Same with autism.
If you get low grades, off to special ed with you.
High grades? Oh you're just a socially awkward dork or quirky nerd or something.
It's like the Halo effect, but with grades.
As long as you're not disruptive, they don't give a shit.
If you're malleable enough, the machine will mash you into place.
Truth. I remember being in school in the 90s when they were giving Ritalin to everyone who didn't want to sit still in class. Shit was wild. And then you have me, with a healthy case of ADD but since I wasn't a social butterfly, that just meant I wasn't motivated.
Oh man, one of my people! My parents, my school, my teachers just watched me fail with an under 1.0 average, while I scored 95th percentile in every standardized test. I was lazy, undisciplined, and unmotivated, and it made me hate myself.
I feel like this would be a red flag now, but back then, even the school counselors were only worried about my impact on other students. Since it was minimal, they let me just stay there and fail... my best friend, who's every bit at sharp as me, got Ritalined into fucking oblivion and put in remedial classes. Jokes on me tho, he got a diploma from HS.
GED is just another standardized test. If I knew how easy it was back in my junior year, I would have saved myself a lot of time and trouble.
Consider that the 90s was when most early Boomers had their kids in school, and of course, they didn't want to deal with their children's problems. So yeah, throw some drugs at them, the teacher is always right, and shut up now- Mommy and Daddy are focused on themselves.
And if you had ADD, ODD, and breaking the curve grades, they took every opportunity to lock you up in jail that they could.
At least that's what happened to me.
And if you are disruptive, they diagnose you with odd and beat you to make you shut up. You can't win
Turns out, the teachers just do their job. And most of the time just the bare minimum, just like almost everyone else.
And if you want to teach and a student is a pain and hindering/distracting everyone else, then you kinda have to intervene. If the student isn't motivated/concentrated its easy for the teacher to just say that the student doesnt wanna learn so he gets just bad grades.
At least thats how I see it sometimes.
Same with autism. It wasn't until I had my master's degree in math and teaching high school at age 39 that it ever occurred to me that I was autistic. A colleague and I had a mutual student, and he told me that he thought she might be autistic and that he was going to refer her to the school's diagnostician for testing.
So I found myself curious about the symptoms of autism, because Rain Man was my frame of reference. I researched the symptoms in the middle of a Geometry team meeting, and everything I read had my sitting up further and further in my seat, until I just blurted out "Oh my GAWD...?!" My colleagues asked what, and I said "Y'all...I think I might be autistic?" They looked at one another quizzically, like they were shocked at my personal revelation. One of them replied, "Wait...you didn't know?!" I said, "....what, you DID know?!?" She was like "Yes! We all know that about you! You seriously didn't know? 😂" HELL NO I DIDN'T KNOW!
I immediately called my mom on the phone to tell her that I thought I might be autistic. "Yyyyyeah...your dad and I always thought you might be." HOLY FUCKING SHIT MOM WTF?????? 😲😲😲WHY DIDN'T YOU EVER GET ME TESTED?!? "Well, you always made such good grades that we just didn't think it mattered that much.
I have since been diagnosed with ASD Level 1, and I think back a lot on my life lived. I marvel at how much easier my life would have been if I hadn't had to develop all of these coping mechanisms myself. I did well in school despite my autism. I earned two degrees despite my autism. I hold down teaching jobs despite my autism. The biggest problems I've had in my life, though, have been personal relationships. I can't imagine how much richer my life might be right now had I known all along how to exist as a self-aware autist in a neurotypical world.
I don't know the popular opinion on this, but I personally think you did a great job learning how to be your best self without having a label. Everyone is unique and everyone will have to learn how to do things their way, having children labeled as something when they already do well might just make them feel more alienated, or be like "I'm X that's why I'm like this" instead of finding their way to be productive/have fun.
Of course it'll help people struggling but not knowing what's wrong. But if you're a type of person who can feel/see what works for you and what doesn't and find solutions for yourself, you might even make your quirks your strength. One frequent thought I have is, how many of the scientists or philosophers in the past were actually autistic? Or had quirks that made them who they are, but would definitely be "problematic" when they were young by today's standards.
TLDR: My opinion is everyone is unique, using your quirks to do things others can't is what makes some people great. Making everyone fit a "normal", and medicating/.... everyone else doesn't seem like a good idea.
