you don't know everyone with ADHD.…

I feel the ADHD is a strength not weakness mentality is generally harmful. There are some aspects of it that can help, especially when you are not deep working on one thing, but in general, I think it is unequivocally not a benefit to almost anyone who has it. edit: I would add there is some survivorship bias to it too. Successful CEO says ADHD helped? Huh. Cool. There is a reason alcoholism and substance abuse have…

I guess if that stance is harmful then I'd think about why people are having that stance in the first place.

If somebody gets told "you have ADHD, a debilitating mental disorder", and then does well in life anyway, what exactly are they supposed to think happened? Why were we telling them they're messed up in the head when clearly they're quite functional? "Wow, maybe ADHD is good" seems like a pretty logical jump to me.

Mental health is an important topic, but it's still really wishy-washy. Sometimes I wonder how useful all these vague labels really are. I also got diagnosed with ADHD when I was an adolescent, and I almost feel like that diagnosis just made me do even worse at school. I'd be like "well I have ADHD so it's physically impossible for me to sit down and do algebra. might as well not even try."

Re: My ADHD founder toolbox

#57

Post by ip26 »

bitexploder wrote: post #11
triggercut wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Weirdly, he was there due to some sponsorship related to disabilities because he had ADHD. Can I ask why you find that weird? ADHD is, and is also comorbid with other learning disabilities. ADHD has so many dimensions and interrelationships between those dimensions that everybody's lived experience is different. If you know one person with ADHD, then you know one person with ADHD, you don't know everyone with ADHD.…

I feel the ADHD is a strength not weakness mentality is generally harmful. There are some aspects of it that can help, especially when you are not deep working on one thing, but in general, I think it is unequivocally not a benefit to almost anyone who has it. edit: I would add there is some survivorship bias to it too. Successful CEO says ADHD helped? Huh. Cool. There is a reason alcoholism and substance abuse have…

I’m starting to think of it as just one of the many underlying pieces that make people different, and drive people different ways. Like how people with glasses actually are on average smarter. Or like how kids of older parents are more studious. I’ve variously read ADHD’s overrepresented in the sciences and immigrants, and shown to be adaptive in hunter gatherer groups but maladaptive in neighboring farming groups.

Everybody struggles. Typical people have different struggles. I’m not saying ADHD is equivalent, or easy, but it will invisibly bias people in a different direction with a different set of things that are easy. After all, as far as I understand, we believe the root is simply lower levels of dopamine which tunes you for discontent, alertness, loss aversion, disagreeableness, and so on. It makes it hard to be happy, but genes don’t care.

I rankle at the thought that genes could be quietly setting people up to be suited for different roles, but again genes don’t care.

Re: My ADHD founder toolbox

#58

Post by bitexploder »

tstrimple wrote: post #38
bitexploder wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like I just don’t know. How can I? I can hyperfocus, get into flow, and crank through things that make hours and days and weeks fly by. I can also be deeep in the pit of distraction where it is impossible to start anything and I feel broken and the deeper I get the more I try to avoid doing even the smallest thing that might mean forward progress because everything is already so bad so just go and play some ga…

I very much relate to this. Sometimes challenging and complicated problems come apart easily. Sometimes you waste a week procrastinating something simple. Unfortunately my procrastination has been rewarded so many times. Of you've got a change in scope for the thing I haven't even started yet? No problem! Oh, our priorities have changed and we no longer need that thing? Fantastic! Most recently, I was supposed to be…

I am a fan of Jocko. He talks about that very thing with procrastination. You procrastinate so long the thing loses all importance. I notice I had a habit of conveniently only remembering the times it helped and not the significant amount more it hurt.

Re: My ADHD founder toolbox

#59

Post by ip26 »

resonious wrote: post #56
bitexploder wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the ADHD is a strength not weakness mentality is generally harmful. There are some aspects of it that can help, especially when you are not deep working on one thing, but in general, I think it is unequivocally not a benefit to almost anyone who has it. edit: I would add there is some survivorship bias to it too. Successful CEO says ADHD helped? Huh. Cool. There is a reason alcoholism and substance abuse have…

I guess if that stance is harmful then I'd think about why people are having that stance in the first place. If somebody gets told "you have ADHD, a debilitating mental disorder", and then does well in life anyway, what exactly are they supposed to think happened? Why were we telling them they're messed up in the head when clearly they're quite functional? "Wow, maybe ADHD is good" seems like a pretty logical jump to…

It’s also a little hard to call it a debilitating disorder if 10% of people have it. Pale skin puts you at risk of sunburn, but it’s not considered a skin disorder. Why? I’ll leave it to the reader.

Re: My ADHD founder toolbox

#60

Post by throwawaaarrgh »

ReaLNero wrote: post #53
throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #51

I diagnosed when I was like... 8 years old. From then to 17 I was on various meds, finally gave them all up. So for about 22 years I've coped with ADHD without meds. I am a Staff Engineer and make a good living, respected in my field. Regardless of anything else, I think the key thing to remember about ADHD is that you do not need to be a high-performing human being, at all, in life. You will forget things and get di…

Why did you stop taking meds? Curious what would be your reasons against it.

Mainly because I was also put on anti-depressants, anti-psychotics etc and it was making me much worse (sometimes parents are idiots). But before that the stimulants turned me into an emotionless zombie. Once the meds wore off, crying was a magical revelation, like, "oh! this is what feelings are like! this is awesome!"
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