Is ADHD a real disorder?

Incredible how an alternative to ADHD drugs is reducing sugar intake. GEE I WONDER WHY.

Maybe its because I'm missing the "hyper" part.

The issue is the fact that way too many GPs are diagnosing it in kids that don't have it. It gives the genuine condition a bad name.

Nowell, if you're concerned about it, should you see a psychologist [rather than a GP or psychiatrist]? They can help you without drugs, and can most likely shed light on what you're going through.

Real = Crabs

xpost: Chronic fatigue is sooo not fake.

OTM, I have an uncle who's like this. It led to his divorce.

Also: yes ADD is real, it has to do with certain neural pathways not being connected or something. I know that Ritalin does have a calming effect on me so that I concentrate more, although I don't have the "hyperactive" variant thank God. And I don't eat much sugar/junk food.

Yeah, at the very second an appointment or plan is made — without fail — you must set the alarm / reminder. Or it will be Lost To The Ages.

I have a sort of hottake theory that fear someone will get mad at you is actually a good ADHD management tool, albeit not the most pleasant one. It's sort of one of the things in my marriage that makes it work but that I don't normally talk about that my wife is not one to let things slide, lol. I think I actually respond really well to people who are willing to hold me accountable.

Really informative piece on the history of ADHD, with much on where we're at.

"Opening the amphetamine floodgates by dropping the neurobiological and moralistic justifications around ADHD would help a lot of people, but so too would changing the social imperatives and circumstances (cutthroat competition at work and in schools, a fraying social safety net, intensive smartphone and social media use, etc.) that spur amphetamine use."

https://thepointmag.com/politics/who-deserves-amphetamines/

I’m not an expert but I’m not sure it’s true that “no one knows what causes ADHD.” And the insinuation that our perception of its existence is due to our competitive society and strict schooling seems… well unverifiable at best. A lot of “hmm, just wondering” in this article when actually ADHD is probably the most studied condition on earth

"We could also just change the entire structure and nature of society" cool thinkpiece, one amphetamines please

Tracer I think it's actually cancer (and specifically breast cancer), if you go by NIH research funding.

https://www.globaldownsyndrome.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/NIH-pie-chart-2.jpg

The big teal slice is cancer

(That's not a great chart, but pretty much any "NIH funding by institute" data will show the same thing. There's cancer and everything else.

The National Cancer Institute gets four or five times the budget of neurological disorders or mental health.

YMP you could be right. I have heard there are "more studies" about ADHD published every year than anything else. Not sure of the relationship to money spent.

It's crunch time on some reports so I took an extra Adderall this afternoon. My bathroom hasn't been this clean all year.

I have a sort of hottake theory that fear someone will get mad at you is actually a good ADHD management tool, albeit not the most pleasant one. It's sort of one of the things in my marriage that makes it work but that I don't normally talk about that my wife is not one to let things slide, lol. I think I actually respond really well to people who are willing to hold me accountable.

I am starting to think I eventually alienate almost everyone by not noticing ways in which they are trying to hold me accountable because their methods of communication don't get through to me. My housemate has been trying to communicate to me apparently for years that I let fruit go bad in the fruit bowl and that this upsets her greatly because she routinely has to clean up moldy fruit. Her way of communicating is to say "ew, gross" whenever she finds moldy fruit. (She says she's done this many times, and I believe her, but I only remember it happening once or twice.) But to me, one conversation where she said "Hey, can we talk? You have a pattern of doing this, and it's affecting me, and I need you to make it stop," and it would have stopped. I can't tell if I'm being unreasonable by wanting people to talk to me that directly. I present pretty neurotypical as far as I can tell, so I think I've been blundering through life pissing people off and never noticing, and letting them think that I notice and don't care.

There's more to the housemate drama, which I talked about in the teacher thread. But basically ADHD + full-time teaching + migraines are not a great combo for making me sensitive to the feelings and needs of others, and I don't know what to do about that.

you may have adhd but your housemate seems to have 'passive-aggressive non-communication is actually the only form of communication that is possible syndrome' which is much worse imho. my motto is that for anyone who can't directly communicate their issue to me, that is 100% their problem and not mine.

Thank you map, that makes me feel a little better, though I suspect I'm not a reliable narrator here because I can't know what I didn't hear.

