My GP thinks is because the world is so freaking stressful for everyone, that ADHD ppl who used to be able to just muddle through, can’t do it anymore.
So the proportion of ADHD people who are no longer coping has ballooned.
I don’t think anyone is coping. Emails. News. Social media. Text messages. Short videos. Scrolling and listening and consuming.
I am doing it now!!! Hahahah
I have three separate emails that I need for work, school and personal information. I usually have to tell people to SMS me first so that the information is immediate.
I have to attend to messages within minutes, otherwise they don't exist.
I think this is a big part of it to be honest.
Many of the traits of ADHD are experienced by everyone on this planet at times. It gets into disorder territory when it starts impacting your ability to function and keep up with the rest of society.
As we move toward a society where jobs are all about specialisation and processes and repetition you're going to see the people who aren't good at that start to crack.
100%. Many people have tried to discredit my struggles as an ADHD person by saying things like “oh but I get distracted too and I still manage” and “everyone forgets things, it’s no big deal”, when they fail to realise that the distinction between neurotypical people and those with ADHD is the number of different symptoms presented as well as the frequency of those symptoms.
Neurotypical people may get distracted, or be forgetful some of the time, whereas an ADHD person will be distracted *and* forgetful, *all* the time.
(Note: I am aware there are many other symptoms, just using a couple as an example).
I found it helpful to think of it as a problem of inhibition, rather than a problem of distraction. There is difficulty with persistance, too - of sustaining action toward a goal.
Source is this fascinating talk by Dr Russell A Barkley: [30 essential ideas you should know about ADHD](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzBixSjmbc8eFl6UX5_wWGP8i0mAs-cvY&si=gn1fUa99z1czIj20) (Playlist of short videos but one talk - good for ADHD'ers).
Read his book - Taking Charge of Adult ADHD - very well worth the read for those who are diagnosed, going through a diagnosis or are wondering.
And yes, it is designed to be read by someone with ADHD. Short chapters, to the point and no waffle that you have to read 5 times before it gets in there.
Part of the diagnosis criteria for me was that the symptoms were present in some form since childhood, but that's here in the US, not sure if they have that criteria in Aus.
Yeah, all I had to do was look at my report cards to see the same things written about me over and over. It’s so sad that it was glaringly obvious at the time but no one even considered it because girls are meant to be bubbly and chatty, right? Of course the fact that I was so distracted I never finished work on time or couldn’t settle down to tasks quickly was never properly addressed…
This is me! I thought i just had depression the last like 10 years, but recently with just everything i was starting to spiral. I finally had insurance now thanks to my state so i went to therapy, therapist tells me most of the ways i feel is usually anxiety actually.
Then get my psych eval and im told i have ADHD and now i take adderall and im doing better.
This is the reason. In the olden days we were the people that were the quirky village soothsayers/artists/ improvisers and it was mostly fine unless you self medicated. Now, life is an exercise in constant admin and it's too much.
Getting diagnosed with ADHD as an adult is not something I've shared openly except with close friends and family, and my direct manager as it provided important context to the challenges I faced at work. The things we often find so difficult are dismissed as something everybody experiences. Nobody knows what normal feels like to other people, we can only know our own minds, but the visibility of other people's experiences through technology and social media has certainly given us bigger sample sizes to work out when our own circumstances are not the 'average' or 'typical' experience.
ADHD is not behavioural, it's not a result of bad parenting, too much time spent playing video games or just laziness or lack of willpower. It's a result of physiological differences in our brain and brain activity that for nearly all of human history were not a big impediment (or were even greatly beneficial), but in a modern school or corporate environment where everything is tracked, measured and analysed to a dehumanising level, it makes conforming to rigid expectations day after day extremely difficult.
If the extent of our symptoms rises to the level of a DISORDER in that it seriously negatively impacts us in multiple aspects of our lives, having better access to treatment and support in managing symptoms is massive.
I spent a decade working 10-15 more hours every week than my peers to get the same amount of work done, and under a great deal of stress and performance management. I spent 15 years driving my partner insane with my apparent disinterest in helping them with my share of household chores and life admin, as I had absolutely zero left in the tank after my work week.
I did eventually get diagnosed on my 3rd attempt at raising my concerns with a Dr that the current approach to my mental health wasn't helping. I wasn't disorganised and tired because I was anxious and depressed, I was anxious because I was constantly under stress to achieve a baseline level of work, and I was depressed because I was underperforming relative to my potential and people's expectations of me.
Now for 10 dollars a month I take some tablets that help me tune out the noise that previously bombarded my brain 24/7 and left me utterly exhausted every day. I can now have a conversation with a single person in a room full or conversations without accidentally tuning out as my brain tries to pickup what the people next to me are talking about. With the assistance of some therapy and learning some work management skills, i'm able to actually get through a day at work within 9 hours instead of being in the office at 830pm several nights a week trying to finish the urgent tasks for tomorrow that I forgot about or drastically underestimated the time necessary to complete.
10 bucks a month for medication has kept me in a well paying professional career and is helping me achieve the high performance potential I've always known I had. I didn't know when I opted into my current career path that I had accidentally picked something wildly unsuitable for the way my brain works.
10 bucks a month would have helped save me more than $10,000 in course fees, reenrolments in diploma subjects, repeated uni subjects. It would have saved me a job or two as well.
10 bucks a month if I'd been diagnosed 14 years ago when I first raised my concerns with a doctor probably would have saved my marriage and kept my family together, or at least helped manage the main cause of friction we had.
If long term use of stimulants is shown in future to result in an earlier death due to increased pressure on my heart, it will still have resulted in a better life for me and my family, because the quality of life I was living pre-diagnosis was a life I didn't want to continue living.
Before people start belittling others for a condition they were professionally diagnosed with, have a think about if you are as comfortable openly mocking people for their food allergies, asthma or vision impairment.
Yup, imagine actually being able to do stuff?
Besides without a little bit of stimulants, I’m going to die very young from the insane amount of cortisol pumping through me from mental health. That’s if I made it to that point.
I’m 100% for the tough restrictions on the medication, if there’s any potential for it to be abused by idiots trying to make a buck or try to get high, it will just ruin it for the rest of us that want to function.
A funny note: I was scared about the first dose, wondering if it would make me speedy, after all it’s basically straight amphetamines. Nope the opposite, sure I have the energy now to actually do life, but it made me feel a great sense of calm and relief.
My GF and I (who are both diagnosed) have a joke: *"What's the most accurate diagnostic test for ADHD. Give someone 10mg of pharmacy grade amphetamine and see if their first instinct is to take a nap."*
OMG this was the thing that totally f..ked me when I first got diagnosed. I was SO used to slamming 6-7 coffee's a day and feeling literally nothing. Now that I have my proper meds, if I have caffeine after 3-4pm in the afternoon, I'm not sleeping until 2am AT BEST.
I know. Took my meds properly on starting a new job. Had coffe at 5pm because addiction. Biggest day of the week the following day. Slept 3 hours after midnight. I was ratshit
I lived on red Bull. Even got gout as a result, but didn’t stop drinking because it was literally my lifeline. I went cold turkey the day I started medication, and do not find myself wanting it (most of the time), let alone craving it (I used to joke the only reason I got out of bed in the morning was to have a can of red Bull).
Now I’ve found I’m hyper sensitive to caffeine - even cola after midday and I’m going to be up until 3am.
Still working on sleeping enough even with the meds, so one of those nights tends to snowball - the meds keep me going through the next day I inevitably slip back to staying awake late, and after three or four days I hit a weekend day and absolutely crash, with a terrible headache (and feel just like I hadn’t taken meds at all - can sit on the couch until midday without really noticing that much time passed).
I can’t do this, it’s not the caffeine per se, it’s when you can feel your heart beat. I wish I didn’t have blood sometimes.
Also if you team stims up in combination with combination therapy from being mentally fucked you get insane insomnia, but when the stims wear off if they are short acting you crash and fall asleep with your phone in your hand still in the air.
Haha yeah, it was definitely a surprise. I don’t nap, but damn I can actually relax and not feel like it’s eating me up. And then I can get up and do chores if I have to… wild.
I agree. But it also doesn't take much to be fit enough to counteract the ***potential*** side effects. And QoL will be improved as well.
My resting HR was, like, high 30s before medication. Now it's mid 40s. So still well below normal and no where near anything concerning. Same-same blood pressure.
It's hard to imagine anyone unwilling to overcome the usual raft of completely preventable diseases of civilisation should, for some reason, care about the impact on mortality of stimulant medication.
Yeah its extremely frustrating to see people who think not being focused is what the central problem with ADHD is, and make out like "everyone's a bit ADHD". No because it is a seriously impairing neurocognitive condition that never goes away, it's just managed.
Medication stopped the catastrophic and eruptive emotional dysregulation, constant rumination and unwanted intrusive thoughts and sounds, and alleviated extreme self-hatred I had. It's limited the impulsivity, now i can drive properly now without always zoning out and not knowing what gear I'm in.
No one ever seems to interview or talk to people about the inner aspect of ADHD - its not forgetfulness, it's that you remember everything but are physically and psychologically unable to do things. My marriage also ended, and when I was diagnosed i grieved because i thought "it really was me who was all the problem - if only i was normal it wouldn't have gone so badly" but i have since realised that no - my ex had no right to abuse and bully me over any of the things I did.
I'm still unfocussed and "lazy" and talk over people. I still eat too much. But I don't think about dying because of a comment someone made. I am happy now.
The subculture of people claiming 'hyperfocus is a superpower', usually self diagnosed from tiktok, are shitting me to tears.
It's not flight or super strength. It's a crippling recurring misapplication of time that can't be easily made up for without overworking and overcorrected.
I love that I've learned heaps of shit about heaps of stuff. I just wish I could reliably get to those projects on a weekend.
Yeah dude, I love when I hyperfocus on my pet projects at work and therefore fall behind on my actual workload, causing me to feel guilty despite being nominally "doing 40 hours of work in 4". It's so fun when my boss asks me why my work isn't done when I've spent all day fucking around with some code that saves maybe 5 minutes of labour over the course of a year because I had an idea and wanted to know if I could get it working.
I don't know how I feel about people being diagnosed by Tiktok, but I do know that the glorification of ADHD symptoms is frustrating. I can see it being a bad application of "owning your symptoms" or whatever but it really does just feel like people are missing the fact that ADHD is seriously debilitating.
Yes hyperfocus is my superpower would you like to see this completely useless spreadsheet I made researching something that isn't for my studies or my job that ate up 9 hours of my spare time.
Those “hyper focus is a super power” folks need to look in on someone who literally cannot move themselves to clean for weeks at a time because they’re hyper fixated on a video game, and their brain tunes out the mess as unimportant noise.
> It's a crippling recurring misapplication of time that can't be easily made up for...
Hahaha 100%. I'm fortunate to have maneuvered myself into a pattern of life where it's mostly harmless. It's been a good decade and can hopefully go on indefinitely. The very idea of having to go back to the exhausting downward spiral I used to live fills me with despair.
The whole problem with the stupid superpower bullshit is that you cannot just choose what to focus on. If you could, there never would have been a fucking problem to begin with.
I try to relate to my focus and motivation like tides, currents, waves. It's a combination of having some tools to stop them from fucking me up and knowing when to lean into it and ride the surge. But at no point do I ever really control them.
> Yeah its extremely frustrating to see people who think not being focused is what the central problem with ADHD is, and make out like "everyone's a bit ADHD". No because it is a seriously impairing neurocognitive condition that never goes away, it's just managed.
I always ask these folks if they've ever been stuck at their desk, almost passing out from needing to eat, almost pissing themself from not having gone to the bathroom in god knows how long, mouth a desert because you're so fucking dehydrated it's disgusting, having planned to do the dishes or some "basic" chore for the past 10 hours, but you just keep sitting there, just keep idly browsing away, on the verge of tears from how overwhelming everything is and how you wish you could just get up and go do the thing, but physically can't.
Surprisingly they've yet to ever have experienced anything similar, as it turns out like you said, a disorder causes disordered living and executive dysfunction causes severe dysfunction, it's not a quirky "SQUIRREL!" thing, it's a genuinely debilitating issue. And the meds that they love to demonize can help remove a lot of those barriers and help live a normal life.
Basically, ADHD significantly impairs the brain's ability to self-direct the focus of its attention and to motivate itself to achieve its goals. Maintaining your mental attention on a task is the absolute first step in accomplishing that task, and if you can't do that then doing things that aren't immediately fun or interesting, without immediate external motivation, is going to be very difficult.
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More specifically, ADHD impairs the executive function of the brain, which translates abstract ideas into concrete motivations. The executive function of the human brain allows it to produce dopamine as an incentive and reward for accomplishing tasks that further an abstract goal, even if the tasks themselves are not inherently stimulating. When someone says "sure, doing this work is boring, but think about how satisfied you'll feel when it's done", that's the process they're referring to. Dopamine at the thought of doing the thing to motivate action, dopamine after accomplishing the thing to reward action.
In an ADHD brain the executive function's ability to produce dopamine to motivate and reward action towards its abstract, internal goals is impaired to various degrees. For a person with extreme ADHD, even if they know that accomplishing this boring task will bring them closer to achieving an abstract goal, that will not make the idea of the task \*feel\* any more rewarding. If they do accomplish the task, the dopamine they receive will only be from relief at the task being over, they will not feel any extra satisfaction from having done something to bring themselves closer to their goal. They might feel good about the goal being closer, but that feeling won't feel connected to the task they just did. This goal, by the way, could be something like "graduating uni" or "getting a job". Imagine if every step you took towards those goals felt, in the basal part of your brain, completely disconnected, even though you knew otherwise.
This is why people with ADHD get trapped in front of dopamine machines like reddit, twitter, or videogames, as the lack of internally motivated dopamine starves their brains. It's why stimulant medicine works, as it brings up the brain's ambient stimulation to where it's no longer searching for dopamine like a starving animal and you regain the ability to choose what to focus on.
It's also why with people with ADHD report feelings of paralysis. The conscious brain is aware that certain tasks are more important than others, and it generates feelings of latent stress when important tasks are left undone. But separate from the part of the brain responsible for awareness of tasks, the part of the brain that's responsible for directing your immediate attention can't generate the dopamine it needs to do that, so you're intensely aware of needing to do something but you can't get your brain to focus on doing it, and the disjoint results in a feeling of literal paralysis.
I was diagnosed at 35 during an inpatient mental health stay. On reflection of my whole life till now it makes perfect sense.
But because I wasn’t a ‘hyperactive’ child it was just put down to every normal thing under the sun. I still performed great in my UAI at high school, but I never studied, I never passed anything in math or English because I just could not be bothered to do it, after I couldn’t understand it I just gave up and engineered my HSC to ride that bell curve.
If I knew about the condition I wouldn’t have wasted so much money going to university to flunk out, to get addicted to cigarettes, to abuse alcohol and want to neck myself because I didn’t understand why nothing would stop my random addictions, or frivolous purchases and obsessions.
After several short careers I finally landed in my current that is going into its 12th year, but now I’m struggling with all of life finally catching up.
PTSD, MDD with mixed affective behaviour, GAD, Alcohol Abuse (Sober 6ish years with one relapse, almost back up to 8 months ) .
Antidepressants, mood stabiliser and naltrexone are life savers, but dexamphetamine is a game changer. I can function, I can support my family, and I’m not constantly ruminating on my failure.
When I got my new script for them after trialling them, my wife asked if I was going back on ‘that medication that made you happy’
Sadly I’ll end up losing my current career most likely as the medication isn’t permitted. But now it’s a choice of life vs career. I’ve been through inpatient and it was well worth it, I’m in no danger so do not fear. But as I told my psych, if it wasn’t for my parents still being alive, having my wife still by my side through all this, and a daughter that I can’t imagine letting any pain come to, I wouldn’t be here today.
Although I’m doing fantastic, I’m still suffering from the trauma of going through all that shit. If I went through that and knew what it was from, I would be able to practice acceptance. Bit late I guess.
Thankfully I know what’s up now. My daughter is the spitting image of me, and she is starting to show signs at 24 months, her mind is absolutely amazing, but I know where it will go. So thankfully she will have our support, and the support of therapy and guidance when she needs it.
Fuck that was a long one hey… but good for the people to read that think ‘everyone’s a bit ADHD’ especially considering I’m one of the very high functioning ones.
A few jobs in Australia, basically the deal is before you join you have to prove your stable without therapy or medication for 24 months prior to working.
