ADHD/Anxiety and psychological/medical treatements.

[Ilvane]

I really think this is an interesting topic so I thought I'd create a new topic from Stanley's post just to not take over Jesse's thread on his life and experiences.

Angela

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Self-fulfilling prophecy, from a strict psychological standpoint, is taught from some of the most beginner's psych courses/high school classes because it absolutely ties into the idea of sociocultural impacts of overdiagnosing.

During the 80s Ritalin craze, and still, many psychiatrists (non-PhD more often than not, I'll venture), make a misdiagnose attention defecit with a hyperactivity component and use meds like dexedrine and Ritalin to create a paradoxical effect whereas, in reality, stimulants are about the worst thing a young child with a clinical anxiety predisposition could be subjected to.

I was given an ADHD diagnosis by a substitute teacher at nursery school and then, inherently, by my parents, at age 4. I was then given Ritalin while everyone stood by agog that instead of DSM correlated hyperfocus, I was a jillion times more jittery than usual.

One serious issue, not to be disrespectful to practicing psychiatrists, is that the extra year of residency is usually spent on a ward that in no way matches the human interaction one should, imho, ideally need to begin embarking upon the subject and respective treatment of child abnormal psychology. There is then that much more of an inadequacy in the child component field of medical practice as a result. Special emphasis seriously, seriously, seriously needs to somehow be placed on: A) Very clearly seperating the gaps between adult, adolescent and child psych. And B) Applying modern day censorship and education to realms of the FDA's marketing department that cater specifically to parents of young children in general.

Many people have an antithesis against this viewpoint ready to lash out and I can't really blame them since finding the balance between an asswhooping and a fifteen medication cocktail for a 3 year old with X problem is going to be held with some aspects of taboo no matter how you really skew it.

I'm starting to see a bit of the Ritalin craze in those Restless Leg Syndrome commercials, which are absolutely fucking hysterical. You don't need a Harvard degree, let alone a GED, to get the jist of crippling anxiety in a young kid.

This really wasn't the thread or the time. My b If the mods want to baleet/move, feel free. I just need to sublimate sump'times.

[CrystalTears]

I believe in depression of multiple levels. I believe that children have learning disabilities and problems with coping with certain issues, none of which should be dealt with medication.

However I have a really, really, really difficult time believing in ADD/ADHD. I think it's a bunch of bull. I think it's an excuse to let kids get away with not doing things by being able to claim they are sick, when all it is is that they have a hard time paying attention. Duh. Welcome to being a kid and being easily distracted. I blame the parents and medical community for allowing it to get to the degree that it has.

[Necromancer]

On a personal note, I frankly never believed in ADHD either. And I would secretly judge anyone who told me they had it. So I'm not really going to judge anyone now for not believing in it. But, ultimately everything about you is mediated by your body, particularly your brain. And anything that can possibly go wrong with your brain/body does go wrong with someone. ADHD isn't an inability to pay attention, as many people think, it's a broken reward system and an inability to regulate attention. There is a particular area of the brain that is involved in these processes, and those with ADHD have impairments that leave these areas of the brain highly underactive.

The hyperactivity associated with ADHD is actually a side-effect of this underactivity; their brain attempts to keep the activity in these areas at a functional level by activating alternate areas of the brain (those associated with motor movement are the most outwardly noticable). This is a standard behavior of the brain; when one area isn't working up to par alternate neural pathways are created and activated (which is why you get the phenomonena of enhanced senses in those with severe physical disabilities). The result is a group of fidgety, impulsive, and daydreaming people.

As much crap as stimulant medication gets (and don't get me wrong- taking adderall on occasion for a test is a whole different story than needing it on a daily basis. Those who take it daily hate it the most); it has up to an 80% effectiveness rate...which is almost unheard of psychiatric drugs. Brain scans make it clear, however, that it doesn't make ADHD brains match "normal" controls..it just evens out brain activity. It activates the areas that the ADHD brain is unable to activate itself, which lowers compensation activity in other areas. This brings a measure of relief from the distractability and the motor restlessness, but it doesn't actually make you "just like everyone else". Hence there is no cure for ADHD; just treatments.

The irony of ADHD is that it is both horrendously underdiagnosed and horrendously overdiagnosed. If you look at the DSM-IV criteria for the disorder, it's all behavioral based symptomology (as the DSM is for everything). An astounding number of things can look like ADHD in this light. Central Auditory Processing Disorder (which includes high visual distractability as a compensation for poor auditory processing...more of the brain creating alternate neural pathways), Dyslexia (which I also have), Sensory Integration Dysfunction, Visual Processing Disorders, so-called "Non-Verbal Learning Disorder", sleep apnea, Asperger's, hypothyroidism, etc. can all create those symptoms. The truth is, many people have one of more of these difficulties and will never be diagnosed (particularly low-income children, gifted populations (IQ 130+), children in rural areas, etc), and many of those with those difficulties will be diagnosed based on a simple checklist by an MD or a teacher and mistakenly told they have ADHD. It may very well be that stimulant medication also helps activate the problem areas of the brain associated with some of these other disorders, and that's why there is such a high success rate with them, and it may also be that the 20% who don't respond appropriately to the medication don't have ADHD at all but some copycat problem.