But a certain point I do start to feel like the guy in Memento whose wife keeps letting him inject her with insulin because she's like, "surely at some point he HAS to remember that he keeps doing this," and it's like, no, that is literally not how his brain works any percent of the time, you are multiplying numbers by zero and expecting to get something other than zero.

Habit-forming can be really hard for ppl with adhd, as well as managing little tasks that seem obvious to neurotypical ppl (like throwing away rotten fruit). I used to get so fucking mad at my husband over these little things that it *seemed* he wouldn’t do - all little things but I would snap at him and be like “why can’t you just [put the peanut butter in the same place you always get it from so I don’t have to hunt for it every time; put your pills back in the cupboard bc this tiny vanity is always cluttered with yr shit; stop leaving your shoes in a goddamn spot where I trip on them; put the damn empty toilet roll in the garbage that is right fucking there, closer than the vanity where you always leave it]”.

I took it so personally that he couldn’t do these simple things when I made it clear how annoying they all were. It took years for me to realize he genuinely struggled to remember or to see things that were obvious to me. I know this guy, I know he’s not dismissive or lazy, I know he’s thoughtful and respectful. And I could see how terrible he felt every time I screeched at him over these things. He hated it but he couldn’t avoid it. Then I realized what was going on, and that if these small things were his biggest faults, I needed to fucking chill. So now I just don’t really care. And I’ve easily developed habits on his behalf (he would never ever put in wallet/keys etc in the same place, so when we get home from somewhere I now just automatically say “keys wallet” and he puts them in there spot; if we’re visiting ppl he puts his shit down and never remembers to collect it all so now it’s a reflex to say, as we’re leaving “got your keys? Wallet? Sunnies? Phone?”

Except for the goddamn shoes. That still annoys me tbh.

I agree with map, but for your own comfort, lily, I think I’d just explain to yr roommate (if you haven’t already) that if something is a problem she needs to just say it bluntly. ADHD is a disability and you’re more than allowed to ask for accommodations.

for me i'm into accountability for sure, but fear and shame, they don't work super good for me. when i feel that way, i avoid whatever is making me feel ashamed. like, one of the things my ex would say to me is "you keep leaving the cupboard doors open". it's true. i did, i kept leaving the cupboard doors open. i denied it, though, i always denied it... i hear someone telling me something i'm doing wrong, but i don't know how to do it _right_. so i kept leaving the cupboard doors open and they kept getting frustrated with me. every time that happened, she had negative feelings about me, i had negative feelings about me, and nothing happened to change the situation.

well, we broke up eventually. to my mind, it _wasn't_ because we didn't communicate effectively. our inability to communicate effectively sure as hell made that breakup difficult, though.

Yeah, it's interesting that this thread is talking about ADHD and relationships, because that's something I've been thinking about a lot lately. My wife and I are both non-neurotypical. I am ADHD. She would probably have several diagnoses, but has only spent limited time with mental health professionals many decades ago so I don't really know the total extent. ADHD is definitely among them though. We have a lot of conflict in our relationship. It's very emotionally unhealthy and we would probably be better off not being together, but the process of divorce is so daunting. I have an extreme aversion to big life events like that, and just "go along to get along" because the process of change feels like my brain would get ripped out of my skull.

Anyway, lately, as I've been pondering my own ADHD, it's become more apparent to me that many of her actions that I have interpreted as irresponsibility or callousness could also be attributable to disability. It's difficult, because disability or not, I still feel disrespected.

At the same time, I've been having difficulty with a work colleague recently because she has occasionally taken personal offense at behaviors of mine (forgetfulness, disorganization, misunderstandings) that are linked to ADHD. I suspect that this colleague is non-neurotypical as well.

