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Mental illness, attention deficit disorder, and suffering

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Re: Mental illness, attention deficit disorder, and suffering

#291

Post by FollowingTheDao »

hirvi74 wrote: post #193
FollowingTheDao wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree! How many times have I been hospitalized (psychiatric) and have not even had a single blood test? Six. I had an MRI for hearing problems and they found flares around my occipital horns. They still did nothing. Mental illnesses are the most medically stigmatized disorders.

Do you ever feel like they are just weird manifestations of the accumulations of various stressors in life? Perhaps, there is nothing /neurologically/ different -- at least not to a significant enough degree? What then? I am not trying to be all woo-woo about this, but we live in a time where technology, and not just recent technology, has propelled us far further than we ready for? I had trouble sitting still and le…

First, I really hate when people downvote questions like this. It's just a question? It is inquiry! It should be applauded!

There is no doubt that stress plays a large role. Remember, it is nature AND nurture. I am more sensitive to the nurture aspect because of my genetics, and yes, I know my actual genetics.

I agree that the human condition is not capable of adapting to the quickness of technological changes, and this brings out more peoples genetic sensitivities. Even if you go back to the 1800 with the rise in transportation, It took my family away from an environment they were steeped in for a thousand years. All those genetic adaptations to the environment were suddenly faced with a brand new one.

Being on disability saved my life because it enabled me to live a life closer to my genetics. I was making bank as a network engineer at Cisco but I do not miss the money. For me, much of the neurological damage has been done as seen in brain scans, but I know I am not getting worse and I no longer need to be on medicine 24x7. I do have flare ups, but they are not continuous like they were in the past.

But probably the most important part you have left out is diet. Omega 3 is huge and for ADHD, probably Zinc and B6. But we have a system of sick care, not health care, so these things are never investigated, not even by those who are suffering with these disorders.

Re: Mental illness, attention deficit disorder, and suffering

#292

Post by FollowingTheDao »

butwhywhyoh wrote: post #80
FollowingTheDao wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it sounds like you’re diagnosing someone based off a blog post. By the way, don’t tell someone who is disabled and was hospitalized several times with a mood disorder that they’re gatekeeping a disorder. I can assure you, I know more than you do about mental illness, It’s genetics, and its environmental factors.

And how would what you're doing differ from "diagnosing someone based off a blog post"? You've decided they don't have it. Do you have information other than the blog post that allowed you to come to that conclusion?

Because he said he did not have it. Not me. He said he does not suffer from it. If he is not suffering from it why would one consider it to be a disorder?

Re: Mental illness, attention deficit disorder, and suffering

#293

Post by orbit7 »

To add a small snippet of what I've found works against these type symptoms currently I use L-Tyrosine 500mg per day cycled on off every so often. At times I will take breaks every 3 months for a few weeks or so then maybe use Schisandra Berry extract for a week.

I find keeping a super simple excel sheet with a monthly list of work and personal tasks works well with next actions for litterally everything except daily habits/ routines. The act of physically moving complete items from one location to another seems to keep me using it (I use Desktop version with autosave enabled) its not so mobile friendly but it works better for me. Every task system I've tried which is a huge number of them I've got bored with or forgotten to use or micro managed to much, I dislike daily task systems for a number of reasons. This improved my productivity and focus literally about 1000%. I find leaving stuff off the lists causes more persistent interruptions to focus, I beleive due to the zeigarnik effect.

I've found diet works best when Low GI as glucose spikes and crashes really screw things up, will power correlates with glucose levels massively. I don't use any supplements but have done tons in the past they aren't really needed. Diet ratio 50% veggies, 25% protein, 25% carb per plate is a good ratio. Tea, Coffee can be a negative so its good to experiment times without it.

Re: Mental illness, attention deficit disorder, and suffering

#294

Post by ravi-delia »

sph wrote: post #245
jrapdx3 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Growing up, ADHD was my biggest enemy in life and I didn't even realize it." That corresponds to what many ADHD adults have experienced. Based on what I've observed among ADHD patients, early response to treatment is a reason for optimism. Chances are ongoing treatment will support continued improvement for months if not years. And not just the patient but also the person's family and beyond. Differences in outcom…

One interesting idea I've read is that life long treatment might enable long lasting behavioural and even physical changes in the brain that makes functioning easier when unmedicated. Basically, meds set you on a healthy path that might lessen the effects of the disorder.

I definitely found I could decrease my dose after a few years because I had developed habits while on it that I never could have without. It's not magic, but I'm in a much better place now.

Re: Mental illness, attention deficit disorder, and suffering

#295

Post by ravi-delia »

symlinkk wrote: post #146
scollet wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adderall does not work on NT brains. They would be able to perform tasks regardless.

Where’d you hear that? It works quite well on people without ADHD

It, for many people, works differently. If you look at people talking about their experiences, those with ADD consistently describe different effects than NT people. It's still good, but it has more of an effect on energy than focus, though the two are well correlated. It might be an overshoot/undershoot thing, it might be that different effects are salient, but I can assure you that if Adderall could do as much for a healthy person as it does for me, we'd be living in utopia.

