7 ms·

I'm lugging around an ADD diagnosis from my teenage years, complete with years of taking stimulants, followed by years of rejecting stimulants, and embracing se

I'm lugging around an ADD diagnosis from my teenage years, complete with years of taking stimulants, followed by years of rejecting stimulants, and embracing self-therapy, so I have plenty of opinions, as one could imagine. But I'd like to describe my own experience of what having ADD is like. Imagine a scheduler that has many tasks to schedule, and more incoming work than it can schedule in a timely fashion. The scheduler is designed to consider all tasks, but will give a higher priority to tasks that provide immediate feedback. A consequence of this design is that tasks which require a lot of time to complete, but provide little to no feedback until after the task is completed, are typically starved for resources. Often, they will never complete, or even start running. Well, that's basically how my brain worked before I started exerting control over it. I would flip from thought to thought, lingering on things that provided immediate feedback, like playing musical instruments or video games. Planning is a difficult task when your brain works that way. I had to consciously focus attention away from things that I was seemingly wired to fixate on. Even determined concentration was hampered by constant context switching, which I felt I had little control over. ADD is a chronic condition, and I still have to deal with this on a daily basis. But it has gotten easier. Luckily, I've been able to develop enough coping techniques to at least take care of myself. Most people who know me assume that I am very high functioning. As a software developer, I am pretty successful, and people equate that with intense concentration and process-oriented thinking. My own, inner world is far more chaotic than others could imagine!

