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
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.
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.
Thanks for the suggestion, but I think it’s too shallow vs the actual experience. The depth at which ND people are marginalized is so far and away under presented today. Most of the established science is just wrong and resistant to the reality that ND led researchers are presenting. We need to do better at advocating for ourselves as an entire group with shared experiences and unique mental and physical health issues.
The next best analogy I’ve heard so far is NT people are Windows based software running in a Windows based world, ND people are MacOS software being forced to run on Windows (suspend your IT mind about how it wouldn’t work at all, and understand that for a lot of ND folks, it doesn’t). Get on the correct runtime environment and a lot of issues go away. That’s just really hard to do when the world is primarily built for the 85%-95% NT population, and many of the most capable in the ND population are either ignorant or in denial due to lack of acknowledgement, and stigmatization of anything that would be acknowledged.
People can not agree with what I’m saying, I’m sure it sounds absurd especially if you are NT. I doubt I would have agreed with it two years ago, but introspection after my own realizations that I’m autistic, after over 30+ years of living with this brain, I understand things quite differently now.
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.
Life is a constant struggle and was for basically all of our ancestors.
If you think life is only happy and free of inner conflict then that’s only because the drugs.
Why don’t you go chop off one of your arms. Since life is a constant struggle, more struggle must be good right? You should definitely make your life HARDER.
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.
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?
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.
My parents just didn’t know what to do and dropped me out of school at 14. I made good grades for the first semester in school every year, then I was moved beside the teacher’s desk and had straight Fs for the rest of the year.
My daughter has developed the same problems as me, mostly after her mom was diagnosed with cancer and then passed away, but I’m trying to get her medicated (if that’s what she needs, and I think it ultimately is). She’s 16 now, on mood stabilizers as of a month ago. The doctor seems to think that will do it.
She ticked every box for adhd which didn’t surprise me at all. I think they’re afraid to give her anything too big because of a history of addiction in the family.
I don’t know. I just hope she ends up doing better than I have since she’s actually being treated.
Why did you attribute a ratio to your degree? What do you mean first class degree?
Very true but you also learn to life with it med free, which is very valuable and healthy.
Yes, being stressed out about your own apparent inadequacies for your entire life sure sounds like a healthy way to live
Not being able to complete most simple tasks on time isn’t me. That’s the ADHD, and I hate it.
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.
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.
I think some forgot the premise of the post, was specifically for people who are not underachievers yet have adhd. This what I am refering to.
I don’t think that’s the premise of this post. I think the post is talking about people struggling with adhd, who’s symptoms & struggling are being ignored just because they’ve somehow managed to keep up good grades.
They might also be “gifted” which helps with getting good grades up until some point when it all falls down, as it all just is too much. Also the responsibility and work on other areas of life start requiring the limited capacity to focus and execute necessary home upkeeping, studying & all the other things in life.
Getting the needed medication or even just the diagnosis and the understanding of oneself that comes with it can save a person from a lot of unnessecary suffering.
It’s crazy how everyone blames all their failures in life on adhd.
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.
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.
Subtle but they said, “get good grades.” Very different than earned.
Difficulty or inability. I’m not claiming to be a doctor and I’m not making an outlandish statement. People are acting like I’m making a value judgement on them or their lived experiences when I’m not. They sure are making wild assumptions about what I mean though.
“Difficulty or inability”
So some degree of difficulty and/or some degree of inability. Assessed by someone. Subjectively. Which means that there is absolutely no point in trying to infer that somehow those who say they feel they have some degree of difficulty or inability may not, in your opinion as not a medical professional, over the internet, actually have the disorder they and/or their doctor feel they have.
tl;dr your statement is completely meaningless
You can pretend that clinical significance is the gold standard measure of disability if you like, but you should recognize that you leave a MASSIVE gap in your effectiveness both as a diagnostician and a practitioner if you neglect all the masking your client has been doing to deal with everybody’s demands their whole life. Seeing that bias in someone pretending to treat me would be enough reason for me to walk out of the appointment and schedule with someone more capable and knowledgeable.
That’s literally correct for ADHD, yeah - the diagnostic criteria for it is all stuff like “patient says they have difficulty organizing tasks”, which, naturally, depends a lot on what kind of tasks they’re doing.
That’s why ADHD is very common in concentration-requiring professions like software engineering (naively you’d expect the opposite) - there’s people with “undiagnosed ADHD” (low concentration) everywhere, but if you’re in a profession like that you are much more likely to have it impact your job, and go to a doctor, and get a diagnosis and a prescription of Adderall or some other kind of amphetamine.
Yeah, my guess is that this post is implying the typical case - it wasn’t disrupting grades specifically, so it wasn’t diagnosed. You may have gotten those grades by staying up until 3am as a child, lying to get out of forgotten homework, had more injuries, pushed through work by building up a healthy reserve of depression and anxiety, struggled socially because you couldn’t prioritize both school and socials or because you couldn’t connect with most other people because of your way of talking, been horribly forgetful, etc. but because grades number stays high, nothing is wrong. It’s easy for people to see grades as the metric for mental wellness which is wild
Yeah nobody else is mentally well either and we all have our coping mechanisms for this world.
This is basically keeping up with the Jones’s but using “happiness” as a grading curve for your life.
People are not superheroes or magical beings above all the downs we share. Hell most of the upper class are busy abusing drugs just as much from their burnout and depression. But someone might have been more social and smart and thus you are somehow less than them? Meh. And Nah.
The equivalence of what you’re saying is that if everything contained lactose and just because Phil, with his lactose-intolerance, is always able to make it to the toilet in time, he shouldn’t need lactase supplements or a special diet.
Lactose intolerance is actually a very good example. The level of lactase production varies significantly among the population. Different people will find different amounts of lactose as interfering with their ADLs. There’s generally a point where too much milk or cheese will cause you to have gas and visit the bathroom within an hour. This is called clinical significance. If they don’t have enough clinical significance, it’s pointless to diagnose them with lactose intolerance.
Although I agree with the facts, binary „diagnosing“ isnt the only way to go about your life. You, your parents and your doctor can make decisions without a piece of paper. The problem here to me seems to be that „you‘re not diagnosed so you dont have it“ has been a valid strategy for too long and needs to go already. Seeing that your child (eg) shows signs of autism doesnt mean you need to put them in special everything but people are rightly pissed that they have suffered irreperable damage to their bodies for self medicating an issue that could have been mitigated if not soved, were our society able to accept imperfection and not reinforce stereotypes at every turn.