8 ms·

Hi there, This might be an off beat chance, but have you had a history of or ever looked into the topic of adult ADHD? Changing several jobs, jumping between

Hi there, This might be an off beat chance, but have you had a history of or ever looked into the topic of adult ADHD? Changing several jobs, jumping between hobbies or projects is textbook ADHD, especially if you don't feel like you can get out of it and describe it as a "huge live hurdle". That is the same for me. Got diagnosed at 30 two months ago. If you have a suspicion you might have it, I highly recommend doing a quick online test and listening to podcasts around getting an ADHD diagnosis as well as personal tales from people who have it. Especially the latter were a real eye opener for me and pushed me to get a diagnosis. The point is, no amount of effort, book reading, motivational speeches or the like will get you out of this pattern. ADHD is a neurological dysfunction, hence medication is most effective.

User23 4y ago
I’m not sure about the whole neurological dysfunction story. It sounds a lot like the now debunked chemical imbalance story for depression. So far as I know there’s no ADHD blood or other objective test. I am however sure about stimulant drugs being a shockingly effective productivity booster when properly dosed though. As the comment I’m replying to notes, it’s trivially easy to walk into a psychiatrist’s office and get an ADHD diagnosis and that’s the safest and most legal way to get them. Whether or not long term use is prudent is an entirely different matter of course. Edit: The above can be read as dismissive and that's not what I intended. Please see my reply further down for more context.
- kayodelycaon 4y ago
  ADHD is quite well studied. If you're up for it, there is a 2.5h video that goes into some detail about what it is and how it affects children. I found it quite fascinating and it helped me understand some of my symptoms. (Mine is comorbid with bipolar. Yay.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSfCdBBqNXY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSfCdBBqNXY
  - Mezzie 4y ago
    Quick questions, apologies if they're too sensitive: - Regarding your co-morbidity, how did you know/decide to seek ADHD treatment and diagnosis? Was it before or after your bipolar diagnosis? - Was there any concern about med interactions? I live with my sister, who's bipolar and we think she MAY have ADHD, hence my curiosity.
    - kayodelycaon 4y ago
      Always happy to talk, but I’m not sure how helpful I can be. I was diagnosed ADD as a child (~6 years old) but I wasn’t correctly diagnosed with bipolar until I was 33 after voluntarily seeking treatment on the recommendation of my primary care doctor. As far as treating the ADHD, my psychiatrist didn’t bother with a formal diagnosis. She just decided to treat the executive function issues I reported. Medication is trickier. I can’t use the traditional stimulants (or caffeine) without risking mania and panic attacks. So I’m taking Wellbrutin (an NDRI) which is both an antidepressant and a stimulant. It helps with ADHD, Anxiety, Depression, and sexual side effects from antipsychotics. I don’t have any major side effects to report than increase in sexual function and keeping me awake for the next 10~12 hours. (So no afternoon naps to recharge.)
      - Mezzie 4y ago
        Thanks for the reply! This was helpful. I'm glad that you were able to get the diagnosis and treatment you needed. And yes, very concerned about giving her any stimulants/mania inducing things. I'm glad to hear that Wellbutrin/NDRIs don't seem to have the same impact on bipolar people as SSRIs do, we'll look into that a bit. (Ironically, I had a terrible Wellbutrin experience. Bodies are weird.)
- thenaturalist 4y ago
  > I’m not sure about the whole neurological dysfunction story. Are you a medical professional or do you have a scientific source backing up your suspicion? The point why there is no objective blood test is mainly rooted in the fact that getting a true measurement of a neurotransmitter is prohibitively costly (measurement across intra- and inter-daily blood samples to establish a true baseline). Yet, scientists are doing this and there are genetic and neurotransmitter markers which are abnormal in people classified with ADHD. For further reading with a variety of medical sources I recommend [0]. It's a disorder, and presents with a large variety of expressions or comorbidities, but the symptoms (restlessness, jumping between hobbies) are shared and the consequences both in private as well professional lives are severe. The inability to focus on single things lead to worse career outcomes and worse relationship outcomes. It is a serious suffering for those affected. Ritalin has a 60 year pharmacological history and has proven to help people. Modern stimulants are even better. I am hugely grateful for the fact safe access exists and as someone affected badly, [I don't think it's appropriate to make fun of someone seeking access to this medication.] STRIKE that out, GP explained his intended meaning further below. [0]: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325499 https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325499
