16 ms·

I have seen this first hand with a (non-teenager) family member. They self-diagnosed with ADHD over the past two years. Then they paid to get a private assessm

I have seen this first hand with a (non-teenager) family member. They self-diagnosed with ADHD over the past two years. Then they paid to get a private assessment and sure enough got diagnosed with ADHD. Do I think they have ADHD? Nope, not at all. So why the official diagnosis and treatment with pharmaceuticals? He learnt everything he needed to know to easily fool the doctor assessing him. He knew every test they would use and exactly how to respond. And as he is an intelligent guy he didn't go in there and flag every single thing but just enough to look like a legitimate person struggling with attention and executive function. He told me before the assessment he wants the medication and he got exactly what he wanted. My son was diagnosed with ADHD a couple of years ago so I have seen first hand how the assessments work and it is a joke how much "flexibility" there is. It isn't like a blood or culture test where you can detect the presence or lack of some substance. It is mostly voodoo for want of a better word. One question I ask myself is does he genuinely think he has ADHD or did he just want the meds and figured out a way to get them while looking genuine?

ethanbond 4y ago
A third option is that he does have ADHD and you, a bystander, are doing the misdiagnosis. IMO for disorders like this it’s almost better to view it through the lens of the available treatments. Is the treatment, on net and relative to other possible strategies, going to be a positive impact on this person? If yes, then whether they have apparent Disorder X (a figment of imagination) versus actual Disorder X (which is itself also a figment of our collective imagination) isn’t super relevant. Obviously in the case of ADHD the prescription drugs are pretty intense and have pretty severe negative consequences, so this framework in that case would probably even yield that people with actual ADHD but mild forms shouldn’t have those drugs pushed on them either.
- satysin 4y ago
  > A third option is that he does have ADHD and you, a bystander, are doing the misdiagnosis. Very possible. To me it is just very suspect given my near 30 years of knowing them and other events in their life not long before all of this started. They have never presented any ADHD traits until recently when suddenly they went from 0 to 100. From being a successful engineer to being unable to concentrate on a crossword. My personal opinion is they have untreated PTSD following a violent animal attack in early 2020 that caused life-long damage to their dominant hand. This in turn led to them suffering panic attacks around animals, anxiety due to the Covid lockdowns making treatment/physio complicated, furlough leading to isolation at home and being unable to do many of their hobbies from the physical injury (unable to play video games, the guitar, drums, etc) Tangentially related but they have a history of drug misuse and when I asked if they just wanted the medication their response was "Absolutely". I have mentioned seeking therapy as I suspected PTSD (I myself have C-PTSD from childhood abuse) but he made it clear he has no interest in therapy and just wants the medication which to me is not a great sign. Of course I could be wrong but I know him well and my worry is they will happily throw medication at him which will do nothing to help him deal with what I believe are the actual issues he is suffering from.
  - meowfly 4y ago
    > Tangentially related but they have a history of drug misuse There might be a tighter correlation than it seems. What makes drugs addictive is that they work on the dopamine pathways. ADD medications do this directly. Drug abuse causes damaged memory and executive function because drug use downregulates and sometimes damages dopamine receptors. > Thus, in addition to reward, addicted individuals can experience severe disruptions in learning (memory, conditioning, habituation), executive function (impulse inhibition, decision making, delayed gratification), cognitive awareness (interoception) and even emotional (mood and stress reactivity) functions. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2948245/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2948245/
  - evol262 4y ago
