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Doctor: ADHD, as currently defined, does not exist

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Re: Doctor: ADHD, as currently defined, does not exist

#91
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the advantages?

People with ADHD tend to be very fast thinkers -- indeed this is part of the "problem" because while we're having a conversation with someone, we've thought through every consequence of what you just said before you finish your sentence. Because of this, we tend to get to "outside the box" type solutions much more quickly than others because we can effectively execute parallel tasks in our minds and come up with an a…

Disorder is maybe a harsh word, but my issue is that it runs counter to how I want to act.

I want to do x, but I don't do it. It's really hard to explain to someone who doesn't feel the same way. It's not just a procrastination, it's a complete inability to adhere to a rational set of priorities.

For most people task avoidance is due to stress or fear. For me it was simply that it disappeared from my head while I did something else less important. Then later I realized that I didn't do what I wanted to, and tried to understand why.

Parts of the day would disappear into nothing. I wasn't avoiding work, or even procrastinating as many people would view it, I was just unable to see that mental priority list for a time.

Then there's the periods of seeing that mental priority list, but being unable to commit to any single task to the extent that nothing gets done. If there's giant pressure or stress behind something, it could force me to act, but otherwise nothing.

"Hyperfocus" is kind of true in that when you unhinge from that mental priority list you stop feeling the distractions, but the problem is you don't exactly get to choose what you want to focus on. The other problem is, that condition only lasts for a while and then you're left listless and useless. So sure, you can spend a few hours writing responses up on HN instead of working, process all that dopamine superfast, and then sit around trying to remember what you were trying to do when you sat down at your computer in the first place, until some crisis pushes you to action.

You talk about it like it's great, but I think you're misrepresenting it. It doesn't make you an incredibly quick thinker, you don't necessarily "think through every consequence of what you just said before you finish your sentence" what is more realistic is we think through some things unrelated to what was just said, sometimes this might lead to an alternate line of reasoning, a "thinking outside the box". Sometimes it just means you have no idea of what was actually just said because you were thinking about whether when they said they had been working all last night that they maybe got Pizza when they were working last night, and whether they liked anchovies on their pizza because your Dad used to put anchovies on his pizza and you never really liked them. You know, they were so salty, and the little bones got stuck in your teeth. But it's kind of cool that you can eat those little fish almost whole, unlike Tuna, which while it comes in tiny little cans is actually a pretty big fish.

Re: Doctor: ADHD, as currently defined, does not exist

#92
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> advantages NO. NO. NO. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xpEBE9VDWw

It's not a "gift" or an "advantage", but it's not necessarily a disadvantage either IF the individual learns the proper coping strategies and can structure their work/life in a way that can make the ADHD less of a liability. It takes hard work.

Learning to overcome disadvantages doesn't cease to make them disadvantages.

Re: Doctor: ADHD, as currently defined, does not exist

#93
post #68

Terrible title. Especially since there are actually people who believe that the title is true in the literal sense. The fact that we can further subdivide something based on etiology or any other criteria doesn't mean that it does not exist.

It's amazing how many people here are skipping the qualifier in the title, taking it as "ADHD does not exist".

That is the title of both the original time.com article and the book written by its author. The qualifier "as currently defined" is only on HN.

Re: Doctor: ADHD, as currently defined, does not exist

#94

This article is so potentially harmful, even if it's more nuanced than the hyperbolic "ADHD Doesn't Exist" title would suggest. The reality is that -- whatever the underlying cause -- a lot of people struggle with attention span issues, and that these issues cause a lot of pain and unfulfilled potential. Even if ADHD medications are overprescribed Band-Aids, people benefit from them. We should try and find better dia…

Thank you. Every time I set down my wallet, keys, phone, and pocket equipment and whenever it's time to pick everything up. I lose everything. I have lost my wallet + cash roughly 6-9 times this year so far and probably like 4k cash.

I always miss deadlines and forget everything, I was diagnosed with ADHD with a child, but went along with the narrative that I was just lazy, or didn't have discipline, or was just an underachiever(even though everyone would insist I was very smart), some of my friends when I graduated high school going to MIT/Princeton told me. "Dude, cmon you should be here with us, what's going on?".

So I resolved many times so far to try harder and that I was just lazy, and gained many times extreme inspiration, inspiration that almost all in my life say they've personally never experienced, but always I would lose my path. I would just, forget... then one day on the bottom of depression and people around me picking up on my anxiety issues, people around me kept picking up on observations of me and recommended I try to get professional help.

