Swordfish12345

I wouldn't trade the creativity and hyperfocus for anything. I feel I am on a journey and the one trick is to figure out how to beat this thing. But I am desperately struggling to get things done versus endless ideation/dreaming.

So I am very curious as to what you tried and why it didn't work. And of course, I hope there is something you didn't try that will work for me.

I have such a delicate balance at the moment and I cannot afford to disrupt it with meds, and could not afford to have med tolerance build after a few years leading me worse than when I started. EVERYONE tells me I should just take meds. The pressure is high. But I never will.

Think what this means though. You fit a criteria. Then ask why do we use this criteria? Trace the history of this criteria through the DSM. The criteria is arbitrary. There is no basis for it.

The field of ADHD began when stimulants were shown to help make kids calmer. And since then it has been a matter of: how to find other people that this medicine (that no one else is allowed and is highly controlled) will help.

There was never an investigation into maybe it is caused by environment/society.

The unquestionable commonality of ADHD is an impairment that impacts the ability to live/work.

No one starts here, and then looks at the potential causes. They see if you fit the criteria, and if you do then you medicate.

Medication is premised on it being a neurodevelopment disorder from birth, hence why ADHD people can take stimulants and no one else can. But this is not proven in any way.

My biggest gripe is that every ADHD person will tell you its okay for only them to take stimulants because their brain is different for normal people and hence they are immune to the negative side-effects. Which is not proven. The risks are under-stated, and the investigation of the true cause is cut short for convenience and revenue.

Do I still struggle? Yes, a lot.

For me, I keep getting stuck down rabbit holes despite what systems I put in place to avoid it. It is a constant whack-a-mole.

My theory is that people with ADHD are just more creative. Their brains are designed to explore and push boundaries.

But the invention of internet, smart phones, social media, online video is simply too much for a brain of this calibre. Our brains evolved in the natural world, and we live in an extremely unnatural world now.

But one thing I found about the ADHD community is that they feel like meds are the only answer, to the point they get angry when people criticise them.

> Wow

So I genuinely am interested in what is "enough".

It's incredibly difficult to get anyone to tell you what they tried and to confront any alternative hypotheses. They take it as an affront.

Assistant professor, lecturer, reviewed by post doc. It's an article that summarizes stuff nicely referencing papers.

> but does not go as far as establishing a causal relationship

I love how the attitude is: here is a drug that you would think would cause side-effects and tolerance...which is does...and then the onus is on everyone to conclusively prove that it's bad. Smoke until we realize it causes cancer. Take opiates until we realize they are extremely addictive in certain packaging.

It's very much carefree experimentation on the world, rather than being risk-averse and acknowledging what we don't know.

It is common sense that the body will seek homeostasis to deal with this artificially increased dopamine levels. Which this study seems to indicate.

But it comes down to risk-appetite.

> DSM-IV vs. DSM-5.

We changed the diagnosis criteria and got: surprise, 27% increase in expected prevalence. How convenient.

The diagnosis criteria are just made up. The cause is not proven at all. There is no biomarker or imagery that can diagnose the condition successfully.

So patients present with an impairment...then you look at who has the impairment and craft the criteria such that it explains the impairment. Its a circular definition and extremely broad.

https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2011.1...

Your brain adapts. It's pretty obvious.

If you give a mouse access to a button that triggers dopamine release, they keep pressing the button until they starve to death.

The brain has evolved a system to maintain homeostasis to prevent this happening.

There are ample tools like screen time.

Imagine being on meds for 10 years and then realizing that what you really needed was to just block distractions more judiciously and set more deadlines.

> its literally the same thing.

The cause was the acute organ transplant. What is the acute cause for ADHD?

The tragedy I find is that people first discover ADHD and then go straight on meds. They don't use this new realization and understanding of their condition to try to solve it without medication. And once you begin medication, your brain starts to change, and you really can't isolate whether a behavioral change is actually working independent of your medicated state. So begins a long journey of decreasing efficacy of the meds to the point that you will end up worse than where you started.

Also curious what you did try? What was the longest time you disconnected from the internet and social media? How much did you exercise?

Your brain adapts by creating more dopamine transporters...meaning you need more dopamine for same effect. This happens in an effort to maintain homeostasis. There is no free dopamine unfortunately...what goes up must come down. The brain's homeostasis system is hard-wired.

https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2011.1...

> but the normal of people with ADHD is different.

This is probably the biggest misunderstanding people have.

They are told that their brain doesn't produce as much dopamine as a normal brain, which is why they can take the meds and normal people cannot.

But this is not the case. Each brain produces the right amount for itself, and if you dope it with more, then it will counteract this, and you will build tolerance.

There is no evidence about the dopamine theory of ADHD. It's total conjecture with a couple of papers here and there. There are no biomarkers or imaging for diagnosing ADHD.

The end result is you are going to end up morphing people's brains to the point that they need to take the meds to attain their original state.

But whatever, no one seems to care, too much money to be made.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2626918/

https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2011.1...

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25066615/

You can block it and measure consumption. This is easy.

> 2. antidepressant

Originally stims weren't suppose to be used if someone is depressed. But now heaps of people are on both. If you are spiking dopamine you are bound to have a crash and the symptoms of it. There is a lot of reports of this. This crash can feel like depression. So its like a cycle of one drug covering for another.

> 4. Would you tell someone...

What is the _organ transplant event_ analagous to in an ADHD scenario? Does not fit.

Once you start taking meds you develop dependence and so your definitely need them.

But if there was a simpler environmental cause/solution, now that is out of reach entirely. It would take years for their mind to re-balance.

