The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
I earned a perfect score on the SAT and was voted "Class Genius" in the yearbook, but barely graduated from high school. I was dismissed from university.
I went to work for a machine learning company, where we (self included!) did some really neat stuff, including some heroic pre-sales-meeting coding that saved the day in a minor way. But I was fired six months in for low productivity and low engagement.
Was it brain chemistry? ADD? Millenial entitlement? The Bipolar Lisp personality? Depression? SAD? A once-seen-impossible-to-unsee glimpse of the Gervais Principle? (http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-o...)
Who knows.
What I do know is that
- a) I may have something, but at least I am lucid. This is an understandable HN comment. I write many of them, and they seem to get ok ratings.
- b) I have spent, and could spend, a lot of time trying to nail down exactly what's up with me. I have very little to show for it.
So I'm trying to just capitalize on the "lucid" part. I'm building stuff. I realize I'm the proverbial crank working alone, but I'm trying very hard to avoid the common pitfalls---setting hard deadlines, getting customer feedback, getting appropriate exercise and social interaction, etc. And it's working. Things are happening. Milestones are being reached.
It's the best I can do.
It's not a bad thing to aim a bit lower and just find balance in things.
I think a lot of the true potential thinking is just misguided.
Oh please, enough with the drama. I've led the same life. So has everyone else here.
I had the foresight to realize my ailment early on.
I'm lazy and bored easily, which is really the same thing.
> But I was fired six months in for low productivity and low engagement.
So people told you were lazy and rather than accept that at face value, you decided you have some sort of a medical condition?
Look, take my advice. Work for yourself and take on short-term projects. Nothing that lasts more than a month or two. That way, by the time you get bored with it, you're on to something entirely different.
> I realize I'm the proverbial crank working alone, but I'm trying very hard to avoid the common pitfalls---setting hard deadlines, getting customer feedback, getting appropriate exercise and social interaction, etc. And it's working. Things are happening. Milestones are being reached.
Eh? I spoke too soon. Looks like you're already on the right path.
EDIT: For some reason I can't respond to the comment below.
My point was, it's easy to frame problems with terms like "weak", "irresponsible", and "lazy". It's hard to actually attempt to communicate, identify a problem in a way that you can talk about the same thing, and find a solution.
You're being sarcastic, but it actually IS. We live in a culture where everything is a disorder. How convenient, that all of your failures can be blamed on something you don't control.
Here's an idea.
Everything you don't take responsibility for. Everything you don't see as your own failing ... you have no control over and are destined to suffer under its yoke for the rest of your life. And no drug or doctor will fix it for you.
But your comments aren't correct. SAD and ADHD are real. Medication can assist people to lead a better life.
I've heard of people, even on here, who claim their lives have been improved after a diagnosis. So you're arguing against quite a heavy prior in that regard.
It also seems that the weaker form of your claim - that you'd mean fix entirely - wouldn't really serve you in the context of the discussion. After all, why would we think that anyone can be made perfect or that it's even rational to invest heavily in doing so rather than taking a shortcut to an acceptable level of functioning?
So, all that in mind. Where's your evidence for your claim that 'Everything you don't take responsibility for. Everything you don't see as your own failing ... you have no control over and are destined to suffer under its yoke for the rest of your life. And no drug or doctor will fix it for you.' ?
People with ADHD are at high risk of suicide and depression, precisely because they blame themselves, and think its a moral failure.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/2as/diseased_thinking_dissolving_que...
>If something is a real disease, the patient deserves our sympathy and support; for example, cancer sufferers must universally be described as "brave". If it is not a real disease, people are more likely to get our condemnation; for example Sandy's husband who calls her a "pig" for her inability to control her eating habits. The difference between "shyness" and "social anxiety disorder" is that people with the first get called "weird" and told to man up, and people with the second get special privileges and the sympathy of those around them.
>And if something is a real disease, it is socially acceptable (maybe even mandated) to seek medical treatment for it. If it's not a disease, medical treatment gets derided as a "quick fix" or an "abdication of personal responsibility".
...
>People who make good decisions are intrinsically good people and deserve good treatment; people who make bad decisions are intrinsically bad people and deserve bad treatment. But people who make bad decisions for reasons that are outside of their free will may not be intrinsically bad people, and may therefore be absolved from deserving bad treatment.
>[But] because all actions are biologically determined, none are more or less metaphysically blameworthy than others, and none can mark anyone with the metaphysical status of "bad person" and make them "deserve" bad treatment. Consequentialists don't on a primary level want anyone to be treated badly, full stop
>if giving condemnation instead of sympathy decreases the incidence of the disease enough to be worth the hurt feelings, condemn; otherwise, sympathize.... Yelling at a cancer patient, shouting "How dare you allow your cells to divide in an uncontrolled manner like this; is that the way your mother raised you??!" will probably make the patient feel pretty awful, but it's not going to cure the cancer. Telling a lazy person "Get up and do some work, you worthless bum," very well might cure the laziness.
Sorry for the overly long summary, I didn't want to cut out the important points.
It thus follows that the responsible way to bake an apple pie is to take over the universe.
>Oh please, enough with the drama. I've led the same life. So has everyone else here.
It is precisely my tiring of drama that's led me to my present attitude. Please note that this was a response to an article someone else posted, not a please-pay-attention-to-me self-post. I never talk about this sort of thing in person. My only purpose in commenting as I did was to provide the perspective of someone who has some contact w/the issues in the article.
>So people told you were lazy and rather than accept that at face value, you decided you have some sort of a medical condition?
Actually it's quite the reverse: people told me I have some sort of medical condition, and I treat myself as though I'm just lazy. It's not necessarily that I disagree with them, but that I think the second is a more cost-effective frame of mind.
