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The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder

nytimes.com

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Re: The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder

#41

Post by [deleted] »

duaneb wrote: post #27
negativity wrote: post #10

I don't suffer from ADD/ADHD but I grew up during the 90's, when lots of kids in school, around me, were being put on all kinds of prescription medication, but most prevalent were the ADD/ADHD prescriptions. Of the roughly 20 names I can remember, who I know for a fact were prescribed ADD/ADHD medications, AND who I knew growing up both before the medication and after, there was only one guy that obviously had proble…

> weak-willed Can you provide a definition for this? I'm fucking sick of people going through this process: 1. Struggle to understand someone's problem. 2. Give up. 3. Blame the victim. If you see a problem, fix it. But nothing in your comment was at all helpful for the same people you were criticizing. This may come as a shock to you, but people struggle from different problems than you do. Some of them may seem eas…

[deleted]

Re: The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder

#42

Post by zw123456 »

I have often thought that if Einstein was a young person in a public school today they would probably put him on ritalin. It also appears there are a lot of dangerous side effects to these drugs that I think may be causing some of the things in the news lately, I tried posting some articles about this issue but it got blocked probably because some of the language getting snagged by HN's key word filters maybe.

Re: The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder

#43

Post by [deleted] »

sillysaurus2 wrote: post #39
negativity wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's exactly the same thing as coffee, and it's not a medical condition at all. Coding really IS naturally boring and mind numbing. That's neither your imagination nor subjective experience. No one ever steps through a series of break-points in a debugger, or skims through 1,000 lines of log output, and thinks: "YEAH, MAN! THIS IS REALLY LIVING!" It pretty much requires an altered state to enjoy this stuff. I…

Coding really IS naturally boring and mind numbing. That's neither your imagination nor subjective experience. No one ever steps through a series of break-points in a debugger, or skims through 1,000 lines of log output, and thinks: "YEAH, MAN! THIS IS REALLY LIVING!" It pretty much requires an altered state to enjoy this stuff. That's just not true. I'm a counterexample.

[deleted]

Re: The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder

#45

Post by neurotech1 »

invalidOrTaken wrote: post #3

I don't know. I just don't know. I earned a perfect score on the SAT and was voted "Class Genius" in the yearbook, but barely graduated from high school. I was dismissed from university. I went to work for a machine learning company, where we (self included!) did some really neat stuff, including some heroic pre-sales-meeting coding that saved the day in a minor way. But I was fired six months in for low productivity…

What I find frustrating is discussing with doctors that not all focusing difficulties are caused by depression. I do experience periods of (unipolar) depression.

One thing that I notice among "smart" people is that its easy to burn-out.

My only real advice is aim to do things that your passionate about. Two examples that come to mind is Elon Musk[1][2], who clearly enjoys building rockets and electric cards, and Mitch Altman[3] who enjoys making cool things. Elon Musk hasn't commented publicly on ADHD specifically. Mitch is well known for his public discussions on depression.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk

[2] http://www.forbes.com/sites/drewhansen/2012/05/24/elon-musk-...

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitch_Altman

Re: The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder

#46

Post by lfuller »

negativity wrote: post #10

I don't suffer from ADD/ADHD but I grew up during the 90's, when lots of kids in school, around me, were being put on all kinds of prescription medication, but most prevalent were the ADD/ADHD prescriptions. Of the roughly 20 names I can remember, who I know for a fact were prescribed ADD/ADHD medications, AND who I knew growing up both before the medication and after, there was only one guy that obviously had proble…

It could be that, or perhaps these substances "without accepted medical value" have been vilified for years without adequate rational thought, and in fact help certain people live normal lives.

I wonder if the label on a hepatotoxin such as "ACETAMINOPHEN, 400MG" gives you pause.

Re: The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder

#47

Post by pedalpete »

negativity wrote: post #10

I don't suffer from ADD/ADHD but I grew up during the 90's, when lots of kids in school, around me, were being put on all kinds of prescription medication, but most prevalent were the ADD/ADHD prescriptions. Of the roughly 20 names I can remember, who I know for a fact were prescribed ADD/ADHD medications, AND who I knew growing up both before the medication and after, there was only one guy that obviously had proble…

Amphetamine is not a bad word, much like Nuclear, Fat or Hacker. It's all in how and what it is used for. I have no idea how much Ampetamine is in Crystal Meth or other illegal substances (Google wasn't very helpful with this, I'm sure as always, somebody here on HN knows), but just because something has Amphetamine does not automatically make it a bad thing.

