This sounds like the average extrovert’s perspective on an introvert lifestyle tbh. “Oh you have minimal social life and focus on your passions there must be something wrong with you.”
Yep, or a caffeine addict who is flabbergasted I don’t consume caffeine. (I’m not calling everyone who consumes caffeine a caffeine addict, just the ones who literally can’t function without it) Like I can’t consume more than a negligible amount of caffeine because it triggers my migraine. But apparently something is wrong with me because I’m not dependent on a drug to stay awake.
I have the same issue. I can take 300 mg and then fall asleep. I had a spinal tap this spring and as I get post-spinal headaches they gave me a lot of caffeine and when I fell asleep they were somewhat weirded out. But I am being tested for ADHD which it might be linked to.
This is 100% ADHD. I can drink coffee right before going to bed and sleep like a baby. It has to do with the way our brain needs energy. I find that caffeine calms me down because my brain finally has enough energy to regulate my attention.
It can be and is one of the reasons why I am in the process of diagnosis. The issue is that it is not easy as the traits of ADHD and PTSD have a lot of overlap. There are two things why I do think it is both is this. Another is that I do get pretty intense hyperfocus.
It is and it’s normal. When I was taking medicine to help with ADHD I could drink a huge coffee and then go to sleep. I stopped taking ADHD medicine 15-20 years ago (mainly due to side effects and being rebellious against my parents) but I still have a weird relationship with caffeine. 3 coffees to even feel it at all, and one just makes me sleepy.
People with ADHD have something called a paradoxical effect with stimulants. It’s related to the differences in brain chemistry, and it’s why amphetamines are a useful pharmaceutical therapy for those with ADHD while having something more akin to a recreational effect on the neurotypical.
Sometimes the paradoxical effect is just nothing, or very limited expected effect. The name is a bit of a misnomer in the sense that stimulants don’t have an opposite effect, but rather they are inducing stimulation where it is lacking for ADHD. So instead of getting this rush of energy and focus that a neurotypical individual would, those with ADHD are merely reaching a “normal” level of stimulation by compensating for a lack thereof. In essence the stimulants aren’t acting differently with ADHD, instead their action is compensation. You can see evidence of this in that those properly undergoing amphetamine therapy will still have some side effects of stimulants (e.g. reduced appetite).
At least this is how I understand it. I’m only a nurse, so I very well could have some misunderstanding here that hasn’t been corrected.
I call them my coffee naps. 3 cups and then i go pass out for two hours. And I just got diagnosed with ADHD this week. Wasn’t aware of the relationship between the two.
I’d even go as far as to say that everything I’m not forced to do is, (very) technically, more or less, based on selfishness/egoism.
There’s the times when I genuinely enjoy doing something
times when I don’t really care about something (or even dislike it slightly) but friends/family members are happy to do it together (in turn being beneficial for me because I like them being happy)
something I may dislike but is (in the long term) beneficial for me (studying, taking yucky medicine :)) )
probably lots more categories I can’t think of/don’t have the time to write down
Of course this is kinda taking it to the extreme, but I don’t think I’ve ever done anything without any benefit, however broadly defined, for me, unless I was absolutely forced to do so without any way out.
What you encountered was a sociopath projecting how they feel about every action they take onto you. Somehow you are the asshole for not complying with their selfishness.
You can’t tell what it really is based on the information given. You normally need to meet 4 or 5 criteria in order to give a diagnosis. Besides that, you need knowledge and life history of your patient because a lot of diagnosis overlap. Probably this is the catch from the question, he has traits of being obsessive, but you can’t really say what just yet. A bunch of people, even while studying, will fall for questions like these.
People have a lot of traits of one mental condition or another. And it is normal. There are usually two points of mental health conditions, one if you have enough traits and feelings etc and another if they affect your life negatively. Admittedly no actual graduated doctor in multiple countries would make a diagnosis with this little information which is why I am guessing this is meant for earlier parts of medical education.
Pay special attention to the last statement before the question - “He is doing well in school and has a girlfriend who is also a medical student.” This sentence is there to tell you that the student in question does not have a disorder; his life is going fine. Answers A, B, D, and E are all disorders, and answer C is “traits”, not a disorder. Ergo, the correct answer is C.
