Truth. I remember being in school in the 90s when they were giving Ritalin to everyone who didn't want to sit still in class. Shit was wild. And then you have me, with a healthy case of ADD but since I wasn't a social butterfly, that just meant I wasn't motivated.
Oh man, one of my people! My parents, my school, my teachers just watched me fail with an under 1.0 average, while I scored 95th percentile in every standardized test. I was lazy, undisciplined, and unmotivated, and it made me hate myself.
I feel like this would be a red flag now, but back then, even the school counselors were only worried about my impact on other students. Since it was minimal, they let me just stay there and fail... my best friend, who's every bit at sharp as me, got Ritalined into fucking oblivion and put in remedial classes. Jokes on me tho, he got a diploma from HS.
GED is just another standardized test. If I knew how easy it was back in my junior year, I would have saved myself a lot of time and trouble.
Dude, all the same here. I tested insanely high on that aptitude test in elementary school and was placed in their version of honors. But the teachers would get pissed because I wouldn't do any homework, yet somehow aced all my tests and scored minimum 90th percentile on all standardized tests. I just paid attention to the lessons but had no interest in the busy work.
I ended up just doing the CA proficiency exam and got out of high school on my 17th birthday, and then got a diploma at 25 to make my mom happy.
They had me and my brother on I think it was Concerta, and yeah there was something not right about that stuff. Adderall was great for getting shit done, but no way I'd want to take it everyday.
Consider that the 90s was when most early Boomers had their kids in school, and of course, they didn't want to deal with their children's problems. So yeah, throw some drugs at them, the teacher is always right, and shut up now- Mommy and Daddy are focused on themselves.
Turns out, the teachers just do their job. And most of the time just the bare minimum, just like almost everyone else.
And if you want to teach and a student is a pain and hindering/distracting everyone else, then you kinda have to intervene.
If the student isn't motivated/concentrated its easy for the teacher to just say that the student doesnt wanna learn so he gets just bad grades.
Same with autism. It wasn't until I had my master's degree in math and teaching high school at age 39 that it ever occurred to me that I was autistic. A colleague and I had a mutual student, and he told me that he thought she might be autistic and that he was going to refer her to the school's diagnostician for testing.
So I found myself curious about the symptoms of autism, because Rain Man was my frame of reference. I researched the symptoms in the middle of a Geometry team meeting, and everything I read had my sitting up further and further in my seat, until I just blurted out "Oh my GAWD...?!" My colleagues asked what, and I said "Y'all...I think I might be autistic?" They looked at one another quizzically, like they were shocked at my personal revelation. One of them replied, "Wait...you didn't know?!" I said, "....what, you DID know?!?" She was like "Yes! We all know that about you! You seriously didn't know? 😂" HELL NO I DIDN'T KNOW!
I immediately called my mom on the phone to tell her that I thought I might be autistic. "Yyyyyeah...your dad and I always thought you might be." HOLY FUCKING SHIT MOM WTF?????? 😲😲😲WHY DIDN'T YOU EVER GET ME TESTED?!? "Well, you always made such good grades that we just didn't think it mattered that much.
I have since been diagnosed with ASD Level 1, and I think back a lot on my life lived. I marvel at how much easier my life would have been if I hadn't had to develop all of these coping mechanisms myself. I did well in school despite my autism. I earned two degrees despite my autism. I hold down teaching jobs despite my autism. The biggest problems I've had in my life, though, have been personal relationships. I can't imagine how much richer my life might be right now had I known all along how to exist as a self-aware autist in a neurotypical world.
I don't know the popular opinion on this, but I personally think you did a great job learning how to be your best self without having a label. Everyone is unique and everyone will have to learn how to do things their way, having children labeled as something when they already do well might just make them feel more alienated, or be like "I'm X that's why I'm like this" instead of finding their way to be productive/have fun.
Of course it'll help people struggling but not knowing what's wrong. But if you're a type of person who can feel/see what works for you and what doesn't and find solutions for yourself, you might even make your quirks your strength. One frequent thought I have is, how many of the scientists or philosophers in the past were actually autistic? Or had quirks that made them who they are, but would definitely be "problematic" when they were young by today's standards.
TLDR: My opinion is everyone is unique, using your quirks to do things others can't is what makes some people great. Making everyone fit a "normal", and medicating/.... everyone else doesn't seem like a good idea.
Is it? Why does having a label for people treating you differently help with that? It mostly just turns into an excuse for others to use thank being a helpful label.
I think labels seem progressive and helpful but are mostly used to further divide people and make in and out groups.
If you know you struggle with people being told that it's your fault cause you are genetically different somehow even though it seems ever so common and spectrum based does nothing to help you deal with people.
Everything is used to divide, someone autistic will behave in ways that "other" him regardless of labels, and people who want to hate are going to keep hating.
You don't need them, don't use them, but they absolutely are helpful for many people. We are nowhere near a society inclusive enough to make labels obsolete.
Beside, dealing with people's attitude isn't the only issue.
Neurodivergent people will compare themselves to others on their own, and will struggle with their self image and self-esteem.
A diagnosis will help with understanding themselves and finding better strategies much quicker.
Chicken or the egg? Do we stop labeling people and start working on their shared and singular problems to become inclusive or do we need to become inclusive first to start being able to see people as people and work on their shared and singular problems?
I think the answer is we just start doing it anyways. And don't wait for reality to shift to some easier form to do things we should.
And I know that people compare themselves to each other all the time, I have done it and will do it to but now I try to do it when seeing if they are content only. If they have more in their bowl than me it's not my concern, I am trying to focus on those that don't have enough. It's a pipe dream that labeling people makes them better at coping. People still need the compassion of others.
Chicken or the egg do we wait for a compassionate society to start being compassionate ourselves?
I'm happy you found your way and again, don't use labels if you don't want to. Start building the world you wish for, by all means.
You keep missing or ignoring the point that your experience is yours alone, other people find comfort, identity, community and understanding in their labels and that's their right.
Labels are a tool, how they are used depends on the person but they don't intrinsically imply either discrimination or lack of compassion.
Be compassionate, we agree that's the way, but as far as I'm concerned that includes letting people be with their labels when they want to, as long as they're not being dicks about it.
I think we agree on the main point of wanting a more inclusive society, one that hopefully doesn't need labels, eventually, but it doesn't look likely it will happen soon, and as long as we live in this one each of us copes the way we can.
Do you know why humans are as advanced as we are? It's because we can learn from each other and build on what people before us have done. A label helps you connect with people who have the same struggles and learn what strategies they used to cope and live a fulfilling life. It's a way to avoid having to reinvent the wheel.
How do you find the people with the same struggles as you without some common banner to look for? And just naming symptoms without some root cause is probably not going to be helpful. Treating leg pain from a broken bone is different than treating leg pain from a bad cramp. Similar for a lot of social/mental challenges.
Here's how a label can help: I did receive a social worker diagnosis (not medical) in elementary school, but my parents had a very similar outlook to you and didn't do much for helping me learn how to handle it. I "knew", but could never understand why I alienated everyone. I couldn't manage my anger, because every time I met a new kid, it would get combative quickly. I felt I was in a position to have to earn massive respect from everyone to treat me decently, and therefore got controlling when working with others. This pressure also extremely heightened the natural tendency to procrastinate associated with autism (Note, all of this is afterthought analysis not what I thought as a kid).
College and then post grad, I had to confront these issues on my own with only poor coping mechanisms I had developed growing up. I had to educate myself about autism, and I had to spend a lot of time reflecting on myself and figuring out how to manage my worst impulses. If I had been educated and informed as a kid, I wouldn't have needed to struggle like that for decades.
Sure. If people had taken the time to work with you and find your issues and solve them you would have had it better.
That doesn't require the label it just makes it easier to look up the information for it and see what others have done.
The association of the label doesn't help you it would be people helping you. Labeling the pain can help you recognize it, labeling the person puts them in a group.
You also have no idea how the part would be if it was different because it wasn't lived. It's an easy fantasy rather than living in the present. You would have likely still struggled just differently. So what do we do now for those that still are? Do we label them or are we helping them?
Or...and just a thought...maybe people know their own truths better than you ever possibly could, and when they tell you that early diagnosis and therapy would have helped them immensely, you just believe them?
Also, I got diagnoses for Generalized Anxiety Disorder with Panic Attacks as well as Major Depressive Disorder, and having those diagnoses as a teen might have helped as well, ya know?
Would you tell someone who doesn't have legs that they'd be better off without a wheelchair because then they'd be free to "find their own way to be productive/have fun"? Or is this reserved for disorders that you can't see?
My medication doesn't fundamentally change who I am, it just makes me less shit at the things I am most shit at, so that my daily life is less of a constant struggle.
And sure, it's possible to imagine a world where having ADHD wouldn't be such a problem, just like it's possible to imagine a world where not having legs wouldn't be a problem. But that's not the world we live in!
Try not paying your bills and telling your landlord and credit card company that it's fine, you're just not one for rigid schedules and you're finding your own way. Or instead of doing your job at work, do something completely different and see if your boss accepts that you're just quirky.
I don't know if you read it, the second paragraph goes with something like: if you're having problems, then yes, if you've found ways to deal with things and be happy/productive then no need to labels things to be "normal"
It's not specifically, but much of the cultural inertia that we struggle with today is a holdover from the outsized Boomer population and their influence on America for the last ~55 years. And Boomers, as a cohort, are markedly narcissistic and apathetic to the plights of others, while displaying significantly lower levels of empathy and/or understanding. They are largely uneducated, but obstinate that their outdated information still holds validity, and when pressed to change, or reform, typically respond with threats and attacks. This, while gaslighting those with greater knowledge than themselves- Dunning-Kruger personified.
So it's not necessarily limited to Boomers, but this scenario absolutely describes a commonality of experience for those with Boomer parents, particularly of Millennial-age.
My diagnosis was based on a number of tests. One such test was related to speeded processing, basically how quickly a person's brain analyzes things and makes decisions. It required me to look at a series of pages (one at a time) featuring a particular design for about six seconds or so, and to then identify on the flowing page the same design from a group of four, five, or six similar designs (there were more to choose from as the test went on). If I got one wrong, I'd have a second chance to choose the correct image. Two wrong answers in a row and the test would be over.
I was told at the beginning to not feel bad if I didn't finish the test because no one ever does. Well, I did, and very quickly. I made one mistake on one picture, but I'd had it narrowed down to two images, so I was able to quickly recover when I made that one mistake. After a while, after every correct answer, the doctor's eyes became wider and wider, until I finished and she just said, "Welp...that was THAT test!"
When I got my test results, it had me well into the 99.9th percentile. Upon informing me of this, she asked me "Does this surprise you?" to which I replied no, not really. I've always felt like I think WAY more quickly than the rest of the world. And it is both a boon and a burden. It serves me well and will continue to do so in the post-apocalyptic times to come.
But it's also caused me to queer relationships because I don't think about things before speaking sometimes, and - as an autistic person - connections with others are sometimes few and far between. So having confirmation now that my brain really does work this way helps me feel empowered enough to work on myself and that tendency to think/act/speak too quickly, because the relationships I have with people are immensely important to me.
I'm convinced that most psychiatrists and psychologists have control issues that they satisfy through their practice. It makes them feel powerful to be able to gatekeep, judge and implicitly control their patient's life and get paid for it.
Pretty much, my mom didn't notice that I had adhd. But my little brother was a poor student, and ended up on several different medications for his adhd.. meanwhile, my mom made fun of me for having like 5 water glasses scattered throughout the house all the time bcz I forgot I had a water glass, and where it was.
Can you though? At least in most of the US if you aren't already getting psychological help, you have to pay for it yourself, and will just have to figure out a self medication schedule that works for you.
I pay for both a psychiatrist and a psychologist and while my psychologist knows for sure I have ADHD neither of then can prescribe me stimulants so instead I'm on Lexapro so at least I don't have to care.
Right but your scenario presumes a great deal, and millions of Americans can't pay for therapy, nor the medicines required to live a better quality of life. Even people with "good jobs" can have awful health coverage with enormous deductibles and other hoops to jump through.
And the kicker is that we pay more than any other industrialized country and get the worst ROI because it's all been allowed to be run by private corporations, for maximum profit.
TBF if any condition isn't causing problems then it doesn't need treatment. Don't get me wrong, ADHD can cause problems beyond just school/work, but often that's one of the most common primary problems it causes
Who says it isn’t causing problems? We had a similar issue with my oldest. He is a brilliant kid who can’t get his shit together because of his disability. However he can skate through school.
It was a constant battle to get him services and accommodations, because he “is not failing”. The school system thinks he doesn’t need treatment because he’s not failing. We think he deserves treatment because he isn’t living up to his abilities and struggles to do basic stuff
I never really had issues in school, I was doing fine. But teachers kept telling me I wasn't living up to my potential. I was chaotic. Forgetful. Years later, I developed an anxiety disorder I didn't understand so I went to therapy. Turns out I also have chronic depression (oh, life is not so bleak for everyone??) and it's all because of severe ADHD and the attached problems. I'm almost 30 now. And while my therapist did a lot of structured tests, she is not qualified to actually diagnose ADHD. It's gonna be another year until I can get my formal diagnosis and medication.
I often wonder what could have been had the adults in my childhood been more attentive to my -in hindsight- obvious and severe problems.
