7 ms·

I'm becoming more of an adult-onset ADHD skeptic. I mean, there is even a crisis now because of an Adderall shortage [1]. People who legitimately need them (the

by nvarsj 4y ago

I'm becoming more of an adult-onset ADHD skeptic. I mean, there is even a crisis now because of an Adderall shortage [1]. People who legitimately need them (they cannot hold a job without it) are not able to get them. I think there is certainly a spectrum of ADHD. Those with severe ADHD literally cannot function in society, they can't hold jobs, they can't get university degrees, without medication. Then you have the mild ADHD induced tech worker which is becoming more prevalent. Yes, meds are going to help as well. Possibly less social media, less dopamine hits, more exercise, and better sleep would help too. Another thing to keep in mind is that burn out symptoms look an awful lot like ADHD symptoms. And burn out is very common in our industry. 1: https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-a https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-a... edit: Updated to be clear I mean people being diagnosed with ADHD as adults, not everyone with ADHD who is an adult.

thenaturalist 4y ago
Are you affected by ADHD? Do you know someone really close to you affected by ADHD? I am really frustrated by regular people with affiliation to the tech industry at best and stories about chemically induced productivity enhancement "lifestyle" experiments to question the existence of the condition. I am right there with you when it comes to criticizing prescribing stimulants to anyone on a whim. I can say that here in Germany any typical diagnosis includes submitting early school year report cards to establish the fact that what the patient is describing as lived experience was already recognizable during child/ early teen years. I can say that getting the diagnosis and access to medication has been absolutely life changing. I am 30 years old. I can say that having talked to other adults who were diagnosed late, they mostly share this perspective. People are really suffering and anyone discrediting that fact is piling on top of said suffering for literally no reason.
- nvarsj 4y ago
  I believe ADHD exists. I've worked with children who have moderate/severe ADHD and it is very apparent. What I'm skeptical about is the rise in ADHD cases only diagnosed in adulthood. I think there are likely other explanations for it rather than ADHD.
navjack27 4y ago
I'm one of those who literally can't function in society. ADHD is definitely a spectrum disorder and the spectrum also varies within each individual mattering on the situation. As such I'm not working in tech but I love technology and doing things related to it. I'm highly knowledgeable and highly competent. I don't social media anymore. I'm out of shape but I'm not fat but I don't exercise so I'm not strong. I get decent sleep but I also do whatever I want with my schedule for the most part, but I get at least 6 hours of sleep and it's good sleep because I don't force myself to sleep when I can't sleep. The biggest symptom for me with my ADHD isn't focus. It's not attention. I have both of those things with and without my medication probably more than anyone that I talk to on a day-to-day basis and that's because skills I've learned over time to change the way that I approach my environment. The biggest issue I have with my ADHD is motivation. It's task starting. Even self-goal-related task starting. The second biggest issue is frustration and anger and impulsivity. Now you can get told your whole life when you have ADHD that you're not focused on things. And then you develop methods to make sure that you are focused on things... Then through no fault of your own it appears as though that you're not focused on things because you're not *doing things*. You have no fuel in the tank even on a good day to actually sit down and do something that you want to. You're not depressed. You're just not