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

Mental illness, attention deficit disorder, and suffering

blog.plover.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 359 posts

Re: Mental illness, attention deficit disorder, and suffering

#311

Post by hirvi74 »

cbfrench wrote: post #185
hirvi74 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I bounced around different medicine until i found the right one and dosage for me How did you know you hit the mark when you found it? I have been trying for the greater part of a decade, and I think there are only two possible explanations at this point: 1. I am one of the x% of people that medications do not work /as well/ for. 2. I have too high of expectations of the effects of the medications. Doctors have bee…

I honestly think it’s probably 2. I’m on 36mg of Concerta and .2mg of Clonidine. The combo has helped with my mood regulation, working memory, attention, and (to a much lesser extent) my motivation. But it’s not a cure-all. I feel like it helps me to get to Everest base camp, but I still have to climb the damn mountain. My wife is a litigator, and I am daily made very aware of the differences in our ability to organi…

I think you are right. It's taken me many years and many bouts of trial and error to come to that conclusion.

> I feel like it helps me to get to Everest base camp, but I still have to climb the damn mountain.

I feel like I can climb the mountain most days, but I can't get to the base camp to get started. I've actually considered if there is something else lurking in the shadows like Sleep Apnea or something else? I just know I have an odd issue where no matter when I take the meds, they do not work until around 1:00/2:00 in the afternoon. I have no idea why -- maybe I need to build a base level for them to start working? Doctors think it's highly unusual, but seem to offer little to no advice past that point.

> I’ve found that medication will get you to a baseline ability to function

I will say, it does wonders for my physical hyperactive symptoms, but it does tend to make me talk faster (I've always talked fast to begin with) and I tend to want to talk more/longer. It's nice to not have to pace and bounce around all the time.

Still, I have noticed I tend to feel a bit more impatient in someways -- like I doubt I could sit down and just read a book. I'd still get bored or distracted and feel compelled to do something more stimulating as my mind tends to feel a bit overclocked.

> If you aren’t already familiar with the work of Russell Barkley

I am familiar with him. I do respect the work he has done, but I also have some qualms with him. I feel like he tends to overemphasis the effects of medication, and it feels kind of odd coming from him since according to his Wiki, "He has been a paid consultant, for pharmaceutical companies including Eli Lilly, McNeil, Janssen-Orth, Janssen-Cilag, Novartis, Shire, Takeda pharmaceuticals, and Theravance."

I do appreciate his research and opinions, and I think he means well, but just because he is the leading researcher in the field does not mean he cannot be incorrect about some things.

Re: Mental illness, attention deficit disorder, and suffering

#312

Post by hirvi74 »

Bedon292 wrote: post #281
hirvi74 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I bounced around different medicine until i found the right one and dosage for me How did you know you hit the mark when you found it? I have been trying for the greater part of a decade, and I think there are only two possible explanations at this point: 1. I am one of the x% of people that medications do not work /as well/ for. 2. I have too high of expectations of the effects of the medications. Doctors have bee…

I am still dialing things in myself, but a few things I have noted so far. On one I was able to notice just over 8 hour after taking it every day a behavior change back to being on my phone and distracted. It meant something was working at least. And I have a few times, though definitely not regularly, where I can just sit there and be in the moment. Not thinking about work, not wanting to google some random thing I…

> On one I was able to notice just over 8 hour after taking it every day a behavior change back to being on my phone and distracted.

I still do this even while medicated. Except, it can actually worse because I can focus on distractions longer than I normally would have pre-medication.

Re: Mental illness, attention deficit disorder, and suffering

#313

Post by hirvi74 »

photojosh wrote: post #163
hirvi74 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the GP, but times I find it helpful: 1. When high levels of energy or reaction are required e.g. sports and games where reaction speed and/or impulsivity is advantageous. I have been told on multiple occasions when I have been in emergency situations with others, that I do not tend to "Freeze up" like many others do. 2. High stress environments -- When it gets down to "Fire and Brimstone" time, I can develop a "h…

hirvi, this is brilliant and so relateable, so thank you. Mine are very similar, but I would add with respect to your points... 1. Yes, but I also have to know that I am the one in charge... otherwise I will not take charge, but I will be ready to be told exactly what to do, and THAT I will do very quickly. [see A below] 2. Also yes, and true for software development too, but it makes the long burn so difficult. Give…

Thank you, and I greatly appreciate your comment as well.

1. I can sympathize.

2. I am software engineer that has and currently played various extreme sports, so there is probably a strong correlation lol.