This was me. Had some good, caring teachers, and some bad, but I was really struggling. Ended up going to a private school on student aid because the public schools didn't care to help. Started caring a lot more about school. Things also got a lot easier when I moved out of the house and had more space to collect my thoughts and goals.
I mean this is technically right (so the best kind of right) but as someone that got okay grades in school and only passed because I could ace a test on pretty much anything, knowing I had ADHD before I was in my mid 30s, stressing over why work was getting harder and harder and trying to explain to my wife that i genuinely just forget to clean up after a project is done would have been hugely helpful. So diagnosing ADHD in kids and teens getting good grades may end with just therapy as treatment if they are otherwise doing well, knowing that other treatments (like medication) are options if after school they start struggling more.
Keep in mind it’s much more difficult to get an ADHD diagnosis as an adult than as a kid.
I got diagnosed and medicated at 39. A couple of years go by and I’ve improved my shit enough that I get offered a promotion from tools to office.
“Great”, I think, because I’m finally getting my shit together.
Couple more years have passed, and it turns out that even with medication it’s real fucking hard to be self-led management when you’ve got a brane that is not at all interested in working with you.
Unmedicated me got reasonable grades at school, then managed a respectable 2:1 degree. That would have been a first class degree if I’d been medicated. But all of that shit is basically on rails, people guiding you in the right direction. I don’t have those rails anymore.
My parents just didn’t know what to do and dropped me out of school at 14. I made good grades for the first semester in school every year, then I was moved beside the teacher’s desk and had straight Fs for the rest of the year.
My daughter has developed the same problems as me, mostly after her mom was diagnosed with cancer and then passed away, but I’m trying to get her medicated (if that’s what she needs, and I think it ultimately is). She’s 16 now, on mood stabilizers as of a month ago. The doctor seems to think that will do it.
She ticked every box for adhd which didn’t surprise me at all. I think they’re afraid to give her anything too big because of a history of addiction in the family.
I don’t know. I just hope she ends up doing better than I have since she’s actually being treated.
After I got diagnosed, my kid began the journey towards assessment. Sadly for him his mother didn’t take it too seriously and delayed making a GP appointment for a few months, by which time Covid had happened. The end result is that he got formally diagnosed last February, but because of the waiting lists and a change of our county’s ADHD service provider in April, he’s still not been prescribed any medication.
It’s doubly frustrating because he’s half way through his final year of a law degree. I desperately want him to graduate knowing he did his very best, but without meds I know how impossible that might feel.
In the UK (and maybe other places?) an honours degree can be passed at different levels depending on how well you do.
Top marks is a 1st Class Honours Degree, good marks gets you an Upper Second Class Degree (2:1), okay marks gets you a Lower Second Class Degree (2:2). A 3rd class also degree exists.
Most post-grad courses and some jobs would expect a 2:1 or above to let you apply.
Take a guess how many doctors and dentists you worked with barely passed medical schools, or politicians you voted for still passed with mediocre subpar scores. Hint: not zero.
My marks were mere points away from being in First range. It’s frustrating as hell to look back on.
It’s a testament to how hard I worked on the course submissions (in the 12 hours before the handing in deadline) that I did as well as I did. Because honestly, when I think back to that final year of being sat in front of my computer screen, the overwhelming memory is having four different browsers open, logged into four different Facebook accounts that I used to be a dickhead troll in racist groups, winding up the racists.
None of that had anything to do with the radio production degree that I’d paid good money to study towards.
Absolutely, and inner conflict, constant struggle and unhappiness counts as a huge problem, even when external appearances are kept and things run relatively smoothly. Internal peace should always be the primary goal, and not just fitting into the gears of routine life.
Why don't you go chop off one of your arms. Since life is a constant struggle, more struggle must be good right? You should definitely make your life HARDER.
Not the same and that kind of animosity for the first world problems of not being happy or productive enough to be able to exist in the modern society without the assistance of drugs does not require me to praise the practice.
I'm not suggesting people make it harder on themselves but there were much bigger issues in just the recent past and coming in the future to not add more to that. But there are people struggling with removed limbs or malformed ones from birth who could use more accomodations, than those who think their life isn't as easy as someone else's who has more money than them.
So you believe that people with real diagnosed medical issues should just suck it up because somewhere else in the world people don't have running water.
In my opinion life not being 100% free of inner conflict vs life being full of it are very different things.
The goal being inner peace doesn't mean that one thinks absolute inner peace is possible. At least I tend to reach a bit higher than what I'm only happy with.
It didn't get recognized in me until 10th or 11th grade. My grades started to slip fast when the ways I adapted to school stopped helping me keep up.
Arguably, if it's not causing behavioral concerns, educational concerns, emotional concerns, social concerns, or physical concerns... It's not really a condition is it?
For lack of a more relatable analogy, I've been using this race based one.
Imagine you're a black child in America in the 1960s and 1970s, but you somehow managed to remain ignorant of that fact until sometime in your teens or early adulthood. Maybe the area was really progressive, parents wanted to shield you from reality, whatever you need to imagine is fine. You end up not understanding this fact about yourself, and then you end up in the racist public. Now, imagine that the racist public never comes outright and says anything directly racist to you, but all of their other behavior is exactly like what you'd expect from racists in the 1970s. How do you come to terms with this reality? You must be doing something wrong for people to treat you this way.
Obviously not a perfect analogy, and I don't really like to compare my issues as a ND person with the awful stuff done to black people back then, and that continues to be done today. Anyway, it's not inaccurate, if anything, the differences between ND people and NT people are greater than any outward racial appearance, and worse, ND people aren't really aware they are being marginalized, and NT people don't really understand that they are marginalizing.
A good analogy would be being forced to use your non-dominant hand to write, maybe to play guitar, paint, use a right-handed mouse with your left, etc...
Over time and practice, you may get pretty good at it. But, you want to ask if you think you'll ever get the speed with the smoothness and precision you would have gotten if you've been using your dominant hand. You'd be doing what a lot of ND people have to do, which is put a lot of valuable concentration and energy into adapting to something that while NT people have no issue, it's completely foreign to you.
You can also think of getting the proper treatment as, at worst, switching that incorrect 5-button ergonomic mouse for a basic 3-button ambidextrous one, and at best give you the forward/back buttons, but ignoring the ergonomic design. I.E. The treatment should help lessen the disadvantages, but they would still be present.
Thanks for the suggestion, but I think it's too shallow vs the actual experience. The depth at which ND people are marginalized is so far and away under presented today. Most of the established science is just wrong and resistant to the reality that ND led researchers are presenting. We need to do better at advocating for ourselves as an entire group with shared experiences and unique mental and physical health issues.
The next best analogy I've heard so far is NT people are Windows based software running in a Windows based world, ND people are MacOS software being forced to run on Windows (suspend your IT mind about how it wouldn't work at all, and understand that for a lot of ND folks, it doesn't). Get on the correct runtime environment and a lot of issues go away. That's just really hard to do when the world is primarily built for the 85%-95% NT population, and many of the most capable in the ND population are either ignorant or in denial due to lack of acknowledgement, and stigmatization of anything that would be acknowledged.
People can not agree with what I'm saying, I'm sure it sounds absurd especially if you are NT. I doubt I would have agreed with it two years ago, but introspection after my own realizations that I'm autistic, after over 30+ years of living with this brain, I understand things quite differently now.
It's weird how many people on here attribute good grades to being good at everything else in life. Or minimizing the probable and unnecessary struggle some individuals go through to get those good grades because of the system they were put in. I got good grades because i worked many times harder than my peers. I shouldn't have to. No one does. I was privileged enough to have enough resources to do as well as i did. Most people with my condition don't. I've also struggled a lot more at other tasks, and in the work place. But i got good grades, so fuck me right?
Yeah. It's so fucking shortsighted to be like, "Eh, you did fine, look at your grades. You can't be that disabled." Like, you putzes, are you kidding me? If I hadn't been spending all my mental energy clearing all these pointless obstacles, I might have cured fucking pancreatic cancer by now. It's not just about what's convenient for caretakers, teachers, and a health team, it's about being denied the opportunity that most other people are handed without asking to achieve everything they're capable of doing.
Back in school I literally helped other students cram 30 minutes before a test, using flash cards I made and used all week, only to have them breeze in and get a higher score than me.
Do you know how great it would be to only barely try, and succeed anyway? I can't even imagine.
I breezed through high school, everything was easy, never studied, was never really able to just sit and focus on stuff.
Get to college, calc is hard. Physics is hard. Electronics is hard. I have zero skills from never studying; I have no foundation to learn. Didn't make it in college. Still really good at mental math though! Still can't sit and focus on tasks for long.
Hitting that wall is pretty common. You learn the wrong habits as you breeze through and get good grades without effort, then encounter the first subjects that require non-trivial effort. And then maybe you take some bad grades until you eventually learn, or you drop out and never figure out how to work through more difficult learning.
Some smart people might not hit that wall until pretty late (I know people who first encountered it in grad school), but regardless of when they encounter it, whether and how they get over that hump can determine what the rest of that academic path looks like for them.
I don't think it's that great. I was able to coast through high school but I was hindered once I reached the edge of my natural talent shortly into college. I had never really learned how to buckle down and study so I ended up struggling a lot. I can still pick things up pretty easily but I often give up when it gets to a certain point. Nowadays I feel kinda inferior to others that learned how to keep trying.
I don't know how the fuck I wasn't diagnosed with ADHD (or autism or BPD) until I was in my late 30's, when my parents had taken me to the same therapist my younger sibling was diagnosed with ADHD by as a child.
Adhd was demonized back then. I was diagnosed and my parents decided to do nothing because the media was telling them that Ritalin was the devil. Hard to blame them given the climate but man I coulda used the help back then.
That and most people's idea (including some doctors) was that unless the person was hyperactive, they couldn't have ADHD. Happened to me. And rather than being diagnosed and treated correctly for the problems I did need help with, I got diagnosed with Asperger's [ASD] and was put in a curriculum well below my level not because I didn't understand the subjects, but because they just didn't interest me.
Probably because you were the easy one? That was what it was for me, didn't realize until my mid 20s (covid really wrecked havoc with my studying in college because I couldn't go to a physically separate space that I had designated as a place I couldn't goof off).
Exactly. My younger brother and I both have pretty bad ADHD. I am Primarily Inattentive but he got the hyperactivity and ODD. Guess who got diagnosed at 9 and who got diagnosed at 32?
Samsies, my sister had other issues and was for sure the one who needed more effort from my parents. Meanwhile, I got A's without much effort in HS and for the most part in college (until Masters, which of course landed me with a bit of a breakdown and being depressed for a long while). I'm not formally diagnosed, but that's mostly because I feel it's largely a waste of money for my case (I checked into it a while back when I had terrible insurance, and it was gonna cost me something like $1200).
Many of us played video games because we lacked any social structure in our lives. TV and video games make people feel like they aren't alone, even when they are.
Its just my opinion but I think you can remedy that by creating a supporting social environment for the whole family to be part of, regardless of what hobbies someone's into.
Edit to add: I didnt mean to imply you should go do this, its just what I think helps prevent the issue.
Pretty rough to be dumped into adult life dealing with all that, hope things are going better! Always helps me to remember that even the best of us make tons of mistakes every day. Not sure why little phrases can have so much power though.
As a parent of a child with ADHD, I'm cautious about using stimulant medication unless it's clearly the best course of action. My main goal is to help my child succeed, and academics is a big component of that.
I see many of my son's ADHD symptoms in myself, and I believe I may have also had/have ADHD. Despite this, I've been successful in my life. This personal experience makes me hesitant to automatically turn to medication as the solution for my child. I prefer to explore other options first, unless there's a strong reason to consider it, such as struggling academically.
When my son entered high school he became mature enough to participate in the decision-making process regarding his own treatment. Because of that it was easier for me/us to get him a prescription of Adderall and feel good about it as parents.
Edit: since it seems to not be clear, my son is on ADHD meds and has been for the past three or four years. We talked to him about it and he prefers taking the medication and has had input in the dosage that he's taking.
Help your kid get a diagnosis ASAP and try to find a medication that works. The drugs are just a tool, but your kid won't know whether they help without trying them.
At some point, they may find themselves unmedicated and down in an ADHD hole — having the diagnosis and knowing which medications may help is crucial to dig out of the hole.
The medication worked. Suddenly i could pay attention and my grades went up. And those where the main “problems” adults perceived.
My parents where skeptical about medicine first but opted to try because the backlash people gave me for lacking an attention span was affecting me hard. They ultimately believed they where doing the right thing.
I slowly become less social then i already was, lost
my appetite, stopped feeling many emotions in general and eventually sank into a deep twisted depression.
I was unable to understand it was the medicine doing this. I was unable to communicate any of it properly because i thought what i was (not) feeling was just normal life and puberty. It was not.
I know and respect that those drugs can help some people. But they completely destroyed me, afterwards it took many years of controversially self medicating with cannabis to restore my original self and feel my emotions properly again. (The mail reason I started was because i read it could be used for adhd/autism and my first experience left me feeling normal and able to take public transport without suffering intens social anxiety)
I fully agree on your diagnosis part though. And i al also not saying medicine cant be the correct tool but its definitely not a clearcut choice.
