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I failed courses in college due to inability to focus. Can't hear what someone is saying directly to me because I'm obsessed with minutiae. Have definitely stru

I failed courses in college due to inability to focus. Can't hear what someone is saying directly to me because I'm obsessed with minutiae. Have definitely struggled all my life trying to pay attention and do things. So yeah probably ADHD, but no point in getting it diagnosed now. Almost 50, and have figured out how to be very productive and happy at this point.

pksebben 5y ago
It probably is, but if you have it under control then it's not really disabling, is it? Good job getting there. You're just old enough that you likely had to manage without the social resources to assist, and that's no small thing.
- thomastjeffery 5y ago
  The question is not, "is it under control?" It's, "are you able to thrive?" There's no sense in living halfway when the other 50% is available. The other issue is that many people with ADHD develop unhealthy coping strategies, which turn into depression and anxiety.
  - lazide 5y ago
    The other side of that however is, if someone is doing fine, is it worth the risk that comes with changing things and potentially causing other problems? I once had a partner with very, very bad ADHD. So bad it seemed to be causing us huge life issues, due to a recent change in circumstances. She went in, got tested - sure enough - got medication, and it helped. It also helped her run both of us ‘off a cliff’ in a really terrible way shortly after due to some deep seated psychological problems she had been hiding the entire time. She previously was never able to follow through with the terrible consequences of it because of ADHD - and that was a rather unpleasant experience. The medication is great for being able to slow down and focus enough to accomplish what you set your mind to, but if there is another problem going on sometimes that just means you can cause yourself much deeper problems. People are complex. I’d never urge someone to seek treatment for something that wasn’t causing them distress that outweighed the risks.
    - thomastjeffery 5y ago
      You don't "fix" a person. Mental health is not a binary. Just because helping her with her ADHD didn't just flip a switch and "solve" her mental health doesn't mean it didn't help her. The threshold for ADHD being a disorder is it causing distress in someone's life. Unfortunately, most of that distress tends to be invisible, so it's not something you can just decide as a third party without a lot of training and empathy. If you want to reach your end goal of good mental health, you have to work on every problem that exists. Healing one aspect of mental health often has a positive domino effect, but that's not the case every time. People are complex, and so is treatment. I would never urge someone to avoid treatment for something that is hard to solve, because health is worth the effort.
      - lazide 5y ago
        It unblocked something which very shortly caused massive massive problems - as in 9 major crimes in less than 6 months type problems, where before she got so nervous she couldn’t even speed. she’s lucky she didn’t get deported or thrown in jail for years. If she was a man, she definitely would have. It’s easy to say it’s all good - and time will tell. But yikes.
        pksebben 5y ago
        That's really tragic, and I'm sorry that happened to the two of you. It sounds though like there were undiagnosed issues at hand - ADD won't really give someone anxiety about speeding (if anything, it will cause them to do it more, either from hyperfocus on the task of driving or by lack of focus on the speedo). I know amphetamines can also nominally 'treat' things like depression and anxiety, by dumping reward chemicals into the brain (but, as it seems happened here, also exacerbate a latent set of bad behaviors). You really don't want to make someone who's afraid of the world / mad at the world / frustrated with the world more motivated, which is the essence of how a lot of ADD meds work.
lazide 5y ago
If it's not distressing, then it's not a problem. Many folks have figured out ways to cope - adjustments to environment, routines that help them, etc. So congrats on surviving it. :) COVID has definitely shaken a lot of that up, and I've known several people who had to really sit down and figure it out recently. I've known people at 60+ that got finally checked though, and it was immense just figuring out what had been going on. So don't necessarily write it off just because of age.
iamevn 5y ago
> Can't hear what someone is saying directly to me because I'm obsessed with minutiae. This was something I had no idea was a symptom of ADHD before I got diagnosed. It was extremely distressing to experience. I'd be sitting next to my partner, no other noises distracting me, no phone dividing my attention, etc, and I'd know they were talking to me and that I wanted to hear what they say and I'd recognize that I was hearing syllables just fine but was entirely unable to process the sounds I was hearing. I finally got diagnosed and started taking drugs (Vyvanse, which is a slow release drug that's apparently mellower than Adderall). They've been extremely helpful to get me to a baseline where I could actually start work to improve things for myself.

