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Just like with depression, everyone sometimes feels sad. It's the intensity and how much your life is affected by it that's the differentiating factor. There al

Just like with depression, everyone sometimes feels sad. It's the intensity and how much your life is affected by it that's the differentiating factor. There also often isn't a logical reason. When you have ADD proper, you just can't help it. For a person with ADD, if there was a gun held to their head to stay on a task, they will soon forget that there's a gun and become distracted. They can't help it. Their mind is racing. The only way to stay on task is to be constantly tapped on the head with the gun. At this point, it's the periodic reminder that's doing the trick. This is why people with ADD often require external structure to keep them focused. There's a lot of positives for people with ADD, such as increased creativity and out-of-the-box thinking. Problem is that a lot of societal institutions, such as school, are not adapted to it.

jamesbritt 14y ago
Years back, when being treated for major clinical depression, someone asked how you could tell if someone was clinically depressed. Someone else (and I forget exactly where I was for this) said, "You respond well to anti-depressants." The average person, given various antidepressants (or at least certain ones; I've not kept up on all the research) would not get any benefit. Desipramine, for example, is not some all-around, casual-use pick-me-up. I think this is true for at least some ADD drugs; how does a person respond to stimulants? Do they calm down, or do they get wired? Ritalin and Adderall used to calm me down; so did black beauties when I was self-medicating. Eventually they stopped doing anything for me. Unfortunately there is, to my knowledge, no objective marker for various mental conditions. You have to try things and consider the context and see what works or doesn't, and you may never really know exactly why, or what the underlying problem is. ADD? Occasional distraction? Depression? Bad time in your life? Bi-polar? The lines are blurry.
Buzaga 14y ago
how did they manage to teach this little discourse to everyone? Incredible.
darkarmani 14y ago
> This is why people with ADD often require external structure to keep them focused. It's not so much about keeping focus it's the executive function part of it: keeping focused on the right thing. People with ADD can definitely focus, they just can't control it. That's why parents can easily dismiss it as lack of motivation. "he focuses just fine playing soccer" (a sport with adrenaline that gives results like stimulants)

jamesbritt 14y ago

Years back, when being treated for major clinical depression, someone asked how you could tell if someone was clinically depressed. Someone else (and I forget exactly where I was for this) said, "You respond well to anti-depressants." The average person, given various antidepressants (or at least certain ones; I've not kept up on all the research) would not get any benefit. Desipramine, for example, is not some all-around, casual-use pick-me-up. I think this is true for at least some ADD drugs; how does a person respond to stimulants? Do they calm down, or do they get wired? Ritalin and Adderall used to calm me down; so did black beauties when I was self-medicating. Eventually they stopped doing anything for me. Unfortunately there is, to my knowledge, no objective marker for various mental conditions. You have to try things and consider the context and see what works or doesn't, and you may never really know exactly why, or what the underlying problem is. ADD? Occasional distraction? Depression? Bad time in your life? Bi-polar? The lines are blurry.

Buzaga 14y ago

how did they manage to teach this little discourse to everyone? Incredible.

darkarmani 14y ago

> This is why people with ADD often require external structure to keep them focused. It's not so much about keeping focus it's the executive function part of it: keeping focused on the right thing. People with ADD can definitely focus, they just can't control it. That's why parents can easily dismiss it as lack of motivation. "he focuses just fine playing soccer" (a sport with adrenaline that gives results like stimulants)