Some/most of the way the ADHD presents itself is that they are things that everyone does, but ADHDers do it much more often to the point it is a problem or deemed socially unacceptable. So yes, ADHD touches a lot of things that neurotypical people do which is why it is such an insidious disability, it hides in plain sight and is dismissed by others as the individual displaying those traits just doesn’t have the mental fortitude and they need to practice better control, which leads to the ADHDer not seeking therapy/meds for their condition as they are made to feel that their condition is a personal failing and not an actual disability due to faulty wiring in their brain. This is why many people with ADHD have a negative self image and are typically treated for depression due to that negative self image. If the person with ADHD gets support, through their community, family, school, job, meds, therapist and etc then that negative self image can be dismantled and the real issue is the ADHD, the depression was just a symptom.
A simple thing I tell people when this is brought up to me is that; “Everyone goes to the bathroom a few times a day but if you are going 60 times a day we can all agree you should see a doctor about that.”
It is a hard thing to treat, especially if you are undiagnosed until later in life, unwinding all the negativity around it in your life and dismantling all the unhealthy coping mechanisms is difficult the longer you live with it.
What we are seeing now with ADHD, and related similar conditions, is not a sudden over diagnosis and prescription to treat it but that it has been vastly under diagnosed and untreated and we as a society are just catching up as we start to understand it more.
Apologies, I didn’t mean to monologue at you as this wasn’t necessarily directed at you but you hit a piece of the much larger iceberg and it didn’t feel right to not expound on the topic holistically.
Just a caveat, seeking therapy for ADHD is improving mental fortitude. Nothing wrong with that, and some people might need chemical assistance. Hard to say, its such a young field.
Yes, no doubt, it is such a wide spectrum with many co-morbidities, generalizing anything is really doing it a disservice. Many, but not all, use therapy as a way to gain an understanding of their condition and to acknowledge how their triggers work to develop mental fortitude to address those triggers. It is definitely not the same for everyone and there is work being done by thousands of people daily to understand ADHD, and other related or unrelated mental disabilities, to develop better tools. For now, predominantly, the focus is on meds and therapy because those are the tools we have right now that have the highest probability of alleviating some of the suffering related to those conditions.
Sorry, I did not think I was implying that chemical assistance or therapy were not valid treatment paths for those who have ADHD. They saved my life, I slogged through decades of not knowing; with meds and therapy to address my ADHD, and various other issues/co-morbidities, I can honestly say I am by far the happiest I have ever been. It is a long and difficult journey and my path, like everyone else’s, is unique. For people who suspect they may have it but don’t know where to begin then exploring therapy and meds is an excellent place to start. It may not be what you need to get to where you want to be but bringing your issues to trained professionals to grow your support team is not a bad move to make, they can help you get the help you need.
I think the part people leave out is that not everyone has the same goal. Most describe it as being “happy”, but never consider whether thats even possible to be happy nearly all the time.
The flaw there as I see it is that humans seem to always return to some sort of baseline emotional state, but this state is not happiness. Happiness is the spikes up while sadness are the spikes down, but given enough time it always comes back to baseline.
Thats why you can find really extreme examples of happiness. Some of the time I spent in jail were truly happy times, which really confused me at the time. On the other side you might see people become depressed during or after achieving their goals.
In my opinion, having the wrong expectations for how you should feel and for how long, can turn small curable problems into consuming destructive problems.
It should be: time plus perspective heals all wounds.
Not sure I am following you on this one, I believe the only time happiness has been mentioned in this thread of comments is when I said I am the happiest I have ever been. I think I am uniquely qualified to determine where my new baseline lays on a happiness scale.
What you said does not dismiss the existence of a generally agreed upon meaning of happiness. Yes, it spikes to high levels for short periods of time and it sinks into sadness too. But that does not mean the baseline cannot shift up or down on that scale and hold at a new level.
Define your scale with words that make sense to you but I think you would be hard pressed to convince anyone that seeking professional help for a mental disability, or even a suspected mental disability, would not lead to better outcomes or a high quality of life for those seeking help than to not seek help at all.
It was an additional point, noone brought it up before I mentioned it.
I am saying a lot of focus goes on putting in work and not as much into what’s being worked towards.
