Comment by jcims | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jcims | Hacker News Reader

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Not the person you asked but here’s an attempt from a 48yo diagnosed with adult adhd about six years ago.

- imagine watching tv at a bar where everyone had a remote control. That’s the attention model in my head, i can start to form ideas and concepts then suddenly realize I’m thinking about something else

- add 3-4 more tvs. That’s the distraction model, external stimuli drag my attention

- the ‘hyperfocus’ you hear about would be similar to the bar handing you a pair of noise canceling headphones and dedicating the tv directly in front of you to binging on an amazing new series. It’s not just focus as much as it’s a temporary obsession.

Some ways it seems to manifest in my life:

- i never ever ever finish a discretionary project, 80% at best. i completely lose interest and have zero drive. Projects for work require me to procrastinate to the point where my attention is fueled by adrenaline.

- i can’t read anything that requires more than one sitting. I’ll read for three hours but the next time i have an opportunity to read i find i have no interest

- i constantly lose shit

- i constantly pack more and more activity into the period before i need to get ready for something, causing me to always be lateish and running in the airport

- i think of great gifts for people but always end up last-minute scrambling for garbage

- i can be a bit of an airhead at times

- at work I’m a generalist. I’ve been at this a long time but i don’t know anyone in my personal sphere that knows a bit about more domains than i do. On the other hand there isn’t a single domain that i don’t know someone that knows more than i do.

The first time i had a ‘quiet mind’ was probably a week after i was prescribed Adderall. It was like a flashing cursor in my head and I became so overpowered with emotion that i just started crying. Like those videos where someone with color blindness tries on those glasses. It was incredible.

43, diagnosed one year ago. Let me add some items of my own to your very relatable list.

- Growing up, it took me longer than the average to pick up social rules and customs "by mere contact". As a result I didn't make any friends at all during school, and only 3 at highschool. I only started "growing out of it" when I reached University. I still struggle with some social norms. I am a bit of a people pleaser, and I avoid conflict too much.

- Keeping in touch with those few friends and even my own family is something I struggle with a lot - "Out of sight, out of mind" is more literal. I have to "plan" keeping in contact with people, including my mum.

- I have "Time blindness". Time has an immaterial quality for everyone, but in my case it is quite literal. I was often late, and never can tell how much time things take. I need to use a physical object, like an agenda, to transform daily planning into "a puzzle", something I can "solve" with spatial skills. I must have my agenda open in front of me all the time.

I don't know if the first one is strictly ADHD, sounds a bit more autism. Personally, I'm excellent at social cues and body language, far too much even. I'm really good at empathy, but sadly I'm very much an introvert.

Everything else is the same as me. I have unconsciously learned to use anxiety to be on time. Any time I have something major planned the next day, I can't sleep. I am anxious all day until the moment comes, and then I ease up.

First of all, I am not a mental health professional, so I might be wrong here. My understanding is that ADHD manifests itself with a collection of symptoms and degrees. You get diagnosed when you reach a certain threshold of all the possible ones.

The inattentive aspect, which is the one I predominantly have, seems to have "missing social cues" on its list of symptoms.

There's also the indirect problem of children avoiding ADHD children and them getting less social practice as a result.

This might be relevant https://www.foothillsacademy.org/community/articles/adhd-soc...

> - Keeping in touch with those few friends and even my own family is something I struggle with a lot - "Out of sight, out of mind" is more literal. I have to "plan" keeping in contact with people, including my mum.

A system discussed a few weeks ago:

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30329475

Doing a search for "personal CRM" also brings up a number of results.

I hate that Facebook removed their personal API because I can no longer use it to remind me to message people if I haven't messaged them in x amount of months.

I have diagnosed ADD and most of your list is very familiar.

The way I things I usually end up binging through the entire book (or series) over several days. If, however, my reading spree is interrupted for whatever reason, I can just forget about what I was reading to the point where I return to it a year or two later to realize that I don't remember anything about it and have to restart.

The same effect tends to happen with any other project or habit I have. Painstakingly form a swimming habit and stick to it religiously for half a year? Doable, though extremely vexing. Then skip swimming for a week for some reason and the routine is just gone. I've had the opposite happen too though, where I just started doing workouts one day and consistently stuck to it for over 2 months with 0 effort (by which I mean I didn't have to struggle with choosing to do it. The actual physical exercise itself is a minor hurdle in comparison). Unfortunately, this habit also evaporated at some point.

Jeez...this fits me to a T. I'm 40 and have been wondering what is wrong with me all my life. Thanks for this.

> i never ever ever finish a discretionary project

This is the exact thing I said that had my therapist wonder whether I have ADHD.

I am a brilliant software engineer, my employers have always been pleased with my performance, yet my hard disk is full of hundreds of great ideas I have started and never finished. I have never in my life been able to stay on the same idea for more than 3 coding session. The last side project I worked on that I am proud of has been written 19 years ago, as a teenager, while pumped full of alcohol, cigarettes and weed.

I have started medication, and I am slowly starting to pick up the pieces, writing some code in my spare time (I just finished writing my first Emacs config) but unlearning that I am a failure at motivation will not be easy.

38, recently diagnosed with ADHD. Everything in here is absolutely true. Even the analogy about the TV: I used something very similar with my doctor when describing how my brain works...

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