Impulsively buying stuff, hyperfixating on it for some time, losing that fixation and then having problems with keeping it in your routine as a habit is very much ADHD. ADHD is not 1s ans 0s, how people experience it varies from person to person and the severity of their ADHD. If you didn’t have much problems with that in your life then I’m happy for you but I for example wasn’t lucky enough with dna and stuff.
I very much understand hyperfixation and then moving on but that’s not the example given. Buying a new toy, playing with it for two weeks then moving on is basic human behavior, not hyperfixation. Buying a blender then becoming so obsessed with it that you become fixated with it to the point where you think about it constantly, read, research and basically know more about it than could possibly be necessary then poof…gone, is hyperfixation.
Over diagnosing can lead to over correction. This is how we end up with basically normal people getting pumped full of meds that were not designed for them. Someone reads examples like the one posted, talks to a doctor and the next thing you know are on a cocktail of Adderall and antidepressants, which in turn destroys their ability to sleep, so then they also end up taking Ambien. So on, and so forth.
I am not minimizing the disruptive effects of ADHD, obviously. I am suggesting that EVERYONE take posts like this with a big grain of salt
Tons of intense, short-lived hobbies is one of the biggest hallmarks of ADHD.
This is how we end up with basically normal people getting pumped full of meds that were not designed for them. Someone reads examples like the one posted, talks to a doctor and the next thing you know are on a cocktail of Adderall and antidepressants, which in turn destroys their ability to sleep, so then they also end up taking Ambien. So on, and so forth.
Over-prevalence of this notion does a lot more harm to me than people wrongly identifying with the OP.
ADHD is underdiagnosed, not over diagnosed. That’s is a really bad myth originating from parents who refuse to believe that their kids are different.
It’s far from that easy to get meds and a diagnosis, you know. You need to take an evaluation that lasts at least 3 hours in total. You are effectively saying that doctors don’t know what they’re doing, and that you know more than the literal experts.
Just also be aware that leading experts in ADHD believe it is significantly under diagnosed, so we should be careful to thread this needle. On one hand, everything you said, but on the other is people who do need help not seeking it because they feel like their just a PoS trying to blame their failings on some disorder they don’t actually have.
I was part of the latter, finally getting diagnosed at 27, which is probably about 10 years later than it needed to be due to stigma of “over diagnosis” of adhd and “over medication”.
Maybe the people who liked the post also have ADHD and understand that this is a single example of a trend and not a one time thing.
Woah now, assuming people on the internet are real human beings with the ability to read context and understand complex ideas? Are you crazy?
😂
Thank you. I was confused for a bit and pretty sure this is common stuff.
If it’s a pattern, this is absolutely found in a lot of people diagnosed with ADHD. But this Twitter user is clearly making a joke because they’re using a silly reference.
Would you like them to go through all the nuances of ADHD for you so you don’t need to do an “um, actually” like a professional online forum debater?
This community has ONE rule, and ya broke it. Good job. https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/4051762
And I’m also tired of people constantly downplaying my patterns, and always saying it’s not “really” ADHD, then wondering why I’m acting so odd and different. Or why I’m struggling with stuff even though “everybody does that”. This sort of mentality has hurt me massively.
Maybe it’s more nuanced than “this is adhd” and “this is not”. Maybe it had to do with the intensity and rate of occurrence as well? But do you feel that a tweet needs to include all the goddamn nuances that come with a disorder that is primarily diagnosed by the intensity and disruptiveness of its symptoms just to make a joke?
But the good news is you just kinda learn quite a bit about every hobby you pick up, so people are always impressed with how much random stuff you know.
With that I relate. I don’t have knowledge, but only surface information about a variety of topics, because I fricking jump from one thing and the other, and this maddens me.
My knowledge base has the breadth of an ocean, but the depth of a puddle.
You remember the random stuff you read?
It’s in and out. I feel that people would actually think I’m smart if I could recall even 2% of all the shit I learn on demand.
My memory is really, really good. It’s my recall that’s crap. Feels more like my brain works like RAM and not a hard drive in that my memories are randomly accessed.
If it was Ram then everything you learned would disappear when you went to sleep. But it would all be easily accessible at all times instantly.
A hard drive sounds way more appropriate. It’s really good at following a single chain of information. It is terrible at randomly accessing information but it’s all there. The problem of course is that - people don’t talk as one long chain. There are tangents and then the drive must seek which is slow.
Not necessarily in a way where I can effectively demonstrate everything I’ve learned, but sure, a lot goes somewhere in the back of my memory bank. It’s created job opportunities for me in disruptive tech fields because I’m just able to absorb so much in that initial hyperfocus phase, and come across like a subject matter expert on something I just heard about a couple of weeks ago. Sucks when you land in what seems to be a great position and just lose interest in the field though. Good recipe for imposter syndrome
Not in tech anymore but I definitely do this with my jobs. It really sucks because I could be doing so much more but I just can’t be bothered to care after the I got a new job and this is interesting phase. But at least I have these random bits of information that I can pretend to be smart with thst come up at the most inopportune times. 🤣 I feel you on the imposter syndrome.