    > My personal opinion is they have untreated PTSD following a violent animal attack in early 2020 that caused life-long damage to their dominant hand. This in turn led to them suffering panic attacks around animals, anxiety due to the Covid lockdowns making treatment/physio complicated, furlough leading to isolation at home and being unable to do many of their hobbies from the physical injury (unable to play video games, the guitar, drums, etc) You answered your question. I was diagnosed later in life, as a successful engineer. I am not and never was at the "unable to concentrate on a crossword" level, but you seem to have some misunderstanding about what ADHD is. It is not the inability to concentrate on things. It is the inability to concentrate on _appropriate_ things. It's perfectly possible for them to just be completely disinterested in the crossword, yet able to be engrossed for hours in something which interests them. The medication levels this out so you are able to keep your attention on mundane tasks and complete them after the "interesting" part is over, or to start on mundane tasks at all instead of procrastinating until it's do-or-die. Fundamentally, there's a strong intersection with the dopamine reward system, and a "history of drug misuse" and poor impulse control is completely in line with a diagnosis. Personally, I went through a close family member's suicide, followed rapidly by moving across the country to an isolated town where my spouse developed a problem with alcohol, a couple years of abuse, a divorce, another move to a different area of the country, then all of the lockdown stuff. All of my (and their) unconsciously constructed support structures, reward activities, and safety nets evaporated. Stop.
- Chernobog 4y ago
  I have ADHD and my flavor makes me look well adjusted on the outside while struggling hard. My mother completely dismissed the possibility of ADHD based on things like me getting a Master's degree. People see the decent grades, but don't see that you put in three times the effort. Everything got much easier after getting the diagnosis and medication as a 33 year old.
  - amf12 4y ago
    > I have ADHD and my flavor makes me look well adjusted on the outside while struggling hard. This is me. Looking back at my school days, it is very obvious I had ADHD but neither my parents and I, nor my teachers knew such a thing existed to get diagnosed. In adulthood, others might think I am doing well, but they don't know the constant struggle my life has. > but don't see that you put in three times the effort. This is on point. Sure, I am getting my work done, but they don't see how my constant procrastination, zoning out means it takes me 3x the time to get something done, and it makes me feel 24 hours aren't enough to have my life in order.
- tsol 4y ago
  >Is the treatment, on net and relative to other possible strategies, going to be a positive impact on this person? If yes, then whether they have apparent Disorder X (a figment of imagination) versus actual Disorder X (which is itself also a figment of our collective imagination) isn’t super relevant. Just about every human being operates better on amphetamines. It increases dopamine and adrenaline, increasing attention span and motivation significantly while decreasing the need for food or rest. Medication simply improving performance is not really a working metric in this case
  - ethanbond 4y ago
    Very true if you’re counting only the positive effects, in which case it’s not “on net.” There are obviously significant downsides to amphetamines which is why we don’t treat them like caffeine or even vitamins.
    - zozbot234 4y ago
      The obvious downside to caffeine is pretty much the same: it stops working if you take too much of it too often. Reserve your coffee for special occasions, and it will work as well as any stimulant.
      - ethanbond 4y ago
        If you don’t see the obvious differences between amphetamine and caffeine, not sure what to tell you.
rbinv 4y ago
Do the meds help him? I do understand what you're getting at, but tests and assessments will always be gamed by some people. Yes, he may have cheated, but until there is a more objective way to diagnose disorders like ADHD, something like this is simply part of the whole thing. Consider him a false positive. You certainly wouldn't prefer having false negatives instead.
- satysin 4y ago
  He has been on them two months and while his concentration is better (according to him) none of his other issues have changed for better or worse afaik (anxiety etc). I should note he never had any concentration problems before 2020 and even he agrees with this. I replied to another comment with additional details you may be interested in.
zrail 4y ago