The lack of emotions is awful. Going to family events or friends parties and it might as well feel like I'm at the grocery store. People tell funny jokes and I make a weird mouthy smile to pretend I'm normal.
They might make it easier to do work you otherwise would not want to do, but the cost is absurd in my opinion.
Seriously. Get them meds and a proper therapist ASAP who has a clue about ADHD. While their brain is still plastic you can train it early with the hope of having a future where coping mechanisms are already there and potentially reducing or getting off their meds entirely. Once you are an adult, it is over. Opportunity lost and time to learn the hard way.
He's on meds (has been for 3 or 4 years), and he has an ADHD diagnosis... What's the therapist for? I haven't seen any actual issues that warrant a therapist, what are you thinking I should be watching out for?
Right now he's doing pretty good in school, he's a little less social than I would like, but that's nothing new. Other than that, he seems a sharp well-rounded kid without any behavioral or emotional issues.
Couldn't think of the word, but not a "talk" therapist. Behavioral or cognitive therapist. Basically, they fill in the gap that medication doesn't and can reduce your dependence on medication later in life. They give you strategies on how to handle the emotional dis-regulation, motivation issues, lack of dopamine, etc. You don't need to be in "rough" shape, or have a really bad case, or anything like that. Medication only helps so much, so getting those strategies in early can make a big difference. Even as an adult it can help and may be something you want to pursue yourself. Half the battle is understanding what behaviors you exhibit is due to ADHD.
I wish I had been diagnosed early in life and got the help I needed, but with the stigma, poor family, and lack of healthcare, I never had a chance. I missed the part where they are a teenager. Please don't assume they are fine because everything looks good on paper, so to speak. Best thing is to present the option and continue to support them and yourself.
I hope you don't take any of this as me saying you are a bad parent or anything like that. I don't mean it that way. I am really passionate about it and a lot of the stigmas against medication has done a lot more harm than good.
This is probably a good call. In the first place a common problem with stimulant meds for adhd is that tolerance goes up quickly, requiring the user to increase their dose over time. The dependency is hard to break. I was prescribed on it for only a few months and made the mistake of abruptly stopping taking it - and even that was enough to go through one of the worst depressions of my life.
There is also evidence of heart risks with long term use, and given that cardiovascular disease is already the western world's number one killer, another blow to our hearts is that last thing anyone needs.
And then there's the regulatory and supply issues. Pharmacies often struggle to keep enough of a supply to meet demand, which is the worst thing for a substance with such a high-risk dependency situation. Plus because it's a schedule 2, you must see a doctor for every refill.
And of course the insurance companies make all of this all the more ugly. Really not worth it.
Edit: oops, didn't catch the last part. Welp, hope it works well for them.
My experience is completely the opposite of what you describe, not that I disregard anything you've stated. I've been on nearly the same dose for nearly 40 years and do not perceive any changes in the effect I receive. And I'd rather live without my medication while waiting on temporary shortages than live my life without it.
Can I add, anecdotally, how many times ive seen people who take adderall daily try another stimulant like coke or meth and say something like: "This doesnt feel much different than adderall at all," or "I thought this stuff would be stronger."
Its like people taking oxycontin but thinking heroin is this scary potent drug. People have no idea what they are playing with.
I'm 42 and got diagnosed less than a year ago. Still haven't found meds that actually work, but at least I know and have developed new coping mechanisms.
I’m a few years older and also wasn’t diagnosed until my late 30s.
Welcome to the world of mental health medication. It’s a complete fucking mystery to even medical “professionals” which cocktail works for you, until you give it a shot.
On more than one occasion I’ve heard, “Try this one, if you don’t want to kill yourself or anyone else, it’s probably a good one to use. Otherwise, we can switch to another one with even worse side effects and see how that goes. How does that sound?”
Good luck! It’s a long journey, at least in my experiences.
Fortunately got Prozac dialed in after a bad experience with Paxil many years ago. I'd rather the anxiety be better and the ADHD not. Thanks and same to you.
This is true for every psychological condition and has only tangentially to do with grades. There needs to be a burden of suffering (German: "Leidensdruck") in order for a psychological condition to be considered a "problem" that needs "fixing". As long as the the person doesn't have this and society doesn't force anything on that person (because for example they broke the law), there is nothing to act upon. This is also why some famous and/or successful people are crazy. The FBI has done some investigations into the concept of a the corporate psychopath, which can be successful managers, which are undiagnosed psychopaths.
Adhd kids get told negative things way more often that other kids, and that is traumatic. Undiagnosed Adhd leads to anxiety and depression because of it, which makes it very similar to ptsd. But since it's chronic and over a long time period, it is separate from ptsd, as the cause is Adhd, and not the trauma itself.
I don't have anything and I never will because I'm never getting tested. I did get "classified" and never had a fair chance at a real education. Even failure meant I needed to be in the program and every success showed how well the program was working. I grew up thinking I would only be a drag on other people. In high school, I decided to start feeling better about myself. Something those years of being removed from class so I could have meaningless conversations with the school therapist never could. I thought the school would support my efforts to fix my education, but I only got pushed down, told "I would be happier without the risk of failure", lied to about classes being full, withheld test results when I tried testing into better classes. I would like nothing more then to get the diploma revoked and seeing as how I never fulfilled the basic state requirements, I should be able to, but like with most things, the written law doesn't matter if no one is willing to enforce it.
Fuck my school. Fuck the "team building" exercises they made me do. Fuck the "opportunities" they provided for me.
My therapist diagnosed me with ADD, I did a lot of research and talked to a lot of people. Turned out I don’t have that, but have childhood trauma. Trauma and ADD have a lot of similar symptoms. Once I started addressing the trauma, my symptoms went away.
For me it's the other way around. My ADHD caused depression and anxiety. Without the panic attacks, I wouldn't have gone to a therapist in the first place.
I’m not an expert but I believe that anxiety is linked to trauma - Ie: the family dysfunction is causing your anxiety and you were never taught healthy coping skills to deal with all of that…
You can get good grades and still constantly get called lazy, be berated for not applying yourself more. Constantly wondering why no matter how hard you try to still somehow don't do any better than if you make no effort at all but whatever you still get good grades. Who cares if you leave all your assignments for the last minute and then finish them all in a panic the night before they're due. Or if you just crutch on way too many energy drinks because they're effectively the same thing as medication only way worse for you health wise because you have no concept of the fact that the reason you like them so much is they make your symptoms more manageable.
Also, you know that stimulants aren't the only treatment someone with ADHD gets right? When you know there's a problem that isn't just "you're lazy" you can learn coping strategies that are worthless to people without ADHD and therefore nothing you'll get yelled at to do by the adults in your life.
You can get good grades and still constantly get called lazy, be berated for not applying yourself more. Constantly wondering why no matter how hard you try to still somehow don’t do any better than if you make no effort at all but whatever you still get good grades. Who cares if you leave all your assignments for the last minute and then finish them all in a panic the night before they’re due. Or if you just crutch on way too many energy drinks because they’re effectively the same thing as medication only way worse for you health wise because you have no concept of the fact that the reason you like them so much is they make your symptoms more manageable.
I don't see how any of that relates. I mean, I see you're trying to argue that as the basis for a diagnosis of an attention deficit disorder, but what you've written is completely normal.
Seems like you're basing your reasoning on "well this speed I take actually helps me focus". Yeah? And the alcohol people drink make them drunk? That's what stimulants do they give you energy to help you focus.
Nowadays literally anything will net you a diagnosis for stimulants. It's crazy how easy it is for anyone of any age to get ADHD/ADD meds ie. Doctors pushed it on me as well, for years. Not when I was kid, because then this overprescription craziness wasn't a thing yet. But after 25 or so, constantly. I figured out my health myself. Did get tested several times by clinical psychologists, and it's crazy how generalised the questions are. I genuinely couldn't imagine anyone who couldn't at one time or another apply everything they said to themselves.
I also while at a place in which they suggested, read a brochure which was highly trying to convince that actually kids who use adhd meds are less likely to have problems with other substances in the future. I had plenty of time while waiting for my appointment, so I googled the source for the "facts" on that brochure. Turns out it relied on a study done on a hundred or so mice. I then googled the opposing view and researched whether it does make it more likely kids will have problems with other substances and found a study which was a following of tens of thousands of kids and showed a clear correlation, where yes, teenagers using methylphenidate and other adhd and add meds were more likely to have reported substance abuse issues later.
Like genuinely, call me out on this in 10 or 20 years. We'll see where it's developed. It's not like the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world have ever done anything illegal or harmful or purposefully pushed illegal drugs even to an extent to create a horrific drug epidemic.... riiiight?
Now I understand that adhd meds are far safer than opiates, so it's not that I'm griping about anyone using them if they feel they get help from them. But let's not pretend that there isn't very clear controversy on this issue.
Sure, as medicine develops, diagnosis of not so well known diseases increase. But if you look at the rate of increase of neurodevelopmental orders in general versus the rate of increase of ADHD/ADD diagnosis', it's really hard to explain how the one condition which is treatable by a pleasantly mild pharmaceutical (which imo is far better than caffeine as per physical effects, so I understand preferring it over energy drinks) and which just happens to be very popular recreationally over the world as well.
Cool story bro. Just say you don't believe that ADHD is real and we're all just addicts. You've clearly already made up your mind and you're cherry picking your sources to match your priors. There's not a damn thing I or anyone else is gonna say that is going to make you see that medication is an effective treatment option though it doesn't work for everyone.
Cool story bro, just admit that you don't have the resources to have this conversation instead of defaulting to garbage like that.
You've bought into the propaganda because you've never ever questioned this. You've made up your mind and won't change it. I on the other hand, go with the evidence.
I'm sorry, English is my third language, is "overdiagnosed" synonymous with "fictional made up disease that's only an excuse to addict scum"?
I'm a proponent for the legalisation of all drug laws. A very strong advocate for it. I'm no "you shouldn't take pills" prude. But like I said, I understand you get defensive about this because you don't have any sort of resources in terms of even being able to discuss what I've said and you think I'm calling you an addict. I'm not. Since you can't discuss this rationally, there's very little point.
Or perhaps I'm mistaken and you too have gone over the rate of neurodevelopmental disorders from around the world in the past 30-50 years (there's kinda poor data when you try to go back further), checked the rate of growth, averaged it out and noted that while they all grow as there's more access to doctors, there's an explosive growth with ADHD and ADD medication. A growth that is unlikely to be explained by anything other than someone pushing them more than is warranted. In other words overdiagnosing.
But I'm open to other alternatives if you have an explanation?
Your "resources" were one opinion piece in an Australian tabloid and two complete non sequitur links about the opioid crisis. Are there pill mills giving stimulants to anyone with a pulse? Sure. Doesn't take away from the efficacy of the medications. And it certainly doesn't mean that the advances in actually diagnosing a disorder is secretly an evil pharmaceutical cabal out to get kids hooked on speed. Gtfo
Children with ADHD were significantly more likely to have ever used nicotine and other substances, but not alcohol. Children with ADHD were also more likely to develop disorders of abuse/dependence for nicotine, alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, and other substances (i.e., unspecified). Sex, age, race, publication year, sample source, and version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) used to diagnose ADHD did not significantly moderate the associations with substance outcomes that yielded heterogeneous effect sizes. These findings suggest that children with ADHD are significantly more likely to develop substance use disorders than children without ADHD and that this increased risk is robust to demographic and methodological differences that varied across the studies.
Some might, but many do not. Constantly burning out, knowing that you're underachiving (even if other do not see it) and struggling with handling it all can and does make people end up depressed, extremely anxious and even suicidal. If one doesn't get the help they need, many doors can close even permanently.
I don't think that's the premise of this post.
I think the post is talking about people struggling with adhd, who's symptoms & struggling are being ignored just because they've somehow managed to keep up good grades.
They might also be "gifted" which helps with getting good grades up until some point when it all falls down, as it all just is too much. Also the responsibility and work on other areas of life start requiring the limited capacity to focus and execute necessary home upkeeping, studying & all the other things in life.
Getting the needed medication or even just the diagnosis and the understanding of oneself that comes with it can save a person from a lot of unnessecary suffering.
I probably would have been better off maintaining Vyvanse into adulthood, but I quit taking it as soon as I had the ability to make the decision to. I felt dull, emotionless, my appetite sucked. Yes, ADD sucks and it has caused issues in my personal life, but I am who I am and I accept those parts of myself. Would my grades have been better in college? Would I have been better at maintaining social events? Sure. But sometimes you just have to build good habits to overcome whatever you can.
The equivalence of what you're saying is that if everything contained lactose and just because Phil, with his lactose-intolerance, is always able to make it to the toilet in time, he shouldn't need lactase supplements or a special diet.
Lactose intolerance is actually a very good example. The level of lactase production varies significantly among the population. Different people will find different amounts of lactose as interfering with their ADLs. There's generally a point where too much milk or cheese will cause you to have gas and visit the bathroom within an hour. This is called clinical significance. If they don't have enough clinical significance, it's pointless to diagnose them with lactose intolerance.
Although I agree with the facts, binary „diagnosing“ isnt the only way to go about your life. You, your parents and your doctor can make decisions without a piece of paper. The problem here to me seems to be that „you‘re not diagnosed so you dont have it“ has been a valid strategy for too long and needs to go already. Seeing that your child (eg) shows signs of autism doesnt mean you need to put them in special everything but people are rightly pissed that they have suffered irreperable damage to their bodies for self medicating an issue that could have been mitigated if not soved, were our society able to accept imperfection and not reinforce stereotypes at every turn.
