How Not to Speak to Someone With ADHD
January 10, 2024 6:16 AM Subscribe
How Not to Speak to Someone With ADHD
Article is short and well written, but if you just want the bullet points:
A Word From Verywell
Inaccurate beliefs about ADHD often prevent parents of children with ADHD and adults with ADHD from seeking treatment. Without appropriate interventions and supports, many continue to struggle needlessly. It is important to correct these misconceptions so that people with ADHD can enjoy an improved quality of life and fulfil their potential.
If you, your child, or your spouse/partner has attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), you may encounter naysayers who simply do not understand the condition and its impact on everyday life.
Unfortunately, there are many misconceptions about ADHD, and these misunderstandings can be very hurtful to people living with it. Some people inaccurately believe ADHD is a "made up" disorder which is over-diagnosed and over-medicated. Others perceive ADHD as a benign, inconsequential condition that is easily managed with good parenting and disappears as a child moves into adulthood.
Whether you are the parent of a child with ADHD, the partner or spouse of someone with ADHD, or have ADHD yourself, you have likely heard some (or all) of the following faulty and provoking statements about the condition.
Know what not to say so you can be as supportive as possible to those living with ADHD, or those with loved ones living with ADHD.
Article is short and well written, but if you just want the bullet points:
- TLDR:
- Don't Dismiss the Condition
- Avoid Minimizing ADHD - Just as you shouldn't deny ADHD, you also should not attempt to minimize the symptoms. Avoid saying things such as "Everybody has a little ADHD," or "It isn't a big deal." For someone with ADHD, symptoms are present at such intensity that they significantly impair day-to-day life.
- Don't Suggest That ADHD Is Overdiagnosed - Avoid criticizing a child's diagnosis. Avoid making statements such as "ADHD is too quickly and frequently diagnosed." A proper ADHD diagnosis can be key to getting help for your loved one. If left undiagnosed, ADHD can lead to academic, behavioural, emotional, social, and vocational problems later in life.
- Don't Criticize ADHD Symptoms - Sometimes people make the inaccurate assumption that if a child or adult with ADHD would just "try harder," they could be more successful. This can lead the person with ADHD to be labeled in negative ways. Avoid making comments such as "People use ADHD as an excuse for bad behavior," or "They are just lazy and need to try harder."
- Don't Blame Parenting or Discipline - Unfortunately, many parents of children with ADHD have to deal with judgments around their parenting ability. It is simply not true that poor parenting or a lack of discipline in the home leads to ADHD. Never make comments such as ""ADHD is caused by poor parenting or lack of discipline."
- Don't Discriminate - Never make comments suggesting that people with ADHD get benefits or advantages that others don't. Avoid making statements like "Students with ADHD who receive special accommodations have unfair advantages." Rather than giving an unfair advantage to students with ADHD, special accommodations level the playing field.
- Avoid Making Comparisons - Never suggest that "ADHD in girls is less severe than ADHD in boys." It is a common misconception that girls and women with ADHD are less affected by their symptoms than men with ADHD. The fact is women with ADHD experience significant struggles that are often overlooked. Women with ADHD are often misdiagnosed as having depression, anxiety, or bipolar disorder.
A Word From Verywell
Inaccurate beliefs about ADHD often prevent parents of children with ADHD and adults with ADHD from seeking treatment. Without appropriate interventions and supports, many continue to struggle needlessly. It is important to correct these misconceptions so that people with ADHD can enjoy an improved quality of life and fulfil their potential.
> Don't tell us how much potential we have
Holy shit yes, that.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 7:11 AM on January 10 [18 favorites]
Holy shit yes, that.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 7:11 AM on January 10 [18 favorites]
Up until getting the diagnosis and learning about it, I often thought I just needed to try harder. Unless I was in some degree of panic about something, trying harder didn't work.
And I was often told as a kid that I was "basically lazy."
These things contributed to self esteem issues.
And ironically, twenty years ago (before the diagnosis) I thought ADHD wasn't real, or at least was over-diagnosed. At that point I was getting by with tons of coffee and various workarounds without realizing what I was doing.
This is a good article, thank you for posting it.
There are a ton of great resources out there. Here's a good short video explaining ADHD for those who are unfamiliar with it.
posted by DrumsIntheDeep at 7:13 AM on January 10 [17 favorites]
And I was often told as a kid that I was "basically lazy."
These things contributed to self esteem issues.
And ironically, twenty years ago (before the diagnosis) I thought ADHD wasn't real, or at least was over-diagnosed. At that point I was getting by with tons of coffee and various workarounds without realizing what I was doing.
This is a good article, thank you for posting it.
There are a ton of great resources out there. Here's a good short video explaining ADHD for those who are unfamiliar with it.
posted by DrumsIntheDeep at 7:13 AM on January 10 [17 favorites]
If I have so much potential, how come everyone else seems to know what to do and I don't?
Alternatively: I know how much potential I have, much more acutely than anybody who isn't inside my own skin could know. Which just makes my inability to fulfill that potential that much more painful. I don't need the reminder from you. I assure you it's been top of mind since roughly 8th grade.
posted by penduluum at 7:14 AM on January 10 [65 favorites]
Alternatively: I know how much potential I have, much more acutely than anybody who isn't inside my own skin could know. Which just makes my inability to fulfill that potential that much more painful. I don't need the reminder from you. I assure you it's been top of mind since roughly 8th grade.
posted by penduluum at 7:14 AM on January 10 [65 favorites]
I might have ADHD, but I definitely get migraines, and all of this applies to migraines too. I think migraines are probably more accepted as "real" today than ADHD, but when I was a kid in the 80s people just thought I was being a little shit. I still reflexively apologize to people for being incapacitated with agonizing pain.
I can't imagine what's it's like to go through life without a challenge that's invisible to others. Is there anyone really like that? Are they just deluded?
Goddamn it's the 21st century. You'd think we'd have better perspective on these thjngs by now.
posted by td2x10e3 at 7:26 AM on January 10 [12 favorites]
I can't imagine what's it's like to go through life without a challenge that's invisible to others. Is there anyone really like that? Are they just deluded?
Goddamn it's the 21st century. You'd think we'd have better perspective on these thjngs by now.
posted by td2x10e3 at 7:26 AM on January 10 [12 favorites]
I need my mother to read this article - that "why can't he just try harder" thing is something she just can't wrap her head around wrt the kid. It's painful.
posted by machine at 7:26 AM on January 10 [7 favorites]
posted by machine at 7:26 AM on January 10 [7 favorites]
Fun fact #1: if you have depression and anxiety, which perhaps you have because of your ADHD symptoms, they will refuse to diagnose you because it's too confusing for them for you to have more than one issue at a time. You are not supposed to do diagnosis unless you are "baseline" and happy and healthy! I pointed out the ridiculousness of this expectation and got nowhere.
Fun fact #2: ADHD DSM is designed for hyper little boys who can't stay in their seats, not grownass adults who are aware they can't just get out of their seats at the work meeting. This makes it hard for say, adult women, to get diagnosed.
I also have the impression that the drugs given to those with ADHD probably make the medical professionals want to not diagnose you either, but that's not a "fun fact" as yet.
After having been deemed "inconclusive" twice and punted up the chain of command twice, I'm about ready to give up on trying. I have one more doctor's appointment to go, but my HMO so clearly DOESN'T WANNA that it seems pointless, and I couldn't find any other organization to do it either.
Fun fact #3: I read through a disability presentation at my work and the biggest disability issues here are (a) mental health, (b) ADHD.
Fun fact #4: "Children with ADHD hear 20,000 additional critical or corrective messages before their twelfth birthday when compared with neurotypical children. This cannot help but have a tremendous impact on the emotions and sense of self of a developing child. People with ADHD are “the last picked and first picked on.”"
You know, if I *could* do better, wouldn't I be doing better?
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:28 AM on January 10 [62 favorites]
Fun fact #2: ADHD DSM is designed for hyper little boys who can't stay in their seats, not grownass adults who are aware they can't just get out of their seats at the work meeting. This makes it hard for say, adult women, to get diagnosed.
I also have the impression that the drugs given to those with ADHD probably make the medical professionals want to not diagnose you either, but that's not a "fun fact" as yet.
After having been deemed "inconclusive" twice and punted up the chain of command twice, I'm about ready to give up on trying. I have one more doctor's appointment to go, but my HMO so clearly DOESN'T WANNA that it seems pointless, and I couldn't find any other organization to do it either.
Fun fact #3: I read through a disability presentation at my work and the biggest disability issues here are (a) mental health, (b) ADHD.
Fun fact #4: "Children with ADHD hear 20,000 additional critical or corrective messages before their twelfth birthday when compared with neurotypical children. This cannot help but have a tremendous impact on the emotions and sense of self of a developing child. People with ADHD are “the last picked and first picked on.”"
You know, if I *could* do better, wouldn't I be doing better?
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:28 AM on January 10 [62 favorites]
wonder what the overlap between "gifted" and "adhd" is, no nevermind, i think it would just make me angry
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:33 AM on January 10 [30 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:33 AM on January 10 [30 favorites]
I didn't get diagnosed till age 51. But I was definitely having emotional dysregulation ("oversensitive"), problems with focus ("need to buckle down") etc. as a kid.
I developed coping mechanisms that mostly involved reading constantly, never telling people what I was actually thinking about, and having extremely good manners so that authority figures gave me passes.
I also had an eating disorder, frequent insomnia and occasional breakdowns with suicidal thoughts.
I have meds now. It's so so much better. But I'm still a weird little duck and always will be.
posted by emjaybee at 7:40 AM on January 10 [47 favorites]
I developed coping mechanisms that mostly involved reading constantly, never telling people what I was actually thinking about, and having extremely good manners so that authority figures gave me passes.
I also had an eating disorder, frequent insomnia and occasional breakdowns with suicidal thoughts.
I have meds now. It's so so much better. But I'm still a weird little duck and always will be.
posted by emjaybee at 7:40 AM on January 10 [47 favorites]
My adult kid went through a long long long evaluation in order to get diagnosed and in the end the evaluator decided my kid couldn't have it because they were so accomplished. I was outraged on their behalf, because you know why they are so accomplished? I have ADHD and figured out how to deal with it, so my kid got raised in a way that was accommodating to their distractibility and disorganization, and really really really accepting of the fact that homework was not going to get done, things were going to be lost, and the bedroom was going to be ankle-deep in stuff.
Luckily, my kid found someone else who said yeah, you have it (didn't do a big workup) and put them on meds, which work. Me, I never had meds because my quadruple espresso first thing plus all my coping mechanisms work just fine. I am still unnerving to others, mind you, but I am happy. And accomplished, too.
posted by Peach at 7:41 AM on January 10 [18 favorites]
Luckily, my kid found someone else who said yeah, you have it (didn't do a big workup) and put them on meds, which work. Me, I never had meds because my quadruple espresso first thing plus all my coping mechanisms work just fine. I am still unnerving to others, mind you, but I am happy. And accomplished, too.
posted by Peach at 7:41 AM on January 10 [18 favorites]
I was diagnosed with ADHD at 40 years old, just under two years ago now. I was lucky to get a pretty quick diagnosis, even though I had to pay out of pocket for it to be done through a private clinic who specialized in it. I was also lucky that my doctor was happy to prescribe me medication for it and that that medication has changed my life, the first one we tried. My doctor was also great about regular check-ins on how the medication was working; I couldn't ask for more in that area.
For a while I was really struggling the week before my period and the medication seemed to make my PMDD worse, strangely, with terrible moods and depression during that week, so I thought I should try a different medication and my doctor got me on that. That one didn't work for me *at all* and in fact made things significantly worse; it was a rough month.
In the follow-up phone appointment with my doctor I got an interning doctor instead (my doctor's clinic is part of a teaching hospital) and she was asking me about why it wasn't working and I talked about the executive dysfunction around my job and that I just couldn't *do* anything, no matter how hard I tried. She responded basically "can't you just look for another job that is more suited to you?" and that set me off crying, so bad I had to ask her if I could mute so I could try to collect myself. I'm not a crier in front of people, but that was basically the distillation of the doubt and the negative messages I'd received most of my life, as if I hadn't been through a new job basically every two years over the last two decades in the search for something that didn't bore me to tears and have me spinning and not being able to work most of every day forever (though again I am lucky that I work well under pressure and have never actually been called out on this spinning because I still outperform my colleagues by a long shot, even before medication). Can't I just find another job? That'll solve everything for real this time, right?
But on the PMDD note, I am an evangelist for what DID finally help: upping my magnesium and Vitamin B intake - a study showed that this significantly helped people who suffered from PMDD and it has made a world of difference for me. A lot of people with ADHD (and autism) have difficulty absorbing magnesium so it is important to make sure you're getting what you need, since it helps with so many of the body's functions.
posted by urbanlenny at 7:47 AM on January 10 [22 favorites]
For a while I was really struggling the week before my period and the medication seemed to make my PMDD worse, strangely, with terrible moods and depression during that week, so I thought I should try a different medication and my doctor got me on that. That one didn't work for me *at all* and in fact made things significantly worse; it was a rough month.
In the follow-up phone appointment with my doctor I got an interning doctor instead (my doctor's clinic is part of a teaching hospital) and she was asking me about why it wasn't working and I talked about the executive dysfunction around my job and that I just couldn't *do* anything, no matter how hard I tried. She responded basically "can't you just look for another job that is more suited to you?" and that set me off crying, so bad I had to ask her if I could mute so I could try to collect myself. I'm not a crier in front of people, but that was basically the distillation of the doubt and the negative messages I'd received most of my life, as if I hadn't been through a new job basically every two years over the last two decades in the search for something that didn't bore me to tears and have me spinning and not being able to work most of every day forever (though again I am lucky that I work well under pressure and have never actually been called out on this spinning because I still outperform my colleagues by a long shot, even before medication). Can't I just find another job? That'll solve everything for real this time, right?
But on the PMDD note, I am an evangelist for what DID finally help: upping my magnesium and Vitamin B intake - a study showed that this significantly helped people who suffered from PMDD and it has made a world of difference for me. A lot of people with ADHD (and autism) have difficulty absorbing magnesium so it is important to make sure you're getting what you need, since it helps with so many of the body's functions.
posted by urbanlenny at 7:47 AM on January 10 [22 favorites]
"can't you just look for another job that is more suited to you?"
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH NOBODY WILL HIRE ME. Also, what job suits a weirdo? That isn't easily expendable?
I suspected I had it for years, but I didn't really consider it to be A Problem. Okay, so I have to knit or doodle or do a crossword to keep paying attention to a long lecture, what's so bad about that? Leave me be, people. I also didn't get that say, shorter term working memory is a thing with this. I didn't know that forgetting what I was doing in the middle of a sequence was unusual. I had conversations with women about how it gets worse as you get older, but I think I just kind of attributed it to stuff like having a lot of tabs in your browser. It didn't seem like A Big Deal.
Unfortunately, my work considers my differences to be unacceptable and highly offensive, and I am now literally forgetting things I've known for years (could be ADHD, extreme stress, B12, or any/all of the above!), so here we are.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:52 AM on January 10 [14 favorites]
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH NOBODY WILL HIRE ME. Also, what job suits a weirdo? That isn't easily expendable?
I suspected I had it for years, but I didn't really consider it to be A Problem. Okay, so I have to knit or doodle or do a crossword to keep paying attention to a long lecture, what's so bad about that? Leave me be, people. I also didn't get that say, shorter term working memory is a thing with this. I didn't know that forgetting what I was doing in the middle of a sequence was unusual. I had conversations with women about how it gets worse as you get older, but I think I just kind of attributed it to stuff like having a lot of tabs in your browser. It didn't seem like A Big Deal.
Unfortunately, my work considers my differences to be unacceptable and highly offensive, and I am now literally forgetting things I've known for years (could be ADHD, extreme stress, B12, or any/all of the above!), so here we are.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:52 AM on January 10 [14 favorites]
i was one of those "i don't have adhd i just happen to enjoy drinking a quintuple-shot americano or two at 4:00 pm did you know that if you ask for five shots they often throw in the sixth shot for free yes i can fall asleep at 9:30 in the evening after drinking an entire french press of coffee at 9:00 in the evening, not one of the little ones one of the big ones, also i want to be perfectly clear about this i do not have adhd" people until the pandemic, which basically sat down on my head and refused to get back up and thereby busted all the coping strategies that i had cobbled together over the course of decades and long story short if in 2022 i happened to completely forget about like three extremely important meetings in a row that we were supposed to have but i missed them i am sorry i am so sorry if it makes you feel better you weren't the only one i did that to
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:08 AM on January 10 [31 favorites]
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:08 AM on January 10 [31 favorites]
For those who have, think they may have, or are partnered with someone who has ADHD, Jessica McCabe (of the amazing "How to ADHD" YouTube channel) has just released her _How to ADHD_ book. It is an excellent read, highlighting the difficulties she had as a kid diagnosed with ADHD, a college student struggling with executive dysfunction, and now an adult who's managed to develop some working systems. Lots of helpful tools and systems in there, both Jessica's own and systems that have worked for the couple of million YouTube subscribers she has.
posted by hanov3r at 8:11 AM on January 10 [6 favorites]
posted by hanov3r at 8:11 AM on January 10 [6 favorites]
Our almost-23-year-old daughter got a good diagnosis pretty early on (I think she was 7) and we have spent a lot of time, money and effort on learning how to deal with it from the parent side, and we STILL screw up sometimes. Learning how to be patient with someone who gets caught up in that spiral of stuff is sometimes almost as much a challenge as haaving it, I think.
posted by briank at 8:27 AM on January 10 [3 favorites]
posted by briank at 8:27 AM on January 10 [3 favorites]
In my family of 3 ADHD and 1 normie I think we need a guide for now to converse with the normie. My partner goes a bit nuts when we are talking over each other, interrupting, and seeming to jump all over the place.
posted by interogative mood at 8:27 AM on January 10 [7 favorites]
posted by interogative mood at 8:27 AM on January 10 [7 favorites]
I just have to jump in one more time because I actually agree it gets diagnosed for the wrong reasons in school (misbehavior MUST BE ADHD MUST BE not racism or ordinary rambunctiousness or the fact that school is a very strange place) and then no interventions are put in place along with the medication, so you have a kid who has lost their appetite and feels weird and is still treated like garbage.
posted by Peach at 8:38 AM on January 10 [3 favorites]
posted by Peach at 8:38 AM on January 10 [3 favorites]
relatedly: a little while back i watched that episode of futurama where fry drinks 100 cups of coffee and thereby briefly gains both superhuman speed and a blissful transcendent clearheadedness and thought "heh. i'm pretty sure i know a thing about the writer of this episode that i'm pretty sure he didn't know about himself."
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:45 AM on January 10 [19 favorites]
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:45 AM on January 10 [19 favorites]
I can't even get an assessment through my family doctor and as I am currently unemployed, a private assessment is not feasible at this time. (It really stings when your family doc is a woman and says you have just been watching too much TikTok. And it's not like I can get another family doc here in Canada.)
Do I have ADHD? I dunno, but a lot of what women my age experience when they get their diagnosis sounds familiar. I have trouble focusing, I job-hop because I get bored, I was in gifted classes as a kid but when I hit regular classes, I floundered (I barely passed high school and never finished college), I feel like a failure 24/7 (despite having a better life than I thought I would get), I am prone to daydreaming and living in my head, etc.
I would just like to talk to somebody about what might be happening to me because I feel untethered and afraid. I am 47 and just feel like I am drowning in myself all the time.
posted by Kitteh at 8:46 AM on January 10 [19 favorites]
Do I have ADHD? I dunno, but a lot of what women my age experience when they get their diagnosis sounds familiar. I have trouble focusing, I job-hop because I get bored, I was in gifted classes as a kid but when I hit regular classes, I floundered (I barely passed high school and never finished college), I feel like a failure 24/7 (despite having a better life than I thought I would get), I am prone to daydreaming and living in my head, etc.
I would just like to talk to somebody about what might be happening to me because I feel untethered and afraid. I am 47 and just feel like I am drowning in myself all the time.
posted by Kitteh at 8:46 AM on January 10 [19 favorites]
I actually agree it gets diagnosed for the wrong reasons in school
How do you know this?
posted by splitpeasoup at 8:49 AM on January 10 [2 favorites]
How do you know this?
posted by splitpeasoup at 8:49 AM on January 10 [2 favorites]
Kitteh, my partner got their diagnosis through Possibilities Clinic (in Toronto) which unfortunately is a private clinic. However, their assessment process seemed fair, even if the wait list is absurd. Perhaps more importantly, the assessment fee includes coaching sessions which actually did help my partner significantly both before and after medication. Their assessment is $2500 presently and while it's a tough nugget, it has made a pretty big difference for my partner, especially that our family doc is onside with the diagnosis and is happy to adjust medications as needed. Just a bit of info for you, and anyone else in the GTA.
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:53 AM on January 10 [6 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:53 AM on January 10 [6 favorites]
Got diagnosed at age 48 and I think just knowing what's wrong with me helped as much as the meds do.
Lazy, yup. I've been telling myself I'm lazy my whole life.
I still have issues focusing and so on, but my driving has gotten a lot safer, I'm no longer having near misses almost monthly and I don't lunge for the left lane and speed speed speed anymore.
posted by sotonohito at 9:04 AM on January 10 [8 favorites]
Lazy, yup. I've been telling myself I'm lazy my whole life.
I still have issues focusing and so on, but my driving has gotten a lot safer, I'm no longer having near misses almost monthly and I don't lunge for the left lane and speed speed speed anymore.
posted by sotonohito at 9:04 AM on January 10 [8 favorites]
I'm 51, never diagnosed but I'm awfully suspicious of how well I fit the profile. I don't even think about it most of the time and I've never really thought about getting help.
(And yes, another gifted kid who was utterly bored with normal classes.)
posted by Foosnark at 9:04 AM on January 10 [9 favorites]
(And yes, another gifted kid who was utterly bored with normal classes.)
posted by Foosnark at 9:04 AM on January 10 [9 favorites]
i am another person who got diagnosed in my 30s during covid after ten years of people suggesting it to me and me finally deciding to look at it because holy shit i was going to do with certain non-negotiable parts of my job the same thing i did with high school, with the difference being that my job is somewhat less likely to let me entirely and unreasonably off the hook than school usually was. meds are a useful tool and a mixed bag for someone whose main coping strategies in life turn out to have been (1) leveraging amphetamine-level-without-amphetamine hyperfocus tendencies/abilities and (2) the average-case forebearance of others conferred by unearned privilege.
one dangerous thing about having meds and knowing how to use them effectively is that now you know the problem was never you, it was the TPS reports all along. if even with the meds you can't make yourself write them, they probably really don't need writing.
posted by busted_crayons at 9:05 AM on January 10 [17 favorites]
one dangerous thing about having meds and knowing how to use them effectively is that now you know the problem was never you, it was the TPS reports all along. if even with the meds you can't make yourself write them, they probably really don't need writing.
posted by busted_crayons at 9:05 AM on January 10 [17 favorites]
This list seems like good practice for how you’d speak to anybody with a personal problem, from sick pet to major physical disability - but I don’t think this list really functions as a “how to debate these points”. Instead, it seems to function as a “here are some things you might experience people saying to you”, which is… fine? But if somebody is as dumb and thoughtless as to suggest some of these, I don’t think they’re going to be influenced by this online list.
posted by The River Ivel at 9:20 AM on January 10 [4 favorites]
posted by The River Ivel at 9:20 AM on January 10 [4 favorites]
Parent of a (now adult) child with ADHD and I have: ended "friendships" with people who judged my child and our parenting of him related to ADHD, dressed down a guest at a friend's party who told me to my face that I was a bad parent for allowing my child to medicate his ADHD, and lost sleep worrying that I was damaging my child even though I was trying my best every single minute.
It's hard, y'all.
posted by cooker girl at 9:27 AM on January 10 [17 favorites]
It's hard, y'all.
posted by cooker girl at 9:27 AM on January 10 [17 favorites]
Things not to say to someone with ADD:
"You should just have one special place for your keys/wallet/etc. Then you'd always be able to find them!"
"You should make lists to keep yourself organized."
"Why don't you put appointments on a calendar or your phone and then you'd always be on time?"
There are only two reasonable responses to these:
1. "Wow! Why didn't I think of that?"
2. Find their car and let all the air out of the tires.
posted by speug at 9:38 AM on January 10 [38 favorites]
"You should just have one special place for your keys/wallet/etc. Then you'd always be able to find them!"
"You should make lists to keep yourself organized."
"Why don't you put appointments on a calendar or your phone and then you'd always be on time?"
There are only two reasonable responses to these:
1. "Wow! Why didn't I think of that?"
2. Find their car and let all the air out of the tires.
posted by speug at 9:38 AM on January 10 [38 favorites]
a little while back i watched that episode of futurama where fry drinks 100 cups of coffee and thereby briefly gains both superhuman speed and a blissful transcendent clearheadedness and thought "heh. i'm pretty sure i know a thing about the writer of this episode that i'm pretty sure he didn't know about himself."