>Look, take my advice. Work for yourself and take on short-term projects. Nothing that lasts more than a month or two. That way, by the time you get bored with it, you're on to something entirely different.
Candidly, this strikes me as relatively irresponsible advice, and half-humblebrag. "I just get so bored with normal corporate work, you know? I always need something new." (Subtext: Despite my inability to commit to a position, I am so talented it doesn't matter. Oh, you're not talented enough to make it work like I am, i.e. inferior to me? Sorry brah. Best of luck.)
It's just a hard problem. Those who would judge you as lazy probably can't be communicated with---the answer to that is simply producing. Those who would diagnose you are well-intentioned, but I worry about getting stuck in a victim frame. I don't have time to be a professional victim. I have other things to do.
In saying this, I don't wish to cast aspersions on those taking medication for whatever conditions they may have. I do wish to provide some hope for those who think they may have some sort of condition, but are wary of the stigma associated with acknowleding such.
Wouldn't know, I've never done corporate work. Merely commenting that I myself frequently get tired of doing the same thing after a month or two, to the point where things simply don't get done. Hence the recommendation for short-term projects.
> Those who would judge you as lazy probably can't be communicated with---the answer to that is simply producing.
When you produce, isn't that the cure? Not everyone needs a pat on the back.
> I do wish to provide some hope for those who think they may have some sort of condition, but are wary of the stigma associated with acknowleding such.
As do I. The first step is rejecting this nonsense about "conditions".
What you have or don't have, you don't know and quite frankly, nobody can tell you. It doesn't matter either. You have it and it's not going anywhere.
What you have control over, however, is how you live your life. Far better than medicating yourself to the grave, is to simply mold your life to reflect who you are. A blind man shouldn't live next to a cliff.
How to take control and improve the life you live is the point of all of this. Identifying what you have is the difference between finding a solution by random chance and a focused search of known successful strategies. Once you know you have a bacterial infection, you have a smaller pool of known strategies to deal with your problems and improve your life.
If you found a solution, at random, to your own problems, like switching projects before your lack of interest hurts you, then you had good luck. You cannot generalize luck.
Suppose some condition that one may have is a real phenomenon and not just sensationalism, then knowing one has the condition allows him or her to better understand what leads to poor performance; you might need short projects because you lose interest, but someone else's performance might be more dependent on the management style of the company due to a symptomatic loss of focus instead.
you could previously have just been immature. Now you are doing the self-discovery and learning about yourself properly, and seeing the benefits of knowing your own limitations and strengths. Being a class genius at high school makes you think everything will be easy, when infact it's not. Now you know its not easy (left uni), so you now put in the hours. Good luck on your path to success, you still have the smart brain so it will find its role eventually.
One thing that I notice among "smart" people is that its easy to burn-out.
My only real advice is aim to do things that your passionate about. Two examples that come to mind is Elon Musk[1][2], who clearly enjoys building rockets and electric cards, and Mitch Altman[3] who enjoys making cool things. Elon Musk hasn't commented publicly on ADHD specifically. Mitch is well known for his public discussions on depression.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk
[2] http://www.forbes.com/sites/drewhansen/2012/05/24/elon-musk-...
Is there speculation that he has ADHD?
I am confused by something though. I have only (to my knowledge) known one person that got a perfect score on the SAT. The reason is that it requires both reasoning as well as 'stamp collecting'--(i.e. book knowledge). If you didn't bother to learn all the obscure vocabulary words used on the SAT that most high schoolers don't know--(extol, capricious, etc.)--then you must've been an exceptional reader. Where did you get this other knowledge? Did you just read a lot?
If you 'barely graduated' high school and got dismissed with university, then you must've simply not done the work. I've known plenty of people that were smart, but lazy.
If you are gifted at a young age, it's easy to get relaxed... become lazy and satsified with the easy victories. The only way you can break this cycle is to endeavor to place a hurdle in front of yourself, one that you can't easily jump.
(I'm doing fairly well now, but it was a bumpy road.)
My college GPA ended up at 3.1. During the last two years, I got into a pattern of signing up for a full-time courseload and then completely ignoring (and failing) one of the classes (if this happens to you, I can only advise formally shifting to part-time status). I can provide some observations on particular things that got me through some classes:
One class I failed because I showed up on the first day, determined accurately that the subject material was quite easy, and stopped going for a while. I showed up again in the fourth week of class, and learned that I had already managed a failing grade for myself -- one component of the course grade was a series of four pop quizzes, of which two had already happened, and to pass the course overall it was necessary to pass each component.
Since that class was required for a CS degree, I had to retake it. Having failed it on a technicality pissed me off, so I showed up regularly and was quite vocal in class, and the professor (not the same one) became very familiar with me. When late in the term I finally flaked on a homework assignment, I felt enough of a connection to him that I spoke to him after class, saying I had been a little busier than usual and hadn't done the assignment (I made no offer to get it in late). He whacked me on the arm with the papers he was holding and said "do you need more time? Take another day!", at which point, obviously, I had to complete the assignment. I never missed another one.
So one lesson is: you will do work for a personal connection that your work ethic would not have motivated you to do. Wounded pride helps too.
I had a class in which I was one of four students. No real problems there either; it would have been too embarrassing.
Lesson: close oversight can keep you working.
In one class, I was already established in a flaking pattern when a girl in the class came to me and asked to be my partner (our university encouraged pair programming). From that point on, I had nothing better to do with my time than work on the class assignments. Impressing a professor didn't register with me, but impressing a girl did.
This one is kind of a special case of the first "lesson", so I'll say it helps if the reason you're working is something you find compelling.