If you tried everything and nothing worked, then go for the meds, and take on the risks and side-effects.

But no one does this. They get diagnosed and then straight on meds for the rest of their life.

It's actually the opposite.

It is now practically forbidden to criticize anything related with ADHD.

After reading all the literature I concluded there were huge problems with almost every aspect of it. Then you go try to tell people and you are tarred and feathered.

Then look at incentives: on one side is: "a citizen concerned that maybe taking stimulant meds is going to cause greater problems" vs "drug companies and psych industry making huge money from increasing lifetime prescriptions of stimulants".

The people on the "hang on a minute" side of things are concerned about health and safety of society. They stand to make ZERO money from raising the alarm. On the other side its billions of dollars.

> trying to decide how people should treat their disabling medical conditions.

Trying to raise awareness of risks. I think people don't understand the risks. They see a smart pill with no side-effects.

Do what you like.

The current wisdom is as soon as a diagnosis is made: go straight on the meds because there is minimal side-effects. So environmental modifications as treatment are not explored. Plus, once meds are involved, you now have a stimulant dependence to deal with too involving a afternoon crash, and increased anxiety, etc. Then your on anti-depressants to counteract these side-effects, etc. etc.

I was listening to the All-In podcast and Chamath's child got a diagnosis recently, and they said: absolutely no meds. Then took his iPad away and symptoms decreased dramatically.

I've only looked into depression[1] and ADHD[2].

The symptoms are real. The impairment is real. But the cause is unknown.

> Americans have been conditioned into believing various convenient lies...spend your money 'correctly.'

I think you made my argument better than I could!

ADHD = pay money for pills. Depression = pay money for pills.

There couldn't be anything easier than just spending money to make problems go away.

If someone tells you your brain is broken, why bother with willpower.

Same with institutional racism really. If the system's against you, why try.

[1]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0

[2]: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2022.81476...

They key point is "emerging".

You will find a lot of research, but there are no meta-analyses of brain imaging or gene studies showing any correlation to those diagnosed with ADHD. Even the diagnostic manual, the DSM-5, explicitly states that no biomarkers for diagnosis exist. The descriptive diagnostic criteria for ADHD were simply made up by a group of psychiatrists in the 1980s from their observations. So the definition of ADHD is entirely recursive.

So all we know is people have some basket of symptoms, and an impairment in their ability to live their life, but an entirely unknown cause.

You may also be surprised to find that there is no proof of the link between depression and serotonin either - which is the main theory for treatment.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0

I used to be the same. But I find it just keeps me up more because there is so much potential for it to become interesting...even the most boring pods. Now I remove my bed from the bedroom and if anything I use a Calm sleep story.

You might be surprised to find out that there is actually no proof of this.

The biggest thing impacting people with ADHD symptoms is the diagnosis. It implies they have a brain disorder, and cuts short any exploration into environmental causes of their symptoms.

And an environmental cause may in fact be, simply not trying some simple advice from this article. Resolved by education.

100%. Started this recently. It works perfectly if you can withstand the withdrawals!

The moment you start doing this, is the moment you have to confront how incredibly addicted you actually are to your phone and the internet.

It will feel like you are being tortured. And it's very easy to give in because the immediate consequences are quite tame (getting to sleep a bit later, little less energy the next day). But over time they add up.

I highly recommend trying it and observing your mind go crazy. You can truly start to understand addicts and what they go through.

The biggest revelation was that cold turkey doesn't work too well. Instantly cutting off access to your phone can cause you to be consumed by the desire to have access to it (moreso than you even felt before), and you lose a lot of mental energy fighting against this. Which can disrupt your work, and disrupt your sleep even more so than if you allowed yourself access to it.

I think this is the reason most people don't do it even though its such a simple and obvious advice.

Addiction.

We are being pathologized by pseudo-science all around us.

When people mention "willpower", everyone today is looking for a diagnosis as an excuse instead.

Some things really are as simple as articles like this.

The failing is education. People don't understand the way they have re-shaped their brains from pretty much everything spawning from the internet and tv.

What was the trick?

Recently I've seen so many people being prescribed around me. And they are high-functioning people.

And you have to question whether they actually need to jump on meds every day. Everyone is so happy to be able to take stimulants. I cannot imagine touching the stuff. I find myself observing a dip from simply caffeine which makes me want more when it will keep me up all night.

Plus you see people on their phones all day, completely addicted.

There are definitely real cases like yours, but as you mentioned, it's becoming way too hyped and you are not allowed to criticize the science. It's dangerous for society. Look where the opioid epidemic took us.

And others don't...https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/imaging-study-shows-dopa...

Every medicated person you ask tells you their brain just works differently from birth and doesn't produce enough dopamine so they need meds...but its not proven at all, and there is evidence its not the case.

> and only after centuries or decades or research (if we're lucky), we might pinpoint the exact mechanisms.

We might also create such a broad definition of a condition (that we just thought up), and then unnecessary put healthy people on meds and fuck up society.

Advocates always talk like there are no consequences to taking stimulants every day...but you read story after story. It just doesn't make sense, if its safe, then everyone can have it, if not, then...we just make up definitions of it and people who fit that pattern can have it?

> see if what they have is just them "struggling to focus and procrastinating often"

That's not the point. The definition of ADHD clearly defines them as struggling a lot more than the usual person.

ADHD is simply a grouping of behaviors. 126 different combinations in fact.

How does this make it a singular condition that we just throw meds at?

The whole industry just feels like an excuse to prescribe meds. Meds which help everyone.