I know now I actually have this fucking thing, and that for me it's so bad that even if I know that some task is due that will cause me impending doom in a matter of a few days on even 3 hrs. I will always just get distracted, or forget some deadline. Over, and fucking over again, but if I actually remember to take this stupid fucking medication that i'm given. My life is normal again and I can actually achieve the performance my peers/teachers/community has always expected of me.

Through fucking countless suffering and being told i'm a lazy piece of shit, dumbass kid is always late to class even though I arrived to school early because I got distracted. I found that i'm not always like that. I have PLENTY of emotional baggage, and my personal life is 40x crazier than what i'm allowed to post here(Friends in prison in recent years).

But this DISORDER, however ill-specified it is or what everyone's fucking problem it is. Taking my medication daily or SOMETHING will help me achieve. So when I'm not distracted i don't crash into the fucking car in front of me or the side pavement of the freeway to check my phone impulsively over and over again.

Lol. You people have no fucking idea what you do to me with your armchair bullshit opinions, and you have NO idea how much it's hurt me over the years. I can't tell you how many times I haven't had the attention spamn to notice my tire is flat or THIS, OR THAT. Is happening. Some times, I just get distracted by whatever activity that I forget to eat for like 2-3 days straight, and thus at 5'7 am roughly 100~ish pounds.

Re: Doctor: ADHD, as currently defined, does not exist

#95
post #43

This article is so potentially harmful, even if it's more nuanced than the hyperbolic "ADHD Doesn't Exist" title would suggest. The reality is that -- whatever the underlying cause -- a lot of people struggle with attention span issues, and that these issues cause a lot of pain and unfulfilled potential. Even if ADHD medications are overprescribed Band-Aids, people benefit from them. We should try and find better dia…

To play devils advocate, I think its possible that ADHD as a title is more harmful. Letting people fall into a self-fulfilling prophecy that may or may not have occurred otherwise. You say you were more than talented enough to finish said work in 5-6 hours but couldn't. To me that sounds like you thoroughly did not enjoy it and thus got distracted and 'procrastinated'. Why did you choose to work in an office if it wa…

You're asking a lot of loaded questions. These drugs allow me to do what I want to do. Why isn't that good?

People who try to claim that ADHD symptoms are good are probably people who aren't diagnosed with ADHD (and let's not get started with OCD).

Re: Doctor: ADHD, as currently defined, does not exist

#96

This article is so potentially harmful, even if it's more nuanced than the hyperbolic "ADHD Doesn't Exist" title would suggest. The reality is that -- whatever the underlying cause -- a lot of people struggle with attention span issues, and that these issues cause a lot of pain and unfulfilled potential. Even if ADHD medications are overprescribed Band-Aids, people benefit from them. We should try and find better dia…

So I sought treatment... at the age of 32.

Hi John, I'm curious if you tried any of the following before trying medication:

1. No TV

2. No Video Games

3. No Internet aggregators (slashdot / digg / reddit/ hn / etc)

4. Meditation

I am a colossal procrastinator and frequently unfocused person that had a much less successful academic career than you due to that. So far I've been going through periods of trying the above, thinking that medication is an absolute last resort. So far I haven't had to go there but I'm curious as to what things you may have tried before going to medicine?

Re: Doctor: ADHD, as currently defined, does not exist

#97
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People with ADHD tend to be very fast thinkers -- indeed this is part of the "problem" because while we're having a conversation with someone, we've thought through every consequence of what you just said before you finish your sentence. Because of this, we tend to get to "outside the box" type solutions much more quickly than others because we can effectively execute parallel tasks in our minds and come up with an a…

Are you sure that "hyperfocus" is a symptom of ADHD? I'm a developer, depending on how well rested I am I can go into that zone for 12 hours, sure, but I've always been like that since I was a child and if I want I can focus on subjects that don't bring me pleasure at all, it's all a matter of determination (edit: for me). Observing children at my wife's kindergarten that allegedly have ADHD, it's quite the opposite…

Six years old when they start school are expected to focus for 10-15 minutes. Kindergartner loosing attention after 5-10 minutes sounds to be exactly where he is supposed to be.

