If you relate to most of the entries, then you should definitely consider talking to a professional.
There are many resources available to help with ADHD, first and foremost being understanding what works and what doesn't work with your ADHD brain.
Regarding medication, there is a lot of unnecessary stigma around it. Please consider my experience with it: [1] to understand what I'm about to say.
It's not about productivity. It's about not feeling pain associated with initiating, finishing, or switching tasks. It's about slowing the thoughts in your brain a bit so that you could find the first step more easily, and have more control over either not initiating other tasks, or switching out of something that you can't stop doing.
You have to understand that most people don't have these issues to begin with. I have no idea what amphetamines do for them.
For people with ADHD, medication is like glasses for the brain. It helps us see better. If somebody takes your glasses, they won't improve their vision - in fact, they will probably mess up their own. That's why both glasses and medication have to be prescribed by a professional.
There is much more than medication though. It's about approaching the things you face in ways that work for you. It's understanding what strengths you have (e.g. acting efficiently in emergencies or under high pressure in critical tasks) vs. things that your brain isn't good at (estimating time, doing the same thing consistently, etc.)
Going into that is way beyond the scope of a comment. There is a lot to learn.
>If you relate to most of the entries, then you should definitely consider talking to a professional.
Doesn't it have to be debilitating though? I relate to a lot of those things, read some books, and nod along, etc., and even talked to a psychiatrist about it, but he was pretty dismissive about it.
There's been a groundswell on social media wherein everything functionally becomes ADHD, ASD, neurodivergent etc. - many people have taken up these diagnoses as a self-identity, and I don't think thats a bad thing to try to build community around an idea.
However, the net of symptoms and behaviors is cast really widely, and I think overall the definitions really start to lose their usefulness when so many traits are bucketed into these categories. To start, a disorder is only that if it is causing difficulty in your life, in reaching your goals, doing what you want or taking care of yourself. Most people identify as that but can't necessarily put a name on it.
My personal experience is I was Dx'd with ADHD, and then ASD (then Aspergers) at an early age of 10. The reasoning was I presented with some oversensitivity to sensory input (loud noises, etc) and had trouble socializing. I internally accepted (or was forced to accept) this definition for myself for a very long time - I was literally told as a child I couldn't read faces, and so I never really tried until I rebelled from the given model that I was somehow incapable in my late teens.
It turns out, at the very minimum the ASD diagnoses couldn't be further from the truth. I am just a very sensitive person, I read faces and expressions extremely well and if anything I'm a natural social butterfly, though emotionally very anxious.
A good few differential diagnoses for anyone looking at what they might identify with include both CPTSD and Attachment Disorders. The commonality between them is that both of those are caused environmentally rather than some innate genetic trait which is usually proposed regarding ASD/ADHD. And its also true that two people in the same environment won't necessarily develop the same disorders, or any. This is a bit of a long rant, but for me a CPTSD diagnosis and related treatment modalities has helped me develop more in the past year or two than literal decades of work around ASD/ADHD - everyone is different and YMMV, just wanted to show that there are some other options.
>There's been a groundswell on social media wherein everything functionally becomes ADHD
That sounds needlessly dismissive in the context of the link that I posted. It does not help constructively (unlike you sharing your story - thank you for that!).
The page I linked has over 100 entries about specific ways in which ADHD makes adult life difficult. Specifically, I have written a long list of reasons why I consider it a disorder that impairs me in certain scenarios [1].
I ask you to read [1] before replying to this comment, so that we have a common context.
I am guessing that you haven't done so yet, because struggling with executive dysfunction, time blindness, and five dozen other traits/symptoms on a daily basis would surely not be "casting the net too widely" to say that it might be ADHD :)
And on the other hand, while there's an overlap with CPTSD and ASD, seeing that you don't experience things the same way might help someone who has been incorrectly diagnosed with ADHD.
I am terribly sorry that you didn't get the care that you needed — but neither did I, until I learned more about ADHD from social media posts like the one I'm making now.
