Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

ADHD Didn't Break Me–My Parents Did

claimingattention.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 187 posts

Re: ADHD Didn't Break Me–My Parents Did

#111

Post by bbwbsb »

hkpack wrote: post #2

The person blaming his parents because they tried to do their job of, well, parenting a child with ADHD. I’ve read that psychotherapy is much more difficult when there is no-one to blame. So it might help for him, until he will have his own kids with ADHD and fail in a completely opposite way. I would not recommend anyone to blame parents of neurodivergent kids, as it is a very difficult job to do right.

Making excuses for abuse is just as unhealthy as seeing it everywhere.

I have been diagnosed both autistic and adhd and I experienced food insecurity despite living in a house with several balconies and a detached garage bigger than my friends' families' houses because my parents thought I would get over it and start going out to eat with them if they didn't bring me any food. I don't think they intended deliberately to harm me - or realize that me not going out to eat with them didn't mean there was enough food - but their authoritarian way of thinking did the harm nonetheless and it's a completely predictable outcome of such a way of thinking; so it's not "I didn't mean it" so much as "I don't want to think differently because I value my attachment to this mode of thinking more than the wellbeing of others; and when I harm them I'll say 'nothing could be done' because changing how I approach the problem isn't on the table".

The healthiest thing most autistic/adhd people ever do is moving from 'I am sick' to 'the society I inhabit has an autoimmune disorder'.

Re: ADHD Didn't Break Me–My Parents Did

#112

Post by cromulent »

void-pointer wrote: post #104

I feel like I’m going mad. Is ADHD a debilitating condition that can be consistently and independently diagnosed, with verifiable symptoms and clear criteria as to who _has_ ADHD and, more importantly, who _hasn’t_? or is it a loosely defined group of behaviours that all people experience at different severities at some point in their lives, which have all been grouped into a nebulous so-called disorder (although man…

This is a good point, and why so many ADHD people feel guilty or unsure about their diagnosis. Doesn't everyone feel like this?

Adrian Chiles' "inner chimp" and other columns [1] helped me understand it. Also, when I laughed off my psychologists' questions ("oh, everyone would answer these questions the same way, this is silly"). Oh no they don't, she said.

There will be a grey area for sure. But for people who have it, it is real, and it is different to how other people experience the world.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/sep/30/my-treatment...

Re: ADHD Didn't Break Me–My Parents Did

#113

Post by o11c »

Viliam1234 wrote: post #90
o11c wrote: post #49

I must disagree with this very strongly; this attitude of "the problem isn't me, the problem is other people" is exceedingly harmful. You cannot blame others for their (alleged) inflexibility when you yourself are incapable of flexibility. Consider: you fly to the UK and try to drive on the right side of the road like you always have. Do you have the right to blame everyone for driving toward you? Or should you adapt…

> Yes, the rule is arbitrary, but that doesn't make it valueless. We need to distinguish between the rules that make sense (everyone driving on the same side of the road) and those that don't (everyone writing using the same hand). Often the existence of the former is used as an excuse for the latter.

The problem is that very often people can't distinguish ... or perhaps, refuse to acknowledge the importance of the particular rules they are personally inclined to reject.

Re: ADHD Didn't Break Me–My Parents Did

#114

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

tolerance wrote: post #77

As self-proclaimed Neurodivergency Truther™, I support the general thesis of dear Ahmed's essay (and look forward to more of his work). I also invite him to consider his own parent's past and whether he can find any evidence of "forced assimilation" in their lives. I have a hunch.

> I also invite him to consider his own parent's past and whether he can find any evidence of "forced assimilation" in their lives. I have a hunch.

Well yeah. Every time I followed the thread of a bad behavior, I found feelings of helplessness at the other end.

Following the behavior-threads of the people who hurt me, you know what I found.

Knowing that helped shift the dynamic (between me and abuser) from animosity to shared support. In some cases, anyway.

Re: ADHD Didn't Break Me–My Parents Did

#115

Post by swayvil »

__rito__ wrote: post #103
swayvil wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the great inventions, great art, great ideas. ADHD. Nobody else has the focus. In ancient times the Raja Yogis (basically wizards) preferred to recruit from those with ADHD. They called them "habitually one-pointed".