There’s also the Focusin episode of the Simpsons (“Can’t sleep, clowns will eat me”), in which Milhouse proposes to trade Bart a Claritin for a focusin. “Claritin-D?” “No.” “Can’t help ya.”
As someone who inadvertently had his ADHD symptoms managed in high school via a daily Claritin-D prescription, watching the uncut episode a few weeks after getting my official diagnosis last year was illuminating.
posted by thecaddy at 9:41 AM on January 10 [6 favorites]
There’s also the Focusin episode of the Simpsons (“Can’t sleep, clowns will eat me”), in which Milhouse proposes to trade Bart a Claritin for a focusin. “Claritin-D?” “No.” “Can’t help ya.”
As someone who inadvertently had his ADHD symptoms managed in high school via a daily Claritin-D prescription, watching the uncut episode a few weeks after getting my official diagnosis last year was illuminating.
posted by thecaddy at 9:41 AM on January 10 [6 favorites]
(But also I picked up Fry’s “coffee coffee coffee coffee” mantra from that episode and have been chanting that since the episode originally aired two decades ago)
posted by thecaddy at 9:43 AM on January 10 [3 favorites]
posted by thecaddy at 9:43 AM on January 10 [3 favorites]
For your perusal: the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale, a screening tool.
posted by heatherlogan at 9:49 AM on January 10 [7 favorites]
posted by heatherlogan at 9:49 AM on January 10 [7 favorites]
There’s a great tweet I’ve seen circulating recently that’s something like “if you were actually lazy, you’d be having fun.” Damn did I need to hear that…
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:08 AM on January 10 [31 favorites]
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:08 AM on January 10 [31 favorites]
Another resource that might be helpful:
https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCI7FAn9t-xxugYmX8w84PTw
Neurotypical married to ADHD and their clips are by turns hilarious and heartwarming and thought provoking and above all informative. I was diagnosed in my early 30s and the whole "gifted / not reaching potential / almost failed high school and didn't finish college" trope rings me like a bell. I'm 50 now, I feel very seen here, and I see all of you. Virtual hugs for everyone.
posted by ZakDaddy at 10:28 AM on January 10 [11 favorites]
https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCI7FAn9t-xxugYmX8w84PTw
Neurotypical married to ADHD and their clips are by turns hilarious and heartwarming and thought provoking and above all informative. I was diagnosed in my early 30s and the whole "gifted / not reaching potential / almost failed high school and didn't finish college" trope rings me like a bell. I'm 50 now, I feel very seen here, and I see all of you. Virtual hugs for everyone.
posted by ZakDaddy at 10:28 AM on January 10 [11 favorites]
When your adult kid is opening up to you about their ADHD diagnosis, please do not bellow down the phone “THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH ANY OF THIS FAMILY!” like my dad did.
posted by scruss at 10:32 AM on January 10 [24 favorites]
posted by scruss at 10:32 AM on January 10 [24 favorites]
I've talked with my doctor about an ADD/ADHD diagnosis, but the only phychiatrist he could refer me to was scheduled out over a year. Also he said, as others have mentioned: they seem to only give the diagnosis, not based on symptoms or experience, but on whether or not it's a "problem". Like, I'm doing OK, there's shit I'd like fixed or easier but it doesn't seem to fall into "needs correction" territory.
I mean, the "make an appointment a year from now" seeming like in unsurmountable mountain to climb should maybe get me a diagnosis right there.
posted by AzraelBrown at 10:34 AM on January 10 [2 favorites]
I mean, the "make an appointment a year from now" seeming like in unsurmountable mountain to climb should maybe get me a diagnosis right there.
posted by AzraelBrown at 10:34 AM on January 10 [2 favorites]
→
I didn't do this linked one, and I forget where I found mine, but out of fifty questions it had several like "You really, really like bicycles, don't you?", "How great are bicycles, then?" and "Fuck yeah bicycles, amirite?" and I felt seen.
posted by scruss at 10:35 AM on January 10 [10 favorites]
the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale,
I didn't do this linked one, and I forget where I found mine, but out of fifty questions it had several like "You really, really like bicycles, don't you?", "How great are bicycles, then?" and "Fuck yeah bicycles, amirite?" and I felt seen.
posted by scruss at 10:35 AM on January 10 [10 favorites]
Other things not to say to a spouse/partner with ADHD:
"I know I shouldn't get angry with you because of your ADHD, but I am finding you very irritating right now."
posted by verstegan at 10:36 AM on January 10
"I know I shouldn't get angry with you because of your ADHD, but I am finding you very irritating right now."
posted by verstegan at 10:36 AM on January 10
"You should just have one special place for your keys/wallet/etc. Then you'd always be able to find them!"
"You should make lists to keep yourself organized."
"Why don't you put appointments on a calendar or your phone and then you'd always be on time?"
I do all of those things, but sometimes incidents still happen. Especially if something falls off the designated table.
I've talked with my doctor about an ADD/ADHD diagnosis, but the only phychiatrist he could refer me to was scheduled out over a year. Also he said, as others have mentioned: they seem to only give the diagnosis, not based on symptoms or experience, but on whether or not it's a "problem". Like, I'm doing OK, there's shit I'd like fixed or easier but it doesn't seem to fall into "needs correction" territory.
My experience has been that I had to see two evaluators before I even got referred to a psychiatrist.
And yeah, all of my disability research these days seems to boil down to "is it a problem?"
Chris Guillbeau is doing A Year Of Mental Health (sorry, Substack) series this year about his ADHD and life crashing on him. I feel like this one needs to be shared here:
From Rejection to Reflection: My Grad School ADHD Experience
"I knew I had ADHD. I’d been diagnosed multiple times as a kid, and for years I’d had treatment for it. Yet I’d stubbornly resisted treatment as an adult… until now. I was ready to try ADHD medication for the first time since I was twelve or thirteen.
I figured I’d explain my history to the doctor, she’d ask me a few questions, and then give me a prescription. It might be a low-dosage trial, to see how it suited me. Or maybe instead of medication she’d suggest something else—I didn’t know what that would be, but I was open.
Here’s what actually happened: the doctor didn’t believe me! She thought I was lying about my ADHD history. (To be fair, I don’t think she used the word lying. But the skepticism was clear.)
I left with no prescription, no referral for further testing, and nothing besides discouragement. In fact, I was now worse off than I was before the appointment—because now I felt embarrassed.
Feeling embarrassed might be even worse than feeling rejected—and the two often go hand-in-hand.
After that disappointing visit, I gave up on the idea of getting help for my problem. Instead of doing anything else–you know, like seeing another provider, or pushing back more—I did nothing at all about ADHD for the next five years."
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:39 AM on January 10 [11 favorites]
"You should make lists to keep yourself organized."
"Why don't you put appointments on a calendar or your phone and then you'd always be on time?"
I do all of those things, but sometimes incidents still happen. Especially if something falls off the designated table.
I've talked with my doctor about an ADD/ADHD diagnosis, but the only phychiatrist he could refer me to was scheduled out over a year. Also he said, as others have mentioned: they seem to only give the diagnosis, not based on symptoms or experience, but on whether or not it's a "problem". Like, I'm doing OK, there's shit I'd like fixed or easier but it doesn't seem to fall into "needs correction" territory.
My experience has been that I had to see two evaluators before I even got referred to a psychiatrist.
And yeah, all of my disability research these days seems to boil down to "is it a problem?"
Chris Guillbeau is doing A Year Of Mental Health (sorry, Substack) series this year about his ADHD and life crashing on him. I feel like this one needs to be shared here:
From Rejection to Reflection: My Grad School ADHD Experience
"I knew I had ADHD. I’d been diagnosed multiple times as a kid, and for years I’d had treatment for it. Yet I’d stubbornly resisted treatment as an adult… until now. I was ready to try ADHD medication for the first time since I was twelve or thirteen.
I figured I’d explain my history to the doctor, she’d ask me a few questions, and then give me a prescription. It might be a low-dosage trial, to see how it suited me. Or maybe instead of medication she’d suggest something else—I didn’t know what that would be, but I was open.
Here’s what actually happened: the doctor didn’t believe me! She thought I was lying about my ADHD history. (To be fair, I don’t think she used the word lying. But the skepticism was clear.)
I left with no prescription, no referral for further testing, and nothing besides discouragement. In fact, I was now worse off than I was before the appointment—because now I felt embarrassed.
Feeling embarrassed might be even worse than feeling rejected—and the two often go hand-in-hand.
After that disappointing visit, I gave up on the idea of getting help for my problem. Instead of doing anything else–you know, like seeing another provider, or pushing back more—I did nothing at all about ADHD for the next five years."
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:39 AM on January 10 [11 favorites]
The "Is ADHD Overdiagnosed" article on the site is a good read.
Here in the UK it's actually a pain to get a diagnosis, much less medication. Which in turn has created a niche of private clinics that are just fancy pill mills (BBC did an expose on them in May).
I also think people can conflate "self-diagnosis" with "diagnosis". Tiktok/social media has a whole ADHD influencer niche, which is a boon but also attracts grifters who encourage self-(mis)diagnosis to get wider reach and engagement. I've personally seen lots of "relatable ADHD memes" that just describe very universal experiences. So like OCD, ADHD is being used by people as a broad catch-all term which muddies the waters.
posted by slimepuppy at 10:56 AM on January 10 [6 favorites]
Here in the UK it's actually a pain to get a diagnosis, much less medication. Which in turn has created a niche of private clinics that are just fancy pill mills (BBC did an expose on them in May).
I also think people can conflate "self-diagnosis" with "diagnosis". Tiktok/social media has a whole ADHD influencer niche, which is a boon but also attracts grifters who encourage self-(mis)diagnosis to get wider reach and engagement. I've personally seen lots of "relatable ADHD memes" that just describe very universal experiences. So like OCD, ADHD is being used by people as a broad catch-all term which muddies the waters.
posted by slimepuppy at 10:56 AM on January 10 [6 favorites]
A really cool thing about parenting two kids with two different kinds of ADHD is that it gave me language to talk about my own struggles and to talk to my dad about his, which led to him getting diagnosed with ADHD in his 60s. He's gotten really into reading about it and while tasks still might not get done in a timely manner, now he can say "executive dysfunction!" instead of just shrugging.
A less cool thing about parenting two kids with two different kinds of ADHD is that very few techniques work for both kids at the same time. Their different forms drive each other crazy sometimes, and the parents are constantly trying to find new ways to help launch them towards successful adulthoods.
posted by SeedStitch at 11:20 AM on January 10 [3 favorites]
A less cool thing about parenting two kids with two different kinds of ADHD is that very few techniques work for both kids at the same time. Their different forms drive each other crazy sometimes, and the parents are constantly trying to find new ways to help launch them towards successful adulthoods.
posted by SeedStitch at 11:20 AM on January 10 [3 favorites]
I just want to favourite this whole thread. <3 my adhd peeps.
posted by omegajuice at 11:32 AM on January 10 [10 favorites]
posted by omegajuice at 11:32 AM on January 10 [10 favorites]
Don't tell us how much potential we have
wonder what the overlap between "gifted" and "adhd" is, no nevermind, i think it would just make me angry
Yup yup and yup! I don't have data on the "gifted"/adhd thing, but life experience/anecdotal evidence suggests the overlap is very high. I got diagnosed and medicated a few years back (around the same time that I finally quit drinking. That combo was pretty decent for improving my Adulting capabilities, I'll tell you! Not perfect, since I still had a lifetime of somewhat maladaptive coping mechanisms built up, but it sure as hell helped!) and my wife diagnosed a year or so ago. The process was, predictably but infuriatingly, more arduous for her.
Because girls typically express behavioral symptoms of ADHD differently from boys, as do the women they grow into from the men those boys grow into. And the diagnostic understanding seems to have followed a path that puts more priority on "what's disrupting the classroom" than "what's disrupting the student." I can't lay too much blame there, since looking into causes of classroom disruption other than "the kid's a little shit who won't sit down with his sums like the rest of them" was probably pretty revolutionary in itself, but we should be well past this point in our cultural understanding by now.
And Neuroatypicality will often have some benefits to go along with the detriments. In the case of ADHD, those can (but won't always!) exhibit themselves as creativity, the ability to make non-obvious connections between things, asking a lot of questions, and of course hyper-focus in certain situations. All of those can read as "gifted" and of course "so much potential!" to an outside observer, and to an outside observer unfamiliar with how ADHD actually operates, the hyper-focus aspect can seem paradoxical to the point of disproving the diagnosis. But it's not. just as we are at the whims of our brains flitting around like butterflies in certain situations, we are at their whims when they get fixated on a task.
And that "creativity" is great when it can be channeled properly, but it's not a faucet that can be turned on or off at will, and it's just as likely (if not far more likely) to mean that I'm off in my head composing a screenplay or something during a meeting with somebody who's going to be understandably pissed off later when I didn't actually absorb what they were saying. And then, if I even remember what my brain was so excited about earlier, when I have a chance to actually sit down on it, the juice isn't there anymore. Catching those creative waves at the right time can be like surfing, and often times it's like surfing when you're never around for high tide.
posted by Navelgazer at 11:49 AM on January 10 [13 favorites]
wonder what the overlap between "gifted" and "adhd" is, no nevermind, i think it would just make me angry
Yup yup and yup! I don't have data on the "gifted"/adhd thing, but life experience/anecdotal evidence suggests the overlap is very high. I got diagnosed and medicated a few years back (around the same time that I finally quit drinking. That combo was pretty decent for improving my Adulting capabilities, I'll tell you! Not perfect, since I still had a lifetime of somewhat maladaptive coping mechanisms built up, but it sure as hell helped!) and my wife diagnosed a year or so ago. The process was, predictably but infuriatingly, more arduous for her.
Because girls typically express behavioral symptoms of ADHD differently from boys, as do the women they grow into from the men those boys grow into. And the diagnostic understanding seems to have followed a path that puts more priority on "what's disrupting the classroom" than "what's disrupting the student." I can't lay too much blame there, since looking into causes of classroom disruption other than "the kid's a little shit who won't sit down with his sums like the rest of them" was probably pretty revolutionary in itself, but we should be well past this point in our cultural understanding by now.
And Neuroatypicality will often have some benefits to go along with the detriments. In the case of ADHD, those can (but won't always!) exhibit themselves as creativity, the ability to make non-obvious connections between things, asking a lot of questions, and of course hyper-focus in certain situations. All of those can read as "gifted" and of course "so much potential!" to an outside observer, and to an outside observer unfamiliar with how ADHD actually operates, the hyper-focus aspect can seem paradoxical to the point of disproving the diagnosis. But it's not. just as we are at the whims of our brains flitting around like butterflies in certain situations, we are at their whims when they get fixated on a task.
And that "creativity" is great when it can be channeled properly, but it's not a faucet that can be turned on or off at will, and it's just as likely (if not far more likely) to mean that I'm off in my head composing a screenplay or something during a meeting with somebody who's going to be understandably pissed off later when I didn't actually absorb what they were saying. And then, if I even remember what my brain was so excited about earlier, when I have a chance to actually sit down on it, the juice isn't there anymore. Catching those creative waves at the right time can be like surfing, and often times it's like surfing when you're never around for high tide.
posted by Navelgazer at 11:49 AM on January 10 [13 favorites]
just so you know that getting a diagnosis and a scrip isn't the yellow brick road to the executive city, there's an enormous global shortage of adhd meds right now, has been for months, and is predicted to continue.
it's frusttrating as fuck to get authorized for legal amphetamines but not be able to fill that scrip so you're just as fucked up as before but now you know how to fix it and you can't and it's out of your control.
my roomie has been off meds for a month bc they just don't have the right dosage of vyvanse for them, and the quick release tabs make them nutso. my partner takes a different med in an odd dosage so hasn't been affected so far but still knowing you might have to go off your meds is extra unneeded stress.
my partner takes one day a week off meds so they have built up a small reserve against emergencies, something i'd advise anyone in their position to consider
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:55 AM on January 10 [14 favorites]
it's frusttrating as fuck to get authorized for legal amphetamines but not be able to fill that scrip so you're just as fucked up as before but now you know how to fix it and you can't and it's out of your control.
my roomie has been off meds for a month bc they just don't have the right dosage of vyvanse for them, and the quick release tabs make them nutso. my partner takes a different med in an odd dosage so hasn't been affected so far but still knowing you might have to go off your meds is extra unneeded stress.
my partner takes one day a week off meds so they have built up a small reserve against emergencies, something i'd advise anyone in their position to consider
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:55 AM on January 10 [14 favorites]
I've talked with my doctor about an ADD/ADHD diagnosis, but the only phychiatrist he could refer me to was scheduled out over a year. Also he said, as others have mentioned: they seem to only give the diagnosis, not based on symptoms or experience, but on whether or not it's a "problem". Like, I'm doing OK, there's shit I'd like fixed or easier but it doesn't seem to fall into "needs correction" territory.
Ah. Yes. This is because of philosophical argument over what constitutes a mental illness: because of repeated attempts to define certain things as mental illnesses that no reasonable person today would consider an illness (e.g. drapetomania, homosexuality), there is increased hardline emphasis on definitions that are disabling: that is, they create difficulties to surviving in daily life.
You are allowed to tell them "I am surviving, but this is a problem that makes my life more difficult, and I am struggling." If that doesn't get results, you are allowed to emphasize the difficulties you are dealing with and ask what "normal" solutions do, and then walk very slowly through why those do not work for you. You should not reflexively go "I'm fine and doing fine and have no problems," which is incredibly frustratingly difficult to actually do in practice.
I am endlessly irritated--as, to be clear, a pediatric diagnosis*--about the way that psychiatric establishments seem to have no idea what to do with masking from adults with neuropsychiatric conditions. On top of everything else, there is incredibly wide variation in how difficult it is to receive an ADHD diagnosis, and I heavily suspect that increased gatekeeping over COVID and as a result of the frequent med shortages (which themselves are caused by federal regulation rather than by actual manfacturing difficulties) has made things harder.
When you are seeking care for any kind of long-term disability, ask for the baselines that your care providers are comparing to. Ask what "difficulty" they have in mind. You do not have to pretend to be as functional as possible, and as much as you can you should not.
By the way, ADHD is a huge flag for susceptibility to alcoholism and drug abuse. There's a lot of research in that direction along the direction of impulse control, but I also suspect the additive trauma of being constantly unable to meet anyone's fucking expectations plus the additive social judgement of not having an acceptable reason for that difficulty play a huge role.
*I was diagnosed with ADHD at age 7 after very strong pressure from two or three different elementary school teachers. I was not a subtle child, and the comorbid autism was not super helpful terms of pretending to be normal.
posted by sciatrix at 11:57 AM on January 10 [15 favorites]
Ah. Yes. This is because of philosophical argument over what constitutes a mental illness: because of repeated attempts to define certain things as mental illnesses that no reasonable person today would consider an illness (e.g. drapetomania, homosexuality), there is increased hardline emphasis on definitions that are disabling: that is, they create difficulties to surviving in daily life.
You are allowed to tell them "I am surviving, but this is a problem that makes my life more difficult, and I am struggling." If that doesn't get results, you are allowed to emphasize the difficulties you are dealing with and ask what "normal" solutions do, and then walk very slowly through why those do not work for you. You should not reflexively go "I'm fine and doing fine and have no problems," which is incredibly frustratingly difficult to actually do in practice.
I am endlessly irritated--as, to be clear, a pediatric diagnosis*--about the way that psychiatric establishments seem to have no idea what to do with masking from adults with neuropsychiatric conditions. On top of everything else, there is incredibly wide variation in how difficult it is to receive an ADHD diagnosis, and I heavily suspect that increased gatekeeping over COVID and as a result of the frequent med shortages (which themselves are caused by federal regulation rather than by actual manfacturing difficulties) has made things harder.
When you are seeking care for any kind of long-term disability, ask for the baselines that your care providers are comparing to. Ask what "difficulty" they have in mind. You do not have to pretend to be as functional as possible, and as much as you can you should not.
By the way, ADHD is a huge flag for susceptibility to alcoholism and drug abuse. There's a lot of research in that direction along the direction of impulse control, but I also suspect the additive trauma of being constantly unable to meet anyone's fucking expectations plus the additive social judgement of not having an acceptable reason for that difficulty play a huge role.
*I was diagnosed with ADHD at age 7 after very strong pressure from two or three different elementary school teachers. I was not a subtle child, and the comorbid autism was not super helpful terms of pretending to be normal.
posted by sciatrix at 11:57 AM on January 10 [15 favorites]
just so you know that getting a diagnosis and a scrip isn't the yellow brick road to the executive city, there's an enormous global shortage of adhd meds right now, has been for months, and is predicted to continue.
fwiw, I take a small dose of Ritalin (on grounds that I am relatively sensitive to stimulants and my therapeutic window is pretty narrow) and have not seen shortages affect my access to that; anecdotally, I see the most problems with vyvanse and adderall from folks in my networks.
within the USA, the shortage is in part because of increased diagnoses particularly among adults (increasing demand AND flagging federal regulators because those meds are tightly controlled) and also in part because of federal quotas on how much of these medication can be produced at one time or stockpiled.
I also stockpile insofar as I can (usually from forgotten afternoon doses, which have gotten a lot less frequent since I started training the dog to remind me), but skipping doses also creates additive fatigue, so it's always a fucking balancing act. Hooray. the black jokes about how many executive function tasks are necessary to access the most effective executive function-support medication just write themselves.
posted by sciatrix at 12:07 PM on January 10 [7 favorites]
fwiw, I take a small dose of Ritalin (on grounds that I am relatively sensitive to stimulants and my therapeutic window is pretty narrow) and have not seen shortages affect my access to that; anecdotally, I see the most problems with vyvanse and adderall from folks in my networks.
within the USA, the shortage is in part because of increased diagnoses particularly among adults (increasing demand AND flagging federal regulators because those meds are tightly controlled) and also in part because of federal quotas on how much of these medication can be produced at one time or stockpiled.
I also stockpile insofar as I can (usually from forgotten afternoon doses, which have gotten a lot less frequent since I started training the dog to remind me), but skipping doses also creates additive fatigue, so it's always a fucking balancing act. Hooray. the black jokes about how many executive function tasks are necessary to access the most effective executive function-support medication just write themselves.
posted by sciatrix at 12:07 PM on January 10 [7 favorites]
I live in fear of the medication shortages, though they don't seem to be happening in Canada, at least. My daily pill has softened the world for me so much and has made it possible for me to be patient and have a handle on my emotions. My interpersonal relationships have greatly improved (um, other than the ones with people who *doubt* my diagnosis because I am a successful person who masks very well in public, what fun) and I can do things like just make phone calls when I want to and ask people at stores who work there and want to help me with things if they can help me with things, which I never used to be able to do because of the billion thoughts (and one song; always one song) in my head that caused so much self-consciousness I couldn't speak because I was worried about coming off as *weird*.
I can do my pottery and not make the innumerably silly mistakes I always used to make due to my inherent inability to just *pay attention* to what I was doing, as I was so constantly admonished as a child and as an adult when observed just messing something up for no reason. I also don't injure myself nearly as much as I used to.
I also realized the other day that I just don't have those "I don't want to exist anymore!" thoughts I used to have that weren't suicide ideation - there was no plan but the ideal of not existing - but were reflections of the emotional difficulty of my life pre-medication. It's not enough to stop me from wanting to scream and jump out a window when forced to sit through a long meeting or something with no stimulus, but it has made things so much better.
My diagnosis also caused a trickle down "oh shit, you're not supposed to have 10000000 overlapping thoughts (and at least one song) in your head at all times?" among my core friend group and several have also since been diagnosed and are now thriving.
posted by urbanlenny at 12:20 PM on January 10 [6 favorites]
I can do my pottery and not make the innumerably silly mistakes I always used to make due to my inherent inability to just *pay attention* to what I was doing, as I was so constantly admonished as a child and as an adult when observed just messing something up for no reason. I also don't injure myself nearly as much as I used to.
I also realized the other day that I just don't have those "I don't want to exist anymore!" thoughts I used to have that weren't suicide ideation - there was no plan but the ideal of not existing - but were reflections of the emotional difficulty of my life pre-medication. It's not enough to stop me from wanting to scream and jump out a window when forced to sit through a long meeting or something with no stimulus, but it has made things so much better.
My diagnosis also caused a trickle down "oh shit, you're not supposed to have 10000000 overlapping thoughts (and at least one song) in your head at all times?" among my core friend group and several have also since been diagnosed and are now thriving.
posted by urbanlenny at 12:20 PM on January 10 [6 favorites]
and I can do things like just make phone calls when I want to and ask people at stores who work there and want to help me with things if they can help me with things
If you have any tips on making phone calls when you want/need to, I'd sure love to hear 'em.
posted by Navelgazer at 12:22 PM on January 10 [2 favorites]
If you have any tips on making phone calls when you want/need to, I'd sure love to hear 'em.
posted by Navelgazer at 12:22 PM on January 10 [2 favorites]
Is there a more useful list of *do* instructions somewhere?
