[Aurornis]

> One of the traits of ADHD is that our brains crave novelty

I know you meant well by your post, but this type of reductionism doesn't really do justice to ADHD and can lead a lot of people astray.

It's actually very normal to crave novelty. It's also normal to become bored with repetitive, boring work. It's not a unique feature of ADHD, nor is craving novelty a diagnostic indicator for ADHD. These are normal features of being human and not, by themselves, suggestive of ADHD.

I feel like this is important to highlight because the pop-culture definition of ADHD has changed dramatically in recent years. The definition has shifted so much that any description of feeling bored or seeking novelty is mistaken for ADHD, which is definitely not the case for the actual diagnostic criteria.

I don't mean to discourage people from seeking help from mental health professionals, but I do want to discourage people from self-diagnosing and getting tunnel vision on a specific diagnosis (generally ADHD) to the exclusion of other explanations.

[csallen]

It's actually very normal to crave novelty. It's also normal to become bored with repetitive, boring work. It's not a unique feature of ADHD, nor is craving novelty a diagnostic indicator for ADHD. These are normal features of being human and not, by themselves, suggestive of ADHD.

Thanks for mentioning this. I see so many comments with people self-diagnosing themselves with pathologies because, "I forget things often," "I get distracted a lot," "I get bored," "I sometimes doubt myself when there's a challenge ahead of me."

These are normal things!

I think a lot of people just don't have a good baseline for what's normal.

[Aurornis]

> I think a lot of people just don't have a good baseline for what's normal.

I saw a lot of this when I mentored college grads for a while.

I also saw another problem where people were resistant to the idea that they were normal. This happened a lot with tech students who grew up being the smartest kid in their local elementary school and the computer wizard in the family. They grew up being told they were smart and destined for success. When they didn't get selected for a FAANG job or their startup wasn't successful, they'd often go searching for alternate explanations. ADHD was a common one. I can't count how many times I listened to people explain to me that they were "going to get a FAANG job" or "going to do a startup" but then they "discovered they had ADHD". Like it wasn't okay to just get a normal job, they had to have a specific and public reason why they weren't in a 99th percentile position.

[robocat]

How can we help our friends that buy into this self-victimisation?

Our culture accepts and normalises the behaviour of using self-deceptive excuses. Our culture provides prepackaged excuses which are socially unacceptable to confront. It is a self-reinforcing system including professionals and woowoo practitioners.

The word trauma gets trivialised to be used as an outcome for the normal vicissitudes of life: blame your parents for everything and accept you can never "recover" and you must never repress. Woowoo past-life trauma and regression therapies and discussions - arrrgh.

My responses so far are limited to (a) dropping people I like from my life because their behaviour was unacceptable, (b) playing along with the beliefs of other friends regardless of the damage of those beliefs, (c) slowly trying to influence those I care about the most (d) blithely ignoring everything - training myself to not care.

We can all clearly see faults in others. Our other problem is to recognise within ourselves when we are making self-deceptive excuses or blaming others for things under our own control. Should I buy into the self-help industry? Counselling, coaching, or woowoo?

[8n4vidtmkvmk]

Have you tried telling them straight up that their behaviour is unacceptable? That they need to stop feeling sorry for themselves and complaining or no one will want to be around them?

I found out this lesson the hard way. I was a miserable kid. I don't know how it figured it out, but feeling sorry for yourself accomplishes nothing. Maybe life is shit. Maybe you're over-exaggerating. Doesn't matter, you're not going to get out of that situation by 'woowoo'ing.

Sometimes folks just need to reflect. One core memory I have was when I was really young. I was crying over something. My older brother's friend said to me "Why are you crying? You just want attention!" and that shut me right up. I thought about it, realized he was right, and realized I didn't need to cry.

[robocat]

> Have you tried telling them straight up that their behaviour is unacceptable?

Yea, but it isn't effective on anybody that is fooling themselves or that isn't interested in listening to me. I lack the skill of influence. My usual outcome in this situation is that I drop anyone that is unwilling to listen because it isn't healthy for me. I do give people the benefit of the doubt. Both parties need to respect each other - one-sided submission is unpleasant.