Or...and just a thought...maybe people know their own truths better than you ever possibly could, and when they tell you that early diagnosis and therapy would have helped them immensely, you just believe them?
Also, I got diagnoses for Generalized Anxiety Disorder with Panic Attacks as well as Major Depressive Disorder, and having those diagnoses as a teen might have helped as well, ya know?
Would you tell someone who doesn't have legs that they'd be better off without a wheelchair because then they'd be free to "find their own way to be productive/have fun"? Or is this reserved for disorders that you can't see?
My medication doesn't fundamentally change who I am, it just makes me less shit at the things I am most shit at, so that my daily life is less of a constant struggle.
And sure, it's possible to imagine a world where having ADHD wouldn't be such a problem, just like it's possible to imagine a world where not having legs wouldn't be a problem. But that's not the world we live in!
Try not paying your bills and telling your landlord and credit card company that it's fine, you're just not one for rigid schedules and you're finding your own way. Or instead of doing your job at work, do something completely different and see if your boss accepts that you're just quirky.
A friend of mine got diagnosed first with add and then autism in her 60s. She felt relieved because she finally understood herself.
My diagnosis was based on a number of tests. One such test was related to speeded processing, basically how quickly a person's brain analyzes things and makes decisions. It required me to look at a series of pages (one at a time) featuring a particular design for about six seconds or so, and to then identify on the flowing page the same design from a group of four, five, or six similar designs (there were more to choose from as the test went on). If I got one wrong, I'd have a second chance to choose the correct image. Two wrong answers in a row and the test would be over.
I was told at the beginning to not feel bad if I didn't finish the test because no one ever does. Well, I did, and very quickly. I made one mistake on one picture, but I'd had it narrowed down to two images, so I was able to quickly recover when I made that one mistake. After a while, after every correct answer, the doctor's eyes became wider and wider, until I finished and she just said, "Welp...that was THAT test!"
When I got my test results, it had me well into the 99.9th percentile. Upon informing me of this, she asked me "Does this surprise you?" to which I replied no, not really. I've always felt like I think WAY more quickly than the rest of the world. And it is both a boon and a burden. It serves me well and will continue to do so in the post-apocalyptic times to come.
But it's also caused me to queer relationships because I don't think about things before speaking sometimes, and - as an autistic person - connections with others are sometimes few and far between. So having confirmation now that my brain really does work this way helps me feel empowered enough to work on myself and that tendency to think/act/speak too quickly, because the relationships I have with people are immensely important to me.
That last bit reads like Weird Al doing a Madonna sendup
Dude, so fucking real. I just got denied meds because "If you can learn a big part in a play, then you must have very mild adhd."
I'm convinced that most psychiatrists and psychologists have control issues that they satisfy through their practice. It makes them feel powerful to be able to gatekeep, judge and implicitly control their patient's life and get paid for it.
I wish I could talk to someone who actually knows what adhd is like, and not just some boomer with a fancy piece of paper
Extend that to anybody involved with patient care and medicine.
Man if I was a doctor I'd probably get my control kick by giving people what they want and making them happy.
Pretty much, my mom didn't notice that I had adhd. But my little brother was a poor student, and ended up on several different medications for his adhd.. meanwhile, my mom made fun of me for having like 5 water glasses scattered throughout the house all the time bcz I forgot I had a water glass, and where it was.
Wait till you see what they let you do if you're good at sports.
Wait till you see what they let you
doraw dog if you're good at sports.Ftfy
Cheerleaders, teachers, whatever you want. The football players at my high school could do no wrong because they won state once.
Goddamn, this innocuous post brought me to tears. Been having a rough time, I guess
TBF if any condition isn't causing problems then it doesn't need treatment. Don't get me wrong, ADHD can cause problems beyond just school/work, but often that's one of the most common primary problems it causes
Who says it isn’t causing problems? We had a similar issue with my oldest. He is a brilliant kid who can’t get his shit together because of his disability. However he can skate through school.
It was a constant battle to get him services and accommodations, because he “is not failing”. The school system thinks he doesn’t need treatment because he’s not failing. We think he deserves treatment because he isn’t living up to his abilities and struggles to do basic stuff
Thank you for fighting for your son.