I guess on a final rambling note...in terms of "You're lazy, you didn't write your papers"..I used to say the same thing about myself. It's a common thing to say about ADHD/LD people. But, finally I just had to admit that no one who busted their ass founding and running an NGO at 17, who stayed in school even when they couldn't eat, who worked over 50 hours a week on their feet, who spent three straight days calling and visiting every single clinic and hospital in the greater DC area and trying to talk his way in, who spent thousands of dollars and months on intensive behavioral modification (cognitive-behavioral therapy...super effective for ADHD), etc. is lazy.

Believe me, writing the papers and reading the books would have been much, much easier to do...if I didn't have reading problems and attention regulation problems.

[Atlanteax]

Let me tell you about my bout today with ADHD...

(do let me know if any of this sound remotely familiar)

.

Alarm wakes me up, and I turn it off. I idle myself in bed with thoughts about the last few days and the upcoming weekend. Then unable to focus on my daydreaming, I took my shower and got dressed and headed downstairs.

I hit the computer to check my email and skimmed through it. Bored, I opened up WoW to check the mailboxes in there and to chat with a few guildies.

Oh, look at the time, I better get headed to work. My thoughts bounces around, resuming consideration of the earlier daydreaming, how going to work is a bummer but a necessity, how fortunate it is that it is a Friday, etc etc.

At work, I boot up my workstation, hang up my jacket, hit the log-in, and then went to get my beverage. Started going through my Outlook, then resuming some work on preparing some performance reports (for our clients). I got bored, so I opened up IE and checked the Forums. Spent another 10 minutes sending out emails to various institutional fund managers, and then went back to IE to look through some webcomics. Then I went back to doing some “real work” for another 30 or so minutes before going back to IE and looking up other stuff.

The next few hours were jumpy in a similar pattern. It does not seem like I am really getting much “real work” done today. Then recalling that my barber called me a few days ago to inform me that he would be heading out of town next week for a couple of weeks, and that I’d need to come in soon if I wanted a haircut before he left… I called him to set up a time today.

Oh look, I’m back on IE reading through these Forums, and now typing up this Post.

Since I’m now to about leave the office for my haircut, (not a $400 one, mind you), I am left with this conclusion…

.

It is obvious that this morning, I am unmotivated to focus on my workload. It is probably “Friday-itis” where I am looking forward to the weekend after working extra hours on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (which was not something preventable, as the workload can be erratic), or maybe I am just being a bit of a lazy employee for the day.

Whatever it, suggesting that it could be ADHD would obviously be an excuse (for lack of effort on my part) !!

Btw, I'm sure that quite a many others have dealt with similiar mornings at work... so it would be nothing unusual.

[Sean of the Thread]

However I have a really, really, really difficult time believing in ADD/ADHD. I think it's a bunch of bull.

I will tell you personally it is not bull.


*Edit If I personally did not suffer from it I'd more than likely call bullshit.. especially with children. Unless you experience it yourself it's hard to understand IMO.. much like many other sickness/diseases.

[Anebriated]

Yeah, Id say the issue is real but there are many people who dont have ADD/ADHD who are misdiagnosed. My brother was a very hyper person for his entire childhood, while I was pretty calm and easy going. He could never focus in school and was pretty much a C/D student. He was tested and was diagnosed with ADHD, they gave him ritalin(or something similar, i cant remember) and within a month he was pulling in A's. Im not saying that everyone with a motivation problem should be using prescription drugs, just that in some cases its necessary.

[Necromancer]

What you described isn't ADHD any more so than describing one day of feeling low is depression. Everyone has the most obvious symptoms of ADHD sometimes. It's when it is a constant part of your day and your life that they begin to suspect a disorder.

Let me tell you about an actual day with ADHD...

wake up to alarm, which has been set incorrectly but thankfully an hour ahead since last night when I was setting it I was having problems remembering what time I had to get up today. I swore I had heard someone mention something about 7, so I set my alarm to 5 because I think 7 meant I had something to do at the office at 7AM.

I eventually manage to get myself up. It's difficult because I was up until 4 AM last night on the computer looking up pandas and their natural habitats after watching that TV show with the one guy in the outfit with the hat was talking about some snake in China that doesn't live anywhere where bamboo grows. And bamboo is eaten by Pandas, but I wanted to know how much they eat. This was at 8PM, or was it 9PM? But then suddenly I look up, and it's 4 AM. But I swear it only felt like an hour or two. Ugh, I did it again. I do it every night. Oh well, it could be worse. The night before I set my alarm for midnight to make sure I knew when midnight rolled around, and then I was just laying in bed with my mind running a thousand miles a second until 4 AM anyway.