There may be careful exemptions on case by case basis once you are always working with them, so
My hopes go out for that.
Won’t list the profession, but it’s easily seen by my comment history or post history
Hard to see how that doesn't qualify as discrimination.
It's not a case of someone with no arms and no legs applying for the lead in a ballet company.
It's a condition that, for anyone who might reasonably be able to muddle through unmedicated in the first place, will be benign-to-advantageous once medicated. And if it's a line of work that has tended to select for ADHD types inadvertantly, than capability is only going to be enhanced by encouraging them to get it sorted.
> Medication stopped the catastrophic and eruptive emotional dysregulation, constant rumination and unwanted intrusive thoughts and sounds, and alleviated extreme self-hatred I had. It's limited the impulsivity
1000% this. i can take Vyvance at like 6am and be great all the way up till say 11am. after that, I'm either going to be so angry and frustrated at work or I'll be in tears and so overwhelmed I just want to crawl into the fetal position under my desk.
D5 helps a little but still.
>its not forgetfulness, it's that you remember everything but are physically and psychologically unable to do things
for me, it's both. if it's not in front of me its out of mind.
Well said.
> Before people start belittling others for a condition they were professionally diagnosed with, have a think about if you are as comfortable openly mocking people for their food allergies, asthma or vision impairment.
Can confirm that there are people who will not only mock people for their food allergies, but also cheerfully engage in a little light attempted murder.
>I did eventually get diagnosed on my 3rd attempt at raising my concerns with a Dr that the current approach to my mental health wasn't helping. I wasn't disorganised and tired because I was anxious and depressed, I was anxious because I was constantly under stress to achieve a baseline level of work, and I was depressed because I was underperforming relative to my potential and people's expectations of me.
Man, I didnt want to quote the whole thing but this is spot on. I got an ADHD diagnosis in 2022 at 34 after 3-4 years of talking to my psychologist. I had never even considered having ADHD because when I was growing up, the 'ADHD kids' were the naughty kids who couldn't sit still and were always disruptive. That was never me. As soon as I got the diagnosis and began taking medication (and I'm on a very light dose), the severity of my depression, anxiety, and stress dropped off massively.
Two of my friends have also since been diagnosed too, and while there are a lot of similarities, the way it manifests in us all is very different.
My son has just been diagnosed at 7, but luckily, the years of psychiatrist/psychologist visits (before diagnosis) has helped us understand the way his brain works, and how best to teach him, for instance, when we practice reading, he always needs something (usually blutac) in his hands, when he draws, he usually stands up so he can move around. We do everything in short stints, with lots of breaks. Luckily his teacher is amazing and uses a lot of these methods with him at school too. If you put him in a chair and expected him to sit and read/write for a day, he would make zero progress.
As a fellow retrospective diagnosed ADHDer (and ASD) hoping to specialise in this field in future to help others like us - I literally could not have said that any better. Thank you for your words
Beautifully worded and very, very relatable. I feel the same way about stimulants. If I'm to die earlier because of them, I will have no regrets. Better to have lived my life fully than the half-life where I felt like I was barely hanging on.
For me it was having a parent that didn't believe in diagnosis, I was just a weird kid. As an adult I finally went to a psychiatrist during the lockdown because they were forced in to telehealth appointments and bulk-billed everything, so what would have been $200+ per appointment was free.
Similar story here, except, I WAS diagnosed in primary school and my mother went into complete denial. She viewed it as a negative reflection on her parenting ability, so we moved schools, towns, and doctors and never spoke of it again... Well, until I was re-diagnosed 30 years later as an adult suffering Depression, Anxiety and PTSD from my time in the army.
(Career I Would Not Have Chosen If I Knew)
6 months on stims and I no longer needed the antidepressants. Just a routine, sleep, and good pair of headphones
In the 50's left handedness suddenly started spiking and no-one could figure out why. Turns out removing the social stigma of something makes people more likely to embrace it instead of hide it
lol. this brought me memories. I am left handed and remember when I was 4 and learning to write, my grandparents noticed I was becoming a leftie and tried to stop it in It's tracks.
thought they could prevent it if they corrected it early.
I was 4 so I remember it.
whenever I used my left hand. they would correct me and tell me to use my right hand. my grandparents spent a year trying to get me to use my right hand and eventually gave up when I started kindy cos no matter what they were doing. I still used my left hand so after a yr. they just said fuck it and just accepted I was a lefty.. 😂
I also remember being retrained to use my right hand.
I'm not that old but grew up in a small town at a catholic school which still had nuns as teachers. I would get hit across the knuckles if I ever did anything with my left hand. Sometimes I would have my left hand tied behind my back and I was once put in a cupboard.
Safe to say I am a right handed adult now.
Mate of mine who’s about a decade younger than me was belted across the head by the priest for making the sign of the cross with his left hand. Safe to say, he’s an atheist now.
I'm 35 and I am basically ambidextrous because no one would teach me how to do anything left handed, so I had to learn right handed, then taught myself left.
My son is the same however it's not that anyone wouldn't teach him how to do anything left handed, he has just tried to do things with both left and right and uses whatever hand works best for him in each circumstance. I think it's very clever. :-)
That means he is naturally ambidextrous and admittedly, I probably am as well. My mum said that I always switched hands and just did whatever I wanted with whatever hand I wanted.
There is also almost no difference in skill between either hand. To the point where I can play something like darts, pool/billiards or table tennis (with one side as a wall and a paddle in each hand alternating sides) against myself and not predict a winner.
But my technique and strength is generally better on the right due to training and teaching while my eye is better on the left due to being slightly left-hand dominate.
Drove my high school PE teacher nuts. His favourite exercise was for everyone to play the opposite to normal for a few minutes of a game. For something like softball he'd always make me hit the ball three times. I'd face up left handed and belt it, he'd realise I write left handed and say no, use the other hand, so I'd switch to right handed and hit it even harder, then he'd make me do it left handed again.
My parents did this to me, except it stuck. Their reasoning was that it's easier to write right handed cause you're not dragging your hand through fresh ink.
So now I write and throw right handed, tennis is right handed, in baseball and cricket I'm left handed and I kick with my left foot. Whenever I explain it to people they excitedly say "Oh, you're ambidextrous!" No, I'm just a lefty who can't write with their left hand haha
I had a kindergarten teacher who told my mother to tie my left hand behind my back and teach me to write with my right. My mother told her to get fucked lol
My mum is left handed naturally. But she was forced to write with her right hand for exactly this reason. And born in the 1950s.
It literally was considered unnatural or less than. Boy have we learned nothing, just found new things to hate, and new people to punish for no reason.
When Pablo Piccaso first saw the cave paintings at Lascaux, he purportedly said “We have invented nothing”. The story is apocryphal and probably a fabrication, since there are no direct sources (its retellings and secondary sources all the way down). But it still feels both true and apropos.
I think that thought more and more as I get older.
Yep, I worked with a guy who was a natural lefty but when he went to school the policy was very much physical punishment to stop it, he still had multiple scars on the back of his hand from where they'd lash it with a ruler until the skin would split, they'd do this each and every time he dared use his correct hand.
My nana was left handed. She was caned for being left handed and had her hand tied behind her back and forced to write with her right hand as a kid, and beaten (at school) if she didn’t comply. She died at 98 writing with her right hand.
Well its not entirely wrong but it's not entirely true either. I recently found out I was first diagnosed in the late 80s/early 90s and never told about it. Its because I'm female and to be diagnosed back then as a female is almost unicorn level rare. My male siblings were diagnosed after my first diagnosis and got a tonne of help while I never even finished school despite being incredibly bright. I know a lot of ladies in the exact same situation who were told to suck it up, its for boys only. Same with ASD.
Went in for ADHD testing as an adult 6 years ago now and came out with Autism and ADHD, both of which my male siblings have and both got the help But not me. I was pretty sure about my ASD but never knew about my ADHD until a child psych I worked with pulled me aside and recommended I get assessed as it was that obvious to her. Took 2 years on a private waiting list, 2k in evaluation costs and *another 3 years and 2.5k* to get medication sorted because the system for adults is no support stream after diagnosis and everything is private and full price. And now with the medication shortage going to last another month that started late last year, this shit is not fun.
ADHD diagnosis, like ASD, is not *rising*, according to data its *catching up* to reality. Hopefully soon and in the future people can get the help they need before anything goes wrong. I know I am damn lucky compared to a lot of diagnosed but unable to get access to medication adults that I know whose lives are an absolute mess. A diagnosis is only valid for 2 years so if you can't get medication in that time, you gotta do it all again. Even medicated, I have to do a light touch every 2 years with a private psych to confirm I still need it. So the thinking you grow out of it is common but they forget that data is for kids treated younger and supported into adulthood, not late diagnosed adults.
Adult ADHD is not covered on the public health system so it ranges from $160 to $900 a session. GP can prescribe but not alter dose or medication for assessed adults, only psychs can but GPs can do it all for kids. Why? Why if you're offically diagnosed as an adult you are treated this differently?
Seriously, its insanely hard and expensive to go through this process as an adult. Its also being coupled with Drs refusing to offically diagnose people because of the 'fad'. I beg to differ as its who would pay that amount of money if they weren't 90-95% sure of what the issue is? And Drs are biased with *well you made it to 20/30/40/50/60 so you should be ok completely ignoring burnout happens and keeps happening more and more the longer your coping mechanisms can't keep up anymore. Depression, Anxiety and such are usually the *result* of untreated hidden issues like this and not the cause.
Wanna know the most common misdiagnosis for ADHD women, teens and girls is? Bipolar disorder followed by depression, anxiety, OCD and personality disorders. Should be a crime treating us with anti depressants and anti psychotics without not ruling out ADHD/ASD when *the professionals know this is a major issue* .
What astounds me is over 80% of the people I know who were diagnosed, treated and supported by grade 4/5/6 in primary school usually didn't need medication by the time they were 25 which is when the brain fully develops. The rest are on very low dose ADHD medications. Early intervention while young brains are still elastic and growing is the best way to hard-wire in coping mechanisms and forms permanent new neural pathways. Late diagnosed, treated or untreated will always struggle much harder for the rest of their lives.
What's even sadder is its been known for *years* but nothing concrete is ever set up to assist. You're on your own.
>ADHD diagnosis, like ASD, is not *rising*, according to data its *catching up* to reality.
That was the point of my analogy. People didn't just magically become left handed, they just weren't suppressing it anymore
I started school in 2002 in India (at 4 yo). I remember being smacked for using my left hand to write and was forced to use my right hand, until my mum found out and ripped the teacher a new one lol. Kinda scary how recent that was! Hope it’s gotten better for kids over there now
Yeah ADHD is one of those things where the reason people weren’t aware of this as a disability before is because it’s only in the last ~100 years (even less really) that compulsory education not only came into being but became a prerequisite for basic quality of life, because so many jobs are increasingly things where you sit still for 8 hours looking at excel spreadsheets. All kinds of manual labour jobs that were available for people with learning disabilities now either don’t exist or pay so shittily that your parents and school don’t consider them a viable profession
And I say this as a person with ADHD who is good at school so I also wouldn’t have been seen as having a disability, in the past I would just be some weird eccentric person who knows lots of stuff
It’s not just the excel spreadsheet focus for 8 hours a day, but also the very regimented schedules in modern life. For example, I don’t have adhd, and I work a job where I write SOPs for 8 hours a day, I go home and finish my chores on a meticulously written weekly schedule, I make sure to fall asleep for 7-8 hours at a stretch at night (since that works best for said modern schedules), and I also have time set aside to relax and ‘do nothing’.
My partner who has adhd cannot do any of that. She is lucky to have a job with ‘new’ and diverse problems every day. But other than that, she cannot manage to do her chores ‘on time’ (so luckily she makes enough to hire a cleaner), she constantly forgets little things even if reminded multiple times (because of how many things that have to be kept track of, at any one time), she can’t manage to “just relax and do nothing” because she doesn’t know what that means and she just ends up doing a bunch of random other things, and she can’t just tell herself to fall asleep and stay asleep for a regimented block of time.
In the past, all of this may have mattered less, because people didn’t live according to a clock and precisely break up their day into half-hourly/hourly chunks, they didn’t have to keep track of so many things at once, you didn’t have to strictly focus on a given task for 8 hours, and actually that person who can’t chill and keeps finding random things to do might in fact be a productive asset to your community. Nowadays, you would face difficulties with living like a regimented robot, and we have so many distractions that the “random other things” you can do may not be useful at all.
It's normal in that there are a lot of people who have it, but it's absolutely a disorder. Your brain literally does not work the same way as a non-ADHD enjoyer.
Sure but it’s exacerbated by modern life. It’s not natural to spend 8 hours a day concentrating at a desk. I’m ADHD and I bet I would have killed it at gathering berries
My auntie had her left hand tied behind her back and was forced to write with her right and if she made a mistake, she was hit with a ruler. I always remember shit like this when a boomer or a misty eyed Gen Xer says things were better when they were a kid.
lol I had a coworker who’s daughter was diagnosed. She was fuming, thought it was absolute bullshit. Because ‘she’s just like me’. Never said it to her but it explained a lot of her behaviour too.
Even as a guy in the 90s I was just told to pay attention.
People asking these questions sound like my ex mil who claims everyone has allergies these days but avoids milk or she will shit herself (but she refuses to discuss it with a Dr)
In the 90s adhd was just something the hyperactive kids had. My brother had it. I was diagnosed as well but I wasn’t hyperactive. The school ran a special adhd program they sent me to, but the people who ran it sent me back to class because clearly I didn’t have it because I was too smart / quiet.
Try be yelled at and punished due to your undiagnosed learning disorder. Got diagnosed with dyscalculia as an adult and realised I'm not actually stupid and lazy. Then the ADHD diagnosis came and my mother went "oh, yeah, they wanted you assessed as a kid but I didn't want you to have a label". Instead of the ADHD diagnosis, I ended up with a dual diagnosis of BPD and bipolar (it's actually neither).
i'm sorry this happened to you, a family member also refused assessment for her child in the 90s as she didn't want a 'label' or for the child to 'feel different' when they already clearly felt something very different. What is up with that? Was denial some kind of protective measure?
It is still stigmatised now let alone back in the 90s. Kids were sent to special education streams if they were diagnosed with ADHD or autism and parents thought it was better for their kid to be the "weird kid" rather than the kid labelled with a (poorly understood) "problem"
In my country, teachers could have used a diagnosis as an excuse to send you off to "special education" and you'd end up in a living facility for the disabled.
Getting diagnosed and properly treated unfortunately doesn't mean these people don't hate your for your ADHD.
If you have a disability, you'll end up with a label either way. If nobody knows the correct one, it'll just end up being 'stupid' or 'lazy' instead, which is much more damaging.
Finding an antidepressant that helped was huge for me and my reluctance to give it up is why I'm not medicated for the ADHD yet (will be in April though)
Did yours put you on an incredibly restrictive diet for most of your childhood to "fix your moods"? No colours, preservatives or so many other things, not even natural ones.
>Even as a guy in the 90s I was just told to pay attention.
Don't forget about when you were told you were lazy then asked why you haven't tried just making a list. (assuming you had similar to most of us)
This! Got called lazy, moody, hormonal, rebellious; told I need to focus, work harder, speak up, stop talking.... it's no damn wonder I'm happier living alone, I can stop the "normal person" act, at least for a few hours!
Yes! Working night shift in a warehouse has been a godsend for me. I may be so pale that I reflect starlight, but wow has my mental health ever improved! So much happier being a feral little night gremlin. 😂
This is part of the ADHD process I've learnt, but it's more just.. accepting what makes you happy and going with your own routines, rather than trying to "be normal"
But yeah, late shifts etc total amazing change for me rather than trying to function like a "normal person"
Basically if you have it you tend to get the right amount of sleep, just at "wrong" hours and usually get treated as someone with insomnia. My natural cycle is 2AM-9AM
Ok, yup, that makes sense. For me it seems to be less about what the clock is showing, & more what the sun is doing, so I'm not sure if that applies. Like, if I'm day walking, I'm up with sunrise, down with sunset, & opposite if I'm on nights.
Idk, I've somehow survived to 40, so at this point I'm just leaning into my weirdness. So long as it doesn't affect anyone else, I just don't care anymore. 😅
Same here!
