8 ms·

This article, like nearly every other article on the subject, is about _over_ diagnosis. Fine. But readers miss that overdiagnosis doesn't mean always wrong. An

This article, like nearly every other article on the subject, is about _over_ diagnosis. Fine. But readers miss that overdiagnosis doesn't mean always wrong. And it's important to remember that. It's easy to dismiss the value of these medicines if you've never felt saved by them. It's hard to understand how painful and frustrating it is for a child to not be able to complete an exam because when he gets a few words into a question he has to start over from the beginning again and again and again and again and again because the words just keep slipping away from him. It's hard to explain that, no, extra time doesn't actually mean a special edge against other children who don't have the same problem. It's hard feeling really bad at subjects that you're actually really good at because you can't keep your thoughts together. It's hard to walk out of an exam room crying because you can feel yourself starting to lose your grip. It's hard as an adult to say "this saved my life" to another adult who doesn't understand it. But it's just weird when adults who are perfectly happy to drug themselves on the regular for no other reason than because it feels good are like "yeah, but..." when there are kids out there who will gladly take negative side effects over the alternative.

sova 9y ago
I worked at an after school program for youth and there were children fewer than ten years old being diagnosed with ADHD which I believe has "adult" in the name. I don't think age 10 or any age before then is a meaningful time to diagnose, but mom did not complain because he was more calm and less of a frantic chaotic child (one of three) while she worked full time. Quite sad, yet I see the temptation for parents as well.
- jfaat 9y ago
  The A is for Attention, not Adult
- ycombinete 9y ago
  Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. No adult there.
Bucephalus355 9y ago
I was diagnosed with ADHD at 9 in the 3rd grade. My mother, who had a Masters in Early Childhood Education, brought me to a psychiatrist over the objections of my father. 25 years later I’m so glad she did and I’ve benefitted enormously. Ultimately I wound up with a combination of a stimulant medicine and a low dose anti-seizure medicine to take some of the edge off the stimulant (speaking fast, jumpy, etc). In the end, the experience has made me much more of a believer in psychiatry than psychotherapy. I never benefitted from that the few times psychiatrist I’ve had have requested me take it. If anything, going to confession / mass has helped more in the “non-medicine” stuff you can do.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
godzillabrennus 9y ago
What you describe is exactly how I learn. My parents intentionally kept me from taking meds for it. I nearly failed high school, and I dropped out of college. I often wonder how horrible my life would have been if I had done well in school and not pursued my dreams through entrepreneurship. I’m greatful every day that I get to live life riding the roller coaster of startup life. My personality is well suited to the insanity and chaos often brought to this kind of life. Had I been tempered by medication so the words stopped moving and I didn’t have to re-read I might never have learned how to learn.
- ycombinete 9y ago
  You should probably add extra bio about how you currently learn well, as the story you submitted makes it seem like you never really learned how to learn. More that you learned how to live with not being able to.
- BugsJustFindMe 9y ago
  I'm glad that you've managed to find success and be happy, but it's super weird (and statistically unsupported) to think that your life would be worse if you had done well in school.
  - trevyn 9y ago
    An unusually good life and doing poorly in school both seem correlated with an intolerance for bullshit. I feel like the raw statistics are a bit misleading here, because yes, on average, formal education improves outcomes. And I think most of us here are hardcore outliers, and have a passion for learning and self-development outside of a formal education context.
    - boomboomsubban 9y ago
      >And I think most of us here are hardcore outliers, and have a passion for learning and self-development outside of a formal education context. A passion for learning only helps if you learn useful things, and a child with ADHD will focus on what they find interesting. And I don't see how improving your ability to focus on uninteresting things would have held you back.
hnuser1234 9y ago
I'm sorry, but every time I read shit like this I have to wonder if I'm reading from some big pharma social media bot. Concerta doesn't magically give you attention abilities you didn't have before. It's a nervous system stimulant. It makes you neurotic, trapped in your own head. Maybe this makes it easier for some people to focus, but I have enough experience with it to explain why. It forces your attention from the world around you to your own mind. You will be more physically still and "studious", only because you are mentally struggling more. It makes you feel sick. Food seems abhorrent. You will eat a small fraction of what other kids your age eat, you will be below the 99th percentile in height and weight for your age and you will stay that way for the rest of your life. You will be paranoid and anxious, more than ever before the meds. When things are illogical, when you see other people make bad decisions that seem so simple to you, you will be ANGRY. You will be inhumanly smart, but you will be inhuman.
- huffmsa 9y ago
