Unpopular opinion time: I am sure that 90% of people with ADHD do not have an actual neurological disorder that prevents them from focusing. They simply lack the skills to do so.
Focusing is a difficult skill, if you do not have it, it takes a degree of awareness to learn it again.
I went though a serious period of stress when I was 15-18, cancer, unstable home life, near homelessness. And I asked a psychologist for ADHD drugs because I was a seriously smart kid who had troubles focusing. Ironically I lacked the focus to chase a psychologist into ticking the various ADHD boxes and just started buying plain old street speed of the Silk Road, which I responded very well to, and was able to study again.
Eventually those problems in my life began to dissipate, and I started to focus again on sleep, eating, exercise and importantly controlling anxiety. I run about 35 miles a week right now (50 minutes to work a day, plus ten minutes to stretch off) and my focus is very good.
Personally, I do not know anyone who takes ADHD drugs and takes care of their sleep, diet and anxiety. Those that try to address their anxiety take benzodiazepines.
I do not think that ADHD as diagnosed in most people is a real disorder. You are an outlier if you do not focus better on controlled dosages of stimulants. You are not special if you focus better on stimulants. Doctors just do not have the time to find out what is actually causing a child to have issues focusing. So they just prescribe stimulant drugs.
To be diagnosed with a "real" ADHD things like depression, and all the other kinds of disorders need to be excluded. Only when all the avenues have been exhausted, and especially with family history of similar affection, should such diagnosis be made.
The research - surprisingly consistent over the last 5 decades - points out that "true" ADHD exists in 5% population. In US the rate of children diagnosis is 15%, so here you might be right.
ADHD is not just one thing, but most likely a set of many conditions. There is trauma/underdeveloped prefrontal cortex, there is dopamine deficiency, problems with magnesium processing, and other things too. Essentially, what we call a "true" ADHD is just doctors saying: "We don't know, we can't treat the root cause, it's not psychological, stimulants are the best we can offer at this moment".
Finally, two points regarding your arguments:
- Just because in your case attention deficit was due to a treatable problem, doesn't mean other people are the same.
- There's an unpopular opinion, and an uneducated opinion. I think you might be slightly confused on which is which.
> I do not think that ADHD as diagnosed in most people is a real disorder.
Undiagnosed and untreated ADHD (which is underdiagnosed and untreated in adults and especially in women) can be a debilitating condition that will fuck your life up deeply, and there's ample evidence about this from peer-reviewed medical journals (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4195639/, among others, look at the "The Impact of ADHD During Adulthood" section). Just because you managed to "sleep / eating / exercise" your way out of your situation doesn't mean that everyone else with ADHD is able to do the same thing.
I’m willing to be critical of psychiatry, and there definitely are people who are diagnosed with it who don’t have it / don’t benefit from / don't need medication, but the "overdiagnosis" moral panic (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/articles/17709814/) causes real harm to people who actually end up needing medical access.
You make some good points, but demonstrate a lack of understanding of ADHD and the large, non-placebo affect therapeutic doses (eg low) doses have on those with ADHD. Also many who have ADHD and take stimulants for a period (months or years) are often permanently improved. Dont write off your self medication as non-trivial. It gave you the space to gain the coping skills you needed and this is a clinically observed effect in classic ADHD patients, not jusy people who think theynhave ADHD.
Sure some groups may abuse it a bit but the good it does for true ADHD sufferers is probably more than sufficient to make it okay for the mich lower effect it has on non ADHD sufferers.
> Dont write off your self medication as non-trivial. It gave you the space to gain the coping skills you needed and this is a clinically observed effect in classic ADHD patients, not jusy people who think theynhave ADHD.
mmmmm yes I concur, this is also definitely a thing, medication helped me gain coping skills as well, my experience definitely wasn't just a case of "take a shitton of amphetamines and lose all self-awareness and desire to improve myself"
The right therapeutic level of dosing can do great things. If your brain is stingy with dopamine (due to a variety of causes) just the right size dose of amphetamines to get the dopamine up to "normal" levels does the trick. I think it is why so many ADHD sufferers that become really successful at managing it become runners/distance athletes. The regular 5+ hrs of running is just another way to squeeze the dopamine and such out of our brains :)
But nowhere in this rant do you ever actually say that you were diagnosed with ADHD. So then, what's the basis of your claim that ADHD diagnosees simply need to learn to focus better?
I have a wife and child both with severe ADHD. I can assure you that the problems go beyond "inability to focus."
Not the parent, but for me - stimulation of senses helps a lot. Music, chewing stuff, moving a lot to focus. (some ADHD people go the other way and need absolutely zero distractions)
Headspace/meditation helps with anxiety. So does getting adrenaline pumping, and a proper diet, For example, for some people ADHD is related to problems with Tyramine processing, which blocks proper interaction with Dopamine, and switching into a tyramine-free diet helps.
Finally, of course: Ritalin, caffeine, sugar, nicotine. The first time in my life I tried nicotine and Ritalin (in lieu of sugar/caffeine and stressing myself), at the age of 33, it was crazy. The calmness and clarity. Finally could understand how people can sit at the desks for 8 hours a day!
As for exercise - it's quite easy as a kid, but imagine having to do 1h of serious exercise every single day for the rest of your life. Because, for me, that's the level that kind of calms me down.
And no excuses, no "oh, I've got a deadline and a kid is sick, I'll skip it today". If you skip it, you cannot work. Period.
Focusing is a difficult skill, if you do not have it, it takes a degree of awareness to learn it again.
I went though a serious period of stress when I was 15-18, cancer, unstable home life, near homelessness. And I asked a psychologist for ADHD drugs because I was a seriously smart kid who had troubles focusing. Ironically I lacked the focus to chase a psychologist into ticking the various ADHD boxes and just started buying plain old street speed of the Silk Road, which I responded very well to, and was able to study again.
Eventually those problems in my life began to dissipate, and I started to focus again on sleep, eating, exercise and importantly controlling anxiety. I run about 35 miles a week right now (50 minutes to work a day, plus ten minutes to stretch off) and my focus is very good.
Personally, I do not know anyone who takes ADHD drugs and takes care of their sleep, diet and anxiety. Those that try to address their anxiety take benzodiazepines.
I do not think that ADHD as diagnosed in most people is a real disorder. You are an outlier if you do not focus better on controlled dosages of stimulants. You are not special if you focus better on stimulants. Doctors just do not have the time to find out what is actually causing a child to have issues focusing. So they just prescribe stimulant drugs.