I thought I had ADHD until I realized I’m just lazy
I’m more than a little convinced ADHD isn’t really a disorder, society is the issue, and this personality/brain type is actually beneficial in simpler societies.
As someone diagnosed with ADHD, I find many of these posts overly dramatic. I understand that dealing with it is challenging, but when I see others discussing it, I sometimes feel that some might not genuinely have ADHD and are merely exaggerating for attention.
pretty much the biggest inconvenience for me was getting people to write stuff down. Like when they’d try talk for five minutes about how they wanted something built, explicit instructions, I’d always have to remind them, write it down or draw it, if you want me to understand, we’ve been over this for years now, you know I know how to do the work once the desired result is presented in a way i can understand.
You’re not alone in thinking that, and there are some studies which seem to agree.
I was reading your study, and got to the part where they said it is hard to empirically test this theory because of limited genome whatever, and it crossed my mind Africans don’t carry the neanderthal DNA Europeans do, so i looked up if ADHD was more common in either race and it apparently is much more prevalent in white people. Yeah correlation isn’t causation but it is interesting.
I haven’t done too much research into ADHD (which I don’t have) but if it’s anything like autism (which I do have) then it may well be that it’s just massively under diagnosed in people who aren’t rich, white, boys. I know they aren’t the same but that’s certainly the case for autism, and there is a high rate of co-occurrence between the two.
Absolutely, most parts of neurodivergence is evolved to be useful for “wild” humans, hunter-gatherers. Like gee i sure wonder how it might be useful for people living in tents in the wildnerness to have a dude who just cannot go to sleep before 2 in the morning…
Apprently court jesters were historically generally autistic people, whom the rulers kept around because they wouldn’t sugarcoat stuff and acted like a bullshit detector. Might be pretty handy for a tribe to have some people who’ll speak up when they think the leader is being dumb.
That’s not how evolution works. Traits don’t evolve “to be useful”. Anyone who claims a goal to evolution has failed to grasp evolution.
Evolution converges on local maxima by selecting for traits that are good enough to continuously propagate through the filter of individuals death. For sexual reproduction, if a trait is not bad enough to continuously reduce carriers’ presence in a mating pool, it can and will remain.
It’s survival of not inadequate enough.
To an extent, it is also beneficial in today’s society. Hyperfocus and fast context switching can be assets in some jobs, if the downsides are not too great and that can depend on the job and colleagues a lot.
But yea, I can imagine it has been more of an asset in a different time.
I used to work in a particular trade, and i noticed unlike most i worked with, i worked faster and more efficiently as the day went on, by 11 am I’d be right in that hyperfocus groove and my helpers just had so much trouble keeping up. They took advantage of that on occasion, like they could tell me it was quitting time and I’d believe them, an hour early. That only worked twice.
Could you share what that trade is, even vaguely? I’m curious what kind of job might be suited for someone with ADHD symptoms. I feel it might help me choose a career. No worries if not, and have a good one!
Yeah complex issue but I definitely think it’s become more of an issue in a highly specialized professional service economy. In previous structures maybe you were dependent on growing food and there were harsher consequences which would have been motivators. Or even in recent history, well paying jobs that required physical labor and little education. We know people in the past exhibited all kinds of issues, but the language used to describe is often hard to translate. They wouldn’t just not know adhd exists, but lack the understanding of the mind to even quantify disorders like this, and there would be an entirely different set of concepts and language.
Thing is… you cant magically fix society with the snap of your fingers. And theres stuff you NEED to do that you dont want to even in a star trek style luxury space communist utopia. eg. I have to use reminders/timers to do things like take medication, drink water, chores etc. There isnt really a way to “fix” society so that that is no longer true. I have to take medication. I have to drink water. I have to wash my clothes and clean up after myself. Everyone does.
ADHD is probably akin to a tribe. One that arguably has its advantages like hyperfocus, creativity and sensitivity to emotions (empathy) but it is at the cost of a tremendous amount of inertia when it comes to doing stuff and executive dysfunction that requires you to compensate for.
When it comes to neurodivergences that aren’t strictly universal negatives (for example: anyone would agree that DID is terrible, while modern autism advocacy strongly opposes any sort of “cure”, and even assimilation as opposed to integration), you can easily find the case that they work great as complements within larger groups. Having an autistic dude fascinated by working materials may result in your tribe being the very first one in the area that gets obsidian spears or composite bows, even if he isn’t a very good hunter otherwise.
The problem comes when an industrialized, profit-obsessed society attempts to standarize social customs, goods, living spaces and so on while individualizing responsibility for every aspect of your life despite plenty of its factors being outside any one person’s control. Perhaps you’d have a lot to contribute to society if you just had certain unusual accommodations, such as a very quiet house or freedom to set your own working hours, but companies in the contemporary market economy hisses at people who don’t fit like cogs in a machine, and having a house with very specific conditions is outside the reach of a lot of people. Perhaps you do even manage to find the means to become a very productive member of society despite the odds being stacked against you, but because the specificity of your situation means you barely have any negotiation power in the labor market, most of what you produce gets appropriated by someone who isn’t very smart, but has some capital and better “people skills”.
For sure. I am overeducated and chronically unemployed due to basically unsustainable levels of stress trying to not fuck up office work leading to cycles of self destruction and the erosion of my self confidence.