You see a flurry of these posts because the medical community has failed to diagnose it in many people (as well as diagnosing others incorrectly!), leaving many people without help, and is still very much ignorant about it. They didn't even believe that adults can have ADHD all the way into 1970s!
So quite a few adults — women in particular — are only getting diagnosis and care now, because of ADHD advocacy on social media.
The reason why people identify as ADHD/ASD is because getting care/meds/restructuring their lives accordingly makes life significantly less painful for them. The most common sentiment in late-diagnosed people is grief over all the years they've been needlessly living life on "hard mode", all the struggles they didn't need to face, all the opportunities missed.
The diagnosis, as you mentioned, is only useful insofar as it helps people improve their lives. I'm sorry for your experience; not seeing improvement is the reason to challenge the diagnosis.
This is why I believe the page I made could be useful to someone like you. Maybe if you saw more personal accounts of people with ADHD and CPTSD, you would have realized that CPTSD is the correct diagnosis sooner.
ADHD in particular seems to be diagnosed from the perspective of "how is this making the lives of their parents difficult". There are still too few resources dedicated to helping adults live their lives.
Again, thank you for sharing your story and perspective. It's very interesting because my case seems to be a mirror image: an unsuccessful struggle with anxiety and depression, until consequences of undiagnosed ADHD were revealed to be the root cause.
One of the ways in which the diagnosis made my life better is knowing that my brain will simply sabotage any work that I don't believe in. When I was trying to force myself to do something that I believed should not be done, no matter how big or small, I suffered greatly.
In one case, it seemed that doing X to stay at company Y with great coworkers made all the sense even if X did not (it's just one project, I'll get over it!). Now I know to quit before being assigned to something that I can't stand behind — and am living a happier (and must I say, better paid) life. Simply knowing that already changed my life for the better.
Oh, and ADHD meds have helped with my sleep issues that I've had for as long as I can remember myself.
That alone was worth it.
I can enjoy mornings on a regular basis for the first time in my life, at 34, because of that social media groundswell :)
romwell|4 years ago
There are many resources available to help with ADHD, first and foremost being understanding what works and what doesn't work with your ADHD brain.
Regarding medication, there is a lot of unnecessary stigma around it. Please consider my experience with it: [1] to understand what I'm about to say.
It's not about productivity. It's about not feeling pain associated with initiating, finishing, or switching tasks. It's about slowing the thoughts in your brain a bit so that you could find the first step more easily, and have more control over either not initiating other tasks, or switching out of something that you can't stop doing.
You have to understand that most people don't have these issues to begin with. I have no idea what amphetamines do for them.
For people with ADHD, medication is like glasses for the brain. It helps us see better. If somebody takes your glasses, they won't improve their vision - in fact, they will probably mess up their own. That's why both glasses and medication have to be prescribed by a professional.
There is much more than medication though. It's about approaching the things you face in ways that work for you. It's understanding what strengths you have (e.g. acting efficiently in emergencies or under high pressure in critical tasks) vs. things that your brain isn't good at (estimating time, doing the same thing consistently, etc.)
Going into that is way beyond the scope of a comment. There is a lot to learn.
[1] https://romankogan.net/adhd#Medication
anonymous-9932|4 years ago
Doesn't it have to be debilitating though? I relate to a lot of those things, read some books, and nod along, etc., and even talked to a psychiatrist about it, but he was pretty dismissive about it.
taurath|4 years ago
However, the net of symptoms and behaviors is cast really widely, and I think overall the definitions really start to lose their usefulness when so many traits are bucketed into these categories. To start, a disorder is only that if it is causing difficulty in your life, in reaching your goals, doing what you want or taking care of yourself. Most people identify as that but can't necessarily put a name on it.