I understand the fears of overdiagnosis - I've seen those influencer memes that talk about what seems to be totally normal experiences and flagging them as ADHD symptoms. Hell, I just did that ADHD self-report form linked upthread and came out as "further investigation is warranted" - I'm not ADHD, I'm routinely voted the most tediously neurotypical person in my peer group ;). I'm sure an actual assessment would rule it out immediately, but it'd be easy for me to say "oh that explains it".
But as someone who needs lists and order to function I find dealing with ADHD family members really pushes my patience levels to the limit; I don't want to always have to carry the load of remembering things and turning up and sorting out family dramas. So how do I ask for support without triggering one of those "don'ts" or asking for something impossible?
As someone who, for e.g. is really distracted by noise and finds it extremely hard to do the last little bit of a project how do I deal with my ADHD boss who has to speak to me the minute he has a relevant thought even if I'm in the middle of something, who interrupts me constantly to finish my statements, and who doesn't actually retain the information I tell him so we're constantly at cross purposes, without, you know triggering those "don'ts" or getting fired.
So much of the advice seems to assume the ADHD person in your life is a child or a romantic partner, where the dynamic is totally different than with a work colleague or an acquaintance.
posted by AFII at 12:22 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]
I understand the fears of overdiagnosis - I've seen those influencer memes that talk about what seems to be totally normal experiences and flagging them as ADHD symptoms. Hell, I just did that ADHD self-report form linked upthread and came out as "further investigation is warranted" - I'm not ADHD, I'm routinely voted the most tediously neurotypical person in my peer group ;). I'm sure an actual assessment would rule it out immediately, but it'd be easy for me to say "oh that explains it".
But as someone who needs lists and order to function I find dealing with ADHD family members really pushes my patience levels to the limit; I don't want to always have to carry the load of remembering things and turning up and sorting out family dramas. So how do I ask for support without triggering one of those "don'ts" or asking for something impossible?
As someone who, for e.g. is really distracted by noise and finds it extremely hard to do the last little bit of a project how do I deal with my ADHD boss who has to speak to me the minute he has a relevant thought even if I'm in the middle of something, who interrupts me constantly to finish my statements, and who doesn't actually retain the information I tell him so we're constantly at cross purposes, without, you know triggering those "don'ts" or getting fired.
So much of the advice seems to assume the ADHD person in your life is a child or a romantic partner, where the dynamic is totally different than with a work colleague or an acquaintance.
posted by AFII at 12:22 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]
AFII: There's a lot to your situation that makes it difficult for me to give truly solid advice. For one thing, some of your self-reported traits in that comment do ring true for ADHD folks, though definitely not in a way that's dispositive or anything (needing lists to function is a common learned ADHD coping mechanism, difficulty finishing projects and being easily distracted by noises is pretty textbook stuff, etc.) So who knows? You know yourself better than this internet rando writing this comment does, but those things jumped out at me.
In any case, I super don't know the dynamics at play in you trying to manage your boss in this instance, and sympathize with all the advice you're seeing being about friends/family/partners and framed in terms of Don'ts. So the best advice I can give you is that there's probably a lot of common ground between what you need for your job, and what would help your boss better handle his ADHD as well. In my job (which is freelance tv production, so I usually have to learn to work with a new team of folks a couple of times a year, and ADHD is rampant), I live and die by spreadsheets. Since one of my most self-destructive coping mechanisms over the years was learning to rely on my (very impressive but only in certain contexts) memory way too much, and that bit me in the ass a few times earlier in my career, I try to note down just about everything I can in different spreadsheets. I have just so many google sheets tabs open right now because the job I'm on has been going for months longer than anticipated.
But (wherever it makes sense) I share these spreadsheets with the appropriate people so that I can get them using them too. Have a note on something? Put it in the sheet and highlight the cell so that I'll see it, you won't lose your thought, and there'll be a record we can both return to. Maybe spreadsheets aren't the solution, but track-changes in documents are, or using something like Slack so that you and your boss can message each other when he has a thought or you have something that needs to be remembered. Basically, trying to move to systems where things can be referred back to easily rather than needing to be understood and absorbed RIGHT NOW, since that seems to be an issue on both sides of this dynamic (where he needs to interrupt you while you're trying to focus, but he's not remembering what you tell him.)
So what I'm saying is,
1.) Present your needs to him. Let him know that in order to do your best work, there are times that you need to be able to focus and that he should email or slack you or add notes to the spreadsheet/document whatever, rather than coming to you directly, and determine how you can clearly signal those times.
2.) Present solutions to him. Again, not knowing the specifics of your situation, I don't know what those solutions might be, but you probably have some idea.
This all assumes that he's rational, of course, and has some recognition of his own issues, which might not be the case. And it will probably involve some extra labor (both clerical and emotional) on your part while you rework the systems of communication. But it could pay off.
posted by Navelgazer at 1:03 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]
In any case, I super don't know the dynamics at play in you trying to manage your boss in this instance, and sympathize with all the advice you're seeing being about friends/family/partners and framed in terms of Don'ts. So the best advice I can give you is that there's probably a lot of common ground between what you need for your job, and what would help your boss better handle his ADHD as well. In my job (which is freelance tv production, so I usually have to learn to work with a new team of folks a couple of times a year, and ADHD is rampant), I live and die by spreadsheets. Since one of my most self-destructive coping mechanisms over the years was learning to rely on my (very impressive but only in certain contexts) memory way too much, and that bit me in the ass a few times earlier in my career, I try to note down just about everything I can in different spreadsheets. I have just so many google sheets tabs open right now because the job I'm on has been going for months longer than anticipated.
But (wherever it makes sense) I share these spreadsheets with the appropriate people so that I can get them using them too. Have a note on something? Put it in the sheet and highlight the cell so that I'll see it, you won't lose your thought, and there'll be a record we can both return to. Maybe spreadsheets aren't the solution, but track-changes in documents are, or using something like Slack so that you and your boss can message each other when he has a thought or you have something that needs to be remembered. Basically, trying to move to systems where things can be referred back to easily rather than needing to be understood and absorbed RIGHT NOW, since that seems to be an issue on both sides of this dynamic (where he needs to interrupt you while you're trying to focus, but he's not remembering what you tell him.)
So what I'm saying is,
1.) Present your needs to him. Let him know that in order to do your best work, there are times that you need to be able to focus and that he should email or slack you or add notes to the spreadsheet/document whatever, rather than coming to you directly, and determine how you can clearly signal those times.
2.) Present solutions to him. Again, not knowing the specifics of your situation, I don't know what those solutions might be, but you probably have some idea.
This all assumes that he's rational, of course, and has some recognition of his own issues, which might not be the case. And it will probably involve some extra labor (both clerical and emotional) on your part while you rework the systems of communication. But it could pay off.
posted by Navelgazer at 1:03 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]
Splitpeasoup: career K12 educator with a lot of experience with kids especially boys being put on meds without much other support.
posted by Peach at 1:26 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]
posted by Peach at 1:26 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]
> "You should make lists to keep yourself organized."
HAHAHAHAHA. Is this something where you'd have to remember the lists exist after you write them? HAHAHAHAHAHA.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 1:30 PM on January 10 [18 favorites]
HAHAHAHAHA. Is this something where you'd have to remember the lists exist after you write them? HAHAHAHAHAHA.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 1:30 PM on January 10 [18 favorites]
Advice I've seen for people looking into ADHD diagnosis as adults is that if there are any questions that you're inclined to answer "No, that's not a problem for me because I have A Process for dealing with it", answer for you how you would be without your Process. Your Process is the result of the self-developed accommodations and mitigations you've managed to come up with, so answering assessment questions based on how you work with those accommodations is like taking a vision test while wearing corrective lenses: you're not getting an accurate picture of the underlying situation.
I was diagnosed at 52 before having read this advice and wish I'd known about it. I did get the diagnosis, but apparently just barely because "it doesn't sound like it's caused problems for you at work" and I was like… did you not hear what I told you about the times I almost got fired due to problems with organization and follow-through? Or how my to-do list seems to be write-only, at least as far as the use I get out of it?
Apparently people without ADHD manage to make things happen without needing to develop A Process around them. Dunno how they do it.
posted by Lexica at 1:37 PM on January 10 [12 favorites]
I was diagnosed at 52 before having read this advice and wish I'd known about it. I did get the diagnosis, but apparently just barely because "it doesn't sound like it's caused problems for you at work" and I was like… did you not hear what I told you about the times I almost got fired due to problems with organization and follow-through? Or how my to-do list seems to be write-only, at least as far as the use I get out of it?
Apparently people without ADHD manage to make things happen without needing to develop A Process around them. Dunno how they do it.
posted by Lexica at 1:37 PM on January 10 [12 favorites]
> Also, what job suits a weirdo? That isn't easily expendable?
have you heard the good news of our lord and savior grad school?
yeah i know for ten thousand reasons that’s not an option for the vast majority of people due to having kids or aging parents that they still talk to or other commitments that keep one from living of a tiny stipend, or/and can’t do the part of higher education where they pay you due to not having the degree you get from the you-pay-them phase of higher education, but let me tell you it was a lifesaver when i found a way to minimally support myself doing something where i didn’t have much of a fixed schedule for getting things done, other than the constraint of needing to get a dissertation done before the funding ran out, and where most of my day-to-day involved being publicly clever in contexts where making interesting intuitive/counterintuitive connections between disparate -seeming concepts and fields was exactly the thing that everyone wanted me to do.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 1:41 PM on January 10 [5 favorites]
have you heard the good news of our lord and savior grad school?
yeah i know for ten thousand reasons that’s not an option for the vast majority of people due to having kids or aging parents that they still talk to or other commitments that keep one from living of a tiny stipend, or/and can’t do the part of higher education where they pay you due to not having the degree you get from the you-pay-them phase of higher education, but let me tell you it was a lifesaver when i found a way to minimally support myself doing something where i didn’t have much of a fixed schedule for getting things done, other than the constraint of needing to get a dissertation done before the funding ran out, and where most of my day-to-day involved being publicly clever in contexts where making interesting intuitive/counterintuitive connections between disparate -seeming concepts and fields was exactly the thing that everyone wanted me to do.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 1:41 PM on January 10 [5 favorites]
I'm a middle school teacher at a high-performing suburban school and think ADHD is way UNDER diagnosed, especially in girls in general and also boys who are less privileged. I support whatever families feel is the best treatment option but I definitely see medication as something very, very positive for those it works for (and who can find it!)
I see a lot of girls and non-binary students who are so awesome but have such low self-esteem from masking so well that they can get by but never feel truly seen and supported. The challenge isn't what not to say but rather there's nothing I can say that can make up for years of internalized criticism. I see boys who literally will roll around on the floor not because they want to be disruptive but because the current way of managing their ADHD symptoms isn't working. And then kids who don't have ADHD taking advantage of this to jump in and be bad on purpose because they want the attention. And then feeling crappy because I cannot give the every student the attention they deserve in a chaotic classroom of 31: fortunately we have a study hall and it's become a great chance for motivated students to get that support and connection, especially those who have inattentive type and are so easy to overlook while I put out fires.
The other day we talked about how, in this one scenario, classmates were gently teasing a friend in class whose dad was yelling at him to take a shower while gaming. I told them that, yelling aside, a parent encouraging us to shower is a sign that they love us and want us to take care of ourselves. That I understand because I don't like showering either but had to learn to force myself. And that many middle schoolers tend to want to shower 3x a day or not shower for three days but we find a balance. That group seemed to get it and then we got back to studying German verb conjugations. (JK probably more gaming as soon as I walked away.) I sat down exhausted because life is exhausting. I think of how exhausting life is for my students with ADHD who are trying their best but beyond their limit. I think of how exhausting life is for their parents who are also trying their best but beyond their limit. I feel fortunate and full of compassion but, at the end of the day, we live in a world not really ideal for nearly anyone and no true societal improvements seem to be on the horizon.
posted by smorgasbord at 1:52 PM on January 10 [9 favorites]
I see a lot of girls and non-binary students who are so awesome but have such low self-esteem from masking so well that they can get by but never feel truly seen and supported. The challenge isn't what not to say but rather there's nothing I can say that can make up for years of internalized criticism. I see boys who literally will roll around on the floor not because they want to be disruptive but because the current way of managing their ADHD symptoms isn't working. And then kids who don't have ADHD taking advantage of this to jump in and be bad on purpose because they want the attention. And then feeling crappy because I cannot give the every student the attention they deserve in a chaotic classroom of 31: fortunately we have a study hall and it's become a great chance for motivated students to get that support and connection, especially those who have inattentive type and are so easy to overlook while I put out fires.
The other day we talked about how, in this one scenario, classmates were gently teasing a friend in class whose dad was yelling at him to take a shower while gaming. I told them that, yelling aside, a parent encouraging us to shower is a sign that they love us and want us to take care of ourselves. That I understand because I don't like showering either but had to learn to force myself. And that many middle schoolers tend to want to shower 3x a day or not shower for three days but we find a balance. That group seemed to get it and then we got back to studying German verb conjugations. (JK probably more gaming as soon as I walked away.) I sat down exhausted because life is exhausting. I think of how exhausting life is for my students with ADHD who are trying their best but beyond their limit. I think of how exhausting life is for their parents who are also trying their best but beyond their limit. I feel fortunate and full of compassion but, at the end of the day, we live in a world not really ideal for nearly anyone and no true societal improvements seem to be on the horizon.
posted by smorgasbord at 1:52 PM on January 10 [9 favorites]
Here in the UK it's actually a pain to get a diagnosis, much less medication. Which in turn has created a niche of private clinics that are just fancy pill mills (BBC did an expose on them in May).
[...]
posted by slimepuppy at 10:56 AM on January 10 [5 favorites +] [⚑]
We should add "never mention the Panorama documentary" to the list of things not to say to someone with ADHD.
As someone diagnosed and treated through one of those "pill mills", I knew the second this documentary came out that it would be used to invalidate my own experience of ADHD and the treatment I receive for it. As if getting people to accept that ADHD is real and that I have it isn't enough of a headache... now people who saw one documentary feel qualified to tell me that I am an addict seeking a fix.
There's a lot of room for nuanced debate about ADHD diagnosis and treatment, the risks and costs of stimulant meds being more widely prescribed, etc. The BBC "expose" was not that nuanced discussion. It was a sensationalist hack job.
The whole premise is that an NHS psychiatrist did not diagnose the Panorama reporter with ADHD, but that private providers did and then offered him drugs he should not be receiving.
Points to note:
--> The assessment the reporter went through with the NHS psychiatrist did not look like that a typical NHS patient would receive, taking far longer and being more in-depth than a typical assessment. Even the fact that the journalist said, "I don't think I have ADHD but assess me anyway" completely invalidates it as a test. Of course the answer will be no.
--> The journalist did not accurately report what his private assessments involved. See this response from one of the clinics featured. The assessment was longer than he reported, and they did not offer him drugs at the end of it.
--> Even if some of his assessments were bad, they did not look like the assessment I, or many others, have received through these clinics. Mine was thorough and took much longer than the ones the journalist described. It's almost as though individual practitioners can vary in their quality, regardless of where they work; some patients have bad experiences with NHS Psychiatrists, too.
--> The NHS psychiatrist featured in the documentary wrote a Guardian comment piece disavowing any claims that ADHD is overdiagnosed or that stimulants are overprescribed in the UK.
--> The journalist discounted the evidence provided by one patient he interviewed because it didn't fit his narrative. No room for success stories in this hack job. (link)
This stuff is scary sounding and controversial. "UK awash with dangerous prescribed drugs", "NHS funding epidemic of stimulant abuse", etc. They are great headlines. That means clicks and eyeballs. So naturally, Panorama are not the only ones sniffing around this story. See this comment from an r/ADHDUK moderator about a recent attempt from a Sky News reporter to concoct something about students abusing ADHD medication. They have the story clear in their mind, and lazily fish around for evidence to stand it up. They have an angle and they are working it. It's a grift.
Does this mean there aren't problems with how ADHD is diagnosed in the UK, or the scale on which drugs are beginning to be be diagnosed? No. But this "expose" was never going to prove it. All it has done is cause headaches for ordinary patients seeking understanding and support.
posted by Probabilitics at 2:01 PM on January 10 [18 favorites]
[...]
posted by slimepuppy at 10:56 AM on January 10 [5 favorites +] [⚑]
We should add "never mention the Panorama documentary" to the list of things not to say to someone with ADHD.
As someone diagnosed and treated through one of those "pill mills", I knew the second this documentary came out that it would be used to invalidate my own experience of ADHD and the treatment I receive for it. As if getting people to accept that ADHD is real and that I have it isn't enough of a headache... now people who saw one documentary feel qualified to tell me that I am an addict seeking a fix.
There's a lot of room for nuanced debate about ADHD diagnosis and treatment, the risks and costs of stimulant meds being more widely prescribed, etc. The BBC "expose" was not that nuanced discussion. It was a sensationalist hack job.
The whole premise is that an NHS psychiatrist did not diagnose the Panorama reporter with ADHD, but that private providers did and then offered him drugs he should not be receiving.
Points to note:
--> The assessment the reporter went through with the NHS psychiatrist did not look like that a typical NHS patient would receive, taking far longer and being more in-depth than a typical assessment. Even the fact that the journalist said, "I don't think I have ADHD but assess me anyway" completely invalidates it as a test. Of course the answer will be no.
--> The journalist did not accurately report what his private assessments involved. See this response from one of the clinics featured. The assessment was longer than he reported, and they did not offer him drugs at the end of it.
--> Even if some of his assessments were bad, they did not look like the assessment I, or many others, have received through these clinics. Mine was thorough and took much longer than the ones the journalist described. It's almost as though individual practitioners can vary in their quality, regardless of where they work; some patients have bad experiences with NHS Psychiatrists, too.
--> The NHS psychiatrist featured in the documentary wrote a Guardian comment piece disavowing any claims that ADHD is overdiagnosed or that stimulants are overprescribed in the UK.
--> The journalist discounted the evidence provided by one patient he interviewed because it didn't fit his narrative. No room for success stories in this hack job. (link)
This stuff is scary sounding and controversial. "UK awash with dangerous prescribed drugs", "NHS funding epidemic of stimulant abuse", etc. They are great headlines. That means clicks and eyeballs. So naturally, Panorama are not the only ones sniffing around this story. See this comment from an r/ADHDUK moderator about a recent attempt from a Sky News reporter to concoct something about students abusing ADHD medication. They have the story clear in their mind, and lazily fish around for evidence to stand it up. They have an angle and they are working it. It's a grift.
Does this mean there aren't problems with how ADHD is diagnosed in the UK, or the scale on which drugs are beginning to be be diagnosed? No. But this "expose" was never going to prove it. All it has done is cause headaches for ordinary patients seeking understanding and support.
posted by Probabilitics at 2:01 PM on January 10 [18 favorites]
have you heard the good news of our lord and savior grad school?
*hollow laughter in the key of never having any financial stability, difficulties with also-obviously-ADHD-supervisor with bonus internalized shame, lack stable job trajectory and constant gnawing concern about never being able to amass any savings in STEM fields let alone humanities where it's worse*
I mean. I enjoy my job a lot. Especially with a new supervisor. And I have a cool grant I get to work on that is coincidentally aimed at trying to disentangle some executive function stuff. But academia is no panacea, especially not now.
posted by sciatrix at 2:11 PM on January 10 [3 favorites]
*hollow laughter in the key of never having any financial stability, difficulties with also-obviously-ADHD-supervisor with bonus internalized shame, lack stable job trajectory and constant gnawing concern about never being able to amass any savings in STEM fields let alone humanities where it's worse*
I mean. I enjoy my job a lot. Especially with a new supervisor. And I have a cool grant I get to work on that is coincidentally aimed at trying to disentangle some executive function stuff. But academia is no panacea, especially not now.
posted by sciatrix at 2:11 PM on January 10 [3 favorites]
> In my family of 3 ADHD and 1 normie I think we need a guide for now to converse with the normie. My partner goes a bit nuts when we are talking over each other, interrupting, and seeming to jump all over the place.
so one thing that’s interesting for me is that although i love and cherish the ping-pongy conversations featuring three or four interleaved parts all of which themselves contain six or seven levels of nested tangents that over the course of hours get pushed down onto the stack and then one by one popped back off and then finally the whole thing resolves like a beautiful baroque fugue that i have with the statistically implausibly large number of adhders in my friend circles, i’ve got the quiet distractible form of adhd instead of the impulsive restless type, and so my experience with conversations with neurotypicals is more often (picture all that follows as being in all caps) “could you please leave some fucking space in this conversation, maybe just a little bit, and for the love of all that’s good and holy please please stop interrupting me when i actually manage to get in, because i’ve got something to say that’s probably pretty interesting but currently that thing resides in the beautiful infinite universe of pure abstraction that long ago i found behind my eyes and hauling that thing up and then translating it from the inside-the-head language of the behind-eyes geometric crystal omnipalace where neither time nor distance (those two great implacable enemies of all life and all sentience) exist into exterior-world language is going to take at least a few seconds oh okay you are absolutely not going to give me any space to talk nor think, you’re pretty committed to that it looks like, so since i’m not welcome in the conversation i’m gonna nod and say uh-huh at intervals but if you actually need me for anything let me know because despite appearances i’m not really here, i’m behind my eyes in a self-building realm of infinite everything where concepts combine, recombine, and frolic like playful kind deer let free in a cybernetic meadow all watched over by machines of loving grace and stuff.”
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 2:23 PM on January 10 [26 favorites]
so one thing that’s interesting for me is that although i love and cherish the ping-pongy conversations featuring three or four interleaved parts all of which themselves contain six or seven levels of nested tangents that over the course of hours get pushed down onto the stack and then one by one popped back off and then finally the whole thing resolves like a beautiful baroque fugue that i have with the statistically implausibly large number of adhders in my friend circles, i’ve got the quiet distractible form of adhd instead of the impulsive restless type, and so my experience with conversations with neurotypicals is more often (picture all that follows as being in all caps) “could you please leave some fucking space in this conversation, maybe just a little bit, and for the love of all that’s good and holy please please stop interrupting me when i actually manage to get in, because i’ve got something to say that’s probably pretty interesting but currently that thing resides in the beautiful infinite universe of pure abstraction that long ago i found behind my eyes and hauling that thing up and then translating it from the inside-the-head language of the behind-eyes geometric crystal omnipalace where neither time nor distance (those two great implacable enemies of all life and all sentience) exist into exterior-world language is going to take at least a few seconds oh okay you are absolutely not going to give me any space to talk nor think, you’re pretty committed to that it looks like, so since i’m not welcome in the conversation i’m gonna nod and say uh-huh at intervals but if you actually need me for anything let me know because despite appearances i’m not really here, i’m behind my eyes in a self-building realm of infinite everything where concepts combine, recombine, and frolic like playful kind deer let free in a cybernetic meadow all watched over by machines of loving grace and stuff.”
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 2:23 PM on January 10 [26 favorites]
although i love and cherish the ping-pongy conversations featuring three or four interleaved parts all of which themselves contain six or seven levels of nested tangents that over the course of hours get pushed down onto the stack and then one by one popped back off and then finally the whole thing resolves like a beautiful baroque fugue that i have with the statistically implausibly large number of adhders in my friend circles
Back in high school my friends and I called this "speaking relay." As in, picking up and going from any previous point in a conversation, not even just the current conversation, but any that you've had with this person in the past at any time. And as in, some people speak relay, and others decidedly do not. But it's not even a cut-and-dry ADHD thing. I very much speak relay, and will nest my stories like five-layers deep with information that feels relevant to me while I get to the lede, meanwhile my wife (who also has ADHD) absolutely does not, and needs to constantly interrupt me to get me to start my stories over again from the beginning in a way which she can follow.
posted by Navelgazer at 2:31 PM on January 10 [4 favorites]
Back in high school my friends and I called this "speaking relay." As in, picking up and going from any previous point in a conversation, not even just the current conversation, but any that you've had with this person in the past at any time. And as in, some people speak relay, and others decidedly do not. But it's not even a cut-and-dry ADHD thing. I very much speak relay, and will nest my stories like five-layers deep with information that feels relevant to me while I get to the lede, meanwhile my wife (who also has ADHD) absolutely does not, and needs to constantly interrupt me to get me to start my stories over again from the beginning in a way which she can follow.
posted by Navelgazer at 2:31 PM on January 10 [4 favorites]
>> "can't you just look for another job that is more suited to you?"
> HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH NOBODY WILL HIRE ME. Also, what job suits a weirdo? That isn't easily expendable?