I never really had issues in school, I was doing fine. But teachers kept telling me I wasn't living up to my potential. I was chaotic. Forgetful. Years later, I developed an anxiety disorder I didn't understand so I went to therapy. Turns out I also have chronic depression (oh, life is not so bleak for everyone??) and it's all because of severe ADHD and the attached problems. I'm almost 30 now. And while my therapist did a lot of structured tests, she is not qualified to actually diagnose ADHD. It's gonna be another year until I can get my formal diagnosis and medication.
I often wonder what could have been had the adults in my childhood been more attentive to my -in hindsight- obvious and severe problems.
This was me. Had some good, caring teachers, and some bad, but I was really struggling. Ended up going to a private school on student aid because the public schools didn't care to help. Started caring a lot more about school. Things also got a lot easier when I moved out of the house and had more space to collect my thoughts and goals.
I mean this is technically right (so the best kind of right) but as someone that got okay grades in school and only passed because I could ace a test on pretty much anything, knowing I had ADHD before I was in my mid 30s, stressing over why work was getting harder and harder and trying to explain to my wife that i genuinely just forget to clean up after a project is done would have been hugely helpful. So diagnosing ADHD in kids and teens getting good grades may end with just therapy as treatment if they are otherwise doing well, knowing that other treatments (like medication) are options if after school they start struggling more. Keep in mind it’s much more difficult to get an ADHD diagnosis as an adult than as a kid.
I got diagnosed and medicated at 39. A couple of years go by and I’ve improved my shit enough that I get offered a promotion from tools to office.
“Great”, I think, because I’m finally getting my shit together.
Couple more years have passed, and it turns out that even with medication it’s real fucking hard to be self-led management when you’ve got a brane that is not at all interested in working with you.
Unmedicated me got reasonable grades at school, then managed a respectable 2:1 degree. That would have been a first class degree if I’d been medicated. But all of that shit is basically on rails, people guiding you in the right direction. I don’t have those rails anymore.
Absolutely, and inner conflict, constant struggle and unhappiness counts as a huge problem, even when external appearances are kept and things run relatively smoothly. Internal peace should always be the primary goal, and not just fitting into the gears of routine life.
But even if the results are good, the process can still be very draining on the individual.
It didn't get recognized in me until 10th or 11th grade. My grades started to slip fast when the ways I adapted to school stopped helping me keep up.
Arguably, if it's not causing behavioral concerns, educational concerns, emotional concerns, social concerns, or physical concerns... It's not really a condition is it?
For lack of a more relatable analogy, I've been using this race based one.
Imagine you're a black child in America in the 1960s and 1970s, but you somehow managed to remain ignorant of that fact until sometime in your teens or early adulthood. Maybe the area was really progressive, parents wanted to shield you from reality, whatever you need to imagine is fine. You end up not understanding this fact about yourself, and then you end up in the racist public. Now, imagine that the racist public never comes outright and says anything directly racist to you, but all of their other behavior is exactly like what you'd expect from racists in the 1970s. How do you come to terms with this reality? You must be doing something wrong for people to treat you this way.
Obviously not a perfect analogy, and I don't really like to compare my issues as a ND person with the awful stuff done to black people back then, and that continues to be done today. Anyway, it's not inaccurate, if anything, the differences between ND people and NT people are greater than any outward racial appearance, and worse, ND people aren't really aware they are being marginalized, and NT people don't really understand that they are marginalizing.
I think... you should probably stop using that analogy.
A good analogy would be being forced to use your non-dominant hand to write, maybe to play guitar, paint, use a right-handed mouse with your left, etc...
Over time and practice, you may get pretty good at it. But, you want to ask if you think you'll ever get the speed with the smoothness and precision you would have gotten if you've been using your dominant hand. You'd be doing what a lot of ND people have to do, which is put a lot of valuable concentration and energy into adapting to something that while NT people have no issue, it's completely foreign to you.
You can also think of getting the proper treatment as, at worst, switching that incorrect 5-button ergonomic mouse for a basic 3-button ambidextrous one, and at best give you the forward/back buttons, but ignoring the ergonomic design. I.E. The treatment should help lessen the disadvantages, but they would still be present.
It's weird how many people on here attribute good grades to being good at everything else in life. Or minimizing the probable and unnecessary struggle some individuals go through to get those good grades because of the system they were put in. I got good grades because i worked many times harder than my peers. I shouldn't have to. No one does. I was privileged enough to have enough resources to do as well as i did. Most people with my condition don't. I've also struggled a lot more at other tasks, and in the work place. But i got good grades, so fuck me right?
