Adult ADHD - I'm Cheating Again

jstand wrote:

NOHOME wrote: This pretty much sums it up for me. Being focused has always looked like you lock away imagination. Horse blinders for your imagination if you will. I never saw it as a case of ADHD kids not being able to deal with society as much as society not being able to deal with kids who did not fit the mold. We now have parents who grew up on ritalin who have no idea of how to think without the drug and go straight to medication as a parenting tool because that is what they know. Anyone want to bet this was well thought out by the drug companies two generations ago?

Are you speaking from direct experience with adhd, or just stating your opinion based on what you've read or heard? I think people who are against it without any direct experience are being just as closed minded as they claim people are when on the drugs. I was hesitant to use meds for my son but realized that it was more important to help him than to rule out an option because it has been portrayed negatively by some people. My observations are that with the right meds my son doesn't lose creativity. The additional focus helps him follow through on his ideas and projects. He stays on task better so instead of getting frustrated by not being able to complete a project because he gets distracted, he can see it through to completion. Something to remember is it not just focus, but also impulse control that can be part of ADHD. In my sons case, the impulse control was leading to the calls from school, while the lack of focus was causing difficulties staying on task to complete his work.

Written as a cynic who works with the drug industry and has seen a tide shift towards humans of all ages being pill defined.

Two generations ago we did not have ADHD and now your 401k depends on it.

On a more recreational note, the abundance and variety of chemical mood enhancers has reached large enough proportions to enable "Skittles Parties" where you bring your surplus and toss them in a bowl as party favours. Wonder if there is a pill in the bowl to fix grumpy-old-guy syndrome?

"The only thing more effective is regular exercise!"

jstand wrote:

NOHOME wrote: This pretty much sums it up for me. Being focused has always looked like you lock away imagination. Horse blinders for your imagination if you will. I never saw it as a case of ADHD kids not being able to deal with society as much as society not being able to deal with kids who did not fit the mold. We now have parents who grew up on ritalin who have no idea of how to think without the drug and go straight to medication as a parenting tool because that is what they know. Anyone want to bet this was well thought out by the drug companies two generations ago?

Are you speaking from direct experience with adhd, or just stating your opinion based on what you've read or heard? I think people who are against it without any direct experience are being just as closed minded as they claim people are when on the drugs. I was hesitant to use meds for my son but realized that it was more important to help him than to rule out an option because it has been portrayed negatively by some people. My observations are that with the right meds my son doesn't lose creativity. The additional focus helps him follow through on his ideas and projects. He stays on task better so instead of getting frustrated by not being able to complete a project because he gets distracted, he can see it through to completion. Something to remember is it not just focus, but also impulse control that can be part of ADHD. In my sons case, the impulse control was leading to the calls from school, while the lack of focus was causing difficulties staying on task to complete his work.

Both of these are good points. I agree, I don't have any immediate family members that are affected. The closest I had was a highschool friend that started taking adderall to study. He does cocaine now (started hanging out with a weird crowd, unrelated to the drug).

I tend to side with jstand regarding society. I don't know that taking a drug to make you excel at a task you normally wouldn't be good at is good for society. You shouldn't force yourself to be an accountant when you're supposed to be an inventor....even if accounting pays better. What happens when the stimulated person starts getting an unfair advantage over those who try to avoid the pills? What also worries me is that in this day and age we are so used to being constantly stimulated that when that goes away it's impossible to focus. I regularly delete apps or leave my phone at home when I start to notice that I'm checking it every 45 seconds.

I guess what I'm trying to say is it's extremely important to treat those that definitely have a condition. Those that have bad willpower because they are forced to be a square peg in a round hole or because their brains were zapped because of modern technology....we should fix the cause not the effects. Otherwise 10 years from now we will all be popping adderall like it's vitamin C.

NOHOME wrote: Wonder if there is a pill in the bowl to fix grumpy-old-guy syndrome?

Viagra?

In reply to Enyar:

Only speaking from my own experience:

Trust me, I'm no fan of chemical dependency, and I certainly have no love for big-pharma, nor do I enjoy paying $50/month to stay on Adderal. I don't feel being on it has directly caused me to personally be any more/less "happy", so therefore I suppose in an ideal world I'd just as soon choose to be without the medication.

