Is ADHD a real disorder?

probably would make more sense to ask a doctor instead of ilx.

-- hstencil, Thursday, August 30, 2007 3:32 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

otm, close thread

http://www.franchiseonline.com/limg/lawndoctorlg.jpg

these are my least favorite threads on ILX because it is invariably a bunch of no-nothing dickasses (myself included) giving bullshitty-ass advice. if you don't have a medical doctorate or first-hand experience, then your opinion is worthless.

i think first-hand experience was the whole idea

ya no shit you creepy mofo, i'm talking to all the non-firsthand-experience ppl

ohhh... kay.

¯\(°_o)/¯

Of course, historically speaking, doctors are the last word on diagnosis, as anyone suffering from homosexuality prior to 1973 will affirm.

HAHAHAHahahahaha

sad but true

Happy 2008, guys!

I MEAN DO YOU HONESTLY FUCKING THINK I'VE NEVER THOUGHT OF THIS STUFF BEFORE LIKE DO YOU THINK IT'S NEVER OCCURRED TO ANYONE BUT YOU THAT BEHAVIORAL DISORDERS ARE "CONSTRUCTS" YOU BULLSHIT COLLEGE FUCK? FUCK OFF!

-- Hurting 2, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 04:07 (4 months ago) Link

lol

^ literally the best post in the thread

the lol part or the other part

good ol' Nowell

so i am pretty sure this is a thing i'm dealing with and whatever.

my lady friend has epilepsy and thinks that must be my real problem, since 'adhd isn't really a thing,' as you say. she sorta has an axe to grind about how often epilepsy is misdiagnosed as other stuff--most often, she says, add. she's actually mad at me for reading a book about coping with add (rather than, i dunno, reading a book about coping with her pet disorder?) i can't speak to the validity of her folk diagnosis, but i know that this book i'm reading on organization strategies for people with add is resonating with me like crazy.

i've spent most of my life thinking that if i read set of symptoms that really resonated with me it was because they'd been written to be so broadly that lots and lots of people would buy The Tonic Cure being sold. 'job-endangering procrastination. need to write down everyday things in order to remember them or do them. constructs elaborate productivity systems like so much 200-foot-scaffolding and then realizes the system takes more maintanence than the work, abandons system.'

"yeah, but that's everybody...right?"

i'm starting to recognize that it isn't. whether it's add or adhd or epilepsy is deeply immaterial to me, i'm just trying to find strategies to cope with the effects wrought on my life and relationships and commitments. i'm gonna try to see a doctor this week.

also shout out to markers and the jackals, this podcast has somehow become more essential for me than it already was: http://5by5.tv/b2w

http://i.imgur.com/A1GK6f2.jpg

is this what people tune in for?

Sometimes I think I have this. I'm probably just making excuses for myself. Doesn't really matter anyway as my GP doesn't believe in it.

What's the book, Hoos? Would be interested to read some coping strategies.

Also, good luck and best wishes that you can find a way through this.

(No elaborate productivity systems here but a fine tendency to hoard self-help and self-improvement books and then never make it beyond chapter 1)

i think i have it but i don't believe in it

I'd like to think what I have is a chemically treatable condition, but I think I am just messy and lazy.

I mentioned it to a diagnosed friend once after a particularly bad couple of years of missing deadlines, planning allnighters to catch up and realising at 3am that I hadn't even started and just going to bed, etc. He basically said "oh no, no man, you'd know if you had that, normal people cannot possibly understand how hard I find it to do things"

so I guess he ought to know, but on the other hand, guy had a busy job and was still running a label and releasing acclaimed albums and had a book deal on the side, so I would've liked some acknowledgement that maybe one's internal struggle with such things is not always apparent

(I have a kneejerk aversion to "there is no way you have this thing that I have" rhetoric bcz the "depression isn't just feeling sad and hopeless, it is for special flowers like me" crowd made me think my actual real depression wasn't important enough to see a doctor about until it had got really out of hand)

Pdoc gave me a screener for adult ADD/ADHD several weeks ago. Haven't had it evaluated---it's lost somewhere in my house. I was describing symptoms, or kind of just what I've always thought of as the way I am to him, because since starting an antidepressant I've been hypervigilant about hypomania. Anyway, he was like, no those symptoms are sounding like ADD. I was surprised, but it makes total sense for me. Then again I'm like, "ok, I'm probably just a lazy, lousy shit looking for another psychiatric excuse for myself."

I have intense problems chiefly with motivation, but also with procrastination, deadlines, tardiness, underestimating the time it takes to do things, impulsivity, anger, disorganization, losing things, short-term memory (constantly forgetting what I was about to say), absent-mindedness, alcohol abuse, low achievement, depression, etc. OTOH, I can really home in on something for long periods and to the point where I ignore other stimuli, which always made me think I don't have it, but apparently hyperfocus is also a symptom!

I was quizzing my mom about my childhood & she was like, "oh god! It was a battle to get you to do ANYTHING." She had to switch me to private school (which she really couldn't afford) after public kindergarten b/c I was over-stimulated and "got distracted by my own thoughts." I thrived there, but as soon as we had to move/my home life went to shit & I lost my support system I started flunking & have been pretty much a die-hard loser since then.

This book on procrastination helped me a little:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1572242957/ref=redir_mdp_mobile

But I figure I'm not going to get the ADD shit under control until I see somebody on a regular professional basis, as externally reinforced structure is what I work best under

Yeah, I don't want to go on droogs for it, especially since I get terrible panic attacks. The last thing I want is a stimulant. OTOH, if this is what's wrong with me, it's severely fucked up my life.

is this what people tune in for?