  - blamarvt 4y ago
    > I don't think it's appropriate to make fun of someone seeking access to this medication. As someone who takes daily medication, I didn't read the GP's comment as making fun. It seemed to just be a statement of belief.
    - thenaturalist 4y ago
      > I am however sure about stimulant drugs being a shockingly effective productivity booster when properly dosed though. As the comment I’m replying to notes, it’s trivially easy to walk into a psychiatrist’s office and get an ADHD diagnosis and that’s the safest and most legal way to get them. I might well be over sensitive to this topic, so my bad if I overstepped. Getting the diagnosis and getting medication has been such a huge relief, it's been quite emotional. The way I read GP's comment is that he's implying that if you have a productivity problem and cannot cut it otherwise, take the easy route, get an ADHD diagnosis (which he believes is not really a chemical imbalance) and cure your bad productivity with stimulants instead of effort. Labelling someone not trying hard enough or not cutting it 'cause you're not smart enough, or being a loser cause you need to take meds etc. etc. is exactly the kind of stigmatization people with ADHD might face. Again, my interpretation. I hope I am wrong.
- modo_mario 4y ago
  >So far as I know there’s no ADHD blood or other objective test. There's a few genes that have been found to be responsible/correlate strongly i believe but I assume genotyping goes a bit far for common diagnosis. I'm sure it's not the same for everyone that's diagnosed tho and there's a good amount of misdiagnosis too.
  - hirvi74 4y ago
    > there's a good amount of misdiagnosis too. Until there is a more objective way to diagnose ADHD, how can one argue who really has the condition or not? It's not like we humans even remotely understand the brain in its entirety.
- RHSman2 4y ago
  Queue hackernews-ists jumping down your throat
- triggercut 4y ago
  > It sounds a lot like the now debunked chemical imbalance story for depression. If you are referring to the recent Joanna Moncrieff cherry picked literature review that had a press moment, then do some checking to see what her peers said in response. Moncrieff has a well established bias against pharmaceuticals and this is confirmation-bias writ large and has damaged the layman's understanding of what's happening. There are objective tests for ADHD. You can look at how the brain responds under MRI or ECG to show the depressed activity in the prefrontal cortex. It's not required for diagnosis but anyone who tries neurofeedback or checking/confirming dyspraxia maybe as it relates to other nervous system issues. What most people don't realise is the way stimulants work in the ADHD brain compared to the non ADHD brain are different. Superlatives like "shockingly" really mischaracterize what's happening and perpetuate a dangerous myth. Mostly based on anecdotes of the short-term effects of high-doses on young neurotypical individuals under stress. It's not the same.
Mezzie 4y ago
And related to this, don't get discouraged if it ISN'T ADHD and medication for it doesn't help. I thought I had ADHD and was frustrated as to why medication made it worse until I discovered I actually have PTSD + crippling anxiety that meant I avoided stability because I didn't trust it and 'flight'/taking on a new identity is one of my preferred 'fight, flight, freeze, fawn' responses. Basically my body only knows how to exist in chaotic environments.
herdyderdy 4y ago
Is ADHD really tied to switching hobbies and jobs frequently? I suffer from this too, but I always thought ADHD was the inability to focus in the short term. I can have great focus on daily tasks if I’m interested in them, but my problem is I lose the interest so frequently that I can’t seem to make the leap beyond intermediate competency in a hobby or career direction.
- thenaturalist 4y ago
  Yes. What you describe in an ADHD context might be called "hyperfocus": It's a period of intense focus which you are able to maintain and enjoy cause it stimulates your brain. But, critically, you are not able to maintain this hyperfocus for longer periods on a single topic as the stimulus of novelty flattens out and you become bored and understimulated and this quickly leads to procastination or switching to something new.
  - conception 4y ago
    What it’s the period when it becomes a disease as what you describe is basically how humans generally work?
    - thenaturalist 4y ago
