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I used to think I had some ADHD symptoms: growing up I never did any revision for any of my school exams until a couple of days before, all my coursework and pr

I used to think I had some ADHD symptoms: growing up I never did any revision for any of my school exams until a couple of days before, all my coursework and projects were done last minute in a week of intense focus, I've had issues with drugs in the past etc. Then I met someone who actually has ADHD and saw them before they'd taken their stimulant drugs. They were completely nonfunctional in any sense of the word, they'd be trying to have five conversations with you at once and it took them about 30 minutes to put their shoes on, it looked like absolute hell. Next to that I really don't have any issues and I don't think I'd be able to handle being prescribed psychoactive drugs. Ever since meeting that person I've been a lot more hesitant to self-diagnose problems.

slipperlobster 3y ago
Note that ADHD can manifest physically, mentally, or a combination of the two. I've been recently diagnosed with ADHD in my late 30s after finally seeing a psychiatrist, and at most my physical manifestation of it is minor fidgeting. Where it really burns me is not being able to dedicate brainpower for more than a few minutes at a time, unless I'm in one of my "focus" modes. Similarly, my brain constantly has multiple tasks/"conversations" going on and I'm always thinking of something else. Additionally, I'm always chasing something novel to satisfy some dopamine hit. I've honestly worked around a lot of the issues I deal with prior to being diagnosed, knowing when I'm not in a "focus" mode and trying to (gently) steer back to being productive. I joke about my "gaming ADHD" where I don't sit with a game for more than a half hour or so before moving on to something else. Internal dialogues are just something I work with. Not saying you're right or wrong, but it's difficult to compare someone else's problems with your own (potential) issues. e: Also note that there are non-stimulants on the market. I'm currently trialing one while I wait for a cardiologist to review some records for possible stimulant conflicts.
- 93po 3y ago
  Just one data point but my psychiatrist said that in his in clinical experience he’s never seen the non stimulants help
  - slipperlobster 3y ago
    Yeah, mine said it's ~50/50 shot. We're trying the non-stimulant while waiting on the cardiologist to do a deeper look at a potential heart issue. shrug The most I've felt with the atomoxetine is a loss of appetite, which I'm not opposed to for the time being :)
- gosub100 3y ago
  Did you have the inability to read books? I notice that I simply cannot focus on reading a book to save my life. I can read internet comments and articles all day though. If I try to read a book I get annoyed that they're "not making their point" fast enough, especially with fiction and visual descriptions of people and places. I used to just complain about it, but now I wonder if thats actually pinpointing something wrong with my brain (such as ADHD). If I'm reading fiction, I do not translate the word "red" with the color, things like that. And usually within 2-3 paragraphs, my eyes are reading the text but my brain is thinking about computers or what I need to get done that weekend. It's awful because I'm missing out on an entire mode of art but I dont know what to do about it. I've only been enthralled in a book once or twice in my 40 years of life.
  - slipperlobster 3y ago
    My issue with reading is that my eyes will continue on while my brain has already left the station, so to speak. I'll end up having to go back and re-read sentences/paragraphs. I started doing some research (prior to speaking with my psychiatrist) and started noticing some ADHD-esque behaviors in my toddler. I'm not looking to get them diagnosed (yet?), because who knows what is "normal young kid inattentiveness and hyperactivity" versus anything else, but ADHD is absolutely hereditary and a family history is one aspect that is/was used to diagnose. This is a good resource I've read (well, listened to the audiobook of..): https://www.amazon.com/Driven-Distraction-Revised-Recognizing-Attention/dp/0307743152 https://www.amazon.com/Driven-Distraction-Revised-Recognizin...
    - gosub100 3y ago
      I think your situation (especially with your child) outlines one of the insidious challenges we face in our modern society: breaking through the confusion and understanding the nuance of an issue (in this case, ADHD). We've all heard the misinformation tropes "Back in my day, a kid was hyper because he wanted to play, nowadays $BOGEYMAN says those kids need to be medicated so they can get a 4.0", and they sound so alluring to large groups of people, so they write off ADHD altogether. Yet I distinctly remember kids from my childhood who could not hold a conversation, they would literally break off into a new topic while you were mid-sentence with them. Tell me how that kid can possibly learn anything if he doesn't even know that he vacated a conversation. This is a parallel to George Carlin's "It's called shell-shock" spiel, or used by people to deny the existence of depression. It's very difficult to both convey nuance, and get people to accept it, even though it (the nuance) abuts life-threatening issues.