That's literally correct for ADHD, yeah - the diagnostic criteria for it is all stuff like "patient says they have difficulty organizing tasks", which, naturally, depends a lot on what kind of tasks they're doing.
That's why ADHD is very common in concentration-requiring professions like software engineering (naively you'd expect the opposite) - there's people with "undiagnosed ADHD" (low concentration) everywhere, but if you're in a profession like that you are much more likely to have it impact your job, and go to a doctor, and get a diagnosis and a prescription of Adderall or some other kind of amphetamine.
You can pretend that clinical significance is the gold standard measure of disability if you like, but you should recognize that you leave a MASSIVE gap in your effectiveness both as a diagnostician and a practitioner if you neglect all the masking your client has been doing to deal with everybody's demands their whole life. Seeing that bias in someone pretending to treat me would be enough reason for me to walk out of the appointment and schedule with someone more capable and knowledgeable.
I'm neither a diagnostician nor a provider and I don't pretend to be one. I'm just a nurse. That's one of many things people seem to ascribe to me. I will say however, something needs to be disabling for it to be a disability.
Yeah, my guess is that this post is implying the typical case - it wasn't disrupting grades specifically, so it wasn't diagnosed. You may have gotten those grades by staying up until 3am as a child, lying to get out of forgotten homework, had more injuries, pushed through work by building up a healthy reserve of depression and anxiety, struggled socially because you couldn't prioritize both school and socials or because you couldn't connect with most other people because of your way of talking, been horribly forgetful, etc. but because grades number stays high, nothing is wrong. It's easy for people to see grades as the metric for mental wellness which is wild
Yeah nobody else is mentally well either and we all have our coping mechanisms for this world.
This is basically keeping up with the Jones's but using "happiness" as a grading curve for your life.
People are not superheroes or magical beings above all the downs we share. Hell most of the upper class are busy abusing drugs just as much from their burnout and depression. But someone might have been more social and smart and thus you are somehow less than them? Meh. And Nah.
Difficulty or inability. I'm not claiming to be a doctor and I'm not making an outlandish statement. People are acting like I'm making a value judgement on them or their lived experiences when I'm not. They sure are making wild assumptions about what I mean though.
So some degree of difficulty and/or some degree of inability. Assessed by someone. Subjectively. Which means that there is absolutely no point in trying to infer that somehow those who say they feel they have some degree of difficulty or inability may not, in your opinion as not a medical professional, over the internet, actually have the disorder they and/or their doctor feel they have.
What a long winded way to rephrase what I just said I wasn't doing. I was making the point that if you don't have clinically significant symptoms you don't have a disorder. That's it. Every other point you've made us a wild supposition.
I honestly don't even know what you're trying argue with me about at this point. Do you hold the position that a subclinical set of symptoms is a disorder? Because that's what I disagree with. If not, then what exactly is at issue beyond your imagination of my position?
You are trying to claim that you are making a simple factual statement when in fact the subtext - which is probably obvious to all - is that in your opinion you don't think people's claims of impairment or dysfunction are valid unless they have a specific medical diagnosis that YOU feel is valid. And the proof of this is that your statement can be as true reversed. IOW, you have NO idea if they've been medically diagnosed or if any diagnosis or absence thereof is valid or not. It really negates your point.
And why does this all matter to me, personally? Because my own personal experience with the medical establishment is that they pretty much throw shit out there that may be valid or may not and relies heavily on both the doctor's and the patient's own subjective assessment. A sibling was for decades diagnosed as intellectually disabled when in fact he has ASD because they were unable to communicate effectively. I was diagnosed with a common mental disorder by one doctor and told there was no way I could have that by another. It goes on... And so I tend to be pretty sympathetic when someone says "I feel impaired by " and I don't feel a need to question whether or not they have or if there was a formal diagnosis or not. Again, because many of those diagnoses are about as valid one way or the other has throwing darts. Could be good, could have missed something completely, could have misinterpreted what the patient said because they weren't able to communicate it in that moment.
What is important is what the person says about themselves. If they want to say they have ADHD or ASD or whatever, it's not my place to gate keep or question that. Nor yours.
Edit: To put it another way... your statement is about as useful as, when someone says "I just love this blue dress I'm wearing" pointing out that "well akshually that's turquoise". The point is THEY like the color.
Even with ADHD you're like, an full-ass adult, no? it's weird how people never actually grow into their independance. I see many people come up in their 30-40s and discover they have ADHD - what were you doing this whole time?
Assuming it was this hard for everyone else and I was just really, really, inexplicably bad at this....so I'll work harder to overcome my personal shortcomings!
Undiagnosed thought: "I'm always forgetting my important things, this is really difficult"
Society: "everyone forgets things"
Undiagnosed thought: that fluorescent light is so incredibly loud and the way it flickers is creating this strange rainbow effect on my computer and it hurts my eyes and I'm really struggling here.
Society: working in an office sucks, the lights, the distractions, it's normal to have unfocused moments.
You repeat enough of these thoughts - I feel like I'm struggling with my emotional regulation, could it be ADHD? Well as a teen it was hormones, as a uni student it was "freshman anxiety", then I was getting divorced so my emotional state was blamed on that, then I was always moving house so it made sense that my mood was always a hair trigger.
There were always just enough environmental factors to mask the underlying condition.
And it works! Until you burnout in your 30s because no one else is actually giving 150% all the time.
I did the same with a physical illness! I was born with a hip deformity so my whole life any pain or issues around my hips was just totally brushed off until I got aggressively assertive in my 20s because with the physical symptoms I was able to feel more confident in my perception of my reality and advocate to my doctor (where as with mental health, it's harder, sure I think I feel this symptom but it's in my head it's fleeting what if I'm remembering experiencing my own thoughts wrong? Years of describing how I feel to therapists, being told it's nothing out of the ordinary, so I've convinced myself it's nothing, but it's not nothing)
Turns out I had nerve damage in my spine the whole time, but we all just assumed I was being overly dramatic and sensitive about the known hip issue.
Same with my ADHD. We all (myself included) thought it was just really bad anxiety in addition to me being bad at sticking to the homework for therapy so it made sense I wasn't getting better.
But we know more about how it presents, so if I was a kid going through the process again I'd be less likely to be misdiagnosed in the first place.
You know when enough of society agrees on the whole light things, or forgetting things, or about noises...
Maybe, just maybe... Being a hyper focused machine used for mass productivity in a country designed around stripping as much value from your existence as possible....
That it maybe is a common position and the drugs to "equal" yourself to others is just a lie to make you think that is the normal way for people to live?
Most people aren't giving 150% because they don't think about anything they do and just hope for the best and rely on connections and luck to get through.
Pretty sure we as a society should be trying to accommodate other people and help them as they need to be needed instead of demanding conformity to a position we are just pretending is the normal. But hey when the drugs are this good...
It's a fair question, if you haven't gone through it. I agree: it seems ridiculous!
I grew up surrounded by authority figures who didn't have a nuanced understanding of mental health. I internalized being called "lazy" and "a procrastinator," because everyone told me that I was choosing to be bad at managing my time and focus!
I believed this right into the upper management of a tech company in my 30s. And I'd get down on myself constantly for zoning out during meetings and being overwhelmed at long-term complex tasks. "Wow I'm so lazy and unmotivated," I'd think to myself in between client meetings. For years.
A friend showed me the ADHD symptoms (probably after I zoned out for the thousandth time), and it was a shock and how closely they described my childhood, schooling, and professional and social life.
Some people do just fine with their coping mechanisms - I discovered that I had quite a few! But I made the choice to seek medication. Taking it was like breathing air for the first time.
Maybe trying to get out from an overprotective parent or unburying yourself from decades of gaslighting? Are you a psychologist? You seem to hold a very high opinion of your ability to judge people.
It's crazy that the system allows so many people to fail for the exact same reasons that don't impair the rich in any way shape or form, and those people blame their own debuffs rather than the system that failed them from birth.
In case you aren't aware and interested in hearing an opinion on that statement, here it goes.
A lot of people might find it offensive and dismissive. The obvious issue with it is that it is extreme by including "everyone" and "all their failures in life" and saying that one issue is blamed for it entirely. That is just not true. I understand that it could be taken as a figure of speech and that the reader is to understand that not literally everyone and all of their failures, but I disagree with even a figurative interpretation. In my experience, few people attribute most of their lifelong issues to ADHD. Out of that small set of individuals that do attribute issues to ADHD, many of them are valid, while some are likely removing any accountability from their own choices. Yes, it is likely that some people avoid taking responsibility and therefore seek unnecessary accommodations from others for their lack of effort by placing blame on a mental health diagnosis that they might not even have. However, it is my belief that the majority of people don't do that. ADHD is a mental health condition/neurotype that affects every single aspect of a person's life. A person isn't ADHD in only school or work. They are ADHD when they complete daily tasks, socialize, read a book, follow instructions, visit the doctor, place their keys down, etc. ADHD truly does affect every area of their in a world that is designed for people that are not ADHD, so they end up violating cultural norms and performing subobtimally in comparison to their peers. When someone with ADHD states that their entire lives are affected by it, they are not exaggerating. Stating that everyone blames all of their failures in life on ADHD is dismissive of their difficulties and can appear aloof, insensitive, privileged, or malicious. Statements like that can drive away understanding, compassionate, and caring people, limiting your interaction with individuals that have those traits, leaving you more exposed to the kinds of individuals that would use mental health diagnoses to avoid responsibility for their failures.
That's only my opinion, so do what you like with that.
It's an easy scapegoat in a world that wants more from them than they can provide. It makes you compare yourself constantly to the best performers and tells you that you are not enough and then offers a thought that drugging yourself just right would make you as happy and successful as you believe you deserve to be for trying so hard.
It's a shame life doesn't care and it's not what life is about.
Not that people shouldn't be able to get help when they have legitimate issues but we could be a lot more welcoming on those differences between each other with a different culture but that requires changing yourself and others in a way that is likely not possible and the drugs are easier.
Same with autism.
If you get low grades, off to special ed with you.
High grades? Oh you're just a socially awkward dork or quirky nerd or something.
It's like the Halo effect, but with grades.
As long as you're not disruptive, they don't give a shit.
If you're malleable enough, the machine will mash you into place.
Truth. I remember being in school in the 90s when they were giving Ritalin to everyone who didn't want to sit still in class. Shit was wild. And then you have me, with a healthy case of ADD but since I wasn't a social butterfly, that just meant I wasn't motivated.
Oh man, one of my people! My parents, my school, my teachers just watched me fail with an under 1.0 average, while I scored 95th percentile in every standardized test. I was lazy, undisciplined, and unmotivated, and it made me hate myself.
I feel like this would be a red flag now, but back then, even the school counselors were only worried about my impact on other students. Since it was minimal, they let me just stay there and fail... my best friend, who's every bit at sharp as me, got Ritalined into fucking oblivion and put in remedial classes. Jokes on me tho, he got a diploma from HS.
GED is just another standardized test. If I knew how easy it was back in my junior year, I would have saved myself a lot of time and trouble.
Dude, all the same here. I tested insanely high on that aptitude test in elementary school and was placed in their version of honors. But the teachers would get pissed because I wouldn't do any homework, yet somehow aced all my tests and scored minimum 90th percentile on all standardized tests. I just paid attention to the lessons but had no interest in the busy work.
I ended up just doing the CA proficiency exam and got out of high school on my 17th birthday, and then got a diploma at 25 to make my mom happy.
Ritalin made me a zombie. Thankfully Adderall existed. I wish I could get some as an adult. That shit made me superhuman.
They had me and my brother on I think it was Concerta, and yeah there was something not right about that stuff. Adderall was great for getting shit done, but no way I'd want to take it everyday.
T breaks from amphetamines are (hopefully) encouraged.
T break?
Tolerance break. Even a one day weekly washout can be good enough.
Ah gotcha, thanks
Consider that the 90s was when most early Boomers had their kids in school, and of course, they didn't want to deal with their children's problems. So yeah, throw some drugs at them, the teacher is always right, and shut up now- Mommy and Daddy are focused on themselves.
And if you had ADD, ODD, and breaking the curve grades, they took every opportunity to lock you up in jail that they could.
At least that's what happened to me.
And if you are disruptive, they diagnose you with odd and beat you to make you shut up. You can't win
Turns out, the teachers just do their job. And most of the time just the bare minimum, just like almost everyone else.
And if you want to teach and a student is a pain and hindering/distracting everyone else, then you kinda have to intervene. If the student isn't motivated/concentrated its easy for the teacher to just say that the student doesnt wanna learn so he gets just bad grades.
At least thats how I see it sometimes.
Same with autism. It wasn't until I had my master's degree in math and teaching high school at age 39 that it ever occurred to me that I was autistic. A colleague and I had a mutual student, and he told me that he thought she might be autistic and that he was going to refer her to the school's diagnostician for testing.