While that is the best fit for the characteristics, it can’t be the correct answer. The question asked for a disorder and therefore any non-disorder answer is disqualified.
This is probably why I was diagnosed with OCD in my teens and endured years of medications that didn’t help me at all. Now I’m in my 40s and finally on proper ADHD meds. Doing pretty well, I’m happy to share.
This is me. It sometimes feels like my autism and ADHD are at odds. For a very long time, I refused to make any lists or do any kind of planning because if anything disrupted the process of executing them, I’d have a meltdown or come close to it.
Even now, I have to loosely plan, which comes across to allistics and NTs as being overly negative, when in reality it’s proactive ADHD management and meltdown prevention.
This is a typical type of question in higher level studies, where the scenario given is intentionally inconclusive to measure your ability to determine what path may warrant further investigation.
The correct answer is C. Not because it's a diagnosis, but if there were to be a diagnosis, that would be most likely
To add to that, one of my professors back in college said of Obsessive Compulsive Disorders that medical and pharmacy students may reflect the symptom profile of the disorder during their studies just to get by. Sounds to me like this is the perspective this professor is demonstrating in this question.
One of my professors said there’s about 3 or 4 bouts of hypochondria during med school where you’re like “oh fuck, I’ve got this disease” and this might be one of those moments
The question asks you which of the following disorders is most likely. “Obsessive Compulsive traits” is the only answer there that is not a disorder. This is even more of a bullshit question than I initially thought if that is really the “correct” answer.
If that were the intention behind the question, it would demonstrate a poor understanding of likelyhood in a strictly analytical sense. The most likely diagnosis would still be none of the options given, but literally “None”.
If it were meant as a simple “Gotcha”-Question, it is semantically poorly constructed - and also ethically questionable to teach a lesson of “select the least wrong option from a preselected set of permitted answers” in the context of medical practise.
I have no idea why you think it is the least incorrect answer. As far as I know, it is spot on. The disorder gripe I kind of get but not why that would be incorrect in any way.
Okay… I am not sure where the miscommunication occurs. Maybe it is because I am looking at the process of diagnosis through the lens of statistics and not from the angle of someone implementing a strategy of eliminating possibilities one by one.
As other commenters have pointed out, there is a possibility remaining unadressed by the question and choices of answers, that is very important in practise: That the student is completely healthy. And even under the assumption, he had anything, the evidence presented is too sparse to make a call like that, irregardless of what little information is there looks spot on or not.
It’s okay to admit that a case is inconclusive. That’s what science has to deal with all the time. As a diagnostician, you MUST have the mindset of a detective, or you’re not a good diagnostician. Going by the book (working down checklists, making simple choices) will mostly work, but when it fails, the potential for harm is great. The best fitting answer a doctor can think of can still be the wrong one while the real answer is hiding somewhere unexpected. I wish the workbook above wouldn’t ignore this.
As the answer is having obsessive-compulsive traits it means that there is not enough information to make a diagnosis and based on the existing information those traits do not majorly negatively affect the student’s life so the person is, based on known information, most likely healthy apart from some possibly more or less disorderly traits. The diagnostic process requires doctors to use actually most fitting answer as even though it doesn’t necessarily mean that is the diagnosis, diagnostic criteria need to be filled even though they are not 100% specific. Evaluation of diagnostic criteria happens every couple of years where they will try to get more specific and sensitive. But that is a lot more involved process than one person changing their opinion of the criteria they use. In medicine, especially physical medicine, you can’t always wait for an iron-clad diagnosis and sometimes you can’t make iron-clad diagnosis even with the best testing available. Medicine is almost as much art as it is science and for a good reason. And it really is far from finished. In both the science part, medical ethics and biases in medicine are being developed all the time. Art part can be taught but only through experience.
Is it perfect, no. But there are also reasons behind why the question is put like this.
Yeah that sounds totally normal. Sounds like he has everything under control. He’s actually organized, making lists and shit. He enjoys what he does. He has a girlfriend, so clearly he’s not a total hermit. He just chooses not to spend time with collegues. That sounds like a normal well-organized person
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