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NIH Researchers Identify Brain Connections Associated with ADHD in Youth

nimh.nih.gov

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Re: NIH Researchers Identify Brain Connections Associated with ADHD in Youth

#61

Post by Mkengine »

el_benhameen wrote: post #47
oldstrangers wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This tracks with my own theory on ADHD. It often times feels like a super power when it isn't ruining your life. If you manage it, it's remarkable. Left to its own devices, it's debilitating. When I was younger I tried to medicate the issue away, and then eventually came to the realization that I was doing more harm than good. So I learned to appreciate myself as just "different" as opposed to "dysfunctional". Perhap…

Have you found a good method for self-management?

Not OP, but for me the following combination works great:

- Obsidian for knowledge management to help with the forgetfulness - Todoist to get the daily stuff done and personal project management - Timetree to coordinate with my wife and be able to plan ahead more than a week - any alarm app for the critical stuff the next day

Re: NIH Researchers Identify Brain Connections Associated with ADHD in Youth

#62

Post by user_7832 »

chimeracoder wrote: post #43
user_7832 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain what/how the CBT helped? Where I am in Europe the default treatment is only medication which feels inadequate on its own.

> Could you explain what/how the CBT helped? Where I am in Europe the default treatment is only medication which feels inadequate on its own. Where are you? I can't think of a single place in Europe where medication alone is the treatment standard for ADHD.

I’m in the Netherlands. To be clear this is what my gp has told me, I haven’t cross checked what he said (They’re generally quite knowledgeable about what insurance covers and doesn’t. Also to clarify I’m talking about the insurance covered one, not out of pocket treatment.)

Re: NIH Researchers Identify Brain Connections Associated with ADHD in Youth

#63

Post by TalEs »

whoknowsidont wrote: post #59
qpingo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All quirky fun and games until you realize you can't do high-paying jobs that requires consistent focus. Which is not really a problem unless you want a family or to live in nice parts of cities.

>All quirky fun and games until you realize you can't do high-paying jobs that requires consistent focus. This is not a good understanding of ADHD. People with ADHD have hyperfocus tendencies, and this in fact can apply to their job while they ignore everything else. That is to say extremely successful people might be that way BECAUSE of their ADHD, not in spite of it. A programmer who devotes the majority of their l…

The thing with ADHD(maybe I am a special case) is that my focus tends to shift quickly and freely. What I might enjoy for a few months will no longer be fun, and I will move onto another subject that catches my attention, preventing me from fully delving into learning a craft, to the fullest extent. I envy people who can dedicate a majority of their time and focus into one particular thing, like programming or art. I've done both, enjoyed them, but moved on again. I still do enjoy them, but I would leave them for months, and when I come back, I am back to square one.

Re: NIH Researchers Identify Brain Connections Associated with ADHD in Youth

#64

Post by TalEs »

faeriechangling wrote: post #60
fatnoah wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My wonder is when does it to go from a kid just being a kid to a child actually affected by ADHD That's the multi-billion dollar question. From grades K-3, my son got straight A's and was a typical "boy" in the classroom. Occasionally not the best at paying attention, but no big deal. Fourth grade was another story. He'd come home exhausted, and cry himself into a nap nearly every day. Not coincidentally, that's wh…

>We did resist giving our son medication, and waited until he decided that he wanted to try it (16 years) I sincerely think this is a good thing to do and gives people a healthier relationship to mental health than being coerced into taking drugs with harsh side-effects.

What are the harsh side effects you speak of?

Re: NIH Researchers Identify Brain Connections Associated with ADHD in Youth

#65

Post by remotefonts »

nick__m wrote: post #56
remotefonts wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait... Which barbaric country is that where a simple family doctor can prescribe amphetamines like that? Not in my EU country. It's a controlled medication and can only be prescribed by psychiatrists.

Canada is one of them, my family doctor put me on Vyvanse, after seing me for the second time for an unrelated problem, because he noted that I was alternating between hyperfocus and zoning out when he talked to me. It positively changed my life and I am quite happy that a "simple family doctor" can prescribe amphetamines if he thinks that it's appropriate.

Well, he could instead send you to a specialized doctor, me thinks... But what do I know, anyway.

Re: NIH Researchers Identify Brain Connections Associated with ADHD in Youth

#66

Post by spiffytech »

whoknowsidont wrote: post #59
qpingo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All quirky fun and games until you realize you can't do high-paying jobs that requires consistent focus. Which is not really a problem unless you want a family or to live in nice parts of cities.

