9 ms·

The thing that most (if not all) people who have ADHD want is to be normal. This works against them, similar to other people with disabilities, in that asking f

The thing that most (if not all) people who have ADHD want is to be normal. This works against them, similar to other people with disabilities, in that asking for accomodations feels like admitting defeat. Like you will never make progress in your lifelong struggle. Like you have an incurable disease. While it's cool that workplaces can make such accomodations if requested, it would just be better for fucking everyone if these were available to everyone. That's the real problem with being disabled: you're treated abnormally. Sure, there will always be exceptions, but just recognize humans are not fungible, and be kind. Don't make folks lives harder than they already are.

axljjn 5y ago
As someone that is disabled, I feel like you’re hitting the most important points, but maybe generalizing a little about wanting to be treated normal. More often than not, people have to accept the realities of their disabilities and not being treated normal is absolutely necessary for them to succeed. As for how to go about it, your last words are right on the mark. > … be kind. Don’t make folks lives harder than they already are. I’d add that if they don’t approach their manager/employer about accommodations, their superior should be very careful about how they offer assistance. It really shouldn’t be more than “Hey are you comfortable with your work environment? Is there anything I can do to help you be efficient?” And if they say no, that’s it. Say they can reach out anytime and you’re done.
- colechristensen 5y ago
  “How can we make your work environment better?” is a question everyone should be asked from time to time.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
colechristensen 5y ago
The thing is that being ADHD is normal. Many people are just maladapted to the work and life style prevalent in city/office living. Instead of the person being broken, it can well be the environment that is.
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  Maybe a better question is "in what jobs is an ADHD personality not a problem, or even an advantage?".
  - eyelidlessness 5y ago
    Any kind of creative pursuit (where creating is in the eye of the creator) where they’re free to hyperfocus and given relief when that’s exhausting. We (with ADHD) are notoriously productive to the point of severe exhaustion or burnout when we’re working on what we care about or can get motivated to care about.
- xyzzy_plugh 5y ago
  No. It is not normal. Forget about work for a second. I have people who depend on me. I am responsible for their livelihoods. I have to get rest, wake in the morning, do chores, shower and groom myself -- you get the idea. What's the alternative? That's not a world I want to live in. A thought experiment I use often is: imagine I hired a personal assistant to help me with mundane tasks I struggle with. They start and take that burden off of me. Is this a good thing? Am I going to be able to improve or overcome my disability now that someone is doing that for me? Imagine that the personal assistant is a volume knob. Why would I never have that knob turned all the way up? Could I even bring myself to do it? If I could, where would I set it? Other than the extremes, what is the healthiest volume? I know what would help, and I know what I need to improve, but finding a balance is next to impossible.
  - solarkraft 5y ago
    There's the theory (I have no links and don't know how prevalent it is) that people with what we now call ADHD used to be the hunters in their tribes. For that it may have been a great trait to be able to both quickly notice many small details and also be able to zero in on something specifically interesting for a long time. Then again it can be said for many things.
brian_cunnie 5y ago
> That's the real problem with being disabled: you're treated abnormally. That's not been my experience: I've been treated normally. I have not one but two disabilities: I'm an alcoholic/drug addict, and I'm a diabetic. I'm upfront about them, and people don't seem to care--they treat me the same as everyone else. My take is that most people are so self-absorbed that they don't spend many cycles worrying about everyone else.
- xwolfi 5y ago
  Well they would if it would impact either them or the work. Being diabetic is frankly uninteresting, it's not clear how your work output would be ever damaged by it (until you reach a crisis and need to be out for weeks, then you'd see people care A LOT). For the alcoholic, drug addiction, I suppose you're recovering and not currently injecting heroin at work, so I suppose it's the same: as long as you just say it and show no particular behavioral impact, what do you expect people to do ? It's not like they'll spit at you for having paid drug cartels or overly help you and bring you coffee more often as a sign of pity. Again, bring a needle at work and start injecting and see how they are so self-absorbed they don't care :)
  - eyelidlessness 5y ago
    This is an exceedingly uncaring response to someone who expressed being disabled by their addiction and by their diabetes. In particular I hope in the future you will not encourage people to bring their acknowledged addiction to work for attention.
wombatmobile 5y ago
Yeah, ADHD is a difference to non-ADHD, but that doesn't make it a disability. It's just a different mode of thought, in the same way that introversion and extroversion are different modes of thought. Most people in fact have periods of introversion and extroversion, and surely modes of attention are not fixed or static in people either. Which mode is an "ability" and which is a "disability"? The question is ill conceived. A friend noted that ADHD is probably over-represented in the arts. That's because in the arts (but not exclusively), you need different modes of thought and action to get things done. A classic example is the arts festival, which is a collection of artistic performances over a period of time, organised around a theme, embracing different modalities of production such as dance, theatre, music, visual arts, poetry and more. Arts festivals typically have two executives in charge - Artistic Director - Responsible for finding the creative acts for the festival that will convey the theme. e.g. Burning Man has confirmed the theme for its 2022 edition, Waking Dreams. Organisers have said the theme will "explore the transformative power of dreams, both literal and figurative, and celebrate the dreamers who channel this potent energy in eye-opening, often surrealistic, sometimes life-changing ways". That's not something you can get a tech CEO or accountant or board of directors to pull off. You need some crazy, connected creative genius to frequent 1,000 bars, alleys, galleries and theatres over 12 months to find the talent and curate it into a festival. The other executive who makes the arts festival work is a completely different hat - the Program Director. This is the adult in the room; the super