This is true, though sometimes one may unintentionally come across as a “know it all” (I know this from experience). Having an unending number of hobbies and the philosophy of “there is no such thing as useless knowledge”, just leads to accruing knowledge on a wide breadth of topics and surprising depth on some of the more esoteric.
I can tell you about some of the practical efforts required to safely raise chickens in the PNW (free-range, in a yard, or chicken tractors), several forms of metal casting, basic garment construction, luthiery, gardening, archery, industrial microbiology, and a number of other things. My former boss would often ask if I knew anything about a given unusual topic that came up in conversation, just to see if he could find something that I didn’t have any knowledge or experience with (really old programming languages like COBOL were among the winners). Now, I’m currently really into digital electronics, so, I’m shopping around for an oscilloscope and other equipment that would allow me to reverse engineer some of the newer protocols.
ADHD is in big part quirky human behavior turned up to 11.
Edit: ngl, I’m tired of people just coming here, saying that everyone’s like that, getting lots of upvotes and downvoting people when they clarify stuff. :/
The problem is that a lot of examples people use are not the ones turned up to 11. I have ADHD but I don’t tell people I lock my door walk 4 steps and realize I was thinking about other things and therefore have no idea if I did and have to fix it. Because lots of people do that
Stuff like re-arranging your room every 2 months due to flashes of inspiration, sure. Getting frustrated because you had the brilliant idea to do two things last night and now you can’t decide which takes priority, sure. Endlessly scrolling on Netflix? Nah
So it means that we can’t post stuff that ADHD people find far more relatable than your average folks because they also experience it from time to time? It kinda kills the purpose of this sub imo. :/
why does it bother you that this is not necessarily a trait of ADHD and normal people also show this behavior?
why is it bad that it’s just normal?
It’s “ADHD Memes”, it’s supposed to be our safe space but people come here to belittle our struggles. I don’t get where did you get the idea that we dislike the idea of other people experiencing the same things but less. We dislike the idea of people dismissing our struggles when experiencing stuff like in this post is really painful when you do it over and over again and not just sometimes.
Can’t speak for them but I can relate some ADHD perspective.
ADHD people often are told “what? Pfft! You don’t have that” in various ways despite our being diagnosed by a mental health professional and despite our disorder causing many significant problems for us in all/most areas of our lives from childhood onward.
The disorder makes me, personally, feel like I am not fully human, and that something is wrong with me. And I doubt I am alone in that.
You see, we are much more often in hot water with someone either due to behavior, procrastination, focusing on the wrong thing, forgetting appointments and deadlines, and so on. We are criticized and chastised much more often than neurootypical people from childhood onward.
I mention all this to provide context, only, not for tiny 🎻🎻🎻 :)
One of the ways the “you don’t have ADHD” message manifests is when we try to explain some symptoms and the person dismissively claims without hesitation, “everyone does that,” rather than trying to understand our perspective better, understand to what degree it affects us and how often it does so.
This can feel like minimizing our situation or outright denying our disorder depending on context (the old “ADHD iS oVeRDiaGnOSed”).
Tying into the context above, for me, dismissing my diagnosis and symptoms also sounds a lot like saying to me, “you know how you finally don’t hate yourself for moral and character failings because you understand why you are the way you are? Well sorry, that’s all bullshit, you don’t have ADHD you just fucking suck as a human being, so you may now go back to self flagellation and loathing.”
And so this sort of thing can be kind of “triggering” I suppose.
And one of our symptoms is poor emotional regulation so if we get disproportionately upset hearing “eh, that’s normal”… now you know why :)
Hopefully this offers some helpful perspective.
Edited: reworded for more betterness
Joke’s on you, I have so many abandoned activities, I can just cycle through them
Sure, I haven’t brewed beer in 3 years but I still have my equipment, so that when I get sick of building guitars, I can go back to brewing beer. But wait, what about the transition from guitar building to tabletop gaming? I guess I can store the brewing stuff and the guitar-building stuff for a year while I go down the TT gaming rabbit-hole. And then there was that quick detour into making kombucha…and then pickling stuff…
Haha, I appreciate the support friend! It doesn’t always feel like that when I look at all the stuff I could be doing and realize I’m doing almost none of it, but I guess at least my hobbies are generally productive (if expensive).
Although, most of them could be pretty cheap if my hyper fixation didn’t generally focus on optimization above economy.
I discovered a great way to reduce the financial burden: join a Makerspace.
Since joining a local one, I now know:
- How to use a CNC laser cutter
- How to use a thickness planer
- How to use a MIG welder (poorly)
- And, as of today, how to use a TIG welder (also poorly but, I did better than with the MIG)
Still to come:
- How to use a terrifyingly powerful, 2.5 ton milling machine
- How to use a similar size lathe
- How to use a plasma cutter
- How to use a fiber laser
- How to use a vintage oscilloscope
And a ton more. Seriously, its awesome.