I'm looking through my pantry and pondering what I should eat for breakfast. Crap, I'm out of my adderall again, and it's already Friday, and the damn pharmacy isn't open until Monday. Oh crud, I also forgot to get my prescription refill from the doctor's office. I swear I had it on my mind all day yesterday, but when my lunch break came around I totally forgot about it. What did I eat for lunch yesterday anyway? Oh yeah, Christie and I went to Long John Silver, but I didn't really like the- oh shit, it's 5:30!

I run into the shower, which takes me all of 87 seconds. God I hate long showers. You just stand there. Fuck, where are my shoes? Oh no, I forgot to pick out an outfit last night. What did I wear yesterday? Was it a brown suit? I should wear a navy suit today. no, wait, maybe I wore a navy suit yesterday, and I should wear a brown suit today. Fuck fuck, just wear the brown suit.

Where are my damn shoes? WHERE ARE THEY? Oh, thank god, they're under the kitchen table. I didn't even eat dinner at the kitchen table, why are they there? Oh crap, socks, I forgot socks. Oh, here they are. ....Why do I only have one of my shoes? WHERE THE HELL IS THE OTHER SHOE? Oh, I dropped it in the bathroom when I stopped in to shave on the way to grab my socks.

WHERE ARE MY FUCKING KEYS? EVERY GOD DAMN MORNING. FUCK FUCK IT'S 6:15, AND I CAN'T FIND MY FU- oh, they're in the cabinet again. Wonder how they got there. Ugh, I can never remember to set them by the door. Oh my god, where is my briefcase?

Ugh, it's 7:15, and I'm just now pulling into work. Damnit, damnit, they told me if I was late again there'd be a problem. Shit, bill collectors calling again. Have to pay the cable bill. I have more than enough in my bank account; I just keep forgetting to do it. And I can never remember the damn cable number to pay it. I should do automatic payments. What's the number to set that up again?

Um...no one is at work but Tracy. She reminds me that we have a reception to go to at 7PM tonight. Crap. I could've been asleep for another hour.

It's almost noon, thank god. So uncomfortable sitting at the desk. Frank isn't helping either, he keeps threatening to cut my legs off I don't stop shaking the desk and making that rattling sound with the pencil holder. Well, I finally stopped, and now he's getting mad at me for tapping my fingers against the desktop. How was I supposed to know I was even doing it?

Getting increasingly irritable. Need to go to lunch. Need to do *something*. I know, I'll go get some water. Then go to the bathroom. Then stop by and see Tracy. Oh, maybe we can make lunch plans.

Fuck, boss keeps yelling at me to sit down. I'm going to explode. Is it lunch time yet?

[CrystalTears]

OH SHIT I HAVE ADHD TOO!

[Ilvane]

I really don't think that people would see it as amusing if it were something like depression or another mental illness. That is what ADHD is. It's not as if it's something that people make up as an excuse, in most cases.

I know enough students I worked with that wished they could just concentrate and make it go away. It just doesn't work that way.

Angela

[Celephais]

I will tell you personally it is not bull.


*Edit If I personally did not suffer from it I'd more than likely call bullshit.. especially with children. Unless you experience it yourself it's hard to understand IMO.. much like many other sickness/diseases.

Experiencing anothers emotions is nothing anyone can do. What you experience might be exactly what I experience when I would rather just sit on the couch and watch TV than be productive... You call it ADHD, I call it "fuck I'm bored".


OH SHIT I HAVE ADHD TOO!

QFT
It might be some chemical thing in your body, but every single feeling a human has is due to some chemicals being released in your body. Just not feeling like doing some thing is chemicals telling me i'm tired.

[Ilvane]

There are some pretty strong studies that say exactly the opposite of what you say. The more research that is done on it proves that it is more likely a biological cause, rather than "laziness" or an excuse.

I like the NIH site, it's informative anyway.

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/adhd.cfm#cause

Angela

[Drew2]

yeah, the "day with ADHD" that was described here is pretty much what the majority of Americans go through every day. Even those thought processes.

You are not sick, you do not need medication. You need to grow up.

[Atlanteax]

My younger brother was diagnosed with ADHD in highschool.

Both of my parents did not believe that to be the case, and considered him to be just lazy with his school work (C- student, could pull Bs with effort).

He didn't buy the diagnosis himself either, but spoke of it as "well, now I have an excuse with the teachers with my homework and tests and stuff."

My parents opted to go along with the diagnosis because it meant he would get another 2-3 hours to take a 1 hour test, and he would have "help" with the tests (ie answers more readily available).

In the long run, this was a better alternative than him dropping out or failing school. Note that he was never on the medication, my parents just ran with the diagnosis, and we "milked" the situation to provide him with an easy way to graduation.

.

Nowadays, after he has gotten several years of long-awaited emotional maturity under his belt where he takes responsibility for himself... he is self-employed with a small, but starting to thrive, business (now making enough that most people would consider a good salary for an "uneducated" individual). Where sometimes he would have days off, and others days work 14 or so hours, depending on the work available.

Anyhow, the point is that he does have the determination, and the intellectual/emotional aptitude to succeed without needing to rely on excuses for short-comings.

.