>All quirky fun and games until you realize you can't do high-paying jobs that requires consistent focus. This is not a good understanding of ADHD. People with ADHD have hyperfocus tendencies, and this in fact can apply to their job while they ignore everything else. That is to say extremely successful people might be that way BECAUSE of their ADHD, not in spite of it. A programmer who devotes the majority of their l…

OP's mention of "consistent" is the important part.

The big problem with hyperfocus: you don't control what you focus on, or when. You can't turn it on for the big project, or turn it off when you're hyperfocused on a dumb distraction. Even ordinary focus (non-hyper) comes and goes at inconvenient times.

(I'm not sure if this is what you're saying, but hyperfocus isn't a fixation on a field of study or area of work. That sounds more like an autistic special interest, although many people with ADHD also have autism. Hyperfocus is more like being "in the zone", on a scale of hours.)

Some ADHD people find great success in the workplace, because of or in spite of ADHD. But non-traditional career paths have a ton of ADHD people for a reason.

Re: NIH Researchers Identify Brain Connections Associated with ADHD in Youth

#67

Post by habinero »

2four2 wrote: post #13
_fat_santa wrote: post #2

I've always been a cautious skeptic of ADHD in children. On the one hand I know ADHD is a thing and that it legitimately affects some children, but on the other hand I realize that alot of ADHD symptoms overlap with the general nature of children, especially boys. My wonder is when does it to go from a kid just being a kid to a child actually affected by ADHD. Often times it's described as just not being able to pay…

> The drugs also scare me... The idea of giving something like that to a child profoundly scares me. It works differently in people with the disorder. I took Adderall as a child and as an adult for adhd. It didn't get me wired nor did I have withdrawal symptoms, I simply felt more centered and capable of starting tasks. I know that we can only draw on our own experiences to judge things, but understand that people wi…

Yeah, same. I don't feel wired at all. It's pleasantly calming and it's like everything is possible again. I've literally taken a nap after it hits.

Re: NIH Researchers Identify Brain Connections Associated with ADHD in Youth

#68

Post by habinero »

improv wrote: post #53
thfuran wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you also skeptical of obesity in teens because eating a lot is just the general nature of teens, especially boys? Are you appalled that diabetics take insulin every day because you once injected yourself with insulin you didn't need and experienced severe side effects?

Diabetes is a biological disease which can be objectively proven and diagnosed based on biological tests. There are no objective biological diagnostic criteria for anything in the DSM. "psychiatric diagnosis still relies exclusively on fallible subjective judgments rather than objective biological tests" -Allen Frances, The New Crisis of Confidence in Psychiatric Diagnosis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_France…

That's only because we have no way to measure it, not because it's not also a physical problem.

Re: NIH Researchers Identify Brain Connections Associated with ADHD in Youth

#69

Post by qpingo »

techcode wrote: post #55
qpingo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All quirky fun and games until you realize you can't do high-paying jobs that requires consistent focus. Which is not really a problem unless you want a family or to live in nice parts of cities.

There's a lot of high-paying tech jobs that can be playing into ADHD (and other not neuro typical brains) strengths and focus thats more like running 42 1km "sprints" than mostly consistent pace 42km marathon. Things that come to mind are data science/analysis, debugging and fixing outages (finalizing follow up RFO might be hardest part ), security/hacking (hopefully white hat)... And basically whatever else one pers…

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Re: NIH Researchers Identify Brain Connections Associated with ADHD in Youth

#70

Post by viraptor »

faeriechangling wrote: post #60
fatnoah wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My wonder is when does it to go from a kid just being a kid to a child actually affected by ADHD That's the multi-billion dollar question. From grades K-3, my son got straight A's and was a typical "boy" in the classroom. Occasionally not the best at paying attention, but no big deal. Fourth grade was another story. He'd come home exhausted, and cry himself into a nap nearly every day. Not coincidentally, that's wh…

>We did resist giving our son medication, and waited until he decided that he wanted to try it (16 years) I sincerely think this is a good thing to do and gives people a healthier relationship to mental health than being coerced into taking drugs with harsh side-effects.

> coerced into taking drugs with harsh side-effects.

You're not guaranteed side effects. If you do experience them, you'd normally get different medication options.

Also, you can have discussion about it and the effects. If you end up anywhere close to coercing regardless of side effects, it's not the drugs that are the problem.

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