5 ms·

ADHD and ASD share some overlap, but they are definitely not the same disorder. ADHD is an executive function disorder and you could usefully label it as being

by jprete 5y ago

ADHD and ASD share some overlap, but they are definitely not the same disorder. ADHD is an executive function disorder and you could usefully label it as being deficits in these skills: * Delay your responses to situations long enough to come up with a good and controlled long-term plan * Pattern-match past situations onto the present situation to guide your current response * Mentally tell yourself what to do and have it stick * Manage your emotions towards your long-term interests * Imagine and evaluate multiple possible future outcomes There are other ways to describe it - e.g. I didn't mention short-term memory - but this is the flavor. ASD is completely different. ASD is (I believe) a predictive processing disorder. Normal brain processing involves each layer of the brain predicting what the lower layers will report, and "blending in" all of the minor mistakes in the predictions. Large mistakes are literally surprising and uncomfortable, and push the brain to learn (i.e. change its predictions). Normal brains are constantly ignoring small prediction errors and are very tolerant of ambiguous, uncertain, or new situations. An ASD brain cannot blend in the minor mistakes as well, so it spends a lifetime perpetually surprised and overstimulated by every event that is even slightly unpredictable, and is fairly intolerant of ambiguous, uncertain, or new situations.

giantg2 5y ago
"An ASD brain cannot blend in the minor mistakes as well, so it spends a lifetime perpetually surprised and overstimulated by every event that is even slightly unpredictable, and is fairly intolerant of ambiguous, uncertain, or new situations." Wow, it's like you know me. It also makes sense that I found many of the structure oriented things in the accommodations useful/necessary (templates, checklists, email folders,, etc).
eyelidlessness 5y ago
I’ll probably regret replying tired, because this isn’t me at my best but… this is what I experience, what people I know with ADHD experience, and what a lot of literature describes. I have a hard time even reading it as a potentially different experience.
- ghusbands 5y ago
  I'm active on some support groups, so I do see plenty of different experiences. Maybe you would see it as different amounts of each thing or interplay with things like depression and ASD, but that does amount to significant differences in day to day life. Also, different things are noticed or believed less or more based on how much life is pushing against those things.
hericium 5y ago
> Mentally tell yourself what to do and have it stick (EDIT) This fragment reminds me of the "get over yourself" advice given to depressed people. Something sounding easy but being absolutely out of your control. There are different types of ADHD. If you have a constant compulsive need for being elsewhere and doing something else, there is no mental exercise that would make you stick to things and stop finding yourself doing something else than supposed. When required to do activity A, you'll find yourself exercising activity B or activity C only a short time, and every time, after forcing yourself back to A. When you decide to do B, since you can't focus on A, you'll quickly find yourself back at A because you're supposed to be doing B. Oh, and now it's C. And back to A. What fun. ABCAABCCABCCAABC. Forced, barely controlled multi-tasking.
- NobodyNada 5y ago
  > While the rest of your comment sounds reasonable, this fragment somewhat reminds me of the "get over yourself" advice given to depressed people [...] there is no mental exercise that would make you stick to things Forgive me if I misread, but I believe you and the parent comment are in agreement here. “Mentally tell yourself what to do and have it stick” is not given as a point of advice, but as an example of something people with ADHD struggle with.
  - hericium 5y ago
    Thank you! I edited my comment to not disturb the discussion but you've got a real-life example of reacting too quickly. In a discussion about, among others, reacting too fast.
bserge 5y ago
> Delay your responses to situations long enough to come up with a good and controlled long-term plan * Pattern-match past situations onto the present situation to guide your current response * Mentally tell yourself what to do and have it stick * Manage your emotions towards your long-term interests * Imagine and evaluate multiple possible future outcomes God fucking damn, every time I think about it I want to die. In fact, I want to die any time. You know how much this shit ruined my life? No, you don't. And no one will help. "Doctors". Useless garbage.
- 1_player 5y ago
  I have learned I have ADHD 3 weeks ago reading a similar list of symptoms and I've been in a total haze since because I've found a name for my life long struggles. I've paid a psych a great sum of money to be tested now, I want an answer immediately and hopefully I can start leading a normal life as soon as possible. I'm done fighting my unmotivated brain every single day. Your comment makes me scared I'm gonna be told I'm just fucking lazy instead, but don't give up brother. To an ADHD brain, death sounds fucking boring.
  - spiralx 5y ago
    Ignore them. Medication can and does help with ADHD, as someone who was diagnosed at 31 the biggest problem was addressing various coping mechanisms I'd developed that were no longer useful thanks to medication. And I was amazed to wake up in the morning and remember something I thought before I went to bed and had thought "I should remember that." after a couple of weeks on medication.
    - gremlinsinc 5y ago
      meds don't really affect my memory too greatly... it's more like I take my Vyvanse at 7am, roll over and sleep a bit more or read the news on Reddit or something and after an hour...I start thinking about work and what I want to get done today... then I'm hyper focused until I'm forced to stop because of my wife or until I'm exhausted or until something or someone pisses me off... I'm pretty sure I'm asd too cause I can sometimes just lose it and have a two year old style meltdown... where I know it's not right to feel that way but can't snap out of it... basically if I've planned my next 5 actions if something interrupts the plan I get to feeling like my entire world is set on fire or crashing down... I also have entire conversations in my head and I talk way too long on subjects that really interest me.... to the point of boring other participants in the conversation... but damn if I find someone as interested as me... we're besties and can discuss the thing for 6 hours or longer lol. I'm 42 now, I think I just learned to cope in society because I'm usually more prone to outbursts when my guard is down... like I'm expecting a relaxing dinner at a holiday and the in-laws say something to trigger me.... I'm really good at chewing on things... everyone here is republican and love country music... I can't send ether but I bite my tongue because I know I'll trigger them then one of us is gonna have a meltdown, usually me... and I lose favorability points...I guess in a way my silence is my preplanning to avoid a bad outcome... plus my precog conversation I have before opening my mouth usually helps me predict if it's worth it or not..... sometimes my mental conversation is pleasing enough or if it's like asking my wife something I'll assume we've already had the conversation because the mental model version went really well so I can skip the real version right?
interpenetrate 5y ago
> Normal brains are constantly ignoring small prediction errors and are very tolerant of ambiguous, uncertain, or new situations. An ASD brain cannot blend in the minor mistakes as well, so it spends a lifetime perpetually surprised and overstimulated by every event that is even slightly unpredictable, and is fairly intolerant of ambiguous, uncertain, or new situations. Has a mechanism for any of this been discovered, or theorized?
reil_convnet 5y ago
I don't think that's what ADHD feels like at all. The best way I can describe ADHD is : 1. Poor Short Term Memory , 2. Inability to make oneself do certain things while being much more able than others to do certain other things and 3. Needing a big picture view before getting deep because 1 causes one to get lost in details.
- ghusbands 5y ago
  There's not really just one experience of ADHD, so you're right in disagreeing with the parent, but wrong to claim it's not like that and instead matches your own list.
cja 5y ago
Please can you give a source for your ASD description? Interested to know where this came from
d0mine 5y ago
Unrelated: consider viewing ADHD/ASD people not in terms of deficits/disorder but as having a different cluster of characteristics instead (that can be both an advantage and disadvantage)
Valakas_ 5y ago
What is your view on the relationship between ADHD and childhood trauma?