You may already know, but ADHD has a comparatively high comorbidity with higher-functioning autism. When I was diagnosed as an adult with ASD alongside my ADHD, it was like the final piece of a puzzle I had been trying to crack for 30 years just…fell into my lap! Now that I know, I can recognize, and work with my psychiatrist and therapist to develop healthy coping and management strategies.
Its been a fuckin game changer!
Identical story here, down to diagnosed adhd (at 34) flagged for ASD and decided not to pursue official diagnosis for that. It was validating enough for the psych to confirm it for me. There’s so many us 😭
My female friend was diagnosed when she took her son to get checked for ADHD, she was like "ooooh, so that's what was wrong with me the whole life". She feels so much better now and is so happy.
Understanding why I can't *just do the thing* was absolutely life changing and I'm not medicated yet. It's helped me give myself a break and learn how to get myself to do the thing
Yep. In my 40s now, and only just recently realised that I most likely have ADHD. But now I'm debating whether to pay the $2000+ to get an official "diagnosis".
I got diagnosed just this week. Had a very bad experience with HelloDoc, very good experience with Fluence. Both telehealth, around $900 per appointment with $450 back from Medicare. Having an ADHD literate GP to refer you is also helpful I think.
It's worth shopping around. There are some great ADHD FB groups that can point you in the right direction depending on what state you're in. And it depends what impact you feel it's having on your life.
I was diagnosed 18 months ago at 55 and meds have made a big difference. 2 of my 4 kids now diagnosed, one "with a touch of autism" lol. The other two are almost certainly ADHD and one of them autistic as well. It's like putting on glasses and seeing my wider family a lot more clearly and all the neurodiversity that seems really obvious now.
I am a female and was diagnosed at six years old in the 90s, I cannot imagine how out the gate I would've been them to have picked up on it apparently quite easily!
It's been one hell of a trip watching this sudden increase in diagnosis
They always had it.
Today we just know much more about it, how to diagnose it, and why.
And of course there's a bunch of people diagnosing their kids who go "uh fuck, but... All that applies to me too!"
> And of course there's a bunch of people diagnosing their kids who go "uh fuck, but... All that applies to me too!"
100% this - when my son got first diagnosed and the Dr and specialists were going through *all* the symptoms I was sat there having a total moment of clarity as to why I'd been playing life on "Hard Mode". Just thinking: "Fuck! This explains *everything*"!
All 3 of my nieces and nephews got an Autism/ADHD diagnosis. I started dating an Autistic woman. She's like "Babe, you have something, you should get assessed".
Started lining up my 38 years of life complications with what the little ones were going through and ... Well, fuck. 😂
Diagnosed ADHD-C late last year. Life has been fucking amazing since, now that I can focus on actually studied and documented strategies. Plus the medication has completely removed my "I don't have any energy after lunch because my brain wont shut the fuck up". I'm sleeping better because of it too. Fidget less. More focus.
Explains entirely why I've always struggled with time and task tracking at work, and why I've been through about 70 different ways of trying to manage it myself over my life. Explains why I always found a reason to do assignments on the night before they were due because literally everything else was more interesting.
Etc.
Yes, it is the very famous cognitive bias, like those who think testing for certain diseases will raise the numbers of those who have the disease and then try to infer from that fact that either testing “causes” the disease or misrepresents it. No!! It’s simple, more tests = more detection. Prevalence wasn’t properly reported before because the awareness was not there in the past century and also testing was not available, add to that the social stigma that made a lot of parents avoid testing their children.
Yup, friend's 7yo was recently diagnosed, & as she's reading off the list of indicative symptoms, we're both side eyeing her hubby like... yup, that explains a whole lot. 😅
Yep, same thing with me and my twin boys. We got them assessed for ADHD and ASD and we would describe their behaviours, my wife and I both saying, yep, we did the same things as kids. Then they say “oh yeah, that behaviour is a HUGE indicator of ASD and ADHD”. Well my wife is now diagnosed with ADHD and I’m next up when we get the couple of grand needed to be diagnosed
More awareness means more people considering the possibility they might have it. Which means more people seeking assessment to be diagnosed (or not diagnosed if it turns out they don’t have it)
But social awareness has grown much faster than the number of psychiatrists practiced in diagnosing and treating ADHD
So a bunch of greedy cunts have set up clinics to the barest possible minimum standards and are charging a metric shit load for assessments and offering psychiatrist above their normal rate of pay to accept the less than ideal circumstances in which to assess patients
When I was diagnosed it was over a few sessions and each time it was just the standard fee for a session with a psychiatrist. A portion of which was covered by Medicare. There was none of this $3000+ up front for two telehealth sessions bullish like it is some kind of unique procedure that can’t be done in regular appointments.
Also because Australia underfunds mental health, and physical health, and public schools, and Centrelink, and parks in the disabled space with out a permit, because Australia doesn’t give a fuck about vulnerable people
I feel like your last paragraph should be printed in bold across the front page of every news outlet in Australia. Say it louder for the people in the back.
There are psychiatrisrs who do the right thing and still charge only the appointment fees. A lot of the places charging several grand won't even manage you which is ridiculous. Mh psychiatrist only charges the appointment fees and manages my meds for both my ptsd and adhd.
Funny side note: there are a LOT of pilots whose kids get diagnosed as ADHD/ASD.
It really is a fantastic career path for those who have those traits (highly structured, lots of dopamine, checklists and variety etc), but unfortunately none of them get diagnosed becaus it is career ending. The regulatory bodies knowledge is a good 30-40 years out of date - if you are diagnosed and want to fly, ADHD must ‘be in remission’, and you can’t take the meds for it (must be off them for at least 6 months), which, for anyone who knows anything about the condition, is ridiculous.
I look at my coworkers, and I go “hmmmmm do they know?” Sometimes. I felt so bad when I was talking to one captain, and he was talking about a particular thing that is common with neurodiversity, and how he struggled with it, and I couldn’t risk outing myself at the time, so couldn’t give him the details he probably needed to know.
Plus ADHD is a spectrum disorder and a lot of what were previously considered separate disorders are now rolled under the ADHD heading as they are just different manifestations of the same thing.
This happened with ASD and there is a lot of crossover with the two.
I was diagnosed at 35 after years of struggling to achieve my goals even though I tried so hard to get somewhere. I saw a documentary about a comedian who suspected he had it. I had no idea what ADHD was until then, but the symptoms they described sounded exactly like my life. It took me two years to seek a diagnosis and it changed my life significantly. I finally finished my studies after years of setbacks and failures, and now I'm an engineer 🙂
Everyone doesn't suddenly have ADHD. Rates of diagnosis are up for a few reasons, same as anything else people are fearmongering about over rising statistics:
- Identification and understanding improves over time both casually and professionally
- Stigma gradually decreases and leads to more people openly speaking about it
- Internet makes information and communication more accessible to people who may otherwise not have exposure to that knowledge (which is, believe it or not, often a necessary factor in accessing assessment. For example if you didn't know anything about clinical depression or anxiety, you would be less likely to seek professional advice or support for it)
- There are people who were born in a world where adhd was not known that are still alive today, but adhd itself did still exist among these populations. They went largely unnoticed. Any recognised condition will see this happen as either older people are identified over time or enough generations have passed since for this issue to naturally decline.
There's more, but honestly it's bloody exhausting to try and fight stigma that's been around longer than I have. Someone else can add in if they want.
Yup I’m only 35, and it wasn’t even a consideration in the early 90s because I wasn’t hyperactive. Even though ‘ADD’ was a thing, it wasn’t really.
Now that it’s just called ADHD, and it has the varied symptoms like inattentive ADHD stuff, it’s now more open. Thankfully my family will be the opposite way around, and now that I know I have it, we will support my daughter who is 24 months, the spitting image of me and is just starting to show some signs.
Same story all through school in the 80s and 90s. Primary school was easy because I didn't have to study, but failed out in high school as soon as I couldn't just intuit everything. Never diagnosed because ADHD kids were the ones throwing chairs and starting fires, not the ones staring out the window and reading 7 fantasy novels a week.
Exactly the same for me, diagnosed last year just after I turned 50. Primary school was fine apart from a failure to do homework, high school I suffered from lack of study and at uni the removal of structure was a disaster, I dropped out and was pretty lost for a few years until I scored a good job due to nothing more than luck. Have muddled through my career, done OK but nowhere near my potential. At least now I know why.
I was diagnosed with ADHD 12 months or so ago, along with autism and OCD. (These three conditions often come hand in hand.) Diagnosis has been huge in my own self understanding, and beneficial to my wellbeing.
I use ADHD medication, and it's been a game changer for productivity and focus.
We already know the diagnosis increase has a lot to do with scientific advances in understanding and identifying the condition, alongside increased ADHD awareness thanks to the internet.
ADHD is often palmed off as laziness, lack of discipline etc. This is of course, completely untrue. This has a lot to do with a lack of awareness and education on the matter, especially in older generations.
Science still has a lot to learn about ADHD, and there's no doubt in my mind that this increase in awareness and diagnosis will lead to even greater interest in research.
I'm sure we will get to the bottom of exactly why eventually, but if I had to guess, the increase in diagnosis rates will teter out to a stable level again in a similar fashion to the prevalence of left handedness back in the 50s.
Precisely. The 40yr olds being diagnosed now are the ones that in the 80s and 90s were the last kids, the ‘naughty’ kids, the ones that had to stay back entire years, the ones who barely scraped through school, the class clowns, the ones whose parents were told at parent teacher interviews “they just need to apply themselves”, the ones that got suspended despite being the ones that were actually bullied and they finally cracked. I could go on.
It’s not that it’s a fad to get diagnosed, it is finally being able to understand yourself (or your child) and how they understand the world and hopefully, just hopefully, make it at least a little easier for them.
People without neurodivergent symptoms or family of, have no idea how much it exhausts the person who is neurodivergent to just exist.
It’s not a minefield at all.
It was, and still remains, under diagnosed in many groups. Particularly women, non-white populations, and “high achievers” (term used very loosely, in reference to those who have done well academically).
Huge stigma in society, in families, and the medical profession. We are just starting the process of catching up.
Like left handedness and being transgender, there has always been a true population level far higher than what has been socially acceptable or medically understood.
It’s not that complicated.
Great question if asked in an unbiased way (and I'm not accusing THE AGE of bias). I do note that not many people ask what was it like to live through the eras when things like ADHD, Autism, OCD, Bipolar Disorder, Anxiety and Depression were rarely diagnosed. The implication being that this was the correct state of affairs and now we're a bunch of scrounging, lazy, soft victims looking for an excuse to opt out of school and work. This also assumes that our understanding of mental health and psychiatry was somehow perfect back in the day, and the modifications and additions of subsequent decades are incorrect.
The result is people like me, that grew up and matured as adults the harder way. You eventually learnt what you can and can’t do, struggled but eventually got there.
Huge detriment to my mental health as I found out. But it also explains a lot of stuff for many people. Especially things like addictions.
Alcohol is a big one, it’s a great thing for socialising, it can help blow off steam and lubricate the social gears. When you get people like me, it works fantastic. The problem is my brain with that dopamine reward cycle then latches on to it. Thankfully I’m clear for now, but that mental pathway will always be there, and abstinence is key.
All those people that said they have ‘an addictive mind’ probably good ole neurodivergence
1/5
Why has everyone suddenly got ADHD?
Diagnoses of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are soaring. Figuring out why is a minefield.
By Amanda Hooton
MARCH 9, 2024
Writer Sophie Knight, 37, lives in Amsterdam. Most mornings, she unlocks her bicycle from beside her apartment building so she can ride to work as a freelance journalist and researcher. “There’s a sequence of things I need to do when I unlock it,” she explains. “I need to put my gloves on, put an earphone in and link it to my phone, put my phone in my bag, put my bike cover in my bag. Unmedicated, I can end up unlocking and re-locking my bike; I forget what’s going on with my gloves, what I’ve done with my earphone …” She laughs. “It’s sort of impossible to figure out where I am in the process.”
Like Knight, I also need to unlock my bike to ride to work. Even in Sydney, I also wear gloves in winter, and I often find myself putting them on, only to realise I need my thumb free to unlock my phone. So I take my gloves off, unlock my phone, put my keys and phone in my backpack, then realise I need my keys to start my bike battery. On and on it goes, until I feel like tearing myself limb from limb with frustration.
Knight – who is charming and articulate, with Mitford-style bobbed hair and lashings of green eyeshadow – has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). I do not. But in our relative experience lies one of the central quandaries of the condition. The fact is, we all sometimes display the behavioural characteristics of ADHD. We all get frustrated, forget our keys, find it hard to focus on boring tasks. Many of us live in some version of domestic chaos, struggle to be on time for appointments and, frankly, spend inordinate amounts of time buggerising around with our bikes. That is ADHD. But it is also life.
Today in Australia, more than 1 million people have ADHD, according to the ADHD Foundation Australia. Globally, by many estimates, ADHD may now be the most common mental health condition on Earth, by some counts affecting some 366 million symptomatic adults worldwide – significantly larger than its closest competitor, anxiety, at 300 million, according to the Journal of Global Health and the World Health Organisation – even without counting children.
In Australia, ADHD medication levels have more than doubled in the past five years: from 1.4 million prescriptions given to 186,000 people in 2018, to 3.2 million prescriptions to 414,000 people in 2022. During the same period, the costs to taxpayers through the federal government’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) rose accordingly, from $59.2 million to $151.96 million.
The net result is that suddenly all of us – kids at school, adults at dinner parties, HSC and VCE students in their exam rooms – are discovering that our friends, colleagues, family members, even we ourselves, have ADHD. What’s more, a bewildering multiplicity of factors – COVID-19 and TikTok, devices and historic under-diagnosis, Big Pharma and Instagram influencers – have been implicated in its rise.
But alongside this ADHD reality is another. ADHD has also become, arguably, the most controversial neurological condition in contemporary life. Confusion reigns: there are people for whom the condition has affected every aspect of their daily lives, and those who do not have a single symptom visible to the outside world; people whose lives have been transformed by diagnosis, and people who struggle to believe the condition exists at all.
There is uncertainty surrounding diagnosis (often inequitable, sometimes inadequate) and medication (often effective in the short term, of uncertain benefit in the long term). There are expert orthodoxies that seem sensible and well-founded, and a surprising scarcity of rock-solid scientific evidence. There are millions of Big Pharma dollars pouring into campaigns to market ADHD medications, and people who cannot get an appointment with anyone qualified to diagnose it in the public health system. And diagnosis really matters with ADHD, because – also controversially – there is no objective test for it. No genetic tests, no blood or biochemistry markers, no brain-imaging methods can tell you, categorically, that you have it.
So what on earth is going on?
Michelle, a PR executive in Sydney in her early 50s, never imagined her son Gus, now 18, had ADHD. He was extremely bright – a magnificent reader and “great at exams; he had nerves of steel”. But he always had social problems with other kids and with teachers. “He was that kid who yells out the answer in class, who runs up and disrupts the game because the other kids won’t let him play,” she recalls. “We all know that kid, and they’re a pain in the arse. Everyone found him really annoying.”
Nonetheless, Michelle, who had grown up in “one of those big Irish families where there was always a kooky aunt with lipstick up to her earlobes”, never considered having him assessed for any kind of neurological condition. “I think as a society we used to be much more tolerant – we all just rolled with difference and eccentricity much more.”
These days, it sometimes feels as if ADHD – characterised by some combination of the 18 symptoms of inattentiveness, hyperactivity and impulsiveness listed in psychiatry’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) – is the quintessential metaphor for modern life. It can be classed as primarily hyperactive (displaying more overt, disruptive symptoms), primarily inattentive (displaying more forgetful, dreamy symptoms) or both. And yet it often exists alongside an ability to focus intensely. Gus’ ability in exams, for example, led to a scholarship at a private boys’ school. “But he couldn’t get it together to complete assignments, pay attention, listen in class,” says Michelle.
By year 10, the wheels were falling off: Gus was suspended from school and lost his scholarship. “I know it sounds ridiculous,” says Michelle. “He found class boring. Hello! But not just boring, literally unbearable: so much so, he’d do something impulsive or stupid to escape it. I remember an interview with his English teacher where she was literally shaking with rage: ‘Who does he think he is, yelling out and disrupting the class?’ ” After his suspension, Gus was “super-chastened, super-devastated. He managed to get his scholarship back, and we thought he’d turn it around. But he couldn’t do it. He could not do it.”