Re: Doctor: ADHD, as currently defined, does not exist

#98

This article is so potentially harmful, even if it's more nuanced than the hyperbolic "ADHD Doesn't Exist" title would suggest. The reality is that -- whatever the underlying cause -- a lot of people struggle with attention span issues, and that these issues cause a lot of pain and unfulfilled potential. Even if ADHD medications are overprescribed Band-Aids, people benefit from them. We should try and find better dia…

So I'm with you. I also suffer from attention span issues. It's been a terrible thing to have to live with at times. But I have to ask an honest question: do you have a deficiency for which you need treatment? Or do you have a personality type which might make you unsuited for certain types of work? Or -- more likely -- do you have a tendency for a type of personality attribute expression which varies depending on va…

  But I have to ask an honest question: do you have a deficiency for which
  you need treatment? Or do you have a personality type which might make 
  you unsuited for certain types of work? Or -- more likely -- do you have 
  a tendency for a type of personality attribute expression which varies 
  depending on various external stimuli?

  I think it's perfectly fine that something like ADHD is a naturally-
  occurring personality trait and/or state of mind for which we might need 
  medication to overcome. At the same time, I'm not too happy with 
  characterizing it as a disease or dysfunction. I think we are taking 
  people who are acting in a completely normal fashion and telling them 
  something is broken about them. That ain't right.
I love the way you put this, and I agree with a lot of what you said. BUT I also don't think what you say is incompatible with treating focus issues as a problem that can be helped by medication.

For me, learning about ADHD was very liberating!

It wasn't a diagnosis that told me I was fundamentally broken as a person; it was exactly the opposite.

I had a lot of love and support growing up in the 80s and early 90s, don't get me wrong. But I also got a lot of negative reinforcement and had come to think of myself (as a certain book title suggests) as "lazy, stupid, or crazy" (ok - maybe just lazy or crazy) when it came to focus and procrastination issues. I never even considered ADD/ADHD because as far as I knew, it was a label for hyperactive kids and I was never hyperactive.

Those are very broad terms, you know? I really felt like there was fundamental shit wrong with me. I grew up believing in hard work but had the hardest time doing homework and taxes and things I didn't want to do.

So learning about and eventually being diagnosed with ADHD really helped the way I feel about myself. Instead of feeling broken on some fundamental level, I came to feel like I had a pretty specific thing to deal with; one that could be helped by medication and proper sleep/diet/environment/exercise.

Edit: I also want to address this one specific thing you said:

  Or do you have a personality type which might make you unsuited 
  for certain types of work?
I can't think of a single line of work that doesn't benefit from an increased ability to focus.

Even entrepreneurs, who are often famously ADHD (or ADHD-like, anyway) in their restlessness and curiosity, need to focus on the mundane stuff sometimes.

And it's not like medication erases those positive ADHD traits either. The fact is that stimulants leave your body pretty quickly, and with something like your Adderall dosage from day to day. If you're responsible and take a little bit less on the days you don't need it, you can take a little more on the days when you need it more. You can tailor the effects a bit depending on your needs on a particular day.

(Note: The medication is far from perfect; it's not for everybody and is not a cure-all. Biologically, stimulants are a very crude way to address one's focus. In my experience, proper sleep/diet/exercise/environment are more important than any medication I've tried.)

Re: Doctor: ADHD, as currently defined, does not exist

#99

Some folks are missing the point. Both the definition of ADHD and the treatment plan for it (in North America) are broken. In France, just 0.5% of children suffer from ADHD (opposed to ~5% in North America), and with those children they find the root cause of the issue and deal with that. They tend to shy away from medication. This is, more often than not, the proper treatment option for behavioural issues. People ne…

I wouldn't trust France when it comes to pediatric statistics.

Re: Doctor: ADHD, as currently defined, does not exist

#100
post #96

This article is so potentially harmful, even if it's more nuanced than the hyperbolic "ADHD Doesn't Exist" title would suggest. The reality is that -- whatever the underlying cause -- a lot of people struggle with attention span issues, and that these issues cause a lot of pain and unfulfilled potential. Even if ADHD medications are overprescribed Band-Aids, people benefit from them. We should try and find better dia…

So I sought treatment... at the age of 32. Hi John, I'm curious if you tried any of the following before trying medication: 1. No TV 2. No Video Games 3. No Internet aggregators (slashdot / digg / reddit/ hn / etc) 4. Meditation I am a colossal procrastinator and frequently unfocused person that had a much less successful academic career than you due to that. So far I've been going through periods of trying the above…

You obviously do not understand how this even works. With my kind of ADHD. Okay here set a remminder to do this, except with your reminder, you forget to remember the reminder.

"Remind yourself! But I forget to remember!" It just doesn't work in the space planning/organizational structure that normal people use to cope with their problems, and their stupid fucking instructional ways to suggest otherwise just give other people with armchair opinions more safe-guard to continuously allow people to have shit opinions.

People with ADD, are much more likely to engage in drug abuse, criminal behavior, and under-perform. It is a societal COST to not help them out.

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