gibagger 3y ago
There are degrees to everything, and the same psych disorder can manifest in very different ways in different people. I have been diagnosed with generalised anxiety disorder. I "worry too much", in general, and have the odd panic attack or two per year. Some people have it bad enough they get these attacks daily. That does not mean I don't have it or that it does not affect me, it just means it's mild in comparison to them, but my anxiety is still high compared to the average person when untreated. It does not have to be crippling to affect you.
dijit 3y ago
Well. 1. Self-diagnosis is not a diagnosis. 2. Things exist on a spectrum. The definition of it becoming a "disorder" is when it negatively affects your life enough. During diagnosis a psychotherapist will be tasked with identifying traits of ADHD (IE; Markers), you will not have all markers. Everyone will have some. Then those markers are investigated to discover how much they impact your quality of life. If it is above a certain threshold in aggregate then you are then diagnosed clinically as having "ADHD" and can be medicated. What I mean is, for example: You can still have autism even if someone has significantly more severe autistic traits than you have.
- nbaugh1 3y ago
  Exactly. So so so many people do not understand this element of psychological disorders
  - timeagain 3y ago
    The D in ADHD is “disorder”, which normally means you can’t function socially, at work, and/or take care of yourself. Normally I don’t consider scatterbrained knowledge workers in the top 5% of the income distribution to be in that category. It is kind of fun so do work on speed though!
    - tpmoney 3y ago
      There are lots of ways "can't function socially, at work, and/or take care of yourself" can manifest even if you're in the top 5% of the income distribution. For example, that person's house might be an absolute disaster zone, with overgrown lawns, tasks piling up and a million tiny piles of bills and papers to be done "later". They might need 4 separate alarm clocks in 3 different physical places in order to wake up on time every day. They might be constantly forgetting to follow up with family and friends all the time and isolated and alone when they're not in the office. They might be the co-worker that when everyone is talking about what they did over the holiday weekend responds with "not much" because they're otherwise too embarrassed to admit they spent the whole 3 days in a state of paralysis over what to even do. They might be putting all their energy into appearing normal and functional at work because the alternative is being homeless or starving and you might never know because you don't see them outside the office. All that to basically say income and job descriptions do not inherently say anything about what disorders a person may or may not be suffering from.
sudosysgen 3y ago
There's a good chance you do have ADHD. I was in a similar place to you, and it's important to know that it manifests differently in different people, and that there is a rebound effect when you stop your meds so what you might have seen may have been much worse than their unmedicated state. If you have the money I'd suggest just getting tested.
navjack27 3y ago
Yup! I wish more people who say they have ADHD could have that experience. If someone says they have ADHD but they are unmedicated and they already are holding down a decent job but are only recently kind of struggling with something they called distraction or issues with focus... Then I say they don't have ADHD because it's so much more than that. It is issues with actual executive function. It is being unable to put your shoes on because you can't keep a straight train of thought because someone else is distracting you and you can't help but following all those threads of distraction while you are trying to perform a manual task.
- dijit 3y ago
  This is not fair, there are definitely people who struggle with ADHD and do so with the belief they are lazy or internalise their issue as a problem that is due to personality or not being organised enough. My psychotherapist said something along those same lines but it was in order to force me to answer the question why is it a problem. For me, in my life, I have always "worked" during the day in an easily distractible state and without being able to commit effort to anything substantial or focus. I self-medicated with caffeine to get anything resembling focus and did all of my actual daily tasks in a 3hr window when I got home and worked into the late evening. Usually with a massive sense of guilt about how I didn't really do anything during the day. This was ADHD, I could not control when or how I focused. It gets worse with open office environments, but that's not the cause. I have an issue with executive function and delayed gratification. I do not have the ability fundamentally (even when motivated!) to task my brain with working. But I can hold down a job and have done so for 16 years at this point and I am very successful in my career. That is not a good judge, you work around your issues if you have them- in my case I just don't have anything resembling a life outside of work in order to paper over my executive function disorders.