Yeah. It's so fucking shortsighted to be like, "Eh, you did fine, look at your grades. You can't be that disabled." Like, you putzes, are you kidding me? If I hadn't been spending all my mental energy clearing all these pointless obstacles, I might have cured fucking pancreatic cancer by now. It's not just about what's convenient for caretakers, teachers, and a health team, it's about being denied the opportunity that most other people are handed without asking to achieve everything they're capable of doing.
being good at shit doesn't mean I can have good grades either
My autism allows me to do it work, create servers, host websites and make my own Foss projects
This won't however mean I'll be getting 100 from my chemistry exam just because I can loop hello world a hundred times
Back in school I literally helped other students cram 30 minutes before a test, using flash cards I made and used all week, only to have them breeze in and get a higher score than me.
Do you know how great it would be to only barely try, and succeed anyway? I can't even imagine.
I breezed through high school, everything was easy, never studied, was never really able to just sit and focus on stuff.
Get to college, calc is hard. Physics is hard. Electronics is hard. I have zero skills from never studying; I have no foundation to learn. Didn't make it in college. Still really good at mental math though! Still can't sit and focus on tasks for long.
I don't think it's that great. I was able to coast through high school but I was hindered once I reached the edge of my natural talent shortly into college. I had never really learned how to buckle down and study so I ended up struggling a lot. I can still pick things up pretty easily but I often give up when it gets to a certain point. Nowadays I feel kinda inferior to others that learned how to keep trying.
I don't know how the fuck I wasn't diagnosed with ADHD (or autism or BPD) until I was in my late 30's, when my parents had taken me to the same therapist my younger sibling was diagnosed with ADHD by as a child.
Adhd was demonized back then. I was diagnosed and my parents decided to do nothing because the media was telling them that Ritalin was the devil. Hard to blame them given the climate but man I coulda used the help back then.
That and most people's idea (including some doctors) was that unless the person was hyperactive, they couldn't have ADHD. Happened to me. And rather than being diagnosed and treated correctly for the problems I did need help with, I got diagnosed with
Asperger's[ASD] and was put in a curriculum well below my level not because I didn't understand the subjects, but because they just didn't interest me.
Probably because you were the easy one? That was what it was for me, didn't realize until my mid 20s (covid really wrecked havoc with my studying in college because I couldn't go to a physically separate space that I had designated as a place I couldn't goof off).
I suspected i had adhd when i was 16, begged my mom to go to a psychologist. The psychologist told me i was playing too many video games ಠ_ಠ
When the video games were a symptom of the ADHD. Lol
My first and only therapist was totally dismissive of my problems. I left them, but haven't been able to bring myself to try another one since then 😔
Many of us played video games because we lacked any social structure in our lives. TV and video games make people feel like they aren't alone, even when they are.
Its just my opinion but I think you can remedy that by creating a supporting social environment for the whole family to be part of, regardless of what hobbies someone's into.
Edit to add: I didnt mean to imply you should go do this, its just what I think helps prevent the issue.
As a parent of a child with ADHD, I'm cautious about using stimulant medication unless it's clearly the best course of action. My main goal is to help my child succeed, and academics is a big component of that.
I see many of my son's ADHD symptoms in myself, and I believe I may have also had/have ADHD. Despite this, I've been successful in my life. This personal experience makes me hesitant to automatically turn to medication as the solution for my child. I prefer to explore other options first, unless there's a strong reason to consider it, such as struggling academically.
When my son entered high school he became mature enough to participate in the decision-making process regarding his own treatment. Because of that it was easier for me/us to get him a prescription of Adderall and feel good about it as parents.
Edit: since it seems to not be clear, my son is on ADHD meds and has been for the past three or four years. We talked to him about it and he prefers taking the medication and has had input in the dosage that he's taking.
Unsolicited advice incoming:
Help your kid get a diagnosis ASAP and try to find a medication that works. The drugs are just a tool, but your kid won't know whether they help without trying them.
At some point, they may find themselves unmedicated and down in an ADHD hole — having the diagnosis and knowing which medications may help is crucial to dig out of the hole.
Counter point.