Through sheer luck I seem to have landed on a workable career strategy for my ADHD, which is: to job-hop every time I lose steam and start falling behind. I realized that it wasn't that I needed a different KIND of job, it's that I needed a new job, the same one but in a different place, with different people, different projects. New job energy carries me through the first six months or if I'm lucky, twelve. Oh Shit Don't Get Fired energy carries me through the next 6 to 12 months. Then I quit. The luck part of it comes in where I work in the tech industry where job hopping is rewarded, not penalized.
If anyone else here has my kind of ADHD and works in the tech industry, do consider this. I used to be wracked with guilt about quitting so often and used to castigate myself and worry about how unprofessional my resume looked. But I've been doing it long enough now that I've learned to trust this process, it's never brought me to harm. IME the notion of employers penalizing job hoppers isn't really true in tech. Of course I never stay long enough to get promoted into a management role, but good grief, can you imagine me trying to be organized enough to manage my work AND someone else's?!
posted by MiraK at 2:33 PM on January 10 [8 favorites]
> HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH NOBODY WILL HIRE ME. Also, what job suits a weirdo? That isn't easily expendable?
Through sheer luck I seem to have landed on a workable career strategy for my ADHD, which is: to job-hop every time I lose steam and start falling behind. I realized that it wasn't that I needed a different KIND of job, it's that I needed a new job, the same one but in a different place, with different people, different projects. New job energy carries me through the first six months or if I'm lucky, twelve. Oh Shit Don't Get Fired energy carries me through the next 6 to 12 months. Then I quit. The luck part of it comes in where I work in the tech industry where job hopping is rewarded, not penalized.
If anyone else here has my kind of ADHD and works in the tech industry, do consider this. I used to be wracked with guilt about quitting so often and used to castigate myself and worry about how unprofessional my resume looked. But I've been doing it long enough now that I've learned to trust this process, it's never brought me to harm. IME the notion of employers penalizing job hoppers isn't really true in tech. Of course I never stay long enough to get promoted into a management role, but good grief, can you imagine me trying to be organized enough to manage my work AND someone else's?!
posted by MiraK at 2:33 PM on January 10 [8 favorites]
also if you’re management you might find yourself on the wrong side of a bargaining table or otherwise compelled to do evil things that make the whole world worse so obviously it’s to be avoided at all costs
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 2:35 PM on January 10 [2 favorites]
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 2:35 PM on January 10 [2 favorites]
urbanlenny and anyone else with ADHD who menstruates:
There is now (finally) research showing that when estrogen drops during your cycle, so does dopamine, resulting in the “hell week” that comes before your period where the meds barely work, if at all.
There are also proposed treatments specific to this problem. Here is a link to a webinar by researchers in Europe discussing the issue. Please share this with your doctors and psychiatrists so more people can get help with this instead of continuing to suffer.
( I’ve tried one of the solutions: taking the pill continuously without a break week. Worked great, evened everything out nicely, and not having a period was a bonus. Unfortunately after two attempts I’ve pretty much confirmed that the pill gives me hypertension, so I’ll have to try one of the others.)
posted by antinomia at 2:37 PM on January 10 [5 favorites]
There is now (finally) research showing that when estrogen drops during your cycle, so does dopamine, resulting in the “hell week” that comes before your period where the meds barely work, if at all.
There are also proposed treatments specific to this problem. Here is a link to a webinar by researchers in Europe discussing the issue. Please share this with your doctors and psychiatrists so more people can get help with this instead of continuing to suffer.
( I’ve tried one of the solutions: taking the pill continuously without a break week. Worked great, evened everything out nicely, and not having a period was a bonus. Unfortunately after two attempts I’ve pretty much confirmed that the pill gives me hypertension, so I’ll have to try one of the others.)
posted by antinomia at 2:37 PM on January 10 [5 favorites]
'Back in high school my friends and I called this "speaking relay".' - Navelgazer
I saw a Tik Tok where they described ADHD conversation as a relay, rather than a neurotypical sparring match style conversation, and that rang true for me.
Dr James Brown (no relation) of ADHD Adults UK charity says he believes 1 in 40 people has ADHD, according to research he has read. Dr Alex Connor, Sam 'Mrs ADHD' and James have a weekly podcast of the same name, which generally has a theme, and plenty of up to date info, and personal reflections. Audio isn't as balanced as it could be, but the content is great. This episode starts with some personal reflections on ADHD in relationships. Available on your podcast platform of choice.
ADHD AF (as female) is presented by Laura and Dawn, two women who met at the age of 38 and were both on the ADHD 'diagnosis rollercoaster'.
"Serendipitously, they moved to the same street at the same time, at the same age, with the same undiagnosed disability! What are the chances?! Both at different stages in the diagnosis process, join them on their journey of trying to get their heads around what’s been going on in their heads undetected all this time."
They have great blether, fantastic guests and better sound quality than ADHD Adults UK. It is fantastic. I listen to it on Spotify now, it's on Apple Podcasts, but Laura doesn't seem to be keeping the links on the website pointing in the right direction.
Both podcasts talk about co-morbidities and mis-diagnosis on the regular. Here's a joint broadcast, they also do events together.
The ADHD 2.0 book is recommended by almost everybody, and serves as a good overview. If, like me, you have discovered that it is much more likely that you will 'read' a book by listening to it, rather than adding it to the pile of books by the bed, you can find an audio book version everywhere they are available.
The main benefit for me from being made aware, and having a 'professional' (although not official) diagnosis, is not beating myself up about things that I have no real control over. It's a bit difficult to unpick who I am from what my ADHD symptoms are, but that isn't necessary, really. To get drugs prescribed, I will need a professional diagnosis, for which the wait time is generally measured in years, so currently I am relying on exercise and pomodoros to maintain some level of productivity at the job.
posted by asok at 2:45 PM on January 10 [4 favorites]
I saw a Tik Tok where they described ADHD conversation as a relay, rather than a neurotypical sparring match style conversation, and that rang true for me.
Dr James Brown (no relation) of ADHD Adults UK charity says he believes 1 in 40 people has ADHD, according to research he has read. Dr Alex Connor, Sam 'Mrs ADHD' and James have a weekly podcast of the same name, which generally has a theme, and plenty of up to date info, and personal reflections. Audio isn't as balanced as it could be, but the content is great. This episode starts with some personal reflections on ADHD in relationships. Available on your podcast platform of choice.
ADHD AF (as female) is presented by Laura and Dawn, two women who met at the age of 38 and were both on the ADHD 'diagnosis rollercoaster'.
"Serendipitously, they moved to the same street at the same time, at the same age, with the same undiagnosed disability! What are the chances?! Both at different stages in the diagnosis process, join them on their journey of trying to get their heads around what’s been going on in their heads undetected all this time."
They have great blether, fantastic guests and better sound quality than ADHD Adults UK. It is fantastic. I listen to it on Spotify now, it's on Apple Podcasts, but Laura doesn't seem to be keeping the links on the website pointing in the right direction.
Both podcasts talk about co-morbidities and mis-diagnosis on the regular. Here's a joint broadcast, they also do events together.
The ADHD 2.0 book is recommended by almost everybody, and serves as a good overview. If, like me, you have discovered that it is much more likely that you will 'read' a book by listening to it, rather than adding it to the pile of books by the bed, you can find an audio book version everywhere they are available.
The main benefit for me from being made aware, and having a 'professional' (although not official) diagnosis, is not beating myself up about things that I have no real control over. It's a bit difficult to unpick who I am from what my ADHD symptoms are, but that isn't necessary, really. To get drugs prescribed, I will need a professional diagnosis, for which the wait time is generally measured in years, so currently I am relying on exercise and pomodoros to maintain some level of productivity at the job.
posted by asok at 2:45 PM on January 10 [4 favorites]
One more PSA (which I have to keep short because it’s late here and I should already be asleep):
If you have ADHD and also social issues (social anxiety, RSD, social awkwardness, etc) you’re supposed to also be referred for an assessment for autism. I was diagnosed with ADHD seven years ago at 41, and was diagnosed with autism just last month. In the past I’d been sent to CBT for social anxiety (which made it worse, because apparently it’s the wrong treatment if you have autism) but nobody really asked me about the nature of my social anxiety.
If you only have problems with unstructured social interaction (small talk, mingling, conversations about random things) and you’re ok with structured conversation (giving talks, discussing a specific topic, playing board games, etc) that’s one good clue you may have autism. Also do you drop the ball a lot during conversations, just not knowing what to say? Another reason to look into autism. There’s more.. yosamdysam on YouTube has a nice video on what it’s like to have both.
posted by antinomia at 3:00 PM on January 10 [6 favorites]
If you have ADHD and also social issues (social anxiety, RSD, social awkwardness, etc) you’re supposed to also be referred for an assessment for autism. I was diagnosed with ADHD seven years ago at 41, and was diagnosed with autism just last month. In the past I’d been sent to CBT for social anxiety (which made it worse, because apparently it’s the wrong treatment if you have autism) but nobody really asked me about the nature of my social anxiety.
If you only have problems with unstructured social interaction (small talk, mingling, conversations about random things) and you’re ok with structured conversation (giving talks, discussing a specific topic, playing board games, etc) that’s one good clue you may have autism. Also do you drop the ball a lot during conversations, just not knowing what to say? Another reason to look into autism. There’s more.. yosamdysam on YouTube has a nice video on what it’s like to have both.
posted by antinomia at 3:00 PM on January 10 [6 favorites]
> If you have any tips on making phone calls when you want/need to, I'd sure love to hear 'em.
lately i've found this tune useful for making phone calls and sending emails. adjust pronouns as needed.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 3:21 PM on January 10 [7 favorites]
lately i've found this tune useful for making phone calls and sending emails. adjust pronouns as needed.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 3:21 PM on January 10 [7 favorites]
> But academia is no panacea, especially not now.
yeh my cobbled-together solution only worked because i grew up ungodly poor and was accustomed to poverty diets/living situations, because i had realized long ago that my genes do not need to propagate further thank you very much, and because i did the grad-school equivalent of mirak's job-hopping strategy until i found a not-bad situation.
oh yeah and also because i've leaned into the "my planning horizon is about twelve hours at best" thing and have such grown blithely indifferent to concepts like "retirement" and "savings" even though objectively that's a terrible idea.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 3:28 PM on January 10 [2 favorites]
yeh my cobbled-together solution only worked because i grew up ungodly poor and was accustomed to poverty diets/living situations, because i had realized long ago that my genes do not need to propagate further thank you very much, and because i did the grad-school equivalent of mirak's job-hopping strategy until i found a not-bad situation.
oh yeah and also because i've leaned into the "my planning horizon is about twelve hours at best" thing and have such grown blithely indifferent to concepts like "retirement" and "savings" even though objectively that's a terrible idea.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 3:28 PM on January 10 [2 favorites]
Use of A.D.H.D. Drugs Surged During Pandemic, Study Finds (NYT gift link)
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:26 PM on January 10
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:26 PM on January 10
Many things drive me nuts about the "ADHD is over-diagnosed thing".
Problem one: over-diagnosed/under-diagnosed is not a binary either/or thing, at least according to definitions that make sense to me.
Let's say over-diagnosed = too many people diagnosed as having ADHD that do not. Under-diagnosed = too many people who do have ADHD either not assessed at all, or mistakenly assessed as not having ADHD.
But like, both things can be true at the same time. Assuming that assessors are not perfect, a solid number of people who are assessed are misdiagnosed. And infrastructure for getting ADHD assessed is abysmal, with many people who end up doing the diagnosing not having a proper understanding of the condition or how to evaluate for it.
The real claim that people seem to making when they say "ADHD is over-diagnosed" seems to be something like "it's too easy to get an ADHD diagnosis", or "most people diagnosed with ADHD don't actually have it" or "ADHD isn't such a big deal as people make it out to be", or "too many people are prescribed ADHD medication", or "the actual number of people with ADHD is much smaller than people make it out to be" or any number of other vague poorly articulated claims. All of them can be refuted in various ways, but it's hard to have a conversation when I don't know what you mean. Further, the person listening probably has a different notion of what "over-diagnosed" means, so it's a supremely unhelpful way of communicating.
Second problem: if I say "I have ADHD" or "my kid has ADHD", and you say "ADHD is over-diagnosed", why say that? Just a random uninformed observation? Are you saying that my diagnosis or my kid's diagnosis is likely wrong? Why? You're not my doctor, so fuck off, basically. Even being very generous in interpreting intent, you're still taking a conversation about me and my experience and instead trying to have a conversation about societal trends, in which you are very likely less well-informed than me, and on balance, probably it's a bit of a rude thing to do.
Third problem: patterns of who gets diagnosed are not uniform, since people are not spherical blobs. People who have ADHD are already disadvantaged in navigating the medical system. People who don't fit the stereotype have a harder time. Women seem to have a harder time on balance. Adults have a harder time. Other minority groups have a harder time. People who can't afford private assessment are basically shut out entirely. Many GPs and even psychiatrists throw their hands up and insist on specialists who are not even available. So how could you possible apply this blanket "over-diagnosed" trend to say anything meaningful about any individual or group?
Fourth problem: fuck off, again. Almost always not in good faith, or at least clueless and unaware of how saying things like this impacts individual people, invalidating their experience, and perpetuating misinformation. Generally someone who insists on this is trying to get across the message "it should be harder to get stimulant medication". It's a horrible thing to try to make it harder for people to get necessary medical treatment. I'd rather 50 people get stimulants who don't have ADHD than one person be denied necessary treatment and continue to suffer.
posted by lookoutbelow at 4:30 PM on January 10 [12 favorites]
Problem one: over-diagnosed/under-diagnosed is not a binary either/or thing, at least according to definitions that make sense to me.
Let's say over-diagnosed = too many people diagnosed as having ADHD that do not. Under-diagnosed = too many people who do have ADHD either not assessed at all, or mistakenly assessed as not having ADHD.
But like, both things can be true at the same time. Assuming that assessors are not perfect, a solid number of people who are assessed are misdiagnosed. And infrastructure for getting ADHD assessed is abysmal, with many people who end up doing the diagnosing not having a proper understanding of the condition or how to evaluate for it.
The real claim that people seem to making when they say "ADHD is over-diagnosed" seems to be something like "it's too easy to get an ADHD diagnosis", or "most people diagnosed with ADHD don't actually have it" or "ADHD isn't such a big deal as people make it out to be", or "too many people are prescribed ADHD medication", or "the actual number of people with ADHD is much smaller than people make it out to be" or any number of other vague poorly articulated claims. All of them can be refuted in various ways, but it's hard to have a conversation when I don't know what you mean. Further, the person listening probably has a different notion of what "over-diagnosed" means, so it's a supremely unhelpful way of communicating.
Second problem: if I say "I have ADHD" or "my kid has ADHD", and you say "ADHD is over-diagnosed", why say that? Just a random uninformed observation? Are you saying that my diagnosis or my kid's diagnosis is likely wrong? Why? You're not my doctor, so fuck off, basically. Even being very generous in interpreting intent, you're still taking a conversation about me and my experience and instead trying to have a conversation about societal trends, in which you are very likely less well-informed than me, and on balance, probably it's a bit of a rude thing to do.
Third problem: patterns of who gets diagnosed are not uniform, since people are not spherical blobs. People who have ADHD are already disadvantaged in navigating the medical system. People who don't fit the stereotype have a harder time. Women seem to have a harder time on balance. Adults have a harder time. Other minority groups have a harder time. People who can't afford private assessment are basically shut out entirely. Many GPs and even psychiatrists throw their hands up and insist on specialists who are not even available. So how could you possible apply this blanket "over-diagnosed" trend to say anything meaningful about any individual or group?
Fourth problem: fuck off, again. Almost always not in good faith, or at least clueless and unaware of how saying things like this impacts individual people, invalidating their experience, and perpetuating misinformation. Generally someone who insists on this is trying to get across the message "it should be harder to get stimulant medication". It's a horrible thing to try to make it harder for people to get necessary medical treatment. I'd rather 50 people get stimulants who don't have ADHD than one person be denied necessary treatment and continue to suffer.
posted by lookoutbelow at 4:30 PM on January 10 [12 favorites]
I am grateful for this conversation. My last student intern had ADHD and I will never ever dismiss the seriousness of the condition. We try to make reasonable accommodation for employees and fortunately, two of my colleagues have children with ADHD and were a huge help to both of us. You're laughing at using a desk calendar to keep track of things, but he had never used one before and it really helped. He also appreciated detailed step-wise lists of common procedures. Unfortunately, despite him being the brightest student I've ever had, and despite him making heroic efforts, the job was exhausting and stressful for him and took too much of my time shadowing him to make sure nothing catastrophic happened. He left for another job he hoped would be less stressful (substitute-teaching; I'm worried it won't be!). He is a wonderful person and I wish I could have figured out better things to do.
posted by acrasis at 4:39 PM on January 10 [2 favorites]
posted by acrasis at 4:39 PM on January 10 [2 favorites]
hauling that thing up and then translating it from the inside-the-head language of the behind-eyes geometric crystal omnipalace where neither time nor distance (those two great implacable enemies of all life and all sentience) exist into exterior-world language is going to take at least a few seconds oh okay you are absolutely not going to give me any space to talk nor think, you’re pretty committed to that it looks like, so since i’m not welcome in the conversation i’m gonna nod and say uh-huh at intervals but if you actually need me for anything let me know because despite appearances i’m not really here
blp, i love you, but you are hereby notified that this schtick you've got of going around mefi doing 20%-over-flattering but otherwise horrifyingly accurate impressions of my IRL personality has not passed unnoticed and i'm beginning to entertain hypotheses involving me sleep-posting and/or being named Naomi without realising.
posted by busted_crayons at 5:11 PM on January 10 [4 favorites]
blp, i love you, but you are hereby notified that this schtick you've got of going around mefi doing 20%-over-flattering but otherwise horrifyingly accurate impressions of my IRL personality has not passed unnoticed and i'm beginning to entertain hypotheses involving me sleep-posting and/or being named Naomi without realising.
posted by busted_crayons at 5:11 PM on January 10 [4 favorites]
sometimes i think it's super annoying realizing that a lot of interesting quirks and talents that i thought were wholly distinct to me actually track together with a diagnosis that a lot of other people have but then i realize that it's always neat to meet another member of the behind-eyes geometric crystal omnipalace where neither time nor distance (those two great implacable enemies of all life and all sentience) exist club
either that or i'm you sleep-posting, which would explain why what appears to be me is primarily active when people from the americas are awake
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 5:54 PM on January 10 [4 favorites]
either that or i'm you sleep-posting, which would explain why what appears to be me is primarily active when people from the americas are awake
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 5:54 PM on January 10 [4 favorites]
I thank the posters above me for reading my mind and writing down my thoughts. Particularly Peach and their first comment "you have so much potential" used to feel like a slur.
Now with my ADHD, ASD, and adjacent friends we say "lets get together and waste navigable amounts of potential this weekend". Birds of a feather, it is so nice to hang out with people with this type of brain, or who get it: no need to mask, multi-hour tangled-tree conversations where we manage to do a full traversal and balance all the brackets.
I find it ironic that the illegal drugs I used from ages 16 to 40 to deal with undiagnosed ADHD and ASD (from ages 5 to 16 I just coped, by age 15 I was seen as a lot more "problematic" than "gifted", if I was going to get in trouble and fail at life anyway I might as well try some illegal drugs (which literally saved my life but YMMV)) are now cheap and easy to get, while there is a shortage of the expensive legal drugs I use now.
posted by Dr. Curare at 5:54 PM on January 10 [6 favorites]
Now with my ADHD, ASD, and adjacent friends we say "lets get together and waste navigable amounts of potential this weekend". Birds of a feather, it is so nice to hang out with people with this type of brain, or who get it: no need to mask, multi-hour tangled-tree conversations where we manage to do a full traversal and balance all the brackets.
I find it ironic that the illegal drugs I used from ages 16 to 40 to deal with undiagnosed ADHD and ASD (from ages 5 to 16 I just coped, by age 15 I was seen as a lot more "problematic" than "gifted", if I was going to get in trouble and fail at life anyway I might as well try some illegal drugs (which literally saved my life but YMMV)) are now cheap and easy to get, while there is a shortage of the expensive legal drugs I use now.
posted by Dr. Curare at 5:54 PM on January 10 [6 favorites]
Tiny Monster’s OT said she thinks he’ll eventually be diagnosed with ADHD. My wife told a teacher friend who immediately responded with, “that makes sense. Your husband has ADHD, right?”
You’re really not supposed to drink caffeine on your way to bed?
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 7:28 PM on January 10 [3 favorites]
You’re really not supposed to drink caffeine on your way to bed?
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 7:28 PM on January 10 [3 favorites]
No, man, caffeine makes most people feel sleepy. That one's not universal--I am personally really stimulant-sensitive, which is why I take small doses of Ritalin and watch my caffeine use carefully; I don't enjoy heart palpitations, thanks. But it's really common, to the point that anyone experiencing caffeine as calming, relaxing, or sleep-inducing generally benefits from a referral.
yeh my cobbled-together solution only worked because i grew up ungodly poor and was accustomed to poverty diets/living situations, because i had realized long ago that my genes do not need to propagate further thank you very much, and because i did the grad-school equivalent of mirak's job-hopping strategy until i found a not-bad situation.
ah yeah whereas I uh. ahahaha. I. ahahahahahaha oh god I thought. that I could handle a situation that was increasingly going to hell by communicating clearly. ahahahahahahaha oh man the AuDHD can encourage smart people to do some real dumb things. and then right as things hit an extremely painful inflection point, COVID smacked us all for a loop and really dug into some new and exciting levels of dysfunction.
got the degree tho and wound up job-hopping on the strength of my lived experience-driven interest in neurodivergence and executive function, which is how I wound up in an almost completely different discipline for postdoc eeeeeeeeeeyyy. now of course the problem is that hey, uh, you know what fucks executive function besides adhd? autism! and trauma! and depression! and--wait, this is all very very unfair.
I will note that after ten years in academia I find that neurodivergence is the norm, not the exception, but no one fucking notices and it is so weird. As someone who quite literally grew up around neurodivergent people--I was streamlined into a gifted and talented elementary school that I know for a fact that more than a third of were later or at the time diagnosed with either ADHD or autism, and that's just the ones I ran into later through happenstance or parents keeping in touch--I really cannot overstate just how obvious it can be when someone is dealing with certain flavors of neurodivergent Stuff once you have an eye open for it. and yet there is so much stigma about talking about it. our neuroscience grad students agitated for test time extensions--you know, the most bog standard boring ass undergrad accommodation--last year and you'd have thought the sky was falling from the way the faculty reacted. they won it tho, the kids are all right.
posted by sciatrix at 7:53 PM on January 10 [8 favorites]
yeh my cobbled-together solution only worked because i grew up ungodly poor and was accustomed to poverty diets/living situations, because i had realized long ago that my genes do not need to propagate further thank you very much, and because i did the grad-school equivalent of mirak's job-hopping strategy until i found a not-bad situation.
ah yeah whereas I uh. ahahaha. I. ahahahahahaha oh god I thought. that I could handle a situation that was increasingly going to hell by communicating clearly. ahahahahahahaha oh man the AuDHD can encourage smart people to do some real dumb things. and then right as things hit an extremely painful inflection point, COVID smacked us all for a loop and really dug into some new and exciting levels of dysfunction.
got the degree tho and wound up job-hopping on the strength of my lived experience-driven interest in neurodivergence and executive function, which is how I wound up in an almost completely different discipline for postdoc eeeeeeeeeeyyy. now of course the problem is that hey, uh, you know what fucks executive function besides adhd? autism! and trauma! and depression! and--wait, this is all very very unfair.
I will note that after ten years in academia I find that neurodivergence is the norm, not the exception, but no one fucking notices and it is so weird. As someone who quite literally grew up around neurodivergent people--I was streamlined into a gifted and talented elementary school that I know for a fact that more than a third of were later or at the time diagnosed with either ADHD or autism, and that's just the ones I ran into later through happenstance or parents keeping in touch--I really cannot overstate just how obvious it can be when someone is dealing with certain flavors of neurodivergent Stuff once you have an eye open for it. and yet there is so much stigma about talking about it. our neuroscience grad students agitated for test time extensions--you know, the most bog standard boring ass undergrad accommodation--last year and you'd have thought the sky was falling from the way the faculty reacted. they won it tho, the kids are all right.
posted by sciatrix at 7:53 PM on January 10 [8 favorites]
Hey, here's a thing I've been asking occasionally in neurodivergence spaces lately. Since... the whole clusterfuck with the PhD and COVID, I've caught myself having so much trouble switching tasks or initiating motion once I've decided to get up and do something that I have been experimenting pretty extensively with reminders to activate motion, right? Timers are not super helpful--I tend to reflexively turn them off and I can tune out auditory input like no one's business--but I've noticed that different sensory modalities help in different ways, and I find that touch (vibration or poking) works the best. I've been working with a dog both in response to alarms and just on verbal cue, and something about having the dog come over and poke me is really helpful for letting me hit that gas pedal and actually move.