clerk, the master accountant, the disciplined project manager who works the spreadsheet and the gantt chart to make sure what the Artistic Director has chosen can be paid for with the budget and delivered on time. You need both executives to produce an effective arts festival. But the Artistic Director position is less of a discipline that can be described algorithmically and more of an art form itself. To really pull off a great arts festival, you need a hurricane supernova of an Artistic Director who will be impossible to control, will drive his colleagues a little crazy, especially the Program Director, but who will find the most unexpected genius in the most obscure artists who together will combine to deliver an experience that moves the audience and uncovers thoughts and feelings that nobody knew were there to be had. And of course, without the Program Director, there's no way all those artists will be paid because the budget will be exceeded by a factor of 10, and the gantt chart will be spaghetti mashed pototoes Jackson Pollock disaster. But the two of them together, and an army of clerks, interns, admins, techs, and junior ADHD creatives might just pull off the festival of a lifetime.
artdigital 5y ago
Yes. I have ADHD and would never ever tell anyone in my workplace, especially my superiors. I don't want special treatment and I fully know that it would affect my chances of advancing into more leadership roles, because who would trust someone with a job who has a tendency to miss small things, be unorganized and other stigma. (If I were the decision-maker I sure as hell wouldn't) Yes it's hard for me and I often struggle, but I still feel great for bettering myself and powering through. Medicine is helping a lot for leveling the field, and ADHD hyperfocus can be surprisingly powerful for coding-related tasks.
- girvo 5y ago
  Only reason my boss knows is that he also has it and told me first lol. A solid 50+% of my office have diagnosed ADHD. Like finds like I suppose!
  - artdigital 5y ago
    It's ironic that a common trait of ADHD is oversharing, so usually it's us having this urge to tell people first that we have it, rather than them asking
  - taneq 5y ago
    Reminds me of that meme about neurodivergent people 'running in packs like poorly emotionally regulated wolves'. ;)
- xwolfi 5y ago
  But how would you describe to someone who is not diagnosed ? I have a child and would like to know signs: everything I read seems very normal, including that article. Like ofc it's better to transfer idiotic phone calls, block noise when focusing, not multitasking (multitasking is not even a thing, it can't be done, I've never seen it done perfectly, there's always a mistake made at some point even by the highest boss), or working from home in a controlled environment. Very honestly, I've always believed ADHD was something they told little kids they had so their parents wouldn't constantly scold them for being distracted by normal things and that would then scar them for life with a sickness... everybody has. The only thing that makes me believe it exists is I know I can focus monstruously for something very important, and I feel ADHD would prevent someone to even focus on something important ... but this article seems to say it's also possible, so...
eyelidlessness 5y ago
I’m frequently the odd one out in these conversations but: I don’t want ADHD to be treated as normal. I don’t want it to be treated as not-a-disability. I want it to have intentional accommodations. I want to be recognized and acknowledged as someone with distinct challenges. I have distinct challenges that I have to address, every day. Normalizing many of them can create more confusion than understanding. For example, I’m intensely sensitive to sound. A non-ADHD person sensitive to sound in say a shared office would surely benefit from noise canceling headphones. But I’m also very touch sensitive particularly on and around my ears, and that often gives me headaches. A general accommodation for this not only could but has basically left me unaccommadated. Be kind and don’t make folks lives harder is a good principle. But sometimes acknowledging people have different needs and experiences is part of that. This isn’t meant as a rebuttal of anything you’ve said, it’s a “yes and” more than anything. But I want it to be part of this conversation too.
- xyzzy_plugh 5y ago
  I couldn't agree more.
- sh4un 5y ago
  We need to demand equal representation of ADHD people in politics, media and in the boardroom. We're in oppressive times folks. Non ADHD people shoudlnt be running everything.
  - eyelidlessness 5y ago
    We need to demand more than that. All of those venues don’t have enough seats to be representative, even if you consider one seat per representation.
  - hypersoar 5y ago
    I'd bet that there are plenty of politicians with ADHD who don't talk about it. Just as there are certainly plenty of politicians with personality disorders who don't talk about it.
  - lazide 5y ago
hericium 5y ago
> The thing that most (if not all) people who have ADHD want is to be normal. Another viewpoint: ADHD can be as much a blessing as a challenge. Well-handled ADHD seems better to me than being neurotypical.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
reil_convnet 5y ago
What I have realized overtime is that desire to be normal just causes stress. One needs to admit that they are different from others and they will have to play the game [life] with the cards they are dealt with. ADHD is no disability IMO, but different enough from normal people to become very incompatible. Just this acceptance to oneself relieves a lot of stress. But it comes with some experience and I guess most ADHD people would just feel inadequate during teenage and in university. Its horrible when you feel there is so much to do and you cannot accomplish most of it. Its only when you find/realize that there are people who would treat over-accomplishment in some aspects as a fair trade to be not able to be good at everything. Workspaces/Life Partners/Friends -- not everyone will work with ADHD people. They need to understand that they will have to spend parts of their life experimenting and finding a environment where they are valued. I guess that is the cost of being different in anyway.
LittleBox 5y ago
A lot of people seem to be disagreeing with you but I definitely agree with what you said. I too have ADHD and I hate it when I see it being treated as a crippling disability. It's really not. ADHD is much more common than people would think. As for everyone, people with ADHD learn to cope with their weaknesses and play into their strengths. For a person with ADHD it's about finding what works and doesn't work for them, not about shaping the entire world around them to make them fit. It will only make them feel worse. I learned to do it and I'm seen as a respected member of my team today. I am seen as somewhat of a quirky oddball too though with how I always do things, but nothing that can't be solved by just being positive and laughing with your colleagues. They'll treat you with respect.