The majority of people learn for themselves as they mature and they are easy to communicate with. Your examples fit this.

The problem is the people that never learn or don't care to. I don't know what to do with them.

[shermantanktop]

It's not clear whether you think the problem is them or is you.

They own their problems, and the best you can do is tell them what you think, and maybe encourage them if you see some positive sign. You can also act as a positive role model, but people in that mindset are unable to draw lessons from others.

But if you hang around people who you think are miserable and self-defeating, and you don't want to move on, but you don't like it, maybe the problem is you.

[riehwvfbk]

Well, what's the alternative? What's not "woowoo"? Something along the lines of "you are bad, tainted by original sin and deserve to suffer?" Or is it "you need to hustle harder?" Well, guess what - self-harm is no more productive than self-delusion.

[8n4vidtmkvmk]

I guess I had the opposite problem. I'm still not quite sure. I was maybe in the top 5 or so of my highschool but never thought of myself as a genius but more like "not dumb". Got into uni, did OK (3.4 GPA) but didn't try super hard either. Graduated, and then no one really wanted to hire me. Finally, some small PHP shop "took a chance" on me and I quickly became their top developer. Worked there 8 years, started getting interviews at a few different FAANG positions but kept failing, I guess because I thought I was so good at my day job I shouldn't have study for an interview. Eventually wised up, studied my butt off for 3 weeks and got in.

Where was I going with this story... it's hard to get into FAANG but it's really a matter of studying/practicing the right things. Doesn't matter how good you are at writing code, really.

Maybe some of these kids are qualified but don't interview well like me. Or maybe their resumes aren't interesting enough to pique a headhunter or whatever AI has taken their jobs.

This is probably not PC for me to say, but people need to stop using mental health issues as an excuse. Maybe they have some, maybe they don't. What are you going to do? Give up on life, or figure out how to work with them?

[balfirevic]

> I think a lot of people just don't have a good baseline for what's normal.

True, but that works both ways. "Surely everyone else gets distracted this much".

[richarme]

Disagree. I think adults with ADHD are well aware that they are not "normal" with respect to many of the symptoms, even if they don't know it's due to ADHD. At least that's my personal experience.

Few examples off the top of my head:

- being unable to pay bills/fines on time even with plenty of money in the bank.

- being physically unable to keep sitting in a chair after a while in meetings.

It's easy to see that most people around you don't exhibit such traits.

[TeMPOraL]

Yes, but adults who have ADHD, but neither know it nor suspect they may have it, will look for alternative explanations to make sense of their consistent failures at things other people seem to handle fine. A common one they arrive at is character flaws. They'll see themselves as lazy or childish, and as they try and fail to correct it, they'll internalize guilt and shame.

"Surely everyone else gets distracted this much" is exactly the kind of belief that creates and reinforces feelings of guilt.

[8n4vidtmkvmk]

People need systems. Oh, I forgot to pay that bill on time. Oh I forgot again. And again. And again. Maybe I have ADHD? Whoops, forgot to pay the bill.

Maybe they do have ADHD, maybe they don't. Maybe they should get diagnosed so they can learn more about it and find strategies for dealing with it instead of blaming it.

But regardless, just find something that works for you and stop making excuses. I used to forget my wallet, keys, and/or employee badge. Now I keep a wooden bowl near my front door, and keep those items in there and only those items in there. When I leave, I put those items in my pockets and go. When I come home, I puts them back in the bowl. Simple routine. Prevents forgetting.

Bills go on autopay. If you can't autopay for some reason, put it in your calendar. Forget to check your calendar? Set an alarm that you have to dismiss.

[dns_snek]

> Maybe they do have ADHD, maybe they don't. Maybe they should get diagnosed so they can learn more about it and find strategies for dealing with it instead of blaming it.

Cool, I wish it was that simple but I don't think you realize how screwed up the system is. The waiting lists are YEARS long in many places, and many people with ADHD (I would dare to speculate the majority) get misdiagnosed with just anxiety and depression at some point, for women it's even harder and they're often misdiagnosed with bipolar.

The fight to even get your struggles appropriately recognized is long and exhausting, often requiring energy that people with ADHD just don't have.