People who have nothing wrong don't seek out labels and treatment. If he identified so strongly with the ADHD things being put out there (the vast majority of which at least rhyme with the official diagnostic criteria) that he paid for an assessment that came back positive* then it might be best to believe him. * I paid for an assessment from a neuropsychologist that came back negative. I dug into their assessment and it was basically just wrong (self contradicting and extremely biased, I.e. I was "too smart" to have it). I went to someone else and they picked up on it immediately.
- satysin 4y ago
  > People who have nothing wrong don't seek out labels and treatment. Agreed, I do think there is something wrong I am just not convinced it is ADHD and my worry is now he has his diagnosis and some pills it won't help him in getting him the help he actually needs which I believe is more related to trauma from an animal attack combined with the pandemic. I know it sounds like I am just disagreeing with his ADHD diagnosis and that I am in some way against ADHD diagnosis but that is not the case at all. As I said my son was diagnosed with ADHD not too long ago. I have no issue with ADHD as a diagnosis I just worry it is the wrong one for this person because they became so obsessed with getting adderall as some kind of fix for everything and when other options such as therapy are suggested they dismiss them instantly as "too much talking".
  - zrail 4y ago
    That's fair. The question is, are the meds helping? People with ADHD react very differently to stimulants than people who don't, to the point where it's usually apparent to others.
    - sjy 4y ago
      “For years, it was assumed that stimulants had paradoxical calming effects in ADHD patients, [while] stimulating ‘normal’ individuals … It is now known that low doses of stimulants focus attention and improve executive function in both normal and ADHD subjects.” https://www.nature.com/articles/1301164 https://www.nature.com/articles/1301164
HansKerneue 4y ago
Some perspective from someone like your family member. ~2 years ago I self-diagnosed with ADHD and paid for a private assessment. I learnt everything about it before being assessed and therefore knew exactly how to respond, and was put on a prescription for methylphenidate. The reason I went looking for the diagnosis was 10+ years of utter misery. I had been on various treatments for depression & anxiety, but found them minimally effective. I was getting by but was pretty apathetic about life. Over the years I'd investigated various other mental illnesses, but never came across one that seemed to fit me. I came across ADHD purely by chance, when an acquaintance was diagnosed and I looked it up. Previously I had probably ignored it assuming that it was just for hyperactive kids. This one did seem to fit, and frankly I was desperate. The though of a pill that could actually fix some of my issues made it worth a try at the very least. For the past two years I've been happier than any other time in my life that I can remember. Life was just easier. The most telling point for me was when I realised that I was no longer apathetic about life, I actively wanted to live, I had things that I wanted to do, goals to achieve - and I was actually able to do them. I don't know if I actually have ADHD, I still question the diagnosis. It worries me sometimes that maybe I don't have it and that instead I'm just not very good at life. The truth is that it doesn't really matter, the diagnosis and treatment worked - If I payed for a placebo I don't really care. Perhaps your family member is the same - maybe they have ADHD, maybe they just needed something to help them through life, maybe they had run out of alternatives - it just gets to a point where you wonder 'how much does it matter even if I'm wrong?'
- cpsns 4y ago
  I’m in this exact same boat right now, word for word, other than I haven’t had the assessment yet (very soon though). I’m quite literally desperate for any answers at this point, my teen years and 20s were on the whole, an absurd nightmare. The only thing that worries me is they’ll tell me I have it because that’s the easy thing to do. I don’t want a diagnosis unless they’re 100% sure and I worry that paying for the assessment will bias the outcome.
  - HansKerneue 4y ago
    I will add then that while the meds have been very effective, equally helpful was accepting the diagnosis. It made it easier for me to accept some of my failings and forgive myself for them. And secondly just to say that things definitely can get better (which I found very hard to be believe for a very long time, no matter how many people would say it) Whatever happens, best of luck to you!
skippyboxedhero 4y ago
