5 ms·

I was diagnosed with ADHD as a kid and as an adult it makes me feel angry because we slap a label on kids, and now even adults so we can have something to point

I was diagnosed with ADHD as a kid and as an adult it makes me feel angry because we slap a label on kids, and now even adults so we can have something to point the finger at rather than acknowledge that people are stimulated by different things.

BizarreByte 4y ago
> so we can have something to point the finger at rather than acknowledge that people are stimulated by different things. So what do you do for people like me who without medication can't even do things we want to do or have an interest in, no matter how hard we try? It's not always as simple as being stimulated by different things. Call it ADHD or not, in extreme cases it can be absolutely debilitating for people and it's not simply because they're lazy, or not trying.
- philliphaydon 4y ago
  I'm not saying ADHD doesn't exist or that there are not people who need medication to assist them. I just believe that its so overly diagnosed these days. It's similar to depression. It's very common to just throw drugs at the problem when some people don't need drugs, they need a lifestyle change, sometimes that means using drugs to begin with as a bridge to a lifestyle change. But we are in this weird state where people go to a doctor and its like "oh you sneezed? here take these 15 drugs" "how do you feel, on can't focus, must be ADHD, take this" "oh you feel down, must be depression, take these 6 drugs" Sometimes I feel like we treat a problem before we diagnose the problem.
  - uberduper 4y ago
    Less feelings, more data.
  - iamdbtoo 4y ago
    Since you were diagnosed as a child you may not be aware, but getting a diagnosis for ADHD is not nearly as simple as you describe and doctors are not just throwing meds at you. If anything, you'll first be labeled a drug-seeker.
  - kortex 4y ago
    > But we are in this weird state where people go to a doctor and its like "oh you sneezed? here take these 15 drugs" Many people say this, but where's the evidence? Probably the best quality article to date in support of overdiagnosis and overtreatment is [1], and that paper is incredibly weak. It does not give any concrete numbers as to the rate of overdiagnosis, only really claims that there are populations of less severe ADHD that have inferior reward/risk outcomes of pharmacotreatment, while also admitting ADHD is underdiagnosed and undertreated in subpopulations, especially girls and minorities. In other words, it's likely all just misdiagnosis, due to limited sensitivity and specificity. My hypothesis is that ADHD detection, like any medical test, has limits to its accuracy, and considering even quantitative tests with 90% accuracy have quite large false positive populations, we are seeing a similar situation with the far more qualitative ADHD test system. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8042533/#!po=9.11765 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8042533/#!po=9....
  - viraptor 4y ago
    It's not that simple to get diagnosed and the drugs are not the first thing that will be tried. I'm sure there are some overprescribing doctors out there, but on the other hand it took me months to get a diagnosis+prescription and required changing who I'm seeing. And that's even before you go on the "let's figure out the correct dosage" ride that takes time, effort, and bad days. It's not your average vitamins. On the other hand comments like that are among things that contributed to me not getting diagnosed for years, so consider what are the confirmed facts when talking about medical treatments, ok?
  - amf12 4y ago
    It could be more frequently diagnosed, but also under-diagnosed at the same time. More diagnosis are due to more awareness, but there isn't data to prove it's been overly diagnosed in people who don't have it.
wincy 4y ago
I was of this mind at one point. I didn’t take ADHD medication through my teens or early 20s. It wasn’t until I got married and had a kid that I found myself struggling to provide for my family in a very real way that I saw a psychiatrist and started Adderall. I’ve tried a few times over the years to stop, and each time my career has taken a tail spin. I go from being a top performer when taking a small amount of Adderall to having difficulties doing the most basic work tasks because they’re boring. I can acknowledge all I want that I’m stimulated by different things, but without a diagnosis to give a professional an idea of the symptoms I face, I wouldn’t be a successful or happy member of society. Before my diagnosis and treatment I was EXTREMELY depressed and anxious all the time. The diagnosis has been literally life changing in the best way possible.
- briHass 4y ago
  Same here. I got okay grades in school, and I even managed a few semesters in college with excellent grades (comp sci major), but that was with the help of self medicating with stimulants (illicitly obtained.) Now that I'm an adult with a diagnosis and proper, legal medication, it has helped immensely. It makes me wonder where I would/could be if I got on the right path earlier in life.
amf12 4y ago
ADHD isn't just "stimulated by different things" though. It's lacking the executive function to maintain that stimulation. Someone with ADHD might be stimulated by a thing and then get bored very soon and move on to another new stimulus.
hidelooktropic 4y ago
Hard no. We have decades of research establishing there are distinct differences in the brains of people with ADHD and real kinds of tasks in which they drastically underperform regardless of effort. It might be nice to think it's really just part of a rainbowy spectrum of everyone is different and koombaya, but it's simply not true. Similar to another commenter here, I told myself this story until my early thirties and suffered the whole time thinking I was using the ADHD "label" as a crutch. ADHD and other mental illnesses get this "just a label" treatment because we don't walk around with missing limbs or eyeballs. Most people with ADHD mask their symptoms enough to feign normality. That normality is enough to make them functional while enough to fool others the stray from normal is akin to the occasional distractability of neurotypical brains.