As David Berman asked, "Why can't monsters get along with other monsters?"

see to me this is where i start looking at things from a "neurodivergent" framework. i do have challenges that neurotypical people don't, but really, the example i gave... why should that example be specific to neurodivergent people? i'm not sure my having ADHD is even relevant to what happened in that situation. it's just about appreciating that people are different, that what may be easy for one person is hard for another, that blaming and shaming someone for having difficulty doing something that might be easy for another person doesn't _help_, doesn't lead to good outcomes.

it's easy for me to look at that situation from another perspective. like, i expect things to be in a certain place, and if i have a partner who puts things in a _different_ place, i get upset. i could say "that's not where that belongs!" or, maybe they don't have a rigid and precise sense of where things _belong_ like i do. maybe they can't remember. i mean, it's ok for them to not be able to remember something like that, right? people can only do what they can do. it's not _really_ a question of "you did it wrong, stop doing it wrong" but finding a way to take this unhealthy pattern and make it healthy. and that's not going to be done entirely through negative feedback!

it blows my mind that being praised is literally a _fetish_ for so many people. it's, like, seen as _demimonde_ somehow to have a deep hunger for praise and validation. that's fucking _wild_. my girlfriend and i, who are both highly neurodivergent, we praise each other _all the time_, sincerely. when one of us does something that's hard, that's praiseworthy. you did the dishes! good job! you set a boundary! good job! even things that people might not normally be praiseworthy. my girlfriend comes to me in crisis, she's in a bad way, she hasn't taken care of herself, she feels so much guilt and shame about doing these things and not telling me, the first thing i tell her is what a good job she's done, that she's taking care of herself, that i'm proud of her. that's just not the life experience i grew up with!

as to david berman's question... i thought of myself as a monster for a long time. it was kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy... if i saw myself as a monster, i felt i had to act like one. i'm not a monster. i don't have to act like one. that's a big part of the answer, for me. when i care about myself, when i believe i'm worth caring about, i behave in ways that don't just benefit me, but often benefit the people around me. that's what i've found.

My ADHD son just finished his 10th grade year and here's the pattern we get: Grades that started out the year strong slowly drooped over the winter and spring due to his inability to remember to finish assignments and turn them in, so we basically got a bunch of C averages heading into the home stretch that then got bounced up to B's because he got A's on all his final exams. He's super smart and has always tested off the charts, but he just can't keep himself focused on all the stuff between the tests. Partly, once he knows he understands the material, he doesn't feel like he should have to keep messing around and keeping track of piddly assignments proving it over and over.

Vyvanse has helped, but obviously can only do so much. I hope he can somehow parlay all of that into a career. He wants to go into engineering or physics (astronomy in particular, but he's open), but I keep telling him those things are very detail-oriented. I don't know, maybe if/once he's working on things he's genuinely interested in it'll be better. Drives me a little nuts because he could be an A student if he just kept better track and did the grunt work, but he just can't get himself focused on it.

I do wonder about the "detail oriented" thing, I have done some very detailed work before and otoh have completely forgotten to do vital tasks. there just always has to be something or someone providing reminders but not treating you like a stupid child for needing constant reminders.

tipsy, your son's experience pretty much parallels my K-12 years (and first year of college). High highs, low lows, placement in advanced classes, flunking or getting booted out of other classes for goofin' around. The ability was there but the interest was highly variable. The fact that you've recognized and are addressing the symptoms is a huge step in the right direction. I wasn't diagnosed until well into adulthood, and I still struggle, but the work I do now is detail-oriented to an extent that's very nearly insane (tracking the degree progress and other academic minutia of 1000+ undergraduate students via complex systems I mostly had to create for myself from the ground up). And I know that some of the students I support struggle similarly but are still able to function at a very high level. Embracing challenge is key to success when your brain works like this, I find.

FWIW, watching my 7th grader right now, just keeping track of assignments and turning them in is insane given all the online coursework and learning content post-COVID.

In some ways, everything being online is a positive, but the assignments for some classes (especially math) span multiple online platforms, and just figuring out how to sign in correctly can cause problems. In one case, my kid's work wasn't even counted because they used the wrong account on some vendor's website. We had to figure this out after noticing many missing assignments.

And then the online assignment tracking is also confusing. For our school, most of the work is done with a popular web classroom product, but the official gradebook and some of the work happen on another product entirely. To add to it, my kid's school email is packed to the gills with notifications whose priority is difficult to distinguish.

