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Comment by eq_sd_ | Hacker News Reader

ADHD (especially untreated) and substance abuse/addiction is pretty common

Yeah, I agree. But also it's curious that so many people feel like they have it. Makes me wonder if in addition to people that were born with ADHD, these sites like youtube/reddit and video games can create ADHD symptoms over time as your brain adjusts to constant dopamine.

Kind of like how constant sugar can spike insulin and with weight gain over time can creates insulin resistance/diabetes. It's like type 1 vs type 2. So in this analogy Type 1 people with ADHD would be people who are born with it and it's lifelong, and type 2 ADHD people acquire it after indulging in these dopamine producing addicting web products for years and your reward system/executive function is messed up, impacting daily life similar to people who are born with ADHD.

> But also it's curious that so many people feel like they have it.

My hypothesis: ADHD is defined as X out of Y listed symptoms, almost all of which people experience in some way at some points in their lives. The difference is between "I sometimes have problems with some of these things" vs. "I have significant problems with many of these to the point where it is a big and constant problem in my daily life and causes me great pain".

So people who sometimes have trouble focusing see that it's on the ADHD list and take up this soft position of "Maybe I have ADHD" or jokingly talk about probably having a little ADHD or something like that.

It's the same with OCD. How many people have you seen on Reddit confess to having OCD or OCD-lite or "probably OCD" etc.? A lot more than the official diagnosis statistics right.

I don't think it's because Reddit creates OCD symptoms though.

I mean, that's sort of normal with neurological disorders though - a few have really clear symptoms that are blindly obvious to anyone from the outside. We, as humans, both can't see into other minds and can't let others see into our minds. If you analogy for ADHD is building a wall of awful[1] then normal people do place bricks in front of their actions, it just doesn't spiral in the same way as people with ADHD tend to do regularly - most of the bipolar people never act "inhuman" they just spend a lot of time at extreme emotional levels that most of us, thankfully, only visit occasionally... OCD (specifically, as a disorder) isn't liking things neat, it is harming yourself trying to keep things in a certain state - being late to a meeting because when you locked the car the click of the keys didn't sound like they should.

And everything is a spectrum, everything - nobody is immune to indecision fog, getting sidetracked, feeling helpless in front of a decision that feels bigger than it rationally is, etc... but those moments usually happen rarely, for some people it is a constant fight that actively lowers their quality of life.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo08uS904Rg

Or you have it completely backwards, and ADHD people as a group seek out sources of dopamine because they're desperate for it.

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