axljjn 5y ago

As someone that is disabled, I feel like you’re hitting the most important points, but maybe generalizing a little about wanting to be treated normal. More often than not, people have to accept the realities of their disabilities and not being treated normal is absolutely necessary for them to succeed. As for how to go about it, your last words are right on the mark. > … be kind. Don’t make folks lives harder than they already are. I’d add that if they don’t approach their manager/employer about accommodations, their superior should be very careful about how they offer assistance. It really shouldn’t be more than “Hey are you comfortable with your work environment? Is there anything I can do to help you be efficient?” And if they say no, that’s it. Say they can reach out anytime and you’re done.

colechristensen 5y ago
“How can we make your work environment better?” is a question everyone should be asked from time to time.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

colechristensen 5y ago

The thing is that being ADHD is normal. Many people are just maladapted to the work and life style prevalent in city/office living. Instead of the person being broken, it can well be the environment that is.

BurningFrog 5y ago
Maybe a better question is "in what jobs is an ADHD personality not a problem, or even an advantage?".
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
  Any kind of creative pursuit (where creating is in the eye of the creator) where they’re free to hyperfocus and given relief when that’s exhausting. We (with ADHD) are notoriously productive to the point of severe exhaustion or burnout when we’re working on what we care about or can get motivated to care about.
xyzzy_plugh 5y ago
No. It is not normal. Forget about work for a second. I have people who depend on me. I am responsible for their livelihoods. I have to get rest, wake in the morning, do chores, shower and groom myself -- you get the idea. What's the alternative? That's not a world I want to live in. A thought experiment I use often is: imagine I hired a personal assistant to help me with mundane tasks I struggle with. They start and take that burden off of me. Is this a good thing? Am I going to be able to improve or overcome my disability now that someone is doing that for me? Imagine that the personal assistant is a volume knob. Why would I never have that knob turned all the way up? Could I even bring myself to do it? If I could, where would I set it? Other than the extremes, what is the healthiest volume? I know what would help, and I know what I need to improve, but finding a balance is next to impossible.
- solarkraft 5y ago
  There's the theory (I have no links and don't know how prevalent it is) that people with what we now call ADHD used to be the hunters in their tribes. For that it may have been a great trait to be able to both quickly notice many small details and also be able to zero in on something specifically interesting for a long time. Then again it can be said for many things.