I'd also managed to get through 40+ years without it, get an associate degree(along with various job-specific certifications), and been steadily employed since I was 18, etc., so in that regard I guess you could argue I don't "need" it to survive and be a productive member of society.

However, for the last 10+ years I'd really felt like something was holding me back - at that time I'd not considered ADHD at all(I don't recall any of my classmates/friends having that diagnosis when we were kids, so I was only vaguely familiar with it). Getting older and becoming more self-aware I really started looking at my own strengths/weaknesses, and at that point(based on previous discussions here on GRM I started piecing together the fact it could be what was affecting - and thus limiting - my potential.

I don't feel drugs are a 100% cure for me personally, but I'm also refusing to let my pusher...sorry, my shrink ...up my dose more than the 5mg/2x daily regimen I've been on since the start.

What I CAN say, with 100% certainty for ME, is the Adderal has helped by allowing me to focus long enough to actually complete things, and coupled with the realization of my strengths/weaknesses I now have a much more realistic idea of what I can/can't achieve. This has helped me immensely both with my career as well as my personal goals, and our family is in a better position financially, as well as happier overall because of it.

Who knows though, maybe someday I'll retire, quit taking the meds, and go back to acquiring junk to tinker with but never actually accomplish a damn thing.

From 3rd to 10th grade I had been on verious pills, Ritalin, Adderal, Cylert, ect. The addy worked the best but they changed me out after a year. It also had me down 6 inches off my waist, a definite plus when your a fat kid.

Honestly I need to go back to a doctor and get a new prescription.

PHeller wrote: Don't get me wrong, I think some of us aren't made for our respective careers. I would do much better as a surveyor or someone who was working in the field, but at this point it's much easier and financially stable to stay at my current job and occasionally have a little helper pill.

It would be interesting to see if there are jobs out there that fit a person with ADHD not on meds.

Say for a mechanical engineer- there are so many different jobs- from a desk designer job to a development job to a plant engineer. Or for you- a geologist that does lab work on samples vs. one that is out finding the interesting samples that need tests. So it would be interesting to see if there are jobs more suited to attention span or not.

Wonder if doing that would help job satisfaction or not.

It's not cheating if it keeps you on the straight and narrow

Source: medicated aspergian who also happens to dabble in automobiles.

As many have said, it's not cheating if you need it.

The problem with ADHD and quick meds, at least in my experience, is a lot of times it was over prescribed to kids, usually boys, who were just hard to handle boys. Mothers little helpers for the child if you will. Like an earlier poster said, "they thought I had ADHD until we figured out I was bipolar." I know first hand there can be some similarities between a manic state and what I've heard ADHD described as but I think it's telling what gets called out and medicated first.

In reply to skierd:

Many autistic traits are similar to ADD/ADHD as well.

When I look back at where society has been in my life and where we are headed and at what pace, I can see where a lot of people are going to be having trouble. It might be that mankind is in the middle of a big evolutionary jump and we are dealing with the growing pains.

NOHOME wrote: When I look back at where society has been in my life and where we are headed and at what pace, I can see where a lot of people are going to be having trouble. It might be that mankind is in the middle of a big evolutionary jump and we are dealing with the growing pains.

Exactly! Sure you may be more happy/financially secure with the pill. So are footballers/weightlifters that use steroids. What happens when we create a world where everyone needs to be on a pill in order to truck through 90 hour work weeks?

I personally feel that when I was younger I could have used something to help focus. But then I wouldn't be me. I think it has an appropriate time and place, but drugs in general should not be the GO TO, especially if its basically "we're going to change who you are by having you take these pills for the rest of your life, kthxbye".

No different to me than designer children, it just seems weird.

neon4891 wrote: It also had me down 6 inches off my waist, a definite plus when your a fat kid.

Fun fact: Adderall was first developed and marketed in the '50s as a diet pill.

I'll throw in my $.02 since its Friday afternoon and I'm having a hell of a time with attention/focus at work today...