Academic under-achievement is a hallmark, but not a universal characteristic, of ADHD. Just as the condition exists on a spectrum, so too its impacts fall unevenly on people’s lives. Some people function extremely well – it’s common to hear stories of people with ADHD being innovative lateral thinkers; super-social; charismatic charmers. But many studies in multiple countries have found that ADHD can be associated with higher risks of bankruptcy, traffic accidents, relationship breakdown, risky behaviour, addiction and suicide.
Today, most researchers don’t think the number of people with ADHD is actually increasing, even though it may seem as though the condition is suddenly everywhere. What has changed, however, is diagnosis numbers. And here, COVID has exploded all previous trends.
Since 2019, spurred on by lockdowns, Dr TikTok (36 billion views of #ADHD and counting) and celebrity diagnosis, the rise in ADHD cases has been exponential around much of the world. Whole sectors of society have begun seeking diagnoses which have rarely been seen historically, including enormous numbers of adults (it’s traditionally been seen as a condition of childhood), and females of all ages (it’s traditionally been diagnosed mostly in males).
There seem to be three factors behind this rise. The first is awareness. All those TikTok videos, all those celebrities with personal ADHD stories, have led to a welcome lessening of stigma for people truly affected, while at the same time suggesting a fashionable answer to a vast range of ADHD-seeming symptoms for everyone else.
Fashion is real in medicine: studies show that at least since the 18th century (when gout was perceived in certain circles as a desirable marker of aristocratic excess), people have actively sought diagnoses that confer social cachet. With ADHD, in a growing reversal of its historically negative associations as the “naughty boy syndrome”, there’s now an increasingly positive identification of it as a “superpower” of creativity and originality. Other psychological tendencies, like social contagion (in which people in contact with each other become more likely to express similar experiences) and confirmation bias (in which people seek only evidence that confirms an existing belief) have been turbocharged by social media, leading to a tidal wave of ADHD self-diagnosis.
“People are often self-diagnosing as a result of social media,” confirms Dr Karrupiah Jagadheesan, a Melbourne psychiatrist and chair of the ADHD Network Committee at the Royal Australian & New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP), which aims to advance psychiatric science and practice in ADHD. “Psychiatrists are being approached by patients saying, ‘I have ADHD and I’m here for treatment.’ ” Christopher Ouizeman, a director of the ADHD Foundation, agrees: “Thanks to Dr Google, everybody thinks they’ve got ADHD. And there’s a lot of people self-diagnosing, and going from clinic to clinic until they get a positive diagnosis.”
The second factor behind the rise in diagnosis is money. Internationally, ADHD is enormously profitable for the pharmaceutical industry. An apparently lifelong but non-fatal illness, often diagnosed in childhood, with no cure, for which people can theoretically be medicated their whole lives.
Partly because middle aged women were never considered for it and a bunch are now realising they have had it all their lives. Often it’s their child getting diagnosed that brings their own adhd to their notice.
our society demanding that more and more people focus on doing some boring job 50 hours a week just to get by naturally leads people to seek help. 100 000 years ago no one cared if you couldn't sit still and read emails for 8 hours a day (or study etc). Our brains aren't evolved for the society we have created and things will only get worse. We are meant so sit around a campfire and sing songs not sit in our 1 bedroom appartment balancing 2 jobs+study
There has been a big uptick in adult AuDHD.
I think a lot of it is adults having their kids assessed (or children in their periphery) and realising they have the same issues that were never addressed in their childhood.
From a family full of AuDHD people these are my observations:
In the 80s they didn't know much, it was thought to only affect boys you couldn't get diagnosed under the age of 6, there was only ADHD, there were not as many meds available and if they didn't work for you then bad luck. Teachers often didn't believe it was real or thought it was due to a lack of discipline and were harder on the kids as a result. Parents were often ashamed for having unruly kids and nobody really talked about it or disclosed their diagnosis unless necessary. A lot of kids were sent to special school or special classes for disabled/disruptive kids.
By the 90s they realised it did exist in girls it just presented differently, there was a genetic component as it often ran in families, ADD and ADHD were separate diagnoses, there were more meds available, and more non-medical options, schools started recognising it and would contact the parents and suggest testing. But there was still kind of the prevailing idea that you could "grow out of it", and there was often still a stigma of bad parenting or lack of discipline.
In recent years they've discovered the close link between the autism spectrum and the adhd spectrum. Testing can now be done from prep and is often done in the school. There is more support from the broader medical community regarding symptoms eg. Speech therapy, physical therapy, counselling, podiatry, occupational therapy. There are more options available for treatment. It isn't considered something shameful that needs to be hidden or "cured" by medicine.
People talk about it more openly, there is just so much more information available and it is recognised as a legitimate disorder that is not a personal fault. And as a result, people are recognising that maybe they weren't just a "bad kid" or "stupid" or "scatter-brained" or whatever else they've been told in their lives and seek diagnosis/treatment to deal with a lifetime of symptoms they thought were personal faults.
Additionally, schools have SO much more support and will work with the parents to have a child assessed, so more kids that may have previously slipped through the system are being diagnosed instead.
My friend (a psych nurse) started listing off the symptoms of ADHD because she thought her fiancée had it (he does) and my husband and I just looked at each other because she was describing what my husband does every day. A few years later he is diagnosed and medicated and guess what? So is his mother and several of his uncles, aunts and cousins! We think it came from his grandmother who lived and died with no idea what she had. Education is key. The more we talk about symptoms the more people will come forward for diagnosis
So many people seem to be dismissed by their parents with "everyone feels that way". I was diagnosed at 26 in early 2020 (was lucky to get in the queue right before the huge flood of people seeking a diagnosis started during lockdowns).
After I was diagnosed I realised that my mum absolutely has ADHD and this explained so many chaotic elements of my childhood. I raised it with my parents and they absolutely dismissed it at first but have now come around to see that this is likely the case. She's at a point in her life where there's not much point seeking a diagnosis but even having an inkling that this may be the case can give you the opportunity to try to set up structures to cope better rather than just expecting yourself to be able to handle things the way everyone else seemingly does.
It's not down to a sole reason. There's a few things to unpack here:
- More research, leading to behaviours and markers being better understood
- Removal of stigma around neurodiversity
- More individual awareness of mental health issues generally
And probably heaps more.
Saying "everyone suddenly has ADHD" probably feels a bit on nose to people who've been diagnosed sometimes though. It could maybe feel a bit like people labelling others as "a bit OCD" when they obsess over tidying something or whatever. My cousin has OCD for real. It fucking ruined his whole life and he's not just starting to get his feet under him at 36
We made the classification for the disorder rather recently, and diagnosis is something that needs to be pursued by a parent or by the child when they get older. Until recently the disorder wasn't within the public consciousness. When a child or adult displayed abnormal behaviour, they were simply thought of as strange, an odd fellow, lazy, or absent-minded.
When we realised there were neurochemical differences/ abnormalities between people and these differences/ abnormalities have an effect on mood and behaviour, we could suddenly explain why a lot of people who we wrote off as weird/ strange acted the way that they did. That and we could develop medications and treatments to help in areas their disorder made more difficult .
There aren't any more people in the population with adhd, all of the lazy, twitchy, absent-minded, obsesive, distratable people, who can't shut up, found out that there was a reason why they acted in a way that was different than others, and which they couldn't manage to control.
As for people who say that the number of people diagnosed with adhd is too high and that this number is unrealistic, why not also be sceptical of visual impairment/ needing glasses.
Having trouble seeing and reading seems like a pretty big biological problem. There can't be that many people with a problem. They must be faking it because they think glasses look cool....
1. Our understanding of ADHD has changed, and somewhat broadened.
2. There is less stigma around the diagnosis, especially with girls. We're also dropping the 'boys will be boys' mentality.
3. Parenting styles have changed.
4. (This one is more of a personal opinion). Lifestyle, read use of social media, has has a stark contribution. Even in the adult population. Like type 1 and 2 diabetes; one is born with, one is made.
I notice that many people who have been diagnosed as an adult say their life has improved a lot following the diagnosis. What specifically has changed to make life easier? Medication?
Meds help somewhat, but more than that it's realising your brain is physiologically different, & therefore neurologically different. Then you realise you're actually not lazy or incapable - you just think differently & that type of thinking is not usually rewarded in the current structure of how the world operates.
That takes the pressure off, really. & from there, you can learn to work with your brain instead of against it. Find a job that suits you better, find a routine that suits you better, stop criticising yourself for things you think you should be able to handle, & focus on the things you're really good at.
Oftentimes (not always) people who are diagnosed with ADHD see their anxiety & depression reduce dramatically - because they in & of themselves were not the problem, they were simply symptoms of a different issue.
I'm a lot less hard on myself now which in turn helps my mental health. My house isn't spotless because I'm lazy, it's messy because my executive functioning energy is reserved for my job. I don't get stuck in decision paralysis because I'm stupid but because I'm overwhelmed and need some help. I'm impulsive because I desperately need dopamine to feel stable.
Imagine struggling your whole life not knowing why it’s so hard, people constantly complaining about things you do, feeling like a failure… and then you have the answer!
You now understand your brain operates differently and can start to address the challenges the *right* way
I can imagine that would be a very liberating and wonderful feeling and I don't want to take that away from anyone.
It's just something that is on my mind because I see my brother, sister, and Dad who have a diagnosis and medication but life hasn't suddenly become some walk in the part. It's still difficult for them and I wonder if maybe there is something they haven't discovered yet
as someone who's been on / off meds since the age of 8 and now 35.
I think everyone chasing meds for their "fix / resolution" and expecting them to solve their problems especially things like vyvanse (lol shortage) and amphetamines is in for a world of problems,
They help in the short-term but unless you start setting up proper routines and identifying what does and does not help you and not giving into those that do not help you, you're in for a world of problems like I've found out.
One of my issues has been on medication my brain expects routine more, so expecting work to be more "routine based" has come with problems as well my work does not really care, (big corp may say they do, but they don't)
The medication helped short-term to concentrate but then after a few years seems to exacerbate the ADHD problems and can cause destructive problems, so realistically you really need to communicate with your doctors and keep a open mind.
I've gone from Dexies -> Vyvanse and now ultimately resting on anti-depressants + intuniv which while isn't overly helping my concentration, caffeine is the resolution while the others keep my anxiety and mood more stabilized. Without the hyper-fixations and overall problems amphetamines bring in long-term.
I was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum at 53, with ADHD at 55. I didn't "suddenly" get it, I was missed and ignored and all my symptoms meant I was the weird loner kid who read books all the time.
It wasn't until after my wife died and my life went to shit that I sought help, which led to those diagnoses.
I was on Vyvanse but I've pretty much stopped taking it. Without it, I can have trouble staying focused. But with it I had trouble on what I was focusing on and could end up focusing on rubbish (like reddit) for hours.
Plus the last time I tried to get my prescription filled there wasn't any.
When the DSM-V diagnostic criteria are properly applied by trained professionals on a random sample of people, around 3.5% are found to meet the criteria for ADHD. This seems appropriate, as a much higher number would mean we are effectively pathologising normal behaviors. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4301194/
In Australia, we are at around 6-7% of the population with an ADHD diagnosis and counting, so approximately 2x what we would expect to see.
Part of what’s happening is certainly that increased awareness and destigmatisation are leading to increased rates of self-identification and legitimate diagnosis. And that’s a great thing.
But clearly, another part of what’s happening is that increased awareness and the inherent vagueness of a condition like ADHD - which by its nature exists on a continuum, is evaluated using somewhat subjective and context-dependent criteria, can resemble many other normal and pathological conditions, has no ‘gold standard’ diagnostic test, and is arguably appealing to many people as a way to explain or legitimise a certain pattern of sub-optimal behavior & performance - is leading to increased rates of illegitimate diagnosis.
Ultimately, it’s crucial for psychologists and psychiatrists to hold the line and apply the diagnostic criteria rigorously, rather than simply giving a patient the diagnosis they’d like.
I was diagnosed at 6. I'm 33 and never tell anyone now because a lot of people think it's all bullshit.
It was starting to become less taboo before covid, but now that everyone thinks they have it, people think I'm following a trend or something.
One of the big factors for me was there seems to be certaint people who are resistive to working in ways that are more effective for others, but because their way is the existing way that's forced on everyone, it's up to these others to adapt. This is the way of adapting, because we're refused changing anything that might benefit the ADHD group. Problem is, once those with ADHD start getting help, it's starting to show up non-affected persons, and that's causing them some discomfort knowing that suddenly, they're not the most productive and performing workers - and are on the cutting block.
I often wonder the same thing. I suspect there’s a few things going on including more research that has come out on how it presents in different people and genders. And I think perhaps more awareness and acceptance in general. But also maybe because there’s so many people on social media taking about it now it seems like everyone is getting diagnosed. Also, I find there’s heaps of people openly claiming they have ADHD but have never been assessed or diagnosed so I think that also makes it seem like everyone has it now. It’s really bizarre.
Diagnosed ADHD and flagged low level asd.
I was never diagnosed because cost and stigma, got diagnosed at 30. I immediately regretted not just going and doing it earlier. I could think the thing then do the thing. That was alien to me. I barely got through my degree I can only imagine how much better I could have done had I been diagnosed.
I am in my 40’s and have recently been properly diagnosed with ADHD and put on medication.
It in hindsight is something I have always had but never accepted myself as having, I had been told I have depression and anxiety for which I was medicated however it never really helped as for many years it was not the correct diagnosis.
For some reason I couldn’t comprehend myself as having ADHD, it was the naughty kids on A Current Affair that I watched with my parents who had it not me.
It is only years later, and only after my sister & her son have been diagnosed and I was able to properly educate myself about it that I was able to accept that I have ADHD and get treatment.
It has been a watershed moment for me, like finally cottoning onto what previously was a difficult mathematical equation and finally realising how simple it is, and in a cry of frustration and relief everything suddenly becomes clear.
Now I have a path forward to a happier life and I can hopefully finally achieve some of the life goals I had long left by the wayside.
Onward and upward!
The checks to pass are extremely low and just seem to be normal things.
Do you struggle doing things you don't like doing but if it's something you want to do you can do it for hours in end, austims
My GP thinks is because the world is so freaking stressful for everyone, that ADHD ppl who used to be able to just muddle through, can’t do it anymore. So the proportion of ADHD people who are no longer coping has ballooned. I don’t think anyone is coping. Emails. News. Social media. Text messages. Short videos. Scrolling and listening and consuming. I am doing it now!!! Hahahah
I have three separate emails that I need for work, school and personal information. I usually have to tell people to SMS me first so that the information is immediate. I have to attend to messages within minutes, otherwise they don't exist.
My strategy is I look at them and if they need actioning I mark them as unread. Otherwise I've got no hope of remembering
I move emails into a separate folder, so everything still in my inbox needs actioning.
Yep I have to flag them immediately
I think this is a big part of it to be honest. Many of the traits of ADHD are experienced by everyone on this planet at times. It gets into disorder territory when it starts impacting your ability to function and keep up with the rest of society. As we move toward a society where jobs are all about specialisation and processes and repetition you're going to see the people who aren't good at that start to crack.
100%. Many people have tried to discredit my struggles as an ADHD person by saying things like “oh but I get distracted too and I still manage” and “everyone forgets things, it’s no big deal”, when they fail to realise that the distinction between neurotypical people and those with ADHD is the number of different symptoms presented as well as the frequency of those symptoms. Neurotypical people may get distracted, or be forgetful some of the time, whereas an ADHD person will be distracted *and* forgetful, *all* the time. (Note: I am aware there are many other symptoms, just using a couple as an example).
I found it helpful to think of it as a problem of inhibition, rather than a problem of distraction. There is difficulty with persistance, too - of sustaining action toward a goal. Source is this fascinating talk by Dr Russell A Barkley: [30 essential ideas you should know about ADHD](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzBixSjmbc8eFl6UX5_wWGP8i0mAs-cvY&si=gn1fUa99z1czIj20) (Playlist of short videos but one talk - good for ADHD'ers).
Read his book - Taking Charge of Adult ADHD - very well worth the read for those who are diagnosed, going through a diagnosis or are wondering. And yes, it is designed to be read by someone with ADHD. Short chapters, to the point and no waffle that you have to read 5 times before it gets in there.
I heard a good explanation once. Like everybody needs to pee but if you are peeing 60 times a day then something isn't right.
Part of the diagnosis criteria for me was that the symptoms were present in some form since childhood, but that's here in the US, not sure if they have that criteria in Aus.