3. I don't have enough bandwidth to implement thing sometimes when the RAM is maxed out and I do not have any Swap Space.

4. Makes sense. My family was predominantly in the medical field and they constantly would have to talk with lonely and/or bored patients all the time. So, you are probably on to something.

> "intellectualise social interaction" rings a bell

I tried to search for what this meant, but I found a few differing ideas that I didn't know which one to attribute to what you meant. Do you mind elaborating?

I do tend to talk fast and talk a lot. It used to get me in a lot of trouble in school growing up because I would basically talk non-stop (wasn't diagnosed or treated during those times). I still talk a lot, but I have grown out of a lot of it.

I have sound sensitivity issues like misphonia and I hate going to concerts despite being a musician at one time due to how painful I find the volume. If I go, I have to wear earplugs or I find it physically painful to be a setting that loud. Same thing with small engine devices like chainsaws and other machinery.

I do not think I have co-morbid Autism, but if I do not, then I probably missed a good chance -- then again, there is probably symptom overlaps between the two.

Re: Mental illness, attention deficit disorder, and suffering

#314

Post by hirvi74 »

FollowingTheDao wrote: post #291
hirvi74 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

> There is no doubt that stress plays a large role. Remember, it is nature AND nurture.

I also should add, that I do not mean just mental stress, but other environmental stressors too. All I am going to say is that I find it odd that in my rural area in the Southeast, USA all of my childhood school friends (7 or so of us) that lived within say... a 3 mile radius of me all have or could meet the criteria for ADHD. Of course, it could be coincidental, but you never know.

> But probably the most important part you have left out is diet.

I could believe this to some degree. I have other health issues (autoimmune) that I think are impacted by diet, but I cannot place my finger on it exactly. Weather e.g. cold, dry air also as strong negative effect compared to more humid and hot summers. Though, I do not think that weather effects ADHD, for me at least.

My issue with supplements are that you have no idea what you are getting or what is in them. The only one I take is vitamin D, and I have taken things like fish oil in the past, but I never noticed any differences. Was the fish oil spoiled? Was it of good quality? Any harmful contaminants in the liquid? I have no idea, and I feel like it's basically just a game of trust, since none of the supplements are regulated in my country.

Re: Mental illness, attention deficit disorder, and suffering

#315

Post by themacguffinman »

faeriechangling wrote: post #274
themacguffinman wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearly half of US adults (age 20+) are estimated to have refractive errors in their vision [1], which would be a vision disorder. Other estimates I've found are even higher, with more than half of adults needing corrective eyewear. Is that swathe too huge for this demonstrably defective vision to be a disability? Is our society being condescending by inculcating the value of non-defective eyesight? Not every disorder…

>ADHD is heritable Doesn't make it a disorder. >But 70 - 80% of children quickly show improvements in response to stimulant therapy very quickly. They also show improvements if they don't have diagnosed ADHD and take the drugs, as I've already cited. This says more about the drugs than the medical model of ADHD. >That's worth a try for such a debilitating condition that sees a third of its patients drop out of high s…

Studies show that if you don't have ADHD, stimulants don't actually improve your school performance. This has been trialed, it does not beat placebo [1]. The very study you cited [2] shows that at best, there's some evidence it improves performance in rote memory tasks in patients without ADHD, not the complex memory usually needed for academic achievement (the study literature explicitly point this out, this is not just my own speculation). There's a significant difference between how it affects ADHD and non-ADHD patients.

Low academic achievement is a huge handicap in modern society whether you or psychologists like it or not.

And it's not just low academic achievement. Executive function impairment cuts across so many things. Expect huge elevated risks in teenage pregnancies, poverty & debt from financial mismanagement, divorces, inability to hold a job, violent conflict and arrests. Expect an overall life expectancy 13 - 20 years lower than the average.

Go ahead, thumb your nose at societal expectations, it won't change the measurably worse life outcomes experienced by those with ADHD. That's what makes it a disorder.

[1] https://chadd.org/adhd-weekly/dont-have-adhd-meds-wont-impro...

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3489818/

Re: Mental illness, attention deficit disorder, and suffering

#316

Post by hirvi74 »

kanbara wrote: post #213
hirvi74 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> causes significant disturbance in behavior, emotion, and cognition According to other people. What if I think my behavior or emotions are appropriate or justified? The people that are not like me get to tell me how I should be? Seems kind of sick to me. What about the opposite? Are the people that lack disturbances in behavior, emotion, and cognition really that much better off? Regardless, they are definitely acce…

there are no longterm effects of amphetamine use at therapeutic dosages, that's fake news. i hate capitalism as much as the next guy (i'm literally a socialist) but i still want to be successful, have healthy relationships, plan events in my life appropriately, and not let people down by inaction, forgetfulness, or social outbursts. fwiw i'm hugely successful and was even without medication excelling in my field and…

> there are no longterm effects of amphetamine use at therapeutic dosages, that's fake news.