      This pattern alone is absolutely not enough to suspect it's ADHD. Several other factors need to be present. In general during diagnosis (I can attest to Germany), it must be credibly shown that multiple symptopms have been present both during child as well as adult age. Typical patterns are several aborted apprenticeships or studies, inability to hold steady employment over several years, problems with romantic relationships or long lasting friendships.
    - RHSman2 4y ago
      It’s not a disease. It is the way some people are wired. Just like some people are really boring
      - 4y ago
pr07ecH70r 4y ago
Actually never crossed my mind it could be a sickness-related. I just thought it as a sort of "too many possibilities saturation" or too quick loss of interest. So I decided to ask like-minded people like you here, at least from the same more or less background. Will make the online test, though...
- yrgulation 4y ago
  I would be cautious in self diagnosing. Taking pills and self medication is thrown around quite easily around here. One does indeed need to find their own path without blaming mental health as a first resort. I am now seeking a transition from software development to something else and as such i experiment with concepts and ideas quite frequently. I changed jobs for a while until i settled down for what i liked, now its time to find something else. Nothing mental health related in this.
- RHSman2 4y ago
  ADHD isn’t a sickness. It’s a thing that an awful lot of people have.
  - Bakary 4y ago
    Disorder is the better word, but it's still a condition defined in relation to how it affects your capacity to function in the target society
    - RHSman2 4y ago
      I have it for reference. Both my children have it. What is the difference between someone who has it and somebody who doesn’t? Where is the line? There is no biological line because we all have these traits. It is only a disorder of it interferes with how you interact with modern life/society. Being human is a condition and for some a disorder. Here, have a drug (anything that triggers dopamine)
      - Bakary 4y ago
pr07ecH70r 4y ago
Got "low/medium probability". Guess it's not that.
RHSman2 4y ago
It’s a super power once you get hold of it.
- whoooooo123 4y ago
  How do you get hold of it?
  - RHSman2 4y ago
    How did I? I have impulsive ADHD. It’s been a great tool but also got me into a lot of trouble. I never thought I could change who I am. I am right but I could become aware of what I am an try to engage my bigger brain rather than the impulsive part. Once I started investing in knowing me better rather than just allowing me to be on a seemingly uncontrollable train I could see how certain behaviors could be toxic to me and others. And forgiving myself. This mostly came through the enlightenment of having a son who has it and dealing with that whilst having ADHD. And that has been my greatest challenge and success. Meta cognition. We talk with him about it in a way which isn’t blame or ‘you can’t do that!’ and while there is still a lot of support he is thriving. Happy to chat offline too
    - ismail 4y ago
      Were you able to do this without prescription meds?
      - RHSman2 4y ago
        Yes however I looked into with a psychologist, a lot of research and decided to not. Was based on looking back on my life with a new understanding and then working via therapy on aspects of being.
    - whoooooo123 4y ago
      Can you be more specific about what you did?
      - 4y ago
bmitc 4y ago
Just as a point of balance: adult onset ADHD, while possible, is quite rare. Many other more common disorders, such as anxiety and depression, will share the same symptoms as ADHD.
- xhrpost 4y ago
  Yes most everyone says the symptoms need to be present in childhood as well. But apparently the structure of school and just being a little smart can mask the performance symptoms in childhood. Then once the structure is gone in adulthood and life becomes much harder and more complex, the big symptoms start to show up.
  - hirvi74 4y ago
    Not to be pedantic, but just because symptoms are masked does not mean they are/were not present. I think the differentiator is whether one had symptoms to mask or not in the first place. I masked some of my symptoms as a child, was diagnosed as an adult, etc., but the symptoms were always there despite my prior ability to function around them.
luxuryballs 4y ago
Did you find any good ways to manage it?
gcr 4y ago
when you have a diagnosis, then what? where do you actually go from there? are there doors that an ADHD diagnosis opens that have a better ROI than, say, graymarket modafinil?
- hirvi74 4y ago