It seems to me you need whatever the opposite of ADHD is to even sort through this mess.

there just always has to be something or someone providing reminders but not treating you like a stupid child for needing constant reminders.

lol yes we struggle with this a lot. Plus also obv we want him to get to a point where he is better at it himself. Part of me thinks he'll be fine, he can figure stuff out once he realizes he really needs to. But it makes for a lot of ups and downs along the way.

with ADHD there's a disconnect between what the symptoms look like from the outside and what they feel like from the inside, so while it looks like I've figured a lot of things out, in reality I am working in overdrive to juggle all of my responsibilities and have this intricate network of systems in place, and always at risk of dropping one thing and having everything spiral out of control. I have so many things on, all the time, I don't want to even list them as thinking about it is already giving me the fear. And though I would really value people taking some of the weight of this off my shoulders, I will never ask for it because I've had 45 years of conditioning into thinking that I will be judged as being feeble-minded, and the general vibe I get from most people is that this is basically correct.

Tipsy your kid is me and I can't say it's worked out that great in the long run but I've only been medicated for a year.

Anyway, I am struggling with meds and eating and weightloss. I've lost 20 pounds since starting Vyvanse. I look good and people are starting to notice but I have a lifelong history with eating disorders and it is fucking with me. I'm now nervous about the medication shortages because what if I can't get the meds and I get fat again? Fuck. I should not be worried about this and yet and yet. I hate that the same meds that are helping with the ADHD are also making me spiral.

Yeah, I should probably do something about getting a diagnosis for this (if for nothing else, to cross it off the board)

Oh hey yeah this happened!

(time to test a bit of ILX BBCode that I never have before)

• I went to the GP (probably shortly after I posted that, in 2021), they said "the referral list is two years long and also you have to fill out the questionnaire"
• I failed the questionnaire due to being able to hold down a job and a relationship and not being a 15-year-old kid who's a danger to themselves.
• And (like friends who have late autism diagnoses), the fact that I've got to my late 40s means that I have some structure going on (too much, sometimes - lists in Google Docs, and Todoist, and a list randomizer....)
• A year or so later, I'm sitting through a presentation from my work's health insurance on "all the things you might not know we cover!" (subtext: use more of these, you bastards, or your work will get a cheaper plan)
• And they say that they don't cover ADHD / Autism, except as part of a general mental health diagnosis.
• Sure, that's fine, not being able to do my job is having an effect on me!
• A few initial "you have 5 minutes, how many keywords can you hit?" interviews - I have never been suicidal but a few times I have, at 2am when I should have been in bed 3 and a half hours ago, thought "I don't want to kill myself, but between killing myself and fixing myself, killing myself is probably easier", and I passed that off as tender for the question, feeling a little queasy about doing so.
• 6 months for an initial mental health assessment then 6 months for ADHD-specific assessments.
• And then "yes, I'd be happy to say you have ADHD, what are your thoughts on drugs?" (and the sound of the money hose being turned off, everything since then has been from my own pocket)
• And most of a year of titration, trying drugs at various dosages - the one I landed on in October last year (60mg Elvanse) snuck up on me, I wasn't sure it was working until the psychiatrist suggested I cut it out for a week - turns out it was really working!
• And it doesn't cure everything, I need to watch myself on some things - and my sleep is still terrible.
• But when it works it works - I was seconded off a team recently (I'm a computer programmer), and when I left I wrote up everything that had been on my "fix in passing" lists, from big projects to tiny things, with context, and things to look out for, and for the really big ones "we need to do this in 20 places, I've done one of them here as an example that you might follow". And when I got to the end I thought this is good, this is actual senior level stuff, and I could not do that two years ago.
• And my boss agrees, he's put me forward for the highest level at the yearly appraisal - I might not get it because of stupid huge company stuff, but it's just nice to for it to be recognised.
• Going private during the titration was expensive - cost to see the psychiatrist every month, and cost for him to write the prescription, and cost to fill it (and of course more the higher the dose). But it was a fixed-length thing (in theory), and I was able to move stuff around for a while. Getting referred back to the NHS was a mess - it took forever for them to decide that all they could do was sit me down with the questionnaire again, and this time I was (as quietly advised by them) actively lying, in that I was channelling me three years ago, not me as I am now, applying to be considered for the treatment that I'm already taking, and that I know works.
• But I got the letter, and I'm on the waiting list, which is will be somewhere between 2 and 11 years. In the meantime I'm shelling out every six months for a check-in the psychiatrist, and every three months for one prescription and three months-worth of the drugs - it's not great but I feel very lucky it works.
• And that's actually the note - I imagine this sounds very measured because it's a story I've told a lot of times in a lot of venues, but really the key is holy shit, my head works again!
• But it works more with more sleep, and I should probably leave it there - one thing that hasn't changed is that I have never left a meeting / post and not had three things to add 15 minutes later, but so it goes.