My mother took me to a extremely expensive child psychologist as a child. I don't recall what she said exactly, but I think she inadvertently suggested that she "thought something was wrong". The diagnosis came, my mother ignored it, and I don't have whatever he said I had twenty years or so later (not a total waste of money, he did an IQ test, and a color blindness test, hard to fuck that up). It is an industry. At the time this happened, wealthier parents were often taking their kids to these people so they would give a diagnosis for extra time on school exams (this is presumably why he diagnosed me with something, iirc my mum told him he was wrong, he said "what do you want me to do?"). Obviously, the medication is an incentive for some kids now too. And the industry does affect how people cope, everything is medicalised and diagnosed, that isn't very helpful. The fact that kids have so much knowledge is also impacting diagnoses because they know what to say (and their parents are concerned too, and maybe say "I think you have this" and they want to validate that). Unfortunately, I don't think anyone is really getting helped. More resources are going towards the trendy stuff, normal emotion is getting "diagnosed", and it is the same old stuff if you actually have something wrong with you (unemployment rates for people with autism are 80%, "mental health awareness").
dham 4y ago
The mind and body can manufacture so many things in general too. If you think you have ADHD(along with any other medical thing) it might just come to be in certain situations. Not saying it's a lot or anything, but could happen. When I was younger I would watch a pharmaceutical commercial and swear I had that disease. In fact I'm not sure why we don't ban those.
propogandist 4y ago
I've done the same to get RX to get through a particularly crazy college semester vs buying "focus meds" on the street at crazy markup, a long time ago. It was easy to figure out what the doc needs to hear from some light internet research and I even had calibrated my responses to get the drug of choice. Cost was pennies on the dollar with insurance. The doc would encourage moving up to powerful doses in follow ups, even though I was barely taking the initial dose... I've since learned these professional drug peddlers often thrive on pushing habit forming drugs that require routine office visit to get a fix (refill).
- ryandrake 4y ago
  Slightly off-topic side-thread, but just a heads-up: anyone who might ever want to become an airplane pilot (even in little Cessnas) would want to avoid this whole "study up on the symptoms and go diagnosis shopping" business. The FAA still considers ADD, ADHD and other mental disorders disqualifying, and you will never get a medical certificate with a diagnosis, even if you are being treated for it.
  - propogandist 4y ago
    it'll be trivial to get a diagnosis stating you don't have ADHD, just by using the same "diagnosis shopping" method. The FAA can't stop a motivated person from becoming an airplane pilot.
  - CuriousCosmic 4y ago
    This is not remotely correct. What is correct is that you can't fly with a current ADHD diagnosis or after having recently taken ADHD medication. If you've had a diagnosis in the past, you need to be off the medication for at least 90 days and go through an evaluation and drug test as well as submit some extra documentation to show that you have been able to function since stopping treatment (or in general if you never received medication). Given the prevalence of ADHD diagnoses where the individual ends up being able to function without medication, most organisations have protocols carved out to allow prior and even currently diagnosed individuals the ability to join/get certified provided you can get off medication. Another commonly cited reason to avoid a diagnosis is commissioning in any of the military branches as an officer. You can still get a med waiver to commission as long as you show proof you've been off meds for a year. Source: https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/avs/offices/aam/ame/guide/dec_cons/disease_prot/adhd/ https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/av...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jasongi 4y ago
Can I just put it out there how wild it is that so many people immediately assume people get ADHD diagnosis’s because they want to recreationally take stimulants rather than like, they have an issue they want treated. It’s a lot easier, and to an extent cheaper, to purchase black market drugs. Yet people are always sceptical when people say they have an ADHD diagnosis, as if they’re just a meth fiend who wants a socially accepted reason to get high all day. This line of thinking falls apart pretty quickly once you realise that ADHD isn’t socially accepted, as demonstrated by these kinds of comments you get whenever someone talks about it.