  > are there doors that an ADHD diagnosis opens that have a better ROI than, say, graymarket modafinil? I suppose it depends where you live. Here is what I can think of off the top of my head: 1. Potential legal protections and academic/workplace accommodations if necessary (US has ADA as an example). 2. Access to potentially more medications (modafinil is not commonly prescribed in the US for ADHD -- even off label) 3. Perhaps less trouble than having to use the Graymarket? Less risk of getting caught? I'm kind of grasping for straws at this moment. If what you have works, then I guess keep going? Just please be careful. Unregulated areas of markets, healthcare, etc. make me nervous, personally.
- MajimasEyepatch 4y ago
  Therapy can help. Some people can learn to manage it without needing drugs, or at least without being as dependent on drugs.
photochemsyn 4y ago
ADHD is at best greatly overdiagnosed, and the business of providing ADHD diagnoses is quite analagous to the opiate pain pill clinic debacle, in which 'physicians' got kickbacks from the industry for providing opiate prescriptions. With ADHD, it's 'the medication' that is being sold. Often, the doctor's client is actually the amphetamine derivative supplier, and the product being sold (on a commission basis) is the patient. Amphetamine addiction results in the patient feeling bad when they run out of their powerful stimulant drugs, and the resulting feelings of malaise tend to confirm the patient's belief that they have a neurological disorder (rather than just suffering from the standard set of problems that come with regular amphetamine use).
- algoatecorn 4y ago
  I hope this viewpoint becomes a bit more accepted. The human brain is so complex and we love to put ideas in little boxes, hence the term ADHD. In X number of decades, there's a very good chance we will all look back and realize how dead wrong we were about ADHD, attention, and our extremely crude methods of "curing" it. It blows my mind that especially in American society we are so accepting of putting millions of people on amphetamines to solve attention disorders. Anyone who has gone through higher-ed in the past 10 years knows a huge number of students are on these meds, and even if they suffer some of attention disorder, they are likely at a large advantage after adding the drugs. I'd love to see the percentage of med school students on these drugs.
  - Apocryphon 4y ago
    Surely there are other treatments for ADHD beyond the simple pharmaceutical cures, and it would be salutary to diagnose people so they can try those strategies and get the help they need.
    - triggercut 4y ago
      There are. Heaps. And you try them all Talk therapy is incredibly important. People with ADHD can often suffer from rejection dysphoria and depending on how long until they realise, or how self aware they are, they end up internalising a lot of negative opinions and shame about themselves that needs to be unwound. There are a lot of issues around the pain of "never fitting in" or being understood. Some of these are a result of behaviours that aren't the social norm and so they become marginalised. Others are where differences in processing and learning information are labeled as "stupid" at a young age, when the child probably has a similar IQ to their peers. Neurofeedback can be used with good success to help "rewire" particular issues with emotion dysregulation for instance. It can be expensive and requires a lot of time to train the brain to a different mode of operation. Coaching, specifically around time-management and task-management. A lot of people with ADHD suffer from time-blindness. Their perception and relationship with time can be.... complicated. Calendars, specifically having a rigid system for what goes on them, regularly reviewing them, keeping them and a large easy to read clock visible at all times etc can really help. A good water bottle with a straw. No one really knows why but there are a lot of hypotheses. - One thing that never gets mentioned is the relationship between ADHD and food. Generally the nervous system does a pretty terrible job at letting an ADHD person know, when they are hungry, when they are thirsty, when they need the bathroom. Combined with time-blindness, maybe some stress induced hyper-focus because you're falling behind on whatever you need to do, ADHDers will suddenly realise they've missed lunch and binge eat simple food that doesn't require preparation. Preparing a meal would be akin to telling someone with a deadline to just go run a quick marathon first. It'll feel like one or the other, and in some cases, depending on energy levels it will be. - but back to the water bottle. Using the straw means you don't divert your gaze from what you are doing. Your brain doesn't have to judge how full it is and tilt the glass accordingly, if it's big you don't have to get up to refill it. Frictionless hydration.
helij 4y ago
I had this. Changing jobs, freelancing, jumping from project to project, hobby to hobby. Couldn't be at a job for more than a year...until I found a company that actually does work properly. I had same symptoms as above but for me it was not ADHD but bad employers. Even hobbies are stable now.