Fuckin A, AF, so nice to hear a story of making progress thru this ridiculous disability.

At the same time, at least 80% of the steps that have caused you trouble are 100% a product of the stupid US healthcare system. Similar story for me but I didn’t have to pay for anything or jump through hoops to get diagnosed or find the right med and dosage because of a combination of a) single-payer healthcare, b) a medical culture that’s not beholden to private insurance and so you don’t have to jump through a million hoops & meet stupid deductible limits to get where you need to be, and c) good employer insurance that covers para-medical practitioners like psychiatrists and social workers & also covers drugs really well.

Canada’s healthcare system isn’t a patch on most of Europe’s, but it’s a veritable paradise compared to the US’s disaster zone.

More/better sleep, nutritious food, and regular exercise. Such a deadfuck boring thing to have to dole out to yourself every goddamn day. But it’s at least 50% of the prescription.

"but really the key is holy shit, my head works again!"

congrats!

i am getting there too! i just went up on my main med and i feel a lot better already. more with it. more focused. able to think more clearly and also just quicker mentally. i was hoping to go the non-stimulant route and find something that worked for me and i really did. i take 2mg of guanfacine at night and now 80 mg of atomoxetine. i learned too late that ssri drugs can be really bad for people with adhd and that was REALLY the case for me. i spent all summer so miserable on one of them. same thing happened six years ago when i went on them after quitting smoking. i was set to see a drug shrink to talk about stimulants and my doctor person suggested the strattera/atomoxetine thing. and later i read that guanfacine was a good adhd alternative to clonidine which i had been taking at night already.
the next step for me is to get a therapist and talk about how not to feel huge fucking regret for not getting help for something that has plagued me and made me miserable since i was 13. better late than never!

Big hugs and congratulations to all of you getting through it.

im going to read that a few times, im getting assessed end of month after almost a two year wait, and a lot of that sounds like its already applicable and/or will be after that process

glad for you that it seems to be taking shape tho!

Thank you, hardcore dilettante, scott, and Capitaine! And good luck with the therapist, scott.

At the same time, at least 80% of the steps that have caused you trouble are 100% a product of the stupid US healthcare system

I mean, the figure is probably higher than I'd like, but it's still the NHS - or specifically, NHS Scotland. A lot of well-meaning friends have advised me to quote two things to GP: the Shared Care Agreement, which is a framework for referral back from private to public, and the Right To Choose, which essentially allows you to shop around to find a GP that will support the Shared Care agreement. Scotland doesn't have the second, which means that it frequently doesn't have the first, and I definitely don't.

This is, in fairness, probably related to the other difference, where it's generally free to fill a prescription in Scotland.

Paying it privately (and a few other things) means that I now feel confident enough to switch jobs - but the jobs I'd actually like to switch to pay a lot less, so I'm stuck here - hey, I guess it is like the US system!

My ADHD guru suggested I ask after clonidine to see if it'll help with the sleeping, must remember to do that.

xp yeah one of the side-effects of being able to concentrate for long periods of time is that I now tend to produce walls of text, so my own people can't hear me!

I saw the comedian Sarah Keyworth last year explain that the reason there's so many people investigating the path these days is that it's only recently that there's been short videos where people will explain it to you - before that you had to read a fucking book.

Anyway all luck to you, man!

"My ADHD guru suggested I ask after clonidine to see if it'll help with the sleeping, must remember to do that."

clonidine does help with sleep, but the guanfacine i switched to is given specifically to people who have adhd and is similar to clonidine (both originally a blood pressure drug) and actually helps you the next day as well. i prefer it but everyone is different.

i take it before bed like i did clonidine. its not super-strong or anything. definitely helps you to relax.

Thank you, hardcore dilettante, scott, and Capitaine! And good luck with the therapist, scott.

_At the same time, at least 80% of the steps that have caused you trouble are 100% a product of the stupid US healthcare system_

I mean, the figure is probably higher than I'd like, but it's still the NHS - or specifically, NHS Scotland. A lot of well-meaning friends have advised me to quote two things to GP: the Shared Care Agreement, which is a framework for referral back from private to public, and the Right To Choose, which essentially allows you to shop around to find a GP that will support the Shared Care agreement. Scotland doesn't have the second, which means that it frequently doesn't have the first, and I definitely don't.