- sureglymop 3y ago
  I wouldn't go as far as to neglect someone elses experience because as with other disorders, people with ADHD can all be quite different. I understand you because for myself it absolutely affects my executive function and I've been diagnosed as a young child, pretty much coping ever since. Could I get a decent job and hold it down though? Yes, probably. Getting and staying in a job has many many more factors and making that part of the criteria only makes things more complicated.
macNchz 3y ago
My wife has a copy of the DSM 5 on our bookshelf, and flipping through it I noted that very many disorders have diagnostic criteria that, beyond just having some symptoms, they cause significant distress or impairment of functioning. I had a friend growing up who was diagnosed with ADHD quite young whose experience was similar to your story–he had major issues with school that ultimately led to him being expelled, not going to college, having trouble with work and family etc. I thought of him a lot as so many of my classmates in a hyper-competitive school environment discussed how they could get a diagnosis and medication to have an edge on college admissions or whatever.
- jon-wood 3y ago
  Its the significant distress or impairment which is key. As an example most people will put off doing things like sorting out an issue with their electricity provider, but I took that to the degree where I only sorted it when someone literally turned up on my doorstep to disconnect the supply. Throughout my life I've found myself in situations where most people would go "well, this seems to be getting out of hand" and just carried on, getting ever more stressed and angry and seemingly being unable to get on with fixing it, whilst variously losing jobs, friendships, and a marriage. It was honestly a huge relief to discover the likely cause is ADHD rather than just being a failure of a human being.
boringg 3y ago
I assume that is how most people get through high-school and university? Intense focus on the couple days before finals / final projects. I too did that. Is that not the case or is that warning lights for ADHD? High school you can get away with it because the course content is easier - college is much more challenging...
- jihiggins 3y ago
  i did that all throughout university and graduated with honors in an engineering program. it really depends on your coping strategies / personality / luck / etc. i definitely have adhd, it just took a few boring jobs for it to blow up my life in any real way. (i completely burned out, turns out relying on adrenaline as an adhd medication is not a great long term coping strategy.) some people will hit that wall earlier or later than others. once, i accidentally dragged a lab partner into doing work the way i did. we turned in the assignment with less than a minute on the clock, and he nearly had an anxiety attack (i was feeling pretty great about things)
  - boringg 3y ago
    Fair - I also graduated from an engineering program - though the intensity around finals was grueling. Somehow I think the 80-100% finals weighting might have made it that way. Why does the boring job blow it up? Not enough stimulation?
    - jihiggins 3y ago
      it ended up being a confluence of personal life stuff plus how pointless the jobs felt (especially after what a slog university was, i was basically already burnt out going into my first job.) i think boring meant adrenaline didn't kick in as much, and my first few jobs didn't really try to incentivize caring about work in ways that weren't blatantly exploitative or "on trust." honestly, idk that it was really anything specific, so much as a bunch of different things finally catching up to me mixed with some bad luck
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
swsieber 3y ago
IIUC, there are two main components to ADHD, and you can have one, the other or both. And all qualify as ADHD. I'm likely ADHD, and the majority of my siblings have it. There's a night and day difference though between me, who in a questionnaire scored high on both, and me who scored high only in one[1]. [1] Well, borderline in one and not the other. Immediately after taking the questionnaire I attended a work meeting and realized that there were at least a half dozen questions that I answered optimistically through rose-tinted glasses. With all that said, I'm working to address my sleep apnea before getting a diagnosis because I've heard that sleep deprivation can manifest similar to ADHD.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
coldblues 3y ago