User23 4y ago

I’m not sure about the whole neurological dysfunction story. It sounds a lot like the now debunked chemical imbalance story for depression. So far as I know there’s no ADHD blood or other objective test. I am however sure about stimulant drugs being a shockingly effective productivity booster when properly dosed though. As the comment I’m replying to notes, it’s trivially easy to walk into a psychiatrist’s office and get an ADHD diagnosis and that’s the safest and most legal way to get them. Whether or not long term use is prudent is an entirely different matter of course. Edit: The above can be read as dismissive and that's not what I intended. Please see my reply further down for more context.

kayodelycaon 4y ago
ADHD is quite well studied. If you're up for it, there is a 2.5h video that goes into some detail about what it is and how it affects children. I found it quite fascinating and it helped me understand some of my symptoms. (Mine is comorbid with bipolar. Yay.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSfCdBBqNXY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSfCdBBqNXY
- Mezzie 4y ago
  Quick questions, apologies if they're too sensitive: - Regarding your co-morbidity, how did you know/decide to seek ADHD treatment and diagnosis? Was it before or after your bipolar diagnosis? - Was there any concern about med interactions? I live with my sister, who's bipolar and we think she MAY have ADHD, hence my curiosity.
  - kayodelycaon 4y ago
    Always happy to talk, but I’m not sure how helpful I can be. I was diagnosed ADD as a child (~6 years old) but I wasn’t correctly diagnosed with bipolar until I was 33 after voluntarily seeking treatment on the recommendation of my primary care doctor. As far as treating the ADHD, my psychiatrist didn’t bother with a formal diagnosis. She just decided to treat the executive function issues I reported. Medication is trickier. I can’t use the traditional stimulants (or caffeine) without risking mania and panic attacks. So I’m taking Wellbrutin (an NDRI) which is both an antidepressant and a stimulant. It helps with ADHD, Anxiety, Depression, and sexual side effects from antipsychotics. I don’t have any major side effects to report than increase in sexual function and keeping me awake for the next 10~12 hours. (So no afternoon naps to recharge.)
    - Mezzie 4y ago
      Thanks for the reply! This was helpful. I'm glad that you were able to get the diagnosis and treatment you needed. And yes, very concerned about giving her any stimulants/mania inducing things. I'm glad to hear that Wellbutrin/NDRIs don't seem to have the same impact on bipolar people as SSRIs do, we'll look into that a bit. (Ironically, I had a terrible Wellbutrin experience. Bodies are weird.)
thenaturalist 4y ago
> I’m not sure about the whole neurological dysfunction story. Are you a medical professional or do you have a scientific source backing up your suspicion? The point why there is no objective blood test is mainly rooted in the fact that getting a true measurement of a neurotransmitter is prohibitively costly (measurement across intra- and inter-daily blood samples to establish a true baseline). Yet, scientists are doing this and there are genetic and neurotransmitter markers which are abnormal in people classified with ADHD. For further reading with a variety of medical sources I recommend [0]. It's a disorder, and presents with a large variety of expressions or comorbidities, but the symptoms (restlessness, jumping between hobbies) are shared and the consequences both in private as well professional lives are severe. The inability to focus on single things lead to worse career outcomes and worse relationship outcomes. It is a serious suffering for those affected. Ritalin has a 60 year pharmacological history and has proven to help people. Modern stimulants are even better. I am hugely grateful for the fact safe access exists and as someone affected badly, [I don't think it's appropriate to make fun of someone seeking access to this medication.] STRIKE that out, GP explained his intended meaning further below. [0]: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325499 https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325499
- blamarvt 4y ago
  > I don't think it's appropriate to make fun of someone seeking access to this medication. As someone who takes daily medication, I didn't read the GP's comment as making fun. It seemed to just be a statement of belief.
  - thenaturalist 4y ago
    > I am however sure about stimulant drugs being a shockingly effective productivity booster when properly dosed though. As the comment I’m replying to notes, it’s trivially easy to walk into a psychiatrist’s office and get an ADHD diagnosis and that’s the safest and most legal way to get them. I might well be over sensitive to this topic, so my bad if I overstepped. Getting the diagnosis and getting medication has been such a huge relief, it's been quite emotional. The way I read GP's comment is that he's implying that if you have a productivity problem and cannot cut it otherwise, take the easy route, get an ADHD diagnosis (which he believes is not really a chemical imbalance) and cure your bad productivity with stimulants instead of effort. Labelling someone not trying hard enough or not cutting it 'cause you're not smart enough, or being a loser cause you need to take meds etc. etc. is exactly the kind of stigmatization people with ADHD might face. Again, my interpretation. I hope I am wrong.
modo_mario 4y ago
>So far as I know there’s no ADHD blood or other objective test. There's a few genes that have been found to be responsible/correlate strongly i believe but I assume genotyping goes a bit far for common diagnosis. I'm sure it's not the same for everyone that's diagnosed tho and there's a good amount of misdiagnosis too.
- hirvi74 4y ago
  > there's a good amount of misdiagnosis too. Until there is a more objective way to diagnose ADHD, how can one argue who really has the condition or not? It's not like we humans even remotely understand the brain in its entirety.
RHSman2 4y ago
Queue hackernews-ists jumping down your throat
triggercut 4y ago
> It sounds a lot like the now debunked chemical imbalance story for depression. If you are referring to the recent Joanna Moncrieff cherry picked literature review that had a press moment, then do some checking to see what her peers said in response. Moncrieff has a well established bias against pharmaceuticals and this is confirmation-bias writ large and has damaged the layman's understanding of what's happening. There are objective tests for ADHD. You can look at how the brain responds under MRI or ECG to show the depressed activity in the prefrontal cortex. It's not required for diagnosis but anyone who tries neurofeedback or checking/confirming dyspraxia maybe as it relates to other nervous system issues. What most people don't realise is the way stimulants work in the ADHD brain compared to the non ADHD brain are different. Superlatives like "shockingly" really mischaracterize what's happening and perpetuate a dangerous myth. Mostly based on anecdotes of the short-term effects of high-doses on young neurotypical individuals under stress. It's not the same.