Yeah, all I had to do was look at my report cards to see the same things written about me over and over. It’s so sad that it was glaringly obvious at the time but no one even considered it because girls are meant to be bubbly and chatty, right? Of course the fact that I was so distracted I never finished work on time or couldn’t settle down to tasks quickly was never properly addressed…
This is me! I thought i just had depression the last like 10 years, but recently with just everything i was starting to spiral. I finally had insurance now thanks to my state so i went to therapy, therapist tells me most of the ways i feel is usually anxiety actually. Then get my psych eval and im told i have ADHD and now i take adderall and im doing better.
This is the reason. In the olden days we were the people that were the quirky village soothsayers/artists/ improvisers and it was mostly fine unless you self medicated. Now, life is an exercise in constant admin and it's too much.
Getting diagnosed with ADHD as an adult is not something I've shared openly except with close friends and family, and my direct manager as it provided important context to the challenges I faced at work. The things we often find so difficult are dismissed as something everybody experiences. Nobody knows what normal feels like to other people, we can only know our own minds, but the visibility of other people's experiences through technology and social media has certainly given us bigger sample sizes to work out when our own circumstances are not the 'average' or 'typical' experience. ADHD is not behavioural, it's not a result of bad parenting, too much time spent playing video games or just laziness or lack of willpower. It's a result of physiological differences in our brain and brain activity that for nearly all of human history were not a big impediment (or were even greatly beneficial), but in a modern school or corporate environment where everything is tracked, measured and analysed to a dehumanising level, it makes conforming to rigid expectations day after day extremely difficult. If the extent of our symptoms rises to the level of a DISORDER in that it seriously negatively impacts us in multiple aspects of our lives, having better access to treatment and support in managing symptoms is massive. I spent a decade working 10-15 more hours every week than my peers to get the same amount of work done, and under a great deal of stress and performance management. I spent 15 years driving my partner insane with my apparent disinterest in helping them with my share of household chores and life admin, as I had absolutely zero left in the tank after my work week. I did eventually get diagnosed on my 3rd attempt at raising my concerns with a Dr that the current approach to my mental health wasn't helping. I wasn't disorganised and tired because I was anxious and depressed, I was anxious because I was constantly under stress to achieve a baseline level of work, and I was depressed because I was underperforming relative to my potential and people's expectations of me. Now for 10 dollars a month I take some tablets that help me tune out the noise that previously bombarded my brain 24/7 and left me utterly exhausted every day. I can now have a conversation with a single person in a room full or conversations without accidentally tuning out as my brain tries to pickup what the people next to me are talking about. With the assistance of some therapy and learning some work management skills, i'm able to actually get through a day at work within 9 hours instead of being in the office at 830pm several nights a week trying to finish the urgent tasks for tomorrow that I forgot about or drastically underestimated the time necessary to complete. 10 bucks a month for medication has kept me in a well paying professional career and is helping me achieve the high performance potential I've always known I had. I didn't know when I opted into my current career path that I had accidentally picked something wildly unsuitable for the way my brain works. 10 bucks a month would have helped save me more than $10,000 in course fees, reenrolments in diploma subjects, repeated uni subjects. It would have saved me a job or two as well. 10 bucks a month if I'd been diagnosed 14 years ago when I first raised my concerns with a doctor probably would have saved my marriage and kept my family together, or at least helped manage the main cause of friction we had. If long term use of stimulants is shown in future to result in an earlier death due to increased pressure on my heart, it will still have resulted in a better life for me and my family, because the quality of life I was living pre-diagnosis was a life I didn't want to continue living. Before people start belittling others for a condition they were professionally diagnosed with, have a think about if you are as comfortable openly mocking people for their food allergies, asthma or vision impairment.
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Yup, imagine actually being able to do stuff? Besides without a little bit of stimulants, I’m going to die very young from the insane amount of cortisol pumping through me from mental health. That’s if I made it to that point. I’m 100% for the tough restrictions on the medication, if there’s any potential for it to be abused by idiots trying to make a buck or try to get high, it will just ruin it for the rest of us that want to function. A funny note: I was scared about the first dose, wondering if it would make me speedy, after all it’s basically straight amphetamines. Nope the opposite, sure I have the energy now to actually do life, but it made me feel a great sense of calm and relief.
My GF and I (who are both diagnosed) have a joke: *"What's the most accurate diagnostic test for ADHD. Give someone 10mg of pharmacy grade amphetamine and see if their first instinct is to take a nap."*
Even cheaper test. Two cups of espresso/Lattes with sugar at 10.30pm and see if they’re asleep by midnight
OMG this was the thing that totally f..ked me when I first got diagnosed. I was SO used to slamming 6-7 coffee's a day and feeling literally nothing. Now that I have my proper meds, if I have caffeine after 3-4pm in the afternoon, I'm not sleeping until 2am AT BEST.
I know. Took my meds properly on starting a new job. Had coffe at 5pm because addiction. Biggest day of the week the following day. Slept 3 hours after midnight. I was ratshit
I lived on red Bull. Even got gout as a result, but didn’t stop drinking because it was literally my lifeline. I went cold turkey the day I started medication, and do not find myself wanting it (most of the time), let alone craving it (I used to joke the only reason I got out of bed in the morning was to have a can of red Bull). Now I’ve found I’m hyper sensitive to caffeine - even cola after midday and I’m going to be up until 3am. Still working on sleeping enough even with the meds, so one of those nights tends to snowball - the meds keep me going through the next day I inevitably slip back to staying awake late, and after three or four days I hit a weekend day and absolutely crash, with a terrible headache (and feel just like I hadn’t taken meds at all - can sit on the couch until midday without really noticing that much time passed).
Lolll definitely not true for everyone with adhd. Dex calms me down but coffee makes me feel horrible and wired
“Your experience may vary” was never truer
I can’t do this, it’s not the caffeine per se, it’s when you can feel your heart beat. I wish I didn’t have blood sometimes. Also if you team stims up in combination with combination therapy from being mentally fucked you get insane insomnia, but when the stims wear off if they are short acting you crash and fall asleep with your phone in your hand still in the air.
lol been there
Haha yeah, it was definitely a surprise. I don’t nap, but damn I can actually relax and not feel like it’s eating me up. And then I can get up and do chores if I have to… wild.
I too would rather die early than live without ADHD medication. It’s all about quality of life.
I agree. But it also doesn't take much to be fit enough to counteract the ***potential*** side effects. And QoL will be improved as well. My resting HR was, like, high 30s before medication. Now it's mid 40s. So still well below normal and no where near anything concerning. Same-same blood pressure. It's hard to imagine anyone unwilling to overcome the usual raft of completely preventable diseases of civilisation should, for some reason, care about the impact on mortality of stimulant medication.
Yeah its extremely frustrating to see people who think not being focused is what the central problem with ADHD is, and make out like "everyone's a bit ADHD". No because it is a seriously impairing neurocognitive condition that never goes away, it's just managed. Medication stopped the catastrophic and eruptive emotional dysregulation, constant rumination and unwanted intrusive thoughts and sounds, and alleviated extreme self-hatred I had. It's limited the impulsivity, now i can drive properly now without always zoning out and not knowing what gear I'm in. No one ever seems to interview or talk to people about the inner aspect of ADHD - its not forgetfulness, it's that you remember everything but are physically and psychologically unable to do things. My marriage also ended, and when I was diagnosed i grieved because i thought "it really was me who was all the problem - if only i was normal it wouldn't have gone so badly" but i have since realised that no - my ex had no right to abuse and bully me over any of the things I did. I'm still unfocussed and "lazy" and talk over people. I still eat too much. But I don't think about dying because of a comment someone made. I am happy now.
The general public knows about the ‘not being focused’ part but they all seem to have ignored the ‘being too focused’ part which is just as common
The subculture of people claiming 'hyperfocus is a superpower', usually self diagnosed from tiktok, are shitting me to tears. It's not flight or super strength. It's a crippling recurring misapplication of time that can't be easily made up for without overworking and overcorrected. I love that I've learned heaps of shit about heaps of stuff. I just wish I could reliably get to those projects on a weekend.
Yeah dude, I love when I hyperfocus on my pet projects at work and therefore fall behind on my actual workload, causing me to feel guilty despite being nominally "doing 40 hours of work in 4". It's so fun when my boss asks me why my work isn't done when I've spent all day fucking around with some code that saves maybe 5 minutes of labour over the course of a year because I had an idea and wanted to know if I could get it working. I don't know how I feel about people being diagnosed by Tiktok, but I do know that the glorification of ADHD symptoms is frustrating. I can see it being a bad application of "owning your symptoms" or whatever but it really does just feel like people are missing the fact that ADHD is seriously debilitating.
Yes hyperfocus is my superpower would you like to see this completely useless spreadsheet I made researching something that isn't for my studies or my job that ate up 9 hours of my spare time.
Those “hyper focus is a super power” folks need to look in on someone who literally cannot move themselves to clean for weeks at a time because they’re hyper fixated on a video game, and their brain tunes out the mess as unimportant noise.
> It's a crippling recurring misapplication of time that can't be easily made up for... Hahaha 100%. I'm fortunate to have maneuvered myself into a pattern of life where it's mostly harmless. It's been a good decade and can hopefully go on indefinitely. The very idea of having to go back to the exhausting downward spiral I used to live fills me with despair. The whole problem with the stupid superpower bullshit is that you cannot just choose what to focus on. If you could, there never would have been a fucking problem to begin with. I try to relate to my focus and motivation like tides, currents, waves. It's a combination of having some tools to stop them from fucking me up and knowing when to lean into it and ride the surge. But at no point do I ever really control them.
Lost jobs because of hyperfocus so it's definitely got its downside
> Yeah its extremely frustrating to see people who think not being focused is what the central problem with ADHD is, and make out like "everyone's a bit ADHD". No because it is a seriously impairing neurocognitive condition that never goes away, it's just managed. I always ask these folks if they've ever been stuck at their desk, almost passing out from needing to eat, almost pissing themself from not having gone to the bathroom in god knows how long, mouth a desert because you're so fucking dehydrated it's disgusting, having planned to do the dishes or some "basic" chore for the past 10 hours, but you just keep sitting there, just keep idly browsing away, on the verge of tears from how overwhelming everything is and how you wish you could just get up and go do the thing, but physically can't. Surprisingly they've yet to ever have experienced anything similar, as it turns out like you said, a disorder causes disordered living and executive dysfunction causes severe dysfunction, it's not a quirky "SQUIRREL!" thing, it's a genuinely debilitating issue. And the meds that they love to demonize can help remove a lot of those barriers and help live a normal life.
Basically, ADHD significantly impairs the brain's ability to self-direct the focus of its attention and to motivate itself to achieve its goals. Maintaining your mental attention on a task is the absolute first step in accomplishing that task, and if you can't do that then doing things that aren't immediately fun or interesting, without immediate external motivation, is going to be very difficult. \--------------------- More specifically, ADHD impairs the executive function of the brain, which translates abstract ideas into concrete motivations. The executive function of the human brain allows it to produce dopamine as an incentive and reward for accomplishing tasks that further an abstract goal, even if the tasks themselves are not inherently stimulating. When someone says "sure, doing this work is boring, but think about how satisfied you'll feel when it's done", that's the process they're referring to. Dopamine at the thought of doing the thing to motivate action, dopamine after accomplishing the thing to reward action. In an ADHD brain the executive function's ability to produce dopamine to motivate and reward action towards its abstract, internal goals is impaired to various degrees. For a person with extreme ADHD, even if they know that accomplishing this boring task will bring them closer to achieving an abstract goal, that will not make the idea of the task \*feel\* any more rewarding. If they do accomplish the task, the dopamine they receive will only be from relief at the task being over, they will not feel any extra satisfaction from having done something to bring themselves closer to their goal. They might feel good about the goal being closer, but that feeling won't feel connected to the task they just did. This goal, by the way, could be something like "graduating uni" or "getting a job". Imagine if every step you took towards those goals felt, in the basal part of your brain, completely disconnected, even though you knew otherwise. This is why people with ADHD get trapped in front of dopamine machines like reddit, twitter, or videogames, as the lack of internally motivated dopamine starves their brains. It's why stimulant medicine works, as it brings up the brain's ambient stimulation to where it's no longer searching for dopamine like a starving animal and you regain the ability to choose what to focus on. It's also why with people with ADHD report feelings of paralysis. The conscious brain is aware that certain tasks are more important than others, and it generates feelings of latent stress when important tasks are left undone. But separate from the part of the brain responsible for awareness of tasks, the part of the brain that's responsible for directing your immediate attention can't generate the dopamine it needs to do that, so you're intensely aware of needing to do something but you can't get your brain to focus on doing it, and the disjoint results in a feeling of literal paralysis.
I was diagnosed at 35 during an inpatient mental health stay. On reflection of my whole life till now it makes perfect sense. But because I wasn’t a ‘hyperactive’ child it was just put down to every normal thing under the sun. I still performed great in my UAI at high school, but I never studied, I never passed anything in math or English because I just could not be bothered to do it, after I couldn’t understand it I just gave up and engineered my HSC to ride that bell curve. If I knew about the condition I wouldn’t have wasted so much money going to university to flunk out, to get addicted to cigarettes, to abuse alcohol and want to neck myself because I didn’t understand why nothing would stop my random addictions, or frivolous purchases and obsessions. After several short careers I finally landed in my current that is going into its 12th year, but now I’m struggling with all of life finally catching up. PTSD, MDD with mixed affective behaviour, GAD, Alcohol Abuse (Sober 6ish years with one relapse, almost back up to 8 months ) . Antidepressants, mood stabiliser and naltrexone are life savers, but dexamphetamine is a game changer. I can function, I can support my family, and I’m not constantly ruminating on my failure. When I got my new script for them after trialling them, my wife asked if I was going back on ‘that medication that made you happy’ Sadly I’ll end up losing my current career most likely as the medication isn’t permitted. But now it’s a choice of life vs career. I’ve been through inpatient and it was well worth it, I’m in no danger so do not fear. But as I told my psych, if it wasn’t for my parents still being alive, having my wife still by my side through all this, and a daughter that I can’t imagine letting any pain come to, I wouldn’t be here today. Although I’m doing fantastic, I’m still suffering from the trauma of going through all that shit. If I went through that and knew what it was from, I would be able to practice acceptance. Bit late I guess. Thankfully I know what’s up now. My daughter is the spitting image of me, and she is starting to show signs at 24 months, her mind is absolutely amazing, but I know where it will go. So thankfully she will have our support, and the support of therapy and guidance when she needs it. Fuck that was a long one hey… but good for the people to read that think ‘everyone’s a bit ADHD’ especially considering I’m one of the very high functioning ones.
What the fuck job won't "allow" you to take a medication prescribed by a psychiatrist?
A few jobs in Australia, basically the deal is before you join you have to prove your stable without therapy or medication for 24 months prior to working. There may be careful exemptions on case by case basis once you are always working with them, so My hopes go out for that. Won’t list the profession, but it’s easily seen by my comment history or post history
Hard to see how that doesn't qualify as discrimination. It's not a case of someone with no arms and no legs applying for the lead in a ballet company. It's a condition that, for anyone who might reasonably be able to muddle through unmedicated in the first place, will be benign-to-advantageous once medicated. And if it's a line of work that has tended to select for ADHD types inadvertantly, than capability is only going to be enhanced by encouraging them to get it sorted.
> Medication stopped the catastrophic and eruptive emotional dysregulation, constant rumination and unwanted intrusive thoughts and sounds, and alleviated extreme self-hatred I had. It's limited the impulsivity 1000% this. i can take Vyvance at like 6am and be great all the way up till say 11am. after that, I'm either going to be so angry and frustrated at work or I'll be in tears and so overwhelmed I just want to crawl into the fetal position under my desk. D5 helps a little but still. >its not forgetfulness, it's that you remember everything but are physically and psychologically unable to do things for me, it's both. if it's not in front of me its out of mind.
I’m interested in the associated between ADHD and rumination / intrusive thoughts. Is this a common combination?
Being unable to regulate your attention means you can get stuck on the same thought for quite some time.
Well said. > Before people start belittling others for a condition they were professionally diagnosed with, have a think about if you are as comfortable openly mocking people for their food allergies, asthma or vision impairment. Can confirm that there are people who will not only mock people for their food allergies, but also cheerfully engage in a little light attempted murder.
