[Djvacto]

I started medication as an adult, lived in a home with two involved & present parents, never saw any doctor about ADHD until I was an adult, and was never an unhappy child.

Looking back, I clearly had ADHD, but since it's a condition that's unique and specific symptoms vary per person, I just happened to have mechanisms that worked and got lucky with how my brain patterns fit into school from Elementary - High School.

I had plenty of outdoor activity, and plenty of video games / computer use. Not that you mentioned it, but I also read fantasy/sci-fi books like they were daily papers, finished all of my incomplete homework in the morning while waiting for class to start, and was constantly multi-tasking in class (reading, doing homework for an upcoming class, or occasionally fidgeting).

My sample size is 1, but I have 4-5 diagnosed (either as kids or adults) close friends with similar stories.

Your comment takes some generally-well-known positive advice (exercise more, social interaction & supportive relationships are good, parenting kids is a big task that takes time & effort), and identifies some real problems we face today (social isolation, a lack of non-religious adult organizations, sedentary lifestyles) and uses it to disparage people with real, diagnosable conditions, and vilifying those who turn to medication for it.

I'm fine with how my life worked out, but I can't imagine being the kind of kid whose ADHD manifested in a different way that made school exponentially harder than it was for me, and being told that life-changing medicine, that let me participate in school or work just like everyone else does, is something I was given by mistake, or that I just had shit parents or should have played outside more.

[citilife]

One way I try to explain it to people: "We give people insulin because they have diabetes. Diabetes is the disease, but you can cure it through diet and exercise for Type 2 (it's environmental), Type 1 you cannot (it's genetic). Insulin treats the disease, but doesn't cure it"

Why is it not the same for ADHD or depression? Type 1 is genetic and Type 2 is environmental.

The argument I was attempting to make is different from what everyone here is saying I think. What is a disease?

> Disease - a condition of the living animal or plant body or of one of its parts that impairs normal functioning and is typically manifested by distinguishing signs and symptoms

Two points:

1. I would argue that what you describe isn't impairing normal function. It's that we are attempting to make you do abnormal things (sit in a room all day and be lectured at. At the end you have an exam). Society is failing to raise children properly and expecting things that are abnormal for the human animal.

2. A disease is basically diagnosed from a bucket of symptoms. Those symptoms will have different causes. Without taking a measured approach at identifying the causes, you are likely going to see a plethora of factors. These can and do include things like hyperactivity from siting and watching TV (now they have energy and want to move). Things of that nature.

Given the above, we're effectively medicating children for personal / societal reasons, not because the human animal is actually suffering or impaired in any way.

[andybak]

Let me put it another way then - ADHD meds increase the range of tasks I'm able to do succesfully. They add to my life rather than take something away.

I'm talking about tasks I want to do but would struggle with without medication (mainly coding for pleasure).

Yeah - I could find different things to do with my life, but I love coding and I am delighted to find there's a simple pill I can take that helps me do more of it.

[citilife]

I understand what you're saying, but reread what you said and replace "medication" and "pill" with "cocaine". Amphetamine can be used in the same manner and for the same perceived reasons.

Granted, I am happy for you and I think drug laws are ridiculous.

[andybak]

(Methylphenidate is not amphetamine btw. Other ADHD meds are literally amphetamines but I'm only talking about methylphenidate)

If cocaine had positive effects that outweighed the negatives then it absolutely should be prescribed. But it doesn't. Unlike methylphenidate - which for most people has fairly mild downsides at the doses it is usually prescribed in. It is also largely non-addictive with little evidence of long-term health damage.

Also unlike cocaine.

All in all, I'm not sure how this comparison helps.

[citilife]

Methylphenidate is highly addictive...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylphenidate

Though I'll grant you we don't have data for long-term effects.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014976341...

Further, as you pointed out does have benefits (which is I assume why it's prescribed). Cocaine and meth have similar effects btw (pros and cons), abuse is what causes the issue(s). People can survive on both for decades though.

[FollowingTheDao]

Your analogy fails because type one diabetes also has an causal environmental component:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5571740/

[ghufran_syed]

I disagree:

“ In this paper, we discuss candidate triggers of islet autoimmunity and factors thought to promote progression from autoimmunity to overt type 1 diabetes (figure 1). These factors seem to have their effect mainly in the genetically predisposed individuals.” [my emphasis]

[FollowingTheDao]

“ Importantly, environmental factors that trigger islet autoimmunity might differ from those that promote progression from autoimmunity to overt diabetes.”

[adastra22]

My situation mirrors yours pretty closely. I didn't recognize the symptoms or seek treatment until my mid-30's, but looking back I clearly had ADHD symptoms that became serious around high school.

In my case, my grades plummeted and I was unable to get into the colleges I wanted, or to graduate from an engineering program like I had wanted. I ended up graduating with a degree after 7 years and bouncing between 4 different colleges, and I've had a decently good career in Silicon Valley where being a generalist is a solid plus. But my dreams of being a (literal) astronaut were flushed down the toilet in the process.