However, the ease that he was diagnosed with ADHD (and I can only imagine how many others, as my former teachers would rant about how too many students are being diagnosed with ADHD or something along those lines) is a perfect example of how easily corrupted any institutional form of healthcare can be.

Particularly with counselors tripping and falling over themselves to diagnosis any student who does not do well. Because apparently no kid is an idiot, and if they do not do well... it's not because they skip school, don't do their homework, don't study for tests (in regard to cases where this is true, probably very often) ... it's not their fault!!

.

It is a Cop-out, and a trouble symptom of a society obsessed with denying the principal of personal responsibility.

[Drew2]

I love Atlanteax.

[Ilvane]

I disagree with you again, wholeheartedly. SOME people fake it..SOME people use it as an excuse, just like any other illness.

I know people who use anxiety as a crutch and it irritates the hell out of me because I was once someone who was full of anxiety and still dragged my butt to school and work, and some people feel it's okay to fake it.

There are always going to be people who are lazy and use it as an excuse, it doesn't mean ALL people are doing that.

It's like saying someone who is schitzophrenic is faking it. Try to think of it that way.

You may not see it as being serious, but it is.

Angela

[Atlanteax]

There are some pretty strong studies that say exactly the opposite of what you say. The more research that is done on it proves that it is more likely a biological cause, rather than "laziness" or an excuse.

I like the NIH site, it's informative anyway.

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/adhd.cfm#cause

Angela

I especially liked this passage...

"who are inattentive have a hard time keeping their minds on any one thing and may get bored with a task after only a few minutes. If they are doing something they really enjoy, they have no trouble paying attention. But focusing deliberate, conscious attention to organizing and completing a task or learning something new is difficult."

Duh!!

I'm doing something fun and enjoyable. I astound myself with my ability to focus on what I am doing.

If I am not enjoying what I'm doing, I'm thinking about things that I'd rather do instead.

.

Hmm... I think that kind of thought process applies to *everyone*.

[Celephais]

There are some pretty strong studies that say exactly the opposite of what you say. The more research that is done on it proves that it is more likely a biological cause, rather than "laziness" or an excuse.

I like the NIH site, it's informative anyway.

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/adhd.cfm#cause

Angela

The "is it really ADHD" portion (the only I bothered to read, I don't have time for walls of text thanks to my adhd) is laughable. It's like "not everyone has it... only people who aren't at average levels for their age". What a terrible terrible metric.

[Celephais]

We never said they're faking it, we're just saying they are not different in any way than a normal person, but a normal person just fucking deals with it. If you want to diagnose someone with having abormally shitty willpower, ASW, then sure.

[CrystalTears]

I find a big difference between ADHD and having anxiety. I'm more inclined to believe Necro has anxiety. Deal with that, and I'm betting that the jittering and so forth will subside, and probably help you focus as you're to involved in several issues in order to tackle one.

I'm not trying to talk down people with problems because my family is loaded with them. I have issues with the ADHD diagnosis and don't believe it to be a problem that everyone they say has it actually have. It think it's just a symptom of something else that can be dealt with.

I have several days of being forgetful, doing something else when I should focus on something and being absentminded. My husband doesn't call me a pokey little puppy for nothing. But when I tell myself to focus, I do. When I know my job is on the line, I do it. It's a problem of motivation for the most part, not attention deficit disorder. Yeah I'm not paying attention. I know how to get past it. And if you know how to at any point, then you're not suffering from anything.

[Latrinsorm]

The ADD thing reminds me of the people who think that being perpetually overweight is something anyone can just will their way out of.

[Ignot]

We are in a different time now. Do you think more people are growing up with ADHD b/c of the environment we grow up in? I mean look at shit like MTV. There is not a one second pause in any shit they air. It's non stop in your face stuff flashing at you. And video games? Things are a bit different then the Atari with the one button controller. Now you have to master 9 or 10 buttons and everything is complex and the games are intense (which i love). I don't want these things to act as a scapegoat b/c it isnt their fault but i just wanted to post some examples on the changes in how our children have grown up.

I don't remember any kids having ADHD when i was young, now every kid does.

You think im off my rocker or does this make sense?

[CrystalTears]

You need Ritalin, Ignot. Nuff said. :tongue:

[Ilvane]

See, CT I agree with you to a point, but the whole diagnosis and medication for this disorder helps with those exact issues. You may WANT to make a change and focus and you can't because your brain literally won't let you do it. That's what a true ADHD diagnosis is like, not someone who is just to lazy to try.

I wanted to point out this portion of the ADHD info that I had posted for those who want to take portions and use it for their own points.

You can easily pick one passage and use it for your means.

How about this one?

The basal ganglia are the interconnected gray masses deep in the cerebral hemisphere that serve as the connection between the cerebrum and the cerebellum and, with the cerebellum, are responsible for motor coordination. The cerebellum is divided into three parts. The middle part is called the vermis.