doing the thing. Even the common medications available today don't address this. But one thing I will say is that stopping dopamine hits doesn't help this. Dopamine fasting is a fucking myth. You need dopamine when you get in situations like this because you're just already at a low baseline and you're desensitized and depriving yourself of more doesn't actually lower that needle on the compressor to use an audio analogy. So, most of the time what gets me out of this funk is to get frustrated at something external. If I'm watching someone play old games on twitch in the retro category maybe I'll get frustrated because they are using dosbox when they should be using PCEM and the accuracy that they are getting is wrong and they're showing the game wrong so then I get motivated to get up and actually play the game correctly while they're doing it wrong or something. Or I'll read a hardware review for some computer part and I get frustrated that they aren't benchmarking this shit correctly anymore and if I have the means to have that hardware then I'll try to start writing a review and doing testing methodology for it. Those are just some small examples. I say jokingly that spite is a motivator for me. Edit: diagnosed at the age of two and medicated around that same year and I'm 34 now. Also a side diagnosis of extremely high functioning Asperger's. Also some extra little things I guess... The world frustratingly operates on delayed gratification and delayed punishment. And by delayed I mean more than immediate. This doesn't work for me. You aren't doing me a favor if I did something wrong and you don't tell me right then right there in a constructive manner. You also aren't helping me if you are withholding reward for longer than exactly when I did the right thing. I'm not saying I'm a spoiled little brat that needs things as soon as possible because everything is about me me me... I'm saying that my brain literally will not process these things the same way if you involve a Time component. Edit again: anyone who thinks this long scrawling comment is the product of an amphetamined up brain. I just woke up and rolled over turned off the sleep tracking on my phone opened up edge went to hacker News as is my usual morning routine. I'm completely unmedicated right now. Most likely this comment wouldn't exist if I had my medication in my blood right now because I would have thought about what usefulness commenting might have and then thought better of it. IE I would have had less impulsivity. So I'm not saying this is medical advice but if when you take your Adderall for your new found out ADHD diagnosis and you find that when you take it that things are going quicker and you're doing more things possibly impulsively then... I'm just going to say that we don't have the same ADHD or you just don't have ADHD and you're just tweaking right now instead because when I take my 30 mg of instant release amphetamine salts I am extremely calm and extremely collected and I don't do half the stuff I usually do when I don't have my meds in my system.
bvanderveen 4y ago
Interesting that ADHD skepticism is a guaranteed recipe for a downvote.
- nvarsj 4y ago
  It definitely is. I was hoping to have an open discussion rather than being downvoted to oblivion. What I'm observing is: there is a sudden rise in adult ADHD diagnoses. Big pharma is pushing marketing around ADHD, there are viral themes on TikTok etc. about ADHD, and you have the rise of subscription services like donefirst.com. Social media sites are being flooded with posts exactly like this one. What is going on exactly? Maybe there really is a large number of undiagnosed ADHD cases that are only now getting diagnosed, as people are being made aware of the symptoms? Are there really people, aka "normies", who don't procrastinate, and can just sit for 8 hours doing intense knowledge work without any kind of stimulant?
vcvzsa3221 4y ago
"Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness"