Kids shouldn't have to sacrifice their dreams or their self-esteem because parents are unwilling or unable to seek proper treatment.

[lettergram]

As you pointed out ADHD is a disease, what’s the cause?

Do you have adhd, or do the drugs help you focus and you want that?

Calling it a disease implies something is wrong, but having trouble focusing isn’t “wrong”. It’s a skill one can acquire and may have a variety of factors impacting it (from genetics to environment to mental management).

That’s the issue I personally take with these kind of discussions. Medication may help you focus (coffee does that), but do people who need coffee in the morning to focus well have a disease? Hardly.

[Taywee]

Not them, and I don't have ADHD, but I am the parent of a child with ADHD and I know plenty of people with ADHD, and it's not just "having trouble focusing". For a lot of people, it's a complete inability to focus on any one thing for any real amount of time. They can try as hard as they can to force themselves, but become disfocused and distracted despite any effort. It also often involves impulsiveness that is incredibly difficult to control, to the point that often it feels like it wasn't even their own choice. A common description I've heard is that it feels like somebody else was controlling them. My son would say when he was younger "My brain made me do it" or "my hands just did it on their own", and at first I thought it was an excuse, but after one destructive incident, he broke down crying at the age of 7 saying that he doesn't know why he does the things he does, and he can't stop or control himself, and he wishes he could stop himself from doing it. He tries to be good but then something takes control and makes him do destructive things or blurt out things he knows are wrong to say.

On medication now, he still has a hard time, but he is actually capable of controlling himself, he is capable of forcing himself to focus, and he's much happier. Now it is just a skill for him to work on, but in the past, it was an actual impossibility. It is a true disorder, not just "trouble focusing", and ADHD medication is a fundamental need for some people to function at all, and not comparable to a morning coffee.

In the past, these people were often assumed to be possessed, or insane, and were institutionalized, killed, or imprisoned. It's not like ADHD is a new epidemic or something.

[adastra22]

Thank you for you sympathy and empathetic response. Your son's in good hands.

As an ADHDer, I never understood what it was like for others until I got treatment with stimulants. It's like I can just take this magic pill and for 8 hours I'm "normal."

I wish there was an opposite pill, one which made people inattentive and impulsive. Then everyone else could try it for a day or two and see how debilitating it is. Regular, everyday life is like being falling-down drunk in terms of mental incapacitation, and the pills for the first time let us experience life sober.

Edit: how old is your son now? One thing I worry about as a parent of an ADHDer as well is her eating. I've so far avoided treatment for her because I'm worried she'll eat less and her growth will be stunted. We're cautiously waiting on medication until post-puberty.

[citilife]

> I wish there was an opposite pill, one which made people inattentive and impulsive.

I suggest you have someone sleep 4 hours a night for a week. You'll often see the same symptoms as someone with ADHD.

[Taywee]

My son is 9 now. We only started him on medication this year (we were trying so hard to get it under control without medication, and his doctor was worried about his weight if we put him on the stimulants). Getting him to eat is a challenge, but it always was anyway and he's always been pretty skinny. Fortunately, he loves milk, so we can always get some calories and protein in him that way. We get a low-carb full-fat milk so his sugar intake isn't crazy high.

[adastra22]

Thanks for replying. Which meds? Do you have off days?

[Taywee]

Dextroamphetamine. Worked great for a few months, but have lessened in effectiveness. Now it still works for focus, but the impulsiveness came back (he was actually able to explain to me that he was having trouble controlling his actions), so he's now on guanfacine too, for impulse control.

We do a couple off days now and then, but not a lot because he feels like it's a wasted day because he can't focus on anything he really wants to. I suggested that he could take weekends off the stimulant, but he says he'd rather be able to operate mostly every day than to have a more focused week and completely wasted weekend, and I feel like he's capable of making that decision for himself.

[Auracle]

Ironically, the opposite pill for me is Adderall. I take stimulants for idiopathic hypersomnia and if I take too high of a dose I have a hard time concentrating on just one thing.

I don’t think it gets as bad as ADHD but I definitely get a taste of it.

[olyjohn]

There's a huge difference between having a little trouble focusing, and struggling all fucking day to focus... then realizing at the end of the day, you have been working all day, but bouncing between tasks so much that you really got nothing done. It's frustrating and debilitating and makes you feel like a complete piece of shit. Then because you're not doing as well as everybody around you, you dwell on it at night, and you don't sleep. And you know what no sleep does? It exacerbates the problem, and so you have to struggle even harder when you're exhausted just to get things done. Then you spend all weekend sleeping, because it's the only 2 nights of the week where you don't have to go back to work the next day, and fail yet again. Then you start to feel like your life is this fucking cycle of struggle every week, with no personal accomplishments.

[EricE]

ADHD is not a disease; our brains are just wired differently. The upsides of ADHD - hyperfocus, strategic planning, ability to readily correlate otherwise unrelated things all contributed to who I am and my success. The drugs help even out the downsides to ADHD.