Sure, I would agree they are not common, but that doesn't mean they do not exist. Not to mention we only know what we know, and we do not know what we do not know.

Other than potential cardiac and vascular issues, albeit rare, researchers are still debating whether the stimulant medications cause an increase in Parkinson's and Parkinson's-like disorders.

> there is 100% a utility in it for some.

Sure, I won't disagree. I still take mine, but it's more of a "it's better than nothing" but I question if the efficacy is as strong as many anecdotes report. Especially after longterm usage. I'll see if I can find the study, but it was some sort of meta-analysis and tracked various children-aged students across a 7 years or so long timespan. Based on the researchers' observations, the medications greatly improved the symptoms of the youth for the first year or so, but around the 7 year mark, the students were back to baseline levels symptoms.

I'm not sharing this to be the 'come all, end all' of the debate of medication intervention. I just remember being told and having read on numerous occasions that, "you gain a tolerance to the feeling of the medication, but not to the therapeutic effects" but I do not believe it. Tolerance is tolerance at least in my experience.

Re: Mental illness, attention deficit disorder, and suffering

#317

Post by GavinMcG »

aahortwwy wrote: post #175
GavinMcG wrote: post #16

The author really does not do a great job, here, at least in saying something sensible as a response to DeBoer's piece. The core premise seems to be that: > I find it so very irritating that there is no term for my so-called ⸢attention deficit disorder⸣ that does not have the word “disorder” baked into it. I know what a disorder is, and this isn't one. But the author then argues against a strawman: > Why does any dev…

> the diagnostic criteria for ADHD and many other disorders require that the deviation amount to a disorder rather than not interfering with someone's life. > interfering with someone's life The specific phrase used in the DSM-V is: "symptoms interfere with or reduce the quality of social, academic, or occupational functioning". Schooling started to become compulsory in the USA in the mid-to-late 19th century, and re…

That's a convenient explanation, but it doesn't account for the emotional dysregulation that accompanies ADHD. And it's historically dead wrong: symptom clusters associated with ADHD were described as early as 1798, and were identified in the 1800s outside the school context.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3000907/

Re: Mental illness, attention deficit disorder, and suffering

#318

Post by daniel-cussen »

I am open about my diagnosis of ADD, as are some doctors with ADD who see a doctor for their ADD.

This man, there is nothing wrong with. It is the world around him that's wrong. And apparently it's a clock speed thing, that's an actual scientific conclusion I'm arriving to, and talking with doctors about how to measure with high precision. It's literally, literally, literally the beat of a different drummer, fewer Hertz, and if he did go somewhere with more people like him it would not only be much better, he would both be much more liked and like those around him more (which is reinforcing), people would return him his lost belongings, his defeats would be many fewer, and...I divine his depression would vanish.

Re: Mental illness, attention deficit disorder, and suffering

#319

Post by BizarroLand »

colechristensen wrote: post #3

The diagnostic criteria for mental illness is, to simplify, that an aspect of your mind causes significant problems. If it doesn’t, as the author’s attention seems not to, then you probably shouldn’t be diagnosed with the disorder. Comparing yourself, when you have mild characteristics in common with a diagnosis and then saying it’s not so bad is perhaps not so helpful to those who do struggle with it.

ADD and ADHD have 5 sub-symptoms of varying impairment, with varying degrees of severity.

If you're diagnosed ADD/ADHD you can have a wide variety of direct and secondary side effects for which treatments can improve your success and quality of life, and it's not very kind to dismiss their experiences regardless of what other people are going through.

Gatekeeping a diagnosed disorder is mega cringe.

Re: Mental illness, attention deficit disorder, and suffering

#320

Post by luckydata »

davidktr wrote: post #254
luckydata wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ADD is just old terminology. You have ADHD, and you should read up on some updated science cause you got some very weird, very wrong ideas about your own condition. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33549739/

You told someone with AD(H)D to read that document to get a better idea about attention deficit disorder? You cannot be serious.

I also have ADHD, I can read it fine. Would a better presentation help? For sure. But we're not stupid or incapable of performing simple tasks.
Post reply on HN