All of these parts of the brain have been studied through the use of various methods for seeing into or imaging the brain. These methods include functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) positron emission tomography (PET), and single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT). The main or central psychological deficits in those with ADHD have been linked through these studies. By 2002 the researchers in the NIMH Child Psychiatry Branch had studied 152 boys and girls with ADHD, matched with 139 age- and gender-matched controls without ADHD. The children were scanned at least twice, some as many as four times over a decade. As a group, the ADHD children showed 3-4 percent smaller brain volumes in all regions—the frontal lobes, temporal gray matter, caudate nucleus, and cerebellum.

This study also showed that the ADHD children who were on medication had a white matter volume that did not differ from that of controls. Those never-medicated patients had an abnormally small volume of white matter. The white matter consists of fibers that establish long-distance connections between brain regions. It normally thickens as a child grows older and the brain matures.9

Although this long-term study used MRI to scan the children's brains, the researchers stressed that MRI remains a research tool and cannot be used to diagnose ADHD in any given child. This is true for other neurological methods of evaluating the brain, such as PET and SPECT.


So what this is saying, in essence, is that in scans of children diagnosed with ADHD, as opposed to those used in control scans, there was a difference in the brain.

That can't be faked.

Angela

[Sean of the Thread]

It's not the "bored or laziness" with me it's the complete lack of focus, anxiety and forgetting shit constantly. If it wasn't fucking real then meds wouldn't correct it.

It's not what a "normal" (whatever that is) person "deals" with. It seems to me that it is over diagnosed in children and perhaps depressed adults but I know that it's almost impossible for me to focus on anything with intent without medication for it.

It's like saying someone who is depressed is faking.. very well may be. In fact I'd say more "depressed" people fake it than any other (EMOS!). Wait the depressed people should just DEAL with it until they commit suicide or go on a shooting spree.

By the way.. I fake that I'm an alcoholic too. But you could tell that already I'm sure. Just tell me to stop it and I will. Like telling someone "stop being depressed douche" and they're cured.

While I'm at it I might as well tell some of you to stop being stupid. You're cured!

[Nieninque]

I would say that ADHD is real. Very Real.

I would add, however, that 99.9% of supposed ADHD sufferers are actually not.

If you look at the symptoms of ADHD, they could probably be applied to about 90% of the population.

I kinda agree with a lot of the poeple who have expressed opinions about it here. It becomes an excuse.

Certainly, when I deal with families with children "who have ADHD", their behaviour becomes the cause of everything that is wrong in the family and everything is then dumped on that poor kid, when actually, it could quite easily argued that the kids behaviour is the symptom of what is fucked up in the family and not the cause.

Parents, however, want their kid drugged up and the Disability Living Allowance that they then become eligible for, and everything is rosy. When things are hard, they blame the kids behaviour. It's a cop-out for them.

I went to a seminar by a child psychologist once who told us about a family he was working with where the mother wanted her son diagnosed with ADHD. He didnt believe the kid was ADHD, but he eventually gave in in the hope that he could then get the mother to work on strategies of living with an ADHD child. She wasnt interested. She wanted her son drugged. He, having made the diagnosis, presecribed the drugs. That is abusive, imo.

Parents want drugs and the diagnosis so they can opt out of the work of dealing with it. They need a fucking good kicking.

[Nieninque]

I would also question whether someone with ADHD could play a text-based video game for extended periods of time, while not being medicated. True ADHD that is.

[Celephais]

It's not the "bored or laziness" with me it's the complete lack of focus, anxiety and forgetting shit constantly. If it wasn't fucking real then meds wouldn't correct it.

No one is saying your not being able to focus isn't real, I'm just saying everyone has issues with focusing on shit they don't want to do. The meds dont' correct ADHD, they correct not being able to focus. Take any kid who doesn't meet the ADHD criteria, tell them to do some boring shit they don't want to focus on, give them some focusin and they can... guess what, meds are dealing with the symptom, not the "disease".

[Stanley Burrell]

We are in a different time now. Do you think more people are growing up with ADHD b/c of the environment we grow up in? I mean look at shit like MTV. There is not a one second pause in any shit they air. It's non stop in your face stuff flashing at you. And video games? Things are a bit different then the Atari with the one button controller. Now you have to master 9 or 10 buttons and everything is complex and the games are intense (which i love). I don't want these things to act as a scapegoat b/c it isnt their fault but i just wanted to post some examples on the changes in how our children have grown up.

I don't remember any kids having ADHD when i was young, now every kid does.

You think im off my rocker or does this make sense?

I think it makes complete sense.

Unfortunately, like what Angela re-threaded (thnx :)), my primary concern is that the FDA exists painfully so in capitalist bounds.

I essentially believe, in a way, that anyone with the willpower to watch TV and draw upon a Zoloft commercial for inspiration, forget excuses, but simply as a method of self-diagnosing does not have "clinical" depression.