  Here's where anecdotes run into trouble. I experience mostly the opposite. I no longer need to lock myself away from the world in order to focus. I can have a single, main thread of thought and focus and allocate other threads for dealing with external information. I've always been good at synthesizing 5-6 bits at a time (smaller than average working memory), but now I can perform in the 7-9 bit range. I can start the alphabet from any point, without relying on my chunking heuristics from childhood. The food, yes, the frustrations with illogical decisions, yes. I'd never recommend the drugs to a child, just run them outside until they wear out, but for adults who have trouble keeping multiple plates spinning; yes, use science to overcome your random genealogical assignment.
  - manjushri 9y ago
    >yes, use science to overcome your random genealogical assignment. There is no proof that social disorders like ADHD/ADD are genetically deterministic. Which is why the diagnosis relies solely on social observations rather than biological tests. That is of course not to say that drugs can't enhance desired brain functions.
spodek 9y ago
The article quotes an expert who disagrees: > Dr. Allen Frances, professor emeritus at Duke University School of Medicine, the former chairman of its psychiatry department, and the chairman of the DSM-IV (1994) task force, feels the problem is not corruption but the slow creep of misinformation. "I know the people. They're not doing it for the drug companies—they really believe what they're doing is right. They really believe ADHD is underdiagnosed, and they want to help people who should be getting medication. I just think they're dead wrong."
goldenkey 9y ago
Let us just admit that amphetamines make people produce more output. But they pay for that, with a higher metabolic need, yet a reduced hunger, and a cold robotic mind space. Amphetamines help me to study. But they are nothing more than stimulants. Lets be frank, natural discipline is universal unless we are talking about brain damage. Rambunctious kids are far better off learning to deal with their lower-than-average focus, than take speed which basically stresses the body and wears it down, when these kids are growing. Its not a therepeutic drug - its a vice. Most of anyone who takes it, is not so unfocused as to be totally mired. Effort to discipline self is the right approach. I get your sentiment. I can say Adderall has helped me so much that I could get teary eyed. But thats only because I am too lazy and lack the willpower to discipline myself naturally. Speed is an easy way out of self improvement. The last thing we should do is put kids on it, and promote a life long cycle of helplessness and shortcuts to mental toughness through drugs.
- spiralx 9y ago
  > I get your sentiment. I can say Adderall has helped me so much that I could get teary eyed. But thats only because I am too lazy and lack the willpower to discipline myself naturally. Have you been diagnosed with ADHD? Do you even believe in ADHD? Your post seems to contain a lot of self-hatred, which is sad to read. As someone diagnosed at the age of 31 I have had a lot of time to reflect on my childhood and early experiences, and despite managing and in many ways thriving, medication earlier on would have made a lot of subtle differences that would have made things much easier over the course of my adult life. I've never experienced a "cold, robotic mind space" either :)
  - goldenkey 9y ago
    Amphetamine is a stimulant. Define the effects however you want to. Push out anecdotes that are pure BS, like "as you take it more, every day, you don't get as much heart rate increases." No shit, that's because you also aren't getting the other effects - its just simple tolerance, where all the effects decrease unless the dosage is increased. Stimulants are going to make anyone feel euphoric, have increased brain and body activity. If that's no longer happening for you, guess what, you have tolerance. To avoid rebound effects, you continue taking the low, ineffective maintanence dosage. Because if you stopped, you'd feel exactly the opposite for quite a while until your body detoxes from the addiction. Slow, sluggish, etc. This maintanence dose puts your body into the same state as if you weren't taking anything at all, if the physiological dependency were gone. Baseline. Amphetamines aren't somehow special for one person and not for another, lest we are talking about actual brain damage. They will make any person more apt to do mental and physical tasks. So keep on excusing the fact that you are doing a hard drug as a substitute for actually learning to learn. Being on speed your whole life is not a good thing. It's gross that this thread is being subverted to claim non-medical anecdotes about how gentle a hard drug is, and "once you get used to it, its no big deal!" It's fucking speed! Of course it makes you feel great and more energetic. Thats what stimulants do!
hackerman12345 9y ago
I often wonder if the 'overdiagnosis' simply comes from the scenario that society might benefit (in terms of productivity) if there was microdoses of ritalin (Vitamin R?) in the water. (not advocating for this...yet).
Spooky23 9y ago
The critique is that instead of fixing a root problem, square pegs are being forced into round holes. That's understandable when you're talking about air force pilots who need to stay focused on 12 hour missions with high sortie rates. IMO it's a different story when you're talking about kids dealing with daily life. I probably would have been on these meds if not for a teacher who became a mentor to me. He helped teach me how to study and other things that were enormously valuable to me, but never would have happened normally.

