Really biased hit piece in the Tagesanzeiger in Switzerland today on ADHD because some sociologist got it into his head that prescribing Ritalin was tantamount to corporal punishment in schools.
That's one thing that surprises me here: the media is incredibly and almost transparently biased, which I would think is not the best thing in a fucking direct democracy.
I don't think these fuckers understand what it's like when you have ADHD and the only thing makes it possible for you to function without forgetting everything or being distracted by everything or being annoyed by everything because you can't filter anything out is the medication you often forget to take in the morning. There are two people living in my house who simply cannot function otherwise, and it's not because of some random description of symptoms.
I have to admit that as a young person, I fell into the huge group of people that was skeptical that ADHD was actually a condition. Part of that was that we had a family dynamic where my mom used my brother's ADHD to paint herself as his savior, and part of it, in retrospect, was that I was dealing with all the same things, but because I wasn't hyperactive, I was just expected to get on with it, and I resented the fact that my brother "got away with everything".
But these people are adults. And I get really tired of folks thinking it's trendy to be diagnosed. Has anyone actually considered the idea that maybe there are a whole lot of us out here who silently got to adulthood with ADHD because our environment and coping skills made it possible to do so, and when our information-intense world has gotten even more chaotic, as has happened in the last decades, eventually those coping skills get overwhelmed?
@grrrr_shark It me. I made it all the way to my mid 30s and my first permanent job before everything fell apart b/c prior to that I'd been in research-intensive positions that allowed me to hyperfocus on my interests with very few tedious/superfluous tasks with unachievable deadlines on my plate.
Then I got a proper academic job, and my kid got older, and there was a pandemic and I could no longer function.
Because let me tell you, I always had fucking symptoms. I initially avoided things like cell phones and Twitter because I knew they would be distracting, fracturing my ability to think. I dropped out of University and only came back when I had the ability to clear my entire life and steer my hyperfocus to what I was studying -- I lost friendships because I had to steer everything into getting my degree even though I was "smart". I am smart, but I couldn't manage distractions.
It is intensely frustrating to be intelligent and not be able to wrangle your mind into doing what you want it to do. There are lots of reasons why that can occur, of course. It's not always ADHD. But when it is, and medication helps, you have no idea what a relief that is. You have no idea. It's not a high, it's not a "crutch"*, it is a tool that lets your brain work when it otherwise would not.
*HIGHLY ableist term - mobility aids are essential tools for folks with mobility issues.
Lots of people depend on medications/drugs, for a variety of reasons. For example, no one ever criticises someone with T1 diabetes for being dependent on insulin.
There's nothing wrong with needing one or more drugs in order to function well. Most humans do, even if it's just caffeine.
It's about risk management. If the drugs risk doing more harm than good, that's an issue. Otherwise, all that matters is securing a reliable supply.
If you break your leg, and you use literal physical crutches to walk, people respect that. A crutch is an aid that helps you deal with a disability. It's a GOOD thing, but we've been made to forget that by people who use it as an insult.
If my life had stayed calm enough that I could have made space available to use my very time-consuming coping skills to function, maybe I wouldn't have ever thought to go in for a diagnosis. But in retrospect, the biggest periods of failure in my life were when circumstances exceeded the ability for me to carve out enough of my life for the quiet recovery time I need and the environment I have to construct to handle them.
In graduate school the first time around, I couldn't understand why I couldn't keep my nose to the grindstone long enough to push through. Eventually worked my way around that more or less, but once I was a single parent, when things got really tough, I realized I didn't have the bandwidth to cope with anything, and that the way I thought and problems I had were so similar to the developing issues with my long-since-diagnosed child that I needed to confront myself about the situation.
You can say what you want about the fact that more people are being diagnosed in modern society, but consider the fact that what is more likely is that there is a certain percentage of people with a brain configuration that we call ADHD that were always there, and that probably got by because our circumstances made it possible to function in spite of symptoms, but that can't get by in the modern demanding information-intense world.
It looks like a trend not because more people are spuriously seeking treatment, but because the world has become a place where people with ADHD cannot cope because the world overwhelms our capacity to do so inherently, and we can't change that world. That doesn't mean I am saying people are drugging themselves because the world is a difficult place, but that more people avail themselves of more tools because they have to continue to survive and their existing ones aren't enough anymore.
I can't tell this expert sociologist with the difference is like between being able to think most of the time and having to rely on the whims of random chance to get things done. I can't make this expert sociologist understand what it is like to not be able to pay attention enough to understand something I might even be interested in but my brain isn't playing along, where my brain not getting any of it because it is going to daydream no matter what I tell it to do.
I am 51 years old. I was National Merit scholar and got a free ride to university. I dropped out the first time, and came back and graduated summa cum laude. I've published in reasonable journals in my field and am respected by the colleagues I work with every day. And I take medication for ADHD because I need it to be able to function as an employee, as a parent, and as an adult every single damned day. It's not a trend, it's not an addiction, and it's not arbitrary.
