[adhd1110101]

My friend it's a false dichotomy: you can keep your talents and maybe ease your struggle too.

Most stimulant medication is something you can try for a day, see immediately if it's effective or not, then never take again in your life if it isn't for you. Don't suffer needlessly because of misguided bigots like the one above.

[bobobob420]

I have tried ritalin, vyanse, and adderall in college before. Those drugs scare me because they are in my opinion the greatest drugs in the world. When I am on them I literally become the movie limitless in real life. I feel more amazing than ever and I want to take them all the time. I would like to solve my issues without becoming reliant on medication. It feels like a patch rather than a solution. Lately I have been trying meditation. If it cures my 'adhd' I will let you know

[istjohn]

Were you prescribed those drugs, or did you take them recreationally? It's important to work with a doctor to find the dosage that works for you, and it may be much lower than what you would take recreationally. There are also non-amphetamine medications that can help if you aren't comfortable with adderall and friends. There are also behavioral approaches to ADHD that you could explore with a medical professional.

Since your username contains "420," I will add that marijuana is a bad idea if you are struggling with ADHD symptoms. It may make you feel more productive, but it will greatly exasperate your ADHD tendencies.

[EGreg]

I am not a doctor, but can I suggest a non-medical intervention that probably doesn't have any adverse effects, but may help?

Under capitalism, the social networks compete for your attention, by sending you notifications. It's a "tragedy of the commons" where the commons is human attention: if Facebook doesn't get you to click during dinner, then Twitter will, and then it'll grow through those tactics. Thus the market forces these corporations to give you addictive newsfeeds, tell you when someone replied to your comment, etc. There are analyses comparing the brain to pavlov's dogs and the addiction to a slot machine.

In China, internet addiction is classed as a disease but it's also studied from a social point of view, not just prescribing mediation right away. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/18681026219931...

Here is what I would recommend:

1) Realize you are NOT alone or atypical. The human attention span has declined because of the system we live in. We now have shorter attention spans than goldfish. https://www.wyzowl.com/human-attention-span/

2) Notice how much of your ADHD is connected to anxiety and investigate the causes of that anxiety, maybe with a psychotherapist or other counsellor. Map out what kind of things you are afraid could happen if you don't react to them quickly. See if you can rearrange your life to diminish the need for quick responses (such as Slack or real-time chats). Consider worst-case scenarios and if you also have OCD, consider ERP therapy.

3) Learn to use "Focus" on your phone, to turn off distractions for long periods of "Flow". Set expectations with people (this may be hard if you work in capitalism for an employer) to schedule times to talk to you, and only allow calls for emergencies from friends and family. It will take you AT LEAST A WEEK after you remove your anxiety of missing something important, to start fully relaxing and not expecting a notification to jump out at you.

4) Watch the movie "the social dilemma" and try out its recommendations (taking 1 day a week off from all electronics completely -- live how people have lived throughout history) and spend it socializing with people, eating dinner, reading a book, etc.

5) Look at your sleep, diet, are you taking walks or exercising? What is your job? Anyway, there is so much you can investigate holistically and take control in your life, before you ever have to consider that ritalin is your only hope. (And if you do want to try a nootropic, you can try modafinil perhaps... it's not an amphetamine... but again, I think medications take away our agency and should be tried only if all else fails)

None of that requires medication, so try that first.

[bobobob420]

Thanks for your comment. I am slowly adding techniques like this to my routine. I checked out your blog.. absolutely fascinating stuff

[EGreg]

Thanks for your kind words!

I would definitely appreciate it if at some point in the future (a month, 6 months, or whenever) you emailed me and told me whether what I said made any difference -- positive or negative. You can find my contact info in my profile.

[EGreg]

Bigot [definition] a person who is obstinately or unreasonably attached to a belief, opinion, or faction, especially one who is prejudiced against or antagonistic towards a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group.

I do not recall being antagonistic towards people with ADHD. On the contrary, the resources I have linked to (such as the book https://www.amazon.es/ADHD-Hunter-Farmers-Thom-Hartmann/dp/1...) are by people whose kids have ADHD and they opted to embrace them and accept them, rather than saying they have effectively a neurological disorder. You can make similar cases for autism spectrum, gender dysphoria and so on being zealously overdiagnosed and medicated (https://www.statnews.com/2022/02/10/theres-no-autism-epidemi...)

Medication is often a band-aid and the default way systems handle a cog in a machine. One in four middle-aged women is on antidepressants. Do you think they are ALL clinically depressed? And the opiates that men started to take have reached epidemic proportions too... surely, you wouldn't call everyone a bigot who wants to address the underlying societal reasons for this? Or you'd be the guy prescribing vodka to every USSR citizen as a way to deal with issues?

You are redefining the word "bigot" to mean its opposite, it seems. A system that systematically ignores meeting the basic needs of humans, and then dismisses their resulting behavior as "irrational" or "needing medication" is far worse than a bigot. It's like systemic racism or sexism, but directed against non-neurotypical kids, or adults or elderly.

Were people bigots who said "women have real needs that need to be addressed, stop delegitimizing their real issues by labeling them all as Hysterical Women (TM) and sending them to the doctor to get tittilated"? Because today, we agree with all those people, but in the past, we didn't. To borrow another politically loaded term, you could be on the "wrong side of history", just like people who defended lobotomies and medicating hysterical women.

Maybe you should look into the profit motive of doctors and pharma who stand to gain from more medications. And the school administrators who need to cover their own ass before actually caring about the kids and speaking to their parents. I happen to know about such school administrators and cases personally. The SYSTEM doesn't care about the parents, nor the kids, nor the grandparents which they also stick into nursing homes and medicate -- because again, they need to work 10 hour days to pay the rent. Just like under socialism, the capitalist system externalizes costs onto individuals, you should open your eyes. Try looking at some links I posted above. What you call bigotry, I call basic concern that society should have for human beings.

[istjohn]

People who have ADHD are used to being told they just need to stop being lazy. They already have to overcome a huge stigma to seek diagnosis and accept treatment. So, yes you are being "antagonistic towards...people on the basis of their membership of a particular group." Your solution seems to be that instead of seeking scientifically validated treatment that has already helped millions of people, they change the socioeconomic system they exist in, in which they have to work a 9 to 5 to provide for themseleves and their families. This is not practical advice. So not only are you peddling medical quackery, but you don't even offer a snake oil alternative to the audience you're demoralizing.

You also create a false dichotomy in which either modern society fails in certain ways to meet all of our needs to the detriment of people diagnosed with ADHD, or ADHD is a legitimate mental illness that benefits from pharmaceutical and therapeutic treatments. Both things are true.