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Programming as a cure for A.D.D.?

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Re: Programming as a cure for A.D.D.?

#31

Post by dsl »

mortdeus wrote: post #27

As somebody who has adhd, recently started getting medicated, became a programmer and turned my life around 180 degrees. Ill take the time to answer misconceptions about adhd. ADHD is not primarily an attention disorder. Its primarily a motivational disorder. There are 3 types of ADHD recognized in American Psychiatry with a closely related disorder called SCT. ADHD-Hyperactive, ADHD-Inattentive, ADHD-Combined, Slow…

Thanks for posting this. Your story reminded me so much of myself, but I always just figured "this is the way I am. I am broken." On my last checkup my doctor suggested I might have depression and should come back after the holidays (I was traveling the next day) for a follow up. I literally have not been able to work up the motivation to go back. But I'm going to change that.

Re: Programming as a cure for A.D.D.?

#32

Post by chaseperkins »

As an individual who has struggled with severe ADD, i've followed scientific and medical journal research in the field. New research, involving brain-scans of intelligent ADD and non-ADD brains, shows a specific recall disorder. Basically, when an ADD brain wants to concentrate on a single task (reading/listening to a lecture for example), other regions of the brain are called upon and interfere with focus. This is why many ADD/ADHD individuals like myself, hide in the corner of a quite library, with ear-plugs, because sounds/visual-stimulation/other thought process is amplified. With a non-ADD brain, non-recalled regions, unrelated to the requested task, drastically lower activity levels.

Check it out Journal of Psychiatric Research: A. Cubillo et al. / Journal of Psychiatric Research 44 (2010) 629–639

"Reduced activation and inter-regional functional connectivity of fronto-striatal networks in adults with childhood Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and persisting symptoms during tasks of motor inhibition and cognitive switching."

Re: Programming as a cure for A.D.D.?

#33

Post by mwhahn »

ADHD is too bad to read through all these posts here, but I used to take ADHD medication (concerta) for around 6 years, once I started programming I stopped and I've never looked back. Learning to program not only drastically increased my earning potential, but has freed me of life constrained by medication. +1 for writing this article.

Re: Programming as a cure for A.D.D.?

#34

Post by lloeki »

mortdeus wrote: post #29
bradmccarty wrote: post #2

There's a lot of investigation that has been done around ADHD and the ability to "hyperfocus". Dr Russell Barkley has an interesting insight on this phenomenon. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yfkg0VWx3rM I'm not certain that I agree with him in full. I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was in my early 20s. The ability to deeply focus on a project was helpful to me as well. I certainly don't think that we can call it a "…

Hyperfocus is just a form of self medication. People with ADHD find things they are stimulated by, grow a dependence on it and through practice naturally become great at those things. This is a misconception to consider "many hours of practice" as "adhd gifts". I dont think it is a gift at all, rather the only option we end up having to escape.

(Mild ADHD here) Hyperfocus sounds great, yet it comes at a steep price: extreme exhaustion. Sometimes I just can't work for days (weeks happen) straight. Then at times hyperfocus kicks in and I complete three days work in one swoop, but after that I feel energetically empty. You're right on the dependence because HF gives a high, and I admit although the attention deficit part is a terrible pain, the high is so great that a part of me doesn't want to medicate, because it would go away.

Re: Programming as a cure for A.D.D.?

#35

Post by mwill »

mortdeus wrote: post #28
mwill wrote: post #22

Sorry for the long post, just wanted to put my perspective down for once. I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was about 7-8, by advice of a teacher. If I had to put a severity to it, I'd guess severe. When I was in young, it was a physical feeling of pain in my stomach when I fought against the urge to stand up and walk around. Before I was diagnosed, I literally couldn't write my own name without help, because I wouldn…

Your dosage was probably too high if it made you feel abnormally different. Though I agree people with adhd each have their self medications. Mine was actually music growing up. My best friend likes cars. Can you read text books and stuff? I have a hard time studying code, thinking about problems without my meds. Are you inattentive too? Or just hyperactive?

A bit of detail on why I hated the meds: I had pretty negative side effects from the get go, and eventually problems with tolerance, which eventually led to her prescribing an increased dose every checkup (6 months like clockwork).