So I found myself curious about the symptoms of autism, because Rain Man was my frame of reference. I researched the symptoms in the middle of a Geometry team meeting, and everything I read had my sitting up further and further in my seat, until I just blurted out "Oh my GAWD...?!" My colleagues asked what, and I said "Y'all...I think I might be autistic?" They looked at one another quizzically, like they were shocked at my personal revelation. One of them replied, "Wait...you didn't know?!" I said, "....what, you DID know?!?" She was like "Yes! We all know that about you! You seriously didn't know? 😂" HELL NO I DIDN'T KNOW!
I immediately called my mom on the phone to tell her that I thought I might be autistic. "Yyyyyeah...your dad and I always thought you might be." HOLY FUCKING SHIT MOM WTF?????? 😲😲😲WHY DIDN'T YOU EVER GET ME TESTED?!? "Well, you always made such good grades that we just didn't think it mattered that much.
I have since been diagnosed with ASD Level 1, and I think back a lot on my life lived. I marvel at how much easier my life would have been if I hadn't had to develop all of these coping mechanisms myself. I did well in school despite my autism. I earned two degrees despite my autism. I hold down teaching jobs despite my autism. The biggest problems I've had in my life, though, have been personal relationships. I can't imagine how much richer my life might be right now had I known all along how to exist as a self-aware autist in a neurotypical world.
I don't know the popular opinion on this, but I personally think you did a great job learning how to be your best self without having a label. Everyone is unique and everyone will have to learn how to do things their way, having children labeled as something when they already do well might just make them feel more alienated, or be like "I'm X that's why I'm like this" instead of finding their way to be productive/have fun.
Of course it'll help people struggling but not knowing what's wrong. But if you're a type of person who can feel/see what works for you and what doesn't and find solutions for yourself, you might even make your quirks your strength. One frequent thought I have is, how many of the scientists or philosophers in the past were actually autistic? Or had quirks that made them who they are, but would definitely be "problematic" when they were young by today's standards.
TLDR: My opinion is everyone is unique, using your quirks to do things others can't is what makes some people great. Making everyone fit a "normal", and medicating/.... everyone else doesn't seem like a good idea.
There's not medication for autism, and self-awareness is immensely helpful
Is it? Why does having a label for people treating you differently help with that? It mostly just turns into an excuse for others to use thank being a helpful label.
I think labels seem progressive and helpful but are mostly used to further divide people and make in and out groups.
If you know you struggle with people being told that it's your fault cause you are genetically different somehow even though it seems ever so common and spectrum based does nothing to help you deal with people.
Everything is used to divide, someone autistic will behave in ways that "other" him regardless of labels, and people who want to hate are going to keep hating.
You don't need them, don't use them, but they absolutely are helpful for many people. We are nowhere near a society inclusive enough to make labels obsolete.
Beside, dealing with people's attitude isn't the only issue. Neurodivergent people will compare themselves to others on their own, and will struggle with their self image and self-esteem. A diagnosis will help with understanding themselves and finding better strategies much quicker.
Chicken or the egg? Do we stop labeling people and start working on their shared and singular problems to become inclusive or do we need to become inclusive first to start being able to see people as people and work on their shared and singular problems?
I think the answer is we just start doing it anyways. And don't wait for reality to shift to some easier form to do things we should.
And I know that people compare themselves to each other all the time, I have done it and will do it to but now I try to do it when seeing if they are content only. If they have more in their bowl than me it's not my concern, I am trying to focus on those that don't have enough. It's a pipe dream that labeling people makes them better at coping. People still need the compassion of others.
Chicken or the egg do we wait for a compassionate society to start being compassionate ourselves?
I'm happy you found your way and again, don't use labels if you don't want to. Start building the world you wish for, by all means.
You keep missing or ignoring the point that your experience is yours alone, other people find comfort, identity, community and understanding in their labels and that's their right.
Labels are a tool, how they are used depends on the person but they don't intrinsically imply either discrimination or lack of compassion. Be compassionate, we agree that's the way, but as far as I'm concerned that includes letting people be with their labels when they want to, as long as they're not being dicks about it.
I think we agree on the main point of wanting a more inclusive society, one that hopefully doesn't need labels, eventually, but it doesn't look likely it will happen soon, and as long as we live in this one each of us copes the way we can.
Happy holidays friend
Do you know why humans are as advanced as we are? It's because we can learn from each other and build on what people before us have done. A label helps you connect with people who have the same struggles and learn what strategies they used to cope and live a fulfilling life. It's a way to avoid having to reinvent the wheel.
That has nothing to do with labels. That creates group think and tribes.
Knowledge is not labels on people.
How do you find the people with the same struggles as you without some common banner to look for? And just naming symptoms without some root cause is probably not going to be helpful. Treating leg pain from a broken bone is different than treating leg pain from a bad cramp. Similar for a lot of social/mental challenges.
Here's how a label can help: I did receive a social worker diagnosis (not medical) in elementary school, but my parents had a very similar outlook to you and didn't do much for helping me learn how to handle it. I "knew", but could never understand why I alienated everyone. I couldn't manage my anger, because every time I met a new kid, it would get combative quickly. I felt I was in a position to have to earn massive respect from everyone to treat me decently, and therefore got controlling when working with others. This pressure also extremely heightened the natural tendency to procrastinate associated with autism (Note, all of this is afterthought analysis not what I thought as a kid).
College and then post grad, I had to confront these issues on my own with only poor coping mechanisms I had developed growing up. I had to educate myself about autism, and I had to spend a lot of time reflecting on myself and figuring out how to manage my worst impulses. If I had been educated and informed as a kid, I wouldn't have needed to struggle like that for decades.
Sure. If people had taken the time to work with you and find your issues and solve them you would have had it better.
That doesn't require the label it just makes it easier to look up the information for it and see what others have done.
The association of the label doesn't help you it would be people helping you. Labeling the pain can help you recognize it, labeling the person puts them in a group.
You also have no idea how the part would be if it was different because it wasn't lived. It's an easy fantasy rather than living in the present. You would have likely still struggled just differently. So what do we do now for those that still are? Do we label them or are we helping them?
Or...and just a thought...maybe people know their own truths better than you ever possibly could, and when they tell you that early diagnosis and therapy would have helped them immensely, you just believe them?
Also, I got diagnoses for Generalized Anxiety Disorder with Panic Attacks as well as Major Depressive Disorder, and having those diagnoses as a teen might have helped as well, ya know?
Would you tell someone who doesn't have legs that they'd be better off without a wheelchair because then they'd be free to "find their own way to be productive/have fun"? Or is this reserved for disorders that you can't see?
My medication doesn't fundamentally change who I am, it just makes me less shit at the things I am most shit at, so that my daily life is less of a constant struggle.
And sure, it's possible to imagine a world where having ADHD wouldn't be such a problem, just like it's possible to imagine a world where not having legs wouldn't be a problem. But that's not the world we live in!
Try not paying your bills and telling your landlord and credit card company that it's fine, you're just not one for rigid schedules and you're finding your own way. Or instead of doing your job at work, do something completely different and see if your boss accepts that you're just quirky.
I don't know if you read it, the second paragraph goes with something like: if you're having problems, then yes, if you've found ways to deal with things and be happy/productive then no need to labels things to be "normal"
If you do not have problems you will not be diagnosed. The diagnose criteria literally say that you must have problems.
Fuckin Boomers
"We were focused on ourselves, so we just left you to twist in the wind."
How precisely is this a generational thing?
It's not specifically, but much of the cultural inertia that we struggle with today is a holdover from the outsized Boomer population and their influence on America for the last ~55 years. And Boomers, as a cohort, are markedly narcissistic and apathetic to the plights of others, while displaying significantly lower levels of empathy and/or understanding. They are largely uneducated, but obstinate that their outdated information still holds validity, and when pressed to change, or reform, typically respond with threats and attacks. This, while gaslighting those with greater knowledge than themselves- Dunning-Kruger personified.
So it's not necessarily limited to Boomers, but this scenario absolutely describes a commonality of experience for those with Boomer parents, particularly of Millennial-age.
A friend of mine got diagnosed first with add and then autism in her 60s. She felt relieved because she finally understood herself.
My diagnosis was based on a number of tests. One such test was related to speeded processing, basically how quickly a person's brain analyzes things and makes decisions. It required me to look at a series of pages (one at a time) featuring a particular design for about six seconds or so, and to then identify on the flowing page the same design from a group of four, five, or six similar designs (there were more to choose from as the test went on). If I got one wrong, I'd have a second chance to choose the correct image. Two wrong answers in a row and the test would be over.
I was told at the beginning to not feel bad if I didn't finish the test because no one ever does. Well, I did, and very quickly. I made one mistake on one picture, but I'd had it narrowed down to two images, so I was able to quickly recover when I made that one mistake. After a while, after every correct answer, the doctor's eyes became wider and wider, until I finished and she just said, "Welp...that was THAT test!"
When I got my test results, it had me well into the 99.9th percentile. Upon informing me of this, she asked me "Does this surprise you?" to which I replied no, not really. I've always felt like I think WAY more quickly than the rest of the world. And it is both a boon and a burden. It serves me well and will continue to do so in the post-apocalyptic times to come.
But it's also caused me to queer relationships because I don't think about things before speaking sometimes, and - as an autistic person - connections with others are sometimes few and far between. So having confirmation now that my brain really does work this way helps me feel empowered enough to work on myself and that tendency to think/act/speak too quickly, because the relationships I have with people are immensely important to me.
That last bit reads like Weird Al doing a Madonna sendup
Dude, so fucking real. I just got denied meds because "If you can learn a big part in a play, then you must have very mild adhd."
I'm convinced that most psychiatrists and psychologists have control issues that they satisfy through their practice. It makes them feel powerful to be able to gatekeep, judge and implicitly control their patient's life and get paid for it.
I wish I could talk to someone who actually knows what adhd is like, and not just some boomer with a fancy piece of paper
Extend that to anybody involved with patient care and medicine.
Man if I was a doctor I'd probably get my control kick by giving people what they want and making them happy.
Pretty much, my mom didn't notice that I had adhd. But my little brother was a poor student, and ended up on several different medications for his adhd.. meanwhile, my mom made fun of me for having like 5 water glasses scattered throughout the house all the time bcz I forgot I had a water glass, and where it was.
Wait till you see what they let you do if you're good at sports.
Ftfy
Cheerleaders, teachers, whatever you want. The football players at my high school could do no wrong because they won state once.
Goddamn, this innocuous post brought me to tears. Been having a rough time, I guess
Hugs.
You can't change the past but you can change the future.
Can you though? At least in most of the US if you aren't already getting psychological help, you have to pay for it yourself, and will just have to figure out a self medication schedule that works for you.
I pay for both a psychiatrist and a psychologist and while my psychologist knows for sure I have ADHD neither of then can prescribe me stimulants so instead I'm on Lexapro so at least I don't have to care.
Right but your scenario presumes a great deal, and millions of Americans can't pay for therapy, nor the medicines required to live a better quality of life. Even people with "good jobs" can have awful health coverage with enormous deductibles and other hoops to jump through.
And the kicker is that we pay more than any other industrialized country and get the worst ROI because it's all been allowed to be run by private corporations, for maximum profit.
TBF if any condition isn't causing problems then it doesn't need treatment. Don't get me wrong, ADHD can cause problems beyond just school/work, but often that's one of the most common primary problems it causes
Who says it isn’t causing problems? We had a similar issue with my oldest. He is a brilliant kid who can’t get his shit together because of his disability. However he can skate through school.
It was a constant battle to get him services and accommodations, because he “is not failing”. The school system thinks he doesn’t need treatment because he’s not failing. We think he deserves treatment because he isn’t living up to his abilities and struggles to do basic stuff
Thank you for fighting for your son.
I never really had issues in school, I was doing fine. But teachers kept telling me I wasn't living up to my potential. I was chaotic. Forgetful. Years later, I developed an anxiety disorder I didn't understand so I went to therapy. Turns out I also have chronic depression (oh, life is not so bleak for everyone??) and it's all because of severe ADHD and the attached problems. I'm almost 30 now. And while my therapist did a lot of structured tests, she is not qualified to actually diagnose ADHD. It's gonna be another year until I can get my formal diagnosis and medication.
I often wonder what could have been had the adults in my childhood been more attentive to my -in hindsight- obvious and severe problems.
This was me. Had some good, caring teachers, and some bad, but I was really struggling. Ended up going to a private school on student aid because the public schools didn't care to help. Started caring a lot more about school. Things also got a lot easier when I moved out of the house and had more space to collect my thoughts and goals.
I mean this is technically right (so the best kind of right) but as someone that got okay grades in school and only passed because I could ace a test on pretty much anything, knowing I had ADHD before I was in my mid 30s, stressing over why work was getting harder and harder and trying to explain to my wife that i genuinely just forget to clean up after a project is done would have been hugely helpful. So diagnosing ADHD in kids and teens getting good grades may end with just therapy as treatment if they are otherwise doing well, knowing that other treatments (like medication) are options if after school they start struggling more. Keep in mind it’s much more difficult to get an ADHD diagnosis as an adult than as a kid.
I got diagnosed and medicated at 39. A couple of years go by and I’ve improved my shit enough that I get offered a promotion from tools to office.
“Great”, I think, because I’m finally getting my shit together.
Couple more years have passed, and it turns out that even with medication it’s real fucking hard to be self-led management when you’ve got a brane that is not at all interested in working with you.