Does that shit work for other people? Has anyone else been experimenting with anything similar? Not that this is a panacea at all--apart from everything else, trying to train a dog to a public access standard of obedience is a really time-intensive and labor-intensive endeavor--but the way that it's working and continuing to work effectively over the past, uh, six months or so? ish? is something I've found really life-changingly helpful, meds or no meds. Apart from anything else, I forgot afternoon doses of meds constantly until the dog learned to reliably respond to the alarm alert, and now that just. doesn't happen any more.
Like. I don't want to say "oh yeah this one neat trick fixes everything", but a "touch" cue is one of the easiest things to teach any pet--you could teach a cat to do this pretty easily, too--and I've run into a couple of people anecdotally who are using their own pets to do something similar and say that it helps. If this is a thing, a) I want to know what the fuck is going on and what the parameters of action are, and b) I want to know why it works as well as it does.
(I mentioned I have a grant on executive function stuff in the works, but it's not focused on this; I still do animal-focused work and I have basically no human-research contacts working with neurodivergence at the moment. But fuck is this a thing I would like some data on, please.)
(also I started writing both these comments twenty minutes ago and my dog is going to come for me if I don't get my ass to bed soon so uhhhhhhh see it's working I hate it which has become something of a refrain over the past few days...)
posted by sciatrix at 7:54 PM on January 10 [8 favorites]
"Psychiatric service dogs" can remind their handlers to take medication.
posted by Iris Gambol at 8:18 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]
posted by Iris Gambol at 8:18 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]
How the hell do you train a dog to remind you to move? I am so so fascinated and interested please memail me your witchcraft Druid secrets!
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 10:26 PM on January 10
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 10:26 PM on January 10
If you only have problems with unstructured social interaction (small talk, mingling, conversations about random things) and you’re ok with structured conversation (giving talks, discussing a specific topic, playing board games, etc) that’s one good clue you may have autism.
Absolutely this. AuDHD is a thing, and apparently a majority of autistic people are ADHD as well. Until recently, the official diagnostic criteria specified that it was not possible to have both. That, combined with the incorrect belief that AFAB autistic people are rare, means that so many of us are going unrecognised.
posted by Zumbador at 10:40 PM on January 10 [7 favorites]
Absolutely this. AuDHD is a thing, and apparently a majority of autistic people are ADHD as well. Until recently, the official diagnostic criteria specified that it was not possible to have both. That, combined with the incorrect belief that AFAB autistic people are rare, means that so many of us are going unrecognised.
posted by Zumbador at 10:40 PM on January 10 [7 favorites]
Many ADHD buddies are discovering their latent autistic roots lately! We're all a whole pile of maskers. I have an annoying question: is "AuDHD" just an abbreviation stacked onto an already non-accurate abbreviation? I mean, I'm here for it, but where'd it come from?
posted by lauranesson at 10:51 PM on January 10
posted by lauranesson at 10:51 PM on January 10
Laurannsson, yes, I believe AuDHD is just an informal acronym used as a convenient shorthand, and not used formally at all. Started in ND social media spaces as far as I know.
posted by Zumbador at 11:05 PM on January 10
posted by Zumbador at 11:05 PM on January 10
And as I've heard it, the 'fused' term helps express that it's not so much "being autistic plus being ADHD" as that some people's neurotype shows aspects of what we identify as the two. (Or that the autism package can lean heavy on the executive function side, or other angles of seeing it.)
A practical effect being that AuDHD people are often not helped by seeing ADHD specialists who aren't autism-skilled. And anecdotally the response rate to ADHD meds seems to be lower, though I don't know that for a statistical fact or if it is one whether it's actually a treatment skill issue.
posted by away for regrooving at 11:55 PM on January 10 [3 favorites]
A practical effect being that AuDHD people are often not helped by seeing ADHD specialists who aren't autism-skilled. And anecdotally the response rate to ADHD meds seems to be lower, though I don't know that for a statistical fact or if it is one whether it's actually a treatment skill issue.
posted by away for regrooving at 11:55 PM on January 10 [3 favorites]
either that or i'm you sleep-posting, which would explain why what appears to be me is primarily active when people from the americas are awake
i admit the first explanation is more plausible, but this admission may be an instance of motivated reasoning on my part, because in the second scenario, in which i am sleep-posting, there is only one of me, whereas in the first scenario (where we are distinct people with common psychological traits, recall), there are twice as many people who appreciate that time --- the notional fundamental physical quantity, the constellation of cultural conventions and power relations, and the putative total order on the set of all events* --- is a malignant growth on the very body of reality itself and must be stopped at all costs and by any means necessary, and are willing to join me in the ongoing struggle against time. i hope there are two of us so that i'm not the only one holding the line against the sociomathematical fascist who's trying to dictate the circumstances under which i leave the house or trying to make me switch from Activity A to Activity B when A is unfinished (e.g. the project of reading all of wikipedia) and B (literally any of the surprisingly long list of human activities commonly described in a way that starts with "go to") is a fuckin drag.
*here's this use of time: consider the directed graph C whose vertices are all events that have happened or will ever happen, with a directed edge from event X to event Y if X causes Y (causality makes more intuitive sense than time, obviously). there's a new directed graph C' with the same vertex set but whose edges we don't definitely know, except that they have the property that (X, Y) being an edge of C implies that (X, Y) is also an edge of C', and (Y, X) is not an edge of C'. edges in C' represent temporal precedence, and the link with C is that, if we're bothering with time, we may as well insist that "X causes Y" means, in particular, that X came before, and not after, Y. (note that this constrains C, too.) its obvious that, even if C is totally understood, C' is not uniquely determined, and "time is a total order on the set of events" is just one of the ways of filling in the edges of C' in a way that's compatible with the stipulated relationship to C, but there are obviously other ways. like maybe C' is just isomorphic to C, and everybody grants that the causality relation on the set of all events is much more complicated than mere temporal precedence as conventionally understood by people whose friends don't refer to them as "the late $SO-AND-SO" while they are still alive. but anyway it seems to me like time has a lot of possible order structures compatible with a notional fixed understanding of causal dependency among events and why the fuck are we privileging one choice over the others?
posted by busted_crayons at 2:20 AM on January 11 [2 favorites]
i admit the first explanation is more plausible, but this admission may be an instance of motivated reasoning on my part, because in the second scenario, in which i am sleep-posting, there is only one of me, whereas in the first scenario (where we are distinct people with common psychological traits, recall), there are twice as many people who appreciate that time --- the notional fundamental physical quantity, the constellation of cultural conventions and power relations, and the putative total order on the set of all events* --- is a malignant growth on the very body of reality itself and must be stopped at all costs and by any means necessary, and are willing to join me in the ongoing struggle against time. i hope there are two of us so that i'm not the only one holding the line against the sociomathematical fascist who's trying to dictate the circumstances under which i leave the house or trying to make me switch from Activity A to Activity B when A is unfinished (e.g. the project of reading all of wikipedia) and B (literally any of the surprisingly long list of human activities commonly described in a way that starts with "go to") is a fuckin drag.
*here's this use of time: consider the directed graph C whose vertices are all events that have happened or will ever happen, with a directed edge from event X to event Y if X causes Y (causality makes more intuitive sense than time, obviously). there's a new directed graph C' with the same vertex set but whose edges we don't definitely know, except that they have the property that (X, Y) being an edge of C implies that (X, Y) is also an edge of C', and (Y, X) is not an edge of C'. edges in C' represent temporal precedence, and the link with C is that, if we're bothering with time, we may as well insist that "X causes Y" means, in particular, that X came before, and not after, Y. (note that this constrains C, too.) its obvious that, even if C is totally understood, C' is not uniquely determined, and "time is a total order on the set of events" is just one of the ways of filling in the edges of C' in a way that's compatible with the stipulated relationship to C, but there are obviously other ways. like maybe C' is just isomorphic to C, and everybody grants that the causality relation on the set of all events is much more complicated than mere temporal precedence as conventionally understood by people whose friends don't refer to them as "the late $SO-AND-SO" while they are still alive. but anyway it seems to me like time has a lot of possible order structures compatible with a notional fixed understanding of causal dependency among events and why the fuck are we privileging one choice over the others?
posted by busted_crayons at 2:20 AM on January 11 [2 favorites]
have you heard the good news of our lord and savior grad school?
ymmv. math grad school's where I had my first real ADHD burnout and subsequent mental breakdown. at least I got an MS out of it, I guess.
posted by augustimagination at 2:35 AM on January 11 [3 favorites]
ymmv. math grad school's where I had my first real ADHD burnout and subsequent mental breakdown. at least I got an MS out of it, I guess.
posted by augustimagination at 2:35 AM on January 11 [3 favorites]
lists (text editor, notebook, napkin), journals, calendars, representations of italian tomatoes infected with the sociomathematical malignance of time, systems pirated from project management, productivity apps whose designed-in vibe falls anywhere on the spectrum from cynical cutesy wellness marketing to brutal soulless taylorism, tying a string around one's finger, getting way into management cybernetics with a view to applying some version of a viable system model to one's own life ecosystem of to-do lists, asking loved ones to remind one of certain important things, asking hated ones to remind one of certain important things, notes to self, wearing the same trousers for a month because then your stuff is definitely in that pocket when you need it, dreams about forgetting to do things or be places: it all has its place but eventually you figure out that if your System is focused on Knowing And Remembering What To Do, then your System is going to have a hard limit on its effectiveness unless What You Have To Do and The Task That Chooses You, Hard happen to align. because this is all about punishments hurting but not motivating, and external rewards (even, sometimes, survival-type ones) tasting like cardboard.
posted by busted_crayons at 2:38 AM on January 11 [7 favorites]
posted by busted_crayons at 2:38 AM on January 11 [7 favorites]
I seem to have landed on a workable career strategy for my ADHD, which is: to job-hop every time I lose steam and start falling behind.
Oh
after ten years in academia I find that neurodivergence is the norm, not the exception, but no one fucking notices and it is so weird.
Ohh
I see a lot of girls and non-binary students who are so awesome but have such low self-esteem from masking so well that they can get by but never feel truly seen and supported. The challenge isn't what not to say but rather there's nothing I can say that can make up for years of internalized criticism.
Ohhh
wonder what the overlap between "gifted" and "adhd" is
Ohhhh
If you only have problems with unstructured social interaction (small talk, mingling, conversations about random things) and you’re ok with structured conversation (giving talks, discussing a specific topic, playing board games, etc) that’s one good clue you may have autism.
Ohhhhh.
Damn, MetaFilter, I didn't expect to be called out this hard before 10am on a Thursday.
Re the gifted/ADHD overlap, my personal theory is that smarter folks are rightly unable to adapt to the patriarchal capitalist hellscape and the rejection of the entire premise plus the trauma inflicted by everyone else acting like you're the problem (and maybe with a generous sprinkle of family-of-origin trauma on top) leads to a cluster of symptoms that we've labeled ADHD. We're not meant to sit in a fucking chair and focus on things we don't really care about for 8+ hours per day, and every fiber of our beings are telling us that this is not what we're made for. Of course we have trouble doing the things that humans aren't really designed to do, especially when we have enough brain power to see outside of the box.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 6:53 AM on January 11 [9 favorites]
Oh
after ten years in academia I find that neurodivergence is the norm, not the exception, but no one fucking notices and it is so weird.
Ohh
I see a lot of girls and non-binary students who are so awesome but have such low self-esteem from masking so well that they can get by but never feel truly seen and supported. The challenge isn't what not to say but rather there's nothing I can say that can make up for years of internalized criticism.
Ohhh
wonder what the overlap between "gifted" and "adhd" is
Ohhhh
If you only have problems with unstructured social interaction (small talk, mingling, conversations about random things) and you’re ok with structured conversation (giving talks, discussing a specific topic, playing board games, etc) that’s one good clue you may have autism.
Ohhhhh.
Damn, MetaFilter, I didn't expect to be called out this hard before 10am on a Thursday.
Re the gifted/ADHD overlap, my personal theory is that smarter folks are rightly unable to adapt to the patriarchal capitalist hellscape and the rejection of the entire premise plus the trauma inflicted by everyone else acting like you're the problem (and maybe with a generous sprinkle of family-of-origin trauma on top) leads to a cluster of symptoms that we've labeled ADHD. We're not meant to sit in a fucking chair and focus on things we don't really care about for 8+ hours per day, and every fiber of our beings are telling us that this is not what we're made for. Of course we have trouble doing the things that humans aren't really designed to do, especially when we have enough brain power to see outside of the box.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 6:53 AM on January 11 [9 favorites]
We're not meant to sit in a fucking chair and focus on things we don't really care about for 8+ hours per day, and every fiber of our beings are telling us that this is not what we're made for.
yes, true, but nobody deserves this fate, even people who for whatever reason resign themselves to it or adapt more readily. hell, even people who like it --- i assume that they exist, because there's a sort of Rule 34 for human variety, and I've just imagined someone who believes themself to be fulfilled by TPS reports --- don't deserve it.
(I am a product of my US public school's "gifted" program instead of any of its systems for writing off problem children, while being as objectively problematic as many of the kids that got labelled problems, and i can't categorise the school system's "turn a blind eye when this kid creates hassles, pass him even though he doesn't do the homework, he's 'very clever'" as anything other than an arbitrary injustice in my white middle-class favour. and at least some of the "gifted" business is a pretty direct descendent of some queasy shit that's at least eugenics-adjacent if not worse [hopefully that changed since i was in school in the 90s/00s?]. so hopefully that notion gets replaced with more of an emphasis on neurodiversity. because it's not like the valourisation of a fairly nebulous [and often racist/sexist/classist] notion of "smartness" is doing us that many favours anyway.)
posted by busted_crayons at 7:48 AM on January 11 [5 favorites]
yes, true, but nobody deserves this fate, even people who for whatever reason resign themselves to it or adapt more readily. hell, even people who like it --- i assume that they exist, because there's a sort of Rule 34 for human variety, and I've just imagined someone who believes themself to be fulfilled by TPS reports --- don't deserve it.
(I am a product of my US public school's "gifted" program instead of any of its systems for writing off problem children, while being as objectively problematic as many of the kids that got labelled problems, and i can't categorise the school system's "turn a blind eye when this kid creates hassles, pass him even though he doesn't do the homework, he's 'very clever'" as anything other than an arbitrary injustice in my white middle-class favour. and at least some of the "gifted" business is a pretty direct descendent of some queasy shit that's at least eugenics-adjacent if not worse [hopefully that changed since i was in school in the 90s/00s?]. so hopefully that notion gets replaced with more of an emphasis on neurodiversity. because it's not like the valourisation of a fairly nebulous [and often racist/sexist/classist] notion of "smartness" is doing us that many favours anyway.)
posted by busted_crayons at 7:48 AM on January 11 [5 favorites]
rabbitrabbit, I absolutely hear that. I like the way you put it. A lot of people who make the same point want to deny the existence of the problem or else suggest overthrowing society first, which, fine, I'll put that on the list.
Children with ADHD hear 20,000 additional critical or corrective messages before their twelfth birthday when compared with neurotypical children.
I still remember the drama of the Signed Papers. It's funny now, but at the time, when I was seven or so, it haunted me every week. At my elementary school, you had to collect your graded work and have it stapled, then bring it back for your parents to sign. Your teacher would take it up, presumably to have a record that the parents were aware of your progress.
My papers were fine! If there was trouble, it was because of math, and my parents already knew about that because I'd be upset. And they're good parents, too; there was no problem asking. But I just could not get those papers signed at the end of the week. I couldn't keep it in mind. They bunched up into mangled accordions like everything else at the bottom of my backpack. Eventually it would all end in tears, lectures, and threats of holding back until every crumpled paper was signed. Then the cycle began again.
Today, something like that would probably trigger an assessment, at least in a child with family resources. (Together with other issues, such as the hyperachievement alternating with near-refusal to engage.) I wouldn't have thought of myself as "corrected" that often because I wasn't disruptive and I liked to please. But if you add up the dozens of things I just never could get right ...
posted by Countess Elena at 7:52 AM on January 11 [9 favorites]
Children with ADHD hear 20,000 additional critical or corrective messages before their twelfth birthday when compared with neurotypical children.
I still remember the drama of the Signed Papers. It's funny now, but at the time, when I was seven or so, it haunted me every week. At my elementary school, you had to collect your graded work and have it stapled, then bring it back for your parents to sign. Your teacher would take it up, presumably to have a record that the parents were aware of your progress.
My papers were fine! If there was trouble, it was because of math, and my parents already knew about that because I'd be upset. And they're good parents, too; there was no problem asking. But I just could not get those papers signed at the end of the week. I couldn't keep it in mind. They bunched up into mangled accordions like everything else at the bottom of my backpack. Eventually it would all end in tears, lectures, and threats of holding back until every crumpled paper was signed. Then the cycle began again.
Today, something like that would probably trigger an assessment, at least in a child with family resources. (Together with other issues, such as the hyperachievement alternating with near-refusal to engage.) I wouldn't have thought of myself as "corrected" that often because I wasn't disruptive and I liked to please. But if you add up the dozens of things I just never could get right ...
posted by Countess Elena at 7:52 AM on January 11 [9 favorites]
We're not meant to sit in a fucking chair and focus on things we don't really care about for 8+ hours per day, and every fiber of our beings are telling us that this is not what we're made for.
On this note, I kind of feel like my generation (Milennials)'s expected future of going to university for academic things did disservice to those of us with ADHD, or at least specifically for me. I was a gifted kid, for sure, and in cognitive testing as part of my ADHD testing most of my areas were in the high 90th percentile (while my working memory was crap).
University was a forgone conclusion and so I was pushed through academics - a BA and an MA, which both went fine but I could never apply myself, of course! - with really only an office job in my future. I have always worked in office jobs and even though I can do them and like to think and write, but being required to work a full-time job is torture. It's torture. Medication has made it so I don't dread every second of it like I used to - I was so confused at how people worked these jobs *without* dreading it every day - but still. No. Torture.
I would have been so much more happy if I had gone into a trade where I could make things with my hands, where I could have an outlet for my energy and not have to frigging sit in a chair and be able to do my week's worth of work in half a day (I have never had a job that kept me busy enough unless it was one of those jobs that is a firehose of urgent things that ultimately results in burnout) but expected to show up and work on nothing for all 40 hour anyway.
posted by urbanlenny at 8:16 AM on January 11 [4 favorites]
On this note, I kind of feel like my generation (Milennials)'s expected future of going to university for academic things did disservice to those of us with ADHD, or at least specifically for me. I was a gifted kid, for sure, and in cognitive testing as part of my ADHD testing most of my areas were in the high 90th percentile (while my working memory was crap).
University was a forgone conclusion and so I was pushed through academics - a BA and an MA, which both went fine but I could never apply myself, of course! - with really only an office job in my future. I have always worked in office jobs and even though I can do them and like to think and write, but being required to work a full-time job is torture. It's torture. Medication has made it so I don't dread every second of it like I used to - I was so confused at how people worked these jobs *without* dreading it every day - but still. No. Torture.
I would have been so much more happy if I had gone into a trade where I could make things with my hands, where I could have an outlet for my energy and not have to frigging sit in a chair and be able to do my week's worth of work in half a day (I have never had a job that kept me busy enough unless it was one of those jobs that is a firehose of urgent things that ultimately results in burnout) but expected to show up and work on nothing for all 40 hour anyway.
posted by urbanlenny at 8:16 AM on January 11 [4 favorites]
How the hell do you train a dog to remind you to move? I am so so fascinated and interested please memail me your witchcraft Druid secrets!
Ah, to clarify, I'm using a "touch" behavior that I've back-chained to one of several cues:
-a verbal "touch!" command, useful if I'm in that "gotta get up. Okay, body, time to move... now. okay... now. come on—" cycle; for whatever reason saying "touch" is sometimes easier than actually standing up to move
-several various phone timers: a shaking pill bottle that says "you can get rewards for prodding me UNTIL you see me swallow the pills, at which point there is a big chunk of freeze dried liver in it for you" ; another that says "it's Bedtime!" and chimes in a particular way which means that getting me to the bathroom (where both toothpaste and cookies live) earn a reward. For these location based things, I started by being grimly responsive to the alarm AND then praising the dog for observing and rewarding, then additionally praising and rewarding pushy behavior designed to nudge me to where I needed to go as long as it involved touching me. (what you're doing there is marking and capturing natural frustration reactions. In my case I also had to extinguish this dog's natural frustration reaction, which is an earsplitting bark capable of leaving you feeling fully stunned, so she would try out other things that work better.)
-standing aimlessly in the kitchen looking at my phone, chained to "touch!" as a visual cue; I'm still working with this because in my head looking at the phone is the necessary component, but my enthusiastic (and mercenary) dog will optimistically poke me for any kind of stranding and hanging around in places I get stuck JUST IN CASE she might get cheese for it. I have also noted her enthusiastically prodding other household members to see if she can get a cookie for poking them; this tends to wear off if not rewarded. Incidentally she tends to target my ADHD roommate for that rather than my autistic - only spouse.
All of that is pretty widespread and accessible dog training theory; the piece that blows my mind is that having the dog Arrive in my field of vision, and then nudge me, seems to reduce the activation threshold needed for me to actually Get Up And Start the Thing. It's the physical contact, possibly combined with the lack of judgement? because being approached by another human in the house will hook into anxiety activation, which also can help to power that initiation of energy thing but, you know, increases anxiety and fear which are big old burnout risks. Doing this with the dog doesn't: it sometimes takes some work on her end, I can be pretty "sticky" about it if I'm in full hyperfocus, but most of the time even just having her grinning face in my peripheral vision makes that metaphorical leaky gas pedal between motivation and motion work. I want to know why, and I really want to know if this is a me thing or a general thing, because I think even limited to at home support this could be widely useful.
Essentially, I wonder about it because it seems so easy and simple that it almost feels like there has to be a trap somewhere. But I've been using this for, oh, six months or so now, and it's still working well. I know one other person who does something similar (she uses Enthusiasm To Do Stuff with her two spaniels rather than a premeditated routine, but it's effective for her) and I think I'm just curious about whether it might be useful for more than just me, and whether I should try and do something systematic about it.
Speaking of which, this is good grist to nudge me to get the hell up and shower and then dig into dopinaminergic signaling in the nucleus accumbens and in the stratum, because the former is broadly hooked to motivation and the latter is broadly hooked to actual physical movement, and I keep thinking the key to fixing a lot of common executive function struggles in the people I know is to hook into understanding how that transition itself works. Most of what I'm doing right now is trying to answer variations on that basic question.
posted by sciatrix at 8:17 AM on January 11 [11 favorites]
Ah, to clarify, I'm using a "touch" behavior that I've back-chained to one of several cues:
-a verbal "touch!" command, useful if I'm in that "gotta get up. Okay, body, time to move... now. okay... now. come on—" cycle; for whatever reason saying "touch" is sometimes easier than actually standing up to move
-several various phone timers: a shaking pill bottle that says "you can get rewards for prodding me UNTIL you see me swallow the pills, at which point there is a big chunk of freeze dried liver in it for you" ; another that says "it's Bedtime!" and chimes in a particular way which means that getting me to the bathroom (where both toothpaste and cookies live) earn a reward. For these location based things, I started by being grimly responsive to the alarm AND then praising the dog for observing and rewarding, then additionally praising and rewarding pushy behavior designed to nudge me to where I needed to go as long as it involved touching me. (what you're doing there is marking and capturing natural frustration reactions. In my case I also had to extinguish this dog's natural frustration reaction, which is an earsplitting bark capable of leaving you feeling fully stunned, so she would try out other things that work better.)
-standing aimlessly in the kitchen looking at my phone, chained to "touch!" as a visual cue; I'm still working with this because in my head looking at the phone is the necessary component, but my enthusiastic (and mercenary) dog will optimistically poke me for any kind of stranding and hanging around in places I get stuck JUST IN CASE she might get cheese for it. I have also noted her enthusiastically prodding other household members to see if she can get a cookie for poking them; this tends to wear off if not rewarded. Incidentally she tends to target my ADHD roommate for that rather than my autistic - only spouse.
All of that is pretty widespread and accessible dog training theory; the piece that blows my mind is that having the dog Arrive in my field of vision, and then nudge me, seems to reduce the activation threshold needed for me to actually Get Up And Start the Thing. It's the physical contact, possibly combined with the lack of judgement? because being approached by another human in the house will hook into anxiety activation, which also can help to power that initiation of energy thing but, you know, increases anxiety and fear which are big old burnout risks. Doing this with the dog doesn't: it sometimes takes some work on her end, I can be pretty "sticky" about it if I'm in full hyperfocus, but most of the time even just having her grinning face in my peripheral vision makes that metaphorical leaky gas pedal between motivation and motion work. I want to know why, and I really want to know if this is a me thing or a general thing, because I think even limited to at home support this could be widely useful.