People should seek treatment if they think it will helpthemz, I wasnt saying otherwise. Therapy can be hit or miss though so saying that like its just a simple thing is a problem in its own.
There are many moving parts to this type of thing, and searching for a single monolithic solution is not helping. The more tools people have the better, and one of them is moderating expectation of quality of life to a reasonable level.
Who is searching for a single monolithic solution?
Who suggested there was one?
Not sure where you are going with this or where you are pulling that from.
Plenty of mentions of what one could or would be working towards in the above conversation so I think that is a dead end topic.
“Saying a lot of focus goes to putting in work” and then “saying that therapy is just like a simple thing” are contradictory, so which one is it? I don’t think anyone has mentioned, or even inferred, that therapy is a simple thing. Not sure where you got that from.
I see you making a lot of assumptions that aren’t based on this thread of comments so it feels like you are fighting against a straw man of your own creation instead of actually engaging in this conversation.
Also, your contributions here have been directed more towards dismantling any suggestion without putting forth an alternative that could benefit this community. It is like you are fighting for the status quo and suggesting that we shouldn’t strive towards improving our quality of life
How is you moderating how much others get to believe in their potential to improve their own quality of life in any way a useful tool to anyone other than yourself?
The fact is that therapy and medical treatment is a statistically valid first step for people who suffer from ADHD and other similar disabilities/disorder. Those disabilities/disorders, if left untreated, statistically lower your quality of life, which can be measured by many different metrics. This is not anecdotal but based on the research done by people like Dr. Russell Barkley and others who have studied mental disabilities and disorders for decades while developing treatments for said disorders. I have read their books and feel their research stands on it own. You are welcome to debate their findings with said professionals in this field of study. No one said it works for everyone and no one said it is the only path. Again, it feels like you are debating arguments that no one is making.
I think it is unfair for you to put a ceiling on how much potential improvements that others can make to their own quality of life. I do not think it is helpful to “Well… Ackchyually” your opinion into the conversation to nitpick topicality of terms and to question the validity of proven starting points for people who want to seek help for their mental disability without providing alternative suggestions and beneficial contributions to the conversation.
Some/most of the way the ADHD presents itself is that they are things that everyone does, but ADHDers do it much more often to the point it is a problem or deemed socially unacceptable. So yes, ADHD touches a lot of things that neurotypical people do which is why it is such an insidious disability, it hides in plain sight and is dismissed by others as the individual displaying those traits just doesn’t have the mental fortitude and they need to practice better control, which leads to the ADHDer not seeking therapy/meds for their condition as they are made to feel that their condition is a personal failing and not an actual disability due to faulty wiring in their brain. This is why many people with ADHD have a negative self image and are typically treated for depression due to that negative self image. If the person with ADHD gets support, through their community, family, school, job, meds, therapist and etc then that negative self image can be dismantled and the real issue is the ADHD, the depression was just a symptom.
A simple thing I tell people when this is brought up to me is that; “Everyone goes to the bathroom a few times a day but if you are going 60 times a day we can all agree you should see a doctor about that.”
It is a hard thing to treat, especially if you are undiagnosed until later in life, unwinding all the negativity around it in your life and dismantling all the unhealthy coping mechanisms is difficult the longer you live with it.
What we are seeing now with ADHD, and related similar conditions, is not a sudden over diagnosis and prescription to treat it but that it has been vastly under diagnosed and untreated and we as a society are just catching up as we start to understand it more.
Apologies, I didn’t mean to monologue at you as this wasn’t necessarily directed at you but you hit a piece of the much larger iceberg and it didn’t feel right to not expound on the topic holistically.
Just a caveat, seeking therapy for ADHD is improving mental fortitude. Nothing wrong with that, and some people might need chemical assistance. Hard to say, its such a young field.
Yes, no doubt, it is such a wide spectrum with many co-morbidities, generalizing anything is really doing it a disservice. Many, but not all, use therapy as a way to gain an understanding of their condition and to acknowledge how their triggers work to develop mental fortitude to address those triggers. It is definitely not the same for everyone and there is work being done by thousands of people daily to understand ADHD, and other related or unrelated mental disabilities, to develop better tools. For now, predominantly, the focus is on meds and therapy because those are the tools we have right now that have the highest probability of alleviating some of the suffering related to those conditions.