Sourced from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38162133 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38162133 >Self diagnoses (and diagnoses over the internet) are pretty harmful Self-diagnoses can be legitimate or not - depends on the person doing them. They are often a necessity, in an environment where a professional diagnosis takes thousands of dollars or years in waiting (and is often done badly, by ill-informed professionals, like the many-decades prevailing myth that women/girls "can't be autistic", or that "ADD and autism can't coincide"). As (in this case) they are also based not on bloodwork or some physical indicators, but on a subjective assessment of a person's way of thinking, the person having the actual experience is often more qualified than the professional. Same to how you don't really need a doctor to tell you you're gay. >One might even argue that the labeling aspect of a certain disorder (particularly a mental one) by a "professional" to not be particularly helpful too in addressing ones problems One might argue that the false dichotomy between professionals and laymen, where the former is supposed to hold all the keys to knowledge and the latter to passively consult and follow the advice of the former, is a problem in itself. And a little outdated in modern societies where the "laymen" are not some mud dwelling peasants who never went to school and only know farm work, but univercity-educated (even over-educated) in their own right, and libraries are not confined to the rich or the scholars, but every book ever written is a click away. In any case, a self-diagnosis doesn't give you the required paperwork to get drugs, or to get benefits, or specific accomondations, or anything like that. So it's not like it hurts society by taking resources from "legitimate" diagnoses. Last, but not least, pointing that X symptoms is "quite common to ADD/ADHD" is not self-diagnosis, it's not even diagnosing. It's a suggestion hinting to a possible condition. It could very well be used for seeking a professional diagnosis. Or do you think people with ADD/ADHD just go to the doctor to get diagnosed out of the blue, and not because of some similar suspicion, spotting some unexplained symptoms or themselves, or identification with some symptoms they've read about?
- kulahan 3y ago
  There are a lot of problems with this comment. It might touch on a few legitimate ideas, like that we should probably consider the value of the patient's actual experience of course. But even in light of ideas like that, this whole idea has resulted in people getting pills from people they know or websites based in less-scrupulous nations. There are similar problems with most of the statements here - they make sense on the surface, but once you consider second- and third-order effects, it falls apart. We should not be encouraging moving away from professionals giving medical diagnoses. It may be a necessary evil at times, but it's a bad idea to encourage.
alchemist1e9 3y ago
I’d also suggest that any high IQ individual will by the very nature of being in an extreme of that IQ distribution exhibit some other behaviors that are in tails of the “normal” distribution for various behaviors. I’ve had multiple people suggest to me I might have ADHD, it’s nonsense, I remember everything and don’t miss any deadlines. They observe me working simultaneously on many projects and since that is impossible for them, and frankly their memory is horrible, they don’t even remember correctly about the one project they are currently focused on, so suddenly they think this person is abnormal and hyper, ok they have ADHD.
- Gigachad 3y ago
  I’ve occasionally had people with ADHD or Autism try to diagnose me with it. I took it seriously and read up all about it, watched YouTube videos where people explain their experience, and did the screening questionnaires. And I don’t think I’m even close to having either ADHD or Autism. Just seems like people see something they can relate too, like listening to fast pace music, or ordering the same thing at the restaurant every time, and then link that to their condition/project it on you.
P_I_Staker 3y ago
It presents in different ways. Someone isn't having 5 conversations, but could be drifting in and out of thoughts. It might just look like they aren't very interested. If it's more severe you would have more trouble controlling these kinds of things for a number of reasons related to the condition (poor executive function and impulse control). I've met "people with ADHD" who seem to not have the condition at all, though pretty much always medicated. On the other hand, I've met people with far more clearcut symptoms, and I felt like I had way more in common with them. It sounded like they were living the exact same life.
BagelGuy 3y ago
My foot hurts everyday but next to someone who had their's amputated I'm okay; therefore, my foot is fine.
paradox242 3y ago
I was this person most of my life until medication in my late 30s. For some reason (probably the ADHD) I never really payed attention to it but was always kind of vaguely aware that doing simple things like getting ready for the day, or any kind of planning always seemed much more difficult for me than most others. The worst is the kind of decision paralysis that would happen where you have all of these competing priorities shouting for your attention at once, and your mind rapidly flits between them until you are so exhausted you just check out and go read some hacker news... oh that's how I ended up here.
Aeglaecia 3y ago
id wager any human would increase in productivity when given speed