BizarreByte 4y ago

> so we can have something to point the finger at rather than acknowledge that people are stimulated by different things. So what do you do for people like me who without medication can't even do things we want to do or have an interest in, no matter how hard we try? It's not always as simple as being stimulated by different things. Call it ADHD or not, in extreme cases it can be absolutely debilitating for people and it's not simply because they're lazy, or not trying.

philliphaydon 4y ago
I'm not saying ADHD doesn't exist or that there are not people who need medication to assist them. I just believe that its so overly diagnosed these days. It's similar to depression. It's very common to just throw drugs at the problem when some people don't need drugs, they need a lifestyle change, sometimes that means using drugs to begin with as a bridge to a lifestyle change. But we are in this weird state where people go to a doctor and its like "oh you sneezed? here take these 15 drugs" "how do you feel, on can't focus, must be ADHD, take this" "oh you feel down, must be depression, take these 6 drugs" Sometimes I feel like we treat a problem before we diagnose the problem.
- uberduper 4y ago
  Less feelings, more data.
- iamdbtoo 4y ago
  Since you were diagnosed as a child you may not be aware, but getting a diagnosis for ADHD is not nearly as simple as you describe and doctors are not just throwing meds at you. If anything, you'll first be labeled a drug-seeker.
- kortex 4y ago
  > But we are in this weird state where people go to a doctor and its like "oh you sneezed? here take these 15 drugs" Many people say this, but where's the evidence? Probably the best quality article to date in support of overdiagnosis and overtreatment is [1], and that paper is incredibly weak. It does not give any concrete numbers as to the rate of overdiagnosis, only really claims that there are populations of less severe ADHD that have inferior reward/risk outcomes of pharmacotreatment, while also admitting ADHD is underdiagnosed and undertreated in subpopulations, especially girls and minorities. In other words, it's likely all just misdiagnosis, due to limited sensitivity and specificity. My hypothesis is that ADHD detection, like any medical test, has limits to its accuracy, and considering even quantitative tests with 90% accuracy have quite large false positive populations, we are seeing a similar situation with the far more qualitative ADHD test system. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8042533/#!po=9.11765 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8042533/#!po=9....
- viraptor 4y ago
  It's not that simple to get diagnosed and the drugs are not the first thing that will be tried. I'm sure there are some overprescribing doctors out there, but on the other hand it took me months to get a diagnosis+prescription and required changing who I'm seeing. And that's even before you go on the "let's figure out the correct dosage" ride that takes time, effort, and bad days. It's not your average vitamins. On the other hand comments like that are among things that contributed to me not getting diagnosed for years, so consider what are the confirmed facts when talking about medical treatments, ok?
- amf12 4y ago
  It could be more frequently diagnosed, but also under-diagnosed at the same time. More diagnosis are due to more awareness, but there isn't data to prove it's been overly diagnosed in people who don't have it.

wincy 4y ago

I was of this mind at one point. I didn’t take ADHD medication through my teens or early 20s. It wasn’t until I got married and had a kid that I found myself struggling to provide for my family in a very real way that I saw a psychiatrist and started Adderall. I’ve tried a few times over the years to stop, and each time my career has taken a tail spin. I go from being a top performer when taking a small amount of Adderall to having difficulties doing the most basic work tasks because they’re boring. I can acknowledge all I want that I’m stimulated by different things, but without a diagnosis to give a professional an idea of the symptoms I face, I wouldn’t be a successful or happy member of society. Before my diagnosis and treatment I was EXTREMELY depressed and anxious all the time. The diagnosis has been literally life changing in the best way possible.

briHass 4y ago
Same here. I got okay grades in school, and I even managed a few semesters in college with excellent grades (comp sci major), but that was with the help of self medicating with stimulants (illicitly obtained.) Now that I'm an adult with a diagnosis and proper, legal medication, it has helped immensely. It makes me wonder where I would/could be if I got on the right path earlier in life.

amf12 4y ago

ADHD isn't just "stimulated by different things" though. It's lacking the executive function to maintain that stimulation. Someone with ADHD might be stimulated by a thing and then get bored very soon and move on to another new stimulus.

hidelooktropic 4y ago

Hard no. We have decades of research establishing there are distinct differences in the brains of people with ADHD and real kinds of tasks in which they drastically underperform regardless of effort. It might be nice to think it's really just part of a rainbowy spectrum of everyone is different and koombaya, but it's simply not true. Similar to another commenter here, I told myself this story until my early thirties and suffered the whole time thinking I was using the ADHD "label" as a crutch. ADHD and other mental illnesses get this "just a label" treatment because we don't walk around with missing limbs or eyeballs. Most people with ADHD mask their symptoms enough to feign normality. That normality is enough to make them functional while enough to fool others the stray from normal is akin to the occasional distractability of neurotypical brains.