farresito 9y ago
This really resonates with me, especially the constant context switching and only being able to do tasks that provide immediate reward. That said, I've always gotten the impression that this is something that a lot of people, with or without ADD, suffer from, probably exacerbated by the constant amount of information we are exposed to.
- mercer 9y ago
  Like most mental health 'disorders', it's often a matter of degree more than some clearly defined difference. That said, it's quite possible that 'we' as a society are becoming less capable of sustained focus and delayed gratification, and our constant mobile phone use, among other things, might play a role in that. It truly fascinates me how much phones in particular have changed our day to day behavior. I don't know if this is true, but I recall reading that many people check their phone, on average, every five minutes. While I hesitate to call that unhealthy, it's bound to have some kind of noticeable effect.
astral303 9y ago
Thank you for posting this, this is very much like my ADD head works.
GunlogAlm 9y ago
That's a really good analogy to use, and resonates with me a lot (ADHD-PI). Thanks for this, I'm going to use it.
julianpye 9y ago
Very good explanation. I liken the scheduler to an auto-pilot that takes over with irrelevant tasks and which needs to be interrupted and guided.
zamalek 9y ago
Dyslexic and ADD. I used to agree with the kind of theories that the article presents, but I started to seriously wonder whether it is these coping mechanisms that are the advantage. We are forced to overcompensate with perfect strategies.
40acres 9y ago
Can you describe some of your coping mechanisms? I've been really struggling w/ ADHD over the past year. It's hindered professional and personal goals but seems virtually impossible to fix.
- jacques_chester 9y ago
  I've found that simple stuff helps. For example: * Have a calendar at hand everywhere -- on your computer, on your phone, everywhere. Enter stuff into it immediately. Live and die by the calendar, because you will never remember things on your own. * Know what you're aiming to do on a day. Maybe you can cope with a to-do list, but speaking for myself they feel oppressive, like I am judging myself for all the things I've failed to do. But you can keep one thing in mind. * Email yourself! I bat tasks back and forth between my home and work emails, based on where I can act on them. * Exercise. It helps with a lot of things and research suggests it helps with ADHD as well. * It's the morning. You've made coffee. You should be preparing to do some exercise. Don't open the laptop or phone. I know you're going to "just check". Don't. Don't start, you won't stop. * When you learn about something that distracts you easily, either give up the addiction or accept the cost. I've pissed away thousands of hours of my life on websites like this one. I have mixed feelings about what I gained and lost. Right now I am noticing that Slack is becoming a problem for me. * Read books. Physical books lack the ability to open tabs or follow links. * Have times of day when you ignore things. At work I generally ignore messages on my phone. At home I ignore emails from work. In particular, there is no way for my work to reach me on my phone. No email, no slack, nothing. * Work in pairs! This has been phenomenal for me. * Do you take shorter-acting medication, like I do? Set an alarm for the doses you need later in the day. Left to my own devices I can easily sail past 2pm and then at 4pm wonder why the hellSQUIRREL I can't conCLANGcentrate on my wWIKIPEDIAork. * You will struggle with impulse buys. Rehearse in your mind what it will be like when you get the thing. Think about the regret of having given into the impulse. Even a few seconds of delay can break it. There are probably other coping mechanisms I don't realise are coping mechanisms. These are not enough by themselves. Not even close. Almost every one of these is only possible because I am taking ritalin, and every one of them is necessary because ritalin can't do everything by itself.
herbst 9y ago
This sounds a lot like me. After my inefficiency even drove me to a burnout. I redesigned my life to something that works for me. As software developer there are always more passive options that allow you to set your own schedule. It also allows to work remotely what keeps my head out of further depressive holes (not exactly ADD but often linked) by beeing able to experience new things and environments regularly. It's not perfect but it works better for me than any medication / job combination I tried so far.
jacques_chester 9y ago
I'd modify the analogy slightly. Imagine that the threads present themselves to the scheduler. They arise continuously and spontaneously. Most of them are not valuable and should be rejected wholesale. Now take away the scheduler. The threads come and go as they please. They wrestle away the execution time from each other. They spontaneously explode or implode. Nothing corrals them, nothing gives a policy for deciding which one to devote time and effort to. No matter how hard you lecture the CPUs for being lazy, it never changes the behaviour of unscheduled and unschedulable threads. But it sure can make you feel bad. You say you've been lugging around the diagnosis since being a teenager. I was diagnosed at 32. Medication has been liberating. I am able to just be and do with exhaustion, failure, misery and self-loathing.
- jgreer196 9y ago
  > I am able to just be and do with exhaustion, failure, misery and self-loathing. I have a very dear friend who has grappled with ADHD his entire life. A few years ago, we were talking on the phone when I asked him what the most troubling aspect of ADHD is for him, and his response was far different than what I was anticipating. For him, the one aspect that has been most debilitating is the constant self-doubt, self-loathing, and feelings of worthlessness that accompany. In a world where ADHD is viewed as a novelty disorder, stimulant abuse remains largely unchecked, and societal stigmas only serve to marginalize those afflicted, it's easy to understand why someone might feel this way.
  - goldenkey 9y ago
    I think part of the stigma is that ADHD is very hard to diagnose. And even people without ADHD can yield benefits from taking stimulants. For years, it was perpetuated that these drugs calm kids with ADHD down, but have a different effect on health people. Actually, the drugs do exactly the same thing in people whether they are hyperactive, have problems paying attention, or are healthy. They improve focus by increasing the levels of the neurotransmitters norepinephrine and dopamine in the prefrontal cortex, the front part of the brain that regulates attention and behavior. Basically, light that up and everything else gets controlled. But your heart still races. To get a little technical, here's an article from Neuropsychopharmacology: "For years, it was assumed that stimulants had paradoxical calming effects in ADHD patients, whereas stimulating 'normal' individuals and producing locomotor activation in rats. It is now known that low doses of stimulants focus attention and improve executive function in both normal and ADHD subjects. Furthermore, the seminal work of Kuczenski and Segal showed that low, oral doses of methylphenidate reduce locomotor activity in rats as well." Often you hear that if stimulants like Ritalin, Vyvanse, or Adderall help people stay calm, that means that they must have ADHD. This isn't true. These drugs will help anyone focus and pay attention. Giving stimulants to a kid with ADHD is more like giving a child with a learning disability more time on a test -- and advantage that might help anybody, but helps that child more -- than fixing his brain.
fre3k 9y ago
>Luckily, I've been able to develop enough coping techniques to at least take care of myself. I haven't unfortunately. Oh I've tried, in spurts and bursts, but I can never seem to make it stick. I always go back to that immediate reward cycle. It's really frustrating but I often feel simply incapable. I think it's co-morbid with an internet/computer/gaming addiction, which sucks because this is my job and hobby as well, but it's hard to pull myself away and do "maintenance tasks" as I call them.
- md224 9y ago
  I also have problems with falling into what I call “pleasure traps”... I like to envision my agency as movement along a landscape of discomfort, and I have a tendency to get sucked into steep local minima and have trouble getting out. I find it to be a very rich and evocative concept, and I’m curious if anyone else looks at human agency this way. And yes, I also was diagnosed with ADD and given stimulants as a child (and more recently, as an adult).

