[kordlessagain]

You were LABELED with ADHD by people without our condition. "Having" it is accepting the label and it's definitions. The school system (counselors) tried to label both my kids as having ADHD and suggested medication. Instead of giving my kids amphetamines, I told them to stop trying to force everyone at the school to learn using methods that require memorizing images, which neither one of them do.

Our brains are workhorses of indexing things. Of course we have varying attention, especially when we already "get" what was shown to us. When others have to practice it over and over, we just "get it" and move on to something more interesting (and worthy of indexing). Taking medication to "address" this active attention mechanism is going to affect our ability to form good indexing habits.

[ahmeneeroe-v2]

>and move on to something more interesting (and worthy of indexing).

I have had an ADHD diagnosis in the past and I am 100% on board with this. Maybe the things I can't pay attention to aren't worth paying attention to and I should be working on something else.

>Taking medication to "address" this active attention mechanism

I also noticed that when taking medication I became really good at boring, non-creative work, but I struggled with deep or innovative thinking. I decided I'd rather be good at deep/innovative things, even if it costs me my ability to do some mundane things for hours at a time.

[pesus]

> Maybe the things I can't pay attention to aren't worth paying attention to and I should be working on something else.

When these things are vital things like feeding yourself, going to work, of driving, this absolutely does not apply. Without treatment, I often cannot even get myself to do things I want to and are fun. ADHD isn't "I can't pay attention to a boring movie", it's executive dysfunction.

[ahmeneeroe-v2]

>When these things are vital things like feeding yourself

Need data one this one. I don't believe anyone has starved because they didn't have the executive function to feed themselves.

[GuinansEyebrows]

well, that's a pretty dramatic take on what GP said.

there's a world of difference between literally starving and being unable to break focus on something to feed yourself and maintain a healthy weight and ensure that you're getting all the vitamins and nutrients your body needs to operate beyond a minimal level (especially as you age). i've definitely skipped multiple meals before while caught up in something and it ruins the rest of my day, my sleep, and impacts me moving forward beyond that til i can reach more of an equilibrium.

edit: i see from your other comments that you're not really willing to accept that some people have issues with their brains that make them behave differently from the idealized version of yourself that you hold in your head. so whatever. i hope you grow some empathy for others.

[kordlessagain]

There is a difference between personal preference of taking a substance that changes focus by changing the way the brain works, and doing whatever work is required to use the brain to change itself. That's not to say taking a substance for all of one's life for focus is bad or good, or sustainable, nor is it to say that everyone has the ability or willpower to change the way their brain works.

Substances help in the short term, but they can't be the thing that "solves" the problem, no matter how it is presented (starving vs. good nutrition through attention to what one eats and when they eat). It can't be that a person can ONLY function with a substance dependence for mental phenomenon.

While mental health is a sensitive subject, I don't think it is a "protected" status given many humans suffer from bad mental health from time to time, or constantly, depending on their experience. We've all been in contact with some type of mental health issue with ourselves or others, and we should always approach it from a standpoint of empathy when dealing with others directly. Having empathy online is tricky, and usually involves just not saying anything as opposed to speaking what we think is the truth (for ourselves). Too many people fish for empathy online in my opinion, and real empathy is likely only delivered (well) in a person to person context. It is literally responding physically to another's emotions, as well as understanding why we should have empathy for their emotional output (and doing something besides crying with them in the moment). That is compassion.

In terms of my comment, it was based entirely on my protecting my children from being put on a drug that probably isn't good (or useful) for those of us that don't visualize, long term. There is ZERO evidence that taking amphetamines for long periods of time is good for you. Google lists this as one side effect of ADHD substances: "While some studies suggest positive effects on brain development, other research indicates potential negative impacts on the nucleus accumbens, an area of the brain related to motivation and reward."

[ahmeneeroe-v2]

Skipping meals isn't a disability. If you're not doing it to the point of harm then it's just skipping meals, which is not actually anything

[GuinansEyebrows]

i'm not interested in engaging with your weird pet project of slandering people with mental illness, but have a good weekend

[pesus]

This is blatant misinformation. There is ample evidence that ADHD exists and is detrimental to all aspects of life. It is not some quirky different way of thinking, it's a disability. My life was made significantly harder without medication, and it's the only thing that allows me to function on a day to day basis. Your kids may end up resenting you down the road for preventing them from accessing one of the only proven treatments that can help with this nuerodevelopmental disorder.

[ahmeneeroe-v2]

This is honestly wild to me. It's not a disability, it's probably not actually even real at the scale that it is currently diagnosed (15% of boys!). Certainly should not be so heavily medicated at that scale

[Ancapistani]

> It's not a disability

I understand where you're coming from -- but you should also know how crazy it is to read this about ADHD as a 41-year-old that spent from ages 19 to 22 unable to function as an adult due to executive function disregulation.

[ahmeneeroe-v2]

We're about the same age. I too made a ton of dumb decisions as a 19-22yo.

