> I stumble on a problem like this one and I stay up late every night until I find the solution. I wake up early each morning with new ideas of things to try. I don’t take enough breaks, but when I do, they’re tactically-designed to exploit my brain’s asynchronous processor to generate solutions for whatever I’m currently stuck on. I irresponsibly defer responsibilities from other areas of my life. Eventually, I realize I’m only at the 20% mark and that a pattern is repeating where a month or more of my life is about to disappear from the calendar. Towards the end, I find myself rushing to find the maze’s exit because my desire to unlock the puzzle’s final secret starts to be overtaken by the shame of all the other balls I’m dropping. It’s excruciating as I approach that inflection point—as intense as an overbearing manager’s “do or die” deadlines ever were, except in this case the pressure I feel is entirely self-imposed.
> I ruminate endlessly under stress, so I wrest back some control by manufacturing stress responses over things I’m building to trick my brain into ruminating on work that’s useful to me.
> I’m a terrible listener and struggle with auditory processing,
> Parsing others’ sentences often feels like I’m filling in the blanks to make sense of them,
> I’m a really bad learner—disinterested, distractible, and disagreeable. I’ve never enjoyed learning and generally avoid it, especially learning for its own sake. At the slightest discomfort when struggling to understand something, I’ll grasp for any distraction that might offer me a momentary escape.
I don't see any mention of ADHD in the post, so I think I should say: if the author happens to read this, please consider speaking to your doctor and seeking an assessment.
Treatment can be massively beneficial to your quality of life.
Yeah I'm not going to diagnose some illness from a quote, but by their own admission they are low on sleep. A lot of the symptoms they describe also happen to sleep deprived people. Fixing the sleep schedule alone would yield countless benefits, and ultimately I think the best way to fix your sleep schedule if you work a desk job is to work out exhaustively. Your tired body will overpower your restless brain and put you to sleep.
Personal anecdote: Quit caffeine. Worked wonders for me. Seems that I have some big sensitivity to it, so when I quit my sleep was better than it has ever been. Not going to work for everyone, and yes the headaches are pretty bad, but it's worth a shot.
Sadly psychiatric conditions like ADHD remain quite stigmatised. I assume keyle wouldn't speak so derisively of someone suggesting to speak to a medical professional about a list of physical symptoms.
Well since you call my name, I'm just saying: any time someone complains about focus or learning on the internet, here comes the old "probably ADHD" guy/gal.
The internet is making everyone productivity addicts, can't just live anymore and be different.
If the author does not bring ADHD in the conversation, I think it's rude to find him a condition on the back of his post, which is far more interesting than isolating a paragraph and pulling a diagnosis on him.
It has nothing to do with the blog post quality or being different the guy has multiple key sentences which map to key ADHD experiences/symptoms. For those of us living with ADHD its just an empathy response as many of us have suffered from experiences which closely map to what he described in that paragraph. We are often just looking to share as many of us have improved our lives substantially after someone suggesting we should get ourselves checked out.
On this part in particular while it can be great to deeply follow your passion with extreme focus; pursuing things regardless of their importance in your overall life and at the cost of other interests, relationships, or responsibilities can be an empty and unfulfilling existence in the end. Furthermore life can be markedly better with the correct interventions and treatment.
People seemingly get offended by even a suggestion because many people have extreme stigma against conditions like ADHD as well as a lot of misinformation from people have very little understanding of the actual traits, diagnostic criteria, treatment and prevalence of it.
(happily) psychiatric conditions like ADHD remain quite (profitable). I assume (anyone getting paid because of this) wouldn't speak so derisively of someone suggesting to speak to a medical (professional) about a list of physical symptoms.
This. His story is very similar to mine. I was super lucky that my (persistent ASD) special interest got fixed to computers from a young age, and ADHD has been both my superpower and my nemesis. But I wasn't aware of all of this, just got my diagnosis this year and started treatment. Everything changed, both in terms of work output quality and consistency, and all other things like social stuff.
If you have any suspicion that you might have ADHD, *go test it*.
You just go see a psychiatrist or a psychiatric nurse practitioner and ask them to perform an evaluation. Many GPs can also perform/refer you as well. ADHD understanding and awareness was very low before the 2000s/2010s many people in their late 20s/30s/40s went undiagnosed.
I had even stereotypical symptoms as a child but just wasn't tested.
Bro you're 40. Google for list of therapists and psychs in your area, call them.
Mention you've been struggling with these symptoms for years and there has been a lot of discussion online about, you're not sure if you have a real case or something else, but you'd like to do some evaluations.
They'll usually tell you if they'll do that, or not, and could often refer you to someone who would.
Speaking as an almost-40 whose ADHD was untreated until recently: Contrary to your suggestion, being almost 40 did not make the process of navigating the medical labyrinth (Canada) to get assessed/treated any easier. Almost like I had an attention disorder or something.
rofl. hard to find a mental health professional who takes our insurance (US) and has any idea how to help.
if it was easy, id have sought help decades ago. love how people think "oh man its such an easy solution" when it is, in fact, a lot of work. My fiance had periods that lasted months, and not a single doctor would even consider looking at root causes "have you considered that maybe its all in your head?" getting the right treatment is in no way easy, especially when its a mental disorder that you can "cope with".
I'm 30 now, and I got my diagnosis and started treatment at the beginning of this year. I live in a second-hand country, and our culture has been shaped into what it is now by communism and decades of corruption. This has a huge impact on everything, medical system included. Getting diagnosed with ADHD as an adult is pretty rare and only happens in a few places, where the doctors have been keeping themselves up to date and are actually professionals.
The first time I went to the psychiatrist to ask to be tested for this was three years ago. They told me I can't have it, because if I did I wouldn't be able to maintain a job, and being able to do good at work, especially as a dev, should be impossible. They said I'm depressive and put me on SSRIs that fucked me up for 6 months.