farresito 9y ago

This really resonates with me, especially the constant context switching and only being able to do tasks that provide immediate reward. That said, I've always gotten the impression that this is something that a lot of people, with or without ADD, suffer from, probably exacerbated by the constant amount of information we are exposed to.

mercer 9y ago
Like most mental health 'disorders', it's often a matter of degree more than some clearly defined difference. That said, it's quite possible that 'we' as a society are becoming less capable of sustained focus and delayed gratification, and our constant mobile phone use, among other things, might play a role in that. It truly fascinates me how much phones in particular have changed our day to day behavior. I don't know if this is true, but I recall reading that many people check their phone, on average, every five minutes. While I hesitate to call that unhealthy, it's bound to have some kind of noticeable effect.

astral303 9y ago

Thank you for posting this, this is very much like my ADD head works.

GunlogAlm 9y ago

That's a really good analogy to use, and resonates with me a lot (ADHD-PI). Thanks for this, I'm going to use it.

julianpye 9y ago

Very good explanation. I liken the scheduler to an auto-pilot that takes over with irrelevant tasks and which needs to be interrupted and guided.

zamalek 9y ago

Dyslexic and ADD. I used to agree with the kind of theories that the article presents, but I started to seriously wonder whether it is these coping mechanisms that are the advantage. We are forced to overcompensate with perfect strategies.

40acres 9y ago

Can you describe some of your coping mechanisms? I've been really struggling w/ ADHD over the past year. It's hindered professional and personal goals but seems virtually impossible to fix.

jacques_chester 9y ago
I've found that simple stuff helps. For example: * Have a calendar at hand everywhere -- on your computer, on your phone, everywhere. Enter stuff into it immediately. Live and die by the calendar, because you will never remember things on your own. * Know what you're aiming to do on a day. Maybe you can cope with a to-do list, but speaking for myself they feel oppressive, like I am judging myself for all the things I've failed to do. But you can keep one thing in mind. * Email yourself! I bat tasks back and forth between my home and work emails, based on where I can act on them. * Exercise. It helps with a lot of things and research suggests it helps with ADHD as well. * It's the morning. You've made coffee. You should be preparing to do some exercise. Don't open the laptop or phone. I know you're going to "just check". Don't. Don't start, you won't stop. * When you learn about something that distracts you easily, either give up the addiction or accept the cost. I've pissed away thousands of hours of my life on websites like this one. I have mixed feelings about what I gained and lost. Right now I am noticing that Slack is becoming a problem for me. * Read books. Physical books lack the ability to open tabs or follow links. * Have times of day when you ignore things. At work I generally ignore messages on my phone. At home I ignore emails from work. In particular, there is no way for my work to reach me on my phone. No email, no slack, nothing. * Work in pairs! This has been phenomenal for me. * Do you take shorter-acting medication, like I do? Set an alarm for the doses you need later in the day. Left to my own devices I can easily sail past 2pm and then at 4pm wonder why the hellSQUIRREL I can't conCLANGcentrate on my wWIKIPEDIAork. * You will struggle with impulse buys. Rehearse in your mind what it will be like when you get the thing. Think about the regret of having given into the impulse. Even a few seconds of delay can break it. There are probably other coping mechanisms I don't realise are coping mechanisms. These are not enough by themselves. Not even close. Almost every one of these is only possible because I am taking ritalin, and every one of them is necessary because ritalin can't do everything by itself.