But I am not unproductive or lazy, I am just not suited to modern life very well. I have a level of reasonable competency at blacksmithing, gardening, first aid, brewing, cheese making, cooking, sewing, foraging, tool maintenance, educating young children, and animal care (also modern useless skills). I can’t sit still much so I’m also pretty fit and enjoy running through forests and keeping track of changes.
In a different period I’m not saying I’d be the best member of society but I could contribute much more. In earlier times people who were ok at lots of practical things with great memories for strange specifics served very useful roles contributing supplimental food, medicine, and upkeep. I would also probably be much less overwhelmed with distraction without all the modern blinkenlights and ads and such.
We are all the same apes that walked out of Africa 200,000 years ago. Our brains haven’t changed and it’s inevitable that the more we change our environment from the one we evolved in the more we will induce pathology in otherwise normal, and perhaps helpful, human variation.
There are certain aspects of ADHD that would be disordered in any societal structure.
I have been so hyperfixated on something that I have been completely oblivious to my own body’s signals. As a result I have had accidents, developed UTIs, ended up in the ER with electrolyte imbalances, and dislocated several joints.
ADHD and joint Hypermobility are closely linked and while more studies are needed to understand exactly why and how, a lot of people with ADHD also meet criteria for Hypermobility spectrum disorders. In my case, I’ll be focused on a task and I won’t realise I’m clenching my jaw too firmly until the sudden sensation of undeniable pain sweeps over me and I realise my jaw has dislocated. Or ill be struggling with transitioning from a task to a rest, even though my knees are in agony, I can’t seem to force myself to stop.
ADHD is also inherently linked to circadian rhythm disorders, and while yes, delayed sleep phase disorder is only truly a disorder if you’re forcing yourself into a 9-5 lifestyle, ADHD sleep issues are more than just the shifting of the phases. A lot of people with ADHD will describe the sensation of sleep as being “passing out”, because of the way our brains (fail to) regulate dopamine, the way serotonin and melatonin is secreted to create drowsiness is also impacted.
I don’t get tired or sleepy, I get headaches and blurred vision and spasms in my back, and then I know that I can fall asleep if I lie down. I take sublingual melatonin tincture (I find it works better than tablets) and it’s such a strange phenomenon because about 15 minutes after I take it I feel my eyes are heavy and my body is calm and my mind ia slower, aka, sleepy. I don’t experience that without the help of supplements.
And sure there’s the argument that you “people with ADHD used to be on night watch duty”, but sleep deprived people make shit guards. If I’m not physically able to fall asleep until I’m “overtired”, and if being tired makes my ADHD symptoms worse, then I’m no good for anything.
It’s also not like hyperfixations are a super power (God I hate that way of framing things) I can’t choose when or why they happen. If I could, I’d be good at just job, instead, I’m loosing all sensation in my feet because I’m stuck in a fixation trying to pick at the skin on my thighs because I spotted one single ingrown hair while I had my pants down sitting on the toilet. Now it’s 40 minutes later, my alarm is going off in the other room, and I’m frozen, unable to transition away from this task.
ADHD is a spectrum, and for many people there are strengths, but it’s most definitely a disorder and for a lot of people, even if we lived in the most utopian ADHD friendly society, there are still internal issues to face.
For the record, I am unmedicated and always have been due to a heart condition, so maybe my view on the condition would change if I had different treatment and management options available to me.
I’m 42 and can put my legs behind my head and clenches his jaw, but i feel like this is written by someone enjoys methamphetamine.
You could get a real diagnose maybe?
getting a real diagnose in my country means ill be stuck with a mental disability in an extremely psychophobic society with no way to treat it because all adhd meds are banned here
so my only way to cope is to talk to other people who probably have adhd as well and learn how they manage their lives
Hi, person with high-functioning autism here. I was informed by a therapist that, due to the coping mechanisms most people learn as they grow up with conditions like these, they are incredibly difficult (if not impossible in some cases) to get an official diagnosis for.
My experience may not be relevant in this case but due to the overlap between autism and ADHD, it seemed relevant enough to share.
I would but I can’t just seem to be able to get into it for some mysterious reason.
After about a year, I got as far as finding a psychiatrist that specializes in it and used the contacts form on his webpage to ask whether he also diagnoses adults, never got a reply so another year and there will be some progress, just need to find a new one, then contact and setup a meeting, 3 easy steps
I was diagnosed as a kid, lost my childhood medical records (no clue how, but it was before I was an adult, I had to be revaccinated when I went through basic), so had to go through it again as an adult.
Yeah, they don’t just… give people diagnoses. They don’t even like screening all that much because there are drug seekers, so they put you off. You have to work at finding someone willing to do it, and that’s in the best case.
I was going through a super straightforward route (through the VA) and that still took a 6 month wait before we could start the process, 5 probing mental health appointments, and then the actual diagnosis appointment. In total it took about a year, and again, that was an easy and straightforward route with a prior diagnosis.
Whether you “officially” have ADHD or just the symptoms, it’s not your fault. It’s your responsibility.
I partially agree with you. What angers me is the fact that your comment reads like it’s a simple issue of will and everyone has just to decide on doing this. Not like it’s kind of part of a lot of (not so crippling but still) disorders to sit there, do nothing and scream internally about not being able to do something about it. It’s very hard work to change something about it. And your comment does not acknowledge this…