by jprete 5y ago

giantg2 5y ago

"An ASD brain cannot blend in the minor mistakes as well, so it spends a lifetime perpetually surprised and overstimulated by every event that is even slightly unpredictable, and is fairly intolerant of ambiguous, uncertain, or new situations." Wow, it's like you know me. It also makes sense that I found many of the structure oriented things in the accommodations useful/necessary (templates, checklists, email folders,, etc).

eyelidlessness 5y ago

I’ll probably regret replying tired, because this isn’t me at my best but… this is what I experience, what people I know with ADHD experience, and what a lot of literature describes. I have a hard time even reading it as a potentially different experience.

ghusbands 5y ago
I'm active on some support groups, so I do see plenty of different experiences. Maybe you would see it as different amounts of each thing or interplay with things like depression and ASD, but that does amount to significant differences in day to day life. Also, different things are noticed or believed less or more based on how much life is pushing against those things.

hericium 5y ago

> Mentally tell yourself what to do and have it stick (EDIT) This fragment reminds me of the "get over yourself" advice given to depressed people. Something sounding easy but being absolutely out of your control. There are different types of ADHD. If you have a constant compulsive need for being elsewhere and doing something else, there is no mental exercise that would make you stick to things and stop finding yourself doing something else than supposed. When required to do activity A, you'll find yourself exercising activity B or activity C only a short time, and every time, after forcing yourself back to A. When you decide to do B, since you can't focus on A, you'll quickly find yourself back at A because you're supposed to be doing B. Oh, and now it's C. And back to A. What fun. ABCAABCCABCCAABC. Forced, barely controlled multi-tasking.

