25% of Adults Suspect Undiagnosed ADHD | Hacker News Reader

25% of Adults Suspect Undiagnosed ADHD

neurosciencenews.com

15 pointsm46343 comments

Title is a bit misleading. 25% of adults self diagnosed themselves with ADHD while diagnosis rates of adults are actually 4.4%.

For myself and others, depression manifests itself as ADHD like symptoms. Something anxious takes up residence in my mind, and until it’s resolved, it can dominate all other thoughts. Combined with a million distractions, and I seem to loose all ability to focus on what I want. But in reality I am just focusing, or avoiding focussing, on something else.

We are not machines. Concepts like willpower lead people to believe they can just choose to focus on what they want, when they want without concern for what’s going on in their lives.

Mindfulness is a step in the right direction, but it is not a panacea alone. You still have to address what you discover through self reflection.

I don’t mean to be critical, but as someone with actual diagnosed ADHD it is kinda annoying. When I got diagnosed I did my research online about what to expect, and it was frustrating (and confusing) just how many blogs were talking about symptoms I could not relate with at all. Eventually I figured out these people were discussing coping with depression, and it was disheartening that they probably are still not treating their underlying illness appropriately.

Actual diagnosis? Did you answer “very often” to “How often do you have difficulty keeping your attention when you are doing boring or repetitive work?”

Maybe we shouldn’t be going around convincing ourselves we have a disorder we may or may not have. Blaming ADHD and hindering ourselves more.

That being said, if medication helps you thats a good thing.

Yes, actual diagnosis. As an adult, after it already destroyed my marriage and career.

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A huge roadblock for effectively planning things is pretty bad for relationships and careers.

More like my marriage and career were in shambles so I sought help. Now things are better. The medication works (and I present the paradoxical reaction), so why question it?

Yeah if I’d been medicated from a young age I wouldn’t have had so many issues. That’s the point of medicating, no?

My point was the “diagnosis” is hardly a diagnosis at all, and it’s not surprising that amphetamines help you perform (that’s what they do). You have no reason to claim that you have ADHD and someone else doesn't.

Edit: @m463 I strongly disagree that the cdc statement below reflects the reality. If you don’t believe me, please go take the test just as an experiment. I couldn’t reply, I think I’m banned from posting. I may have spoken too harshly but I stand by what I said.

Well except for the diagnosis. So much the same way a cancer patient doesn't have a reason to claim they have cancer and someone else doesn't?

> Well except for the diagnosis. So much the same way a cancer patient doesn't have a reason to claim they have cancer and someone else doesn't?

Are cancer patients diagnosed via multiple choice questionnaires?? Please tell me more about the rigorous testing process for ADHD diagnosis.

ADHD diagnosis is nothing like a cancer diagnosis. I can’t tell if you’re trolling.

Edit: My bad this is pretty low level bait looking back

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Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

You've been breaking the site guidelines badly and repeatedly in this thread. Could you please stop? We have to ban accounts that keep posting this way. This is not a site for flamewars.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

The cdc seems to say the dignosis is more rigorous than some sort of internet self-assessment:

Diagnosing ADHD usually includes a checklist for rating ADHD symptoms and looking at the person's history of behavior and experiences. The provider will determine if ADHD symptoms were present before age 12 years and may ask for permission to gather information from friends and family. A medical and psychological exam may be needed to rule out other health problems that can cause symptoms like ADHD or that are often present with ADHD, such as anxiety, depression, sleep problems, alcohol or substance misuse, or learning disabilities.

https://www.cdc.gov/adhd/articles/adhd-across-the-lifetime.h...

You should know very well that an ADHD diagnosis is a lot more than just that question. In my case four people close to me were given questionnaires, I was lucky enough to still have all my school reports, which were no grades but a page of solid text back in 1989 to solidify my suspicion. There's also an IQ test and a very annoying attention test on the computer. Matter of fact, one of those who filled out the questionnaire (and is not related to me) was like "If you have ADHD I'm even more likely to have it".

ADHD and its symptoms along with the myriad of possible comorbidities are annoying. I'm the kind of hyperactive foot whipping guy which people pointed out often but no one told me it could be ADHD. A friend (also in the local hackerspace) doesn't show that and that was enough for a (non-ADHD-specialized) therapist to disregard this ADHD suspicion.

Depression is the one I also fight with, but mostly it's rooted in my inability to get stuff done which leads to all sorts of financial and social problems. I'm just happy I skipped self-therapy with illegal drugs and got a high enough IQ to survive 42 years of untreated ADHD. I'd strongly support if schools did test all pupils how good their executive functions are (actually they do with giving them daily homework) and Russel Barkley's suggestion to not let young people with ADHD drive a car unless they take their medication might be worth a study.