The medication worked. Suddenly i could pay attention and my grades went up. And those where the main “problems” adults perceived.
My parents where skeptical about medicine first but opted to try because the backlash people gave me for lacking an attention span was affecting me hard. They ultimately believed they where doing the right thing.
I slowly become less social then i already was, lost my appetite, stopped feeling many emotions in general and eventually sank into a deep twisted depression.
I was unable to understand it was the medicine doing this. I was unable to communicate any of it properly because i thought what i was (not) feeling was just normal life and puberty. It was not.
I know and respect that those drugs can help some people. But they completely destroyed me, afterwards it took many years of controversially self medicating with cannabis to restore my original self and feel my emotions properly again. (The mail reason I started was because i read it could be used for adhd/autism and my first experience left me feeling normal and able to take public transport without suffering intens social anxiety)
I fully agree on your diagnosis part though. And i al also not saying medicine cant be the correct tool but its definitely not a clearcut choice.
Sorry, if it wasn't clear, he has a diagnosis of adhd and he's on meds.
Seriously. Get them meds and a proper therapist ASAP who has a clue about ADHD. While their brain is still plastic you can train it early with the hope of having a future where coping mechanisms are already there and potentially reducing or getting off their meds entirely. Once you are an adult, it is over. Opportunity lost and time to learn the hard way.
He's on meds (has been for 3 or 4 years), and he has an ADHD diagnosis... What's the therapist for? I haven't seen any actual issues that warrant a therapist, what are you thinking I should be watching out for?
Right now he's doing pretty good in school, he's a little less social than I would like, but that's nothing new. Other than that, he seems a sharp well-rounded kid without any behavioral or emotional issues.
This is probably a good call. In the first place a common problem with stimulant meds for adhd is that tolerance goes up quickly, requiring the user to increase their dose over time. The dependency is hard to break. I was prescribed on it for only a few months and made the mistake of abruptly stopping taking it - and even that was enough to go through one of the worst depressions of my life.
There is also evidence of heart risks with long term use, and given that cardiovascular disease is already the western world's number one killer, another blow to our hearts is that last thing anyone needs.
And then there's the regulatory and supply issues. Pharmacies often struggle to keep enough of a supply to meet demand, which is the worst thing for a substance with such a high-risk dependency situation. Plus because it's a schedule 2, you must see a doctor for every refill.
And of course the insurance companies make all of this all the more ugly. Really not worth it.
Edit: oops, didn't catch the last part. Welp, hope it works well for them.
My experience is completely the opposite of what you describe, not that I disregard anything you've stated. I've been on nearly the same dose for nearly 40 years and do not perceive any changes in the effect I receive. And I'd rather live without my medication while waiting on temporary shortages than live my life without it.
Can I add, anecdotally, how many times ive seen people who take adderall daily try another stimulant like coke or meth and say something like: "This doesnt feel much different than adderall at all," or "I thought this stuff would be stronger."
Its like people taking oxycontin but thinking heroin is this scary potent drug. People have no idea what they are playing with.
Haha, I raw dogged it until I was 23, horrible grades only
I'm 42 and got diagnosed less than a year ago. Still haven't found meds that actually work, but at least I know and have developed new coping mechanisms.
I’m a few years older and also wasn’t diagnosed until my late 30s.
Welcome to the world of mental health medication. It’s a complete fucking mystery to even medical “professionals” which cocktail works for you, until you give it a shot.
On more than one occasion I’ve heard, “Try this one, if you don’t want to kill yourself or anyone else, it’s probably a good one to use. Otherwise, we can switch to another one with even worse side effects and see how that goes. How does that sound?”
Good luck! It’s a long journey, at least in my experiences.
This is true for every psychological condition and has only tangentially to do with grades. There needs to be a burden of suffering (German: "Leidensdruck") in order for a psychological condition to be considered a "problem" that needs "fixing". As long as the the person doesn't have this and society doesn't force anything on that person (because for example they broke the law), there is nothing to act upon. This is also why some famous and/or successful people are crazy. The FBI has done some investigations into the concept of a the corporate psychopath, which can be successful managers, which are undiagnosed psychopaths.