If you've ever seen pictures of radioactive dyes in the brain of a human being via PET imaging, a still invasive and counterproductive way of primitively determining some form of depression or mania, you'll know that shit like that isn't hogwash -- What's unfortunate is that you get a group of people in a ward with excaserbated symptoms of depression, in 1 on 1 isolation shitting and pissing themselves because not having received ECT and neurotransmitters from untreated "laziness." This all lies, I feel, in ineffective treatment at the quasi-sociocultural biopsychological medium (through any scenario you can concoct) at the diagnostic level, combined with an absolute neccesity to dis-trendy capitalist medicating:

When we can balance out that equation we'll be able to more effectively treat mental illness when needed and non-treat its perception when needed as well. Atlanteax's idea of denationalizing healthcare is the reason why there is now an "M" in the NIH link Angela posted (something I've discussed as tertiary effects of conservative management. The rabbit hole goes a lot deeper):

If we make capitalistic intentions through literature and marketing the distribution of mental health knowledge, the exact thermodynamic opposite reaction needed to circumvent that mentality will be that much stronger and fall under the same semantic category in which Eli Lilly, i.e., will make a claims settlement in a post-Vioxx world that will only benefit the big business suing Eli Lilly in claims for its Zyprexa, Resperidol, Seroquel + other antipsychotic-related cases of diabetes, unfortunately.

As usual, sorry 'bout the run-on sentence(s) and overarticulation :embarrassed:

[Sean of the Thread]

No one is saying your not being able to focus isn't real, I'm just saying everyone has issues with focusing on shit they don't want to do. The meds dont' correct ADHD, they correct not being able to focus. Take any kid who doesn't meet the ADHD criteria, tell them to do some boring shit they don't want to focus on, give them some focusin and they can... guess what, meds are dealing with the symptom, not the "disease".

I'm never bored.

[Sean of the Thread]

I would say that ADHD is real. Very Real.

I would add, however, that 99.9% of supposed ADHD sufferers are actually not.

If you look at the symptoms of ADHD, they could probably be applied to about 90% of the population.

I kinda agree with a lot of the poeple who have expressed opinions about it here. It becomes an excuse.

Certainly, when I deal with families with children "who have ADHD", their behaviour becomes the cause of everything that is wrong in the family and everything is then dumped on that poor kid, when actually, it could quite easily argued that the kids behaviour is the symptom of what is fucked up in the family and not the cause.

Parents, however, want their kid drugged up and the Disability Living Allowance that they then become eligible for, and everything is rosy. When things are hard, they blame the kids behaviour. It's a cop-out for them.

I went to a seminar by a child psychologist once who told us about a family he was working with where the mother wanted her son diagnosed with ADHD. He didnt believe the kid was ADHD, but he eventually gave in in the hope that he could then get the mother to work on strategies of living with an ADHD child. She wasnt interested. She wanted her son drugged. He, having made the diagnosis, presecribed the drugs. That is abusive, imo.

Parents want drugs and the diagnosis so they can opt out of the work of dealing with it. They need a fucking good kicking.

Agreed.

However I'd like to note that I have never used it for an excuse. I could have used for an excuse in college to take over a course I bombed for free and did not.

*As I've stated I also have a problem with the diagnosis in kids. It's actually one thing I agree upon with Scientology. Hell for all I know being on Ritalin throughout my youth on a bullshit adhd diagnosis could be responsible for everything right now.. including the high blood pressure.

[Ilvane]

I can understand why someone with ADHD could like GS. It's so easy to do 12 things at once in GS(multi-accounters anyone?)

Angela

[Celephais]

I can understand why someone with ADHD could like GS. It's so easy to do 12 things at once in GS(multi-accounters anyone?)

Angela

Absorbing Exp? GS to me is nice because I only have to play it in bursts and I can get other stuff done during the downtime. I imagine that's good for someone w/ ADHD if they have something else to do too, but I thought constant entertainment was the way to go for them.

[Necromancer]

Lots of interesting opinions on this one. As someone who used to agree with most of them, even while suffering from severe ADHD, I sympathize with the opinionators.

But, unfortunately people are describing over and over again something that is NOT ADHD. Ironically it points to what ADHD truly is.

There's this great passage in the book "Driven to Distraction" where a woman reads an article on ADHD while sitting around in her dirty apartment waiting for her mother to come visit. She knows she has to clean the entire apartment up before her mother gets there, and she knows her mother will spend the entire weekend trip making snide comments about the state of her apartment, but she's completely unmotivated to do it and is distracted by this article. She reads about the symptoms, distractability; easily bored with tasks that require sustained effort; difficulties sustaining motivation; forgetfulness; and she says to herself, "Oh my god, I have ADD!". The clock reminds her that she has 30 minutes before her mother arrives ,and she finally gets herself up and runs around the house like a maniac managing to finish up just in time for her mother to knock on the door.

That is NOT ADHD. It is, however, how most people interpret ADHD. The fact that the woman in the story managed to stop her procrastination, maintain an accurate sense of time, and to efficiently organize a cleaning plan and execute it in time to get it done when it needed to be done makes it clear that she has no problems activating the parts of her brain that regulate motivation and attention. She is able to keep at least a vague track of time while she is engrossed in this magazine article, and when the time comes she is able to switch tasks to the task that is much less interesting and faces no serious issues of distractability. She also demonstrates a clear ability to properly assess short-term versus long-term rewards. She is able to put down the magazine, which is far more entertaining and rewarding in the short-term than cleaning will be, and begin cleaning her apartment because she knows that the article will offer only small benefits for a short period of time (while she is reading it), but the clean apartment will spare her an entire weekend of snide remarks. The choice is simple, of course. She puts off her rewards now to collect on better rewards later.