This is, in fairness, probably related to the other difference, where it's generally free to fill a prescription in Scotland.

Paying it privately (and a few other things) means that I now feel confident enough to switch jobs - but the jobs I'd actually like to switch to pay a lot less, so I'm stuck here - hey, I guess it is like the US system!

My ADHD guru suggested I ask after clonidine to see if it'll help with the sleeping, must remember to do that.

To be clearer: Canada’s “single-payer” system basically means that if you need hospital care you won’t have to pay for care or drugs received while there. Visits to a GP are covered, that sort of thing.

If you have a chronic condition and need meds, though, get fucked unless you have employer coverage or pay for private insurance out of pocket.

sheesh, that doesn't seem right. i didn't know that about Canada.

Maria and I have Masshealth here and pay nothing for medicine. Honestly, I never thought I would be so glad to be a pauper with children but we have never paid for anything and Maria has had major surgery and everything. Health, dental, therapy, cheap eyeglasses if i want them. I wouldn't be able to get my teeth looking like a movie star but I am actually getting teeth pulled tomorrow and I don't pay for that either. i'm scared though...i get the existential terrors whenever i have heavy teeth stuff done.

other kinds of therapy are covered too. and gender-affirming care as well.

"MassHealth pays for therapy services that are determined medically necessary. After 20 physical therapy visits, 20 occupational therapy visits, or 35 speech/language therapy visits, your therapist must get PA from MassHealth for MassHealth to cover more therapy services of that type within a 12-month period."

"MassHealth covers a number of medically necessary gender-affirming treatments for members with gender dysphoria, including gender-affirming surgery (GAS) and hair removal. GAS includes, but is not limited to, gender-affirming chest, genital, and facial surgery."

i say a prayer to mitt romney every night. he got the ball rolling when he was governor. we had great insurance from my union when i worked at the hospital on Marthas Vineyard and then got on the masshealth train when we moved to where we are now. its not perfect and you have to re-do a lot of red tape paperwork every once in a while which sucks and can be stressful but i can honestly say that everyone i have seen at the hospital here and all the medical offices and mental health places have been really nice! which feels like a rarity when i hear the horror stories out there. we got lucky. as far as where we live.

Yeah. Living and working in healthcare in MA I think I was totally shielded from what a nightmare insurance or not having it is for people in other states.
I'm still taking vyvanse. I like it aside from the appetite stuff.

two teeth pulled. oxy for a week. free! oof. i feel woozy. i saved the one wisdom tooth they pulled. its huge.

i had to tell the surgeon about the redhead pain thing. he thought i was joking. i told him to google it. they probably don't have a lot of Redhead Science classes at medical schools in India.

on my first visit the tech/helper/nurse told me that the oral surgeon had once RUN A HOSPITAL. and here he is in a tiny windowless room yanking on my teeth in the bitter cold of the Pioneer Valley. he was nice though. very handsome. could have been a Bollywood star.

haha i first heard about the redhead pain thing this year. known only to redheads and theirs i guess.

At the same time, at least 80% of the steps that have caused you trouble are 100% a product of the stupid US healthcare system.

not a personal judgement against you hardcore dilettante but i feel like here in the us, we're so used to the utter disaster that is the us healthcare system that we perhaps don't appreciate the horror that is the NHS when it comes to "behavioral health"

genuinely i feel like i have it better in the US simply for not having to be gatekept by the NHS

other kinds of therapy are covered too. and gender-affirming care as well.

― scott seward

speaking of areas in which i feel extremely fortunate to have coverage under the otherwise horrific and nightmarish us healthcare system lol

Scott, interested to hear about your experiences with Guanfacine and Clonidine. I have an ADHD coach who passed me some research about their use in managing the Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) and hyperarousal aspects of ADHD.

These diagnostic questions were part of a presentation by a psychiatrist called William Dodson.

https://imgur.com/a/b123aU0

3 out of 4 yesses there, I sleep fine.