If I had grown up surrounded by all the inputs the kids have to put up with right now in the world, I have no doubt that my problem would have either been seen for what it was very early on and I wouldn't have made it to my advanced age without a diagnosis, or I would have completely flaked out of school and checked out of life because I wouldn't have been able to cope. I'm lucky to have grown up when I did and to have had the space to eventually push through without medication.
But life is not constant and I couldn't push through forever, especially when life threw so much at me that I couldn't cope under any circumstances, medicated or not. I know the days that I forget my medication, because at some point during the day I will realize that I have lost my keys for the 50 millionth time and can't remember appointments and have looked at my calendar 20 times in the last hour. Nobody likes being that person. Nobody likes flaking out. But that's what it's like.
So that expert sociologist, along with the Tagesanzeiger, neither of whom are psychiatrists, psychologists, or mental health professionals of any kind, are cordially invited to go fuck themselves. The dearth of empathy and lack of research on their parts is just astounding.
I'm 57, I was diagnosed with 55 because my gender therapist asked: "Have you ever been diagnosed with ADHD? I see so many hints, but I'm not a specialist."
"Me? Pfrt! Haha, I'm not … that type of person."
After I got the diagnosis ("Clinically relevant ADHD") from a department at the local university hospital specializing in ADHD in adults the specialist asked me, how I felt about the diagnosis. Relieved! I'm not stupid, I'm not lazy, I'm not "undisciplined". My brain is 'just' wired differently.
I asked how I managed to get through school without repeating and even got a PhD in (quantum) chemistry. And he answered: "Because the other result of the test was, that you're intelligent above average. You had resources to cope." 😳
@sashag@grrrr_shark Also 57. Also officially diagnosed at 55. It's been a massive relief.
My children were diagnosed 20 years ago. They were late to be diagnosed at 12 and 17 because, honestly, they weren't hyper and I just assumed I was the problem with why they weren't organized so first I had guilt that I was ruining their lives and then I had guilt that I didn't recognize it sooner. 🥴
Yeah. I also have anxiety.
When I was diagnosed, I spoke to my son's teacher, and asked her to keep watch for any ADHD-ish indicators in class, so we could intervene if necessary.
Teacher stays silent all year. No news is good news, right?
Nope; even after being repeatedly asked she says nothing all year, but in the last week of school, after it's too late to actually do anything about it, she sends home a report card filled with complaints about textbook ADHD.
@tcsc@feritae@sashag SO infuriating. We've dealt with this in varying degrees over the years as well. Some folks actually seem to want to PUSH kids through the cracks.
Instead of doing the absolute bare minimum that we asked, which might have allowed both him and you to be happier in class, you thought it better to just say nothing, make everybody miserable, and cap it off by traumatising the poor kid with a bad (in his eyes, anyway) report.
At least we can use your behaviour as a canary in the coalmine, letting us know how the system will react in future.
@tcsc@grrrr_shark@sashag oh, yes. That's how my son was diagnosed as well. After moving him to a new school, I was told that he was "settling in", "getting used to the new schedule", "doing fine - no need to be concerned". One week before the end of the school year, his science teacher saw me in a restaurant where she was moonlighting as a server, and informed me that he had a "zero average" in her class.
@tcsc@grrrr_shark@sashag Of course, my brain got hung up on the idea of a "zero average". I kept asking how that was possible - did he not turn in any work in class? Did she not give points for putting his name on his papers?
@tcsc@feritae@sashag We've gotten to the point with my daughter where we've just had to accept that the system isn't going to work with her and she'll have to find her own path.
Right now she's in online school, doing mostly OK, and at least has some tools to help herself.
When I called the ambulance for ADHD in adults at the local university hospital, they said "55? You're too old! We only accept patients up to 45!"
I asked if they had a suggestion where to go instead, because, well, I'm an adult and my therapist says I have serious problems.
They said "Oh, true. I'll ask the doctor."
She came back and told me they would make an exception if I bring a letter of recommendation from the therapist.
It was a deliberate threshold with no reason. Wouldn't I have been lucky enough to have a great therapist and be privately insured, I would have been declined.
@sashag@grrrr_shark yeah i had exactly the same diagnosis. The smarts can compensate for the adhd symptoms. Eg when you start writing the papers on the deadline you still get them good enough. Same with presentations etc. and hyperfocus helps a lot too.
Haven't gotten to try any meds that help with the ADHD yet. I hope to discover that feeling someday. I can't even imagine it, and trying to imagine it hurts.
In school I just got told over and over again, "This should be easy for you. You're so smart, this should be EASY for you."
Now every time I get told I'm smart I cringe, because it's never been enough to make up for what's wrong with me. The smarter I am, the more horribly screwed up I must be to still fail this hard at life.
@violetmadder If you can find something that helps, it really is a whole thing.
And I feel that pain. It doesn't help to be smart if you have no executive function. You're not failing - your brain literally isn't able to start things and stay applied with them. Don't beat yourself up.
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