Re: The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder

#48

Post by invalidOrTaken »

maratd wrote: post #18
invalidOrTaken wrote: post #3

I don't know. I just don't know. I earned a perfect score on the SAT and was voted "Class Genius" in the yearbook, but barely graduated from high school. I was dismissed from university. I went to work for a machine learning company, where we (self included!) did some really neat stuff, including some heroic pre-sales-meeting coding that saved the day in a minor way. But I was fired six months in for low productivity…

> Was it brain chemistry? ADD? Millenial entitlement? The Bipolar Lisp personality? Depression? SAD? A once-seen-impossible-to-unsee glimpse of the Gervais Principle? Oh please, enough with the drama. I've led the same life. So has everyone else here. I had the foresight to realize my ailment early on. I'm lazy and bored easily, which is really the same thing. > But I was fired six months in for low productivity and…

I want to engage with this comment because it's one commonly encountered with this sort of thing.

>Oh please, enough with the drama. I've led the same life. So has everyone else here.

It is precisely my tiring of drama that's led me to my present attitude. Please note that this was a response to an article someone else posted, not a please-pay-attention-to-me self-post. I never talk about this sort of thing in person. My only purpose in commenting as I did was to provide the perspective of someone who has some contact w/the issues in the article.

>So people told you were lazy and rather than accept that at face value, you decided you have some sort of a medical condition?

Actually it's quite the reverse: people told me I have some sort of medical condition, and I treat myself as though I'm just lazy. It's not necessarily that I disagree with them, but that I think the second is a more cost-effective frame of mind.

>Look, take my advice. Work for yourself and take on short-term projects. Nothing that lasts more than a month or two. That way, by the time you get bored with it, you're on to something entirely different.

Candidly, this strikes me as relatively irresponsible advice, and half-humblebrag. "I just get so bored with normal corporate work, you know? I always need something new." (Subtext: Despite my inability to commit to a position, I am so talented it doesn't matter. Oh, you're not talented enough to make it work like I am, i.e. inferior to me? Sorry brah. Best of luck.)

It's just a hard problem. Those who would judge you as lazy probably can't be communicated with---the answer to that is simply producing. Those who would diagnose you are well-intentioned, but I worry about getting stuck in a victim frame. I don't have time to be a professional victim. I have other things to do.

In saying this, I don't wish to cast aspersions on those taking medication for whatever conditions they may have. I do wish to provide some hope for those who think they may have some sort of condition, but are wary of the stigma associated with acknowleding such.

Re: The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder

#49

Post by lfuller »

negativity wrote: post #22
tibbon wrote: post #19

As a person with ADHD, that article was too long to hold my attention (no, I'm not making a joke here). Also, as a person with ADHD who takes Adderall I don't see what the big fuss about it as a drug/medicine is. It works. I don't (personally) note any side effects, and don't see any reason that I'd stop taking it. Before taking Adderall I was essentially self-medicating my ADHD with copious amounts of coffee on a da…

I think it's exactly the same thing as coffee, and it's not a medical condition at all. Coding really IS naturally boring and mind numbing. That's neither your imagination nor subjective experience. No one ever steps through a series of break-points in a debugger, or skims through 1,000 lines of log output, and thinks: "YEAH, MAN! THIS IS REALLY LIVING!" It pretty much requires an altered state to enjoy this stuff. I…

Is this really a common viewpoint in the developer community?

I'm a programmer, and I do it because I find what I do to be exciting. I, in fact, truly enjoy "skimming 1,000 lines of log output" to finally find a bug I've been scouting for, or spending hours solving a particularly difficult problem.

If I found coding naturally boring and mind numbing I certainly wouldn't have chosen it as my career. Perhaps you should look at whether you are truly in the right field?

Re: The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder

#50

Post by 6d0debc071 »

maratd wrote: post #26
duaneb wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a brilliant idea—help a person by framing their issues as personal and moral failures. That's sure to be a positive catalyst for change. EDIT: For some reason I can't respond to the comment below. My point was, it's easy to frame problems with terms like "weak", "irresponsible", and "lazy". It's hard to actually attempt to communicate, identify a problem in a way that you can talk about the same thing, and fin…

> Here's a brilliant idea—help a person by framing their issues as personal and moral failures. That's sure to be a positive catalyst for change. You're being sarcastic, but it actually IS. We live in a culture where everything is a disorder. How convenient, that all of your failures can be blamed on something you don't control. Here's an idea. Everything you don't take responsibility for. Everything you don't see as…

... The strong form of that claim consists of the idea that no doctor or drug has ever improved anyone's life with respect to mental disorders. That no-one who's been diagnosed with ADHD, for example, has experienced a higher standard of living from the actions they took around that diagnosis.

I've heard of people, even on here, who claim their lives have been improved after a diagnosis. So you're arguing against quite a heavy prior in that regard.

It also seems that the weaker form of your claim - that you'd mean fix entirely - wouldn't really serve you in the context of the discussion. After all, why would we think that anyone can be made perfect or that it's even rational to invest heavily in doing so rather than taking a shortcut to an acceptable level of functioning?

So, all that in mind. Where's your evidence for your claim that 'Everything you don't take responsibility for. Everything you don't see as your own failing ... you have no control over and are destined to suffer under its yoke for the rest of your life. And no drug or doctor will fix it for you.' ?

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