That landed just before Christmas and I have to book in with my GP to talk about it. (I pay through the nose for my GP, the increasing gap between what Medicare will pay for a GP visit and how much it costs to run a medical practice means it can be quite hard to find someone who just takes the government rebate, drugs are subsidized and cheap though)

The other thing he turned me on to was a book called ADHD 2.0 and the authors’ proposal of a diagnosis of VAST - Variable Attention Stimulus Trait - for the induced rather than congenital form of ADHD. The definition matters more to clinicians than for sufferers but the insight that you can train a brain into ADHD suggests you can (partially) train a brain out of it.

That was useful for me. Training balance, due to its effect on building the vestibular system is apparently very useful. There’s some expensive quackery around this but also lots of exercises you can do, I try to remember to do some at the standing desk and have built some into my pilates. I’m also taking my son to gym class every week and we’re doing lots of balance beam stuff at the moment. Both his parents have ADHD and so maybe this will help - but it’s also huge fun.

The other thing has been adopting a non-screen based hobby. This came from a friend connected to child rearing not ADHD, but it seems to be good for both. Right now I’m soldering Japanese brass model train kits together in the evenings when I get a chance. I thought it might be music making but that’s too digital or at least the analogue version has me not good enough to make it satisfying.

Scott, interested to hear about your experiences with Guanfacine and Clonidine. I have an ADHD coach who passed me some research about their use in managing the Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) and hyperarousal aspects of ADHD.

These diagnostic questions were part of a presentation by a psychiatrist called William Dodson.

https://imgur.com/a/b123aU0

3 out of 4 yesses there, I sleep fine.

That landed just before Christmas and I have to book in with my GP to talk about it. (I pay through the nose for my GP, the increasing gap between what Medicare will pay for a GP visit and how much it costs to run a medical practice means it can be quite hard to find someone who just takes the government rebate, drugs are subsidized and cheap though)

The other thing he turned me on to was a book called ADHD 2.0 and the authors’ proposal of a diagnosis of VAST - Variable Attention Stimulus Trait - for the induced rather than congenital form of ADHD. The definition matters more to clinicians than for sufferers but the insight that you can train a brain into ADHD suggests you can (partially) train a brain out of it.

That was useful for me. Training balance, due to its effect on building the vestibular system is apparently very useful. There’s some expensive quackery around this but also lots of exercises you can do, I try to remember to do some at the standing desk and have built some into my pilates. I’m also taking my son to gym class every week and we’re doing lots of balance beam stuff at the moment. Both his parents have ADHD and so maybe this will help - but it’s also huge fun.

The other thing has been adopting a non-screen based hobby. This came from a friend connected to child rearing not ADHD, but it seems to be good for both. Right now I’m soldering Japanese brass model train kits together in the evenings when I get a chance. I thought it might be music making but that’s too digital or at least the analogue version has me not good enough to make it satisfying.

this is in the Guardian today

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jan/23/adults-diagnosed-adhd-shorter-life-expectancy-attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder

mixed feelings about it, yes it's good to have some recognition of the real problems we face, but the writer seems to be pretty clueless about the mechanisms through which this happens, going from vagueries about inattention to guesses about drug abuse. you could read this quickly and come away with the impression that the problem is with being diagnosed, so don't get diagnosed.

i read a similar NYT article today. the smoking and drinking cutting life expectancy of adhd people makes sense to me. adhd is a very frustrating and depressing thing to have and especially if you don't seek help for it. i self-medicated for 30+ years with booze and cigarettes.

"The other thing has been adopting a non-screen based hobby."

i like this idea as long as i can watch t.v. while i'm doing my new hobby.

lol yup

so sad that something this stupid resonates with me.

https://scontent-bos5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/475654126_2869164343282318_1959727555799737815_n.jpg?_nc_cat=109&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=Lt_TZ1pha4UQ7kNvgHiQ33V&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-bos5-1.xx&_nc_gid=AoAK3ndtevTPOQmCT-5onRB&oh=00_AYD5kaI_kUONWmdIYAqVNOTDuoS8y2DXAtf6SWSBG-dD-g&oe=67A08D2F

i'm one step closer to a therapist. the intake person left me a message on the answering machine! soclose. i'm hoping they give me some tricks of the trade. learn how to listen better. learn how not to step on people's words. learn how to be positive when someone tells me something positive! how do i not know how to do that by now? why can't i just say "that's great!". i don't want to think that i have to learn how to be a better liar but that's what it feels like sometimes. its not natural for me.