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Comment by WhompingWindows | Hacker News Reader

I researched ADHD and was a teacher to boot. You wouldn't think it's about human productivity when you have ADHD children standing on their chairs, shouting, wandering the classroom during examinations. It's a serious neurological disability and it's not just down to societal pressures for productivity.

Some sad facts: Those with ADHD are much more likely to be friendless, to have fights with parents, to abuse alcohol, nicotine, marijuana, and cocaine, and to develop mental health problems like depression, anxiety, and conduct disorder. The brain of those with ADHD is not "normally" developed and that leads to a lot of issues.

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I think you missed the point. Kids have been kids forever. Kids with ADHD have presumably also been around forever, and seemingly they make up perhaps as much as 1 in 10 kids. Is it ADHD causing these kids to "act out" or the unreasonable expectations of our modern, industrialized and highly regimented school system that's part of the problem? The school system as it exists suits some (perhaps a slim majority of kids, by some measure), at least to the extent that it creates a population of obedient students, but does it suit everybody? And is the solution to ADHD to simply smash the kids who are unable to be cogs in the machine as it exists today into the shape of cogs that do or is it to change the machine so that kids of all types can learn and succeed?

You point to the "worst" examples of problem children with ADHD but you miss the fact that the majority are nothing like that, you also miss the fact that their issues are hugely exacerbated by a system that does not work for them, does not care about them, and a society that does not prepare them with the coping skills necessary to deal with their issues.

What makes you think those kids did fine before? Rather than that those were the kids who ended up dropping out, unemployed, in poverty, in the poor house, turning to crime or dying in duals? It's not like things were great for almost anyone back when average life expectancy was 36.

I wonder why is it that we didn't have any kids who were standing on their chairs, shouting and wandering the classrooms during examination when I was attending primary school in the 80's. I have never heard of such a case and we had a decent sized school of about 150 children of the same age. Multiply that by 8 grades and that is 1200 children and surely these symptoms must have manifested in at least some of the children if ADHD existed back then also.

Another sad fact: medicating such kids is often a problematic solution. ADHD drugs make one lethargic and just feel "off" (according to my sister, who was on them for a long time).

What we need are more vocational schools to give the "hyperactive" among us a realistic, career-oriented outlet.

I got "diagnosed" with ADHD and tried taking the medicine for two weeks and it was terrible. What's the point of doing better in school if you feel terrible, lose your appetite, and have problems sleeping?

Compliance.

You're more easily molded into an economically productive little cog for the workforce.

In addition to making me a better worker, my ADHD meds also make me a better father, allow me to follow through on hobby projects, and other non-"cog" pursuits. I also started and ran my own business for a while. And my current workplace is about as un-factory-like as they come.

I actually enjoy the meds. Not in every situation and not all the time but the effects are definitely not unpleasant. I don't get the "zombie" thing.

Talking about Concerta/Ritalin. I actually asked to be taken off Vyvanse (more similar to Adderall) because it was a little bit too pleasant and disconcertingly similar to recreational substances.

Tell me, how do stimulants make someone more compliant? Why is it that when someone comes to the hospital in an agitated state, they aren’t given adderall? Why isn’t ritalin given before surgery? Why are people with schizophrenia given antipsychotics instead of vyvanse? This type of attitude is as ridiculous as it is cynical.

People act as if the idea of a Ritalin zombie is the goal for ADHD medication. It’s not. I’m not going to deny that stimulants do make some people lethargic, but that’s the exception, not the rule.

Do you want to know what it’s like to take medication for ADHD? For the first time in my life I can make choices. I can choose to clean up my desk without something deep inside me rising up to stop me. I can sit down and read a book and not feel the tensions building up inside me until it feels like a rubber band about to snap. I can wait at a restaurant without feeling the need for stimulation itch over me. My mind no longer jumps from idea to idea until I get lost in my own head. I can speak without stumbling over words because my mind is three sentences ahead. I can read a paragraph and actually remember what I just read.

The notion that I’m just some lobotomized zombie shuffling to the strings of my corporate masters is frankly insulting to everyone that struggles to live a normal life with ADHD.

If you reacted poorly to the medication, it could have been that your diagnosis was off, or that you didn’t benefit from the type the doctor prescribed.

I’m not positive about adolescent applications but my ADD is treated well by Adderall/Vyvanse vs. Ritalin, as the active ingredients in Ritalin made me feel hyperactive and on the others I feel “normal.”

After stopping your course of medication did the original symptoms which lead to the diagnosis go away?

have you tried a different medication ? a lot of the time some people don't respond to a medication that works well for most people.

A good psychiatrist works with you to find medication that addresses your challenges with a minimum of side effects: the nice thing about most ADHD meds is that they work relatively quickly and don't have the terrible withdrawal symptoms some psychiatric meds do, so you don't have to wait six weeks to see if its working. And whether or not you are interested in medication, there are strategies and adaptations that can make it easier: support from a professional therapist can be super-helpful, with or without meds.