Essentially, I wonder about it because it seems so easy and simple that it almost feels like there has to be a trap somewhere. But I've been using this for, oh, six months or so now, and it's still working well. I know one other person who does something similar (she uses Enthusiasm To Do Stuff with her two spaniels rather than a premeditated routine, but it's effective for her) and I think I'm just curious about whether it might be useful for more than just me, and whether I should try and do something systematic about it.
Speaking of which, this is good grist to nudge me to get the hell up and shower and then dig into dopinaminergic signaling in the nucleus accumbens and in the stratum, because the former is broadly hooked to motivation and the latter is broadly hooked to actual physical movement, and I keep thinking the key to fixing a lot of common executive function struggles in the people I know is to hook into understanding how that transition itself works. Most of what I'm doing right now is trying to answer variations on that basic question.
posted by sciatrix at 8:17 AM on January 11 [11 favorites]
For a variety of reasons, I've decided (here in middle age) that I probably have some degree of ADHD. One thing I've observed is that my ability to "get shit done" (versus "squirrel!") seems dramatically increased in the few days after donating blood. I'm curious whether anyone else has observed something similar.
Caveats: Self-diagnosed, perhaps incorrectly. No medication other than caffeine.
posted by Slothrup at 8:18 AM on January 11
Caveats: Self-diagnosed, perhaps incorrectly. No medication other than caffeine.
posted by Slothrup at 8:18 AM on January 11
hell, even people who like it --- i assume that they exist, because there's a sort of Rule 34 for human variety,
One thing I have learned from hanging out with a wide range of neurodivergent and especially autistic folks over the years is that there is no task so obscure that someone out there does not care deeply about it and find it wildly interesting. Seriously. None.
posted by sciatrix at 8:20 AM on January 11 [5 favorites]
One thing I have learned from hanging out with a wide range of neurodivergent and especially autistic folks over the years is that there is no task so obscure that someone out there does not care deeply about it and find it wildly interesting. Seriously. None.
posted by sciatrix at 8:20 AM on January 11 [5 favorites]
I was diagnosed in college (120 hours, no degree) and I'm 51 now. ADHD is real and it's a flipping hassle. I take Evekeo and it works better for me than anything else but all stimulants make me tired. So at the end of my work day, I'm non-functional until I catch a 2nd wind. My prefrontal cortex is definitely impaired. I did have a full-blown psych eval to get my diagnosis. I've hauled those results around for 30 years. Easier when you have enough IQ points to compensate, but without the right meds, I will sit in my bathrobe for 3 days at a time playing video games and totally dissociating.
posted by PuppyCat at 8:54 AM on January 11 [3 favorites]
posted by PuppyCat at 8:54 AM on January 11 [3 favorites]
Thanks to everyone in this thread for sharing their perspectives! I've got two kids with ADHD and one with ASD, and I strongly suspect my wife to be undiagnosed ADHD, so I've had quite a bit of learning to do the last few years. Every one of you telling about your experiences helps me to be a better parent and spouse, and I guess in a broader sense a better human being as well.
posted by Harald74 at 9:06 AM on January 11 [4 favorites]
posted by Harald74 at 9:06 AM on January 11 [4 favorites]
probably really the ideal career for a lot of my people is being a drifter. like i watch natasha lyonne’s poker face and i think yes that exactly that that forever but maybe with fewer murderous gangsters plz
and in general whenever i watch any of lyonne's recent stuff i’m like “I have no idea how you got so much information about the inside of my head cause wow it is wild to see stuff that feels like the inside of my head coming from someone outside my head.”
busted_crayons: so i regret to inform you that a lot of my patter on metafilter is lifted more or less directly from ada palmer’s terra ignota series (which is the media product that has triggered that “seriously how the hell did you put all that stuff which I thought only existed in my own personal head into words that come from outside that head?” feeling harder than anything else ever) and i apologize in advance for how you’re probably going to start reading it in the next few days and then it’ll consume and or ruin your whole life for months.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 9:22 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]
and in general whenever i watch any of lyonne's recent stuff i’m like “I have no idea how you got so much information about the inside of my head cause wow it is wild to see stuff that feels like the inside of my head coming from someone outside my head.”
busted_crayons: so i regret to inform you that a lot of my patter on metafilter is lifted more or less directly from ada palmer’s terra ignota series (which is the media product that has triggered that “seriously how the hell did you put all that stuff which I thought only existed in my own personal head into words that come from outside that head?” feeling harder than anything else ever) and i apologize in advance for how you’re probably going to start reading it in the next few days and then it’ll consume and or ruin your whole life for months.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 9:22 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]
I appreciate this forum is not featuring people saying things like "But Joe Rogan said this", or
"but, I think this is wrong because I don't agree with it".
I wasn't diagnosed until I was 44, and for the reveal in this story...and I am a mental health therapist. This was an amazing revelation to me. I could look back on my youth and I felt "Holy shit, this explains a lot". Another problem that came forward when I was diagnosed was other diagnoses that were found: PTSD, and a formal diagnosis for Depression. I already have GAD, which has been greatly reduced as I got my anxiety (mostly) under control. This changed my career. I realized I needed to be working with those people who struggle with it because I know their struggle. My specialties now are ADHD, ASD, and Trauma, and I have gotten certifications in all three diagnoses. It breaks my heart to unfortunately hear many people talk about not being able to find a therapist who works with it and understands them/their child.
Here's what I suggest for my patients with it, I hope these directions help:
Russell Barkley's channel on Youtube. Go subscribe now.
The work of David Nowell PhD. He's a magnificent bastard and I love his thought process
ADHD 2.0 by Ned Hallowell and John Ratey
Taking Charge of Adult ADHD by Russell Barkley (He also has books for children, 4th edition).
I hope this is a good start. I get no money from those referrals, they are just great places to start at.
There are others, even professionals who know your struggles, and we want to help, and we understand.
posted by Chocomog at 11:25 AM on January 11 [11 favorites]
"but, I think this is wrong because I don't agree with it".
I wasn't diagnosed until I was 44, and for the reveal in this story...and I am a mental health therapist. This was an amazing revelation to me. I could look back on my youth and I felt "Holy shit, this explains a lot". Another problem that came forward when I was diagnosed was other diagnoses that were found: PTSD, and a formal diagnosis for Depression. I already have GAD, which has been greatly reduced as I got my anxiety (mostly) under control. This changed my career. I realized I needed to be working with those people who struggle with it because I know their struggle. My specialties now are ADHD, ASD, and Trauma, and I have gotten certifications in all three diagnoses. It breaks my heart to unfortunately hear many people talk about not being able to find a therapist who works with it and understands them/their child.
Here's what I suggest for my patients with it, I hope these directions help:
Russell Barkley's channel on Youtube. Go subscribe now.
The work of David Nowell PhD. He's a magnificent bastard and I love his thought process
ADHD 2.0 by Ned Hallowell and John Ratey
Taking Charge of Adult ADHD by Russell Barkley (He also has books for children, 4th edition).
I hope this is a good start. I get no money from those referrals, they are just great places to start at.
There are others, even professionals who know your struggles, and we want to help, and we understand.
posted by Chocomog at 11:25 AM on January 11 [11 favorites]
Through sheer luck I seem to have landed on a workable career strategy for my ADHD, which is: to job-hop every time I lose steam and start falling behind.
You might that find consulting works well for you. YMMV depending a LOT on the consulting firm you work for but I happened to luck upon one that understands many/most consultants get bored after being at a client too long and need to move on to something else in order to stay engaged and productive
posted by treepour at 11:40 AM on January 11
You might that find consulting works well for you. YMMV depending a LOT on the consulting firm you work for but I happened to luck upon one that understands many/most consultants get bored after being at a client too long and need to move on to something else in order to stay engaged and productive
posted by treepour at 11:40 AM on January 11
Based on this thread and others like it, the task of getting an official diagnosis sounds so daunting and unlikely to be fruitful that I'm not sure I'll ever attempt it. I can't even file my taxes or open my mail consistently. How the heck am I supposed to stay on top of things and advocate for myself in a complex and bureaucratic system that's more than likely going to be biased against helping me? I feel defeated just thinking about it
posted by treepour at 11:44 AM on January 11 [3 favorites]
posted by treepour at 11:44 AM on January 11 [3 favorites]
> Based on this thread and others like it, the task of getting an official diagnosis sounds so daunting and unlikely to be fruitful that I'm not sure I'll ever attempt it.
sometimes if you get lucky the hyperfocus ends up hyperfocusing for weeks on relentlessly pestering doctors and bureaucrats and totally ignoring any of their attempts to get you to leave them alone. at least, that's how it ended up working for me.
> You might that find consulting works well for you.
the thing i've discovered with consulting, in this case tech industry consulting, is that if i get the faintest whiff of an idea that what whatever goddamned company i'm consulting for is doing something unethical a switch flips (a very good switch that i very much like flipping when necessary) and whatever energy for concentration that i might have otherwise applied to the work they want to pay me to do is instead redirected into coördinating with other organizations (advocacy groups, people i know at the client's competitors) to make sure that whatever bad thing the client has paid me to work on never actually gets completed/deployed. this is partially because fuck you i won't do what you tell me, but also partially because i have very good reasons to keep my government name off of anything that's both evil and publicly available.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 11:53 AM on January 11 [4 favorites]
sometimes if you get lucky the hyperfocus ends up hyperfocusing for weeks on relentlessly pestering doctors and bureaucrats and totally ignoring any of their attempts to get you to leave them alone. at least, that's how it ended up working for me.
> You might that find consulting works well for you.
the thing i've discovered with consulting, in this case tech industry consulting, is that if i get the faintest whiff of an idea that what whatever goddamned company i'm consulting for is doing something unethical a switch flips (a very good switch that i very much like flipping when necessary) and whatever energy for concentration that i might have otherwise applied to the work they want to pay me to do is instead redirected into coördinating with other organizations (advocacy groups, people i know at the client's competitors) to make sure that whatever bad thing the client has paid me to work on never actually gets completed/deployed. this is partially because fuck you i won't do what you tell me, but also partially because i have very good reasons to keep my government name off of anything that's both evil and publicly available.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 11:53 AM on January 11 [4 favorites]
I wish people wouldn't say "but the medication will make such a difference to you!" or "why aren't you taking medication for it?" or "you just need the right type or the right dose"? As someone for whom the drugs didn't work (and I am guiltily sitting on a stash I need to get to someone who can use it), it is upsetting and frustrating that so many conversations about ADHD assume they will always transform people's lives.
Also, "but have you tried THIS organisational strategy?", or "why don't you just put things away?". In fact, any question starting "why don't you just".
posted by paduasoy at 11:59 AM on January 11 [3 favorites]
Also, "but have you tried THIS organisational strategy?", or "why don't you just put things away?". In fact, any question starting "why don't you just".
posted by paduasoy at 11:59 AM on January 11 [3 favorites]
being approached by another human in the house will hook into anxiety activation, which also can help to power that initiation of energy thing but, you know, increases anxiety and fear which are big old burnout risks.
Yes! Tuesday was the day of the megastorms, and the tornado warnings began to ramp up at precisely the same time my work nemesis opened a conversation on Teams that I didn't read because I knew it would just be about how I suck at everything. The two things powered initiation and sufficient energy to convey me to "an interior room" (the bathroom), where I remained for a very enjoyable hour texting everyone I knew about my situation and how I was hiding not from the storm but from my annoying co-worker. The storm never came and I went back to my office where I completed the tiny task my poor co-worker was asking me about in all of three minutes.
Doing this with the dog doesn't.
This is so genius--the guiltlessness of it is beautiful. Please keep working with it and please keep us posted. Sometimes I think maybe I have something like a precursor to Parkinson's, it can be so difficult to just MOVE, SOMEthing, ANY LIMB.
I still remember the drama of the Signed Papers.
For me it was Pippa Mouse. I checked Pippa Mouse out of the school library and took it home and read it and put it down somewhere. Two weeks later, Mrs. Dumas asked me whether I'd remembered to bring Pippa Mouse back to the school library. It was overdue. I had forgotten about Pippa Mouse. Mrs. Dumas didn't ask me about Pippa Mouse right before I was supposed to walk home from school or draw a mouse on my hand and label it "Pippa!" or anything effective, as she might have had she known what she was dealing with. Instead, she just asked me the same question the next morning and the next morning and the next morning and the next morning and the next morning and the next morning, piling shame upon shame, until forgetting Pippa Mouse became my whole reason for going to school or coming back home again or existing in the world at all. Finally Mrs. Dumas tired of the Pippa Mouse exchange and told me if I didn't bring Pippa Mouse to school the very next day, she would Send Me To The Principal's Office! So I forgot to bring Pippa Mouse to school the next day and Mrs. Dumas sent me to the principal's office.
I think I had to be escorted to the principal's office because I didn't know where it was, being six and so terrified of being sent there that I'd effaced myself completely. Nobody had ever noticed me before, much less been offended by me, so I had never seen the principal's office or the principal herself. The necessity to provide me an escort reminds me that when I was four and didn't know how to tie my shoes because I couldn't get it from the preschool teacher's bunny lecture, I got in trouble and had to stay inside alone while everybody else went out to play. Presently two fleet-footed peers darted into the room, one for each foot, and tied my untied Keds for me. They had been dispatched by the teacher. After they tied my shoes, the three of us ran outside and played, and everything was fine, but I have remembered for 52 years the shame of it, of having had to have been rescued from my own stupid inability to see how my shoelaces were a hole and a bunny and a tree. (Please note, as a child I never called this animal a "bunny" except when reading one of the books in the Pat the Bunny board book series. I said "rabbit" like a self-respecting four-year-old human being, and not "bunny" like a mewling, puking babe-in-arms. So I probably quit listening to the woman's tie-your-shoes instructions because I was offended by her infantalizing gibberish.) Anyway, in the Pippa Mouse debacle, too, I had to be assisted by better-equipped peers because, as all the educators seemed to want to emphasize to me endlessly, my brain was so riddled with holes I couldn't even do punishment right without assistance.
Whoever Mrs. Dumas had assigned as my "buddy" for the trip to the principal's office dropped me off in the outer office where I spoke to (sobbed at) the sweet and gentle receptionist about my business there, and she ushered me into the office of the principal, a kindly gray-haired lady who read the write-up slip from Mrs. Dumas, attempted to talk to me, found me incoherent with grief and fear, and called my mother. The principal handed me the phone so I could explain the problem. I, still sobbing, still terrified, could do nothing but howl "Pippa Mouse!" As I recall it, my mother, once she finally understood what the difficulty was, had to put down whatever she was doing, grab the book, and walk it over to the school. That probably didn't happen; probably they just sent it along with me the next morning. But it was necessary to make me go to the principal's office to learn my lesson.
Did they succeed? Did I learn my lesson? Well, I learned to tie my shoes eventually, but let's just take a brief glance at a snapshot of contemporary me and how I handle remembering important due dates:
I managed to pay the very late credit card bill last week! Confetti emoji! Probably the tenth or eleventh time I've paid the late fee for the privilege of paying for credit in the year 2023!!! What about the Geico bill, the AAA bill, and utilities bill? Nope! All a month plus overdue. Like Mrs. Dumas, I remind myself each and every day to pay the bills. Like 6-year-old me, I promise to do better and intend to do better, but then I forget. I haven't had the the power turned off on me in something like ten years, but I know that's no reason for confidence it will never happen again. It's the main reason I'm glad I have a gas stove even though I know it's slowly killing me.
posted by Don Pepino at 12:13 PM on January 11 [9 favorites]
Yes! Tuesday was the day of the megastorms, and the tornado warnings began to ramp up at precisely the same time my work nemesis opened a conversation on Teams that I didn't read because I knew it would just be about how I suck at everything. The two things powered initiation and sufficient energy to convey me to "an interior room" (the bathroom), where I remained for a very enjoyable hour texting everyone I knew about my situation and how I was hiding not from the storm but from my annoying co-worker. The storm never came and I went back to my office where I completed the tiny task my poor co-worker was asking me about in all of three minutes.
Doing this with the dog doesn't.
This is so genius--the guiltlessness of it is beautiful. Please keep working with it and please keep us posted. Sometimes I think maybe I have something like a precursor to Parkinson's, it can be so difficult to just MOVE, SOMEthing, ANY LIMB.
I still remember the drama of the Signed Papers.
For me it was Pippa Mouse. I checked Pippa Mouse out of the school library and took it home and read it and put it down somewhere. Two weeks later, Mrs. Dumas asked me whether I'd remembered to bring Pippa Mouse back to the school library. It was overdue. I had forgotten about Pippa Mouse. Mrs. Dumas didn't ask me about Pippa Mouse right before I was supposed to walk home from school or draw a mouse on my hand and label it "Pippa!" or anything effective, as she might have had she known what she was dealing with. Instead, she just asked me the same question the next morning and the next morning and the next morning and the next morning and the next morning and the next morning, piling shame upon shame, until forgetting Pippa Mouse became my whole reason for going to school or coming back home again or existing in the world at all. Finally Mrs. Dumas tired of the Pippa Mouse exchange and told me if I didn't bring Pippa Mouse to school the very next day, she would Send Me To The Principal's Office! So I forgot to bring Pippa Mouse to school the next day and Mrs. Dumas sent me to the principal's office.
I think I had to be escorted to the principal's office because I didn't know where it was, being six and so terrified of being sent there that I'd effaced myself completely. Nobody had ever noticed me before, much less been offended by me, so I had never seen the principal's office or the principal herself. The necessity to provide me an escort reminds me that when I was four and didn't know how to tie my shoes because I couldn't get it from the preschool teacher's bunny lecture, I got in trouble and had to stay inside alone while everybody else went out to play. Presently two fleet-footed peers darted into the room, one for each foot, and tied my untied Keds for me. They had been dispatched by the teacher. After they tied my shoes, the three of us ran outside and played, and everything was fine, but I have remembered for 52 years the shame of it, of having had to have been rescued from my own stupid inability to see how my shoelaces were a hole and a bunny and a tree. (Please note, as a child I never called this animal a "bunny" except when reading one of the books in the Pat the Bunny board book series. I said "rabbit" like a self-respecting four-year-old human being, and not "bunny" like a mewling, puking babe-in-arms. So I probably quit listening to the woman's tie-your-shoes instructions because I was offended by her infantalizing gibberish.) Anyway, in the Pippa Mouse debacle, too, I had to be assisted by better-equipped peers because, as all the educators seemed to want to emphasize to me endlessly, my brain was so riddled with holes I couldn't even do punishment right without assistance.
Whoever Mrs. Dumas had assigned as my "buddy" for the trip to the principal's office dropped me off in the outer office where I spoke to (sobbed at) the sweet and gentle receptionist about my business there, and she ushered me into the office of the principal, a kindly gray-haired lady who read the write-up slip from Mrs. Dumas, attempted to talk to me, found me incoherent with grief and fear, and called my mother. The principal handed me the phone so I could explain the problem. I, still sobbing, still terrified, could do nothing but howl "Pippa Mouse!" As I recall it, my mother, once she finally understood what the difficulty was, had to put down whatever she was doing, grab the book, and walk it over to the school. That probably didn't happen; probably they just sent it along with me the next morning. But it was necessary to make me go to the principal's office to learn my lesson.
Did they succeed? Did I learn my lesson? Well, I learned to tie my shoes eventually, but let's just take a brief glance at a snapshot of contemporary me and how I handle remembering important due dates:
I managed to pay the very late credit card bill last week! Confetti emoji! Probably the tenth or eleventh time I've paid the late fee for the privilege of paying for credit in the year 2023!!! What about the Geico bill, the AAA bill, and utilities bill? Nope! All a month plus overdue. Like Mrs. Dumas, I remind myself each and every day to pay the bills. Like 6-year-old me, I promise to do better and intend to do better, but then I forget. I haven't had the the power turned off on me in something like ten years, but I know that's no reason for confidence it will never happen again. It's the main reason I'm glad I have a gas stove even though I know it's slowly killing me.
posted by Don Pepino at 12:13 PM on January 11 [9 favorites]
Based on this thread and others like it, the task of getting an official diagnosis sounds so daunting and unlikely to be fruitful that I'm not sure I'll ever attempt it. I can't even file my taxes or open my mail consistently.
And if that's not enough - it really is a lot, but sometimes you hit a particularly functional period of time and finally do it, which is how I finally did (that my clinic had an online sign-up form was really essential to my success in this area) - if you go the medication route after diagnosis, in most (all?) jurisdictions they will only dispense you 30 days of medication at a time and you can only pick it up every 23 days so you have to constantly get on the prescription refill (and renewal) hamster wheel. I feel like I am always calling over to the pharmacy, always making myself go pick up my prescription, always just about to run out because *I am*. And that's on top of figuring out what works for you to remember to take your pill on your recommended dose schedule.
It's like they designed the worst possible support structure for people with ADHD to get diagnosed and treated that they could have dreamed up. Let's make you use your disabled skills to get treatment for your disabled skills! What could go wrong?!
posted by urbanlenny at 1:25 PM on January 11 [3 favorites]
And if that's not enough - it really is a lot, but sometimes you hit a particularly functional period of time and finally do it, which is how I finally did (that my clinic had an online sign-up form was really essential to my success in this area) - if you go the medication route after diagnosis, in most (all?) jurisdictions they will only dispense you 30 days of medication at a time and you can only pick it up every 23 days so you have to constantly get on the prescription refill (and renewal) hamster wheel. I feel like I am always calling over to the pharmacy, always making myself go pick up my prescription, always just about to run out because *I am*. And that's on top of figuring out what works for you to remember to take your pill on your recommended dose schedule.
It's like they designed the worst possible support structure for people with ADHD to get diagnosed and treated that they could have dreamed up. Let's make you use your disabled skills to get treatment for your disabled skills! What could go wrong?!
posted by urbanlenny at 1:25 PM on January 11 [3 favorites]
Oh hey friends diagnosed as adults! Good to see you here. I painfully relate to all of the above... And as a matter of fact had my annual meds review with my doctor today "Yes this has changed my life, yes I will willingly take the medication, no I am a terrible human without it. Oh shit, no didn't mean to be so self deprecating!"
Shout out to my parents who KNEW via a diagnosis my brother was suffering with this as a child but refused to get him any help. And admitted this to me 20 years later. I had it tough and probably girl-masked my way through it, but he really had an enormously hard time. Even today, I can see it in the way he lives and bounces around jobs, but mummy told him that he just needs to harden up. I wish he'd see someone and advocate for himself but it's just too ingrained. Heartbreaking.
posted by socky_puppy at 1:37 PM on January 11 [4 favorites]
Shout out to my parents who KNEW via a diagnosis my brother was suffering with this as a child but refused to get him any help. And admitted this to me 20 years later. I had it tough and probably girl-masked my way through it, but he really had an enormously hard time. Even today, I can see it in the way he lives and bounces around jobs, but mummy told him that he just needs to harden up. I wish he'd see someone and advocate for himself but it's just too ingrained. Heartbreaking.
posted by socky_puppy at 1:37 PM on January 11 [4 favorites]
They bunched up into mangled accordions like everything else at the bottom of my backpack
This phrase is so evocative of my school-going years. Having to fish in my backpack for a crumpled assignment that may or may not be there, under the watchful eyes of my well-meaning teacher who knows that I could be exceptional if I just put in consistent effort and took more care. Thank goodness everything I do is on my computer now.
posted by sid at 1:47 PM on January 11 [7 favorites]
This phrase is so evocative of my school-going years. Having to fish in my backpack for a crumpled assignment that may or may not be there, under the watchful eyes of my well-meaning teacher who knows that I could be exceptional if I just put in consistent effort and took more care. Thank goodness everything I do is on my computer now.
posted by sid at 1:47 PM on January 11 [7 favorites]
Just as a data point: I was diagnosed based on a one page checklist I filled out myself at my first meeting with a new psych. IT IS NOT ALWAYS HARD, please do not let that stop you from trying!
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:06 PM on January 11 [8 favorites]
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:06 PM on January 11 [8 favorites]
It probably depends entirely on your HMO and who you get, though. A friend of mine said she got diagnosed in 20 minutes, but.... I've been told New Psychiatrist might decide on his own that I have it and everything will be skittles and beer, or ... not, who knows?!?
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:43 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:43 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]
A useful phrase: "this is seriously impacting my ability to do my job." Worked a treat for me. No promises but if it helps it helps.
posted by emjaybee at 3:49 PM on January 11 [2 favorites]
posted by emjaybee at 3:49 PM on January 11 [2 favorites]
in most (all?) jurisdictions they will only dispense you 30 days of medication at a time and you can only pick it up every 23 days so you have to constantly get on the prescription refill (and renewal) hamster wheel.