sova 9y ago

I worked at an after school program for youth and there were children fewer than ten years old being diagnosed with ADHD which I believe has "adult" in the name. I don't think age 10 or any age before then is a meaningful time to diagnose, but mom did not complain because he was more calm and less of a frantic chaotic child (one of three) while she worked full time. Quite sad, yet I see the temptation for parents as well.

jfaat 9y ago
The A is for Attention, not Adult
ycombinete 9y ago
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. No adult there.

Bucephalus355 9y ago

I was diagnosed with ADHD at 9 in the 3rd grade. My mother, who had a Masters in Early Childhood Education, brought me to a psychiatrist over the objections of my father. 25 years later I’m so glad she did and I’ve benefitted enormously. Ultimately I wound up with a combination of a stimulant medicine and a low dose anti-seizure medicine to take some of the edge off the stimulant (speaking fast, jumpy, etc). In the end, the experience has made me much more of a believer in psychiatry than psychotherapy. I never benefitted from that the few times psychiatrist I’ve had have requested me take it. If anything, going to confession / mass has helped more in the “non-medicine” stuff you can do.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

godzillabrennus 9y ago

What you describe is exactly how I learn. My parents intentionally kept me from taking meds for it. I nearly failed high school, and I dropped out of college. I often wonder how horrible my life would have been if I had done well in school and not pursued my dreams through entrepreneurship. I’m greatful every day that I get to live life riding the roller coaster of startup life. My personality is well suited to the insanity and chaos often brought to this kind of life. Had I been tempered by medication so the words stopped moving and I didn’t have to re-read I might never have learned how to learn.

ycombinete 9y ago
You should probably add extra bio about how you currently learn well, as the story you submitted makes it seem like you never really learned how to learn. More that you learned how to live with not being able to.
BugsJustFindMe 9y ago
I'm glad that you've managed to find success and be happy, but it's super weird (and statistically unsupported) to think that your life would be worse if you had done well in school.
- trevyn 9y ago
  An unusually good life and doing poorly in school both seem correlated with an intolerance for bullshit. I feel like the raw statistics are a bit misleading here, because yes, on average, formal education improves outcomes. And I think most of us here are hardcore outliers, and have a passion for learning and self-development outside of a formal education context.
  - boomboomsubban 9y ago
    >And I think most of us here are hardcore outliers, and have a passion for learning and self-development outside of a formal education context. A passion for learning only helps if you learn useful things, and a child with ADHD will focus on what they find interesting. And I don't see how improving your ability to focus on uninteresting things would have held you back.

hnuser1234 9y ago

I'm sorry, but every time I read shit like this I have to wonder if I'm reading from some big pharma social media bot. Concerta doesn't magically give you attention abilities you didn't have before. It's a nervous system stimulant. It makes you neurotic, trapped in your own head. Maybe this makes it easier for some people to focus, but I have enough experience with it to explain why. It forces your attention from the world around you to your own mind. You will be more physically still and "studious", only because you are mentally struggling more. It makes you feel sick. Food seems abhorrent. You will eat a small fraction of what other kids your age eat, you will be below the 99th percentile in height and weight for your age and you will stay that way for the rest of your life. You will be paranoid and anxious, more than ever before the meds. When things are illogical, when you see other people make bad decisions that seem so simple to you, you will be ANGRY. You will be inhumanly smart, but you will be inhuman.