These are things that people with ADHD find incredibly difficult to impossible to do. I posted the "Day in a life with ADHD", and everyone immediately said "Oh god, that's everyone!". But is it? Look more carefully at the story. The person in question is on the verge of losing his job because of chronic tardiness, the person in question is clearly used to taking serious hits to their credit report because of an inability to pay bills due to a lack of organization and not a lack of funds (i.e. they don't *have* to take those hits at all). The person in question is also clearly concerned about these things; so they haven't simply written them off as unimportant. Their memory problems are obviously a daily hurdle, with the items that they need every morning and remove every night all being in completely different places (some of which make zero sense) in a manner that suggests a consistent problem. When attempting to sit still at their desk, the person in question is unable to do so. They stop moving their leg only to realize that they've begun moving their hands in response. They feel intense physical discomfort with the sitting still, and the way the boss yells at them tells you that this is an ongoing issue that is causing even more trouble at work.

Yes, everyone deals with some of these issues some of the time. That's just the way of the world. And everyone battles with themselves over immediate short-term rewards versus long-term rewards. And all of us would much rather be at lunch than at work. But you've got a segment of the population that cannot seem to win any of these battles despite making every attempt to do so. They are dealing with serious long-term consequences of this behavior but are unable to stop it the majority of the time, whereas the standard person is able to do so at least a majority of the time. That's why it's called a *disorder*. It's the point where these behaviors are compulsive and cause serious detriment to the person with ADHD.

And, lo and behold, when you give these people in question low doses of stimulant medication (which we know through PET scans activate the very areas of the brain responsible for these behaviors), they are magically able to curb this behavior in a way that is more in line with your average person. Anyone with ADHD can tell you...when their stimulant medication is in their system it's like a light goes on, and the "fog" lifts. It doesn't fix everything, and you have to build new behaviors and habits (most of us don't learn things like emotional regulation and time management because those things simply never work for us prior to medication) to go with it, but the medication is exactly what makes these new behaviors and habits suddenly both possible and productive.

And, I will say that of all the things I struggled with, it was the "I can do what I want to do, but I cannot do what I don't want to do" that tripped me up the most. My counselors spent months going over my daily behaviors and past behaviors with me and comparing me with adderall and without adderall to finally get me to see that I truly couldn't do the things I didn't want to do.

The reasoning is related again to reward systems and neural compensation. Your brain requires that the areas that are underactive in ADHD (which affect many things, primarily attentional regulation and motivation) maintain a certain level of activity in order to be conscious. That's why people with ADHD get the hyperactivity and wandering thoughts, the brain activates other regions to give the underactive region something to monitor or regulate, keeping its activity levels barely above the minimum. When you are doing something you enjoy, the external task causes the area that deals with motivation and rewards to activate. Anything stimulating in your environment will cause this response (think of when a gunshot goes off nearby, your brain goes into overload!) That's why we find it so easy to do those things, and why we have to fight to NOT do them. Boredom is nothing more than low activity in this area of the brain. When you do something you do not enjoy, that area's activity lowers. That's why everyone first gets restless (your brain activating other regions to keep that motivation/regulation center functioning) and then sleepy (your brain giving up and starting to shut down) during a long boring lecture.

A normal person can actually activate that area of the brain well enough to stave off the serious underactivity levels in most situations. A person with a deficiency in this area of the brain, however, cannot rely on their own internal regulation to keep the area active. Thus they rely on external stimuli to activate this area of the brain far more than other people do. Anyone with ADHD will tell you that boredom is the most painful experience imaginable for them, and that's because their brain doesn't know how to activate itself efficiently. So when someone with ADHD gets in front of a computer, or sits down to read their favorite book, they have a hard time pulling away/avoiding the task. Their brain craves external activation. And they crave an end to the constant restlessness and racing thoughts. So their brain locks onto the highly stimulating activity so that it no longer has to overstimulate itself (it needs a break too!), and the person in question is unable to activate their motivation center enough to pull away from the task. When something more stimulating comes along, their brain will automatically switch its attention to that new task, further activating that region of the brain and giving a much needed break. From the outside, this looks like rampant distractibility. Why is Sammy watching the birds fighting in the window and not the math problems in front of him? Obviously the math problems are far more important. But for Sammy's brain, the exact opposite is true. The math problems offer no immediate rewards, no immediate relief from the constant overdrive, and unless it activates his motivation center for him, the attentional regulation system won't kick in to let him focus on those instead.