This last point is something I have no personal experience with, but I imagine having friends who thought working on something potentially productive was a fun way to spend time would help me a lot. "Hey, let's take a udacity course together!" "Hey, let's learn rails and set up a website!" That kind of thing. Peer group matters too. :/
I read a lot. That's what it's testing.
Part of my score did feel like I got lucky - I usually hit upon one or two words I didn't know in practice tests, but I knew all the words in the one I took officially.
As for your specific examples: "extol the virtues of" is an idiom that comes up a lot on the internet; "capricious" is less common, but I still remember reading it quite a few times.
Also, as a person with ADHD who takes Adderall I don't see what the big fuss about it as a drug/medicine is. It works. I don't (personally) note any side effects, and don't see any reason that I'd stop taking it. Before taking Adderall I was essentially self-medicating my ADHD with copious amounts of coffee on a daily basis. Yet, no one talks about the drug of caffeine in such a negative way.
I wasn't ever diagnosed or treated for ADHD as a kid and I had huge issues with organization and focus in my younger years. I think if I had the 'focus' that I have now due to Adderall that I could have done significantly better in school and in my early career.
With Adderall I am no longer late to everything. I use my calendar effectively. I don't lose things (as much). I get probably 4x the amount of coding done per day. I'm better in conversation. I get through to do lists far quicker (and remember to use the list).
Over diagnosed? Sure. But I don't see why this drug is so demonized, where nicotine, alcohol and caffeine are just kinda standard parts of society and accepted.
Coding really IS naturally boring and mind numbing. That's neither your imagination nor subjective experience. No one ever steps through a series of break-points in a debugger, or skims through 1,000 lines of log output, and thinks: "YEAH, MAN! THIS IS REALLY LIVING!" It pretty much requires an altered state to enjoy this stuff.
I think the truth is that modern society measures "success" in radically different and totally unnatural ways now.
Look back at history, and there's a famous correlation between the introduction of coffee, tea and chocolate to Europe, and the age of enlightenment. (https://encrypted.google.com/#q=caffeine+enlightenment+histo...)
The reason pills are used on kids is because they won't reliably drink coffee on their own. Meanwhile, many parents won't subject their kids to substances other than normal, healthy food, unless they're comforted by rational, selfless purpose. Without an appeal to authority, in the form of a soliciting a qualified doctor's auspicious opinion, parents would just let their kids be kids.
The industrialized world is obsessed with abstract achievements, and rigid behavioral norms. Most people have a hard time resisting the trend, and sometimes do so at their own risk. All of it is artificially tied to quality of life (more than survival) by social pressures, so it's not so much survival instinct, so much as it is envy or maybe a desire for inclusion that drives the behavior.
It's not the drug that's demonized, but the fact that it has become a prerequisite for staying competitive and Keeping Up With The Joneses, so to speak.
That's just not true. I'm a counterexample.
I'm a programmer, and I do it because I find what I do to be exciting. I, in fact, truly enjoy "skimming 1,000 lines of log output" to finally find a bug I've been scouting for, or spending hours solving a particularly difficult problem.
If I found coding naturally boring and mind numbing I certainly wouldn't have chosen it as my career. Perhaps you should look at whether you are truly in the right field?
People with ADHD can't focus on detail before they zone out. They need be in either intense(Lots of pressure, like sales), or big picture and creative positions.
Distractions are a problem not only because of the sheer number of them, but because you don't really notice you aren't on task anymore. It can take 30 minutes to realize that reading about ancient Mongolia has nothing to do with that paper you were reading, and another five minutes to trace exactly how you got there. And then you need to find where you were and start again.
Focus is incredibly complex, and not well understood. I don't know where the line is between problem and "lazy", but I do know that will power isn't the whole answer to these types of problems.
Also, though you might not notice any side effects, the article discusses that the side effects can be substantial (trouble sleeping, loss of appetite, sometimes suicidal thoughts), and that they are typically vastly understated in advertisements. The drug can be addictive too.
This sounds like something to make a big fuss about. If the opposition is to be believed (and I think it is), children are being vastly over-medicated with strong drugs based on bad science and misleading advertising.
> Over diagnosed? Sure. But I don't see why this drug is so demonized, where nicotine, alcohol and caffeine are just kinda standard parts of society and accepted.
the fuss is about the pharma industry spending millions upon millions on getting ever more people to take these meds. and for the wrong reasons.
“Medicines may make it easier to pay attention and control your behavior!”
"Adderall XR Improves Academic Performance"
these are statements that hold true for EVERYBODY, and not just for people suffering from adhd. that's what stimulants do. the pharma industry is basically trying to get as much people as possible (especially children) hooked on legal stimulants. that's what the fuss is about. it's like marketing opiates as drugs that 'take the edge of'. everybody could do with some of that. most probably on a daily basis.
If you, as a responsible adult, consent to taking this medication on a regular basis, then fair enough. The big fuss is that this is being imposed on a whole generation of children, essentially as a form of behavioural control. It's really the revival of the old Victorian "little children should be seen, not heard" mindset, under the guise of medical treatment. Children misbehave at school for a variety of reasons. Instead of dealing with the often institutional causes of this problem, we lay the blame at the children's door and try to medicate them into docility.
Nobody dislikes Adderall. If you need it, I've never met anyone who would begrudge taking it. The demonization is of over diagnosis; Adderall is the poster-child.
What I do know: until I started treatment for ADD, the entire concept of "willpower" or "motivation" just didn't make sense to me. It was something other people had, maybe; or perhaps they were lying. But with treatment, "motivating myself" into doing things for merely their effects on my long-term goals is a perfectly obvious thing to do. It's very similar to what it felt like to go through puberty and gain a sex drive—but what I've gained is a drive to succeed in life.
Watching my own behaviour, introspectively, is fascinating. I keep expecting to hear a little voice that says "eh, that's too much effort; it makes me tired just to think of doing that." That voice was a persistent companion for most of my life. Now, that voice is just not there.
Obviously we can't do this. But I dearly love to know what the results would be.
For what it's worth: I suspect you would tell the difference between placebo and med. I'm not so sure about everyone taking those meds.
Fill the kit with agonists, reuptake inhibitors, and antagonists for every major neurotransmitter—serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, GABA, acetylcholine, glutamine, histamine, etc.—in liver-keyed prodrug form. Provided as well would be something like an Epipen, full of a chemical that would preferentially react with (and thus neutralize) any prodrugs left in your bloodstream, in case of emergencies. (Not that your liver will let you process the prodrugs into amines quickly-enough to harm you physically, but there's always the chance of, say, sudden suicidal ideation.)
But ignoring futurism, we've always got gwern: http://www.gwern.net/Nootropics
I took Vyvanse for a couple of months to try to help my concentration... holy cow. When it took effect 40 minutes after taking it, I felt like a jackhammer. It was no slight effect that you could dismiss as placebo, my blood pressure went up and I was on task for ten hours of the day, no problem. All the cobwebs that happen after that big pasta lunch? Gone. My mind was sharp, focused, and my friends all noticed that I was noticeably more aggressive in conversation.
The down side was that sleeping became very difficult. I'd wake up over and over during the night with way-too-vivid dreams. Worse, my heart started feeling like it was fluttering and my blood pressure machine, which told me that it was a bit higher, also indicated that I had an irregular heartbeat.
I'm sure that for some people there is ADD, and that the meds are an important part of being able to function.
Though not on an individual level, as far as I know. But studies on larger groups have shown differences from non-AD(H)D scans (source: I once saw a Youtube video with a semi-bald psychiatrist (?) with ADD.)
He suggested that at least some of this could be attributed to advertising by drug companies and the agencies that represent them. That these days, with most people first turning to the internet before a doctor when it comes to health issues, a new guerrilla style of marketing had become increasingly popular. Something to keep in mind.
That said, as an author, I have focused on adult ADHD. In adults, it is often overlooked, and is estimated at around 4.4% prevalence ratio (the reasonable figures I've seen range from 4-5%.)
Treatment of ADHD can be lifechanging and allow someone to succeed where they were struggling and suffering before.
This. 1000 times this. At 33, I didn't think I could just now be diagnosed for ADHD. Low and behold, I have ADHD and OCD. Being able to get help for both...
Yeah, life changing is a good way to describe it.
You mention you are an author focused on adult ADHD. If you ever want to talk, I'm more than happy to share. If I can help one other person like me, it would make all the struggle worth while.
Sometimes, a horrible thing goes unrecognized because we've all just learned to live with how horrible it is, and to stop wasting emotional energy despairing about it. When a cure does then come about... some company has to remind people that the problem is a problem in the first place.
Some "non-problems" are Emperors wearing some very compelling New Clothes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halitosis#History.2C_society_a...
The disease model is a horribly leaky abstraction for behavioral and personality problems. There is a world of difference between "I have a condition, with both benefits and drawbacks, which I need to manage" and "I have a disease that needs to be treated with medication". High-functioning autism has begun to be understood as belonging more to the first camp than the second; I would hope someday that we view many more things that way as well.
Speaking as a high school student taking finals in the coming week, I'd estimate that around 30% (roughly) of my peers are taking adderall at some point in the coming week without any kind of prescription or oversight. It's not like it's difficult for them to get said drugs; as the article states 1 in 7 people are diagnosed with ADHD by the time they're 18.
What that means is that you've got teenagers taking serious prescription medication without knowing what an appropriate dosage is and possible side-effects, and you have students who actually need said medication to stay focused and productive selling it and not taking it.
The sad part is that this isn't addressed at all. Most of these students are great kids placing in the top 10% of their class and thus it's assumed that they're somehow immune to substance abuse. All of the drug education focused at students assumes that teenagers are doing drugs or drinking for recreation and doesn't touch on prescription abuse and better ways of dealing with things like over-scheduling and stress.
Mental health simply creates a category of people who are immune from judgement on certain issues. Not that there is no stigma associated with mental illness, but the categories are "sold" as relieving the person from other people's unfair judgements. Even if other people still judge, at least the diagnosed person knows for themself that the judgement is unfair.
But this is really just a hack. If a person tends not to concentrate easily, we should take that as the base fact in itself. Rather than trying to make a false distinction between a failure of character or willpower, and something outside of people's control, we should be accommodating of people's abilities, and focus on helping people to achieve the best no matter what the source of their learning problems.
Of course there is one issue that is harder to deal with this way, and that is academic assessment. I think the solution to this is for academic assessment to measure as closely as possible the skills that the trained person should be able to implement. Time constraints are a part of any work, so I think providing extra time for people with ADD is unfair, but in general exams shouldn't place an excessive focus on speed or time management.
Of the roughly 20 names I can remember, who I know for a fact were prescribed ADD/ADHD medications, AND who I knew growing up both before the medication and after, there was only one guy that obviously had problems, and he was a jerk in general, and I avoided him as a rule, regardless of whatever medical attention he may have been receiving. I'm convinced that the rest were pretty much plied with drugs in the name of school grades, and there was no medical basis for their "treatment". I'm sure there were many more than the ones I knew.
Years later, now that I am hopelessly dependent on my morning coffee, and can look back on past events equipped with a firm understanding of the nature of stimulants and their affects, from both a therapeutic and recreational perspective, I am all the more convinced that doctors are providing performance enhancing drugs as study aids, where no medical condition exists. Some weak-willed parents are simply swept up in the sales pitch and follow trends like mindless zombies, and other zealously ambitious parents don't even think twice about subjecting their kids to unnecessary medicine if it means success and bragging rights at dinner parties. Still other parents know what the drugs do based on first hand experience, and feel no qualms about providing their kids with something they'd readily consume themselves.
The only thing that gnaws at me, is that in quiet suburban parlance, people will happily refer to prescribing their kids "meds" with jaunty, upbeat names conceived by marketing departments, but never EVER will anybody admit to what's really going on. The first time I found a bottle of generic medication in my friend's bathroom medicine cabinet, the reality of all this dawned on me.
AMPHETAMINE SALTS, 20MG
It was then that was when I realized everyone around me, young and old, all of them were just a huge band of highly-skilled bullshit artists.
Can you provide a definition for this? I'm fucking sick of people going through this process:
1. Struggle to understand someone's problem.
2. Give up.
3. Blame the victim.
If you see a problem, fix it. But nothing in your comment was at all helpful for the same people you were criticizing. This may come as a shock to you, but people struggle from different problems than you do. Some of them may seem easier to you because you don't experience the same thing.
Side note: The poster's username is 'negativity' after all :-)
In context, "weak willed" referred to the fact that parents let themselves be convinced that their children had ADD when they should have known that they were being sold drugs that were merely performance enhancers.
Overall your post comes across as an angry rhetorical rant, while the original post had some interesting content.
The "solution" that I imagine the poster would propose is to recognize that Amphetamines offer advantages to almost anyone, and that either we should be honest about their use as performance enhancers, or find ways to distinguish between a genuine need for them, and their use for enhancement.
"suggestible" comes to mind, but I don't think this is really the same thing.
And if the poster really believes that the parents are weak willed, I don't think that saying so can be considered as failing to use reason. In fact censoring oneself to use adjectives that carry less negative connotations, is a violation of reason.
I wonder if the label on a hepatotoxin such as "ACETAMINOPHEN, 400MG" gives you pause.
Try harder, have some amphetamines
The point is, just because your DARE teacher told you to to say no to something doesn't mean that a doctor shouldn't prescribe it and a patient shouldn't take it. Sometimes, drugs that are harmful in the wrong dose are good when prescribed and taken correctly.
They are amphetamines but so what? It's a much lower dose, prescribed by a doctor, and is not considered to be addictive. A lot of bad drugs are/have been used in medicine.
ADD and ADHD are both horribly overdiagnosed conditions. Kids will be hyperactive and hard to control, either by themselves or depending on what you fed them fifteen minutes earlier (sugar).
I could rant more, but it's late and my brain's fried.
I hate that these news pieces gloss over the importance of understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of actual ADHD. I think we have an epidemic of ADHDDDD. ADHD Definition Deficit Disorder. If you have the following symptoms:
1. You think ADHD is not real. 2. You think everyone has ADHD. 3. You think ADHD's status as a disorder is up for debate. 4. You think ADHD is just overdiagnosed, and not also dangerously underdiagnosed.
You may be suffering from ADHDDDD.
The best way to sort all of this confusion and controversy out is to educate people about what ADHD really is, with detailed information about individual cases [1]. Let's focus on the people who are actually suffering, instead of all the people who are both inappropriately buying and selling the disease. Proper knowledge of the former would lead to a self-regulation of the latter. If people actually knew how ADHD really manifests, then we'd stop flinging and/or sullying this useful clinical label.
I have adult ADHD and am in my late twenties. I was an amazing student as a kid. I am a software engineer at Google. I have no problems with the law or with substance abuse. I do have lots of problems though. I was diagnosed recently and started treatment, so I have not been impacted by a lifetime of "selling the disease", but I have always been impacted by a lifetime of the disease itself. My life is fucking weird. I just learned how to tie my shoes. I can't eat without making a mess. I talk to myself to keep myself stimulated. I could go on and on. Most people can barely fathom some of these behaviors.
If what you or your loved ones are dealing with is not really fierce and bizarre, then you can dismiss your concerns about ADHD. Regardless, if you have problems that might be addressed with stimulants, welcome to the club.
[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/adhd_prog...
Everyone should be able to easily obtain such useful medications.
I'm having a hard time believing that it's an actual problem. But on the other hand dismissing easily something that people here believe they are affected from, it's wrong.
That's starting to change.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/8b721a20-b8e9-11e2-a6ae-00144...
http://www.worldpublicunion.org/2013-03-27-NEWS-inventor-of-...
For those who are curious if ADHD is real? I can tell you, from my personal experience, it is.
I grew up with it all my life. It is hell. Then I randomly decided to try Paleo (cutting out gluten, sugar, grain and caffeine). And my ADHD is gone. I can focus, my mental fog is lifted, my lethargy is gone, I have the ability to enjoy normal activities.
* My personal Proof: In the last 2 years about 15 times I have cheated on my Paleo diet, by eating bread or a decent amount of sugar. About 12 out of 15 of those times my brain chemistry was quickly affected. I had my old impairments and extreme inability to focus.
* I realize the causes for ADHD for me are not necessarily the same as others. It's probably a host of causes that affect the brain in a similar way. However, I am sure there are more people out there who are like me. FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE MY ALLERGY TO GLUTEN: ADHD IS A REAL DISEASE. AND IT IS HELL.
## What it feels like to have ADD/ADHD
Because I can intentionally turn off my ADHD by eating Paleo or turn it back on, like clock work by eating grain or sugar, I can tell you what having ADHD is like in a very exact way.
# Eating Paleo for 3 weeks straight (no ADHD):
I still don’t feel like doing work often time. Some time work sounds fun and some time it doesn’t. Its the same feeling I saw most my peers in college have towards work.
If I don’t feel like doing something I really have to find a reason to make my self do it. (Basically the standard thing non ADD people say).
# With ADHD (eating a piece of bread)
Unexplainable feeling of mental uncomfortableness (EXTREME, HORRIBLE, and PAINFUL boredom) that can only be slightly assuaged with heavy distraction.
Want to know what it feels like?
- Imagine being on a 10 hour flight that just landed, you can’t wait to get up and walk out into the terminal, however, each person in front of you is taking longer and longer to get their stuff. Before you know it you have been sitting in your seat for over an hour waiting to get off. You are sitting in your seat unable to comfort your feelings of boredom and discomfort with the wait. Now multiply that negative feeling by 10. You might start to be rude to people just so that you have something to distract your pain with. You might start making dumb noises so people will stair at you and give you attention. This attention will help distract the unfathomable boredom/pain you are feeling.
(In one of my college classes I would take my rolling chair and go up and down a slight ramp in the class room while the teacher was giving lecture. I knew I was being and idiot. I knew I wanted to pay attention to the teacher and learn. However, the brief and little relief this distraction gave me was incredibly tempting. I would rather do things that made me feel pathetic than feel the pain of ADHD.)
- Imagine your mental capacity to think and remember words is cut by about 20-50%
- Imagine your motivation to work towards your dreams is cut by about 20-50%
- Imagine you can’t think of anything in the world that would excite you. Everything seems so un entertaining and boring. And this is not depression. I can be extremely happy and simply just eat a piece of bread and my whole mental mood changes. I feel like I am under a drug that gives me ADHD. It doesn’t make me depressed. It just makes everything seem so un satisfying (in regards to entertainment). Growing up I couldn’t play video games longer than 20 mins, even for the most critically acclaimed games, I would become mind numbingly bored.
So thats what having ADHD is like, its REAL (well I can only speak for myself).
I’m probably a lot like many people here reading this on HN: I am extremely smart but struggled in school due to my ADHD. I got good grades in physics classes such as special relativity and decent grades in advanced math classes such as calc III. In spite of my ADHD. I wouldn’t study or do homework. Well sometimes I would copy homework. And luckily I took enough a way from lecture to get good grades on the tests.
However, I never ended up finishing my degree because as time went on I couldn’t keep up the good grades as my programming classes depended more on more doing actual work. I remember getting an B in systems programming in C class because I set the curve on all the tests. I finished many of the programs (starting the night before they were do), however I didn’t even turn in the last three programs (I felt so pathetic). But soon the demands in classes start to become greater. They weren’t just programs I could do in a 12 hour marathon the night before. I even tried 5 different ADHD drugs over a 1.5 year period, none of them really helped enough to be worth the side affects. I didn't like not feeling like myself and the ups and downs as the drugs take affect and then wear off. Though, god damn it did feel nice to finally not feel the pain of ADHD for a few hours. I
I ended up dropping out, however, luckily a few years later I discovered Paleo. I now wake up at 5am every morning. I am writing a book in the mornings and I am a lead dev at a great company where I easily put in an 8-9 hour a day every day. (When I was in college I interned at Microsoft I couldn’t work for more than about 2 hours a day and I wouldn’t even stay on the campus for more than 4-6 hours out of the horrible pain of the boredom.) I would arrive at work around 10:30 am, take a 1.5 lunch and then leave by 2pm or 3pm and head back to my company provided apartment. I hated my self and it was horrible. Now, I am proud of my self and love doing 10-11 hour days of work (including the book). And I don’t take any drugs, I don’t even drink coffee or tea! Zero caffeine.
This person’s book http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp7E973zozc and listening to music is my caffeine. If I don’t feel like starting some work, I remember that "doing the things I don’t feel like doing is the only way I will get the things I want". I then put on my headphones and listen to music that pumps me up. After a few minutes I get into my work and have a hard time remembering to stop for lunch.
# Final Words
So if you think you have ADHD please try Paleo for 30 days, then eat a meal with a bunch of bread and sugar. See if you see an instant stark change in your mental make up. The easiest (so probably the most effective) way to eat Paleo for 30 days is to buy a bunch of meal sized Tupperware, each week go to costco and find some cooked meat (chicken, pulled pork, etc) with no sauces or added wheat. Just meat. Buy some different frozen vegetables (no white potatoes), buy some cooked sweet potatoes or squash, buy some fruit for snacks. Make your 14 lunches and dinners on Sunday. Put them in your fridge and bring your lunch to work. I also make scrambled eggs for 7 days on Sunday and put them in Tupperware. If you have prepped food you are much more likely to succeed against the temptations of cheating. Know: the first 5 days of taking sugar and grain out of your diet are going to be the hardest you will be hit with withdrawals. For some people this feels like getting the flu!
A good primer on the Paleo diet http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/paleo-diet-craze-pt-1
More info about Paleo (know this diet has become a fad, not all websites promoting the “pale diet” are actually promoting the real diet. I recommend, at least initially, only using Loren Cordain, PH.D as a source for information. His book “The Paleo Diet" is great. http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/paleo-diet-craze-pt-1
I find it perplexing that we accept eating substances called medications affects brain chemistry, but eating substances called food doesn't.
A healthy diet can do wonders.
After writing this post yesterday, I went to the store and bought some gluten free bread (rice and potato flower) for the first time. I had a few pieces and it didn't seem to affect me much if at all. So even though I eat pure paleo, it might really just be the Gluten and Sugar (in decent quantities) that do me in.
I haven't really tried a bunch of experiments because I know what is safe for me. And the idea of trying something that will ruin my whole day (or longer) is not a fun prospect. So I stay pretty conservative and eat pure paleo for the most part. I cheat and eat cheese or beans some times. They don't seem to affect me.
I spent most my life post high school life wondering if I had "ADHD". In high school I was clueless. I didn't know any one who had ADHD or about the disease. I just assumed I was super lazy. So even though I was feeling horrible everyday, because it was everyday: I couldn't compare it to anything. I just assumed I was feeling normal.
In fact there was so much stigma about "Is ADHD real, do I really have it?". Even after I was able to turn it off and then back on, at first I really didn't accept that it was that different. I was in major denial (I wanted to take responsibility for my laziness and not blame some "fake" disease). It wasn't until I was on Paleo full time for about 6 months and then I had a piece of bread and the horrible feelings started rushing back into my brain that I started to finally admit to myself that ADHD is real and that I have it.
And then my girl friend started to point out and get upset every time I cheated on Paleo because I would turn in to "Mr. Hyde" being rude, immature and very annoying. At first she hated the idea of me trying some fad diet. She loves cooking and hated what this change meant. Now she is my biggest cheerleader. Partially for my happiness, but to a large degree for her own.
So I can I can identify with a lot of the people who are advocating ADHD isn't a real disease, I was there. I can also say that attitude of shaming people (blaming the persons attitude, will power and not their brain chemistry), really fucked me up, to the point where I couldn't admit to myself how real the disease is for a long time. I went on and off Paleo for about 8 months before I finally, told my self this helps enough to be worth while. From my relapses, I can tell you it helps me in HUGE, HUGE way. I was in a lot of denial.
I also want to point out for me it was hard to admit that Paleo actually proved I had ADHD (I am not just super lazy). Years of beating myself up made this very hard. So if you do decide to try paleo, do it for at least 30 days. Keep a journal of how you feel at least once a week and then on the 30th day eat a bunch of bread, milk and sugar and journal how you feel. Try to get some work done. If you actually have the same allergy I have, the sooner you fully accept it the sooner you will start to heal the emotional wounds.
I would ask anyone trying to cure their ADHD, cancer, etc. to take a look at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturated_fat_and_cardiovascula...
and "Dietary Guidelines for Americans" http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/DGAs2010-PolicyDocument.htm
Please read this response by Dr. Cordain (to a similar set of statements). "It is obvious that whoever wrote this piece did not do their homework and has not read the peer review scientific papers which have examined contemporary diets based upon the Paleolithic food groups which shaped the genomes of our ancestors.... five studies (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7); four since 2007, have experimentally tested contemporary versions of ancestral human diets and have found them to be superior to Mediterranean diets, diabetic diets and typical western diets in regards to weight loss, cardiovascular disease risk factors and risk factors for type 2 diabetes.
The first study to experimentally test diets devoid of grains, dairy and processed foods was performed by Dr. Kerin O’Dea at the University of Melbourne and published in the Journal, Diabetes in 1984 (6). In this study Dr. O’Dea gathered together 10 middle aged Australian Aborigines who had been born in the “Outback”. They had lived their early days primarily as hunter gatherers until they had no choice but to finally settle into a rural community with access to western goods. Predictably, all ten subjects eventually became overweight and developed type 2 diabetes as they adopted western sedentary lifestyles in the community of Mowwanjum in the northern Kimberley region of Western Australia. However, inherent in their upbringing was the knowledge to live and survive in this seemingly desolate land without any of the trappings of the modern world.
Dr. O’Dea requested these 10 middle aged subjects to revert to their former lives as hunter gatherers for a seven week period. All agreed and traveled back into the isolated land from which they originated. Their daily sustenance came only from native foods that could be foraged, hunted or gathered. Instead of white bread, corn, sugar, powdered milk and canned foods, they began to eat the traditional fresh foods of their ancestral past: kangaroos, birds, crocodiles, turtles, shellfish, yams, figs, yabbies (freshwater crayfish), freshwater bream and bush honey. At the experiment’s conclusion, the results were spectacular, but not altogether unexpected given what known about Paleo diets, even then. The average weight loss in the group was 16.5 lbs; blood cholesterol dropped by 12 % and triglycerides were reduced by a whopping 72 %. Insulin and glucose metabolism became normal, and their diabetes effectively disappeared.
The first recent study to experimentally test contemporary Paleo diets was published in 2007 (5). Dr. Lindeberg and associates placed 29 patients with type 2 diabetes and heart disease on either a Paleo diet or a Mediterranean diet based upon whole grains, low-fat dairy products, vegetables, fruits, fish, oils, and margarines. Note that the Paleo diet excludes grains, dairy products and margarines while encouraging greater consumption of meat and fish. After 12 weeks on either diet blood glucose tolerance (a risk factor for heart disease) improved in both groups, but was better in the Paleo dieters. In a 2010 follow-up publication, of this same experiment the Paleo diet was shown to be more satiating on a calorie by calorie basis than the Mediterranean diet because it caused greater changes in leptin, a hormone which regulates appetite and body weight.
In the second modern study (2008) of Paleo Diets, Dr. Osterdahl and co-workers (7) put 14 healthy subjects on a Paleo diet. After only three weeks the subjects lost weight, reduced their waist size and experienced significant reductions in blood pressure, and plasminogen activator inhibitor (a substance in blood which promotes clotting and accelerates artery clogging). Because no control group was employed in this study, some scientists would argue that the beneficial changes might not necessarily be due to the Paleo diet. However, a better controlled more recent experiments showed similar results.
In 2009, Dr. Frasetto and co-workers (1) put nine inactive subjects on a Paleo diet for just 10 days. In this experiment, the Paleo diet was exactly matched in calories with the subjects’ usual diet. Anytime people eat diets that are calorically reduced, no matter what foods are involved, they exhibit beneficial health effects. So the beauty of this experiment was that any therapeutic changes in the subjects’ health could not be credited to reductions in calories, but rather to changes in the types of food eaten. While on the Paleo diet either eight or all nine participants experienced improvements in blood pressure, arterial function, insulin, total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol and triglycerides. What is striking about this experiment is how rapidly so many markers of health improved, and that they occurred in every single patient.
In an even more convincing recent (2009) experiment, Dr. Lindeberg and colleagues (2) compared the effects of a Paleo diet to a diabetes diet generally recommended for patients with type 2 diabetes. The diabetes diet was intended to reduce total fat by increasing whole grain bread and cereals, low fat dairy products, fruits and vegetables while restricting animal foods. In contrast, the Paleo diet was lower in cereals, dairy products, potatoes, beans, and bakery foods but higher in fruits, vegetables, meat, and eggs compared to the diabetes diet. The strength of this experiment was its cross over design in which all 13 diabetes patients first ate one diet for three months and then crossed over and ate the other diet for three months. Compared to the diabetes diet, the Paleo diet resulted in improved weight loss, waist size, blood pressure, HDL cholesterol, triglycerides, blood glucose and hemoglobin A1c (a marker for long term blood glucose control). This experiment represents the most powerful example to date of the Paleo diet’s effectiveness in treating people with serious health problems."
References
(1) Frassetto LA, Schloetter M, Mietus-Synder M, Morris RC, Jr., Sebastian A: Metabolic and physiologic improvements from consuming a paleolithic, hunter-gatherer type diet. Eur J Clin Nutr 2009.
(2) Jönsson T, Granfeldt Y, Ahrén B, Branell UC, Pålsson G, Hansson A, Söderström M, Lindeberg S. Beneficial effects of a Paleolithic diet on cardiovascular risk factors in type 2 diabetes: a randomized cross-over pilot study. Cardiovasc Diabetol. 2009;8:35
(3) Jonsson T, Granfeldt Y, Erlanson-Albertsson C, Ahren B, Lindeberg S. A Paleolithic diet is more satiating per calorie than a Mediterranean-like diet in individuals with ischemic heart disease. Nutr Metab (Lond). 2010 Nov 30;7(1):85
(4) Jonsson T, Ahren B, Pacini G, Sundler F, Wierup N, Steen S, Sjoberg T, Ugander M, Frostegard J, Goransson Lindeberg S: A Paleolithic diet confers higher insulin sensitivity, lower C-reactive protein and lower blood pressure than a cereal-based diet in domestic pigs. Nutr Metab (Lond) 2006, 3:39.
(5) Lindeberg S, Jonsson T, Granfeldt Y, Borgstrand E, Soffman J, Sjostrom K, Ahren B: A Palaeolithic diet improves glucose tolerance more than a Mediterranean-like diet in individuals with ischaemic heart disease. Diabetologia 2007, 50(9):1795-1807.
(6) O'Dea K: Marked improvement in carbohydrate and lipid metabolism in diabetic Australian aborigines after temporary reversion to traditional lifestyle. Diabetes 1984, 33(6):596-603.
(7) Osterdahl M, Kocturk T, Koochek A, Wandell PE: Effects of a short-term intervention with a paleolithic diet in healthy volunteers. Eur J Clin Nutr 2008, 62(5):682-685.
View full response for all references https://www.facebook.com/notes/the-paleo-diet/dr-cordains-re...
I think that the consensus of medical experts trumps a minority opinion, and that is my basis for making this decision.
I don't have time to read 1000s of articles or summaries, and even if I did, I don't see how my judgement on the matter would be superior to an expert's. Similarly, you are not actually addressing the sources I quote, and so you are making an appeal to authority, just a weaker form of authority.
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet#Intervention_s... for a critical discussion of the studies you mentioned.
Honestly, this is why I am glad I made these statements with a throw away account. Look your are obviously not interested in having your mind changed. You can keep eating the food that has lead to more heart attacks and other food related deaths per person than any other time period. Or you could be willing to learn a little. Learn that the latest peer reviewed research shows grain and sugar are causing the epidemic we are in. Research that shows saturated fats are what our ancestors ate [1] and are extremely healthy (if coming from wild or grass fed sources, thus high in omega 3 fats).
[1] http://thepaleodiet.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/CRC-Chapt...
At the very least do you not agree with the author of Brain Grain? http://www.drperlmutter.com/about/bio/
"David Perlmutter, MD, FACN, ABIHM is a Board-Certified Neurologist and Fellow of the American College of Nutrition. He received his M.D. degree from the University of Miami School of Medicine where he was awarded the Leonard G. Rowntree Research Award for best research by a medical student. After completing residency training in Neurology, also at the University of Miami, Dr. Perlmutter entered private practice in Naples, Florida."
The answer is, probably, in that the environment and conditioning has a much more to do with these dynamics than medication, so in a less stressed and more friendly environment (which Hindu/Buddhist communities traditionally have) such "disorders" are "self-corrected" by some natural behavioral "therapy", and, perhaps, much less frequently developed in the first place.
In contrast, in social shitholes like Russia number of so-called "problem children" is uncounted, and traditionally the traits described in DSM for a full spectrum of so-called "disorders" are considered quite normal. It is very common scene in Russia when a kid cries "hysterically" non-stop, while parents just scream back or and hit them. This is not exactly A.D.H.D case, but an illustration of what environment does.)
hint: before down-voting try to estimate the population of Hindu and Buddhist countries, which accounts, roughly, to a half of the population of the globe, compared to 300MM of Americans.))
About movies, is Asperger-like behavior of De Niro's character Travis in Taxi Driver is explicitly described in the screenplay or was a side-effect of a good acting?) And that Jean Reno as Leon, you know.