ethanbond 4y ago

A third option is that he does have ADHD and you, a bystander, are doing the misdiagnosis. IMO for disorders like this it’s almost better to view it through the lens of the available treatments. Is the treatment, on net and relative to other possible strategies, going to be a positive impact on this person? If yes, then whether they have apparent Disorder X (a figment of imagination) versus actual Disorder X (which is itself also a figment of our collective imagination) isn’t super relevant. Obviously in the case of ADHD the prescription drugs are pretty intense and have pretty severe negative consequences, so this framework in that case would probably even yield that people with actual ADHD but mild forms shouldn’t have those drugs pushed on them either.

satysin 4y ago
> A third option is that he does have ADHD and you, a bystander, are doing the misdiagnosis. Very possible. To me it is just very suspect given my near 30 years of knowing them and other events in their life not long before all of this started. They have never presented any ADHD traits until recently when suddenly they went from 0 to 100. From being a successful engineer to being unable to concentrate on a crossword. My personal opinion is they have untreated PTSD following a violent animal attack in early 2020 that caused life-long damage to their dominant hand. This in turn led to them suffering panic attacks around animals, anxiety due to the Covid lockdowns making treatment/physio complicated, furlough leading to isolation at home and being unable to do many of their hobbies from the physical injury (unable to play video games, the guitar, drums, etc) Tangentially related but they have a history of drug misuse and when I asked if they just wanted the medication their response was "Absolutely". I have mentioned seeking therapy as I suspected PTSD (I myself have C-PTSD from childhood abuse) but he made it clear he has no interest in therapy and just wants the medication which to me is not a great sign. Of course I could be wrong but I know him well and my worry is they will happily throw medication at him which will do nothing to help him deal with what I believe are the actual issues he is suffering from.
- meowfly 4y ago
  > Tangentially related but they have a history of drug misuse There might be a tighter correlation than it seems. What makes drugs addictive is that they work on the dopamine pathways. ADD medications do this directly. Drug abuse causes damaged memory and executive function because drug use downregulates and sometimes damages dopamine receptors. > Thus, in addition to reward, addicted individuals can experience severe disruptions in learning (memory, conditioning, habituation), executive function (impulse inhibition, decision making, delayed gratification), cognitive awareness (interoception) and even emotional (mood and stress reactivity) functions. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2948245/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2948245/
- evol262 4y ago
  > My personal opinion is they have untreated PTSD following a violent animal attack in early 2020 that caused life-long damage to their dominant hand. This in turn led to them suffering panic attacks around animals, anxiety due to the Covid lockdowns making treatment/physio complicated, furlough leading to isolation at home and being unable to do many of their hobbies from the physical injury (unable to play video games, the guitar, drums, etc) You answered your question. I was diagnosed later in life, as a successful engineer. I am not and never was at the "unable to concentrate on a crossword" level, but you seem to have some misunderstanding about what ADHD is. It is not the inability to concentrate on things. It is the inability to concentrate on _appropriate_ things. It's perfectly possible for them to just be completely disinterested in the crossword, yet able to be engrossed for hours in something which interests them. The medication levels this out so you are able to keep your attention on mundane tasks and complete them after the "interesting" part is over, or to start on mundane tasks at all instead of procrastinating until it's do-or-die. Fundamentally, there's a strong intersection with the dopamine reward system, and a "history of drug misuse" and poor impulse control is completely in line with a diagnosis. Personally, I went through a close family member's suicide, followed rapidly by moving across the country to an isolated town where my spouse developed a problem with alcohol, a couple years of abuse, a divorce, another move to a different area of the country, then all of the lockdown stuff. All of my (and their) unconsciously constructed support structures, reward activities, and safety nets evaporated. Stop.
Chernobog 4y ago
I have ADHD and my flavor makes me look well adjusted on the outside while struggling hard. My mother completely dismissed the possibility of ADHD based on things like me getting a Master's degree. People see the decent grades, but don't see that you put in three times the effort. Everything got much easier after getting the diagnosis and medication as a 33 year old.
- amf12 4y ago
  > I have ADHD and my flavor makes me look well adjusted on the outside while struggling hard. This is me. Looking back at my school days, it is very obvious I had ADHD but neither my parents and I, nor my teachers knew such a thing existed to get diagnosed. In adulthood, others might think I am doing well, but they don't know the constant struggle my life has. > but don't see that you put in three times the effort. This is on point. Sure, I am getting my work done, but they don't see how my constant procrastination, zoning out means it takes me 3x the time to get something done, and it makes me feel 24 hours aren't enough to have my life in order.
tsol 4y ago
>Is the treatment, on net and relative to other possible strategies, going to be a positive impact on this person? If yes, then whether they have apparent Disorder X (a figment of imagination) versus actual Disorder X (which is itself also a figment of our collective imagination) isn’t super relevant. Just about every human being operates better on amphetamines. It increases dopamine and adrenaline, increasing attention span and motivation significantly while decreasing the need for food or rest. Medication simply improving performance is not really a working metric in this case
- ethanbond 4y ago
  Very true if you’re counting only the positive effects, in which case it’s not “on net.” There are obviously significant downsides to amphetamines which is why we don’t treat them like caffeine or even vitamins.
  - zozbot234 4y ago
    The obvious downside to caffeine is pretty much the same: it stops working if you take too much of it too often. Reserve your coffee for special occasions, and it will work as well as any stimulant.
    - ethanbond 4y ago
      If you don’t see the obvious differences between amphetamine and caffeine, not sure what to tell you.