Even if Sammy's birds fly away, the boring task of doing math problems is going to cause his brain to become underactive again. If there is nothing in the environment to stimulate that area of the brain for him, his brain will use its compensatory neural networks to do it (maybe the motor part of his brain, which will manifest as "nervous energy" and restlessness, or maybe the personal memory part of his brain, which will cause him to daydream about the gifts he got for last Christmas). Again, this part of his brain is smaller, has fewer neurotransmittors, and is unable to do these things on its own, so it simply compensates in the only way it knows how (in the same way it will always compensate for anyone completely devoit of stimulation until they activate the center themselves with thoughts of long-term rewards and such).

ADHD is the biological equivalent of being bored at all times. Think about how you function when you are bored, imagine you were trapped in that boredom always, and then ask yourself how much you'd get done and what you would be like.

[Necromancer]

ugh, another annoying side effect of ADHD...not being able to stop yourself from going on tangents (they never seem like tangents) and suddenly seeing a massive block of text that even you don't want to read.

[Jazuela]

I have ADD. Not ADHD, the "hyperactive" part never showed up. I've had ADD since I was a kid, long before the diagnosis existed. I struggled with it for years. My parents insisted I could do better in school - and in fact, I knew I could too. Timed tests were out of the question - I never did well under that kind of stress, my SAT scores and IQ scores proved that. But in essays, I shone, and ended up at the top 1% of my school and the top 10% in the state on the English Achievement test. The guidance counselors kept insisting I was extremely intelligent, but lacked self-motivation and that's why I would do great in English and refused to even try with Math. A doctor said it was because I had astigmatism and the numbers kept jumping around in my vision, and gave me glasses, which didn't help.

The way I'm perceiving it now, is that my attention span flits around. We're all overcome with "data input" in our lives, and some people are able to weed out the unneccessary stuff and focus on the necessary stuff. But there are people like me, who just can't filter as well. For whatever reason, we are easily distracted, moreso than most other people.

The reason, I believe, that some of us can play video or text games so easily, is because they provide us a *narrow* focus in which to direct our attention. It isn't sound -and- sight -and- tactile sensation -and- smell. It's just watching, and responding with our fingers to what we're watching. It's much easier to focus on this, than on other things.

I've also come to the conclusion that the reason I'm so good with retail, is because I have trained myself to live with and EMBRACE my focus problem. I see everything all at the same time. I see the customer in the back of the line, the food-prep girl on one side of me, the manager approaching me from the other side, the disgruntled customer at the end of the counter, the cockroach threatening to expose itself by climbing up the wall of the counter, to the customer standing in front of me - I've always been like that. Where most smokers at parties don't even realize they're burning a hole in a guy's jacket next to them, I notice my own cigarette, the guy's jacket, and the girl on his other arm with HER cigarette about to burn a hole in some other lady's pocketbook.

It's crazy how much "stuff" people are exposed to on a continuous basis. And it's even crazier, to me, to realize that most people aren't even aware of how much "data input" they're dealing with. It's the people who don't have ADD who are the nutjobs, as far as I'm concerned. They miss out on so much. And the ones who are medicated, so they no longer notice everything and become myopic in their mental focus, I feel so sorry for them, that they're being punished just because they can see what most people can't, when it's staring them in the face.

Personally, I think ADD isn't a disorder at all. I think it's a skill, that should be encouraged rather than subdued. Teach people how to really look at life, with all their senses, how to notice everything they come in contact with. Then teach them how they can do it all at the same time, without having to filter everything out except the one task they're trying to work on, and still be efficient at that task.

[Bobmuhthol]

I won't comment on some of the stuff in this thread to avoid ruining it, but this post serves to make it known that I'm LOLing IRL @ some people right now (for stupid posts, nothing to do with ADHD).

[Ignot]

if your gonna post some long half page post then can you give us a summary in the beginning so we dont have to read the whole thing?

[Back]

if your gonna post some long half page post then can you give us a summary in the beginning so we dont have to read the whole thing?

Ignot is ADD. Have some sympathy for Jeebus sake.

[Necromancer]

hrm, no on the summary. pretend it's english class. just skim.

then go smoke pot behind the dumpsters.

[Bobmuhthol]

Here's a 10 sentence summary, courtesy Microsoft.

Ironically it points to what ADHD truly is.
It is, however, how most people interpret ADHD. It's the point where these behaviors are compulsive and cause serious detriment to the person with ADHD. Your brain requires that the areas that are underactive in ADHD (which affect many things, primarily attentional regulation and motivation) maintain a certain level of activity in order to be conscious. That's why people with ADHD get the hyperactivity and wandering thoughts, the brain activates other regions to give the underactive region something to monitor or regulate, keeping its activity levels barely above the minimum. When you are doing something you enjoy, the external task causes the area that deals with motivation and rewards to activate. Boredom is nothing more than low activity in this area of the brain. When something more stimulating comes along, their brain will automatically switch its attention to that new task, further activating that region of the brain and giving a much needed break. Even if Sammy's birds fly away, the boring task of doing math problems is going to cause his brain to become underactive again. ADHD is the biological equivalent of being bored at all times.

[Ignot]

Much better. thanks Bob.