NobodyNada 5y ago
> While the rest of your comment sounds reasonable, this fragment somewhat reminds me of the "get over yourself" advice given to depressed people [...] there is no mental exercise that would make you stick to things Forgive me if I misread, but I believe you and the parent comment are in agreement here. “Mentally tell yourself what to do and have it stick” is not given as a point of advice, but as an example of something people with ADHD struggle with.
- hericium 5y ago
  Thank you! I edited my comment to not disturb the discussion but you've got a real-life example of reacting too quickly. In a discussion about, among others, reacting too fast.

bserge 5y ago

> Delay your responses to situations long enough to come up with a good and controlled long-term plan * Pattern-match past situations onto the present situation to guide your current response * Mentally tell yourself what to do and have it stick * Manage your emotions towards your long-term interests * Imagine and evaluate multiple possible future outcomes God fucking damn, every time I think about it I want to die. In fact, I want to die any time. You know how much this shit ruined my life? No, you don't. And no one will help. "Doctors". Useless garbage.

1_player 5y ago
I have learned I have ADHD 3 weeks ago reading a similar list of symptoms and I've been in a total haze since because I've found a name for my life long struggles. I've paid a psych a great sum of money to be tested now, I want an answer immediately and hopefully I can start leading a normal life as soon as possible. I'm done fighting my unmotivated brain every single day. Your comment makes me scared I'm gonna be told I'm just fucking lazy instead, but don't give up brother. To an ADHD brain, death sounds fucking boring.
- spiralx 5y ago
  Ignore them. Medication can and does help with ADHD, as someone who was diagnosed at 31 the biggest problem was addressing various coping mechanisms I'd developed that were no longer useful thanks to medication. And I was amazed to wake up in the morning and remember something I thought before I went to bed and had thought "I should remember that." after a couple of weeks on medication.
  - gremlinsinc 5y ago
    meds don't really affect my memory too greatly... it's more like I take my Vyvanse at 7am, roll over and sleep a bit more or read the news on Reddit or something and after an hour...I start thinking about work and what I want to get done today... then I'm hyper focused until I'm forced to stop because of my wife or until I'm exhausted or until something or someone pisses me off... I'm pretty sure I'm asd too cause I can sometimes just lose it and have a two year old style meltdown... where I know it's not right to feel that way but can't snap out of it... basically if I've planned my next 5 actions if something interrupts the plan I get to feeling like my entire world is set on fire or crashing down... I also have entire conversations in my head and I talk way too long on subjects that really interest me.... to the point of boring other participants in the conversation... but damn if I find someone as interested as me... we're besties and can discuss the thing for 6 hours or longer lol. I'm 42 now, I think I just learned to cope in society because I'm usually more prone to outbursts when my guard is down... like I'm expecting a relaxing dinner at a holiday and the in-laws say something to trigger me.... I'm really good at chewing on things... everyone here is republican and love country music... I can't send ether but I bite my tongue because I know I'll trigger them then one of us is gonna have a meltdown, usually me... and I lose favorability points...I guess in a way my silence is my preplanning to avoid a bad outcome... plus my precog conversation I have before opening my mouth usually helps me predict if it's worth it or not..... sometimes my mental conversation is pleasing enough or if it's like asking my wife something I'll assume we've already had the conversation because the mental model version went really well so I can skip the real version right?

interpenetrate 5y ago

> Normal brains are constantly ignoring small prediction errors and are very tolerant of ambiguous, uncertain, or new situations. An ASD brain cannot blend in the minor mistakes as well, so it spends a lifetime perpetually surprised and overstimulated by every event that is even slightly unpredictable, and is fairly intolerant of ambiguous, uncertain, or new situations. Has a mechanism for any of this been discovered, or theorized?

reil_convnet 5y ago

I don't think that's what ADHD feels like at all. The best way I can describe ADHD is : 1. Poor Short Term Memory , 2. Inability to make oneself do certain things while being much more able than others to do certain other things and 3. Needing a big picture view before getting deep because 1 causes one to get lost in details.

ghusbands 5y ago
There's not really just one experience of ADHD, so you're right in disagreeing with the parent, but wrong to claim it's not like that and instead matches your own list.

cja 5y ago

Please can you give a source for your ASD description? Interested to know where this came from

d0mine 5y ago

Unrelated: consider viewing ADHD/ASD people not in terms of deficits/disorder but as having a different cluster of characteristics instead (that can be both an advantage and disadvantage)

Valakas_ 5y ago

What is your view on the relationship between ADHD and childhood trauma?