My personal experience is I was Dx'd with ADHD, and then ASD (then Aspergers) at an early age of 10. The reasoning was I presented with some oversensitivity to sensory input (loud noises, etc) and had trouble socializing. I internally accepted (or was forced to accept) this definition for myself for a very long time - I was literally told as a child I couldn't read faces, and so I never really tried until I rebelled from the given model that I was somehow incapable in my late teens.
It turns out, at the very minimum the ASD diagnoses couldn't be further from the truth. I am just a very sensitive person, I read faces and expressions extremely well and if anything I'm a natural social butterfly, though emotionally very anxious.
A good few differential diagnoses for anyone looking at what they might identify with include both CPTSD and Attachment Disorders. The commonality between them is that both of those are caused environmentally rather than some innate genetic trait which is usually proposed regarding ASD/ADHD. And its also true that two people in the same environment won't necessarily develop the same disorders, or any. This is a bit of a long rant, but for me a CPTSD diagnosis and related treatment modalities has helped me develop more in the past year or two than literal decades of work around ASD/ADHD - everyone is different and YMMV, just wanted to show that there are some other options.
romwell|4 years ago
That sounds needlessly dismissive in the context of the link that I posted. It does not help constructively (unlike you sharing your story - thank you for that!).
The page I linked has over 100 entries about specific ways in which ADHD makes adult life difficult. Specifically, I have written a long list of reasons why I consider it a disorder that impairs me in certain scenarios [1].
I ask you to read [1] before replying to this comment, so that we have a common context.
I am guessing that you haven't done so yet, because struggling with executive dysfunction, time blindness, and five dozen other traits/symptoms on a daily basis would surely not be "casting the net too widely" to say that it might be ADHD :)
And on the other hand, while there's an overlap with CPTSD and ASD, seeing that you don't experience things the same way might help someone who has been incorrectly diagnosed with ADHD.
I am terribly sorry that you didn't get the care that you needed — but neither did I, until I learned more about ADHD from social media posts like the one I'm making now.
You see a flurry of these posts because the medical community has failed to diagnose it in many people (as well as diagnosing others incorrectly!), leaving many people without help, and is still very much ignorant about it. They didn't even believe that adults can have ADHD all the way into 1970s!
So quite a few adults — women in particular — are only getting diagnosis and care now, because of ADHD advocacy on social media.
The reason why people identify as ADHD/ASD is because getting care/meds/restructuring their lives accordingly makes life significantly less painful for them. The most common sentiment in late-diagnosed people is grief over all the years they've been needlessly living life on "hard mode", all the struggles they didn't need to face, all the opportunities missed.
The diagnosis, as you mentioned, is only useful insofar as it helps people improve their lives. I'm sorry for your experience; not seeing improvement is the reason to challenge the diagnosis.
This is why I believe the page I made could be useful to someone like you. Maybe if you saw more personal accounts of people with ADHD and CPTSD, you would have realized that CPTSD is the correct diagnosis sooner.
ADHD in particular seems to be diagnosed from the perspective of "how is this making the lives of their parents difficult". There are still too few resources dedicated to helping adults live their lives.
Again, thank you for sharing your story and perspective. It's very interesting because my case seems to be a mirror image: an unsuccessful struggle with anxiety and depression, until consequences of undiagnosed ADHD were revealed to be the root cause.
One of the ways in which the diagnosis made my life better is knowing that my brain will simply sabotage any work that I don't believe in. When I was trying to force myself to do something that I believed should not be done, no matter how big or small, I suffered greatly.
In one case, it seemed that doing X to stay at company Y with great coworkers made all the sense even if X did not (it's just one project, I'll get over it!). Now I know to quit before being assigned to something that I can't stand behind — and am living a happier (and must I say, better paid) life. Simply knowing that already changed my life for the better.
Oh, and ADHD meds have helped with my sleep issues that I've had for as long as I can remember myself.
That alone was worth it.
I can enjoy mornings on a regular basis for the first time in my life, at 34, because of that social media groundswell :)
[1]http://romankogan.net/adhd/#Awfully%20Described%20Human%20Di...