brian_cunnie 5y ago

> That's the real problem with being disabled: you're treated abnormally. That's not been my experience: I've been treated normally. I have not one but two disabilities: I'm an alcoholic/drug addict, and I'm a diabetic. I'm upfront about them, and people don't seem to care--they treat me the same as everyone else. My take is that most people are so self-absorbed that they don't spend many cycles worrying about everyone else.

xwolfi 5y ago
Well they would if it would impact either them or the work. Being diabetic is frankly uninteresting, it's not clear how your work output would be ever damaged by it (until you reach a crisis and need to be out for weeks, then you'd see people care A LOT). For the alcoholic, drug addiction, I suppose you're recovering and not currently injecting heroin at work, so I suppose it's the same: as long as you just say it and show no particular behavioral impact, what do you expect people to do ? It's not like they'll spit at you for having paid drug cartels or overly help you and bring you coffee more often as a sign of pity. Again, bring a needle at work and start injecting and see how they are so self-absorbed they don't care :)
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
  This is an exceedingly uncaring response to someone who expressed being disabled by their addiction and by their diabetes. In particular I hope in the future you will not encourage people to bring their acknowledged addiction to work for attention.

wombatmobile 5y ago

Yeah, ADHD is a difference to non-ADHD, but that doesn't make it a disability. It's just a different mode of thought, in the same way that introversion and extroversion are different modes of thought. Most people in fact have periods of introversion and extroversion, and surely modes of attention are not fixed or static in people either. Which mode is an "ability" and which is a "disability"? The question is ill conceived. A friend noted that ADHD is probably over-represented in the arts. That's because in the arts (but not exclusively), you need different modes of thought and action to get things done. A classic example is the arts festival, which is a collection of artistic performances over a period of time, organised around a theme, embracing different modalities of production such as dance, theatre, music, visual arts, poetry and more. Arts festivals typically have two executives in charge - Artistic Director - Responsible for finding the creative acts for the festival that will convey the theme. e.g. Burning Man has confirmed the theme for its 2022 edition, Waking Dreams. Organisers have said the theme will "explore the transformative power of dreams, both literal and figurative, and celebrate the dreamers who channel this potent energy in eye-opening, often surrealistic, sometimes life-changing ways". That's not something you can get a tech CEO or accountant or board of directors to pull off. You need some crazy, connected creative genius to frequent 1,000 bars, alleys, galleries and theatres over 12 months to find the talent and curate it into a festival. The other executive who makes the arts festival work is a completely different hat - the Program Director. This is the adult in the room; the super clerk, the master accountant, the disciplined project manager who works the spreadsheet and the gantt chart to make sure what the Artistic Director has chosen can be paid for with the budget and delivered on time. You need both executives to produce an effective arts festival. But the Artistic Director position is less of a discipline that can be described algorithmically and more of an art form itself. To really pull off a great arts festival, you need a hurricane supernova of an Artistic Director who will be impossible to control, will drive his colleagues a little crazy, especially the Program Director, but who will find the most unexpected genius in the most obscure artists who together will combine to deliver an experience that moves the audience and uncovers thoughts and feelings that nobody knew were there to be had. And of course, without the Program Director, there's no way all those artists will be paid because the budget will be exceeded by a factor of 10, and the gantt chart will be spaghetti mashed pototoes Jackson Pollock disaster. But the two of them together, and an army of clerks, interns, admins, techs, and junior ADHD creatives might just pull off the festival of a lifetime.

artdigital 5y ago

Yes. I have ADHD and would never ever tell anyone in my workplace, especially my superiors. I don't want special treatment and I fully know that it would affect my chances of advancing into more leadership roles, because who would trust someone with a job who has a tendency to miss small things, be unorganized and other stigma. (If I were the decision-maker I sure as hell wouldn't) Yes it's hard for me and I often struggle, but I still feel great for bettering myself and powering through. Medicine is helping a lot for leveling the field, and ADHD hyperfocus can be surprisingly powerful for coding-related tasks.