This will be all jurisdictions within the US. It's federal law based on the classification of these meds as Schedule II drugs, which is the highest level of restriction that isn't actually banned forever. For comparison, the recently recommended DHS rescheduling of cannabis would bump that from Schedule I to a Schedule III classification.
It is unclear to me how much abuse of off label amphetamines is happening (despite having grown up on the thick of kids-selling-Ritalin hysteria, it wasn't something I ever paid a lot of attention to), but that's the fear and the reasoning for the regulation. It's also why there is a metric shit ton of research into non-stimulant ADHD meds: the next pharmaceutical company to isolate one that works even half as effectively as amphetamines (Adderall, Vyvanse) or methylphenidate (Ritalin) would be coining money. As it is, the closest thing is atomoxetine (Strattera), which is still helpful but nothing like as useful as CNS stimulants for executive function.
I see that the alpha agonists guanfacine and clonidine are also now listed as ADHD medications, but while both are extremely helpful neither of them will do jack shit for executive dysfunction. What they will do is help dampen adrenaline responses to signs of social criticism... that is, they help with RSD.
posted by sciatrix at 3:56 PM on January 11 [3 favorites]
This will be all jurisdictions within the US. It's federal law based on the classification of these meds as Schedule II drugs, which is the highest level of restriction that isn't actually banned forever. For comparison, the recently recommended DHS rescheduling of cannabis would bump that from Schedule I to a Schedule III classification.
It is unclear to me how much abuse of off label amphetamines is happening (despite having grown up on the thick of kids-selling-Ritalin hysteria, it wasn't something I ever paid a lot of attention to), but that's the fear and the reasoning for the regulation. It's also why there is a metric shit ton of research into non-stimulant ADHD meds: the next pharmaceutical company to isolate one that works even half as effectively as amphetamines (Adderall, Vyvanse) or methylphenidate (Ritalin) would be coining money. As it is, the closest thing is atomoxetine (Strattera), which is still helpful but nothing like as useful as CNS stimulants for executive function.
I see that the alpha agonists guanfacine and clonidine are also now listed as ADHD medications, but while both are extremely helpful neither of them will do jack shit for executive dysfunction. What they will do is help dampen adrenaline responses to signs of social criticism... that is, they help with RSD.
posted by sciatrix at 3:56 PM on January 11 [3 favorites]
It's also why there is a metric shit ton of research into non-stimulant ADHD meds: the next pharmaceutical company to isolate one that works even half as effectively as amphetamines (Adderall, Vyvanse) or methylphenidate (Ritalin) would be coining money. As it is, the closest thing is atomoxetine (Strattera), which is still helpful but nothing like as useful as CNS stimulants for executive function.
This's why I was rather fascinated to find out, years after, that modafinil was close to being approved as a non-stimulant ADHD medication; but for non-stimulant ADHD medications likely to get significantly prescribed to children and there was a fear of Stevens-Johnson syndrome after there were 6 cases of Stevens-Johnson syndrome & other severe skin issues between 1998 & 2007. I'd have to dig around to find the specific cite, but if I understood it right the thought there was that the potential increased risk would be unacceptable for children.
posted by CrystalDave at 4:43 PM on January 11
This's why I was rather fascinated to find out, years after, that modafinil was close to being approved as a non-stimulant ADHD medication; but for non-stimulant ADHD medications likely to get significantly prescribed to children and there was a fear of Stevens-Johnson syndrome after there were 6 cases of Stevens-Johnson syndrome & other severe skin issues between 1998 & 2007. I'd have to dig around to find the specific cite, but if I understood it right the thought there was that the potential increased risk would be unacceptable for children.
posted by CrystalDave at 4:43 PM on January 11
Don Pepino, your story makes me feel genuinely vicariously indignant and the very first thing i am going to do after our impending collective triumph over the sociomathematical malignance that is linear time is that i am going to travel to your school in whatever year the Pippa Mouse incident was and maybe do something unbecoming of a bunny to Mrs Dumas's shoelaces.
posted by busted_crayons at 4:47 PM on January 11 [6 favorites]
posted by busted_crayons at 4:47 PM on January 11 [6 favorites]
i apologize in advance for how you’re probably going to start reading it in the next few days and then it’ll consume and or ruin your whole life for months.
well if you start to feel discorporeal that'd be because i hit enter on the search you just suggested, closed this tab, and turned out to have been correct re: the you're a figment of my imagination thing. of course in this situation, i'll also have exited mefi and thereby ceased wolfing your klein, as it were, and will therefore be contending with discorporeal feelings of my own as i fade from your imagination as you fade from mine. unlike the directed graph representing temporal precedence, the one that encodes who is imagining whom may well have directed cycles; why not?
posted by busted_crayons at 5:00 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]
well if you start to feel discorporeal that'd be because i hit enter on the search you just suggested, closed this tab, and turned out to have been correct re: the you're a figment of my imagination thing. of course in this situation, i'll also have exited mefi and thereby ceased wolfing your klein, as it were, and will therefore be contending with discorporeal feelings of my own as i fade from your imagination as you fade from mine. unlike the directed graph representing temporal precedence, the one that encodes who is imagining whom may well have directed cycles; why not?
posted by busted_crayons at 5:00 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]
Another very aggravating thing to me is doctors who use non-stimulant medication as first line treatment absent special circumstances.
There's a bizarre moralizing opposition to stimulants, despite the extremely well-established evidence of effectiveness.
See e.g. Canadian ADHD Practice Guidelines around page 53 (though this whole document is full of excellent info and myth debunking). Which has long-acting stimulants as first line, short acting as second line (along with non-stimulant as a backup option: "Non-stimulants may also be used in combination with first-line agents as a potential augmentation for first-line treatment suboptimal responders [415]. Second-line non-stimulant agents also are appropriate where stimulant agents are contraindicated, such as in cases where there is high risk of stimulant misuse [133].", and off label such as buproprion (Wellbutrin) and modafinil as third line.
Yet I hear stories all the time of doctors prescribing buproprion only, because 'there's also depression', or seeing non-stimulant as a first line treatment for everyone for no good evidence-based reason, or due to a generalized fear of stimulant misuse disconnected from that individual. And so denying many people the most effective possible treatment. We would not tolerate this disregard of evidence for treatment of most other disorders, and I'm not aware of a comparable example of such a widespread rejection of such an effective medication (more proven effectiveness than nearly any other medication typically prescribed by psychiatrists).
Not to mention other mistakes, like insisting on getting rid of anxiety or depression before treating ADHD even if ADHD is more impairing, or not prescribing stimulants to anyone with anxiety: "Often, an effective ADHD treatment may contribute to reduce mood and anxiety related to ADHD-associated impairments. Although stimulants are thought to upregulate sympathetic nervous system activity, they are often compatible with anxiety disorders." I've also heard many stories of people receiving years and years of ineffective anxiety medication and having their anxiety nearly entirely resolve upon stimulant treatment (for me and many others, anxiety is a habitual response to need for stimulation that stimulants can replace).
Also noted that those treatment guidelines say unambiguously that primary care providers can diagnose and treat ADHD, but many, many, many insist that they cannot.
/endrant (for now...)
posted by lookoutbelow at 6:39 PM on January 11 [9 favorites]
There's a bizarre moralizing opposition to stimulants, despite the extremely well-established evidence of effectiveness.
See e.g. Canadian ADHD Practice Guidelines around page 53 (though this whole document is full of excellent info and myth debunking). Which has long-acting stimulants as first line, short acting as second line (along with non-stimulant as a backup option: "Non-stimulants may also be used in combination with first-line agents as a potential augmentation for first-line treatment suboptimal responders [415]. Second-line non-stimulant agents also are appropriate where stimulant agents are contraindicated, such as in cases where there is high risk of stimulant misuse [133].", and off label such as buproprion (Wellbutrin) and modafinil as third line.
Yet I hear stories all the time of doctors prescribing buproprion only, because 'there's also depression', or seeing non-stimulant as a first line treatment for everyone for no good evidence-based reason, or due to a generalized fear of stimulant misuse disconnected from that individual. And so denying many people the most effective possible treatment. We would not tolerate this disregard of evidence for treatment of most other disorders, and I'm not aware of a comparable example of such a widespread rejection of such an effective medication (more proven effectiveness than nearly any other medication typically prescribed by psychiatrists).
Not to mention other mistakes, like insisting on getting rid of anxiety or depression before treating ADHD even if ADHD is more impairing, or not prescribing stimulants to anyone with anxiety: "Often, an effective ADHD treatment may contribute to reduce mood and anxiety related to ADHD-associated impairments. Although stimulants are thought to upregulate sympathetic nervous system activity, they are often compatible with anxiety disorders." I've also heard many stories of people receiving years and years of ineffective anxiety medication and having their anxiety nearly entirely resolve upon stimulant treatment (for me and many others, anxiety is a habitual response to need for stimulation that stimulants can replace).
Also noted that those treatment guidelines say unambiguously that primary care providers can diagnose and treat ADHD, but many, many, many insist that they cannot.
/endrant (for now...)
posted by lookoutbelow at 6:39 PM on January 11 [9 favorites]
not prescribing stimulants to anyone with anxiety:
Also, sometimes you can fix this with (gasp!) lower doses of stimulants. This is what brought me from being totally unable to tolerate a 'normal' starting dose of Adderall to finding my current Ritalin dose incredibly useful.
and I'm not aware of a comparable example of such a widespread rejection of such an effective medication (more proven effectiveness than nearly any other medication typically prescribed by psychiatrists).
Oh, I totally am. Hey, where are my chronic pain buddies at? It is perhaps not a coincidence that the other frequently-prescribed and effective Schedule II class of drugs are the opioids that are used, among other things, to manage chronic pain--and to which I have frequently noted friends and acquaintances complaining that fear of over-prescription and the opioid epidemic make it much more difficult to access the meds that are actually most effective for their conditions. It's almost exactly the same story.
In general, addiction fears underlie most of the schedule II restrictions, and this can be especially frustrating when (as for ADHD-directed stimulants!) therapeutic doses are very different from recreational ones. It is also true that addiction treatment is... not good... and that there are other interventions that often work better, such as resolving external and environmental stresses; giving kids accurate education (since many addictions have a strong age-related component) and alternate forms of stuff to do; and providing relevant treatment, housing where relevant. Unfortunately all of these are much more expensive than regulating access, which is a pain in the fucking ass to cope with and (hey!) can make it easier for folks with ADHD to self medicate rather than accessing medication that is overseen by a physician.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, as I noted, ADHD is a massive risk factor for substance abuse in all kinds of directions. Of course this does not generally soothe the fears of regulators, either.
posted by sciatrix at 7:34 PM on January 11 [2 favorites]
Also, sometimes you can fix this with (gasp!) lower doses of stimulants. This is what brought me from being totally unable to tolerate a 'normal' starting dose of Adderall to finding my current Ritalin dose incredibly useful.
and I'm not aware of a comparable example of such a widespread rejection of such an effective medication (more proven effectiveness than nearly any other medication typically prescribed by psychiatrists).
Oh, I totally am. Hey, where are my chronic pain buddies at? It is perhaps not a coincidence that the other frequently-prescribed and effective Schedule II class of drugs are the opioids that are used, among other things, to manage chronic pain--and to which I have frequently noted friends and acquaintances complaining that fear of over-prescription and the opioid epidemic make it much more difficult to access the meds that are actually most effective for their conditions. It's almost exactly the same story.
In general, addiction fears underlie most of the schedule II restrictions, and this can be especially frustrating when (as for ADHD-directed stimulants!) therapeutic doses are very different from recreational ones. It is also true that addiction treatment is... not good... and that there are other interventions that often work better, such as resolving external and environmental stresses; giving kids accurate education (since many addictions have a strong age-related component) and alternate forms of stuff to do; and providing relevant treatment, housing where relevant. Unfortunately all of these are much more expensive than regulating access, which is a pain in the fucking ass to cope with and (hey!) can make it easier for folks with ADHD to self medicate rather than accessing medication that is overseen by a physician.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, as I noted, ADHD is a massive risk factor for substance abuse in all kinds of directions. Of course this does not generally soothe the fears of regulators, either.
posted by sciatrix at 7:34 PM on January 11 [2 favorites]
(General crankiness aside: if your health care providers are being fretful about trialing a stimulus medication and you are having difficulty seeking either diagnosis or medication more generally, try showing up requesting atomoxetine/Strattera or potentially viloxazine/Qelbree, which is a similar SNRI. Both do have good evidence of being additionally helpful for people with ADHD, and because neither are stimulants, you generally do not hit the same "med-seeking" barriers with them as you will for stimulants. If treatment is difficult to access, either because of executive function barriers or being afraid of medical treatment, you don't do yourself any good by holding out only for the most effective treatments. If the best you've got access to is a fuckload of caffeine and an SNRI, try that out, see if it helps. SNRIs will also often help for general shit like anxiety and depression that are often comorbid.)
and I will note, both jenfullmoon's and emjaybee's experiences ring true for me about medical healthcare professionals: my actual diagnosis memories are hazy, but while I have some childhood records I don't have any of the diagnostic paperwork. As an adult, my treatment as an adult has been entirely mediated by simply saying I was diagnosed as a child (true) and filling out the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale Symptom Checklist to verify. It is one sheet of paper and absolutely is what jenfullmoon's friend filled out.
And do not minimize whatever you struggle with. This is really hard but you will be much easier to diagnose if you march in there with your mask off. If you need to write things down in a list so you remember what you wanted to say rather than panickily saying "I'm fine!" as all memory of your struggles flees your head, do it. If your mental health professional asks what you are doing, explain that you have brought in your notes as an aid to memory because your short term memory is kind of garbage, or because you can get pretty forgetful sometimes, or because you wind up devoting all your time to scripts designed to make you feel normal rather than to, you know, communicating.
Show them whatever your System is. If you need a System (aka an aid or accommodation, even if it's one you provide to yourself) to complete daily life, tell the doc about it. Maybe especially do that if it's weird, like storing fruits and vegetables in the doors of the fridge because seeing them means you remember to eat them, or whatever.
posted by sciatrix at 7:50 PM on January 11 [8 favorites]
and I will note, both jenfullmoon's and emjaybee's experiences ring true for me about medical healthcare professionals: my actual diagnosis memories are hazy, but while I have some childhood records I don't have any of the diagnostic paperwork. As an adult, my treatment as an adult has been entirely mediated by simply saying I was diagnosed as a child (true) and filling out the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale Symptom Checklist to verify. It is one sheet of paper and absolutely is what jenfullmoon's friend filled out.
And do not minimize whatever you struggle with. This is really hard but you will be much easier to diagnose if you march in there with your mask off. If you need to write things down in a list so you remember what you wanted to say rather than panickily saying "I'm fine!" as all memory of your struggles flees your head, do it. If your mental health professional asks what you are doing, explain that you have brought in your notes as an aid to memory because your short term memory is kind of garbage, or because you can get pretty forgetful sometimes, or because you wind up devoting all your time to scripts designed to make you feel normal rather than to, you know, communicating.
Show them whatever your System is. If you need a System (aka an aid or accommodation, even if it's one you provide to yourself) to complete daily life, tell the doc about it. Maybe especially do that if it's weird, like storing fruits and vegetables in the doors of the fridge because seeing them means you remember to eat them, or whatever.
posted by sciatrix at 7:50 PM on January 11 [8 favorites]
Yet another pet peeve - people thinking something like:
ADHD increases rate of substance use disorder -> prescribing stimulants increases risk of substance use disorder. Totally ignoring the protective effect that appropriately dosed, especially long-acting stimulants can have against substance addiction and other addictive behaviours. (see e.g. this paper).
So doctors will see someone with a history of problematic use of substances like cannabis, alcohol, or harder drugs, and think "aha! Prescribing stimulants to this person is dangerous", when really it's quite possibly the best way to help them reduce dependence on other substances, and reduce maladaptive coping mechanisms generally. I've seen many stories of people who, for example, were able to stop binging on sugary snacks.
Without medication, the dopamine has to come from somewhere, and often that means increased anger/anxiety, risky and impulsive behaviour, use of less effective substances, or just inability to do basic self-care tasks. And if we don't care enough about just the individual (though we should), all of this has negative consequences on others with accidents, health care costs, disability, etc.
And as the common meme goes, if prescription stimulants are so addictive why do we forget to take them so often ahahaha sob.
In the end, there just isn't good evidence that I'm aware of that it's worth making it harder to get medically indicated treatment in order to prevent stimulant misuse.
posted by lookoutbelow at 8:23 PM on January 11 [9 favorites]
ADHD increases rate of substance use disorder -> prescribing stimulants increases risk of substance use disorder. Totally ignoring the protective effect that appropriately dosed, especially long-acting stimulants can have against substance addiction and other addictive behaviours. (see e.g. this paper).
So doctors will see someone with a history of problematic use of substances like cannabis, alcohol, or harder drugs, and think "aha! Prescribing stimulants to this person is dangerous", when really it's quite possibly the best way to help them reduce dependence on other substances, and reduce maladaptive coping mechanisms generally. I've seen many stories of people who, for example, were able to stop binging on sugary snacks.
Without medication, the dopamine has to come from somewhere, and often that means increased anger/anxiety, risky and impulsive behaviour, use of less effective substances, or just inability to do basic self-care tasks. And if we don't care enough about just the individual (though we should), all of this has negative consequences on others with accidents, health care costs, disability, etc.
And as the common meme goes, if prescription stimulants are so addictive why do we forget to take them so often ahahaha sob.
In the end, there just isn't good evidence that I'm aware of that it's worth making it harder to get medically indicated treatment in order to prevent stimulant misuse.
posted by lookoutbelow at 8:23 PM on January 11 [9 favorites]
About the "meds don't work the same for some" topic, as someone with some kind of combo of autism and ADHD, I can confirm.
My psychiatrist told me I have a weird brain as I'm not responding as I should to SSRIs or SNRIs, and I'm highly doubtful ADHD stimulant meds would work as I'm quite sensitive to caffeine etc.
I'm off all meds right now and anxiety is kicking my butt all the way around the block. I'm trying a 5-HTP supplement combined with L Theanine and passionflower extract and 🤷 it seems to take the edge off?
In case anyone finds it helpful, I've created a list of resources for late-realised autistic people here that will probably also be useful to ADHDers.
As to what the best thing is to say to someone who has just told you that they are neurodivergent: anything that signals that you care about and are interested in what this means for them.
"tell me more!"
"wow that's huge. How did you figure that out?"
"you OK to talk about that? It sounds like a big thing to find out about yourself. I bet it makes you look back at your life through a whole new lens"
posted by Zumbador at 8:44 PM on January 11 [5 favorites]
My psychiatrist told me I have a weird brain as I'm not responding as I should to SSRIs or SNRIs, and I'm highly doubtful ADHD stimulant meds would work as I'm quite sensitive to caffeine etc.
I'm off all meds right now and anxiety is kicking my butt all the way around the block. I'm trying a 5-HTP supplement combined with L Theanine and passionflower extract and 🤷 it seems to take the edge off?
In case anyone finds it helpful, I've created a list of resources for late-realised autistic people here that will probably also be useful to ADHDers.
As to what the best thing is to say to someone who has just told you that they are neurodivergent: anything that signals that you care about and are interested in what this means for them.
"tell me more!"
"wow that's huge. How did you figure that out?"
"you OK to talk about that? It sounds like a big thing to find out about yourself. I bet it makes you look back at your life through a whole new lens"
posted by Zumbador at 8:44 PM on January 11 [5 favorites]
A useful phrase: "this is seriously impacting my ability to do my job." Worked a treat for me. No promises but if it helps it helps.
I'm baffled as to how I AM GOING TO GET FIRED BECAUSE I CAN'T STOP FUCKING UP AT MY JOB, especially if I can't prove I'm just deliberately being a stupid disobedient asshole because you won't diagnose me, somehow hasn't gotten the results you'd expect. Maybe it's my being obviously female again, that ruins everything.
There's a bizarre moralizing opposition to stimulants, despite the extremely well-established evidence of effectiveness.
Yet I hear stories all the time of doctors prescribing buproprion only, because 'there's also depression', or seeing non-stimulant as a first line treatment for everyone for no good evidence-based reason,
Easy: you can (and I did) get a Wellbutrin prescription in 15 minutes. None of these months long processes of screening, no EKG, no checking of the blood pressure, no urine test. Why? Because if you need stimulants, apparently you are asking for meth. Methication, if you will.
I find this even more ridiculous because I said from the get-go that I DON'T EVEN KNOW IF I WANT THE STIMULANTS, I just need a damn diagnosis and I'll think about it later. But no, it's all about your wanting meth and being a drug seeker. Which is ironic because I never wanted to be a "drug seeker" ever due to my gagging. Nor do I love the idea of calling 95 pharmacies a month trying to find a drug I can't get because of the shortage and oh, I'm asking for meth. Yeah, sign me up for that, sounds awesome.
Not to mention other mistakes, like insisting on getting rid of anxiety or depression before treating ADHD even if ADHD is more impairing, or not prescribing stimulants to anyone with anxiety:
Yeah, that pissed me off the most of all. Dude, I am never going to get better. I am never going to be happy and healthy. I am never not going to have depression and anxiety on some level. This isn't curable. Why? BECAUSE I'M A DAMN WEIRDO WHO DOESN'T FIT WITH THE WORLD. Which could be blamed on ADHD, or not, but asking me to cure myself before I try again is a ridiculous expectation.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:25 PM on January 11 [3 favorites]
I'm baffled as to how I AM GOING TO GET FIRED BECAUSE I CAN'T STOP FUCKING UP AT MY JOB, especially if I can't prove I'm just deliberately being a stupid disobedient asshole because you won't diagnose me, somehow hasn't gotten the results you'd expect. Maybe it's my being obviously female again, that ruins everything.
There's a bizarre moralizing opposition to stimulants, despite the extremely well-established evidence of effectiveness.
Yet I hear stories all the time of doctors prescribing buproprion only, because 'there's also depression', or seeing non-stimulant as a first line treatment for everyone for no good evidence-based reason,
Easy: you can (and I did) get a Wellbutrin prescription in 15 minutes. None of these months long processes of screening, no EKG, no checking of the blood pressure, no urine test. Why? Because if you need stimulants, apparently you are asking for meth. Methication, if you will.
I find this even more ridiculous because I said from the get-go that I DON'T EVEN KNOW IF I WANT THE STIMULANTS, I just need a damn diagnosis and I'll think about it later. But no, it's all about your wanting meth and being a drug seeker. Which is ironic because I never wanted to be a "drug seeker" ever due to my gagging. Nor do I love the idea of calling 95 pharmacies a month trying to find a drug I can't get because of the shortage and oh, I'm asking for meth. Yeah, sign me up for that, sounds awesome.
Not to mention other mistakes, like insisting on getting rid of anxiety or depression before treating ADHD even if ADHD is more impairing, or not prescribing stimulants to anyone with anxiety:
Yeah, that pissed me off the most of all. Dude, I am never going to get better. I am never going to be happy and healthy. I am never not going to have depression and anxiety on some level. This isn't curable. Why? BECAUSE I'M A DAMN WEIRDO WHO DOESN'T FIT WITH THE WORLD. Which could be blamed on ADHD, or not, but asking me to cure myself before I try again is a ridiculous expectation.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:25 PM on January 11 [3 favorites]
A more helpful framing of the article would have been: as someone with ADHD, how to counter the misinformation and unhelpful "suggestions" that come your way, either directly with those who are making them or just in your own mind (or in private discussions with your loved one who has ADHD).
You can try to educate the neurotypical people around you by handing them this article. Some will learn and change their thinking; most won't.
The important thing is for YOU not to buy the misinformation and to help your loved ones with ADHD not to buy it either.
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 10:07 PM on January 11
You can try to educate the neurotypical people around you by handing them this article. Some will learn and change their thinking; most won't.
The important thing is for YOU not to buy the misinformation and to help your loved ones with ADHD not to buy it either.
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 10:07 PM on January 11
A quick googling revealed that you have the same paradox in the US as I've seen here:
Government: All citizens should have basic emergency supplies in the home, including a reserve of prescription medications. It's vital for a resilient society.
Citizen: Sounds like a good idea. Can I have a prescription for a little buffer, then?
Government: Absolutely not!
posted by Harald74 at 5:48 AM on January 12 [7 favorites]
Government: All citizens should have basic emergency supplies in the home, including a reserve of prescription medications. It's vital for a resilient society.
Citizen: Sounds like a good idea. Can I have a prescription for a little buffer, then?
Government: Absolutely not!
posted by Harald74 at 5:48 AM on January 12 [7 favorites]
Oh, Don Pepino! I am so sorry for your little self!
I absolutely remember being sick of the sight of books or other items that I'd borrowed because I was rotten with guilt for not returning them and unable to face turning up to do it. In fact, I won't let myself borrow other people's books today. I do borrow library books, but they asked for it. My local system decided to forgo fines. This is a good policy for the wider population, but I personally needed that kick in the ass of .25 a day. I'd take care to avoid that! Now I'm even worse with the due dates. External motivation is my key.