huffmsa 9y ago
Here's where anecdotes run into trouble. I experience mostly the opposite. I no longer need to lock myself away from the world in order to focus. I can have a single, main thread of thought and focus and allocate other threads for dealing with external information. I've always been good at synthesizing 5-6 bits at a time (smaller than average working memory), but now I can perform in the 7-9 bit range. I can start the alphabet from any point, without relying on my chunking heuristics from childhood. The food, yes, the frustrations with illogical decisions, yes. I'd never recommend the drugs to a child, just run them outside until they wear out, but for adults who have trouble keeping multiple plates spinning; yes, use science to overcome your random genealogical assignment.
- manjushri 9y ago
  >yes, use science to overcome your random genealogical assignment. There is no proof that social disorders like ADHD/ADD are genetically deterministic. Which is why the diagnosis relies solely on social observations rather than biological tests. That is of course not to say that drugs can't enhance desired brain functions.

spodek 9y ago

The article quotes an expert who disagrees: > Dr. Allen Frances, professor emeritus at Duke University School of Medicine, the former chairman of its psychiatry department, and the chairman of the DSM-IV (1994) task force, feels the problem is not corruption but the slow creep of misinformation. "I know the people. They're not doing it for the drug companies—they really believe what they're doing is right. They really believe ADHD is underdiagnosed, and they want to help people who should be getting medication. I just think they're dead wrong."

goldenkey 9y ago

Let us just admit that amphetamines make people produce more output. But they pay for that, with a higher metabolic need, yet a reduced hunger, and a cold robotic mind space. Amphetamines help me to study. But they are nothing more than stimulants. Lets be frank, natural discipline is universal unless we are talking about brain damage. Rambunctious kids are far better off learning to deal with their lower-than-average focus, than take speed which basically stresses the body and wears it down, when these kids are growing. Its not a therepeutic drug - its a vice. Most of anyone who takes it, is not so unfocused as to be totally mired. Effort to discipline self is the right approach. I get your sentiment. I can say Adderall has helped me so much that I could get teary eyed. But thats only because I am too lazy and lack the willpower to discipline myself naturally. Speed is an easy way out of self improvement. The last thing we should do is put kids on it, and promote a life long cycle of helplessness and shortcuts to mental toughness through drugs.

spiralx 9y ago
> I get your sentiment. I can say Adderall has helped me so much that I could get teary eyed. But thats only because I am too lazy and lack the willpower to discipline myself naturally. Have you been diagnosed with ADHD? Do you even believe in ADHD? Your post seems to contain a lot of self-hatred, which is sad to read. As someone diagnosed at the age of 31 I have had a lot of time to reflect on my childhood and early experiences, and despite managing and in many ways thriving, medication earlier on would have made a lot of subtle differences that would have made things much easier over the course of my adult life. I've never experienced a "cold, robotic mind space" either :)
- goldenkey 9y ago
  Amphetamine is a stimulant. Define the effects however you want to. Push out anecdotes that are pure BS, like "as you take it more, every day, you don't get as much heart rate increases." No shit, that's because you also aren't getting the other effects - its just simple tolerance, where all the effects decrease unless the dosage is increased. Stimulants are going to make anyone feel euphoric, have increased brain and body activity. If that's no longer happening for you, guess what, you have tolerance. To avoid rebound effects, you continue taking the low, ineffective maintanence dosage. Because if you stopped, you'd feel exactly the opposite for quite a while until your body detoxes from the addiction. Slow, sluggish, etc. This maintanence dose puts your body into the same state as if you weren't taking anything at all, if the physiological dependency were gone. Baseline. Amphetamines aren't somehow special for one person and not for another, lest we are talking about actual brain damage. They will make any person more apt to do mental and physical tasks. So keep on excusing the fact that you are doing a hard drug as a substitute for actually learning to learn. Being on speed your whole life is not a good thing. It's gross that this thread is being subverted to claim non-medical anecdotes about how gentle a hard drug is, and "once you get used to it, its no big deal!" It's fucking speed! Of course it makes you feel great and more energetic. Thats what stimulants do!

hackerman12345 9y ago

I often wonder if the 'overdiagnosis' simply comes from the scenario that society might benefit (in terms of productivity) if there was microdoses of ritalin (Vitamin R?) in the water. (not advocating for this...yet).

Spooky23 9y ago

The critique is that instead of fixing a root problem, square pegs are being forced into round holes. That's understandable when you're talking about air force pilots who need to stay focused on 12 hour missions with high sortie rates. IMO it's a different story when you're talking about kids dealing with daily life. I probably would have been on these meds if not for a teacher who became a mentor to me. He helped teach me how to study and other things that were enormously valuable to me, but never would have happened normally.