Another important correction for the title - "in U.S.". Americans are infamous for drug abuse, according to National Center for Drug Abuse statistics 50% of people 12 and older have used illicit drugs[1], which definitely affects their ability to focus.

[1] https://drugabusestatistics.org/

My wife was diagnosed with ADHD when she was very young, and this rise of people believing they have ADHD is something we talk about a lot. We think most of this comes from social media and ADHD memes. Many of the memes touch on things that are connected with being ADHD, but are more so just things that are human or are about living in the modern age with distractions and entertainment. People connect with these memes, and then have something that they can blame for when they forget to do the laundry or get distracted doing the dishes.

Like dexwiz says, we are not machines! And I think with the rise of social media and these relatable memes, it provides the perfect scapegoat for the distraction that is modern life.

I have the conspiracy theory that big pharma is pushing those memes, and also psychedelics studies, to gain momentum.

Astroturfing is a real marketing technique

My apologies but I'd like to carve out the ADHD medication here saying that most people are misinformed. The same lawyer who did the "big tobacco" and "asbestos" lawsuits pushed the big Ritalin thing. They filed several class actions and all of them were shut down hard in court, which might have been a surprise to them given their previous success. The sleazy lawyers never undid the damage.

My conspiracy theory is ADHD meds conflict with the law industry's whole "ambulance chasing" business. They don't want people to drive safe on their meds so they don't fix it. It's probably just laziness because the law industry being overpaid and scummy pretend legal system failed to self-regulate their professionals.

I wonder if it is like people saying "I have OCD" when they want things "just so" or do minor things like closing their car window after parking.

That's the example my wife always uses.

Not everybody was spotted and diagnosed at a young age. We can safely assume that a genetic condition like ADHD is evenly distributed through the population, hence we must assume that about 5% of adults of every single age-cohort are ADHD. I'd love to see data on the age-distribution of actual diagnosed adults, I'm sure we'd see a lot less than 5% for the older adults.

You can go a long way with undiagnosed ADHD but it will always hold you back. There's 60+ pensioner in the local self-help-group, he doesn't use the internet and uses and old Nokia. He was give a leaflet and after that a pill by a friend (don't do this!) and for the first time his mind cleared. He finished uni when he was young but never achieved much, never started a family; now is a few weeks away from a diagnosis and medication that will change his life. He wasn't the only one diagnosed as an adult in the group and it took me 42 years to figure that it's my mind working against me.

ADHD is the "Im not fat I'm big boned" of stupidity.

Anxious Generation grows.

You know what's a really ADHD oppositional Defiant disorder thing? I was diagnosed when I was two and all of this rapid new diagnosis and people wanting to be diagnosed now is making me want to not be diagnosed anymore extremely badly. I can't help it. It's my gut impulse reaction to not want to be associated with this thing that everyone wants to be associated with. It's annoying. ( The it's annoying part is my reaction ( Meaning that I am annoyed that this is my reaction. ), not the fact that others are being diagnosed by the way. )

I'm glad a majority of people are actually getting help with this. Don't get me wrong. But it's just something I've noticed inside my head since this has been going on and becoming more and more of a thing over the past 5 years.

Edit: Sure love getting downvoted because I'm speaking about my own subjective experience in life as of recently. You think I don't know with 36 years of experience about my own mental facilities and I'm not growing every single day of my life learning more about myself. I know ADHD isn't a oppositional defiant disorder, but I know what I'm saying, okay?

ADHD and oppositional Defiant disorder are not quite the same thing. The former is a lot more common than the latter. Sure they could be comorbid in some cases…

Diagnosed when you were two? That doesn’t sound right. I’m assuming this was during the ritalin craze. I’m extremely curious what that test looked like, do you know?

Was it like this?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iqItINoE5xc

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ADHD isn’t diagnosable at age two… Oppositional Defiant Syndrome is something else.

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American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines does not permit diagnosis of ADHD before age 4. None of the commonly used assessments would apply to such a young age anyway.

https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/144/4/e20192...

No one will stop you from freshing up your diagnosis, even if it's just to figure how severe your symptoms are compared to those diagnosed at a later age. Just like Autism, it's a wide spectrum, some are worse, some are mild, some cope a lot better or have to right support around them to function better.

Don't feel bad about it, make an OG ADHD or pepperridge farm remembers meme instead :-)

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