Harald74: I know! It's infuriating! You can stockpile OTC medications -- you can stockpile prescription lenses if you have the money -- but to stockpile a very personal particular need? No can do.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:49 AM on January 12 [3 favorites]
I absolutely remember being sick of the sight of books or other items that I'd borrowed because I was rotten with guilt for not returning them and unable to face turning up to do it. In fact, I won't let myself borrow other people's books today. I do borrow library books, but they asked for it. My local system decided to forgo fines. This is a good policy for the wider population, but I personally needed that kick in the ass of .25 a day. I'd take care to avoid that! Now I'm even worse with the due dates. External motivation is my key.
Harald74: I know! It's infuriating! You can stockpile OTC medications -- you can stockpile prescription lenses if you have the money -- but to stockpile a very personal particular need? No can do.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:49 AM on January 12 [3 favorites]
On the waiting list for an assessment for over three years. Called today, and they've paused assessments because the medication shortage makes them pointless. No indication of when assessments might restart.
posted by Klipspringer at 7:00 AM on January 12 [1 favorite]
posted by Klipspringer at 7:00 AM on January 12 [1 favorite]
Wowwwwwwwwwww, Klipspringer. I mean, kinda not surprised but also wow. They did tell me that the entire thing was decided on whether or not to put you on drugs, though.
I don't know if this thread is relevant to ADHD exactly, but I'm finding it a good read if anyone else hasn't seen it yet. I'm trying to find what might work for me in there, particularly the How To Get On website, which is amazing.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:47 AM on January 12 [2 favorites]
I don't know if this thread is relevant to ADHD exactly, but I'm finding it a good read if anyone else hasn't seen it yet. I'm trying to find what might work for me in there, particularly the How To Get On website, which is amazing.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:47 AM on January 12 [2 favorites]
I managed to get my adult diagnosis fairly easily in my 20's because I was clearly struggling with what was (in theory) an "easy" office job but my brain couldn't wrap itself around the simple tasks (and yes I was the "gifted" child). I remember calling up the mental health line and doing a brief assessment over the phone, then a half-hour meeting with a psychologist who, after hearing about my history, was like, "Yeah, there's no doubt you have ADHD," then briefly with a psychiatrist to get the med prescription.
The difficulty has been maintaining it, because as many of you will understand, I am prone to job-hopping (some of it has been my choice, some of it lately has been the economy's choice with lay-offs). I am probably one of the few people in the world who actually enjoy Kaiser as my health insurance because it requires so little executive functioning on my end and it's what I grew up using, so I understand it. I don't care about the doctor I see when I have a problem, I just see whoever is available. Yes, I would like to be build up a relationship/etc with a specific doctor. But it's either I go to the whatever doctor is available, or I just don't go to the doctor.
My last psychiatrist was great. His nurses were so organized and wonderful and patient and they would send reminders and submit med requests so there wouldn't be a gap, and he and I would just have a video appointment every six months to check in.
Anyway, job hopping means that I don't always get to choose my health insurance company. I still don't know how to find a doctor with United Healthcare and I had that job for two whole years and was supposed to be the main person people came to with benefit questions. Which means for two years I never bothered figuring out how to keep up my medications because it's that vicious cycle of needing specialized executive functioning in order to get help for my executive functioning issues. Plus the horror stories about the med shortage made me wonder if it would be worth trying to navigate in the first place. So, I didn't.
The thing is, most people don't know I have ADHD. I don't readily disclose it, especially at work. I'm the stereotypical "female with inattentive type" -- quiet, smart, maybe prefers to daydream instead of doing boring busy work, but she manages to somehow get things done (yay procrastinating until the last minute and using adrenaline to create miracles!). I've also learned over the years all sorts of tricks and things to keep me on task.
So, at work, I just seem mostly "normal," with a dash of "quirky creativity." But anyone who looks at me outside of work is like, "yeah, there's something going on." My mum knows when I've had a particularly hard day of focusing because my conversations will be scattershot and I'll forget words even more than usual, like my brain only has so much ability to focus per day and I've used it all up, so nouns are no longer available.
I've recently begin to wonder about the AuADHD side of things, though. My father definitely was on the spectrum, even though he was never formally diagnosed (he didn't trust those kinds of things, even as he realized this best explained how he functioned). Sometimes I wonder if there may be some of that within me, that it's not all just ADHD.
I don't care about the label so much as the ability to say, "Hey, my brain doesn't work the same way most people think it should, and I can quiet the chaos for a few hours with a mild stimulant so I can get boring stuff done and not just be paralyzed by inaction, and yes I will forever desire to do a dozen things at the same time that I will promptly forget about when I actually have the time do them."
Oh, and last summer I found a whole, untouched container of meds on the bookshelf by my bedroom. They had been sitting in their little "just picked up from the pharmacy" ziplock bag, shoved onto a row of books, for reasons that only my past-self can fathom. This was the last month's of meds I got from my old doctor, so easily two years old now, but I keep them for "get stuff done" emergencies. Even then, I still forget I have them. I also know there's another old nearly-full bottle somewhere in the box of work stuff from my old job before I started working remotely. I don't know where I've put that box. I want to find it, though, because it has my favorite mug in it.
posted by paisley sheep at 2:13 PM on January 12 [8 favorites]
The difficulty has been maintaining it, because as many of you will understand, I am prone to job-hopping (some of it has been my choice, some of it lately has been the economy's choice with lay-offs). I am probably one of the few people in the world who actually enjoy Kaiser as my health insurance because it requires so little executive functioning on my end and it's what I grew up using, so I understand it. I don't care about the doctor I see when I have a problem, I just see whoever is available. Yes, I would like to be build up a relationship/etc with a specific doctor. But it's either I go to the whatever doctor is available, or I just don't go to the doctor.
My last psychiatrist was great. His nurses were so organized and wonderful and patient and they would send reminders and submit med requests so there wouldn't be a gap, and he and I would just have a video appointment every six months to check in.
Anyway, job hopping means that I don't always get to choose my health insurance company. I still don't know how to find a doctor with United Healthcare and I had that job for two whole years and was supposed to be the main person people came to with benefit questions. Which means for two years I never bothered figuring out how to keep up my medications because it's that vicious cycle of needing specialized executive functioning in order to get help for my executive functioning issues. Plus the horror stories about the med shortage made me wonder if it would be worth trying to navigate in the first place. So, I didn't.
The thing is, most people don't know I have ADHD. I don't readily disclose it, especially at work. I'm the stereotypical "female with inattentive type" -- quiet, smart, maybe prefers to daydream instead of doing boring busy work, but she manages to somehow get things done (yay procrastinating until the last minute and using adrenaline to create miracles!). I've also learned over the years all sorts of tricks and things to keep me on task.
So, at work, I just seem mostly "normal," with a dash of "quirky creativity." But anyone who looks at me outside of work is like, "yeah, there's something going on." My mum knows when I've had a particularly hard day of focusing because my conversations will be scattershot and I'll forget words even more than usual, like my brain only has so much ability to focus per day and I've used it all up, so nouns are no longer available.
I've recently begin to wonder about the AuADHD side of things, though. My father definitely was on the spectrum, even though he was never formally diagnosed (he didn't trust those kinds of things, even as he realized this best explained how he functioned). Sometimes I wonder if there may be some of that within me, that it's not all just ADHD.
I don't care about the label so much as the ability to say, "Hey, my brain doesn't work the same way most people think it should, and I can quiet the chaos for a few hours with a mild stimulant so I can get boring stuff done and not just be paralyzed by inaction, and yes I will forever desire to do a dozen things at the same time that I will promptly forget about when I actually have the time do them."
Oh, and last summer I found a whole, untouched container of meds on the bookshelf by my bedroom. They had been sitting in their little "just picked up from the pharmacy" ziplock bag, shoved onto a row of books, for reasons that only my past-self can fathom. This was the last month's of meds I got from my old doctor, so easily two years old now, but I keep them for "get stuff done" emergencies. Even then, I still forget I have them. I also know there's another old nearly-full bottle somewhere in the box of work stuff from my old job before I started working remotely. I don't know where I've put that box. I want to find it, though, because it has my favorite mug in it.
posted by paisley sheep at 2:13 PM on January 12 [8 favorites]
There's a bizarre moralizing opposition to stimulants, despite the extremely well-established evidence of effectiveness.
related to the moralising-about-stimulants and a good point made upthread about sanctioned substance use versus unsanctioned: did anyone else have a multi-decade terrible time with nicotine but quit more or less easily after going on stimulant meds? the time the doctor was obligated to start me on ritalin, it just upped the nicotine urge (and didn't work that well), but the switch to dexamphetamine made me sort of indifferent to nicotine, although i now have to chew other gum or find other mints constantly (to replace the nicotine gum/mints that replaced cigarettes years ago) for persistent reasons of oral fidget. so even if the meds had no other benefits, the NHS prescription charge versus buying Nicotinell OTC has cut my (self)-medication spending like 90%.
posted by busted_crayons at 5:42 PM on January 12 [1 favorite]
related to the moralising-about-stimulants and a good point made upthread about sanctioned substance use versus unsanctioned: did anyone else have a multi-decade terrible time with nicotine but quit more or less easily after going on stimulant meds? the time the doctor was obligated to start me on ritalin, it just upped the nicotine urge (and didn't work that well), but the switch to dexamphetamine made me sort of indifferent to nicotine, although i now have to chew other gum or find other mints constantly (to replace the nicotine gum/mints that replaced cigarettes years ago) for persistent reasons of oral fidget. so even if the meds had no other benefits, the NHS prescription charge versus buying Nicotinell OTC has cut my (self)-medication spending like 90%.
posted by busted_crayons at 5:42 PM on January 12 [1 favorite]
I've not been diagnosed but I strong suspect ADHD (w/o the hyperactivity). I've been having more ooo squirrel moment than ever before the last couple months. When I tried tapering off the Wellbutrin I was taking for depression, I got so scattered brained. When I told the NP about that she suggested ADHD and we decided to stay on the meds (but at a lower dose than I was initially at). But I'm wondering if I should go up. Add in some body dysmorphia lately and I'm doing really good.
posted by kathrynm at 6:14 PM on January 12
posted by kathrynm at 6:14 PM on January 12
Nicotine increases dopaminergic release, just as amphetamines do, busted_crayons, so that actually does make a ton of sense. There's some neat literature on using ADHD intervention to help with nicotine addiction, which people with ADHD generally are especially prone to (probably as you note because it's a self-medicating thing).
This one finds that treating the ADHD (in this case with methylphenidate) helps a lot with nicotine abstinence... for patients with more severe ADHD who find that the methylphenidate alleviates their symptoms, i.e. for those for whom the meds are actually fixing the underlying problems that you're self medicating for.
posted by sciatrix at 6:15 PM on January 12 [2 favorites]
This one finds that treating the ADHD (in this case with methylphenidate) helps a lot with nicotine abstinence... for patients with more severe ADHD who find that the methylphenidate alleviates their symptoms, i.e. for those for whom the meds are actually fixing the underlying problems that you're self medicating for.
posted by sciatrix at 6:15 PM on January 12 [2 favorites]
If you have any tips on making phone calls when you want/need to, I'd sure love to hear 'em.
Writing a script out makes it easier for me to make the call, because it helps me feel less anxious about messing up what I need to say:
Hi, this is Amy Smith. Doctor Ogilvy's nurse called and left a message regarding some test results?
My birthdate: 12/10/65
My phone number: 218-213-4321
Prefer a morning appointment, Tuesdays are not good
Yes, my script includes a normal human greeting and my name IN WRITING because if it isn't on the script I will fuck it up. I called the doctor's office without a script one time and said, "Hi, this is Dr Ogilvy..." and immediately passed away from the shame.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 8:55 PM on January 12 [5 favorites]
Writing a script out makes it easier for me to make the call, because it helps me feel less anxious about messing up what I need to say:
Hi, this is Amy Smith. Doctor Ogilvy's nurse called and left a message regarding some test results?
My birthdate: 12/10/65
My phone number: 218-213-4321
Prefer a morning appointment, Tuesdays are not good
Yes, my script includes a normal human greeting and my name IN WRITING because if it isn't on the script I will fuck it up. I called the doctor's office without a script one time and said, "Hi, this is Dr Ogilvy..." and immediately passed away from the shame.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 8:55 PM on January 12 [5 favorites]
I don't know where I've put that box. I want to find it, though, because it has my favorite mug in it.
Oh, paisley sheep, I can relate. I hope you find your mug.
posted by Don Pepino at 6:27 AM on January 13 [2 favorites]
Oh, paisley sheep, I can relate. I hope you find your mug.
posted by Don Pepino at 6:27 AM on January 13 [2 favorites]
Dear St. Anthony: please help paisley sheep find the missing mug and meds.
(Let me know if it works, I'm having great luck asking St. Anthony to find other people's missing stuff of late, including one friend's package that was lost for weeks. I put in the prayer and it took almost a week, but she got it!)
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:33 AM on January 13 [4 favorites]
(Let me know if it works, I'm having great luck asking St. Anthony to find other people's missing stuff of late, including one friend's package that was lost for weeks. I put in the prayer and it took almost a week, but she got it!)
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:33 AM on January 13 [4 favorites]
Nicotine increases dopaminergic release, just as amphetamines do...
this is really interesting; thanks sciatrix!
I called the doctor's office without a script one time and said, "Hi, this is Dr Ogilvy..." and immediately passed away from the shame
have also done this! it is helpful to see that others use this sort of script because the maddening thing for me about phone calls is that you get like 15 seconds to establish context, and i can't fully believe that by saying "hi, this is $MY_LEGAL_NAME" to a stranger i have really given them any useful information at all (in their shoes, my thought would be "so, who's that?"). but of course i am being silly and one must say this.
sometimes a bureaucracy-interface-worker goes "let me just pull up your file" and the relief that The System has established conversational context for me is almost overwhelming. (for UK folks who have been able go the shared-care route for ADHD treatment due to The Waiting List, the second best thing about getting kicked over to the NHS for your meds [first best is reduction in cost] is that your scrip goes from being a paper thing whose existence you have to describe to the pharmacy worker, to being a thing that works by just saying "hi, my name is $NAME, and i'm here for my drugs, please have a look and your computer will tell you the rest, thanks".)
posted by busted_crayons at 10:03 AM on January 13 [4 favorites]
this is really interesting; thanks sciatrix!
I called the doctor's office without a script one time and said, "Hi, this is Dr Ogilvy..." and immediately passed away from the shame
have also done this! it is helpful to see that others use this sort of script because the maddening thing for me about phone calls is that you get like 15 seconds to establish context, and i can't fully believe that by saying "hi, this is $MY_LEGAL_NAME" to a stranger i have really given them any useful information at all (in their shoes, my thought would be "so, who's that?"). but of course i am being silly and one must say this.
sometimes a bureaucracy-interface-worker goes "let me just pull up your file" and the relief that The System has established conversational context for me is almost overwhelming. (for UK folks who have been able go the shared-care route for ADHD treatment due to The Waiting List, the second best thing about getting kicked over to the NHS for your meds [first best is reduction in cost] is that your scrip goes from being a paper thing whose existence you have to describe to the pharmacy worker, to being a thing that works by just saying "hi, my name is $NAME, and i'm here for my drugs, please have a look and your computer will tell you the rest, thanks".)
posted by busted_crayons at 10:03 AM on January 13 [4 favorites]
Nicotine increases dopaminergic release, just as amphetamines do, busted_crayons, so that actually does make a ton of sense. There's some neat literature on using ADHD intervention to help with nicotine addiction
There's also some evidence that low nicotine doses can help with ADHD symptoms. I'm considering asking my psych about trying this.
posted by hanov3r at 6:10 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]
There's also some evidence that low nicotine doses can help with ADHD symptoms. I'm considering asking my psych about trying this.
posted by hanov3r at 6:10 PM on January 13 [2 favorites]
In many ways I have absolutely won the lottery: I got an amazing job that I actually enjoy, with fantastic benefits, and paid time off for any medical things I need to take care of. I have a formal ADHD diagnosis, and a nifty Adderall XR 10 mg prescription that works! When I take it, I can finish thoughts, and it even helps me emotionally self-regulate! AND YET.
NO PHARMACY HAS BEEN ABLE TO FILL MY PRESCRIPTION FOR A YEAR.
why is this so difficult plz send hlep
posted by Space Kitty at 10:35 PM on January 14 [1 favorite]
NO PHARMACY HAS BEEN ABLE TO FILL MY PRESCRIPTION FOR A YEAR.
why is this so difficult plz send hlep
posted by Space Kitty at 10:35 PM on January 14 [1 favorite]
Space Kitty - dexedrine spansule, for now?
posted by Iris Gambol at 4:39 PM on January 15 [1 favorite]
posted by Iris Gambol at 4:39 PM on January 15 [1 favorite]
Re: Nicotine, it does not surprise me in the least that it addresses ADHD symptoms. My main argument against people who think that Adult ADHD is new is that, forty years ago, it was a lot easier to self-treat with cigarettes because you could smoke inside. The classic image of the beat reporter, banging out copy at 9pm with a full ashtray to his left and an empty pot of coffee on his right? That guy had ADHD, bad. It was more or less managed via stimulants and career, but those folks also tended to be dead by 65.
(In my own experience, the most trouble I ever got into at work was three months after I finally managed to quit smoking—and as a result missed several deadlines and several coworkers reported that I was inattentive in meetings. That’s when I started using anxiety and exercise to stay on task, which worked great until the pandemic.)
posted by thecaddy at 8:41 AM on January 16 [7 favorites]
(In my own experience, the most trouble I ever got into at work was three months after I finally managed to quit smoking—and as a result missed several deadlines and several coworkers reported that I was inattentive in meetings. That’s when I started using anxiety and exercise to stay on task, which worked great until the pandemic.)
posted by thecaddy at 8:41 AM on January 16 [7 favorites]
This video from a Mayo Clinic podcast/radio interview about Adult ADHD does an excellent job of explaining the impact.
Two points that I always take away from that:
- undiagnosed adult ADHD has measurable effects on life expectancy ( as much as 7 years in some studied groups). This includes suicides, accidents, and ADHD's ability to make dealing with the medical establishment (insurance, etc) difficult.
- The medications used to treat it (ie, Adderall etc) are cheap and with limited side effects. And perhaps best of all, the meds are extremely effective and they works almost immediately.
I compare the effectiveness of Adderall vs coping mechanisms like caffeine, nicotine, systems, magic planners as being on the same level as "real deal sudafed" vs the faux stuff.
posted by alikins at 12:59 PM on January 16 [3 favorites]
Two points that I always take away from that:
- undiagnosed adult ADHD has measurable effects on life expectancy ( as much as 7 years in some studied groups). This includes suicides, accidents, and ADHD's ability to make dealing with the medical establishment (insurance, etc) difficult.
- The medications used to treat it (ie, Adderall etc) are cheap and with limited side effects. And perhaps best of all, the meds are extremely effective and they works almost immediately.
I compare the effectiveness of Adderall vs coping mechanisms like caffeine, nicotine, systems, magic planners as being on the same level as "real deal sudafed" vs the faux stuff.
posted by alikins at 12:59 PM on January 16 [3 favorites]
Also, if someone spoke to me like TFA I'd ignore them, but if I ever find myself watching a mystery movie with them I am going to spoil the fuck out of it in the first 15 minutes.
posted by alikins at 1:03 PM on January 16 [1 favorite]
posted by alikins at 1:03 PM on January 16 [1 favorite]
Ah...is there supposed to be a link to a video?
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:15 PM on January 16
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:15 PM on January 16
Doh, forgot to include the video link I mentioned above: Adult ADHD: Mayo Clinic Radio
posted by alikins at 3:28 PM on January 16
posted by alikins at 3:28 PM on January 16
Welp, that went extremely poorly. He refuses to diagnose me with ADHD or even consider it later. He was very grudging about filling out a letter, though he said he'd do it. Said I can't get diagnosed because I'm a square peg in a round hole and nothing is wrong with me except for my job.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:48 AM on January 17
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:48 AM on January 17
uhhh what??? no???? ooooh I'm MAD on your behalf, jenfullmoon!!! any chance of a second opinion?
posted by librarina at 11:40 AM on January 17
posted by librarina at 11:40 AM on January 17
ABSOLUTELY NOT on the second opinion. We have hit "messiah of the DMV" levels of "nope, no more past here." It took months to get a regular psychiatrist at all and there's no option to switch that.
He literally said it wasn't his job to diagnose, it was the evaluators' job and he wasn't going to go against two inconclusives. I note the evaluator also said it wasn't her/their job to diagnose and it should be the psychiatrist. SO WHOSE JOB IS IT, THEN?!? They all keep insisting that I'm claiming I just got this at my age, too. Nobody will listen to "Dude, I always had these issues, it's just gotten worse enough that I had to ask now."
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:38 PM on January 17
He literally said it wasn't his job to diagnose, it was the evaluators' job and he wasn't going to go against two inconclusives. I note the evaluator also said it wasn't her/their job to diagnose and it should be the psychiatrist. SO WHOSE JOB IS IT, THEN?!? They all keep insisting that I'm claiming I just got this at my age, too. Nobody will listen to "Dude, I always had these issues, it's just gotten worse enough that I had to ask now."
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:38 PM on January 17
Jenfullmoon, it took me decades to get diagnosed, and it was also a struggle to get my daughter diagnosed, and then when we finally did - it was like a twenty minutes process and we walked out with prescriptions which felt wildly improbable after all the denials.
For me, I passed all the stupid quantitative testing and I had doctors who either felt a) girls don't have ADHD, b) you must hit this percentile point to qualify or c) you have a fulltime job and family, you're clearly not struggling. I went to a private psych who specialised in adult ADHD and showed him the paperwork up to then and got a script. My other psych went huh, it seems to be helping and has agreed to prescribe (subsidized!) the meds now. A family member had the same experience - the diagnosis had to be private, but then the public doctor recognised that it was working.
On the quantitative testing: look at the shortfall. I scored very high, very high, medium, very high where a similar pattern of high, high, low, high would have gotten me immediately confirmed. I pointed out that I was performing well below my capacity due to ADHD impairments and got told but that's enough for a regular person... The private psych was "Ok, you clearly can do more and want to do more, but struggle to do more than stay afloat".
My kid was denied for similar reasons as a small kid repeatedly and then a neurologist asked me if she was struggling at school and I said yes, and I suspected ADHD and she said "OK, let's trial ritalin" and BAM.
It is absolutely exhausting to get a diagnosis for ADHD, and it is very gendered and expensive. I hope you keep trying each year until you get the help you deserve. HUGS
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 8:46 PM on January 17 [3 favorites]
For me, I passed all the stupid quantitative testing and I had doctors who either felt a) girls don't have ADHD, b) you must hit this percentile point to qualify or c) you have a fulltime job and family, you're clearly not struggling. I went to a private psych who specialised in adult ADHD and showed him the paperwork up to then and got a script. My other psych went huh, it seems to be helping and has agreed to prescribe (subsidized!) the meds now. A family member had the same experience - the diagnosis had to be private, but then the public doctor recognised that it was working.
On the quantitative testing: look at the shortfall. I scored very high, very high, medium, very high where a similar pattern of high, high, low, high would have gotten me immediately confirmed. I pointed out that I was performing well below my capacity due to ADHD impairments and got told but that's enough for a regular person... The private psych was "Ok, you clearly can do more and want to do more, but struggle to do more than stay afloat".
My kid was denied for similar reasons as a small kid repeatedly and then a neurologist asked me if she was struggling at school and I said yes, and I suspected ADHD and she said "OK, let's trial ritalin" and BAM.
It is absolutely exhausting to get a diagnosis for ADHD, and it is very gendered and expensive. I hope you keep trying each year until you get the help you deserve. HUGS
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 8:46 PM on January 17 [3 favorites]
At this point I'm SOL since my alternate insurance (which I will lose once I lose my job anyway) tried to find someone to do ADHD evals for a month and didn't get anywhere. And since (a) I'll probably lose that one and (b) even if I had found someone it wouldn't be going through my HMO, that might still be an issue anyway. The white flag is waved, and then has been shot down :P
A friend of mine did have a 20 minute process of her own but I don't know where she got that done. They didn't do any tests like that on me here, just oral examination and surveys.
Actually the guy did say that I've only had a bad time with one job, I don't have a history of failing in every job yet. (YET, I say.)
Hugs back to you!
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:34 AM on January 18 [1 favorite]
A friend of mine did have a 20 minute process of her own but I don't know where she got that done. They didn't do any tests like that on me here, just oral examination and surveys.
Actually the guy did say that I've only had a bad time with one job, I don't have a history of failing in every job yet. (YET, I say.)
Hugs back to you!
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:34 AM on January 18 [1 favorite]
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