Mezzie 4y ago

And related to this, don't get discouraged if it ISN'T ADHD and medication for it doesn't help. I thought I had ADHD and was frustrated as to why medication made it worse until I discovered I actually have PTSD + crippling anxiety that meant I avoided stability because I didn't trust it and 'flight'/taking on a new identity is one of my preferred 'fight, flight, freeze, fawn' responses. Basically my body only knows how to exist in chaotic environments.

herdyderdy 4y ago

Is ADHD really tied to switching hobbies and jobs frequently? I suffer from this too, but I always thought ADHD was the inability to focus in the short term. I can have great focus on daily tasks if I’m interested in them, but my problem is I lose the interest so frequently that I can’t seem to make the leap beyond intermediate competency in a hobby or career direction.

thenaturalist 4y ago
Yes. What you describe in an ADHD context might be called "hyperfocus": It's a period of intense focus which you are able to maintain and enjoy cause it stimulates your brain. But, critically, you are not able to maintain this hyperfocus for longer periods on a single topic as the stimulus of novelty flattens out and you become bored and understimulated and this quickly leads to procastination or switching to something new.
- conception 4y ago
  What it’s the period when it becomes a disease as what you describe is basically how humans generally work?
  - thenaturalist 4y ago
    This pattern alone is absolutely not enough to suspect it's ADHD. Several other factors need to be present. In general during diagnosis (I can attest to Germany), it must be credibly shown that multiple symptopms have been present both during child as well as adult age. Typical patterns are several aborted apprenticeships or studies, inability to hold steady employment over several years, problems with romantic relationships or long lasting friendships.
  - RHSman2 4y ago
    It’s not a disease. It is the way some people are wired. Just like some people are really boring
    - 4y ago

pr07ecH70r 4y ago

Actually never crossed my mind it could be a sickness-related. I just thought it as a sort of "too many possibilities saturation" or too quick loss of interest. So I decided to ask like-minded people like you here, at least from the same more or less background. Will make the online test, though...