I have read much about Yogic traditions, and always thought that people with ADHDs are particularly well-suited for spiritual progress as laid down in core texts and aligned literature. > In ancient times the Raja Yogis (basically wizards) preferred to recruit from those with ADHD. They called them "habitually one-pointed". I never knew this. Can you please site some sources/supporting literature? I would like to rea…

>Can you please site some...

I think I read it in Swami Vivekananda's "Raja Yoga".

I'm more of a Zennist. Thought and knowledge are overrated. Study and cultivation of awareness is where it's at.

Re: ADHD Didn't Break Me–My Parents Did

#116

Post by swayvil »

patcon wrote: post #99
swayvil wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the great inventions, great art, great ideas. ADHD. Nobody else has the focus. In ancient times the Raja Yogis (basically wizards) preferred to recruit from those with ADHD. They called them "habitually one-pointed".

Wouldn't "habitually one-pointed" people be very focussed, rather than distracted? Or is the idea that a very distracted person being honed into a focussed and aware person is a duality that's valued -- able to live in both worlds? (Rather than a very focussed person being taught to be distracted and highly integrative?)

I know. But I'm told they're calling "Aspergers" ADHD now. And the brittleness that comes with habitual focus looks like massive distraction. I mean you've got these guys who can focus to the point of magic, but one push and they crack.

And we're borrowing somebody else's terminology anyway. So don't expect precision.

Re: ADHD Didn't Break Me–My Parents Did

#117

Post by 93po »

o11c wrote: post #49

I must disagree with this very strongly; this attitude of "the problem isn't me, the problem is other people" is exceedingly harmful. You cannot blame others for their (alleged) inflexibility when you yourself are incapable of flexibility. Consider: you fly to the UK and try to drive on the right side of the road like you always have. Do you have the right to blame everyone for driving toward you? Or should you adapt…

People who can't walk would struggle a lot in a world where society didn't make accommodations for them to enter buildings, use restrooms, etc. The problem is that society is decently good at accommodating the very visible and tangible, but terrible at accommodating anything they don't understand. ADHD is hard to understand for most people and therefore they have no interesting in flexibility in the way they do for things they do understand.

Going through the treadmill of school followed by a career that all require strict schedules, punctuality, meetings, note-taking, difficult conversations, social norms, and hard focus-heavy work is really difficult for people with untreated ADHD. It's all extremely hard for me, and it's doubly hard because if I don't do this I will literally be homeless and starve and have no healthcare, and there's not a single employer or coworker that has ever given two shits about how hard this may be for me, and in fact some of them have actively punished me for vulnerability around this

Re: ADHD Didn't Break Me–My Parents Did

#118

Post by cromulent »

__rito__ wrote: post #50
lqet wrote: post #15

> John Taylor Gatto's Dumbing Us Down perfectly captured this when he noticed that schools, another place where authority figures hang out, ruthlessly disciplined any child who tried to assert individuality. There has been an interesting result recently, which was discussed here [0]. In an online game where participants had to forage for resources, people with attention deficits scored higher, because they preferred…

There are already some research hinting that ADHD in human population helped human civilization progress. [0][1] [0]: https://www.healthline.com/health/adhd/evolution [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/feb/21/adhd-may-hav...

For sure. We need all types. ADHD people would have been naturally de-selected otherwise.

I submitted your [1] here back then, conversation:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39451173

Re: ADHD Didn't Break Me–My Parents Did

#120

Post by Kirth »

void-pointer wrote: post #104

I feel like I’m going mad. Is ADHD a debilitating condition that can be consistently and independently diagnosed, with verifiable symptoms and clear criteria as to who _has_ ADHD and, more importantly, who _hasn’t_? or is it a loosely defined group of behaviours that all people experience at different severities at some point in their lives, which have all been grouped into a nebulous so-called disorder (although man…

I always seem to upset a lot of people when I bring up my take/experience on this because they seem to find it (psychologically) threatening. Labels such as ADHD seem to have value for those who use them and want not further examine themselves or their situation.

I was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult and after a few years of psychotherapy (and trying medication) it's becoming clear to me that a lot of what people call adhd, people with adhd, ... is an external observation of an internal experience of emotional management issues with regards to anxiety and anger: impulsively responding to these emotions in a way that was learned during an earlier developmental stage, that now no longer leads to desirable outcomes (often hiding, running away, not getting externally angry when it is appropriate or desired). A lot of self-deceit and unworkable mental models seem to be involved. I hope I'm not projecting myself too much :).

Post reply on HN