pksebben 5y ago

It probably is, but if you have it under control then it's not really disabling, is it? Good job getting there. You're just old enough that you likely had to manage without the social resources to assist, and that's no small thing.

thomastjeffery 5y ago
The question is not, "is it under control?" It's, "are you able to thrive?" There's no sense in living halfway when the other 50% is available. The other issue is that many people with ADHD develop unhealthy coping strategies, which turn into depression and anxiety.
- lazide 5y ago
  The other side of that however is, if someone is doing fine, is it worth the risk that comes with changing things and potentially causing other problems? I once had a partner with very, very bad ADHD. So bad it seemed to be causing us huge life issues, due to a recent change in circumstances. She went in, got tested - sure enough - got medication, and it helped. It also helped her run both of us ‘off a cliff’ in a really terrible way shortly after due to some deep seated psychological problems she had been hiding the entire time. She previously was never able to follow through with the terrible consequences of it because of ADHD - and that was a rather unpleasant experience. The medication is great for being able to slow down and focus enough to accomplish what you set your mind to, but if there is another problem going on sometimes that just means you can cause yourself much deeper problems. People are complex. I’d never urge someone to seek treatment for something that wasn’t causing them distress that outweighed the risks.
  - thomastjeffery 5y ago
    You don't "fix" a person. Mental health is not a binary. Just because helping her with her ADHD didn't just flip a switch and "solve" her mental health doesn't mean it didn't help her. The threshold for ADHD being a disorder is it causing distress in someone's life. Unfortunately, most of that distress tends to be invisible, so it's not something you can just decide as a third party without a lot of training and empathy. If you want to reach your end goal of good mental health, you have to work on every problem that exists. Healing one aspect of mental health often has a positive domino effect, but that's not the case every time. People are complex, and so is treatment. I would never urge someone to avoid treatment for something that is hard to solve, because health is worth the effort.
    - lazide 5y ago
      It unblocked something which very shortly caused massive massive problems - as in 9 major crimes in less than 6 months type problems, where before she got so nervous she couldn’t even speed. she’s lucky she didn’t get deported or thrown in jail for years. If she was a man, she definitely would have. It’s easy to say it’s all good - and time will tell. But yikes.
      - pksebben 5y ago
        That's really tragic, and I'm sorry that happened to the two of you. It sounds though like there were undiagnosed issues at hand - ADD won't really give someone anxiety about speeding (if anything, it will cause them to do it more, either from hyperfocus on the task of driving or by lack of focus on the speedo). I know amphetamines can also nominally 'treat' things like depression and anxiety, by dumping reward chemicals into the brain (but, as it seems happened here, also exacerbate a latent set of bad behaviors). You really don't want to make someone who's afraid of the world / mad at the world / frustrated with the world more motivated, which is the essence of how a lot of ADD meds work.

lazide 5y ago

If it's not distressing, then it's not a problem. Many folks have figured out ways to cope - adjustments to environment, routines that help them, etc. So congrats on surviving it. :) COVID has definitely shaken a lot of that up, and I've known several people who had to really sit down and figure it out recently. I've known people at 60+ that got finally checked though, and it was immense just figuring out what had been going on. So don't necessarily write it off just because of age.

iamevn 5y ago

> Can't hear what someone is saying directly to me because I'm obsessed with minutiae. This was something I had no idea was a symptom of ADHD before I got diagnosed. It was extremely distressing to experience. I'd be sitting next to my partner, no other noises distracting me, no phone dividing my attention, etc, and I'd know they were talking to me and that I wanted to hear what they say and I'd recognize that I was hearing syllables just fine but was entirely unable to process the sounds I was hearing. I finally got diagnosed and started taking drugs (Vyvanse, which is a slow release drug that's apparently mellower than Adderall). They've been extremely helpful to get me to a baseline where I could actually start work to improve things for myself.