PS: I am no expert
https://leb.fbi.gov/articles/featured-articles/the-corporate-psychopath
Does anyone else have the incling ADHD and PTSD are the same thing? Human brain thinks it's in danger and kicks into survival mode
Adhd kids get told negative things way more often that other kids, and that is traumatic. Undiagnosed Adhd leads to anxiety and depression because of it, which makes it very similar to ptsd. But since it's chronic and over a long time period, it is separate from ptsd, as the cause is Adhd, and not the trauma itself.
ADHD can lead to C-PTSD if untreated
Especially when RSD is present.
Most of the symptoms commonly associated with ASD are shared with PTSD
Tbf same if you are 'slower'
I don't have anything and I never will because I'm never getting tested. I did get "classified" and never had a fair chance at a real education. Even failure meant I needed to be in the program and every success showed how well the program was working. I grew up thinking I would only be a drag on other people. In high school, I decided to start feeling better about myself. Something those years of being removed from class so I could have meaningless conversations with the school therapist never could. I thought the school would support my efforts to fix my education, but I only got pushed down, told "I would be happier without the risk of failure", lied to about classes being full, withheld test results when I tried testing into better classes. I would like nothing more then to get the diploma revoked and seeing as how I never fulfilled the basic state requirements, I should be able to, but like with most things, the written law doesn't matter if no one is willing to enforce it.
Fuck my school. Fuck the "team building" exercises they made me do. Fuck the "opportunities" they provided for me.
My therapist diagnosed me with ADD, I did a lot of research and talked to a lot of people. Turned out I don’t have that, but have childhood trauma. Trauma and ADD have a lot of similar symptoms. Once I started addressing the trauma, my symptoms went away.
Anxiety too.
For me it's the other way around. My ADHD caused depression and anxiety. Without the panic attacks, I wouldn't have gone to a therapist in the first place.
I’m not an expert but I believe that anxiety is linked to trauma - Ie: the family dysfunction is causing your anxiety and you were never taught healthy coping skills to deal with all of that…
Just like how gambling isn’t a mental issue if you keep winning … strange isn’t it?
"It's crazy how if you don't have any symptoms of a neurodevelopmental disease, you don't get hardcore stimulants for daily use as a child."
You can get good grades and still constantly get called lazy, be berated for not applying yourself more. Constantly wondering why no matter how hard you try to still somehow don't do any better than if you make no effort at all but whatever you still get good grades. Who cares if you leave all your assignments for the last minute and then finish them all in a panic the night before they're due. Or if you just crutch on way too many energy drinks because they're effectively the same thing as medication only way worse for you health wise because you have no concept of the fact that the reason you like them so much is they make your symptoms more manageable.
Also, you know that stimulants aren't the only treatment someone with ADHD gets right? When you know there's a problem that isn't just "you're lazy" you can learn coping strategies that are worthless to people without ADHD and therefore nothing you'll get yelled at to do by the adults in your life.
You can get good grades and still constantly get called lazy, be berated for not applying yourself more. Constantly wondering why no matter how hard you try to still somehow don’t do any better than if you make no effort at all but whatever you still get good grades. Who cares if you leave all your assignments for the last minute and then finish them all in a panic the night before they’re due. Or if you just crutch on way too many energy drinks because they’re effectively the same thing as medication only way worse for you health wise because you have no concept of the fact that the reason you like them so much is they make your symptoms more manageable.
I don't see how any of that relates. I mean, I see you're trying to argue that as the basis for a diagnosis of an attention deficit disorder, but what you've written is completely normal.
Seems like you're basing your reasoning on "well this speed I take actually helps me focus". Yeah? And the alcohol people drink make them drunk? That's what stimulants do they give you energy to help you focus.
Nowadays literally anything will net you a diagnosis for stimulants. It's crazy how easy it is for anyone of any age to get ADHD/ADD meds ie. Doctors pushed it on me as well, for years. Not when I was kid, because then this overprescription craziness wasn't a thing yet. But after 25 or so, constantly. I figured out my health myself. Did get tested several times by clinical psychologists, and it's crazy how generalised the questions are. I genuinely couldn't imagine anyone who couldn't at one time or another apply everything they said to themselves.
I also while at a place in which they suggested, read a brochure which was highly trying to convince that actually kids who use adhd meds are less likely to have problems with other substances in the future. I had plenty of time while waiting for my appointment, so I googled the source for the "facts" on that brochure. Turns out it relied on a study done on a hundred or so mice. I then googled the opposing view and researched whether it does make it more likely kids will have problems with other substances and found a study which was a following of tens of thousands of kids and showed a clear correlation, where yes, teenagers using methylphenidate and other adhd and add meds were more likely to have reported substance abuse issues later.