> But regardless, just find something that works for you and stop making excuses.

This sort of advice is perhaps the most common form of gaslighting that individuals with ADHD experience from childhood up to present day and I don't think you understand how damaging it is.

People with ADHD should still make an effort, but these aren't just "excuses" and the fact is that the majority will never be able to consistently perform at the same level as non-ADHD people of similar intelligence. If I can't find something that works, and people who should know better say I'm "healthy", then this means I'm suffering from a character flaw like laziness.

This is the highway to guilt, self-loathing and internalized shame, which eventually leads to suicidal ideation (1 in 4 people with ADHD) and approximately half of those will attempt to take their own life at some point.

Obviously certain systems can and do work for certain people, but they're not a solution and chances are that the people you're lecturing have already tried various systems and still struggle.

How are you accommodating people who you think are using ADHD as an excuse?

> put it in your calendar. Forget to check your calendar? Set an alarm that you have to dismiss.

Autopay is a valid tactic, but other suggestions just don't work consistently. Even if there's an alarm that has to be dismissed, there's a chance that you'll dismiss the alarm, go to pay the bill and then get sidetracked by a random chore and completely forget about it again.

That's why ADHD is a disorder and a disability, not just a personality quirk. I hope that you mean well, but you're spreading very unhelpful and potentially damaging commentary on the topic.

[8n4vidtmkvmk]

Sorry, I probably shouldn't have said it like that but I do want to clarify one thing. When I said "excuses" I meant for themselves not for other people. As in folks with ADHD do deserve some affordances or understanding from others (myself included), but I think it's more healthy to look for solutions than to consistently blame all your problems on whatever you have going on in life (ADHD or otherwise) and avoid dealing with the situation head on. Don't beat yourself up about either, of course, but try to find some creative solutions if possible.

> How are you accommodating people who you think are using ADHD as an excuse?

There are two people in my life with ADHD. I think so anyway. My good friend was diagnosed, my wife hasn't been but we think she is. Neither really use it as an excuse. My friend talks about it occasionally, it affects some aspects of his life, but it's just never been a problem for our friendship. If we let him, he will keep talking into the wee hours of the night even when it's time for him to go. We just drop more and more obvious hints that it's time to go home until he gets the idea or his wife drags him out. My wife OTOH forgets all her belongings when we leave the house, and when she gets to talking I can't say a word to her, just in one ear and out the other, she has to finish her story. I just go about my day and do what I need to do while she keeps talking. I'll cook, put the food right in her hands, whatever needs to happen because she won't be able to fulfill simple tasks when she gets going. And when I leave the house I just ask her if she has this, this, this, this and this. She'll still forget something but it is what it is. So that's how I "accommodate" them. I recognize when they're hyper-fixated on something and I just work with it. I don't blame them and I don't think it's a personal failure on their part.

My friend, by the way, works with me at FAANG. I say this to give people hope. I certainly don't want anyone to feel shame or have thoughts of suicide. Y'all can do great things and live great lives.

[csallen]

I have plenty of money in the bank. I work for myself and set my own schedule. Yet my bills, fines, and letters pile up and accrue late fees constantly. I've filed my taxes late like 7 out of the last 10 years.

Maybe I'm naive, but the thought has never occurred to me, "Maybe it's because I have ADHD."

[hnuser123456]

Mostly people who grew up in too pristine of a world, who think that everything should be easy following established procedures, that anything being difficult is a sign of a medical issue rather than just... a difficult task.

We all have our own interests. We are easily bored by things that are very far away from our interests. You cannot force any given person to care about any given topic as much as you want them to or think they should. Or you can, but then you no longer know who that person really is, and your concept of them becomes inaccurate, setting you up for surprise when that person isn't what you wanted them to be.

[otikik]

Agree on everything. I must point out that I specifically mentioned “by a mental health professional” and I led with the fact that I am not one. I should have stressed it more perhaps.

[fn-mote]

> this type of reductionism doesn't really do justice to ADHD

Sure, but the poster lives that life (has adhd) so you should give some credence to that as well. They want others to have an easier road.