yrgulation 4y ago
I would be cautious in self diagnosing. Taking pills and self medication is thrown around quite easily around here. One does indeed need to find their own path without blaming mental health as a first resort. I am now seeking a transition from software development to something else and as such i experiment with concepts and ideas quite frequently. I changed jobs for a while until i settled down for what i liked, now its time to find something else. Nothing mental health related in this.
RHSman2 4y ago
ADHD isn’t a sickness. It’s a thing that an awful lot of people have.
- Bakary 4y ago
  Disorder is the better word, but it's still a condition defined in relation to how it affects your capacity to function in the target society
  - RHSman2 4y ago
    I have it for reference. Both my children have it. What is the difference between someone who has it and somebody who doesn’t? Where is the line? There is no biological line because we all have these traits. It is only a disorder of it interferes with how you interact with modern life/society. Being human is a condition and for some a disorder. Here, have a drug (anything that triggers dopamine)
    - Bakary 4y ago

pr07ecH70r 4y ago

Got "low/medium probability". Guess it's not that.

RHSman2 4y ago

It’s a super power once you get hold of it.

whoooooo123 4y ago
How do you get hold of it?
- RHSman2 4y ago
  How did I? I have impulsive ADHD. It’s been a great tool but also got me into a lot of trouble. I never thought I could change who I am. I am right but I could become aware of what I am an try to engage my bigger brain rather than the impulsive part. Once I started investing in knowing me better rather than just allowing me to be on a seemingly uncontrollable train I could see how certain behaviors could be toxic to me and others. And forgiving myself. This mostly came through the enlightenment of having a son who has it and dealing with that whilst having ADHD. And that has been my greatest challenge and success. Meta cognition. We talk with him about it in a way which isn’t blame or ‘you can’t do that!’ and while there is still a lot of support he is thriving. Happy to chat offline too
  - ismail 4y ago
    Were you able to do this without prescription meds?
    - RHSman2 4y ago
      Yes however I looked into with a psychologist, a lot of research and decided to not. Was based on looking back on my life with a new understanding and then working via therapy on aspects of being.
  - whoooooo123 4y ago
    Can you be more specific about what you did?
    - 4y ago

bmitc 4y ago

Just as a point of balance: adult onset ADHD, while possible, is quite rare. Many other more common disorders, such as anxiety and depression, will share the same symptoms as ADHD.

xhrpost 4y ago
Yes most everyone says the symptoms need to be present in childhood as well. But apparently the structure of school and just being a little smart can mask the performance symptoms in childhood. Then once the structure is gone in adulthood and life becomes much harder and more complex, the big symptoms start to show up.
- hirvi74 4y ago
  Not to be pedantic, but just because symptoms are masked does not mean they are/were not present. I think the differentiator is whether one had symptoms to mask or not in the first place. I masked some of my symptoms as a child, was diagnosed as an adult, etc., but the symptoms were always there despite my prior ability to function around them.

luxuryballs 4y ago

Did you find any good ways to manage it?

gcr 4y ago

when you have a diagnosis, then what? where do you actually go from there? are there doors that an ADHD diagnosis opens that have a better ROI than, say, graymarket modafinil?

