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Comment by aliqot | Hacker News Reader

Seems that the same ones who were put on these meds from a young age are the same ones who are most vocally suffering from anxiety and depression. Jury's out on whether the meds were because of substandard upbringing (kids acting up, get them meds or they're out of this magnet school), and whether that has an effect on the psyche later in life.

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This can just be selection bias, though. People with ADHD are much more predisposed to anxiety and mood disorders(also addiction and psychosis).

Medicine can help, but they're not a silver bullet.

So it could just be that the people you've noticed are just people who are more likely to develop these problems.

And if you want an anecdatum, I have ADHD, unmedicated during most of my childhood, and I went to develop all of the above except for psychosis.

> This can just be selection bias, though.

Absolutely, you are correct. To be clear, that's 100% a hunch I just posted, based on no data or experience other than the people I have known that long who are now adults. Funny thing, a lot of them are deciding not to medicate their children.

ADHD has a ~30% rate of comorbidity (some sources say as high as 40% to 60%) with both anxiety and depression (and, as you note, is also correlated with other issues such as bipolar disorder and substance abuse).

Moreover, delayed diagnosis ADHD is even _more_ correlated with issues like anxiety than the ADHD population in general. If you think about it, that outcome is predicable: a lifetime of experiencing the kinds of problems created by executive dysfunction (especially with little or no understanding or explanation of the phenomenon) is a perfect breeding ground for anxiety or depression or both.

I'm not sure if the same statement is true for diagnosed but untreated ADHD, but certainly seems plausible.

Always so many psychological problems. Heavy anxiety and depression, psychosis, social problems. Just maladjustment all over the place.

But those issues are highly correlated with ADHD itself. Why would you assume that stimulant medication is the cause?

In fact, data suggest that the problems you observed probably would have been worse absent the stimulant medication. A treatment can be beneficial even if it doesn't completely eliminate the associated issues.

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