slipperlobster 3y ago

Note that ADHD can manifest physically, mentally, or a combination of the two. I've been recently diagnosed with ADHD in my late 30s after finally seeing a psychiatrist, and at most my physical manifestation of it is minor fidgeting. Where it really burns me is not being able to dedicate brainpower for more than a few minutes at a time, unless I'm in one of my "focus" modes. Similarly, my brain constantly has multiple tasks/"conversations" going on and I'm always thinking of something else. Additionally, I'm always chasing something novel to satisfy some dopamine hit. I've honestly worked around a lot of the issues I deal with prior to being diagnosed, knowing when I'm not in a "focus" mode and trying to (gently) steer back to being productive. I joke about my "gaming ADHD" where I don't sit with a game for more than a half hour or so before moving on to something else. Internal dialogues are just something I work with. Not saying you're right or wrong, but it's difficult to compare someone else's problems with your own (potential) issues. e: Also note that there are non-stimulants on the market. I'm currently trialing one while I wait for a cardiologist to review some records for possible stimulant conflicts.

93po 3y ago
Just one data point but my psychiatrist said that in his in clinical experience he’s never seen the non stimulants help
- slipperlobster 3y ago
  Yeah, mine said it's ~50/50 shot. We're trying the non-stimulant while waiting on the cardiologist to do a deeper look at a potential heart issue. shrug The most I've felt with the atomoxetine is a loss of appetite, which I'm not opposed to for the time being :)
gosub100 3y ago
Did you have the inability to read books? I notice that I simply cannot focus on reading a book to save my life. I can read internet comments and articles all day though. If I try to read a book I get annoyed that they're "not making their point" fast enough, especially with fiction and visual descriptions of people and places. I used to just complain about it, but now I wonder if thats actually pinpointing something wrong with my brain (such as ADHD). If I'm reading fiction, I do not translate the word "red" with the color, things like that. And usually within 2-3 paragraphs, my eyes are reading the text but my brain is thinking about computers or what I need to get done that weekend. It's awful because I'm missing out on an entire mode of art but I dont know what to do about it. I've only been enthralled in a book once or twice in my 40 years of life.
- slipperlobster 3y ago
  My issue with reading is that my eyes will continue on while my brain has already left the station, so to speak. I'll end up having to go back and re-read sentences/paragraphs. I started doing some research (prior to speaking with my psychiatrist) and started noticing some ADHD-esque behaviors in my toddler. I'm not looking to get them diagnosed (yet?), because who knows what is "normal young kid inattentiveness and hyperactivity" versus anything else, but ADHD is absolutely hereditary and a family history is one aspect that is/was used to diagnose. This is a good resource I've read (well, listened to the audiobook of..): https://www.amazon.com/Driven-Distraction-Revised-Recognizing-Attention/dp/0307743152 https://www.amazon.com/Driven-Distraction-Revised-Recognizin...
  - gosub100 3y ago
    I think your situation (especially with your child) outlines one of the insidious challenges we face in our modern society: breaking through the confusion and understanding the nuance of an issue (in this case, ADHD). We've all heard the misinformation tropes "Back in my day, a kid was hyper because he wanted to play, nowadays $BOGEYMAN says those kids need to be medicated so they can get a 4.0", and they sound so alluring to large groups of people, so they write off ADHD altogether. Yet I distinctly remember kids from my childhood who could not hold a conversation, they would literally break off into a new topic while you were mid-sentence with them. Tell me how that kid can possibly learn anything if he doesn't even know that he vacated a conversation. This is a parallel to George Carlin's "It's called shell-shock" spiel, or used by people to deny the existence of depression. It's very difficult to both convey nuance, and get people to accept it, even though it (the nuance) abuts life-threatening issues.