Unmedicated me got reasonable grades at school, then managed a respectable 2:1 degree. That would have been a first class degree if I’d been medicated. But all of that shit is basically on rails, people guiding you in the right direction. I don’t have those rails anymore.
My parents just didn’t know what to do and dropped me out of school at 14. I made good grades for the first semester in school every year, then I was moved beside the teacher’s desk and had straight Fs for the rest of the year.
My daughter has developed the same problems as me, mostly after her mom was diagnosed with cancer and then passed away, but I’m trying to get her medicated (if that’s what she needs, and I think it ultimately is). She’s 16 now, on mood stabilizers as of a month ago. The doctor seems to think that will do it.
She ticked every box for adhd which didn’t surprise me at all. I think they’re afraid to give her anything too big because of a history of addiction in the family.
I don’t know. I just hope she ends up doing better than I have since she’s actually being treated.
After I got diagnosed, my kid began the journey towards assessment. Sadly for him his mother didn’t take it too seriously and delayed making a GP appointment for a few months, by which time Covid had happened. The end result is that he got formally diagnosed last February, but because of the waiting lists and a change of our county’s ADHD service provider in April, he’s still not been prescribed any medication.
It’s doubly frustrating because he’s half way through his final year of a law degree. I desperately want him to graduate knowing he did his very best, but without meds I know how impossible that might feel.
Why did you attribute a ratio to your degree? What do you mean first class degree?
In the UK (and maybe other places?) an honours degree can be passed at different levels depending on how well you do.
Top marks is a 1st Class Honours Degree, good marks gets you an Upper Second Class Degree (2:1), okay marks gets you a Lower Second Class Degree (2:2). A 3rd class also degree exists.
Most post-grad courses and some jobs would expect a 2:1 or above to let you apply.
Take a guess how many doctors and dentists you worked with barely passed medical schools, or politicians you voted for still passed with mediocre subpar scores. Hint: not zero.
You'll do fine. So stop under selling yourself
What do you call a doctor that graduated last in their class? Doctor
Sorry, I don't understand what you mean. Did this reply go to the wrong person?
Nope it went to the correct person (you).
What don't you understand, so I may elaborate? Apologies, English is my first language and I'm dumb.
My marks were mere points away from being in First range. It’s frustrating as hell to look back on.
It’s a testament to how hard I worked on the course submissions (in the 12 hours before the handing in deadline) that I did as well as I did. Because honestly, when I think back to that final year of being sat in front of my computer screen, the overwhelming memory is having four different browsers open, logged into four different Facebook accounts that I used to be a dickhead troll in racist groups, winding up the racists.
None of that had anything to do with the radio production degree that I’d paid good money to study towards.
A 2:2 is also known as a Desmond, for fairly obvious reasons.
Absolutely, and inner conflict, constant struggle and unhappiness counts as a huge problem, even when external appearances are kept and things run relatively smoothly. Internal peace should always be the primary goal, and not just fitting into the gears of routine life.
Life is a constant struggle and was for basically all of our ancestors.
If you think life is only happy and free of inner conflict then that's only because the drugs.
Why don't you go chop off one of your arms. Since life is a constant struggle, more struggle must be good right? You should definitely make your life HARDER.
Not the same and that kind of animosity for the first world problems of not being happy or productive enough to be able to exist in the modern society without the assistance of drugs does not require me to praise the practice.
I'm not suggesting people make it harder on themselves but there were much bigger issues in just the recent past and coming in the future to not add more to that. But there are people struggling with removed limbs or malformed ones from birth who could use more accomodations, than those who think their life isn't as easy as someone else's who has more money than them.
In other words. What a terrible response.
So you believe that people with real diagnosed medical issues should just suck it up because somewhere else in the world people don't have running water.
What a terrible response.
You set up your own strawman and then knocked it down. You aren't worth responding to.
In my opinion life not being 100% free of inner conflict vs life being full of it are very different things.
The goal being inner peace doesn't mean that one thinks absolute inner peace is possible. At least I tend to reach a bit higher than what I'm only happy with.
But even if the results are good, the process can still be very draining on the individual.
It didn't get recognized in me until 10th or 11th grade. My grades started to slip fast when the ways I adapted to school stopped helping me keep up.
Arguably, if it's not causing behavioral concerns, educational concerns, emotional concerns, social concerns, or physical concerns... It's not really a condition is it?
For lack of a more relatable analogy, I've been using this race based one.
Imagine you're a black child in America in the 1960s and 1970s, but you somehow managed to remain ignorant of that fact until sometime in your teens or early adulthood. Maybe the area was really progressive, parents wanted to shield you from reality, whatever you need to imagine is fine. You end up not understanding this fact about yourself, and then you end up in the racist public. Now, imagine that the racist public never comes outright and says anything directly racist to you, but all of their other behavior is exactly like what you'd expect from racists in the 1970s. How do you come to terms with this reality? You must be doing something wrong for people to treat you this way.
Obviously not a perfect analogy, and I don't really like to compare my issues as a ND person with the awful stuff done to black people back then, and that continues to be done today. Anyway, it's not inaccurate, if anything, the differences between ND people and NT people are greater than any outward racial appearance, and worse, ND people aren't really aware they are being marginalized, and NT people don't really understand that they are marginalizing.
I think... you should probably stop using that analogy.
A good analogy would be being forced to use your non-dominant hand to write, maybe to play guitar, paint, use a right-handed mouse with your left, etc...
Over time and practice, you may get pretty good at it. But, you want to ask if you think you'll ever get the speed with the smoothness and precision you would have gotten if you've been using your dominant hand. You'd be doing what a lot of ND people have to do, which is put a lot of valuable concentration and energy into adapting to something that while NT people have no issue, it's completely foreign to you.
You can also think of getting the proper treatment as, at worst, switching that incorrect 5-button ergonomic mouse for a basic 3-button ambidextrous one, and at best give you the forward/back buttons, but ignoring the ergonomic design. I.E. The treatment should help lessen the disadvantages, but they would still be present.
Thanks for the suggestion, but I think it's too shallow vs the actual experience. The depth at which ND people are marginalized is so far and away under presented today. Most of the established science is just wrong and resistant to the reality that ND led researchers are presenting. We need to do better at advocating for ourselves as an entire group with shared experiences and unique mental and physical health issues.
The next best analogy I've heard so far is NT people are Windows based software running in a Windows based world, ND people are MacOS software being forced to run on Windows (suspend your IT mind about how it wouldn't work at all, and understand that for a lot of ND folks, it doesn't). Get on the correct runtime environment and a lot of issues go away. That's just really hard to do when the world is primarily built for the 85%-95% NT population, and many of the most capable in the ND population are either ignorant or in denial due to lack of acknowledgement, and stigmatization of anything that would be acknowledged.
People can not agree with what I'm saying, I'm sure it sounds absurd especially if you are NT. I doubt I would have agreed with it two years ago, but introspection after my own realizations that I'm autistic, after over 30+ years of living with this brain, I understand things quite differently now.
It's weird how many people on here attribute good grades to being good at everything else in life. Or minimizing the probable and unnecessary struggle some individuals go through to get those good grades because of the system they were put in. I got good grades because i worked many times harder than my peers. I shouldn't have to. No one does. I was privileged enough to have enough resources to do as well as i did. Most people with my condition don't. I've also struggled a lot more at other tasks, and in the work place. But i got good grades, so fuck me right?
Yeah. It's so fucking shortsighted to be like, "Eh, you did fine, look at your grades. You can't be that disabled." Like, you putzes, are you kidding me? If I hadn't been spending all my mental energy clearing all these pointless obstacles, I might have cured fucking pancreatic cancer by now. It's not just about what's convenient for caretakers, teachers, and a health team, it's about being denied the opportunity that most other people are handed without asking to achieve everything they're capable of doing.
being good at shit doesn't mean I can have good grades either
My autism allows me to do it work, create servers, host websites and make my own Foss projects
This won't however mean I'll be getting 100 from my chemistry exam just because I can loop hello world a hundred times
Back in school I literally helped other students cram 30 minutes before a test, using flash cards I made and used all week, only to have them breeze in and get a higher score than me.
Do you know how great it would be to only barely try, and succeed anyway? I can't even imagine.
I breezed through high school, everything was easy, never studied, was never really able to just sit and focus on stuff.
Get to college, calc is hard. Physics is hard. Electronics is hard. I have zero skills from never studying; I have no foundation to learn. Didn't make it in college. Still really good at mental math though! Still can't sit and focus on tasks for long.
Hitting that wall is pretty common. You learn the wrong habits as you breeze through and get good grades without effort, then encounter the first subjects that require non-trivial effort. And then maybe you take some bad grades until you eventually learn, or you drop out and never figure out how to work through more difficult learning.
Some smart people might not hit that wall until pretty late (I know people who first encountered it in grad school), but regardless of when they encounter it, whether and how they get over that hump can determine what the rest of that academic path looks like for them.
Lol getting to grad school or a PhD without studying sounds like 90%ing a game or getting stuck at the final boss
Getting that far on the highest difficulty level is already impressive IMO
I don't think it's that great. I was able to coast through high school but I was hindered once I reached the edge of my natural talent shortly into college. I had never really learned how to buckle down and study so I ended up struggling a lot. I can still pick things up pretty easily but I often give up when it gets to a certain point. Nowadays I feel kinda inferior to others that learned how to keep trying.
I was all ready to come back at with how I wish I had your problem, but I can honestly see how being unable to buckle down would be a huge impediment.
My results may not be as good as my peers and I may take longer, but I am able to get there eventually.
For instance, I am currently on day 4 of 25 of the Advent of Code competition, haha.
Good for you. Good luck!
I don't know how the fuck I wasn't diagnosed with ADHD (or autism or BPD) until I was in my late 30's, when my parents had taken me to the same therapist my younger sibling was diagnosed with ADHD by as a child.
Adhd was demonized back then. I was diagnosed and my parents decided to do nothing because the media was telling them that Ritalin was the devil. Hard to blame them given the climate but man I coulda used the help back then.
That and most people's idea (including some doctors) was that unless the person was hyperactive, they couldn't have ADHD. Happened to me. And rather than being diagnosed and treated correctly for the problems I did need help with, I got diagnosed with
Asperger's[ASD] and was put in a curriculum well below my level not because I didn't understand the subjects, but because they just didn't interest me.Probably because you were the easy one? That was what it was for me, didn't realize until my mid 20s (covid really wrecked havoc with my studying in college because I couldn't go to a physically separate space that I had designated as a place I couldn't goof off).
Exactly. My younger brother and I both have pretty bad ADHD. I am Primarily Inattentive but he got the hyperactivity and ODD. Guess who got diagnosed at 9 and who got diagnosed at 32?
Samsies, my sister had other issues and was for sure the one who needed more effort from my parents. Meanwhile, I got A's without much effort in HS and for the most part in college (until Masters, which of course landed me with a bit of a breakdown and being depressed for a long while). I'm not formally diagnosed, but that's mostly because I feel it's largely a waste of money for my case (I checked into it a while back when I had terrible insurance, and it was gonna cost me something like $1200).
I suspected i had adhd when i was 16, begged my mom to go to a psychologist. The psychologist told me i was playing too many video games ಠ_ಠ
When the video games were a symptom of the ADHD. Lol
My first and only therapist was totally dismissive of my problems. I left them, but haven't been able to bring myself to try another one since then 😔
Many of us played video games because we lacked any social structure in our lives. TV and video games make people feel like they aren't alone, even when they are.
Its just my opinion but I think you can remedy that by creating a supporting social environment for the whole family to be part of, regardless of what hobbies someone's into.
Edit to add: I didnt mean to imply you should go do this, its just what I think helps prevent the issue.
Yea im 23 now, 2 years ago i decided to go to behavioral health and got actually diagnosed with adhd.
Pretty rough to be dumped into adult life dealing with all that, hope things are going better! Always helps me to remember that even the best of us make tons of mistakes every day. Not sure why little phrases can have so much power though.
As a parent of a child with ADHD, I'm cautious about using stimulant medication unless it's clearly the best course of action. My main goal is to help my child succeed, and academics is a big component of that.
I see many of my son's ADHD symptoms in myself, and I believe I may have also had/have ADHD. Despite this, I've been successful in my life. This personal experience makes me hesitant to automatically turn to medication as the solution for my child. I prefer to explore other options first, unless there's a strong reason to consider it, such as struggling academically.
When my son entered high school he became mature enough to participate in the decision-making process regarding his own treatment. Because of that it was easier for me/us to get him a prescription of Adderall and feel good about it as parents.
Edit: since it seems to not be clear, my son is on ADHD meds and has been for the past three or four years. We talked to him about it and he prefers taking the medication and has had input in the dosage that he's taking.
Unsolicited advice incoming:
Help your kid get a diagnosis ASAP and try to find a medication that works. The drugs are just a tool, but your kid won't know whether they help without trying them.
At some point, they may find themselves unmedicated and down in an ADHD hole — having the diagnosis and knowing which medications may help is crucial to dig out of the hole.
Sorry, if it wasn't clear, he has a diagnosis of adhd and he's on meds.
Counter point.
The medication worked. Suddenly i could pay attention and my grades went up. And those where the main “problems” adults perceived.
My parents where skeptical about medicine first but opted to try because the backlash people gave me for lacking an attention span was affecting me hard. They ultimately believed they where doing the right thing.