Like genuinely, call me out on this in 10 or 20 years. We'll see where it's developed. It's not like the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world have ever done anything illegal or harmful or purposefully pushed illegal drugs even to an extent to create a horrific drug epidemic.... riiiight?
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/30/the-family-that-built-an-empire-of-pain
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9339402/
Now I understand that adhd meds are far safer than opiates, so it's not that I'm griping about anyone using them if they feel they get help from them. But let's not pretend that there isn't very clear controversy on this issue.
Sure, as medicine develops, diagnosis of not so well known diseases increase. But if you look at the rate of increase of neurodevelopmental orders in general versus the rate of increase of ADHD/ADD diagnosis', it's really hard to explain how the one condition which is treatable by a pleasantly mild pharmaceutical (which imo is far better than caffeine as per physical effects, so I understand preferring it over energy drinks) and which just happens to be very popular recreationally over the world as well.
Or would you disagree?
Subtle but they said, "get good grades." Very different than earned.
Very true but you also learn to life with it med free, which is very valuable and healthy.
Some might, but many do not. Constantly burning out, knowing that you're underachiving (even if other do not see it) and struggling with handling it all can and does make people end up depressed, extremely anxious and even suicidal. If one doesn't get the help they need, many doors can close even permanently.
Some people really need the medicine to function.
Not true. Check some research, brain develops more healthy with meds.
I probably would have been better off maintaining Vyvanse into adulthood, but I quit taking it as soon as I had the ability to make the decision to. I felt dull, emotionless, my appetite sucked. Yes, ADD sucks and it has caused issues in my personal life, but I am who I am and I accept those parts of myself. Would my grades have been better in college? Would I have been better at maintaining social events? Sure. But sometimes you just have to build good habits to overcome whatever you can.
no.
It’s crazy how everyone blames all their failures in life on adhd.
It's crazy that the system allows so many people to fail for the exact same reasons that don't impair the rich in any way shape or form, and those people blame their own debuffs rather than the system that failed them from birth.
It's a mix of both. I suffer from ADHD and have been clinically diagnosed. If I were an upper class citizen, many of my problems would cease to impact me. I wouldn't need to be attentive for 8 hours a day, wouldn't have to worry about money and due dates. I was labelled a "gifted child" when I was young, but all that meant was that I never learned to study and organize, and growing up the school system failed me so hard (+ the corona pandemic).
I'm pretty good at logic and inventing, as well as in the arts. Why, oh why can this world not appreciate and support people like me? Prolly smth about greed and sociopathy I guess. Anyway I'll continue fighting and hope my GME stonks will someday heave my family out of this mud.
In case you aren't aware and interested in hearing an opinion on that statement, here it goes.
A lot of people might find it offensive and dismissive. The obvious issue with it is that it is extreme by including "everyone" and "all their failures in life" and saying that one issue is blamed for it entirely. That is just not true. I understand that it could be taken as a figure of speech and that the reader is to understand that not literally everyone and all of their failures, but I disagree with even a figurative interpretation. In my experience, few people attribute most of their lifelong issues to ADHD. Out of that small set of individuals that do attribute issues to ADHD, many of them are valid, while some are likely removing any accountability from their own choices. Yes, it is likely that some people avoid taking responsibility and therefore seek unnecessary accommodations from others for their lack of effort by placing blame on a mental health diagnosis that they might not even have. However, it is my belief that the majority of people don't do that. ADHD is a mental health condition/neurotype that affects every single aspect of a person's life. A person isn't ADHD in only school or work. They are ADHD when they complete daily tasks, socialize, read a book, follow instructions, visit the doctor, place their keys down, etc. ADHD truly does affect every area of their in a world that is designed for people that are not ADHD, so they end up violating cultural norms and performing subobtimally in comparison to their peers. When someone with ADHD states that their entire lives are affected by it, they are not exaggerating. Stating that everyone blames all of their failures in life on ADHD is dismissive of their difficulties and can appear aloof, insensitive, privileged, or malicious. Statements like that can drive away understanding, compassionate, and caring people, limiting your interaction with individuals that have those traits, leaving you more exposed to the kinds of individuals that would use mental health diagnoses to avoid responsibility for their failures.
