One of the most frustrating conversations with regards to ADHD was with a former coworker. I mentioned something about taking Adderall and he said how he would get some to study and take tests in college. He even said something about how it must be cool to just be able to get good at things while on it. I don’t remember the specifics. The idea that someone was taking it just to function normally in everyday life was so foreign to him. I think I did a good job in the moment of gently explaining to him the context that no, I don’t take it to try and exceed at work like an athlete might take steroids to do better at sports. He was younger. Too old for it to be okay but hey, maybe that’s really all he ever encountered in college was people taking it like that.
Another annoying one was an old highschool friend on Facebook saying how folks with ADHD should utilize their hyper focus as a superpower. I think they said they had ADHD but I can’t remember. I really do try to be gentle when explaining these things to people because I know I’ve had shitty opinions in the past because I hadn’t ever heard the right thing to make me rethink stuff. The gist of the post was that you need to learn to live with it by harnessing hyper focus. Sort of an “everyone has a super power” sort of thing. I explained, no, I really don’t view this as a super power and would gladly give it up. Hyper focus is rarely a good thing. It’s more like tunnel vision. Sure, occasionally the stars align and I get hyper focus on something I need it to be on that’s also the current priority I should be working on but that’s rare. More often than not it is just totally focusing on some totally unimportant thing and not being able to stop.
ADHD people should use their hyperfocus for good but unfortunately we live in a capitalist society JANET so we just have to repress the ADHD to handle jobs so we can get money to not die.
Let’s compare hyperfocus to an actual super power, like the ability to fly: “I can fly” “Oh that’s so cool! Can you show me” “No. I don’t get to decide when it starts” “Oh” “Or when it stops for that matter. Or even where I’m going” “That sounds… debilitating” “Yes”
This is hyperfocus. You can’t decide when to hyperfocus. Or when it should stop. Or what you’re going to focus on. It is not particularly helpful.
My hyperfocus allowed me to get a hardcore necromancer to level 93 on Blizzard’s US East server in 2000 before the “seasons” took him off the ladder, yet nobody is ever amazed at this accomplishment.
The hyperfocus line drives me nuts because if I could do that I wouldn’t have a disorder. In fact I would be particularly “ordered” wouldn’t I? Hyperfocus but I can control it? Sigh me the fuck up! I get hyperfocused because certain activities trigger a hella sweet dopamine rush that my brain is craving. Unfortunately, I can’t control which activities will trigger that reaction, and no amount of self-discipline or willpower will compel my brain to “want” to give me a hit while doing something i find tedious or uninteresting. I can still do stuff I don’t want to do, usually… sometimes… ish… but the odds of me falling into a hyperfocal state while doing so are naught.
While I agree with this, there is also a tendency for some folk online to call every fault in the memory a ADHD symptom. Just yesterday there was a post about being very concentrated in something and losing the track of thought when someone distracts you. That is not ADHD, that’s just how memory works.
I am a coder and I require distraction free environment when coding.
One point to keep in mind: a lot of people are not educated to know these kind of things. In my country we tell our kids to function and blame them when they don’t function. It set an impossible high standart on very young people. But it is a relique from germanys problematic past, where people where only seen as Instruments.
I like to read neurodivergent content, because it gives me a much better insight in how the brain works. The content does not judge you and it does not blame you. This is appealing to people, who only start to realize how horrible the’ve been raised.
I would argue to work together to chance a system, that does not support human as diverse as they are.
Ugh, I hate this so much. I've gotten a lot of this same sort of dismissive "Yeah everybody has that sometimes" and it's... honestly made my life worse. Possibly a lot worse, considering my chance to get help came and went ages ago and now I'm a "normal" landfill inferno.
"Yeah, everyone hates phones" Okay but does everyone have to do the "no food or drink after midnight" thing before making or taking a phone call? I've had my digestion wrecked for days 'cause I ate whilst panicking over an unfamiliar (extremely mundane) situation, is that normal too? Idunno if people are just trying to shut others up or to fit people into moulds or just trying to make people feel like they're not weird but ugh :-\
If people like you, they don’t want you to be weird/unnormal, because associating with weird/unnormal people is weird, and they don’t want to be weird, because that’s Bad.
I had undiagnosed Celiac for quite some time, symptoms slowly getting more severe as years passed. I got comments like this often when I'd try to discuss what was going on with me. One of my most major disruptive issues was feeling extremely tired after meals... I pretty much had to sleep for 1-4 hours about an hour after eating. This caused all sorts of problems with work and other people. When I'd tell people "wow, I get incredibly exhausted after meals" they'd say "yeah bro, food coma! I get that too!" and it was well, not exactly the same... or "you smoke too much weed!" It's already so difficult to determine if something is normal or serious, since you only know your own body.
man food coma is so specifically when you eat too much, if they interpret “i get tired after eating” as food coma then i worry about their eating habits.
Right, I can do ok without medication, I do better with it though. I knew kids in highschool that even with meds on board couldn’t stay in their seats.
You’ve perhaps conflated two opposing diagnostic approaches. The extant approach in most Western countries is to use the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual (DSM), which provides categorical guidelines for diagnosis of mental health disorders based on symptom clusters. Although not a contender or replacement for the DSM, a new approach that considers more factors has been developed by the US National Institute of Mental Health. This new approach is referred to as the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) and it proposes basing diagnoses on both clinical observations AND objective neuroscientific methods. Part of the RDoC approach is to view disorders as reflecting multiple traits on a continuum (i.e. spectrum). It’s hoped this newer approach can improve care outcomes for disorders where symptom presentation varies greatly between individuals (i.e., schizophrenia) or genders (i.e., ASD).
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