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Ask HN: How did an adult ADHD diagnosis help you?

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Re: Ask HN: How did an adult ADHD diagnosis help you?

#51

Post by ssharp »

I finally decided to talk to someone about this about two years ago, in my mid-30's. I was always able to achieve satisfactory results in school, work, etc. without have to dedicate myself too much. As I got older, it became clear to me that other people were able to focus substantially more than me for longer periods of time. The more I read up about Adult ADHD, the more it became very obvious that I had it.

I've found that adderrall, for me, has been very helpful and has not really produced any negative side-effects. I don't take it on the weekends and will skip a week or so every now and then, just to get a read on how I'm feeling without it.

One thing to keep in mind is to check your expectations. Normal stimulant dosing for treating ADHD is not going to make you limitless. Your mind will be able to stay more focused but you need to actively use that focus to start developing organizational frameworks that you can work within. Building these frameworks and habits and sticking to them was extremely difficult prior to medication but now that I have them, I find it much easier to skip the meds and still be able to be as productive as I want to be.

I would recommend you find someone who specializes in Adult ADHD, especially one that has experience dealing with otherwise competent professionals because they'll be able to help you make the most of your treatment.

Also, no matter how much you might beat yourself up over lot being able to live up to the standards you'd like, please be grateful for what you've accomplished even with your limits. Unfortunately a lot of people with untreated (and even treated) ADHD fall into vicious cycles of risky behavior and end up with crippling addictions to drugs, gambling, sex, and other dopamine-producing behaviors.

Re: Ask HN: How did an adult ADHD diagnosis help you?

#52

Post by hn8788 »

I was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, and unless it's actually having a negative impact on your life, I wouldn't bother trying to get it treated. I saw a therapist because I was really struggling with college, like taking an hour to read a single page in a textbook because I would get distracted and forget what I read.

Personally, my ritalin prescription makes me irritable so I take a reduced dose when I'm not actively working on things. My wife has told me that she prefers my personality when I don't take the medication.

Finally, and take this with a grain of salt because I'm not a doctor of any sort, but I don't think having ADHD is necessarily a problem, and is more a problem with how society expects people to spend their life sitting still and focusing on one thing all day.

Re: Ask HN: How did an adult ADHD diagnosis help you?

#53

Post by yakattak »

corobo wrote: post #2

I've been on medication for about a week now and I've not thought about offing myself once since starting. That seems dramatic but honestly that used to be the default go-to answer for any problem that couldn't be resolved within a day or so. Seems a bit excessive of a response to problems now.. It really looks like my depression might be rooted in undiagnosed ADHD. I can also if not properly focus on tasks at least…

Obviously different medications have different side effects, but I started taking fluoxetine (Prozac) over a year ago. The first 6-8 weeks were ROUGH. The mood swings were unbearable. It did even out after that and I’m stable now. The night sweats are real though, it’s annoying. My room can be 65° F and I’ll still get them.

Re: Ask HN: How did an adult ADHD diagnosis help you?

#54

Post by jedimastert »

Slightly different perspective: I was diagnosed as a child, but had assumed I had "mastered it" and went off meds and let it go for several years. What I've come to realize is that I've still had it, just that I've structured the parts of my life that I could around it and let other parts suffer for no real reason. That kind of fell apart (the rest of the way) when my wife had her second child and a few days before I was suppose to come back from paternity leave the my office shut down along with the rest of the world.

I had to come to terms with the fact that I had not grown out of it, I just subconsciously geared everything (my environment, the kind of work I took on and was good at, my compartmentalization) around it, and honestly not in a very healthy way.

(P.S. I just recently wrote a piece about my experience with ADHD and how it presents to me https://aarontag.dev/2021/05/13/adhd.html>)

Re: Ask HN: How did an adult ADHD diagnosis help you?

#55

Post by kmarc »

Living in Europe, my perception (AKA: anecdotal / unscientific / non-measured) is that most of the ADHD-diagnosed people I know live in the US, while I only know one European person in my network who received similar diagnosis from a professional psychiatrist. Counterintuitively, I know way more European people than Americans, which makes my perception feel even more skewed.

I very well know that my sample(ing method) could be wrong, it can be a coincidence, etc etc.

So my questions are:

* anyone else have similar experience in their friend circles?

* is there a higher number of ADHD diagnosis in tech / wealthy population? (considering that most of my American friends/colleagues are from tech, this would somewhat explain)

* do I miss something obvious? (e.g. maybe Europeans would never discuss their diagnosis with friends, etc.)

Re: Ask HN: How did an adult ADHD diagnosis help you?

#56

Post by nomadiccoder »

My doctor tells me that there is some theories that ADHD may be an evolutionary response to dangers in our environment. (like avoiding lions or being alerted to changes in weather) When I think about it this way I feel better about rejecting medications (or accepting them). Personally just understanding the pros/cons of ADHD has helped me identify some of my shortcomings. For example, I can focus for days on the wrong topic, so I need to be aware of this so I don't work on something unimportant and then get burned out. When I don't know the right thing to work on and break it into concrete steps I find myself unable to accomplish anything at all for days or weeks jumping from task to task every 5 mins.

So I suggest you explore this to learn about yourself so that you can take the newfound information to make the best steps toward your personal/career/etc goals. That may be disregarding everything they suggest and refusing treatment, but understanding more about yourself and how your mind works cant be a bad thing can it?

Re: Ask HN: How did an adult ADHD diagnosis help you?

#57

Post by Ensorceled »

adhdtemp wrote: post #42

Can you all recommend any science-based books/videos/etc that one could use to improve their ADHD?

There are a ton of resources, but unfortunately you'll have to sort of figure out which ones work for you as they all seem to have slightly different approaches and opinions.

Two good places to start (in my opinion), if they don't work for you, just move on:

How to ADHD youtube (aims younger but very positive): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-nPM1_kSZf91ZGkcgy_95Q

ADDitude Magazine: https://www.additudemag.com/ (they also have a YouTube channel)

Re: Ask HN: How did an adult ADHD diagnosis help you?

#58

Post by nomadiccoder »

kmarc wrote: post #55

Living in Europe, my perception (AKA: anecdotal / unscientific / non-measured) is that most of the ADHD-diagnosed people I know live in the US, while I only know one European person in my network who received similar diagnosis from a professional psychiatrist. Counterintuitively, I know way more European people than Americans, which makes my perception feel even more skewed. I very well know that my sample(ing method…

tech / wealthy people have more access to healthcare in the USA

Re: Ask HN: How did an adult ADHD diagnosis help you?

#60

Post by intpx »

hn8788 wrote: post #52

I was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, and unless it's actually having a negative impact on your life, I wouldn't bother trying to get it treated. I saw a therapist because I was really struggling with college, like taking an hour to read a single page in a textbook because I would get distracted and forget what I read. Personally, my ritalin prescription makes me irritable so I take a reduced dose when I'm not activ…

you may want to talk to your doctor about other options for medications. I'm not going to name names but there are much slower, longer acting meds that are precursor drugs that you metabolize into the drug, for example.
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