Sorry, I did not think I was implying that chemical assistance or therapy were not valid treatment paths for those who have ADHD. They saved my life, I slogged through decades of not knowing; with meds and therapy to address my ADHD, and various other issues/co-morbidities, I can honestly say I am by far the happiest I have ever been. It is a long and difficult journey and my path, like everyone else’s, is unique. For people who suspect they may have it but don’t know where to begin then exploring therapy and meds is an excellent place to start. It may not be what you need to get to where you want to be but bringing your issues to trained professionals to grow your support team is not a bad move to make, they can help you get the help you need.
I think the part people leave out is that not everyone has the same goal. Most describe it as being “happy”, but never consider whether thats even possible to be happy nearly all the time.
The flaw there as I see it is that humans seem to always return to some sort of baseline emotional state, but this state is not happiness. Happiness is the spikes up while sadness are the spikes down, but given enough time it always comes back to baseline.
Thats why you can find really extreme examples of happiness. Some of the time I spent in jail were truly happy times, which really confused me at the time. On the other side you might see people become depressed during or after achieving their goals.
In my opinion, having the wrong expectations for how you should feel and for how long, can turn small curable problems into consuming destructive problems.
It should be: time plus perspective heals all wounds.
Not sure I am following you on this one, I believe the only time happiness has been mentioned in this thread of comments is when I said I am the happiest I have ever been. I think I am uniquely qualified to determine where my new baseline lays on a happiness scale.
What you said does not dismiss the existence of a generally agreed upon meaning of happiness. Yes, it spikes to high levels for short periods of time and it sinks into sadness too. But that does not mean the baseline cannot shift up or down on that scale and hold at a new level.
Define your scale with words that make sense to you but I think you would be hard pressed to convince anyone that seeking professional help for a mental disability, or even a suspected mental disability, would not lead to better outcomes or a high quality of life for those seeking help than to not seek help at all.
It was an additional point, noone brought it up before I mentioned it.
I am saying a lot of focus goes on putting in work and not as much into what’s being worked towards.
People should seek treatment if they think it will helpthemz, I wasnt saying otherwise. Therapy can be hit or miss though so saying that like its just a simple thing is a problem in its own.
There are many moving parts to this type of thing, and searching for a single monolithic solution is not helping. The more tools people have the better, and one of them is moderating expectation of quality of life to a reasonable level.
Who is searching for a single monolithic solution? Who suggested there was one?
Not sure where you are going with this or where you are pulling that from.
Plenty of mentions of what one could or would be working towards in the above conversation so I think that is a dead end topic.
“Saying a lot of focus goes to putting in work” and then “saying that therapy is just like a simple thing” are contradictory, so which one is it? I don’t think anyone has mentioned, or even inferred, that therapy is a simple thing. Not sure where you got that from.
I see you making a lot of assumptions that aren’t based on this thread of comments so it feels like you are fighting against a straw man of your own creation instead of actually engaging in this conversation.
Also, your contributions here have been directed more towards dismantling any suggestion without putting forth an alternative that could benefit this community. It is like you are fighting for the status quo and suggesting that we shouldn’t strive towards improving our quality of life
How is you moderating how much others get to believe in their potential to improve their own quality of life in any way a useful tool to anyone other than yourself?
The fact is that therapy and medical treatment is a statistically valid first step for people who suffer from ADHD and other similar disabilities/disorder. Those disabilities/disorders, if left untreated, statistically lower your quality of life, which can be measured by many different metrics. This is not anecdotal but based on the research done by people like Dr. Russell Barkley and others who have studied mental disabilities and disorders for decades while developing treatments for said disorders. I have read their books and feel their research stands on it own. You are welcome to debate their findings with said professionals in this field of study. No one said it works for everyone and no one said it is the only path. Again, it feels like you are debating arguments that no one is making.
I think it is unfair for you to put a ceiling on how much potential improvements that others can make to their own quality of life. I do not think it is helpful to “Well… Ackchyually” your opinion into the conversation to nitpick topicality of terms and to question the validity of proven starting points for people who want to seek help for their mental disability without providing alternative suggestions and beneficial contributions to the conversation.
Who said I was limiting anything? I was advocating for making room in the pie chart of things that help with depression for another tool.
Either way I don’t think either of us benefit from talking past each other like this.
Have a nice day stranger.