herbst 9y ago

This sounds a lot like me. After my inefficiency even drove me to a burnout. I redesigned my life to something that works for me. As software developer there are always more passive options that allow you to set your own schedule. It also allows to work remotely what keeps my head out of further depressive holes (not exactly ADD but often linked) by beeing able to experience new things and environments regularly. It's not perfect but it works better for me than any medication / job combination I tried so far.

jacques_chester 9y ago

I'd modify the analogy slightly. Imagine that the threads present themselves to the scheduler. They arise continuously and spontaneously. Most of them are not valuable and should be rejected wholesale. Now take away the scheduler. The threads come and go as they please. They wrestle away the execution time from each other. They spontaneously explode or implode. Nothing corrals them, nothing gives a policy for deciding which one to devote time and effort to. No matter how hard you lecture the CPUs for being lazy, it never changes the behaviour of unscheduled and unschedulable threads. But it sure can make you feel bad. You say you've been lugging around the diagnosis since being a teenager. I was diagnosed at 32. Medication has been liberating. I am able to just be and do with exhaustion, failure, misery and self-loathing.

jgreer196 9y ago
> I am able to just be and do with exhaustion, failure, misery and self-loathing. I have a very dear friend who has grappled with ADHD his entire life. A few years ago, we were talking on the phone when I asked him what the most troubling aspect of ADHD is for him, and his response was far different than what I was anticipating. For him, the one aspect that has been most debilitating is the constant self-doubt, self-loathing, and feelings of worthlessness that accompany. In a world where ADHD is viewed as a novelty disorder, stimulant abuse remains largely unchecked, and societal stigmas only serve to marginalize those afflicted, it's easy to understand why someone might feel this way.
- goldenkey 9y ago
  I think part of the stigma is that ADHD is very hard to diagnose. And even people without ADHD can yield benefits from taking stimulants. For years, it was perpetuated that these drugs calm kids with ADHD down, but have a different effect on health people. Actually, the drugs do exactly the same thing in people whether they are hyperactive, have problems paying attention, or are healthy. They improve focus by increasing the levels of the neurotransmitters norepinephrine and dopamine in the prefrontal cortex, the front part of the brain that regulates attention and behavior. Basically, light that up and everything else gets controlled. But your heart still races. To get a little technical, here's an article from Neuropsychopharmacology: "For years, it was assumed that stimulants had paradoxical calming effects in ADHD patients, whereas stimulating 'normal' individuals and producing locomotor activation in rats. It is now known that low doses of stimulants focus attention and improve executive function in both normal and ADHD subjects. Furthermore, the seminal work of Kuczenski and Segal showed that low, oral doses of methylphenidate reduce locomotor activity in rats as well." Often you hear that if stimulants like Ritalin, Vyvanse, or Adderall help people stay calm, that means that they must have ADHD. This isn't true. These drugs will help anyone focus and pay attention. Giving stimulants to a kid with ADHD is more like giving a child with a learning disability more time on a test -- and advantage that might help anybody, but helps that child more -- than fixing his brain.

fre3k 9y ago

>Luckily, I've been able to develop enough coping techniques to at least take care of myself. I haven't unfortunately. Oh I've tried, in spurts and bursts, but I can never seem to make it stick. I always go back to that immediate reward cycle. It's really frustrating but I often feel simply incapable. I think it's co-morbid with an internet/computer/gaming addiction, which sucks because this is my job and hobby as well, but it's hard to pull myself away and do "maintenance tasks" as I call them.

md224 9y ago
I also have problems with falling into what I call “pleasure traps”... I like to envision my agency as movement along a landscape of discomfort, and I have a tendency to get sucked into steep local minima and have trouble getting out. I find it to be a very rich and evocative concept, and I’m curious if anyone else looks at human agency this way. And yes, I also was diagnosed with ADD and given stimulants as a child (and more recently, as an adult).