gibagger 3y ago

There are degrees to everything, and the same psych disorder can manifest in very different ways in different people. I have been diagnosed with generalised anxiety disorder. I "worry too much", in general, and have the odd panic attack or two per year. Some people have it bad enough they get these attacks daily. That does not mean I don't have it or that it does not affect me, it just means it's mild in comparison to them, but my anxiety is still high compared to the average person when untreated. It does not have to be crippling to affect you.

dijit 3y ago

Well. 1. Self-diagnosis is not a diagnosis. 2. Things exist on a spectrum. The definition of it becoming a "disorder" is when it negatively affects your life enough. During diagnosis a psychotherapist will be tasked with identifying traits of ADHD (IE; Markers), you will not have all markers. Everyone will have some. Then those markers are investigated to discover how much they impact your quality of life. If it is above a certain threshold in aggregate then you are then diagnosed clinically as having "ADHD" and can be medicated. What I mean is, for example: You can still have autism even if someone has significantly more severe autistic traits than you have.

nbaugh1 3y ago
Exactly. So so so many people do not understand this element of psychological disorders
- timeagain 3y ago
  The D in ADHD is “disorder”, which normally means you can’t function socially, at work, and/or take care of yourself. Normally I don’t consider scatterbrained knowledge workers in the top 5% of the income distribution to be in that category. It is kind of fun so do work on speed though!
  - tpmoney 3y ago
    There are lots of ways "can't function socially, at work, and/or take care of yourself" can manifest even if you're in the top 5% of the income distribution. For example, that person's house might be an absolute disaster zone, with overgrown lawns, tasks piling up and a million tiny piles of bills and papers to be done "later". They might need 4 separate alarm clocks in 3 different physical places in order to wake up on time every day. They might be constantly forgetting to follow up with family and friends all the time and isolated and alone when they're not in the office. They might be the co-worker that when everyone is talking about what they did over the holiday weekend responds with "not much" because they're otherwise too embarrassed to admit they spent the whole 3 days in a state of paralysis over what to even do. They might be putting all their energy into appearing normal and functional at work because the alternative is being homeless or starving and you might never know because you don't see them outside the office. All that to basically say income and job descriptions do not inherently say anything about what disorders a person may or may not be suffering from.

sudosysgen 3y ago

There's a good chance you do have ADHD. I was in a similar place to you, and it's important to know that it manifests differently in different people, and that there is a rebound effect when you stop your meds so what you might have seen may have been much worse than their unmedicated state. If you have the money I'd suggest just getting tested.

navjack27 3y ago

Yup! I wish more people who say they have ADHD could have that experience. If someone says they have ADHD but they are unmedicated and they already are holding down a decent job but are only recently kind of struggling with something they called distraction or issues with focus... Then I say they don't have ADHD because it's so much more than that. It is issues with actual executive function. It is being unable to put your shoes on because you can't keep a straight train of thought because someone else is distracting you and you can't help but following all those threads of distraction while you are trying to perform a manual task.

dijit 3y ago
This is not fair, there are definitely people who struggle with ADHD and do so with the belief they are lazy or internalise their issue as a problem that is due to personality or not being organised enough. My psychotherapist said something along those same lines but it was in order to force me to answer the question why is it a problem. For me, in my life, I have always "worked" during the day in an easily distractible state and without being able to commit effort to anything substantial or focus. I self-medicated with caffeine to get anything resembling focus and did all of my actual daily tasks in a 3hr window when I got home and worked into the late evening. Usually with a massive sense of guilt about how I didn't really do anything during the day. This was ADHD, I could not control when or how I focused. It gets worse with open office environments, but that's not the cause. I have an issue with executive function and delayed gratification. I do not have the ability fundamentally (even when motivated!) to task my brain with working. But I can hold down a job and have done so for 16 years at this point and I am very successful in my career. That is not a good judge, you work around your issues if you have them- in my case I just don't have anything resembling a life outside of work in order to paper over my executive function disorders.
sureglymop 3y ago
I wouldn't go as far as to neglect someone elses experience because as with other disorders, people with ADHD can all be quite different. I understand you because for myself it absolutely affects my executive function and I've been diagnosed as a young child, pretty much coping ever since. Could I get a decent job and hold it down though? Yes, probably. Getting and staying in a job has many many more factors and making that part of the criteria only makes things more complicated.