Can you give me more info about being unable to function? Were you truly unable to live or did you just make a ton of bad decisions that you now regret?

[Ancapistani]

I couldn't make myself get up and wash a dish so I could eat something. It was horrible.

[pesus]

It is legally a disability, and you can get accommodations in college for it. I'm glad it hasn't negatively affected your life, but that doesn't mean it doesn't affect others. Believing it isn't an issue won't magically make that true, and only prevents people from getting the help they need.

[ahmeneeroe-v2]

>you can get accommodations in college for it

this isn't a real standard

[pesus]

This is a late response and I know you don't care about evidence and have an axe to grind, but to anyone who may read this later: disability legal regulations and standards are absolutely a standard. Denying this won't make it any less true, the same as denying climate change won't make it any less true.

[cml123]

It's perhaps not a disability. But, it is a disabling disorder. It imposes much greater challenge for many tasks that are straightforward for others. I barely graduated high-school on time, I was suspended from a community college for having a 0.6 GPA, and I've failed countless courses I've taken. None of my failures were due to an inability to understand the information; they resulted from challenges with the processes and procedures inherent with formal education.

Although I was suspended from community college, I had no problem teaching myself linear algebra or diff eq. I eventually was able to get a job as a software dev, it took me until age 28, when someone else perhaps could have reached it right out of college. I'm now trying to finish a dual math and comp sci degree in my spare time, and even now I've still failed trivial courses.

I was among the brightest students in my class growing up, but willfully chose to stop taking my ADHD meds in 8th grade. I was a stellar student until then. I've resumed them only very recently, but I have complete confidence that had I chosen to remain on the meds the whole time, I wouldn't have faced all the same challenges.

I don't think the evidence aligns with your understanding.

[ahmeneeroe-v2]

>it is a disabling disorder....they resulted from challenges with the processes and procedures inherent with formal education.

So it's not even a disabling disorder. You struggle with formal education (me too!), so maybe formal education is the problem. "Formal education" as we know it today is not a solved thing. We don't actually know the best way to spread knowledge, we just happen to be doing it this way at this moment in history.

If you want to take medication to be good at that, I HIGHLY ENCOURAGE you to do so, and I'm very happy for your current successes.

It is a terrible standard by which to create a medical diagnosis and feed children medications.

[mrguyorama]

It is a difference in function, ability, and physiology that our society does not accommodate naturally.

>An individual with a disability is defined by the ADA as a person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, a person who has a history or record of such an impairment, or a person who is perceived by others as having such an impairment.

People with ADHD have all sorts of recorded impairments including things like being more likely to cause traffic accidents.

It's currently popular in some progressive circles to insist that neurodivergencies are "not disabilities" and I don't like it.

Sure, the accommodations are pretty simple: Stimulants, awareness, some help with forming good habits and training on project management and life management. But it exists.

My friend is a dwarf. His chemistry accommodation is also simple. It's a stool, and an understanding that he won't be lifting large, filled flasks anywhere. He does very good chemistry other than that, and most of his work time is spent doing statistics on the chemistry he does. But pretending he isn't different is doing him a disservice. (He also dislikes "little person" and prefers dwarf because he's a LOTR fan).

>it's probably not actually even real at the scale that it is currently diagnosed (15% of boys!). Certainly should not be so heavily medicated at that scale

This is FUD. Worse, it's the exact FUD that is the reason I was not diagnosed as a child ("he's doing well in school, can't possibly have ADHD, we can't be giving kids stimulants, they'll bounce off the walls!) and why my sister was "tested" for ADHD in the 90s and found to "not have it" despite very definitely having it and being trivially diagnosed decades later.

Your disbelief that psychologists are able to do their job is responsible for the exact spike of adult ADHD diagnosis that people point to as "can't be real".

Meanwhile, giving stimulants to children with ADHD is demonstrably effective and has lasting, proven effects on long term life success. There's even evidence of physiological improvements in brain development.

US numbers are in the same ballpark as other countries. Even countries like South Korea with a significantly more regimented and constricted view of society.

Why is it so surprising that actually, human brains arrange themselves in very different ways? The idea that the "normal" brain is actually normal is just a wrong assumption. Neurodivergencies are significantly inherited, so it's more like "There's a couple lineages of humans whose brains are wired differently and have different ways of working. The percentage of people with neurodivergencies are just the percentage of the human race descended from those lineages.

My brain is built different man, stop insisting that smart people who have demonstrated that shouldn't be trusted about dealing with that. The only people you hurt are the exact people who have to go through hell to get very necessary medication that improves their lives because people like you cast us all as pill seekers even though stimulants do not have that effect for people with ADHD and a tiktok self diagnoses is not even close to enough to get a prescription for medication! Pushing amphetamines on anyone who contacts you is exactly what got a bunch of pill mills shut down during COVID, and also got BetterHelp slapped and it's still controversial to advertise them.

Understand, getting medicated requires jumping through hoops like keeping several appointments. It's harder to keep a stimulant prescription than it is to keep an Oxycontin prescription even after the opioid epidemic.