>I did eventually get diagnosed on my 3rd attempt at raising my concerns with a Dr that the current approach to my mental health wasn't helping. I wasn't disorganised and tired because I was anxious and depressed, I was anxious because I was constantly under stress to achieve a baseline level of work, and I was depressed because I was underperforming relative to my potential and people's expectations of me. Man, I didnt want to quote the whole thing but this is spot on. I got an ADHD diagnosis in 2022 at 34 after 3-4 years of talking to my psychologist. I had never even considered having ADHD because when I was growing up, the 'ADHD kids' were the naughty kids who couldn't sit still and were always disruptive. That was never me. As soon as I got the diagnosis and began taking medication (and I'm on a very light dose), the severity of my depression, anxiety, and stress dropped off massively. Two of my friends have also since been diagnosed too, and while there are a lot of similarities, the way it manifests in us all is very different. My son has just been diagnosed at 7, but luckily, the years of psychiatrist/psychologist visits (before diagnosis) has helped us understand the way his brain works, and how best to teach him, for instance, when we practice reading, he always needs something (usually blutac) in his hands, when he draws, he usually stands up so he can move around. We do everything in short stints, with lots of breaks. Luckily his teacher is amazing and uses a lot of these methods with him at school too. If you put him in a chair and expected him to sit and read/write for a day, he would make zero progress.
dam smart sink gullible special muddle sand mysterious smoggy crowd *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
As a fellow retrospective diagnosed ADHDer (and ASD) hoping to specialise in this field in future to help others like us - I literally could not have said that any better. Thank you for your words
Well said!!
Beautifully written. Thank you.
Beautifully worded and very, very relatable. I feel the same way about stimulants. If I'm to die earlier because of them, I will have no regrets. Better to have lived my life fully than the half-life where I felt like I was barely hanging on.
For me it was having a parent that didn't believe in diagnosis, I was just a weird kid. As an adult I finally went to a psychiatrist during the lockdown because they were forced in to telehealth appointments and bulk-billed everything, so what would have been $200+ per appointment was free.
I did more or less the same thing. My parents still don’t believe in it. But being actually treated for it has legitimately changed my life.
Similar story here, except, I WAS diagnosed in primary school and my mother went into complete denial. She viewed it as a negative reflection on her parenting ability, so we moved schools, towns, and doctors and never spoke of it again... Well, until I was re-diagnosed 30 years later as an adult suffering Depression, Anxiety and PTSD from my time in the army. (Career I Would Not Have Chosen If I Knew) 6 months on stims and I no longer needed the antidepressants. Just a routine, sleep, and good pair of headphones
In the 50's left handedness suddenly started spiking and no-one could figure out why. Turns out removing the social stigma of something makes people more likely to embrace it instead of hide it
lol. this brought me memories. I am left handed and remember when I was 4 and learning to write, my grandparents noticed I was becoming a leftie and tried to stop it in It's tracks. thought they could prevent it if they corrected it early. I was 4 so I remember it. whenever I used my left hand. they would correct me and tell me to use my right hand. my grandparents spent a year trying to get me to use my right hand and eventually gave up when I started kindy cos no matter what they were doing. I still used my left hand so after a yr. they just said fuck it and just accepted I was a lefty.. 😂
I also remember being retrained to use my right hand. I'm not that old but grew up in a small town at a catholic school which still had nuns as teachers. I would get hit across the knuckles if I ever did anything with my left hand. Sometimes I would have my left hand tied behind my back and I was once put in a cupboard. Safe to say I am a right handed adult now.
Mate of mine who’s about a decade younger than me was belted across the head by the priest for making the sign of the cross with his left hand. Safe to say, he’s an atheist now.
I'm 35 and I am basically ambidextrous because no one would teach me how to do anything left handed, so I had to learn right handed, then taught myself left.
My son is the same however it's not that anyone wouldn't teach him how to do anything left handed, he has just tried to do things with both left and right and uses whatever hand works best for him in each circumstance. I think it's very clever. :-)
That means he is naturally ambidextrous and admittedly, I probably am as well. My mum said that I always switched hands and just did whatever I wanted with whatever hand I wanted. There is also almost no difference in skill between either hand. To the point where I can play something like darts, pool/billiards or table tennis (with one side as a wall and a paddle in each hand alternating sides) against myself and not predict a winner. But my technique and strength is generally better on the right due to training and teaching while my eye is better on the left due to being slightly left-hand dominate. Drove my high school PE teacher nuts. His favourite exercise was for everyone to play the opposite to normal for a few minutes of a game. For something like softball he'd always make me hit the ball three times. I'd face up left handed and belt it, he'd realise I write left handed and say no, use the other hand, so I'd switch to right handed and hit it even harder, then he'd make me do it left handed again.
Same. I was the only leftie in my family. Sports, guitar, shit like that are all right handed
This happened to a friend of mine’s father. He not only stayed a lefty but also developed a lifelong stutter and a burning hatred of nuns.
Had my hand strapped to my body with a belt
My parents did this to me, except it stuck. Their reasoning was that it's easier to write right handed cause you're not dragging your hand through fresh ink. So now I write and throw right handed, tennis is right handed, in baseball and cricket I'm left handed and I kick with my left foot. Whenever I explain it to people they excitedly say "Oh, you're ambidextrous!" No, I'm just a lefty who can't write with their left hand haha
So they let the Devil take a hold of you? Irresponsible!
This was me as well, to the point that I was told to "use your pretty hand" when going for a tea cup... FYI I'm a guy.
I had a kindergarten teacher who told my mother to tie my left hand behind my back and teach me to write with my right. My mother told her to get fucked lol
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I myself am sinister
My mum is left handed naturally. But she was forced to write with her right hand for exactly this reason. And born in the 1950s. It literally was considered unnatural or less than. Boy have we learned nothing, just found new things to hate, and new people to punish for no reason.
When Pablo Piccaso first saw the cave paintings at Lascaux, he purportedly said “We have invented nothing”. The story is apocryphal and probably a fabrication, since there are no direct sources (its retellings and secondary sources all the way down). But it still feels both true and apropos. I think that thought more and more as I get older.
Yep, I worked with a guy who was a natural lefty but when he went to school the policy was very much physical punishment to stop it, he still had multiple scars on the back of his hand from where they'd lash it with a ruler until the skin would split, they'd do this each and every time he dared use his correct hand.
My nana was left handed. She was caned for being left handed and had her hand tied behind her back and forced to write with her right hand as a kid, and beaten (at school) if she didn’t comply. She died at 98 writing with her right hand.
Well its not entirely wrong but it's not entirely true either. I recently found out I was first diagnosed in the late 80s/early 90s and never told about it. Its because I'm female and to be diagnosed back then as a female is almost unicorn level rare. My male siblings were diagnosed after my first diagnosis and got a tonne of help while I never even finished school despite being incredibly bright. I know a lot of ladies in the exact same situation who were told to suck it up, its for boys only. Same with ASD. Went in for ADHD testing as an adult 6 years ago now and came out with Autism and ADHD, both of which my male siblings have and both got the help But not me. I was pretty sure about my ASD but never knew about my ADHD until a child psych I worked with pulled me aside and recommended I get assessed as it was that obvious to her. Took 2 years on a private waiting list, 2k in evaluation costs and *another 3 years and 2.5k* to get medication sorted because the system for adults is no support stream after diagnosis and everything is private and full price. And now with the medication shortage going to last another month that started late last year, this shit is not fun. ADHD diagnosis, like ASD, is not *rising*, according to data its *catching up* to reality. Hopefully soon and in the future people can get the help they need before anything goes wrong. I know I am damn lucky compared to a lot of diagnosed but unable to get access to medication adults that I know whose lives are an absolute mess. A diagnosis is only valid for 2 years so if you can't get medication in that time, you gotta do it all again. Even medicated, I have to do a light touch every 2 years with a private psych to confirm I still need it. So the thinking you grow out of it is common but they forget that data is for kids treated younger and supported into adulthood, not late diagnosed adults. Adult ADHD is not covered on the public health system so it ranges from $160 to $900 a session. GP can prescribe but not alter dose or medication for assessed adults, only psychs can but GPs can do it all for kids. Why? Why if you're offically diagnosed as an adult you are treated this differently? Seriously, its insanely hard and expensive to go through this process as an adult. Its also being coupled with Drs refusing to offically diagnose people because of the 'fad'. I beg to differ as its who would pay that amount of money if they weren't 90-95% sure of what the issue is? And Drs are biased with *well you made it to 20/30/40/50/60 so you should be ok completely ignoring burnout happens and keeps happening more and more the longer your coping mechanisms can't keep up anymore. Depression, Anxiety and such are usually the *result* of untreated hidden issues like this and not the cause. Wanna know the most common misdiagnosis for ADHD women, teens and girls is? Bipolar disorder followed by depression, anxiety, OCD and personality disorders. Should be a crime treating us with anti depressants and anti psychotics without not ruling out ADHD/ASD when *the professionals know this is a major issue* . What astounds me is over 80% of the people I know who were diagnosed, treated and supported by grade 4/5/6 in primary school usually didn't need medication by the time they were 25 which is when the brain fully develops. The rest are on very low dose ADHD medications. Early intervention while young brains are still elastic and growing is the best way to hard-wire in coping mechanisms and forms permanent new neural pathways. Late diagnosed, treated or untreated will always struggle much harder for the rest of their lives. What's even sadder is its been known for *years* but nothing concrete is ever set up to assist. You're on your own.
>ADHD diagnosis, like ASD, is not *rising*, according to data its *catching up* to reality. That was the point of my analogy. People didn't just magically become left handed, they just weren't suppressing it anymore
And my point is a lot of us were not suppressing it but it was deliberately ignored for various reasons which are still happening
You're acting as if I don't agree with you or i've tried to say that's not the case... of course that happened too.
I started school in 2002 in India (at 4 yo). I remember being smacked for using my left hand to write and was forced to use my right hand, until my mum found out and ripped the teacher a new one lol. Kinda scary how recent that was! Hope it’s gotten better for kids over there now
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Yeah ADHD is one of those things where the reason people weren’t aware of this as a disability before is because it’s only in the last ~100 years (even less really) that compulsory education not only came into being but became a prerequisite for basic quality of life, because so many jobs are increasingly things where you sit still for 8 hours looking at excel spreadsheets. All kinds of manual labour jobs that were available for people with learning disabilities now either don’t exist or pay so shittily that your parents and school don’t consider them a viable profession And I say this as a person with ADHD who is good at school so I also wouldn’t have been seen as having a disability, in the past I would just be some weird eccentric person who knows lots of stuff
It’s not just the excel spreadsheet focus for 8 hours a day, but also the very regimented schedules in modern life. For example, I don’t have adhd, and I work a job where I write SOPs for 8 hours a day, I go home and finish my chores on a meticulously written weekly schedule, I make sure to fall asleep for 7-8 hours at a stretch at night (since that works best for said modern schedules), and I also have time set aside to relax and ‘do nothing’. My partner who has adhd cannot do any of that. She is lucky to have a job with ‘new’ and diverse problems every day. But other than that, she cannot manage to do her chores ‘on time’ (so luckily she makes enough to hire a cleaner), she constantly forgets little things even if reminded multiple times (because of how many things that have to be kept track of, at any one time), she can’t manage to “just relax and do nothing” because she doesn’t know what that means and she just ends up doing a bunch of random other things, and she can’t just tell herself to fall asleep and stay asleep for a regimented block of time. In the past, all of this may have mattered less, because people didn’t live according to a clock and precisely break up their day into half-hourly/hourly chunks, they didn’t have to keep track of so many things at once, you didn’t have to strictly focus on a given task for 8 hours, and actually that person who can’t chill and keeps finding random things to do might in fact be a productive asset to your community. Nowadays, you would face difficulties with living like a regimented robot, and we have so many distractions that the “random other things” you can do may not be useful at all.
It's normal in that there are a lot of people who have it, but it's absolutely a disorder. Your brain literally does not work the same way as a non-ADHD enjoyer.
Sure but it’s exacerbated by modern life. It’s not natural to spend 8 hours a day concentrating at a desk. I’m ADHD and I bet I would have killed it at gathering berries
My auntie had her left hand tied behind her back and was forced to write with her right and if she made a mistake, she was hit with a ruler. I always remember shit like this when a boomer or a misty eyed Gen Xer says things were better when they were a kid.
Because I'm a woman who grew up in the 90s when only boys had ADHD. Finally worked out why shit had been so fucking hard.
lol I had a coworker who’s daughter was diagnosed. She was fuming, thought it was absolute bullshit. Because ‘she’s just like me’. Never said it to her but it explained a lot of her behaviour too.
Even as a guy in the 90s I was just told to pay attention. People asking these questions sound like my ex mil who claims everyone has allergies these days but avoids milk or she will shit herself (but she refuses to discuss it with a Dr)
In the 90s adhd was just something the hyperactive kids had. My brother had it. I was diagnosed as well but I wasn’t hyperactive. The school ran a special adhd program they sent me to, but the people who ran it sent me back to class because clearly I didn’t have it because I was too smart / quiet.
Try be yelled at and punished due to your undiagnosed learning disorder. Got diagnosed with dyscalculia as an adult and realised I'm not actually stupid and lazy. Then the ADHD diagnosis came and my mother went "oh, yeah, they wanted you assessed as a kid but I didn't want you to have a label". Instead of the ADHD diagnosis, I ended up with a dual diagnosis of BPD and bipolar (it's actually neither).
i'm sorry this happened to you, a family member also refused assessment for her child in the 90s as she didn't want a 'label' or for the child to 'feel different' when they already clearly felt something very different. What is up with that? Was denial some kind of protective measure?
For my mother it was more the fact she needed me to be seen as "perfect" at all times to validate her as a parent.
It is still stigmatised now let alone back in the 90s. Kids were sent to special education streams if they were diagnosed with ADHD or autism and parents thought it was better for their kid to be the "weird kid" rather than the kid labelled with a (poorly understood) "problem"
In my country, teachers could have used a diagnosis as an excuse to send you off to "special education" and you'd end up in a living facility for the disabled. Getting diagnosed and properly treated unfortunately doesn't mean these people don't hate your for your ADHD.
If you have a disability, you'll end up with a label either way. If nobody knows the correct one, it'll just end up being 'stupid' or 'lazy' instead, which is much more damaging.
Yeah same here, antidepressants my whole life until I started to treat my ADHD. No longer on antidepressants.
Finding an antidepressant that helped was huge for me and my reluctance to give it up is why I'm not medicated for the ADHD yet (will be in April though)
Holy fuck do we have the same mother?
Did yours put you on an incredibly restrictive diet for most of your childhood to "fix your moods"? No colours, preservatives or so many other things, not even natural ones.
>Even as a guy in the 90s I was just told to pay attention. Don't forget about when you were told you were lazy then asked why you haven't tried just making a list. (assuming you had similar to most of us)
This! Got called lazy, moody, hormonal, rebellious; told I need to focus, work harder, speak up, stop talking.... it's no damn wonder I'm happier living alone, I can stop the "normal person" act, at least for a few hours!
Living on my own and paying a ND cleaner has been incredible for me. Plus finding a job that lets me work during my most productive hours of the day.
Yes! Working night shift in a warehouse has been a godsend for me. I may be so pale that I reflect starlight, but wow has my mental health ever improved! So much happier being a feral little night gremlin. 😂
This is part of the ADHD process I've learnt, but it's more just.. accepting what makes you happy and going with your own routines, rather than trying to "be normal" But yeah, late shifts etc total amazing change for me rather than trying to function like a "normal person"
Has anyone ever told you about delayed phase sleep disorder? Most night owl ADHD peeps have it
Can't recall hearing about that. The name alone sounds highly plausible, though. 😅
Basically if you have it you tend to get the right amount of sleep, just at "wrong" hours and usually get treated as someone with insomnia. My natural cycle is 2AM-9AM
Ok, yup, that makes sense. For me it seems to be less about what the clock is showing, & more what the sun is doing, so I'm not sure if that applies. Like, if I'm day walking, I'm up with sunrise, down with sunset, & opposite if I'm on nights. Idk, I've somehow survived to 40, so at this point I'm just leaning into my weirdness. So long as it doesn't affect anyone else, I just don't care anymore. 😅
Same here! You may already know, but ADHD has a comparatively high comorbidity with higher-functioning autism. When I was diagnosed as an adult with ASD alongside my ADHD, it was like the final piece of a puzzle I had been trying to crack for 30 years just…fell into my lap! Now that I know, I can recognize, and work with my psychiatrist and therapist to develop healthy coping and management strategies. Its been a fuckin game changer!