I slowly become less social then i already was, lost my appetite, stopped feeling many emotions in general and eventually sank into a deep twisted depression.
I was unable to understand it was the medicine doing this. I was unable to communicate any of it properly because i thought what i was (not) feeling was just normal life and puberty. It was not.
I know and respect that those drugs can help some people. But they completely destroyed me, afterwards it took many years of controversially self medicating with cannabis to restore my original self and feel my emotions properly again. (The mail reason I started was because i read it could be used for adhd/autism and my first experience left me feeling normal and able to take public transport without suffering intens social anxiety)
I fully agree on your diagnosis part though. And i al also not saying medicine cant be the correct tool but its definitely not a clearcut choice.
The lack of emotions is awful. Going to family events or friends parties and it might as well feel like I'm at the grocery store. People tell funny jokes and I make a weird mouthy smile to pretend I'm normal.
They might make it easier to do work you otherwise would not want to do, but the cost is absurd in my opinion.
Seriously. Get them meds and a proper therapist ASAP who has a clue about ADHD. While their brain is still plastic you can train it early with the hope of having a future where coping mechanisms are already there and potentially reducing or getting off their meds entirely. Once you are an adult, it is over. Opportunity lost and time to learn the hard way.
He's on meds (has been for 3 or 4 years), and he has an ADHD diagnosis... What's the therapist for? I haven't seen any actual issues that warrant a therapist, what are you thinking I should be watching out for?
Right now he's doing pretty good in school, he's a little less social than I would like, but that's nothing new. Other than that, he seems a sharp well-rounded kid without any behavioral or emotional issues.
Couldn't think of the word, but not a "talk" therapist. Behavioral or cognitive therapist. Basically, they fill in the gap that medication doesn't and can reduce your dependence on medication later in life. They give you strategies on how to handle the emotional dis-regulation, motivation issues, lack of dopamine, etc. You don't need to be in "rough" shape, or have a really bad case, or anything like that. Medication only helps so much, so getting those strategies in early can make a big difference. Even as an adult it can help and may be something you want to pursue yourself. Half the battle is understanding what behaviors you exhibit is due to ADHD.
I wish I had been diagnosed early in life and got the help I needed, but with the stigma, poor family, and lack of healthcare, I never had a chance. I missed the part where they are a teenager. Please don't assume they are fine because everything looks good on paper, so to speak. Best thing is to present the option and continue to support them and yourself.
I hope you don't take any of this as me saying you are a bad parent or anything like that. I don't mean it that way. I am really passionate about it and a lot of the stigmas against medication has done a lot more harm than good.
This is probably a good call. In the first place a common problem with stimulant meds for adhd is that tolerance goes up quickly, requiring the user to increase their dose over time. The dependency is hard to break. I was prescribed on it for only a few months and made the mistake of abruptly stopping taking it - and even that was enough to go through one of the worst depressions of my life.
There is also evidence of heart risks with long term use, and given that cardiovascular disease is already the western world's number one killer, another blow to our hearts is that last thing anyone needs.
And then there's the regulatory and supply issues. Pharmacies often struggle to keep enough of a supply to meet demand, which is the worst thing for a substance with such a high-risk dependency situation. Plus because it's a schedule 2, you must see a doctor for every refill.
And of course the insurance companies make all of this all the more ugly. Really not worth it.
Edit: oops, didn't catch the last part. Welp, hope it works well for them.
My experience is completely the opposite of what you describe, not that I disregard anything you've stated. I've been on nearly the same dose for nearly 40 years and do not perceive any changes in the effect I receive. And I'd rather live without my medication while waiting on temporary shortages than live my life without it.
Hey if it works well for you, that's great. I hope it keeps working well too.
Can I add, anecdotally, how many times ive seen people who take adderall daily try another stimulant like coke or meth and say something like: "This doesnt feel much different than adderall at all," or "I thought this stuff would be stronger."
Its like people taking oxycontin but thinking heroin is this scary potent drug. People have no idea what they are playing with.
Haha, I raw dogged it until I was 23, horrible grades only
Raw dogged it until 37 years old. Sucks to start life so late 😂
45! At least I somehow got promoted and found a girlfriend. For my Christmas miracle I’m a real boy now I guess.
Gosh 1.1962222087×10⁵⁶ is quite old indeed. 😉
If you can even find someone who does adult diagnosis
For sure. I was lucky I was working for Apple (UK) so they offered private healthcare as mental health support on the NHS isn’t great.
I'm 42 and got diagnosed less than a year ago. Still haven't found meds that actually work, but at least I know and have developed new coping mechanisms.
I’m a few years older and also wasn’t diagnosed until my late 30s.
Welcome to the world of mental health medication. It’s a complete fucking mystery to even medical “professionals” which cocktail works for you, until you give it a shot.
On more than one occasion I’ve heard, “Try this one, if you don’t want to kill yourself or anyone else, it’s probably a good one to use. Otherwise, we can switch to another one with even worse side effects and see how that goes. How does that sound?”
Good luck! It’s a long journey, at least in my experiences.
Fortunately got Prozac dialed in after a bad experience with Paxil many years ago. I'd rather the anxiety be better and the ADHD not. Thanks and same to you.
This is true for every psychological condition and has only tangentially to do with grades. There needs to be a burden of suffering (German: "Leidensdruck") in order for a psychological condition to be considered a "problem" that needs "fixing". As long as the the person doesn't have this and society doesn't force anything on that person (because for example they broke the law), there is nothing to act upon. This is also why some famous and/or successful people are crazy. The FBI has done some investigations into the concept of a the corporate psychopath, which can be successful managers, which are undiagnosed psychopaths.
PS: I am no expert
https://leb.fbi.gov/articles/featured-articles/the-corporate-psychopath
Does anyone else have the incling ADHD and PTSD are the same thing? Human brain thinks it's in danger and kicks into survival mode
Adhd kids get told negative things way more often that other kids, and that is traumatic. Undiagnosed Adhd leads to anxiety and depression because of it, which makes it very similar to ptsd. But since it's chronic and over a long time period, it is separate from ptsd, as the cause is Adhd, and not the trauma itself.
ADHD can lead to C-PTSD if untreated
Especially when RSD is present.
Most of the symptoms commonly associated with ASD are shared with PTSD
Tbf same if you are 'slower'
I don't have anything and I never will because I'm never getting tested. I did get "classified" and never had a fair chance at a real education. Even failure meant I needed to be in the program and every success showed how well the program was working. I grew up thinking I would only be a drag on other people. In high school, I decided to start feeling better about myself. Something those years of being removed from class so I could have meaningless conversations with the school therapist never could. I thought the school would support my efforts to fix my education, but I only got pushed down, told "I would be happier without the risk of failure", lied to about classes being full, withheld test results when I tried testing into better classes. I would like nothing more then to get the diploma revoked and seeing as how I never fulfilled the basic state requirements, I should be able to, but like with most things, the written law doesn't matter if no one is willing to enforce it.
Fuck my school. Fuck the "team building" exercises they made me do. Fuck the "opportunities" they provided for me.
My therapist diagnosed me with ADD, I did a lot of research and talked to a lot of people. Turned out I don’t have that, but have childhood trauma. Trauma and ADD have a lot of similar symptoms. Once I started addressing the trauma, my symptoms went away.
Anxiety too.
For me it's the other way around. My ADHD caused depression and anxiety. Without the panic attacks, I wouldn't have gone to a therapist in the first place.
I’m not an expert but I believe that anxiety is linked to trauma - Ie: the family dysfunction is causing your anxiety and you were never taught healthy coping skills to deal with all of that…
Just like how gambling isn’t a mental issue if you keep winning … strange isn’t it?
questionable correlation between the words "raw dogging" and the pfp. Having said that, this only applies to school, IRL, its shit.
what?
uhhh....i was explicitly mentioning they CAN with her crossed eye tounge sticking out.
You used the word questionable, literally nothing about your message was explicit.
do you not know the tounge sticking out crossed eyed meme?
No. I'm believe there's some weird kink but not aware of any memes.
"It's crazy how if you don't have any symptoms of a neurodevelopmental disease, you don't get hardcore stimulants for daily use as a child."
You can get good grades and still constantly get called lazy, be berated for not applying yourself more. Constantly wondering why no matter how hard you try to still somehow don't do any better than if you make no effort at all but whatever you still get good grades. Who cares if you leave all your assignments for the last minute and then finish them all in a panic the night before they're due. Or if you just crutch on way too many energy drinks because they're effectively the same thing as medication only way worse for you health wise because you have no concept of the fact that the reason you like them so much is they make your symptoms more manageable.
Also, you know that stimulants aren't the only treatment someone with ADHD gets right? When you know there's a problem that isn't just "you're lazy" you can learn coping strategies that are worthless to people without ADHD and therefore nothing you'll get yelled at to do by the adults in your life.
I don't see how any of that relates. I mean, I see you're trying to argue that as the basis for a diagnosis of an attention deficit disorder, but what you've written is completely normal.
Seems like you're basing your reasoning on "well this speed I take actually helps me focus". Yeah? And the alcohol people drink make them drunk? That's what stimulants do they give you energy to help you focus.
Nowadays literally anything will net you a diagnosis for stimulants. It's crazy how easy it is for anyone of any age to get ADHD/ADD meds ie. Doctors pushed it on me as well, for years. Not when I was kid, because then this overprescription craziness wasn't a thing yet. But after 25 or so, constantly. I figured out my health myself. Did get tested several times by clinical psychologists, and it's crazy how generalised the questions are. I genuinely couldn't imagine anyone who couldn't at one time or another apply everything they said to themselves.
I also while at a place in which they suggested, read a brochure which was highly trying to convince that actually kids who use adhd meds are less likely to have problems with other substances in the future. I had plenty of time while waiting for my appointment, so I googled the source for the "facts" on that brochure. Turns out it relied on a study done on a hundred or so mice. I then googled the opposing view and researched whether it does make it more likely kids will have problems with other substances and found a study which was a following of tens of thousands of kids and showed a clear correlation, where yes, teenagers using methylphenidate and other adhd and add meds were more likely to have reported substance abuse issues later.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/adhd-overdiagnosed-and-overmedicated-say-dissenting-doctors-20231018-p5ed50.html
Like genuinely, call me out on this in 10 or 20 years. We'll see where it's developed. It's not like the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world have ever done anything illegal or harmful or purposefully pushed illegal drugs even to an extent to create a horrific drug epidemic.... riiiight?
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/30/the-family-that-built-an-empire-of-pain
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9339402/
Now I understand that adhd meds are far safer than opiates, so it's not that I'm griping about anyone using them if they feel they get help from them. But let's not pretend that there isn't very clear controversy on this issue.
Sure, as medicine develops, diagnosis of not so well known diseases increase. But if you look at the rate of increase of neurodevelopmental orders in general versus the rate of increase of ADHD/ADD diagnosis', it's really hard to explain how the one condition which is treatable by a pleasantly mild pharmaceutical (which imo is far better than caffeine as per physical effects, so I understand preferring it over energy drinks) and which just happens to be very popular recreationally over the world as well.
Or would you disagree?
Cool story bro. Just say you don't believe that ADHD is real and we're all just addicts. You've clearly already made up your mind and you're cherry picking your sources to match your priors. There's not a damn thing I or anyone else is gonna say that is going to make you see that medication is an effective treatment option though it doesn't work for everyone.
Cool story bro, just admit that you don't have the resources to have this conversation instead of defaulting to garbage like that.
You've bought into the propaganda because you've never ever questioned this. You've made up your mind and won't change it. I on the other hand, go with the evidence.
I'm sorry, English is my third language, is "overdiagnosed" synonymous with "fictional made up disease that's only an excuse to addict scum"?
I'm a proponent for the legalisation of all drug laws. A very strong advocate for it. I'm no "you shouldn't take pills" prude. But like I said, I understand you get defensive about this because you don't have any sort of resources in terms of even being able to discuss what I've said and you think I'm calling you an addict. I'm not. Since you can't discuss this rationally, there's very little point.
Or perhaps I'm mistaken and you too have gone over the rate of neurodevelopmental disorders from around the world in the past 30-50 years (there's kinda poor data when you try to go back further), checked the rate of growth, averaged it out and noted that while they all grow as there's more access to doctors, there's an explosive growth with ADHD and ADD medication. A growth that is unlikely to be explained by anything other than someone pushing them more than is warranted. In other words overdiagnosing.
But I'm open to other alternatives if you have an explanation?
Your "resources" were one opinion piece in an Australian tabloid and two complete non sequitur links about the opioid crisis. Are there pill mills giving stimulants to anyone with a pulse? Sure. Doesn't take away from the efficacy of the medications. And it certainly doesn't mean that the advances in actually diagnosing a disorder is secretly an evil pharmaceutical cabal out to get kids hooked on speed. Gtfo
Ignoring the direct question and going for more "b-b-b-but no no no no I don't believe it." I'm not surprised.
You simply will not even consider that anything I say might even remotely be true. You utterly utterly refuse to. Without reason.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21382538/
Subtle but they said, "get good grades." Very different than earned.
Very true but you also learn to life with it med free, which is very valuable and healthy.
