or ADH-Wheee! if you really want to put a positive spin on it.
I like “Executive Function Disorder” as it actually describes the underlying issue and not just the symptoms that other people can see.
The problem is that there are many other mental disorders that have a profound effect on executive function as well
I was watching a video from dr berkely and he said its the only disorder that hits all factors of executive function.
Then he said adhd people can’t do digitspan backwards so e went to try it and I was like 😦
I would be surprised if he said that, because that’s blatantly incorrect:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00328/full (Table 2, for example).
Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder all produce or are associated with executive function impairments that are more severe than ADHD, and across various forms of EF. ADHD is the only one of those with its specific pattern of attentional and reward-related abnormalities, but broad EF deficits are common across forms of psychopathology.
This is true, and suggests maybe a broader recategorisation is in order.
I’ve heard one expert suggest that while many disorders feature executive dysfunction, ADHD is executive dysfunction.
We’ve known that this isn’t true since 2005:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000632230500171X
In addition, plenty of other disorders show worse executive function than ADHD:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00328/full
If executive dysfunction is your primary issue, that is not indicative of ADHD. ADHD is driven by reward processing dysfunction and slower information processing:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1087054714558872
It’s a disorder in our society, because it require you to do task you’ve been ask to do, but if you would just live your life I don’t think you would call it a disorder, more like a different way of processing tasks
(edit) I’m not saying that changing your environment would resolve the problem, since I’m under medication I can clearly do more things on my free/personal time than before. Hmmm yeah, I kinda lost the track of my thoughts now, can discard as it’s an edit. stop.
Well, in the wild, if you couldn’t concentrate on one thing long enough to hunt/gather/fish, then you wouldn’t eat, and would weed yourself out of the gene pool.
It’s the other way around - ADHD exists because there’s a bunch of cool stuff worth noticing in nature. Not everyone in the tribe needed to concentrate on fishing.
It’s the same with colorblind people. Just one colorblind person is at a disadvantage, but while hunting they might notice the animal camouflaged for normal color vision. In a tribe, the different perspective is helpful.
Except we would be the ones hyperfocusing on making that fucking fire that Steve gave up onto after 2h of trying, or we would stay up late to keep the tribe safe when everyone else starts to fall asleep. A lot of the disfunction is just an incompatibility with our current lifestyle.
if you would just live your life I don’t think you would call it a disorder, more like a different way of processing tasks
The more I learn about ADHD, the less I see it as a disorder. I see it more as a personality trait. Unfortunately most of our society is based on people not having that personality trait, making it harder to fit in.
On the other hand, if you’re lucky enough to find a lifestyle that fits your personality type, that personality type is actually very helpful, the opposite of a disorder.
As someone with ADHD I’d describe the experience more like profound boredem with everything in life. You seek obsession because you can’t generate excitement for normal activities on your own
There are very few videos games I can play because of this. I love gaming, but finding one that I like is extremely challenging.
Same, dude. Recently it’s been Skyrim for me. Started it up on a whim for the umpteenth time and have sunk 80ish hours into a save file again and have rented a PS VR to try Skyrim VR. Aside from Overwatch, that’s the only game I currently see myself playing regularly lol
Or ones that I like too much, see my 15 year addiction to WoW. So many little dopamines to find!
But once you find one that hits that hyperfixation itch, ohhhh maaaaaan.
For me it’s gotta be the right level of challenge. I want to like the loop in Souls games but can’t get past the frustration. Hollow Knight, however, was just right and I loved it.
Other things that work for me is the Factorio style- especially Satisfactory because when you fuck up you don’t need to tear it all down and rebuild.
I just saw someone on Reddit who claimed this profound boredom with everything was why they didn’t have ADHD. Apparently the list of symptoms they were reading did not accurately describe the depths of ADHD boredom, and they thought their boredom was a worse breed that indicated some far worse mental problem.
Had to tell 'em.
I have no hobbies I enjoy longer than about a month except gaming, and even then I still get like a month mileage out of each game. I can’t hold a job because every time I start a new one it’s like a ticking timebomb in my brain until I can’t handle it anymore. Even if the job is easy and the people are nice. Something about the repetitive schedule and saying/hearing/doing the same thing every day brings me to a near panic attack level of restlessness and anxiety.
I’m probably undiagnosed inattentive. I’m also not one to make a statement like that lightly. I’m notorious among my social circle for diving down rabbitholes and sending them endless mental lint articles. I wish I could turn it off sometimes.
Turning it off is why I cling to weed since I first tried it. It dulls the noise and allows for a single line of thought to come through unobstructed, in my case.
Honestly, my thoughts bounce around like an angry bee in a coffee can. It sucks.
This is the same for me. Comes with downsides too, but I’ve found weed incredibly valuable for… not really controlling or prompting hyperfocus states, but definitely a strong catalyst.
Still don’t really feel in control over which single line of interest gets the focus, but at least it’s not everything.
It’s kinda crazy sometimes, how I notice I’ve been thinking the same thought for minutes. I don’t think I have ADHD, but probably ADD, my mind is just all over the place through the day, but after a bowl it all just calms down. Kinda like a group of people organizing into a queue.
same it seems like about the only thing that has actually helped I’ve tried a couple meds and they either make me feel like shit or don’t do anything except for when the weed brings you down a rabbit hole and your ADHD goes with it then your fucked but other then that it’s great
Whenever I read a description from someone with ADHD I can almost always 100% relate to that experience, but whenever I read something from “professional” source I start thinking I might not have it and just killed my attention span with social media consumption…
Buddy if you are waiting for a Sign, this is it. It’ll never get more concrete than this message I’m typing for you right now. Having a lot of doubts is common. It wasn’t truly real for me until I started medication.