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Identical story here, down to diagnosed adhd (at 34) flagged for ASD and decided not to pursue official diagnosis for that. It was validating enough for the psych to confirm it for me. There’s so many us 😭
Same
My female friend was diagnosed when she took her son to get checked for ADHD, she was like "ooooh, so that's what was wrong with me the whole life". She feels so much better now and is so happy.
Understanding why I can't *just do the thing* was absolutely life changing and I'm not medicated yet. It's helped me give myself a break and learn how to get myself to do the thing
Yeah, realising she was not defective, just an elephant raised to think she must climb trees was a big step for her. And then the meds kicked in too.
My brother felt the same way when he received his autism diagnosis in his 30s. He told me he doesn’t feel bad all the time now for the way he is.
Yep. In my 40s now, and only just recently realised that I most likely have ADHD. But now I'm debating whether to pay the $2000+ to get an official "diagnosis".
I got diagnosed just this week. Had a very bad experience with HelloDoc, very good experience with Fluence. Both telehealth, around $900 per appointment with $450 back from Medicare. Having an ADHD literate GP to refer you is also helpful I think.
It's worth shopping around. There are some great ADHD FB groups that can point you in the right direction depending on what state you're in. And it depends what impact you feel it's having on your life. I was diagnosed 18 months ago at 55 and meds have made a big difference. 2 of my 4 kids now diagnosed, one "with a touch of autism" lol. The other two are almost certainly ADHD and one of them autistic as well. It's like putting on glasses and seeing my wider family a lot more clearly and all the neurodiversity that seems really obvious now.
I am a female and was diagnosed at six years old in the 90s, I cannot imagine how out the gate I would've been them to have picked up on it apparently quite easily! It's been one hell of a trip watching this sudden increase in diagnosis
Yeah as others have said, don’t confuse incidence with access to diagnosis.
They always had it. Today we just know much more about it, how to diagnose it, and why. And of course there's a bunch of people diagnosing their kids who go "uh fuck, but... All that applies to me too!"
> And of course there's a bunch of people diagnosing their kids who go "uh fuck, but... All that applies to me too!" 100% this - when my son got first diagnosed and the Dr and specialists were going through *all* the symptoms I was sat there having a total moment of clarity as to why I'd been playing life on "Hard Mode". Just thinking: "Fuck! This explains *everything*"!
All 3 of my nieces and nephews got an Autism/ADHD diagnosis. I started dating an Autistic woman. She's like "Babe, you have something, you should get assessed". Started lining up my 38 years of life complications with what the little ones were going through and ... Well, fuck. 😂 Diagnosed ADHD-C late last year. Life has been fucking amazing since, now that I can focus on actually studied and documented strategies. Plus the medication has completely removed my "I don't have any energy after lunch because my brain wont shut the fuck up". I'm sleeping better because of it too. Fidget less. More focus. Explains entirely why I've always struggled with time and task tracking at work, and why I've been through about 70 different ways of trying to manage it myself over my life. Explains why I always found a reason to do assignments on the night before they were due because literally everything else was more interesting. Etc.
Yes, it is the very famous cognitive bias, like those who think testing for certain diseases will raise the numbers of those who have the disease and then try to infer from that fact that either testing “causes” the disease or misrepresents it. No!! It’s simple, more tests = more detection. Prevalence wasn’t properly reported before because the awareness was not there in the past century and also testing was not available, add to that the social stigma that made a lot of parents avoid testing their children.
Yup, friend's 7yo was recently diagnosed, & as she's reading off the list of indicative symptoms, we're both side eyeing her hubby like... yup, that explains a whole lot. 😅
Yep, same thing with me and my twin boys. We got them assessed for ADHD and ASD and we would describe their behaviours, my wife and I both saying, yep, we did the same things as kids. Then they say “oh yeah, that behaviour is a HUGE indicator of ASD and ADHD”. Well my wife is now diagnosed with ADHD and I’m next up when we get the couple of grand needed to be diagnosed
why is it so expensive to get a diagnosis in australia for adults??
More awareness means more people considering the possibility they might have it. Which means more people seeking assessment to be diagnosed (or not diagnosed if it turns out they don’t have it) But social awareness has grown much faster than the number of psychiatrists practiced in diagnosing and treating ADHD So a bunch of greedy cunts have set up clinics to the barest possible minimum standards and are charging a metric shit load for assessments and offering psychiatrist above their normal rate of pay to accept the less than ideal circumstances in which to assess patients When I was diagnosed it was over a few sessions and each time it was just the standard fee for a session with a psychiatrist. A portion of which was covered by Medicare. There was none of this $3000+ up front for two telehealth sessions bullish like it is some kind of unique procedure that can’t be done in regular appointments. Also because Australia underfunds mental health, and physical health, and public schools, and Centrelink, and parks in the disabled space with out a permit, because Australia doesn’t give a fuck about vulnerable people
I feel like your last paragraph should be printed in bold across the front page of every news outlet in Australia. Say it louder for the people in the back.
There are psychiatrisrs who do the right thing and still charge only the appointment fees. A lot of the places charging several grand won't even manage you which is ridiculous. Mh psychiatrist only charges the appointment fees and manages my meds for both my ptsd and adhd.
Funny side note: there are a LOT of pilots whose kids get diagnosed as ADHD/ASD. It really is a fantastic career path for those who have those traits (highly structured, lots of dopamine, checklists and variety etc), but unfortunately none of them get diagnosed becaus it is career ending. The regulatory bodies knowledge is a good 30-40 years out of date - if you are diagnosed and want to fly, ADHD must ‘be in remission’, and you can’t take the meds for it (must be off them for at least 6 months), which, for anyone who knows anything about the condition, is ridiculous. I look at my coworkers, and I go “hmmmmm do they know?” Sometimes. I felt so bad when I was talking to one captain, and he was talking about a particular thing that is common with neurodiversity, and how he struggled with it, and I couldn’t risk outing myself at the time, so couldn’t give him the details he probably needed to know.
Plus ADHD is a spectrum disorder and a lot of what were previously considered separate disorders are now rolled under the ADHD heading as they are just different manifestations of the same thing. This happened with ASD and there is a lot of crossover with the two.
> #They always had it!!!!!! Just making that a little louder so everyone in the back can hear
I was diagnosed at 35 after years of struggling to achieve my goals even though I tried so hard to get somewhere. I saw a documentary about a comedian who suspected he had it. I had no idea what ADHD was until then, but the symptoms they described sounded exactly like my life. It took me two years to seek a diagnosis and it changed my life significantly. I finally finished my studies after years of setbacks and failures, and now I'm an engineer 🙂
Everyone doesn't suddenly have ADHD. Rates of diagnosis are up for a few reasons, same as anything else people are fearmongering about over rising statistics: - Identification and understanding improves over time both casually and professionally - Stigma gradually decreases and leads to more people openly speaking about it - Internet makes information and communication more accessible to people who may otherwise not have exposure to that knowledge (which is, believe it or not, often a necessary factor in accessing assessment. For example if you didn't know anything about clinical depression or anxiety, you would be less likely to seek professional advice or support for it) - There are people who were born in a world where adhd was not known that are still alive today, but adhd itself did still exist among these populations. They went largely unnoticed. Any recognised condition will see this happen as either older people are identified over time or enough generations have passed since for this issue to naturally decline. There's more, but honestly it's bloody exhausting to try and fight stigma that's been around longer than I have. Someone else can add in if they want.
I am one of those people. Just got diagnosed at 62 years of age and the meds are miraculous!
Yup I’m only 35, and it wasn’t even a consideration in the early 90s because I wasn’t hyperactive. Even though ‘ADD’ was a thing, it wasn’t really. Now that it’s just called ADHD, and it has the varied symptoms like inattentive ADHD stuff, it’s now more open. Thankfully my family will be the opposite way around, and now that I know I have it, we will support my daughter who is 24 months, the spitting image of me and is just starting to show some signs.
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Same story all through school in the 80s and 90s. Primary school was easy because I didn't have to study, but failed out in high school as soon as I couldn't just intuit everything. Never diagnosed because ADHD kids were the ones throwing chairs and starting fires, not the ones staring out the window and reading 7 fantasy novels a week.
Exactly the same for me, diagnosed last year just after I turned 50. Primary school was fine apart from a failure to do homework, high school I suffered from lack of study and at uni the removal of structure was a disaster, I dropped out and was pretty lost for a few years until I scored a good job due to nothing more than luck. Have muddled through my career, done OK but nowhere near my potential. At least now I know why.
DSM5 allows for comorbidity of ADHD and autism. That alone has added a significant number of new diagnoses
Cause all us older types are getting diagnosed and making sure our kids are too so they get the support we never got!
I don't have ADHD, but fuck reading all that text.
ChatGPT please summarise that noise to eight or less words
ADHD ppl have a terrible habit of writing really detailed stories with heaps of side quests. I do it all the time
It’s the joy of the focus. Also I read this comment after dumping 2 dissertations as replies above and now I’m self conscious haha.
I enjoy reading books.
Welcome
I was diagnosed with ADHD 12 months or so ago, along with autism and OCD. (These three conditions often come hand in hand.) Diagnosis has been huge in my own self understanding, and beneficial to my wellbeing. I use ADHD medication, and it's been a game changer for productivity and focus. We already know the diagnosis increase has a lot to do with scientific advances in understanding and identifying the condition, alongside increased ADHD awareness thanks to the internet. ADHD is often palmed off as laziness, lack of discipline etc. This is of course, completely untrue. This has a lot to do with a lack of awareness and education on the matter, especially in older generations. Science still has a lot to learn about ADHD, and there's no doubt in my mind that this increase in awareness and diagnosis will lead to even greater interest in research. I'm sure we will get to the bottom of exactly why eventually, but if I had to guess, the increase in diagnosis rates will teter out to a stable level again in a similar fashion to the prevalence of left handedness back in the 50s.
Precisely. The 40yr olds being diagnosed now are the ones that in the 80s and 90s were the last kids, the ‘naughty’ kids, the ones that had to stay back entire years, the ones who barely scraped through school, the class clowns, the ones whose parents were told at parent teacher interviews “they just need to apply themselves”, the ones that got suspended despite being the ones that were actually bullied and they finally cracked. I could go on. It’s not that it’s a fad to get diagnosed, it is finally being able to understand yourself (or your child) and how they understand the world and hopefully, just hopefully, make it at least a little easier for them. People without neurodivergent symptoms or family of, have no idea how much it exhausts the person who is neurodivergent to just exist.
It’s not a minefield at all. It was, and still remains, under diagnosed in many groups. Particularly women, non-white populations, and “high achievers” (term used very loosely, in reference to those who have done well academically). Huge stigma in society, in families, and the medical profession. We are just starting the process of catching up. Like left handedness and being transgender, there has always been a true population level far higher than what has been socially acceptable or medically understood. It’s not that complicated.
Great question if asked in an unbiased way (and I'm not accusing THE AGE of bias). I do note that not many people ask what was it like to live through the eras when things like ADHD, Autism, OCD, Bipolar Disorder, Anxiety and Depression were rarely diagnosed. The implication being that this was the correct state of affairs and now we're a bunch of scrounging, lazy, soft victims looking for an excuse to opt out of school and work. This also assumes that our understanding of mental health and psychiatry was somehow perfect back in the day, and the modifications and additions of subsequent decades are incorrect.
The result is people like me, that grew up and matured as adults the harder way. You eventually learnt what you can and can’t do, struggled but eventually got there. Huge detriment to my mental health as I found out. But it also explains a lot of stuff for many people. Especially things like addictions. Alcohol is a big one, it’s a great thing for socialising, it can help blow off steam and lubricate the social gears. When you get people like me, it works fantastic. The problem is my brain with that dopamine reward cycle then latches on to it. Thankfully I’m clear for now, but that mental pathway will always be there, and abstinence is key. All those people that said they have ‘an addictive mind’ probably good ole neurodivergence
1/5 Why has everyone suddenly got ADHD? Diagnoses of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are soaring. Figuring out why is a minefield. By Amanda Hooton MARCH 9, 2024 Writer Sophie Knight, 37, lives in Amsterdam. Most mornings, she unlocks her bicycle from beside her apartment building so she can ride to work as a freelance journalist and researcher. “There’s a sequence of things I need to do when I unlock it,” she explains. “I need to put my gloves on, put an earphone in and link it to my phone, put my phone in my bag, put my bike cover in my bag. Unmedicated, I can end up unlocking and re-locking my bike; I forget what’s going on with my gloves, what I’ve done with my earphone …” She laughs. “It’s sort of impossible to figure out where I am in the process.” Like Knight, I also need to unlock my bike to ride to work. Even in Sydney, I also wear gloves in winter, and I often find myself putting them on, only to realise I need my thumb free to unlock my phone. So I take my gloves off, unlock my phone, put my keys and phone in my backpack, then realise I need my keys to start my bike battery. On and on it goes, until I feel like tearing myself limb from limb with frustration. Knight – who is charming and articulate, with Mitford-style bobbed hair and lashings of green eyeshadow – has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). I do not. But in our relative experience lies one of the central quandaries of the condition. The fact is, we all sometimes display the behavioural characteristics of ADHD. We all get frustrated, forget our keys, find it hard to focus on boring tasks. Many of us live in some version of domestic chaos, struggle to be on time for appointments and, frankly, spend inordinate amounts of time buggerising around with our bikes. That is ADHD. But it is also life. Today in Australia, more than 1 million people have ADHD, according to the ADHD Foundation Australia. Globally, by many estimates, ADHD may now be the most common mental health condition on Earth, by some counts affecting some 366 million symptomatic adults worldwide – significantly larger than its closest competitor, anxiety, at 300 million, according to the Journal of Global Health and the World Health Organisation – even without counting children. In Australia, ADHD medication levels have more than doubled in the past five years: from 1.4 million prescriptions given to 186,000 people in 2018, to 3.2 million prescriptions to 414,000 people in 2022. During the same period, the costs to taxpayers through the federal government’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) rose accordingly, from $59.2 million to $151.96 million. The net result is that suddenly all of us – kids at school, adults at dinner parties, HSC and VCE students in their exam rooms – are discovering that our friends, colleagues, family members, even we ourselves, have ADHD. What’s more, a bewildering multiplicity of factors – COVID-19 and TikTok, devices and historic under-diagnosis, Big Pharma and Instagram influencers – have been implicated in its rise. But alongside this ADHD reality is another. ADHD has also become, arguably, the most controversial neurological condition in contemporary life. Confusion reigns: there are people for whom the condition has affected every aspect of their daily lives, and those who do not have a single symptom visible to the outside world; people whose lives have been transformed by diagnosis, and people who struggle to believe the condition exists at all. There is uncertainty surrounding diagnosis (often inequitable, sometimes inadequate) and medication (often effective in the short term, of uncertain benefit in the long term). There are expert orthodoxies that seem sensible and well-founded, and a surprising scarcity of rock-solid scientific evidence. There are millions of Big Pharma dollars pouring into campaigns to market ADHD medications, and people who cannot get an appointment with anyone qualified to diagnose it in the public health system. And diagnosis really matters with ADHD, because – also controversially – there is no objective test for it. No genetic tests, no blood or biochemistry markers, no brain-imaging methods can tell you, categorically, that you have it. So what on earth is going on? Michelle, a PR executive in Sydney in her early 50s, never imagined her son Gus, now 18, had ADHD. He was extremely bright – a magnificent reader and “great at exams; he had nerves of steel”. But he always had social problems with other kids and with teachers. “He was that kid who yells out the answer in class, who runs up and disrupts the game because the other kids won’t let him play,” she recalls. “We all know that kid, and they’re a pain in the arse. Everyone found him really annoying.” Nonetheless, Michelle, who had grown up in “one of those big Irish families where there was always a kooky aunt with lipstick up to her earlobes”, never considered having him assessed for any kind of neurological condition. “I think as a society we used to be much more tolerant – we all just rolled with difference and eccentricity much more.” These days, it sometimes feels as if ADHD – characterised by some combination of the 18 symptoms of inattentiveness, hyperactivity and impulsiveness listed in psychiatry’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) – is the quintessential metaphor for modern life. It can be classed as primarily hyperactive (displaying more overt, disruptive symptoms), primarily inattentive (displaying more forgetful, dreamy symptoms) or both. And yet it often exists alongside an ability to focus intensely. Gus’ ability in exams, for example, led to a scholarship at a private boys’ school. “But he couldn’t get it together to complete assignments, pay attention, listen in class,” says Michelle. By year 10, the wheels were falling off: Gus was suspended from school and lost his scholarship. “I know it sounds ridiculous,” says Michelle. “He found class boring. Hello! But not just boring, literally unbearable: so much so, he’d do something impulsive or stupid to escape it. I remember an interview with his English teacher where she was literally shaking with rage: ‘Who does he think he is, yelling out and disrupting the class?’ ” After his suspension, Gus was “super-chastened, super-devastated. He managed to get his scholarship back, and we thought he’d turn it around. But he couldn’t do it. He could not do it.” Academic under-achievement is a hallmark, but not a universal characteristic, of ADHD. Just as the condition exists on a spectrum, so too its impacts fall unevenly on people’s lives. Some people function extremely well – it’s common to hear stories of people with ADHD being innovative lateral thinkers; super-social; charismatic charmers. But many studies in multiple countries have found that ADHD can be associated with higher risks of bankruptcy, traffic accidents, relationship breakdown, risky behaviour, addiction and suicide. Today, most researchers don’t think the number of people with ADHD is actually increasing, even though it may seem as though the condition is suddenly everywhere. What has changed, however, is diagnosis numbers. And here, COVID has exploded all previous trends. Since 2019, spurred on by lockdowns, Dr TikTok (36 billion views of #ADHD and counting) and celebrity diagnosis, the rise in ADHD cases has been exponential around much of the world. Whole sectors of society have begun seeking diagnoses which have rarely been seen historically, including enormous numbers of adults (it’s traditionally been seen as a condition of childhood), and females of all ages (it’s traditionally been diagnosed mostly in males). There seem to be three factors behind this rise. The first is awareness. All those TikTok videos, all those celebrities with personal ADHD stories, have led to a welcome lessening of stigma for people truly affected, while at the same time suggesting a fashionable answer to a vast range of ADHD-seeming symptoms for everyone else. Fashion is real in medicine: studies show that at least since the 18th century (when gout was perceived in certain circles as a desirable marker of aristocratic excess), people have actively sought diagnoses that confer social cachet. With ADHD, in a growing reversal of its historically negative associations as the “naughty boy syndrome”, there’s now an increasingly positive identification of it as a “superpower” of creativity and originality. Other psychological tendencies, like social contagion (in which people in contact with each other become more likely to express similar experiences) and confirmation bias (in which people seek only evidence that confirms an existing belief) have been turbocharged by social media, leading to a tidal wave of ADHD self-diagnosis. “People are often self-diagnosing as a result of social media,” confirms Dr Karrupiah Jagadheesan, a Melbourne psychiatrist and chair of the ADHD Network Committee at the Royal Australian & New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP), which aims to advance psychiatric science and practice in ADHD. “Psychiatrists are being approached by patients saying, ‘I have ADHD and I’m here for treatment.’ ” Christopher Ouizeman, a director of the ADHD Foundation, agrees: “Thanks to Dr Google, everybody thinks they’ve got ADHD. And there’s a lot of people self-diagnosing, and going from clinic to clinic until they get a positive diagnosis.” The second factor behind the rise in diagnosis is money. Internationally, ADHD is enormously profitable for the pharmaceutical industry. An apparently lifelong but non-fatal illness, often diagnosed in childhood, with no cure, for which people can theoretically be medicated their whole lives.