Some might, but many do not. Constantly burning out, knowing that you're underachiving (even if other do not see it) and struggling with handling it all can and does make people end up depressed, extremely anxious and even suicidal. If one doesn't get the help they need, many doors can close even permanently.
Some people really need the medicine to function.
I think some forgot the premise of the post, was specifically for people who are not underachievers yet have adhd. This what I am refering to.
I don't think that's the premise of this post. I think the post is talking about people struggling with adhd, who's symptoms & struggling are being ignored just because they've somehow managed to keep up good grades.
They might also be "gifted" which helps with getting good grades up until some point when it all falls down, as it all just is too much. Also the responsibility and work on other areas of life start requiring the limited capacity to focus and execute necessary home upkeeping, studying & all the other things in life.
Getting the needed medication or even just the diagnosis and the understanding of oneself that comes with it can save a person from a lot of unnessecary suffering.
Yes, being stressed out about your own apparent inadequacies for your entire life sure sounds like a healthy way to live
Then don't let others make you feel inadequate for being you.
Not being able to complete most simple tasks on time isn't me. That's the ADHD, and I hate it.
Ok then that's something you want to work on and I hope you can get past it but that's not a out other people.
Not true. Check some research, brain develops more healthy with meds.
I probably would have been better off maintaining Vyvanse into adulthood, but I quit taking it as soon as I had the ability to make the decision to. I felt dull, emotionless, my appetite sucked. Yes, ADD sucks and it has caused issues in my personal life, but I am who I am and I accept those parts of myself. Would my grades have been better in college? Would I have been better at maintaining social events? Sure. But sometimes you just have to build good habits to overcome whatever you can.
no.
The equivalence of what you're saying is that if everything contained lactose and just because Phil, with his lactose-intolerance, is always able to make it to the toilet in time, he shouldn't need lactase supplements or a special diet.
Lactose intolerance is actually a very good example. The level of lactase production varies significantly among the population. Different people will find different amounts of lactose as interfering with their ADLs. There's generally a point where too much milk or cheese will cause you to have gas and visit the bathroom within an hour. This is called clinical significance. If they don't have enough clinical significance, it's pointless to diagnose them with lactose intolerance.
Although I agree with the facts, binary „diagnosing“ isnt the only way to go about your life. You, your parents and your doctor can make decisions without a piece of paper. The problem here to me seems to be that „you‘re not diagnosed so you dont have it“ has been a valid strategy for too long and needs to go already. Seeing that your child (eg) shows signs of autism doesnt mean you need to put them in special everything but people are rightly pissed that they have suffered irreperable damage to their bodies for self medicating an issue that could have been mitigated if not soved, were our society able to accept imperfection and not reinforce stereotypes at every turn.
You can and should use nonmedicalized strategies for something that's subclinical. That was my point. A disorder is a medical diagnosis.
As is the absence of one.
That's literally correct for ADHD, yeah - the diagnostic criteria for it is all stuff like "patient says they have difficulty organizing tasks", which, naturally, depends a lot on what kind of tasks they're doing.
That's why ADHD is very common in concentration-requiring professions like software engineering (naively you'd expect the opposite) - there's people with "undiagnosed ADHD" (low concentration) everywhere, but if you're in a profession like that you are much more likely to have it impact your job, and go to a doctor, and get a diagnosis and a prescription of Adderall or some other kind of amphetamine.
You can pretend that clinical significance is the gold standard measure of disability if you like, but you should recognize that you leave a MASSIVE gap in your effectiveness both as a diagnostician and a practitioner if you neglect all the masking your client has been doing to deal with everybody's demands their whole life. Seeing that bias in someone pretending to treat me would be enough reason for me to walk out of the appointment and schedule with someone more capable and knowledgeable.
I'm neither a diagnostician nor a provider and I don't pretend to be one. I'm just a nurse. That's one of many things people seem to ascribe to me. I will say however, something needs to be disabling for it to be a disability.
Yeah, my guess is that this post is implying the typical case - it wasn't disrupting grades specifically, so it wasn't diagnosed. You may have gotten those grades by staying up until 3am as a child, lying to get out of forgotten homework, had more injuries, pushed through work by building up a healthy reserve of depression and anxiety, struggled socially because you couldn't prioritize both school and socials or because you couldn't connect with most other people because of your way of talking, been horribly forgetful, etc. but because grades number stays high, nothing is wrong. It's easy for people to see grades as the metric for mental wellness which is wild
Yeah nobody else is mentally well either and we all have our coping mechanisms for this world.
This is basically keeping up with the Jones's but using "happiness" as a grading curve for your life.
People are not superheroes or magical beings above all the downs we share. Hell most of the upper class are busy abusing drugs just as much from their burnout and depression. But someone might have been more social and smart and thus you are somehow less than them? Meh. And Nah.
Can you please define "interfere" Dr. Roguetrick?
Difficulty or inability. I'm not claiming to be a doctor and I'm not making an outlandish statement. People are acting like I'm making a value judgement on them or their lived experiences when I'm not. They sure are making wild assumptions about what I mean though.
"Difficulty or inability"
So some degree of difficulty and/or some degree of inability. Assessed by someone. Subjectively. Which means that there is absolutely no point in trying to infer that somehow those who say they feel they have some degree of difficulty or inability may not, in your opinion as not a medical professional, over the internet, actually have the disorder they and/or their doctor feel they have.
tl;dr your statement is completely meaningless
What a long winded way to rephrase what I just said I wasn't doing. I was making the point that if you don't have clinically significant symptoms you don't have a disorder. That's it. Every other point you've made us a wild supposition.
Nice gaslight Herr Doktor.
Your statement is meaningless. It's just as meaningless as saying you didn't diagnose the absence of a disorder.
I honestly don't even know what you're trying argue with me about at this point. Do you hold the position that a subclinical set of symptoms is a disorder? Because that's what I disagree with. If not, then what exactly is at issue beyond your imagination of my position?
You are trying to claim that you are making a simple factual statement when in fact the subtext - which is probably obvious to all - is that in your opinion you don't think people's claims of impairment or dysfunction are valid unless they have a specific medical diagnosis that YOU feel is valid. And the proof of this is that your statement can be as true reversed. IOW, you have NO idea if they've been medically diagnosed or if any diagnosis or absence thereof is valid or not. It really negates your point.
And why does this all matter to me, personally? Because my own personal experience with the medical establishment is that they pretty much throw shit out there that may be valid or may not and relies heavily on both the doctor's and the patient's own subjective assessment. A sibling was for decades diagnosed as intellectually disabled when in fact he has ASD because they were unable to communicate effectively. I was diagnosed with a common mental disorder by one doctor and told there was no way I could have that by another. It goes on... And so I tend to be pretty sympathetic when someone says "I feel impaired by " and I don't feel a need to question whether or not they have or if there was a formal diagnosis or not. Again, because many of those diagnoses are about as valid one way or the other has throwing darts. Could be good, could have missed something completely, could have misinterpreted what the patient said because they weren't able to communicate it in that moment.
What is important is what the person says about themselves. If they want to say they have ADHD or ASD or whatever, it's not my place to gate keep or question that. Nor yours.
Edit: To put it another way... your statement is about as useful as, when someone says "I just love this blue dress I'm wearing" pointing out that "well akshually that's turquoise". The point is THEY like the color.
Even with ADHD you're like, an full-ass adult, no? it's weird how people never actually grow into their independance. I see many people come up in their 30-40s and discover they have ADHD - what were you doing this whole time?
Assuming it was this hard for everyone else and I was just really, really, inexplicably bad at this....so I'll work harder to overcome my personal shortcomings!
Undiagnosed thought: "I'm always forgetting my important things, this is really difficult"
Society: "everyone forgets things"
Undiagnosed thought: that fluorescent light is so incredibly loud and the way it flickers is creating this strange rainbow effect on my computer and it hurts my eyes and I'm really struggling here.
Society: working in an office sucks, the lights, the distractions, it's normal to have unfocused moments.
You repeat enough of these thoughts - I feel like I'm struggling with my emotional regulation, could it be ADHD? Well as a teen it was hormones, as a uni student it was "freshman anxiety", then I was getting divorced so my emotional state was blamed on that, then I was always moving house so it made sense that my mood was always a hair trigger.
There were always just enough environmental factors to mask the underlying condition.
And it works! Until you burnout in your 30s because no one else is actually giving 150% all the time.
I did the same with a physical illness! I was born with a hip deformity so my whole life any pain or issues around my hips was just totally brushed off until I got aggressively assertive in my 20s because with the physical symptoms I was able to feel more confident in my perception of my reality and advocate to my doctor (where as with mental health, it's harder, sure I think I feel this symptom but it's in my head it's fleeting what if I'm remembering experiencing my own thoughts wrong? Years of describing how I feel to therapists, being told it's nothing out of the ordinary, so I've convinced myself it's nothing, but it's not nothing)
Turns out I had nerve damage in my spine the whole time, but we all just assumed I was being overly dramatic and sensitive about the known hip issue.
Same with my ADHD. We all (myself included) thought it was just really bad anxiety in addition to me being bad at sticking to the homework for therapy so it made sense I wasn't getting better.
But we know more about how it presents, so if I was a kid going through the process again I'd be less likely to be misdiagnosed in the first place.
You know when enough of society agrees on the whole light things, or forgetting things, or about noises...
Maybe, just maybe... Being a hyper focused machine used for mass productivity in a country designed around stripping as much value from your existence as possible....
That it maybe is a common position and the drugs to "equal" yourself to others is just a lie to make you think that is the normal way for people to live?
Most people aren't giving 150% because they don't think about anything they do and just hope for the best and rely on connections and luck to get through.
Pretty sure we as a society should be trying to accommodate other people and help them as they need to be needed instead of demanding conformity to a position we are just pretending is the normal. But hey when the drugs are this good...
It's a fair question, if you haven't gone through it. I agree: it seems ridiculous!
I grew up surrounded by authority figures who didn't have a nuanced understanding of mental health. I internalized being called "lazy" and "a procrastinator," because everyone told me that I was choosing to be bad at managing my time and focus!
I believed this right into the upper management of a tech company in my 30s. And I'd get down on myself constantly for zoning out during meetings and being overwhelmed at long-term complex tasks. "Wow I'm so lazy and unmotivated," I'd think to myself in between client meetings. For years.
A friend showed me the ADHD symptoms (probably after I zoned out for the thousandth time), and it was a shock and how closely they described my childhood, schooling, and professional and social life.
Some people do just fine with their coping mechanisms - I discovered that I had quite a few! But I made the choice to seek medication. Taking it was like breathing air for the first time.
So that's what I was doing.
Maybe trying to get out from an overprotective parent or unburying yourself from decades of gaslighting? Are you a psychologist? You seem to hold a very high opinion of your ability to judge people.
yeah but that's not the context of the post.
Thats not important here.
You can't just add random context to suit your claim lmao
And I didnt. You nibbled at a detail of the op and I did the same with you. Its always okay as long as nobody does it to oneself.
Trying to fucking survive the last fucking 40 years of this life i didn't ask for
It’s crazy how everyone blames all their failures in life on adhd.
It's crazy that the system allows so many people to fail for the exact same reasons that don't impair the rich in any way shape or form, and those people blame their own debuffs rather than the system that failed them from birth.
In case you aren't aware and interested in hearing an opinion on that statement, here it goes.
A lot of people might find it offensive and dismissive. The obvious issue with it is that it is extreme by including "everyone" and "all their failures in life" and saying that one issue is blamed for it entirely. That is just not true. I understand that it could be taken as a figure of speech and that the reader is to understand that not literally everyone and all of their failures, but I disagree with even a figurative interpretation. In my experience, few people attribute most of their lifelong issues to ADHD. Out of that small set of individuals that do attribute issues to ADHD, many of them are valid, while some are likely removing any accountability from their own choices. Yes, it is likely that some people avoid taking responsibility and therefore seek unnecessary accommodations from others for their lack of effort by placing blame on a mental health diagnosis that they might not even have. However, it is my belief that the majority of people don't do that. ADHD is a mental health condition/neurotype that affects every single aspect of a person's life. A person isn't ADHD in only school or work. They are ADHD when they complete daily tasks, socialize, read a book, follow instructions, visit the doctor, place their keys down, etc. ADHD truly does affect every area of their in a world that is designed for people that are not ADHD, so they end up violating cultural norms and performing subobtimally in comparison to their peers. When someone with ADHD states that their entire lives are affected by it, they are not exaggerating. Stating that everyone blames all of their failures in life on ADHD is dismissive of their difficulties and can appear aloof, insensitive, privileged, or malicious. Statements like that can drive away understanding, compassionate, and caring people, limiting your interaction with individuals that have those traits, leaving you more exposed to the kinds of individuals that would use mental health diagnoses to avoid responsibility for their failures.
That's only my opinion, so do what you like with that.
What do you blame your failures in life on? Because I guarantee you've got something you complain about.
It's an easy scapegoat in a world that wants more from them than they can provide. It makes you compare yourself constantly to the best performers and tells you that you are not enough and then offers a thought that drugging yourself just right would make you as happy and successful as you believe you deserve to be for trying so hard.
It's a shame life doesn't care and it's not what life is about.
Not that people shouldn't be able to get help when they have legitimate issues but we could be a lot more welcoming on those differences between each other with a different culture but that requires changing yourself and others in a way that is likely not possible and the drugs are easier.