My broad advice is to find a good psychiatrist (and don’t be afraid to switch if you aren’t happy) and dig as deep as possible for evidence both for and against. Go in with confidence that you have ADHD symptoms, but keep an open mind since there are alternative explanations. A diagnosis of “no you don’t have ADHD it’s actually ____” is also important information to know, and you will regret letting it drag out if you do have ADHD.
Unrelated anecdote:
I was driving one time, and got lost in my city. I drove a church. Their billboard read:
Lost? Come in and ask for directions! As in the spiritual kind.
Anyway, I decided to drive on, and get progressively more lost. I decide to turn around. I make my way back to the church, and on the reverse side of the billboard:
Need a sign from god? This could be it!
So I stopped and asked for directions…
The show I’m a Virgo has a character who’s superpower is basically adhd. She moves extremely fast and is constantly bored. I identify deeply with Flora, especially at work. I struggle with boredom and unstructured time, so I do like twice as much work as most of my coworkers. I’m routinely sales lead without really trying. I thrive on the busy days that most people find overwhelming.
This might sound silly but I’m trying to attract someone who told me in the past they have ADHD. Should I be doing anything differently?
Leave out a few pieces of cheese, and sit very quietly. If the cheese doesn’t work, try cookies, they tend to attract most things
Lol, but to answer the question seriously you might need to be slightly more direct than with someone who can focus through a whole conversation. It really depends on the person and the severity of their symptoms, but in general just trust your instincts. People w/ ADHD aren’t known for hiding how they feel haha
Take a genuine interest in their obsessions. Not a performative “I want you to see I like this for you” but a real “I’ve been going out and doing this on my own for the past few weeks/months and I want to talk about it”
You do actually have to do it, they’ll spot your bullshit before you speak it.
It’s so crazy you brought this up. I’ve been accused of faking interest in the past when I wasn’t and was actually doing the thing on my own.
My last ex did this a lot actually. Great example - he started watching Columbo so I took an interest and also started watching it. Then he like got upset? Told me not to be interested in it at one point?
I had another guy do this too but with hip hop and he waited until we were like two years into the relationship to accuse me of not really being into old school hip hop? Like why. I was literally living with the guy and he would come in the room where I would be listening to stuff on my own. Hell I still listen to Three 6 Mafia and Digital Underground. I even knew about Digital Underground before I ever met him. Like it was such an outlandish claim that I was faking an interest.
I never once faked anything but I’ve gone out with numerous guys who pull this shit for some reason. The only thing that makes sense is they were trying to fuck with my head on purpose.
Now I focus on myself more cause it seems pointless to be interested in things other people are.
I think attention modulation disorder… I have the longest AND the shortest attention span ever. I might not finish typing this but also I’ll research black holes unblinkingly for 16 hours.
The biggest impact from my adhd is actually a shorter than average short term memory span. Mine was found to be about 8.5 second, with the average humans being 18.
My long term memory is fine, probably better than most but it’s getting stuff in there that’s the issue.
Edit: short not shirt
I remember things from my early early childhood. My older sister doesn’t remember shit from back then. She has no idea what our forst apartment looked like and when we moved and all that. I remember everything.
But when i put my screwdriver somewhere, 4 seconds later, the screwdriver might as well not exist anymore.
I seriously remember breastfeeding. I remember sleeping in a crib beside my brother. I can close my eyes and tour every place I spent time as a child.
And like your sister, my brother remembers none of it. I’ll bring up something that meant a lot to me and he always replies the same, “I don’t remember that time.”
Like this one weekend. We rented Turner and Hooch, We’re Back: A Dinosaur Story, and Fern Gully. We intended to stay up and watch them so we pulled out the bed from the couch and instead talked until we fell asleep. We got up early and watched all three. My brother was nuts about the character Batty and wanted everything Robin Williams was in after that. He went around all day saying “are you sure? Are you positive? Only fools are positive.” I seen the cartoons only once and I still remember character names and plot lines.
I tear up thinking about that morning. Him, “I wish I could remember it.” And that’s his answer for all of it.
Now ask me what I did two days ago. My answer will be the same as his for what we were doing then. I legit can’t remember past yesterday.
Hey you have the same thing as Marilu Henner!
Nothing like having to constantly remind yourself about things so you don’t forget, even little things like transcribing a measurement or something, or sit immobilized over a pending event because you don’t want to do anything that might distract you from engaging in said thing. Having to re-read things several times to keep it in short term memory and then having to check that yes, indeed, you did it right, and then check a couple more times to remember that yes, you did check it, and it’s still right.
Fffuuuhhh…. hate that.
I’m in the same boat. What generally works for me is writing it down and learning from physical books. For whatever reason those two things combined help get things past the poor short term and into the long term storage
Yeah writing down is a big help, I think it’s too do with multiple things. You have to focus more on what you’re actually writing. As well as you have chance for multiple memories, the thinking itself, think of writing it, actually writing it, the muscle memory of writing it, and then reading it again afterwards.
Nah should be Dopamine attention variability executive disorder(I’m misremembering it I’m sure somehow). Otherwise known as DAVE
Cue the “God >!FUCKING!< DAMMIT DAVE” Audio lol
Sorry should’ve posted what it was referencing
