The lighter side of ADHD
Most people tend to develop coping mechanisms that help them pass as non-ADHD individuals, by lowering their standards for what they can achieve in life and by accepting the abnormally high amounts of stress that hiding their ADHD causes them.
Psychologists call this "growing out of ADHD".
“Gifted child, if only they’d apply themselves”, turns into “Average adult, not always reliable and my god have you seen their <thing we ignore because we don’t have the bandwidth> but usually gets things done.”
Took me getting fired from one job and almost a second before I finally got my coping mechanisms figured out. It's still a struggle and it's also cost me a significant amount of my ability to enjoy my free time (have to severely limit my investment in anything not work related so I don't accidentally get consumed by it and lapse at work), but I'm 'functional' now.
It's still a struggle and it's also cost me a significant amount of my ability to enjoy my free time (have to severely limit my investment in anything not work related so I don't accidentally get consumed by it and lapse at work)
This path leads to burnout. I have no practical advice since we are kind of required to put work first in order to survive. But the fact that it's socially acceptable to call this "living" makes me sick to my stomach.
The problem is that responsibilities seem to grow faster than I can create coping mechanisms...
To be fair, ADHD is a developmental disorder that sometimes can present as delayed development rather than halted development. I.e being behind in executive functioning development but eventually “catching up” to peers.
That said, the severity of cases is still often determined through the lens of “how well do they fit in/mask it” and not “how is their emotional/mental wellbeing”, which definitely gives the impression of kids “growing out of it”.
They don't necessarily lower their standards. Sometimes, they simply "pay" by other means.
what they mean by that is, "thank god they learned to mask the problem so they stop inconveniencing us"
Of course it got worse, I have to work now
Turns out that people don't "grow out of" physiological differences in how their prefrontal cortex forms. Who would have thought?! /s
I don’t have the ADHD. I am the ADHD.
Made this for ya while procrastinating
We're all reading this while procrastinating
I read this while not paying attention to an anime intro.
I'm reading this and zoning out
I don't think the ADHD necessarily gets worse, it's more often that the consequences get worse.
I.e. the intensity of the disorder relative to a given set of stimuli doesn't increase, but the average significance of the stimuli (and consequently the outcome of one's reaction to them) does increase.
You could argue that's a meaningless distinction, but perhaps it's a helpful change in perspective for someone.
That's a valid point. Although I'd add that, as you get older, it's not only the significance of the stimuli that increases, but the overall levels of stimuli increases. More responsibilities, more burdens, more stress, and less likely to be given any concessions due to being young.
No, it gets worse. Adults don't have the amount of mental plasticity that younger people have. While it's possible to make things easier through CBT and learning to cope and deal with certain challenges. The mental load of keeping up with daily life ultimately has its toll. Life is getting harder every year for everyone, and having ADHD makes that mental load just that much harder.
It can get worse after school because not having a schedule imposed on you means you're left to your own devices and will often focus too much energy towards the wrong endeavors. Building a routine of healthy habits and sticking to it can make a world of difference.
I visited my first psychiatrist this year and told him I have concerns that I was adhd.
I shit you not a fucking Dr of psychiatry told me that was very unlikely because they would've caught it when I was a child.
Fucking moron.
laughs in being born a woman (Obviously, I don't know what your gender is, I'm just speaking generally.)
Saw 3 psychologists (one was a student) and they all blew me off because I was an older woman.
Finally got diagnosed two and a half years ago in my early 60's.
The officially changed it in my country to be an syndrome diagnosable in adults as well the very year I turned 18. I'm not saying it HAS to be because of me, but yeah.
Doctor leaves appointment with Droggelbecher
"Get the Chancellor on the phone immediately."
You want me to pay bills? On time? Best I can do is rack up late fees.
Set auto payments for all the things!
Oh, my workaround for that is easy, just develop lifelong crippling anxiety and still forget about 10% of them anyways!