How do you get "often problematic" from one person's experience? People have different reactions to drugs, and "ADHD drugs" isn't even one particular drug or kind of drug, although stimulants are the most widely used kind of drug for treating ADHD.

Who said I’m just going off one person’s experience? That’s just the experience I mentioned above. But there have been numerous articles on this topic over the years IIRC.

You said it, at least it's the only source you referred to.

I see how it could have come off like that. I didn’t mean to make the point based solely on her experience, and I was perhaps a little too strident. But her experience is visceral for me and helps to drive the point home.

There's so much negativity in this thread towards ADHD meds. I want to chime in with my own experience, when I was in elementary school, there were suspicions that I had AD(H)D, and I got tested, but apparently "I was the quietest and most compliant kid they had ever had". Didn't get a diagnosis.

~15 years later, and I have serious trouble with executive function, I am insanely easily distracted, I have trouble with emotional regulation, I was physically incapable of focusing on something that I did not enjoy for more than 10 minutes, ever. I have no idea how I got through college, heck, I almost didn't. In addition to all this, I was hyper, impulsive, and completely incapable of ever taking a second off, I couldn't relax, at all.

At some point, I saw ADHD somewhere, and I decided to take a more serious second look at it, "what actually is this thing?", and it resonated with me to the core. So after that, I pretty quickly got myself a diagnosis, and not much later I got a ritalin prescription.

I have barely any significant side-effects, I'm calmer, I can focus, I can talk to people without losing my train of thought during the conversation, I can relax better, I can take time to prepare my days and weeks; clean my room, make and follow todo-lists, continue work on a single project for more than a week, I could finally read books without going like "oh huh?!" to every single sound around me 10x a minute, etcetcetcetcetcetc...

My life is pretty terrible still for all kinds of reasons, but no, ritalin doesn't make me feel lethargic -- especially not if I take a slightly lower dose than I'm prescribed -- nobody forced this onto me, I'm not doing this for "compliance" or whatever, I'm not abusing this to be more productive or whatever weird Silicon Valley stereotypes there are about ADHD meds.

Ritalin helps me maintain a relatively stable foundation for my disturbingly disorganized life. It's not magic, and there are real downsides to it, but it really, really helps me very, very effectively.

Fair. I didn’t mean to imply that medication is never beneficial. I just think it’s over-prescribed (but this is anecdotal so if anyone really wants to take me to task on it, I forfeit in advance).

Have you ever considered whether you suffer from depression and/or anxiety? I was in a similar place after my ADHD diagnosis. Ritalin helped my career greatly, but I was still unsatisfied with life in many ways. After I started taking an antidepressant (Remeron), things got really good for me. I took control of my life and fixed a lot of problems. I find my work and my social relationships more fulfilling. It also fixed my insomnia.

Haha, I've definitely "considered" that, I've been depressed for the past ~9 years. Finally know why now though! It has nothing to do with ADHD.

Taking an antidepressant won't cut it for me, unfortunately. Although I do expect to get on them soon-ish, maybe it'll help a little.

I don’t know the nature of your problems of course, but I found the antidepressant didn’t just make me feel better about things - it also made me better at actually solving my problems.

It fixed my social anxiety and made me better at talking to people, which helped with all sorts of human-related problems. People enjoy my company in social situations, and I enjoy my family’s company (I didn’t really connect with many of them before). I used to think I couldn’t relate to people because I was autistic - maybe I’m on the spectrum, but now that I’m not scared of talking to people and am less of a bummer, I can be friends with all sorts of people.

Also made me less afraid to deal with a bunch of other things I needed to change. It makes things that seemed too hard to bother fixing, suddenly doable. Problems that I used to think of as “facts of life” have been solved.

Of course if you’re dying from a terminal illness or something it’s not going to fix that. And, different antidepressants work for different people, and it’s possible that none will work for you. But there are combinations like Remeron + Effexor (aka “California Rocket Fuel”) that are much more effective if the first attempt fails.

"ADHD drugs make one lethargic and just feel "off""

Your sister was on the wrong medication. I've never felt that way.

Is there any way to get in touch with you? I work in accessibility and would love to connect with an ADHD researcher to discuss some specific questions. My contact info is in my profile, if you can reach out!

Giving children methampetamines is such a great idea...

> much more likely to be friendless, to have fights with parents, to abuse alcohol, nicotine, marijuana, and cocaine, and to develop mental health problems like depression, anxiety, and conduct disorder.

All of these are also side-effects of over use of amphetamines...

> All of these are also side-effects of over use of amphetamines...

Surely you are not the first person with this idea? Could it be that other people thought this too and compared unmedicated and medicated ADHD populations?

ADHD is heavily underdiagnosed in the adult population, hence it is not hard to find adults who have ADHD and who never took stimulants. IIRC, The studies show that kids medicated with stimulants actually have lower rates of substance abuse.

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