macNchz 3y ago

My wife has a copy of the DSM 5 on our bookshelf, and flipping through it I noted that very many disorders have diagnostic criteria that, beyond just having some symptoms, they cause significant distress or impairment of functioning. I had a friend growing up who was diagnosed with ADHD quite young whose experience was similar to your story–he had major issues with school that ultimately led to him being expelled, not going to college, having trouble with work and family etc. I thought of him a lot as so many of my classmates in a hyper-competitive school environment discussed how they could get a diagnosis and medication to have an edge on college admissions or whatever.

jon-wood 3y ago
Its the significant distress or impairment which is key. As an example most people will put off doing things like sorting out an issue with their electricity provider, but I took that to the degree where I only sorted it when someone literally turned up on my doorstep to disconnect the supply. Throughout my life I've found myself in situations where most people would go "well, this seems to be getting out of hand" and just carried on, getting ever more stressed and angry and seemingly being unable to get on with fixing it, whilst variously losing jobs, friendships, and a marriage. It was honestly a huge relief to discover the likely cause is ADHD rather than just being a failure of a human being.

boringg 3y ago

I assume that is how most people get through high-school and university? Intense focus on the couple days before finals / final projects. I too did that. Is that not the case or is that warning lights for ADHD? High school you can get away with it because the course content is easier - college is much more challenging...

jihiggins 3y ago
i did that all throughout university and graduated with honors in an engineering program. it really depends on your coping strategies / personality / luck / etc. i definitely have adhd, it just took a few boring jobs for it to blow up my life in any real way. (i completely burned out, turns out relying on adrenaline as an adhd medication is not a great long term coping strategy.) some people will hit that wall earlier or later than others. once, i accidentally dragged a lab partner into doing work the way i did. we turned in the assignment with less than a minute on the clock, and he nearly had an anxiety attack (i was feeling pretty great about things)
- boringg 3y ago
  Fair - I also graduated from an engineering program - though the intensity around finals was grueling. Somehow I think the 80-100% finals weighting might have made it that way. Why does the boring job blow it up? Not enough stimulation?
  - jihiggins 3y ago
    it ended up being a confluence of personal life stuff plus how pointless the jobs felt (especially after what a slog university was, i was basically already burnt out going into my first job.) i think boring meant adrenaline didn't kick in as much, and my first few jobs didn't really try to incentivize caring about work in ways that weren't blatantly exploitative or "on trust." honestly, idk that it was really anything specific, so much as a bunch of different things finally catching up to me mixed with some bad luck
red-iron-pine 3y ago

swsieber 3y ago

IIUC, there are two main components to ADHD, and you can have one, the other or both. And all qualify as ADHD. I'm likely ADHD, and the majority of my siblings have it. There's a night and day difference though between me, who in a questionnaire scored high on both, and me who scored high only in one[1]. [1] Well, borderline in one and not the other. Immediately after taking the questionnaire I attended a work meeting and realized that there were at least a half dozen questions that I answered optimistically through rose-tinted glasses. With all that said, I'm working to address my sleep apnea before getting a diagnosis because I've heard that sleep deprivation can manifest similar to ADHD.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