Yeah. I feel like it never bothered me when younger (he's "gifted and mature") but you get screwed later on when you have a 8-5 office job where you sit and stare for 9 hours. I can't focus on boring useless stuff like that. Unfortunately, the alternative is destroy your body doing manual labor to keep moving around. Plus. You make a lot more money sitting and staring at a screen. So just keep it bottled up and pretend you know what you're doing and don't feel like going nuts!
Man it got worse in ways i didn't think possible.
So convinced i understood myself and i actually masterminded my soul into stagnation...
..but a hand come out of the mud
Well, there is partial truth to this. Diagnosing especially preteens with mental health conditions almost always needs an asterisk, their brains are still heavily developing.
Remember that we know of no reliable genetic / physiological markers for ADHD, so when doctors diagnose it, they're really just saying that the amount of symptoms seems to be severe enough. Some kids are just naturally more energetic, intelligent, etc. and may appear like they have ADHD, but when they develop into adults that might not actually be the case.
If anything, it's more like 1/3 of kids were misdiagnosed as having ADHD, so they "grew" out of it because they didn't really have it. It's a lot less likely for an adult to be misdiagnosed because their brains aren't changing.
Great reminders about the lack of physiological markers. The (or one?) elephant in the room, to me - I'd phrase it as - to what degree a kid's just naturally well- or poorly-suited to the public school environment itself.
A child that finds it difficult to sit in one place and listen to words about abstract material for hours every day...I mean does that sound divergent in any way?
One of the fundamental markers of childhood in my experience is a certain...animation, just this almost irresistible urge to move around, negotiate whatever activity is occurring and in what way, with whoever is nearby...switching activities and modes of play fluidly. Seems like the most normal shit ever to me lol.
I do recognize we need a standardized way to educate our kids in a modern society, but as we learn more about young brains, we gotta start developing a more diverse way to accomplish the learning and development of self-discipline. The one-size-fits-all approach just obviously leaves many underserved, and worse, leaves them internalizing a lot of frustration with self, not to mention taking all kinds of drugs to "treat those symptoms".
It definitely got less hyperactive and more fogbrain, as I like to call it.
It bothers me that no one acknowledged that this can still be logically true. Of course if most people's ADHD goes away in childhood then it doesn't really logically mean anything to ask "most people you know with ADHD" because by definition, you will only be asking the subset of people for whom that isn't true.
You can't really survey the people for whom ADHD went away in childhood by asking all the people you know with ADHD because the people who would confirm the psychologist's claim are not going to be included in that survey.
Well yeah, if they got better, they wouldn't be someone you know with ADHD. Obviously
Which psychologists are those? A lot of the people I know that have only gone to apsychologist as an adult have been told, "wow did you know you've had ADHD you're whole life," and they're like "omg no but that makes so much sense."
Like I think it's more common to be an adult who doesn't know they have ADHD because they don't go to a psychologist, rather than having been a kid who was told they'd grow out of it by a psychologist, yah know?
I guess my point is this meme creates unnecessary stigma around seeing a psychologist, and you should see one if you think you should.
You just get better at masking the worst effects.
Edit:
The consequences are worse when you’re an adult.
If you miss homework assignments or forget a quiz when you’re a kid and you lose some grade points people give you shit, but if your parents aren’t abusive the consequences aren’t life damaging. People around you keep the guard rails up and try to help you atay pointed in the right direction.
If you’re constantly late for work, don’t get your taxes done, or forget your car registration renewal, these can get you fired or have big financial consequences. There are no guard rails in the adult world, just consequences.
Hmm I'm sure it's personal for each but me I feel like I didn't outgrow it. More like I overcame it.
…because if it got better, you don’t know about it?
Does learning how to deal with it, but still struggling more than an average person count as getting better?
Exactly. This sounds like selection bias in action. If you're sampling adults who have ADHD and asking if it's better from when they were kids, you've already skewed the results beyond repair. You need to follow kids with ADHD into adulthood and see if it gets better.