― markers, Monday, March 11, 2013 6:53 AM (17 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

go ahead, caller.

What's the book, Hoos? Would be interested to read some coping strategies.

― susuwatari teenage riot (a passing spacecadet), Monday, March 11, 2013 10:17 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://www.amazon.com/Fast-Minds-Thrive-Think-Might/dp/0425252833

that the drugs seem to work well even on "normal" folks who are just looking to ace their MCATs makes me think everyone does have this to some extent.

Yeah, read a piece in the New Yorker a few years ago about cosmetic psychiatry.

I do think this is a real thing that people have & I've outlined my feelings on psych drugs elsewhere on the board (none of my business if someone does or doesn't want to take them, they're not cure-alls, but may help some people), but I do have some skepticism about adult ADD being the next big market.

I've been reading Driven to Distraction lately (kind of skipping around. TBH, for a book aimed at ADD sufferers it takes way too long to get to the point). I remain pretty convinced that I "have" whatever it "is," and that I have since childhood. I've developed lots of mechanisms to help me cope and I'm overall much better at handling my life and less discouraged than I was when I originally posted to this thread, but I'm plagued and held back by a lot of the same problems. Thinking about maybe seeing some kind of behavioral therapist for a try.

btw supposedly angry outbursts are a symptom, cf my earlier post

But the thing I DO like a lot about Driven to Distraction is that it argues that there is something biological/genetic about ADD that can be separated out from all the other explanations you may have struggled with -- passive aggressive behavior, issues with your parents, laziness, etc. -- but also that it doesn't mean you don't ALSO have those issues, just that there may be a component that can't be solved by sorting out those issues. Which feels very true in my case. And also that ADD can even create additional problems like anxiety and lowered self esteem, which then in turn compound the ability to focus.

inability

And all that feels OTM to me

i have this, technically, but i don't take stimulants anymore because i hate them. the best definition i read was in this book about mindfulness meditation as a treatment for adhd, which said that "people without add generally do things because they are important, and people with adhd do them because they are interesting." at least for me, the disorder is characterized by this always present low-level restlessness, or this craving for new mental simuli, which overrides other priorities too often.

as an adult though you just need to grit your teeth and deal with it. i don't know of another answer. adderall makes things easier but if you are prone to anxiety it's not a great thing to be taking everyday.

behavioral therapy could work too. mostly they teach you how to grit your teeth and deal with it, ime.

yeah the thing is I have done a ton of teeth-gritting over the last several years, and it has worked to an extent, but it's such a daily struggle for me, a constant fight with myself. Thinking about a "diagnosis" again makes me feel released in a way, but it may not actually help me deal with the problem, although perhaps some kind of behavioral "coaching" will? I really don't want to take stimulants either.

I mean, I went from doing abysmally in college and working a dead-end job to doing really well in law school and getting a decent job with a real career path. And I do fairly well in my job but partly because I sort of am able to get away with taking too long to do things by maintaining the illusion that it's because I'm busy with other work.

i believe there's research that suggests that ritalin et al become increasingly less effective into adulthood.

i think it's worthwhile exploring a range of coping strategies - your experience mightn't have been great but i think CBT is worth persevering with

i've had some success with mindfulness meditation. the idea is that by practicing returning to the mantra, refocusing your mind, you are learning how to gently transition from one priority to the next, so it helps impulsivity and also makes it so curbing impulses -- say, to check ilx instead of doing laundry (what i'm doing now) -- isn't experienced as stressful. it puts you more in the driver's seat of your thinking, theoretically.

xp i suffer from chronic insomnia, just in general, so adderall was a nightmare for me. especially because in college i would *need* to take it late at night to do work that i had put off in the afternoon.

good to know though, hurting, that you rebounded from subpar grades in college. my college grades are very inconsistent. i did very well in humanities courses, but very poorly in classes that didn't interest me.

that sounds very appealing. I don't even mind continuing to grit, I just want a way to increase the efficiency of my gritting, if that makes sense, like to reduce the friction. I feel sometimes like the majority of the energy from my efforts to push myself flies off to the side like sparks from a grinding wheel.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=mindfulness+add&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Amindfulness+add&ajr=2

this is the book i have. it's pretty good at explicating the theory, but i don't do all the exercises she outlines in order because that is too complicated. what you should do is just pick a two syllable mantra -- say, "Hurt-Ing" or something -- and sit quietly for ten minutes repeating it slowly in your head. when you feel your mind drift try to push your attention back to the mantra, gently. don't reprimand yourself if you can't focus, just try again.

*replace "what you should do" with "what i do." i am not a mental health professional.

I swing so much between finding it freeing to think of myself this way versus just finding it more discouraging.

Anyone else feel like they really lack medical knowledge? And that's now a serious thing u need to know more about?

It's like, we seem to know about more conditions than ever / diagnose more / yet some conditions are hyped up to sell drugs, or falsely diagnosed and or claimed / plus there's all this corn syrup in food. And I have no idea about any of this stuff.

not knowing anything might put you ahead of people who think they know something.

I'm not sure solid medical knowledge is possible or 100% necessary for a lot of this stuff. If it's helpful to talk about a cluster of traits as a condition, do it - yes, that often means the pharmaceutical industry mobilizing, but in this case, I think, it would be more harmful to think that "there's nothing that a little willpower can't fix."

Personally, it was really helpful for me to be able to bracket my attention problems as "that thing" so that I could break the shame/distraction cycle and think about them productively, rather than think of them as a series of failed character tests.

I'm not sure if I posted this upthread, but I DID get a diagnosis of ADHD-inattentive type, which, totally. Not doing anything for it right now. Definitely not going to take stimulants.