Over the treatment, side effects I suffered were massive loss of apetite (And everything that goes with not being able to finish a meal, general feeling of faintness, malnutrition), stomach pains, headaches, constant anxiety (Maybe better described as a fear you can't shake?), tired all the time, eventually a sort of zombie feeling, where I'd only leave the house to go to school, didn't like talking to people, etc.

I really felt like a different person. When I took myself off the meds, I made different friends, and my old friends stopped hanging out with me. When they forced me back on, my old friends came back and my new ones left. When they permanently took me off the meds, my old friends left and my new ones came back, and most of them are still close today. None of this was conscious, and none of the people involved were actually told I'd gone off or on medication until well after the fact, it just sort of happened, and discovering that some people who'd been my friends for years didn't like me if I wasn't medicated (Thats how I saw it at the time) really frightened me.

I'd refuse to take the meds over school holidays (Which was OK'd by my doc), and I'd feel significantly better, so I quickly grew to resent them as a child. The paediatrician tried lowering doses very early on once I started showing side effects, and almost immediately my teacher sent home a letter asking what was going on, after spending a while exhausting other options, the paediatrician basically said it was unavoidable, we'd just have to cope one way or the other.

I guess I'm saying I understand they're a miracle for some people, but from age 7(ish) onwards, no type or dosage helped without harm, so I hated them. In the last few years, I have strongly considered (And still am) giving it another try, since rationally I know it likely won't be as bad as it was growing up, but I still have a pretty strong phobia of medication in general.

About text books, I'm actually pretty good with theory text books, things that present new ideas and concepts I can absorb, but 'How To' books I have trouble with, and mostly I can only read the code and learn by example.

Also: I suffer from both. Official last diagnosis is ADHD-C.

Re: Programming as a cure for A.D.D.?

#36

Post by yogar »

inDigiNeous wrote: post #30

ADHD/ADD is an imagined disease, created by those who do not understand how a person who can process more information than they, operates. The teaching system and the work system does not understand the abilities and natural ways of acting of these people, and this is why we feel so hard to adapt to the old systems. It is natural evolution of the human being, being suppressed by those who want to keep us in control a…

I will disagree with the "It is natural evolution of the human being..." part. Not that it is not true, but it conveys the wrong message. Cancer is a natural evolution too, but evolution of the human being is different than evolution of the human kind. I myself have been diagnosed with Aspergers' and, while I appreciate the diversity of my thought process, I can understand why people with the same condition might feel inclined to clip the unconventional aspects of their self. The human kind has evolved as a social organisation and participation in the club is somehow strict. Medication or meditation, it still is an attempt to join the club. And it is the fact that you accept the club's peace interpretation that leads you to either. That said, I would rather meditation to medication too. Still, that depends on the severity of the case. As an Aspergers' with an Autistic son, if there was medication for my son I would surely try it. Normality is a bliss. Sometimes being a tree in the middle of the desert is not better than being a sand grain.

Re: Programming as a cure for A.D.D.?

#37

Post by seivan »

mortdeus wrote: post #27

As somebody who has adhd, recently started getting medicated, became a programmer and turned my life around 180 degrees. Ill take the time to answer misconceptions about adhd. ADHD is not primarily an attention disorder. Its primarily a motivational disorder. There are 3 types of ADHD recognized in American Psychiatry with a closely related disorder called SCT. ADHD-Hyperactive, ADHD-Inattentive, ADHD-Combined, Slow…

Wow.... thank you. Really, I appreciate it.

Re: Programming as a cure for A.D.D.?

#38

Post by seivan »

dsl wrote: post #31
mortdeus wrote: post #27

As somebody who has adhd, recently started getting medicated, became a programmer and turned my life around 180 degrees. Ill take the time to answer misconceptions about adhd. ADHD is not primarily an attention disorder. Its primarily a motivational disorder. There are 3 types of ADHD recognized in American Psychiatry with a closely related disorder called SCT. ADHD-Hyperactive, ADHD-Inattentive, ADHD-Combined, Slow…

Thanks for posting this. Your story reminded me so much of myself, but I always just figured "this is the way I am. I am broken." On my last checkup my doctor suggested I might have depression and should come back after the holidays (I was traveling the next day) for a follow up. I literally have not been able to work up the motivation to go back. But I'm going to change that.

Yeah, me too.
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