hirvi74 4y ago
> are there doors that an ADHD diagnosis opens that have a better ROI than, say, graymarket modafinil? I suppose it depends where you live. Here is what I can think of off the top of my head: 1. Potential legal protections and academic/workplace accommodations if necessary (US has ADA as an example). 2. Access to potentially more medications (modafinil is not commonly prescribed in the US for ADHD -- even off label) 3. Perhaps less trouble than having to use the Graymarket? Less risk of getting caught? I'm kind of grasping for straws at this moment. If what you have works, then I guess keep going? Just please be careful. Unregulated areas of markets, healthcare, etc. make me nervous, personally.
MajimasEyepatch 4y ago
Therapy can help. Some people can learn to manage it without needing drugs, or at least without being as dependent on drugs.

photochemsyn 4y ago

ADHD is at best greatly overdiagnosed, and the business of providing ADHD diagnoses is quite analagous to the opiate pain pill clinic debacle, in which 'physicians' got kickbacks from the industry for providing opiate prescriptions. With ADHD, it's 'the medication' that is being sold. Often, the doctor's client is actually the amphetamine derivative supplier, and the product being sold (on a commission basis) is the patient. Amphetamine addiction results in the patient feeling bad when they run out of their powerful stimulant drugs, and the resulting feelings of malaise tend to confirm the patient's belief that they have a neurological disorder (rather than just suffering from the standard set of problems that come with regular amphetamine use).

algoatecorn 4y ago
I hope this viewpoint becomes a bit more accepted. The human brain is so complex and we love to put ideas in little boxes, hence the term ADHD. In X number of decades, there's a very good chance we will all look back and realize how dead wrong we were about ADHD, attention, and our extremely crude methods of "curing" it. It blows my mind that especially in American society we are so accepting of putting millions of people on amphetamines to solve attention disorders. Anyone who has gone through higher-ed in the past 10 years knows a huge number of students are on these meds, and even if they suffer some of attention disorder, they are likely at a large advantage after adding the drugs. I'd love to see the percentage of med school students on these drugs.
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  Surely there are other treatments for ADHD beyond the simple pharmaceutical cures, and it would be salutary to diagnose people so they can try those strategies and get the help they need.
  - triggercut 4y ago
    There are. Heaps. And you try them all Talk therapy is incredibly important. People with ADHD can often suffer from rejection dysphoria and depending on how long until they realise, or how self aware they are, they end up internalising a lot of negative opinions and shame about themselves that needs to be unwound. There are a lot of issues around the pain of "never fitting in" or being understood. Some of these are a result of behaviours that aren't the social norm and so they become marginalised. Others are where differences in processing and learning information are labeled as "stupid" at a young age, when the child probably has a similar IQ to their peers. Neurofeedback can be used with good success to help "rewire" particular issues with emotion dysregulation for instance. It can be expensive and requires a lot of time to train the brain to a different mode of operation. Coaching, specifically around time-management and task-management. A lot of people with ADHD suffer from time-blindness. Their perception and relationship with time can be.... complicated. Calendars, specifically having a rigid system for what goes on them, regularly reviewing them, keeping them and a large easy to read clock visible at all times etc can really help. A good water bottle with a straw. No one really knows why but there are a lot of hypotheses. - One thing that never gets mentioned is the relationship between ADHD and food. Generally the nervous system does a pretty terrible job at letting an ADHD person know, when they are hungry, when they are thirsty, when they need the bathroom. Combined with time-blindness, maybe some stress induced hyper-focus because you're falling behind on whatever you need to do, ADHDers will suddenly realise they've missed lunch and binge eat simple food that doesn't require preparation. Preparing a meal would be akin to telling someone with a deadline to just go run a quick marathon first. It'll feel like one or the other, and in some cases, depending on energy levels it will be. - but back to the water bottle. Using the straw means you don't divert your gaze from what you are doing. Your brain doesn't have to judge how full it is and tilt the glass accordingly, if it's big you don't have to get up to refill it. Frictionless hydration.

helij 4y ago

I had this. Changing jobs, freelancing, jumping from project to project, hobby to hobby. Couldn't be at a job for more than a year...until I found a company that actually does work properly. I had same symptoms as above but for me it was not ADHD but bad employers. Even hobbies are stable now.