by nvarsj 4y ago

thenaturalist 4y ago

Are you affected by ADHD? Do you know someone really close to you affected by ADHD? I am really frustrated by regular people with affiliation to the tech industry at best and stories about chemically induced productivity enhancement "lifestyle" experiments to question the existence of the condition. I am right there with you when it comes to criticizing prescribing stimulants to anyone on a whim. I can say that here in Germany any typical diagnosis includes submitting early school year report cards to establish the fact that what the patient is describing as lived experience was already recognizable during child/ early teen years. I can say that getting the diagnosis and access to medication has been absolutely life changing. I am 30 years old. I can say that having talked to other adults who were diagnosed late, they mostly share this perspective. People are really suffering and anyone discrediting that fact is piling on top of said suffering for literally no reason.

nvarsj 4y ago
I believe ADHD exists. I've worked with children who have moderate/severe ADHD and it is very apparent. What I'm skeptical about is the rise in ADHD cases only diagnosed in adulthood. I think there are likely other explanations for it rather than ADHD.

navjack27 4y ago

I'm one of those who literally can't function in society. ADHD is definitely a spectrum disorder and the spectrum also varies within each individual mattering on the situation. As such I'm not working in tech but I love technology and doing things related to it. I'm highly knowledgeable and highly competent. I don't social media anymore. I'm out of shape but I'm not fat but I don't exercise so I'm not strong. I get decent sleep but I also do whatever I want with my schedule for the most part, but I get at least 6 hours of sleep and it's good sleep because I don't force myself to sleep when I can't sleep. The biggest symptom for me with my ADHD isn't focus. It's not attention. I have both of those things with and without my medication probably more than anyone that I talk to on a day-to-day basis and that's because skills I've learned over time to change the way that I approach my environment. The biggest issue I have with my ADHD is motivation. It's task starting. Even self-goal-related task starting. The second biggest issue is frustration and anger and impulsivity. Now you can get told your whole life when you have ADHD that you're not focused on things. And then you develop methods to make sure that you are focused on things... Then through no fault of your own it appears as though that you're not focused on things because you're not *doing things*. You have no fuel in the tank even on a good day to actually sit down and do something that you want to. You're not depressed. You're just not doing the thing. Even the common medications available today don't address this. But one thing I will say is that stopping dopamine hits doesn't help this. Dopamine fasting is a fucking myth. You need dopamine when you get in situations like this because you're just already at a low baseline and you're desensitized and depriving yourself of more doesn't actually lower that needle on the compressor to use an audio analogy. So, most of the time what gets me out of this funk is to get frustrated at something external. If I'm watching someone play old games on twitch in the retro category maybe I'll get frustrated because they are using dosbox when they should be using PCEM and the accuracy that they are getting is wrong and they're showing the game wrong so then I get motivated to get up and actually play the game correctly while they're doing it wrong or something. Or I'll read a hardware review for some computer part and I get frustrated that they aren't benchmarking this shit correctly anymore and if I have the means to have that hardware then I'll try to start writing a review and doing testing methodology for it. Those are just some small examples. I say jokingly that spite is a motivator for me. Edit: diagnosed at the age of two and medicated around that same year and I'm 34 now. Also a side diagnosis of extremely high functioning Asperger's. Also some extra little things I guess... The world frustratingly operates on delayed gratification and delayed punishment. And by delayed I mean more than immediate. This doesn't work for me. You aren't doing me a favor if I did something wrong and you don't tell me right then right there in a constructive manner. You also aren't helping me if you are withholding reward for longer than exactly when I did the right thing. I'm not saying I'm a spoiled little brat that needs things as soon as possible because everything is about me me me... I'm saying that my brain literally will not process these things the same way if you involve a Time component. Edit again: anyone who thinks this long scrawling comment is the product of an amphetamined up brain. I just woke up and rolled over turned off the sleep tracking on my phone opened up edge went to hacker News as is my usual morning routine. I'm completely unmedicated right now. Most likely this comment wouldn't exist if I had my medication in my blood right now because I would have thought about what usefulness commenting might have and then thought better of it. IE I would have had less impulsivity. So I'm not saying this is medical advice but if when you take your Adderall for your new found out ADHD diagnosis and you find that when you take it that things are going quicker and you're doing more things possibly impulsively then... I'm just going to say that we don't have the same ADHD or you just don't have ADHD and you're just tweaking right now instead because when I take my 30 mg of instant release amphetamine salts I am extremely calm and extremely collected and I don't do half the stuff I usually do when I don't have my meds in my system.

bvanderveen 4y ago

Interesting that ADHD skepticism is a guaranteed recipe for a downvote.

nvarsj 4y ago
It definitely is. I was hoping to have an open discussion rather than being downvoted to oblivion. What I'm observing is: there is a sudden rise in adult ADHD diagnoses. Big pharma is pushing marketing around ADHD, there are viral themes on TikTok etc. about ADHD, and you have the rise of subscription services like donefirst.com. Social media sites are being flooded with posts exactly like this one. What is going on exactly? Maybe there really is a large number of undiagnosed ADHD cases that are only now getting diagnosed, as people are being made aware of the symptoms? Are there really people, aka "normies", who don't procrastinate, and can just sit for 8 hours doing intense knowledge work without any kind of stimulant?

vcvzsa3221 4y ago

"Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness"