One thing I've always wondered is how adhd folks didn't get selected out through their risky behaviour. Their existence could certainly confer some group benefits - but I thought group selection was no longer well regarded in the evo biol community.
From personal experience, it's easy to spend money when you don't associate how it will impact your ability to pay rent in 15 days.
I always wondered whether the former is predominant in people with ADHD...
And interestingly computers/smartphones allow us to easily turn the latter into the former.
"Tulving's research has emphasized the importance of episodic memory for our experience of consciousness and our understanding of time. For example, he conducted studies with the amnesic patient KC, who had relatively normal semantic memory but severely impaired episodic memory due to brain damage from a motorcycle accident. Tulving's work with KC highlighted the central importance of episodic memory for the subjective experience of one's self in time, an ability he dubbed "autonoetic consciousness." KC lacked this ability, failing to remember prior events and also failing to imagine or plan for the future."
Adhd is not a superpower. It's an incurable brain disorder. It fucking sucks.
No, it isn't. It's a fucking neurological disorder which affects dopamine production, which interferes with normal brain function.
Imagine sitting down to work on something you really want to finish, but you can't. You're reading reddit instead, because that gives you a quick dose of entertainment. You keep yelling at yourself to do the work, because it's your job on the line. But no, you'll end up looking at cat pictures, because, hey, cats. That's what ADHD is like.
ADHD doesn't make you some magical hunter, patience does. Reaction time has nothing to do with ADHD, it comes from paying attention when the stimuli comes about, something a person with ADHD can't do.
As for "normal", I base it off the figure of 95%. That is, our brains are different from 95% of humanity. That strikes me as a good definition of abnormal, better than "I surround myself with th those like me, so I'm totally normal".
There is no normal, that's the main point. If you get enough people with "AD(H)D" in a room, and ask a few questions about preferred cognitive styles (sound, light, touch, motor movement) you will discover clusters of preferences and a wide range of differences.
The label ADHD is most useful as a search term for a vocabulary of common challenges. Naming any problem is necessary to develop shared solutions. Prior to the advent of this term, non-neurotypical people independently named their logistical challenges and independently re-invented solutions.
Are you familiar with the term hyperfocus? Is that a strength or weakness?
I've met plenty of people who are 100% ADHD, both parents, all their children, it is inheritable, and the degree to which each person needed treatment for their personal ADHD symptoms tends to vary a lot. ADHD isn't a binary condition, you can have ADHD tendencies, mild ADHD, severe ADHD, etc.
The frustration felt by those suffering with the worst symptoms when people fail to appreciate their condition is hard to fix. While Autism has been the subject of the decade thanks to a particularly disgusting pustule of a human being publishing a particular fraudulent paper in a medical journal, ADHD is quietly toyed with now and then. Most improvements to treatment for ADHD have been accidental and is further hampered by the usual concerns regarding psychoactive pharmacology, what is a legal treatment in one jurisdiction is an illicit narcotic in others.
We're all human, I like lots of other people, have ADHD. Consequently I'm going to post this as written rather than try to edit away the lack of a clear direction or good summation. I've learned to cut my losses on tangential trains of thought, this one has already lead to a rather mushy breakfast :-/
Tapes from older conferences: http://www.audiotapes.com/browse.asp?Topic=3
There is useful practical information buried among clinical studies and pathology discussions.
And I totally agree. Some people are given wrenches, other people hammers. The solution isn't to make people really good at tightening bolts with hammers.
Can we really say that it is a brain disorder? All that we know is that people with ADHD don't fit into the cultural definition of normal, but that doesn't mean that the definition of normal is correct or that not being normal is a "disorder". How do you know it isn't just a slightly different model of cognition that suffers at some tasks but excels in others. Humans are very good at detecting errors, such as ADHD caused impairment, but not very good at quantifying or detecting potentially positive effects of something like ADHD.
I didn't know, and so I struggled mightily against myself to get to where I am today. In the few months during which time I have been medicated, I have made more career progress than any 5 other years prior.
We only get half a decade of productive life, if something that makes us piss away that time is not a disorder, well then wtf is it?
At this point i'm writing up my thesis, where tracking down, interpreting, and coherently organizing old notepads/napkins, papers, and result files is a full time job. If i want to keep my health (to actually sleep) i really only get 9-10 hours while the remaining 8 are anxiety that it's not getting done or frustration that i can't push out pages at any reasonable pace.
The best advice I can offer is to accept your lack of control over some things. If I don't listen to my body and mind I will suffer. Like what you mentioned with sleep, I actually find it more beneficial to sleep than to work through the tiredness. That way I can come to the subject with a fresh mind.
I do wonder if survival back in the day actually required the level of risk taking that adhd people are capable of. If you stayed in one place - maybe you ran out of food - things like that.
Best relationship ever was with a ADHD risk-taking person. Would do again.
I mean, the guy who takes the time to make a spear and plan an attack is probably gonna live a better life than the dude that charges right into a slap-fight with a lion and the other dude cowering inside the cave.
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