rbinv 4y ago

Do the meds help him? I do understand what you're getting at, but tests and assessments will always be gamed by some people. Yes, he may have cheated, but until there is a more objective way to diagnose disorders like ADHD, something like this is simply part of the whole thing. Consider him a false positive. You certainly wouldn't prefer having false negatives instead.

satysin 4y ago
He has been on them two months and while his concentration is better (according to him) none of his other issues have changed for better or worse afaik (anxiety etc). I should note he never had any concentration problems before 2020 and even he agrees with this. I replied to another comment with additional details you may be interested in.

zrail 4y ago

People who have nothing wrong don't seek out labels and treatment. If he identified so strongly with the ADHD things being put out there (the vast majority of which at least rhyme with the official diagnostic criteria) that he paid for an assessment that came back positive* then it might be best to believe him. * I paid for an assessment from a neuropsychologist that came back negative. I dug into their assessment and it was basically just wrong (self contradicting and extremely biased, I.e. I was "too smart" to have it). I went to someone else and they picked up on it immediately.

satysin 4y ago
> People who have nothing wrong don't seek out labels and treatment. Agreed, I do think there is something wrong I am just not convinced it is ADHD and my worry is now he has his diagnosis and some pills it won't help him in getting him the help he actually needs which I believe is more related to trauma from an animal attack combined with the pandemic. I know it sounds like I am just disagreeing with his ADHD diagnosis and that I am in some way against ADHD diagnosis but that is not the case at all. As I said my son was diagnosed with ADHD not too long ago. I have no issue with ADHD as a diagnosis I just worry it is the wrong one for this person because they became so obsessed with getting adderall as some kind of fix for everything and when other options such as therapy are suggested they dismiss them instantly as "too much talking".
- zrail 4y ago
  That's fair. The question is, are the meds helping? People with ADHD react very differently to stimulants than people who don't, to the point where it's usually apparent to others.
  - sjy 4y ago
    “For years, it was assumed that stimulants had paradoxical calming effects in ADHD patients, [while] stimulating ‘normal’ individuals … It is now known that low doses of stimulants focus attention and improve executive function in both normal and ADHD subjects.” https://www.nature.com/articles/1301164 https://www.nature.com/articles/1301164

HansKerneue 4y ago

Some perspective from someone like your family member. ~2 years ago I self-diagnosed with ADHD and paid for a private assessment. I learnt everything about it before being assessed and therefore knew exactly how to respond, and was put on a prescription for methylphenidate. The reason I went looking for the diagnosis was 10+ years of utter misery. I had been on various treatments for depression & anxiety, but found them minimally effective. I was getting by but was pretty apathetic about life. Over the years I'd investigated various other mental illnesses, but never came across one that seemed to fit me. I came across ADHD purely by chance, when an acquaintance was diagnosed and I looked it up. Previously I had probably ignored it assuming that it was just for hyperactive kids. This one did seem to fit, and frankly I was desperate. The though of a pill that could actually fix some of my issues made it worth a try at the very least. For the past two years I've been happier than any other time in my life that I can remember. Life was just easier. The most telling point for me was when I realised that I was no longer apathetic about life, I actively wanted to live, I had things that I wanted to do, goals to achieve - and I was actually able to do them. I don't know if I actually have ADHD, I still question the diagnosis. It worries me sometimes that maybe I don't have it and that instead I'm just not very good at life. The truth is that it doesn't really matter, the diagnosis and treatment worked - If I payed for a placebo I don't really care. Perhaps your family member is the same - maybe they have ADHD, maybe they just needed something to help them through life, maybe they had run out of alternatives - it just gets to a point where you wonder 'how much does it matter even if I'm wrong?'

cpsns 4y ago
I’m in this exact same boat right now, word for word, other than I haven’t had the assessment yet (very soon though). I’m quite literally desperate for any answers at this point, my teen years and 20s were on the whole, an absurd nightmare. The only thing that worries me is they’ll tell me I have it because that’s the easy thing to do. I don’t want a diagnosis unless they’re 100% sure and I worry that paying for the assessment will bias the outcome.
- HansKerneue 4y ago
  I will add then that while the meds have been very effective, equally helpful was accepting the diagnosis. It made it easier for me to accept some of my failings and forgive myself for them. And secondly just to say that things definitely can get better (which I found very hard to be believe for a very long time, no matter how many people would say it) Whatever happens, best of luck to you!