I was depressive, been like this ever since I was able to reason for myself and figured out that neither me nor others know what the f* this whole thing I'm waking up is, but my depression is my always-there companion, that keeps me humble and thoughtful of life. What the SSRIs did to me was very different, and much, much worse.
Adult testing is a thing, and I'm not mad at all for not getting a diagnosis earlier, I'm just grateful that it happened at all.
I have the exact symptoms, but in addition I also get easily distracted when I'm working (if it's not super interesting). Which is an actual problem at times. I've not been diagnosed, and I don't feel I need it. I'm doing fine regardless.
Likewise, it seems that the author isn't suffering from his condition, so I don't think medication is necessary.
Most with ADHD are born with it. They don’t know any other world, like many colorblind don’t know they can’t see some colors. They feel just as normal as everybody, because what would they, there is no way to compare, so why diagnose and treat it anyway?
ADHD isn’t only a “now” problem. By small cuts it pushes into aggressive behaviors, megalomanias, depressions and even suicides (2x more incidence). Having ADHD means higher chance to abuse drugs, cheat on partners or die in a car crash due to reckless driving.
Managing ADHD isn’t only the drugs (and the trend is to avoid them unless necessary) but first and foremost a great deal of self acceptance. Small changes in behaviors can help alleviate ADHD symptoms and increase quality of life by removing those small cuts.
One of the symptoms or ADHD is ODD (not expanding acronym on purpose), and I believe ODD is exactly what prevents many ADHD folk from getting help they really could use.
If the guy has a disorder it is certainly not a Deficit of Attention. He's just not interested in what does not interest him. Maybe his lifestyle is not healthy, but not for the lack of attention, maybe in fact too much of it. But who's to know better?
This is also just straight up FUD. ADHD is one of the few psychiatric conditions that has numerous effective medications which work reliably for a large part of the effected population.
Stimulants work for a large number of people diagnosed with ADHD with very little negative effects and are safe modulo a few exceptions for long term use.
Some individuals have negative experiences with Stimulant medications but I know from personal experience and from many friends in the ADHD community stimulants have literally been life saving for them.
They don't just reach for them because they are out to get you but they are effective for many people.
Furthermore many people who choose to forgo medication develop lifestyle and substance use issues which negative effects far out weigh low dose stimulants.
As other commenters said they are just a tool you still have to work on interventions, behavior modification, and so on.
At the end of the day in many ways ADHD is a disability (even if sometimes a super power) and you can't just delete it with a prescription.
Even if you forgo meds there are so many ways to boost your attention and quality of life and lots of research on what is effective, treatment can be much more than just medication.
It's important to build skills with stimulants that you can still use while off them. Organizing, using calendars, stuff like that.
There was a point in my life where I was unable to function in society, and the stimulants did save me. I decided to slowly ween myself off of them since, and don't have any regrets about having taken them in the first place.
If I lost 5-10 years from my lifespan from taking stimulants, I still think it was worth it. Staying realistic about them was key for me.
This is not true. Stimulant medication can form part of the treatment, for some people. But it's not the only kind of medication, and not the only kind of therapy.
Anyway, I suggest that anyone concerned seeks the advice of a doctor, not random internet posters.
That would be because Stratteta is a second-line treatment that's less effective and has more negative side effects than Adderall, and Bupropion and Modafinil have a very weak body of evidence supporting their use for ADHD. Bupropion and Modafinil are still stimulants, you might as well give a patient a smaller dose of Adderall for the same effect.
As for therapy, it's not really a great solution for ADHD. It can certainly help, but it's not going to give you the internal drive to do boring things that you were born without. In my experience, therapists also don't know how to treat ADHD, it's not really in their wheelhouse.
> Bupropion and Modafinil are still stimulants, you might as well give a patient a smaller dose of Adderall for the same effect.
Suggesting these substances have the "same effect" makes me think you haven't tried them to know the difference. Saying low dose adderall is effectively the same as them is absurd. They aren't controlled and prone to abuse, which what you are dancing around.
Having gone down that road I completely agree with you, but some who haven't come to that realization have a pretty negative reaction to the suggestion that stims have downsides and can't be used indefinitely.
> I stumble on a problem like this one and I stay up late every night until I find the solution. I wake up early each morning with new ideas of things to try. I don’t take enough breaks, but when I do, they’re tactically-designed to exploit my brain’s asynchronous processor to generate solutions for whatever I’m currently stuck on. I irresponsibly defer responsibilities from other areas of my life. Eventually, I realize I’m only at the 20% mark and that a pattern is repeating where a month or more of my life is about to disappear from the calendar. Towards the end, I find myself rushing to find the maze’s exit because my desire to unlock the puzzle’s final secret starts to be overtaken by the shame of all the other balls I’m dropping. It’s excruciating as I approach that inflection point—as intense as an overbearing manager’s “do or die” deadlines ever were, except in this case the pressure I feel is entirely self-imposed.
> I ruminate endlessly under stress, so I wrest back some control by manufacturing stress responses over things I’m building to trick my brain into ruminating on work that’s useful to me.
> I’m a terrible listener and struggle with auditory processing,
> Parsing others’ sentences often feels like I’m filling in the blanks to make sense of them,
> I’m a really bad learner—disinterested, distractible, and disagreeable. I’ve never enjoyed learning and generally avoid it, especially learning for its own sake. At the slightest discomfort when struggling to understand something, I’ll grasp for any distraction that might offer me a momentary escape.
I don't see any mention of ADHD in the post, so I think I should say: if the author happens to read this, please consider speaking to your doctor and seeking an assessment.
Treatment can be massively beneficial to your quality of life.