girvo 5y ago
Only reason my boss knows is that he also has it and told me first lol. A solid 50+% of my office have diagnosed ADHD. Like finds like I suppose!
- artdigital 5y ago
  It's ironic that a common trait of ADHD is oversharing, so usually it's us having this urge to tell people first that we have it, rather than them asking
- taneq 5y ago
  Reminds me of that meme about neurodivergent people 'running in packs like poorly emotionally regulated wolves'. ;)
xwolfi 5y ago
But how would you describe to someone who is not diagnosed ? I have a child and would like to know signs: everything I read seems very normal, including that article. Like ofc it's better to transfer idiotic phone calls, block noise when focusing, not multitasking (multitasking is not even a thing, it can't be done, I've never seen it done perfectly, there's always a mistake made at some point even by the highest boss), or working from home in a controlled environment. Very honestly, I've always believed ADHD was something they told little kids they had so their parents wouldn't constantly scold them for being distracted by normal things and that would then scar them for life with a sickness... everybody has. The only thing that makes me believe it exists is I know I can focus monstruously for something very important, and I feel ADHD would prevent someone to even focus on something important ... but this article seems to say it's also possible, so...

eyelidlessness 5y ago

I’m frequently the odd one out in these conversations but: I don’t want ADHD to be treated as normal. I don’t want it to be treated as not-a-disability. I want it to have intentional accommodations. I want to be recognized and acknowledged as someone with distinct challenges. I have distinct challenges that I have to address, every day. Normalizing many of them can create more confusion than understanding. For example, I’m intensely sensitive to sound. A non-ADHD person sensitive to sound in say a shared office would surely benefit from noise canceling headphones. But I’m also very touch sensitive particularly on and around my ears, and that often gives me headaches. A general accommodation for this not only could but has basically left me unaccommadated. Be kind and don’t make folks lives harder is a good principle. But sometimes acknowledging people have different needs and experiences is part of that. This isn’t meant as a rebuttal of anything you’ve said, it’s a “yes and” more than anything. But I want it to be part of this conversation too.

xyzzy_plugh 5y ago
I couldn't agree more.
sh4un 5y ago
We need to demand equal representation of ADHD people in politics, media and in the boardroom. We're in oppressive times folks. Non ADHD people shoudlnt be running everything.
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
  We need to demand more than that. All of those venues don’t have enough seats to be representative, even if you consider one seat per representation.
- hypersoar 5y ago
  I'd bet that there are plenty of politicians with ADHD who don't talk about it. Just as there are certainly plenty of politicians with personality disorders who don't talk about it.
- lazide 5y ago

hericium 5y ago

> The thing that most (if not all) people who have ADHD want is to be normal. Another viewpoint: ADHD can be as much a blessing as a challenge. Well-handled ADHD seems better to me than being neurotypical.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

reil_convnet 5y ago

What I have realized overtime is that desire to be normal just causes stress. One needs to admit that they are different from others and they will have to play the game [life] with the cards they are dealt with. ADHD is no disability IMO, but different enough from normal people to become very incompatible. Just this acceptance to oneself relieves a lot of stress. But it comes with some experience and I guess most ADHD people would just feel inadequate during teenage and in university. Its horrible when you feel there is so much to do and you cannot accomplish most of it. Its only when you find/realize that there are people who would treat over-accomplishment in some aspects as a fair trade to be not able to be good at everything. Workspaces/Life Partners/Friends -- not everyone will work with ADHD people. They need to understand that they will have to spend parts of their life experimenting and finding a environment where they are valued. I guess that is the cost of being different in anyway.

LittleBox 5y ago

A lot of people seem to be disagreeing with you but I definitely agree with what you said. I too have ADHD and I hate it when I see it being treated as a crippling disability. It's really not. ADHD is much more common than people would think. As for everyone, people with ADHD learn to cope with their weaknesses and play into their strengths. For a person with ADHD it's about finding what works and doesn't work for them, not about shaping the entire world around them to make them fit. It will only make them feel worse. I learned to do it and I'm seen as a respected member of my team today. I am seen as somewhat of a quirky oddball too though with how I always do things, but nothing that can't be solved by just being positive and laughing with your colleagues. They'll treat you with respect.