Being 25 and part of the 'Adderall Generation', I've spent my entire schooling career surrounded by these drugs and the people taking them. IMHO, based on my own casual observations, only about 5% of the people on these medications actually NEED them, as in they could not be expected to function somewhat normally without taking drugs. I've probably personally known 50+ people through grade school, high school, and college that are or were prescribed to some sort of ADD meds at one time and can think of precisely two who are in the NEED category. For both of those individuals, the meds were the difference between them behaving 'normally' and being able to function on the days they would take them to bouncing off the walls, constantly getting in trouble, literally having to be restrained to stay in place for more than a second without meds. Sounds like JStand's son falls into this category as well.

One of these individuals whom I knew pretty well (who was notably like the only car guy I knew in high school who had similar tastes to mine), for an extended period of time was refusing to take his meds because he didn't like the way they altered his personality. For a while thereafter, I was certain he was on his way to jail. Lacking the ability to direct his focus towards anything productive left him susceptible to any sort of bad influence available. To be fair, I'm certain other factors - personality issues, emotional issues, lack of parental oversight - played a large part as well, however the turning point for him was getting back on the meds. Credit to him for being able to realize the direction he was heading, acknowledge the issues at play, and take corrective action. He ended up graduating high school (which looked like a serious longshot for a little while), going into the Air Force for a few years, and was working on an engineering degree the last I heard. For these people, I think medication is absolutely needed.

As for the other 95%, its being shoved down their throats by Big Pharma, and their parents and teachers are more than happy to accept it. "Oh, Johnny failed a test in school? But he's such a smart kid! Certainly can't be anything we're doing wrong, we're the perfect parents! Gotta blame it on something, let's take him to the doctor to get tested." And then once they start seeing the results, the parents are hooked because their little grade school tweaker is back to being a straight A student.

There's no doubt the stuff works - I've used enough of it (Addy, Ritalin, Concerta, ect) through college to know to know that for a fact. So many kids had a prescription it was as easy to get as a six pack - probably easier because a six pack required you to walk down the street to a convenience store. When you're staring in the face of a differential equations test the next day that you haven't studied at all for, or a chem lab report you're pulling an all nighter to finish, just pop an Addy. BOOM! Easy button!

I'm sure I could fit the criteria for an ADD diagnosis, as I match a lot of the traits other have shared above. Actually, the lack of attention during conversations thing really stuck out to me, because that's a problem I have had going back as far as I can remember and I never would have associated it with ADD. But so could anyone - like I have literally never heard of someone going to get tested for ADD and not getting a diagnosis. Would I be a lot more productive at work if I were popping 20mgs a day? Hell yea I would. But I would much rather do without the jitteriness, difficulty getting to sleep, lack of appetite, and general crackhead tendencies that come along with the drug, and instead focus on identifying my own weaknesses and working to improve myself sans meds.

Everyone lacks focus or is forced to work on or study something they have absolutely no interest in from time to time. IMO, part of the learning process is to teach yourself how to work through these issues and remain productive. Its an important life skill, but why bother to teach it when its easier to just medicate our way around the problem, right? Because pumping a ten year old full of amphetamines is just so much better for him...and then in 20 years we're all going to be wondering why everyone is having a heart attack at 50.

skierd wrote: As many have said, it's not cheating if you need it. The problem with ADHD and quick meds, at least in my experience, is a lot of times it was over prescribed to kids, usually boys, who were just hard to handle boys. Mothers little helpers for the child if you will.

Very True!! I raised hell when my niece told us her son had ADD and was going to be put on medication because he wasn't doing well in school. The idea that a 10 year old who has learned the rules of Chess and can sit there playing me for 2 hours and beat me has ADD is ridiculous.

I taught school for 28 years and can tell the difference between a kid who has trouble concentrating and one who is just bored and needs some other kind of instructional methods.

In reply to Hal:

Being able to handle personal attention and interesting banter from a close non-judgemental friend while playing a game he liked for two hours means very little.

In reply to Hal:

My son has ADHD and is an avid chess player.