That's only my opinion, so do what you like with that.
What do you blame your failures in life on? Because I guarantee you've got something you complain about.
It's an easy scapegoat in a world that wants more from them than they can provide. It makes you compare yourself constantly to the best performers and tells you that you are not enough and then offers a thought that drugging yourself just right would make you as happy and successful as you believe you deserve to be for trying so hard.
It's a shame life doesn't care and it's not what life is about.
Not that people shouldn't be able to get help when they have legitimate issues but we could be a lot more welcoming on those differences between each other with a different culture but that requires changing yourself and others in a way that is likely not possible and the drugs are easier.
whole life
Even with ADHD you're like, an full-ass adult, no? it's weird how people never actually grow into their independance. I see many people come up in their 30-40s and discover they have ADHD - what were you doing this whole time?
what were you doing this whole time
Assuming it was this hard for everyone else and I was just really, really, inexplicably bad at this....so I'll work harder to overcome my personal shortcomings!
Undiagnosed thought: "I'm always forgetting my important things, this is really difficult"
Society: "everyone forgets things"Undiagnosed thought: that fluorescent light is so incredibly loud and the way it flickers is creating this strange rainbow effect on my computer and it hurts my eyes and I'm really struggling here.
Society: working in an office sucks, the lights, the distractions, it's normal to have unfocused moments.You repeat enough of these thoughts - I feel like I'm struggling with my emotional regulation, could it be ADHD? Well as a teen it was hormones, as a uni student it was "freshman anxiety", then I was getting divorced so my emotional state was blamed on that, then I was always moving house so it made sense that my mood was always a hair trigger.
There were always just enough environmental factors to mask the underlying condition.
And it works! Until you burnout in your 30s because no one else is actually giving 150% all the time.
I did the same with a physical illness! I was born with a hip deformity so my whole life any pain or issues around my hips was just totally brushed off until I got aggressively assertive in my 20s because with the physical symptoms I was able to feel more confident in my perception of my reality and advocate to my doctor (where as with mental health, it's harder, sure I think I feel this symptom but it's in my head it's fleeting what if I'm remembering experiencing my own thoughts wrong? Years of describing how I feel to therapists, being told it's nothing out of the ordinary, so I've convinced myself it's nothing, but it's not nothing)
Turns out I had nerve damage in my spine the whole time, but we all just assumed I was being overly dramatic and sensitive about the known hip issue.
Same with my ADHD. We all (myself included) thought it was just really bad anxiety in addition to me being bad at sticking to the homework for therapy so it made sense I wasn't getting better.
But we know more about how it presents, so if I was a kid going through the process again I'd be less likely to be misdiagnosed in the first place.
You know when enough of society agrees on the whole light things, or forgetting things, or about noises...
Maybe, just maybe... Being a hyper focused machine used for mass productivity in a country designed around stripping as much value from your existence as possible....
That it maybe is a common position and the drugs to "equal" yourself to others is just a lie to make you think that is the normal way for people to live?
Most people aren't giving 150% because they don't think about anything they do and just hope for the best and rely on connections and luck to get through.
Pretty sure we as a society should be trying to accommodate other people and help them as they need to be needed instead of demanding conformity to a position we are just pretending is the normal. But hey when the drugs are this good...
It's a fair question, if you haven't gone through it. I agree: it seems ridiculous!
I grew up surrounded by authority figures who didn't have a nuanced understanding of mental health. I internalized being called "lazy" and "a procrastinator," because everyone told me that I was choosing to be bad at managing my time and focus!
I believed this right into the upper management of a tech company in my 30s. And I'd get down on myself constantly for zoning out during meetings and being overwhelmed at long-term complex tasks. "Wow I'm so lazy and unmotivated," I'd think to myself in between client meetings. For years.
A friend showed me the ADHD symptoms (probably after I zoned out for the thousandth time), and it was a shock and how closely they described my childhood, schooling, and professional and social life.
Some people do just fine with their coping mechanisms - I discovered that I had quite a few! But I made the choice to seek medication. Taking it was like breathing air for the first time.
So that's what I was doing.
Trying to fucking survive the last fucking 40 years of this life i didn't ask for