Re: Mental illness, attention deficit disorder, and suffering

#296

Post by ravi-delia »

kragen wrote: post #159
scollet wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adderall does not work on NT brains. They would be able to perform tasks regardless.

Adderall has been one of the most popular recreational drugs since the 01960s, despite causing multi-organ failure in common recreational doses, which are higher than the therapeutic doses. If it didn't work on neurotypical brains, it wouldn't be popular.

It absolutely has, going by people's subjective ratings, different effects on NT people. That's not to say it doesn't work, there are plenty of explanations. We don't really get how neurotransmitters interact, so it's possible these drugs trip some cascade effect which incidentally treats ADD. More likely, there's a good place to be on the tradeoff curve and different symptoms below and above it. Perhaps large enough doses could push through (though I doubt that amphetamines are so well targeted to permit it), but it's fair to say that if I'm at a 0 and Adderall takes me to a 2, and an NT person is a 3 with Adderall taking them to 4, I can get to 2 and they can't. Is that "working differently"? Depends on how you look at it.

Re: Mental illness, attention deficit disorder, and suffering

#297

Post by haswell »

d0mine wrote: post #192
haswell wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does someone with dementia have a disorder? Does someone with congenital heart failure have a disorder? I'm not suggesting that ADHD is on par with congenital heart failure, but neither are skin color or one's propensity towards wizardry on par with ADHD.

The point is that we shouldn't consider screwdrivers to be demented hammers even If you are a hammer like most in your surroundings. If a game map is small (there is not much time for development before you are destroyed) and/or resource-poor then being Wizard is certainly a disadvantage compared to Necromancer (it is a "disorder", wizards are "demented" from the Necromancer's point of you).

Except humans are not primitive tools, and the brain is not a piece on a game board.

Perhaps a concept like CPU/GPU binning would be a bit more helpful to consider, but even then, it reduces one’s entire experience into manufacturing terms.

The worst CPUs are thrown in the trash. So are the broken hammers, and eventually the screwdriver misused as a hammer.

Re: Mental illness, attention deficit disorder, and suffering

#298

Post by chrsig »

refurb wrote: post #243
chrsig wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Should we just accommodate people who hear voices? We should do a better job than we do now.

No, should medicate them because most people don’t want to hear voices.

These things aren't mutually exclusive.

That said it can be incredibly hard to medicate someone in psychosis, especially if there's an aspect of paranoia.

And even then, the medications are generally only somewhat effective, which can be a world of improvement, but still leave the person in a state of psychosis.

And that leaves accommodations: in the US, it's hard to get a psychotic disorder like schizophrenia covered by disability insurance. Workplace accommodations are near impossible.

Even medical professionals can present difficulty, if they're not familiar with the implications of being in such a psychotic state.

And anything done to improve the situation can easily be misconstrued and in fact make their mental state worse.

Re: Mental illness, attention deficit disorder, and suffering

#299

Post by adhdgaslight »

slowmotiony wrote: post #262
SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contrary to the depiction above it remains as far as I know exceptionally difficult to acquire adhd treating medication; they’re almost all controlled substances, heavily regulated and consumption tightly monitored.

Really? Where? Surely not in Europe, where the psychiatrist simply asks you a couple survey questions like "Do you have difficulty finishing tasks?", "Do you overanalyze things?" or "Do you frequently interrupt others in conversations?" before giving you a script for Concerta / Medikinet. The entire survey takes 5 minutes and if I was to take it seriously, then my entire family has ADHD including the dog.

One should draw a distinction between bad faith actors and good faith actors. For bad faith actors you are correct, but you could say the same thing about a lot of controlled substances. They (stimulants) are at least as controlled as benzos if not opiates. After all there is no objective test for chronic pain either from what I understand. For good faith actors I think there are perhaps the correct or at best too many burdens already, as given by the large percentage of people who are under-treated.

Re: Mental illness, attention deficit disorder, and suffering

#300

Post by filoleg »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #277
di4na wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is quite more lax about it, state depending. Outside of them, yes it is a nightmare that looks exactly how you would design a process someone with ADHD cannot go through. I see no ill will behind it. It is just bureaucracy combined with moral panic.

Getting a prescription is only half the battle. In the US, you can't have more than a month supply. Maybe you're lucky and your doctor realizes this so writes you a larger than necessary prescription, but for most vehicles (extended release) it's not an option. Many people horde a backup stash of pills. This means you have to get your prescription filled within a small window at the end of your previous supply if you…

> In the US, you can't have more than a month supply

I've met one doctor before who believed it. But after switching to a few other ones (not due to that, but due to circumstances like me moving states or, later on, my doctor doing the same), I dont think that's true.

Every single doctor I had since then was able to write prescriptions for 3 months supply (because they are required to evaluate the patient every 90 days before writing a refill prescription).

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