Hal wrote:

skierd wrote: As many have said, it's not cheating if you need it. The problem with ADHD and quick meds, at least in my experience, is a lot of times it was over prescribed to kids, usually boys, who were just hard to handle boys. Mothers little helpers for the child if you will.

Very True!! I raised hell when my niece told us her son had ADD and was going to be put on medication because he wasn't doing well in school. The idea that a 10 year old who has learned the rules of Chess and can sit there playing me for 2 hours and beat me has ADD is ridiculous. I taught school for 28 years and can tell the difference between a kid who has trouble concentrating and one who is just bored and needs some other kind of instructional methods.

But that's just it. Society doesn't provide alternate instructional methods for the vast majority of us. It doesn't say "you suck at math in the typical classroom, but we'll work with you 1-on-1 so you can be an engineer."

As someone whose seen both sides of the fence, I am ambivalent.

I am undoubtedly diagnosable. Of course I'm also smart enough to game any psych test I want to get whatever I want, but that's beside the point. I spent many years being distracted, having what I did, chasing the mold that everyone else is hell bent on being in. I never went so far as add meds, at least of my own. What I discovered was that regardless of what I took, or how much I excelled at conventional life, it wasn't until I decided to walk away entirely that I found my groove. Some people just aren't meant for focus based by rote type tasks. I was berkeleying terrible at homework, I never saw the point. I could pay just enough attention in class and ace the test, and not do a shred of paperwork. As I've now learned, I'm best left to my own devices. Give me the goal. Tell me what I am absolutely not allowed to do to achieve, and otherwise berkeley off. I will appear to be random as berkeley and so on, but I will get it done , and it will be the best you've ever seen. I don't need to be on pills to be in a mold- I do better without it. A therapist once told my family that "he's going to have a helluva time and he's not always going to make it easy but he will be fine". She was wise.

My wife on the other hand is the classic " squirrel" case. She sees great benefit from assistance. She never learned how to roll with the random like I did, so it saves her ass.

mazdeuce wrote: That Calvin and Hobbes comic pretty well describes my life on antidepressants. They worked, they 'fixed' me (and I did need fixing) but I didn't particularly enjoy my life on them and was happy to quit.

The same experience here.

I have found that with my new diet and the weight loss accompanying it I have less attention issues. Its not like the foods are different but the volume and the times that I eat have changed. I always have the fuel I need and I seem less cranky ;)

NOHOME wrote: Wonder if there is a pill in the bowl to fix grumpy-old-guy syndrome?

Not a pill but just as effective:

PHeller wrote:

Hal wrote:

skierd wrote: As many have said, it's not cheating if you need it. The problem with ADHD and quick meds, at least in my experience, is a lot of times it was over prescribed to kids, usually boys, who were just hard to handle boys. Mothers little helpers for the child if you will.

Very True!! I raised hell when my niece told us her son had ADD and was going to be put on medication because he wasn't doing well in school. The idea that a 10 year old who has learned the rules of Chess and can sit there playing me for 2 hours and beat me has ADD is ridiculous. I taught school for 28 years and can tell the difference between a kid who has trouble concentrating and one who is just bored and needs some other kind of instructional methods.

But that's just it. Society doesn't provide alternate instructional methods for the vast majority of us. It doesn't say "you suck at math in the typical classroom, but we'll work with you 1-on-1 so you can be an engineer."

Exactly! That's the problem today. The educational system for various reasons does not use a variety of educational techniques. It's easier to just use one method and if it doesn't work for a kid then just write it up as ADD or something similar. Unfortunately the majority of the ADD diagnoses are generated in the educational system.

I had plenty of students who could be a PITA in class because they couldn't process verbal instructions but were fine with written ones and vice-versa. It was up to me to figure out which one a kid needed and make sure they succeeded.

NOHOME wrote: When I look back at where society has been in my life and where we are headed and at what pace, I can see where a lot of people are going to be having trouble. It might be that mankind is in the middle of a big evolutionary jump and we are dealing with the growing pains.

What the hell is that chart? A list of things that the chart maker thinks mean technology by year with each having a value of 1? If there was any amount of scalling with actual technological importance there would be a bunch more stuff during the industrial revolution.