skippyboxedhero 4y ago

My mother took me to a extremely expensive child psychologist as a child. I don't recall what she said exactly, but I think she inadvertently suggested that she "thought something was wrong". The diagnosis came, my mother ignored it, and I don't have whatever he said I had twenty years or so later (not a total waste of money, he did an IQ test, and a color blindness test, hard to fuck that up). It is an industry. At the time this happened, wealthier parents were often taking their kids to these people so they would give a diagnosis for extra time on school exams (this is presumably why he diagnosed me with something, iirc my mum told him he was wrong, he said "what do you want me to do?"). Obviously, the medication is an incentive for some kids now too. And the industry does affect how people cope, everything is medicalised and diagnosed, that isn't very helpful. The fact that kids have so much knowledge is also impacting diagnoses because they know what to say (and their parents are concerned too, and maybe say "I think you have this" and they want to validate that). Unfortunately, I don't think anyone is really getting helped. More resources are going towards the trendy stuff, normal emotion is getting "diagnosed", and it is the same old stuff if you actually have something wrong with you (unemployment rates for people with autism are 80%, "mental health awareness").

dham 4y ago

The mind and body can manufacture so many things in general too. If you think you have ADHD(along with any other medical thing) it might just come to be in certain situations. Not saying it's a lot or anything, but could happen. When I was younger I would watch a pharmaceutical commercial and swear I had that disease. In fact I'm not sure why we don't ban those.

propogandist 4y ago

I've done the same to get RX to get through a particularly crazy college semester vs buying "focus meds" on the street at crazy markup, a long time ago. It was easy to figure out what the doc needs to hear from some light internet research and I even had calibrated my responses to get the drug of choice. Cost was pennies on the dollar with insurance. The doc would encourage moving up to powerful doses in follow ups, even though I was barely taking the initial dose... I've since learned these professional drug peddlers often thrive on pushing habit forming drugs that require routine office visit to get a fix (refill).

ryandrake 4y ago
Slightly off-topic side-thread, but just a heads-up: anyone who might ever want to become an airplane pilot (even in little Cessnas) would want to avoid this whole "study up on the symptoms and go diagnosis shopping" business. The FAA still considers ADD, ADHD and other mental disorders disqualifying, and you will never get a medical certificate with a diagnosis, even if you are being treated for it.
- propogandist 4y ago
  it'll be trivial to get a diagnosis stating you don't have ADHD, just by using the same "diagnosis shopping" method. The FAA can't stop a motivated person from becoming an airplane pilot.
- CuriousCosmic 4y ago
  This is not remotely correct. What is correct is that you can't fly with a current ADHD diagnosis or after having recently taken ADHD medication. If you've had a diagnosis in the past, you need to be off the medication for at least 90 days and go through an evaluation and drug test as well as submit some extra documentation to show that you have been able to function since stopping treatment (or in general if you never received medication). Given the prevalence of ADHD diagnoses where the individual ends up being able to function without medication, most organisations have protocols carved out to allow prior and even currently diagnosed individuals the ability to join/get certified provided you can get off medication. Another commonly cited reason to avoid a diagnosis is commissioning in any of the military branches as an officer. You can still get a med waiver to commission as long as you show proof you've been off meds for a year. Source: https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/avs/offices/aam/ame/guide/dec_cons/disease_prot/adhd/ https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/av...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

jasongi 4y ago

Can I just put it out there how wild it is that so many people immediately assume people get ADHD diagnosis’s because they want to recreationally take stimulants rather than like, they have an issue they want treated. It’s a lot easier, and to an extent cheaper, to purchase black market drugs. Yet people are always sceptical when people say they have an ADHD diagnosis, as if they’re just a meth fiend who wants a socially accepted reason to get high all day. This line of thinking falls apart pretty quickly once you realise that ADHD isn’t socially accepted, as demonstrated by these kinds of comments you get whenever someone talks about it.