coldblues 3y ago

Sourced from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38162133 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38162133 >Self diagnoses (and diagnoses over the internet) are pretty harmful Self-diagnoses can be legitimate or not - depends on the person doing them. They are often a necessity, in an environment where a professional diagnosis takes thousands of dollars or years in waiting (and is often done badly, by ill-informed professionals, like the many-decades prevailing myth that women/girls "can't be autistic", or that "ADD and autism can't coincide"). As (in this case) they are also based not on bloodwork or some physical indicators, but on a subjective assessment of a person's way of thinking, the person having the actual experience is often more qualified than the professional. Same to how you don't really need a doctor to tell you you're gay. >One might even argue that the labeling aspect of a certain disorder (particularly a mental one) by a "professional" to not be particularly helpful too in addressing ones problems One might argue that the false dichotomy between professionals and laymen, where the former is supposed to hold all the keys to knowledge and the latter to passively consult and follow the advice of the former, is a problem in itself. And a little outdated in modern societies where the "laymen" are not some mud dwelling peasants who never went to school and only know farm work, but univercity-educated (even over-educated) in their own right, and libraries are not confined to the rich or the scholars, but every book ever written is a click away. In any case, a self-diagnosis doesn't give you the required paperwork to get drugs, or to get benefits, or specific accomondations, or anything like that. So it's not like it hurts society by taking resources from "legitimate" diagnoses. Last, but not least, pointing that X symptoms is "quite common to ADD/ADHD" is not self-diagnosis, it's not even diagnosing. It's a suggestion hinting to a possible condition. It could very well be used for seeking a professional diagnosis. Or do you think people with ADD/ADHD just go to the doctor to get diagnosed out of the blue, and not because of some similar suspicion, spotting some unexplained symptoms or themselves, or identification with some symptoms they've read about?

kulahan 3y ago
There are a lot of problems with this comment. It might touch on a few legitimate ideas, like that we should probably consider the value of the patient's actual experience of course. But even in light of ideas like that, this whole idea has resulted in people getting pills from people they know or websites based in less-scrupulous nations. There are similar problems with most of the statements here - they make sense on the surface, but once you consider second- and third-order effects, it falls apart. We should not be encouraging moving away from professionals giving medical diagnoses. It may be a necessary evil at times, but it's a bad idea to encourage.

alchemist1e9 3y ago

I’d also suggest that any high IQ individual will by the very nature of being in an extreme of that IQ distribution exhibit some other behaviors that are in tails of the “normal” distribution for various behaviors. I’ve had multiple people suggest to me I might have ADHD, it’s nonsense, I remember everything and don’t miss any deadlines. They observe me working simultaneously on many projects and since that is impossible for them, and frankly their memory is horrible, they don’t even remember correctly about the one project they are currently focused on, so suddenly they think this person is abnormal and hyper, ok they have ADHD.

Gigachad 3y ago
I’ve occasionally had people with ADHD or Autism try to diagnose me with it. I took it seriously and read up all about it, watched YouTube videos where people explain their experience, and did the screening questionnaires. And I don’t think I’m even close to having either ADHD or Autism. Just seems like people see something they can relate too, like listening to fast pace music, or ordering the same thing at the restaurant every time, and then link that to their condition/project it on you.

P_I_Staker 3y ago

It presents in different ways. Someone isn't having 5 conversations, but could be drifting in and out of thoughts. It might just look like they aren't very interested. If it's more severe you would have more trouble controlling these kinds of things for a number of reasons related to the condition (poor executive function and impulse control). I've met "people with ADHD" who seem to not have the condition at all, though pretty much always medicated. On the other hand, I've met people with far more clearcut symptoms, and I felt like I had way more in common with them. It sounded like they were living the exact same life.

BagelGuy 3y ago

My foot hurts everyday but next to someone who had their's amputated I'm okay; therefore, my foot is fine.

paradox242 3y ago

I was this person most of my life until medication in my late 30s. For some reason (probably the ADHD) I never really payed attention to it but was always kind of vaguely aware that doing simple things like getting ready for the day, or any kind of planning always seemed much more difficult for me than most others. The worst is the kind of decision paralysis that would happen where you have all of these competing priorities shouting for your attention at once, and your mind rapidly flits between them until you are so exhausted you just check out and go read some hacker news... oh that's how I ended up here.

Aeglaecia 3y ago

id wager any human would increase in productivity when given speed