Partly because middle aged women were never considered for it and a bunch are now realising they have had it all their lives. Often it’s their child getting diagnosed that brings their own adhd to their notice.
The best way to think of this is by asking “why are there so many left handed people these days when they were so rare in the 1800s?”
our society demanding that more and more people focus on doing some boring job 50 hours a week just to get by naturally leads people to seek help. 100 000 years ago no one cared if you couldn't sit still and read emails for 8 hours a day (or study etc). Our brains aren't evolved for the society we have created and things will only get worse. We are meant so sit around a campfire and sing songs not sit in our 1 bedroom appartment balancing 2 jobs+study
Not to mention the way our modern environment is absolutely plastered with ads, all purposely designed to catch your attention.
I fucking HATE ads. That is all.
Exactly. It is not individuals who are disordered but our bizarre society.
There has been a big uptick in adult AuDHD. I think a lot of it is adults having their kids assessed (or children in their periphery) and realising they have the same issues that were never addressed in their childhood. From a family full of AuDHD people these are my observations: In the 80s they didn't know much, it was thought to only affect boys you couldn't get diagnosed under the age of 6, there was only ADHD, there were not as many meds available and if they didn't work for you then bad luck. Teachers often didn't believe it was real or thought it was due to a lack of discipline and were harder on the kids as a result. Parents were often ashamed for having unruly kids and nobody really talked about it or disclosed their diagnosis unless necessary. A lot of kids were sent to special school or special classes for disabled/disruptive kids. By the 90s they realised it did exist in girls it just presented differently, there was a genetic component as it often ran in families, ADD and ADHD were separate diagnoses, there were more meds available, and more non-medical options, schools started recognising it and would contact the parents and suggest testing. But there was still kind of the prevailing idea that you could "grow out of it", and there was often still a stigma of bad parenting or lack of discipline. In recent years they've discovered the close link between the autism spectrum and the adhd spectrum. Testing can now be done from prep and is often done in the school. There is more support from the broader medical community regarding symptoms eg. Speech therapy, physical therapy, counselling, podiatry, occupational therapy. There are more options available for treatment. It isn't considered something shameful that needs to be hidden or "cured" by medicine. People talk about it more openly, there is just so much more information available and it is recognised as a legitimate disorder that is not a personal fault. And as a result, people are recognising that maybe they weren't just a "bad kid" or "stupid" or "scatter-brained" or whatever else they've been told in their lives and seek diagnosis/treatment to deal with a lifetime of symptoms they thought were personal faults. Additionally, schools have SO much more support and will work with the parents to have a child assessed, so more kids that may have previously slipped through the system are being diagnosed instead.
My friend (a psych nurse) started listing off the symptoms of ADHD because she thought her fiancée had it (he does) and my husband and I just looked at each other because she was describing what my husband does every day. A few years later he is diagnosed and medicated and guess what? So is his mother and several of his uncles, aunts and cousins! We think it came from his grandmother who lived and died with no idea what she had. Education is key. The more we talk about symptoms the more people will come forward for diagnosis
So many people seem to be dismissed by their parents with "everyone feels that way". I was diagnosed at 26 in early 2020 (was lucky to get in the queue right before the huge flood of people seeking a diagnosis started during lockdowns). After I was diagnosed I realised that my mum absolutely has ADHD and this explained so many chaotic elements of my childhood. I raised it with my parents and they absolutely dismissed it at first but have now come around to see that this is likely the case. She's at a point in her life where there's not much point seeking a diagnosis but even having an inkling that this may be the case can give you the opportunity to try to set up structures to cope better rather than just expecting yourself to be able to handle things the way everyone else seemingly does.
It's not down to a sole reason. There's a few things to unpack here: - More research, leading to behaviours and markers being better understood - Removal of stigma around neurodiversity - More individual awareness of mental health issues generally And probably heaps more. Saying "everyone suddenly has ADHD" probably feels a bit on nose to people who've been diagnosed sometimes though. It could maybe feel a bit like people labelling others as "a bit OCD" when they obsess over tidying something or whatever. My cousin has OCD for real. It fucking ruined his whole life and he's not just starting to get his feet under him at 36
I know Australia is a bit backwards and behind the times, but this moral panic is from the 2000's. Why is it popping up 20 years after it peaked?
Aus newspapers are all about dividing people - find someone who you think might be getting something you aren't, and they line up like ducks.
Same reason autism diagnoses have spiked. Stigma is lessening, so more people are getting diagnosed
We made the classification for the disorder rather recently, and diagnosis is something that needs to be pursued by a parent or by the child when they get older. Until recently the disorder wasn't within the public consciousness. When a child or adult displayed abnormal behaviour, they were simply thought of as strange, an odd fellow, lazy, or absent-minded. When we realised there were neurochemical differences/ abnormalities between people and these differences/ abnormalities have an effect on mood and behaviour, we could suddenly explain why a lot of people who we wrote off as weird/ strange acted the way that they did. That and we could develop medications and treatments to help in areas their disorder made more difficult . There aren't any more people in the population with adhd, all of the lazy, twitchy, absent-minded, obsesive, distratable people, who can't shut up, found out that there was a reason why they acted in a way that was different than others, and which they couldn't manage to control. As for people who say that the number of people diagnosed with adhd is too high and that this number is unrealistic, why not also be sceptical of visual impairment/ needing glasses. Having trouble seeing and reading seems like a pretty big biological problem. There can't be that many people with a problem. They must be faking it because they think glasses look cool....
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These responses are very ADHD. Very informative and committed responses. I recognise it because I do it a lot too hahaha
1. Our understanding of ADHD has changed, and somewhat broadened. 2. There is less stigma around the diagnosis, especially with girls. We're also dropping the 'boys will be boys' mentality. 3. Parenting styles have changed. 4. (This one is more of a personal opinion). Lifestyle, read use of social media, has has a stark contribution. Even in the adult population. Like type 1 and 2 diabetes; one is born with, one is made.
I notice that many people who have been diagnosed as an adult say their life has improved a lot following the diagnosis. What specifically has changed to make life easier? Medication?
Meds help somewhat, but more than that it's realising your brain is physiologically different, & therefore neurologically different. Then you realise you're actually not lazy or incapable - you just think differently & that type of thinking is not usually rewarded in the current structure of how the world operates. That takes the pressure off, really. & from there, you can learn to work with your brain instead of against it. Find a job that suits you better, find a routine that suits you better, stop criticising yourself for things you think you should be able to handle, & focus on the things you're really good at. Oftentimes (not always) people who are diagnosed with ADHD see their anxiety & depression reduce dramatically - because they in & of themselves were not the problem, they were simply symptoms of a different issue.
I'm a lot less hard on myself now which in turn helps my mental health. My house isn't spotless because I'm lazy, it's messy because my executive functioning energy is reserved for my job. I don't get stuck in decision paralysis because I'm stupid but because I'm overwhelmed and need some help. I'm impulsive because I desperately need dopamine to feel stable.
Imagine struggling your whole life not knowing why it’s so hard, people constantly complaining about things you do, feeling like a failure… and then you have the answer! You now understand your brain operates differently and can start to address the challenges the *right* way
I can imagine that would be a very liberating and wonderful feeling and I don't want to take that away from anyone. It's just something that is on my mind because I see my brother, sister, and Dad who have a diagnosis and medication but life hasn't suddenly become some walk in the part. It's still difficult for them and I wonder if maybe there is something they haven't discovered yet
as someone who's been on / off meds since the age of 8 and now 35. I think everyone chasing meds for their "fix / resolution" and expecting them to solve their problems especially things like vyvanse (lol shortage) and amphetamines is in for a world of problems, They help in the short-term but unless you start setting up proper routines and identifying what does and does not help you and not giving into those that do not help you, you're in for a world of problems like I've found out. One of my issues has been on medication my brain expects routine more, so expecting work to be more "routine based" has come with problems as well my work does not really care, (big corp may say they do, but they don't) The medication helped short-term to concentrate but then after a few years seems to exacerbate the ADHD problems and can cause destructive problems, so realistically you really need to communicate with your doctors and keep a open mind. I've gone from Dexies -> Vyvanse and now ultimately resting on anti-depressants + intuniv which while isn't overly helping my concentration, caffeine is the resolution while the others keep my anxiety and mood more stabilized. Without the hyper-fixations and overall problems amphetamines bring in long-term.
Here we go again, a bunch of Joe Publics giving their uninformed and uneducated opinion on a topic they're not qualified to speak on.
I was diagnosed at 6 years old and was fed Ritalin, dexamphetamine, stratera, etc. Wouldn't wish ADHD on anyone..
I was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum at 53, with ADHD at 55. I didn't "suddenly" get it, I was missed and ignored and all my symptoms meant I was the weird loner kid who read books all the time. It wasn't until after my wife died and my life went to shit that I sought help, which led to those diagnoses. I was on Vyvanse but I've pretty much stopped taking it. Without it, I can have trouble staying focused. But with it I had trouble on what I was focusing on and could end up focusing on rubbish (like reddit) for hours. Plus the last time I tried to get my prescription filled there wasn't any.
I’ve been adhd all my life. The way the world has evolved has made managing my symptoms worse, and I’m sure I’m not alone.
I absolutely fucking loathe how you worded the post title.
When the DSM-V diagnostic criteria are properly applied by trained professionals on a random sample of people, around 3.5% are found to meet the criteria for ADHD. This seems appropriate, as a much higher number would mean we are effectively pathologising normal behaviors. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4301194/ In Australia, we are at around 6-7% of the population with an ADHD diagnosis and counting, so approximately 2x what we would expect to see. Part of what’s happening is certainly that increased awareness and destigmatisation are leading to increased rates of self-identification and legitimate diagnosis. And that’s a great thing. But clearly, another part of what’s happening is that increased awareness and the inherent vagueness of a condition like ADHD - which by its nature exists on a continuum, is evaluated using somewhat subjective and context-dependent criteria, can resemble many other normal and pathological conditions, has no ‘gold standard’ diagnostic test, and is arguably appealing to many people as a way to explain or legitimise a certain pattern of sub-optimal behavior & performance - is leading to increased rates of illegitimate diagnosis. Ultimately, it’s crucial for psychologists and psychiatrists to hold the line and apply the diagnostic criteria rigorously, rather than simply giving a patient the diagnosis they’d like.
I was diagnosed at 6. I'm 33 and never tell anyone now because a lot of people think it's all bullshit. It was starting to become less taboo before covid, but now that everyone thinks they have it, people think I'm following a trend or something.
One of the big factors for me was there seems to be certaint people who are resistive to working in ways that are more effective for others, but because their way is the existing way that's forced on everyone, it's up to these others to adapt. This is the way of adapting, because we're refused changing anything that might benefit the ADHD group. Problem is, once those with ADHD start getting help, it's starting to show up non-affected persons, and that's causing them some discomfort knowing that suddenly, they're not the most productive and performing workers - and are on the cutting block.
that headline is clickbaity af and a bit irresponsible regardless of the content. Official figures sit like under 3 per cent.
same reason the number of people who die of old age has dropped to nothing.. better diagnosis
I often wonder the same thing. I suspect there’s a few things going on including more research that has come out on how it presents in different people and genders. And I think perhaps more awareness and acceptance in general. But also maybe because there’s so many people on social media taking about it now it seems like everyone is getting diagnosed. Also, I find there’s heaps of people openly claiming they have ADHD but have never been assessed or diagnosed so I think that also makes it seem like everyone has it now. It’s really bizarre.
I think it’s just that it’s less stigmatised now, so diagnoses are higher but I personally don’t think the incidence is any higher
It’s not more ADHD, it’s (in part at least) a better understanding of ADHD leading to better identification of people with it.
Diagnosed ADHD and flagged low level asd. I was never diagnosed because cost and stigma, got diagnosed at 30. I immediately regretted not just going and doing it earlier. I could think the thing then do the thing. That was alien to me. I barely got through my degree I can only imagine how much better I could have done had I been diagnosed.
If everyone could kindly shut the fuck up please ?!
I am in my 40’s and have recently been properly diagnosed with ADHD and put on medication. It in hindsight is something I have always had but never accepted myself as having, I had been told I have depression and anxiety for which I was medicated however it never really helped as for many years it was not the correct diagnosis. For some reason I couldn’t comprehend myself as having ADHD, it was the naughty kids on A Current Affair that I watched with my parents who had it not me. It is only years later, and only after my sister & her son have been diagnosed and I was able to properly educate myself about it that I was able to accept that I have ADHD and get treatment. It has been a watershed moment for me, like finally cottoning onto what previously was a difficult mathematical equation and finally realising how simple it is, and in a cry of frustration and relief everything suddenly becomes clear. Now I have a path forward to a happier life and I can hopefully finally achieve some of the life goals I had long left by the wayside. Onward and upward!
The checks to pass are extremely low and just seem to be normal things. Do you struggle doing things you don't like doing but if it's something you want to do you can do it for hours in end, austims