That's not to say that procrastination is not a symptom of ADHD. It is. But the modern world is built to distract even the normal, and most people are capable of developing bad habits.
Also, the actual ADHD diagnostic procedure is very involved (3-5 hours of testing that can cost upwards of 2k). A lot of diagnoses aren't actual diagnoses, and no one is qualified to make a Dx from a brief verbal assessment.
So long as we keep those cautions in mind, I agree that if a person thinks they might have ADHD, by all means look into the symptoms, do a little research and consider getting tested.
[FWIW this reply and "advice" is not directed at the parent, kobeya, but is a general point of information.]
And that is their loss. ADHD is very much a cause whose impact goes far beyond just procrastrination. It causes people to be terrible spouses who are never there when they are needed. It causes lost friendships through blinkered social conduct. It causes persistent self hatred and anxiety and depression.
"you might want to try behaviour change first"
This is such a, forgive the harshness, ignorant way of thinking about ADHD that it makes my blood boil. Behaviour change works when the person in question has the capabilities of making that change stick. This is the equivalent of telling a handicapped person to try b-mod to climb the stairs.
It. Just. Won't. Work. A shortage of persistence cannot be solved through more vigorous exhortations towards greater persistence. Here's how I think of the drugs. The drugs lay the platform so that I can implement the behaviour change. They don't let me study better. They let me start studying in the first place, at which point, all the best practices and behaviour modifications can come into play.
Meds have been absolutely indispensable for at least starting to implement good habits, extended focus, etc. And it's still a huge struggle.
*edit - of course, there is a level of individual responsibility as well.
I would add home environment (parents and siblings especially), culture, entertainment, friends, religion, sleeping habits, socioeconomic status... etc.
Just because ADHD causes other problems doesn't mean that ADHD itself comes out of nowhere. The previous post has a valid point that ADHD itself is a symptom of something else and that drugs aren't necessarily the best way to reduce/eliminate ADHD at the source.
Is that actually understood, though? We had the heavily promoted social consensus for a long while that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance, which is now seen as a somewhat disproven theory that never had much evidence.
From a video I linked elsewhere in this discussion:
Gallo, E. F., & Posner, J. (2016). Moving towards causality in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder: overview of neural and genetic mechanisms. Lancet Psychiatry, 3(1), 555-567. Konrad, K., & Eickhoff, S. B. (2010).
Is the ADHD brain wired differenctly? A review on structural and functional connectivity in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Human Brain Mapping, 31(1), 904-916.
You're putting yourself in an irrefutable position then.
But don't just take their word for it, have a look at the reference material in the video description.
Another interesting, and emotional, view of the effect of not being on meds from the same artist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD9qK8-sMGQ
The weird thing was I knew it all, but something hadn't connected in my thinking that it was better to do/make/release things than to not. The mind is weird place.
So sure, if someone is having trouble keeping up with the pace of their societally assigned hamster wheel and find stimulants help, sure, they should go for it. But they should not mistake that for an illness, any more than a person needing a step-stool to get to the top cupboard should think they have some sort of growth hormone deficiency. Artificial environments can require artificial compensation, but that doesn't mean there's some sort of medical problem.
Easier said than done though!
Your comment was a good reminder though. I right away googled for a mental clinic, picked up my phone and asked if they are able to diagnose adults. Now I have an appointment for next week.
I hope of course that I don't have it, but if I do, and if I actually can get medicine for it, and if it would actually change my life, a big thank you!
The next step is to try ADD medication and potentially undergo TMS treatment.
Glad I learned that there might indeed be something wrong with me. Now it’s time to fix that
I mean that literally with no hyperbole. ADHD manifests from an under developed or under stimulated prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for such task prioritization and decision making. Without stimulants I’m not really making conscious decisions about most things. Much like how you’ve probably driven your commute sometimes and arrived without really much memory of how you got there (“driving on autopilot”). That’s every moment of every day in the most extreme ADHD case (it’s a spectrum of course and you should seek treatment if you think you’re anywhere on it, even if the above sounds more extreme than you).
I am not saying you don't have a problem, because I also feel like someone who has ADHD and feel a lot like the author of the article.
But I also think that, just like the author, you can change your 'ADHD' by changing your behaviour.
Again: I dont want to put anyone down that is labelled with ADHD, but I think this culture is on it's way to create an ADHDer of everyone.
This part is severely misunderstood. If I don't sleep, eat, and exercise reasonably I completely lose focus. Taking adderall will help, but it treating the symptom rather than the cause. This looks like ADHD, but isn't.
If my children lack sleep and are overburden (thanks modern school system), it looks like ADHD, but it isn't.
Now, some people, children and adults, do have ADHD no matter how well they sleep, meditate, eat, and exercise. With our current understanding, their best bet is medication. But for the vast majority, they simply need to slow down.
However, when you have this condition as an adult... well, there is some level of plasticity in the brain, but it looks harder than just "change your behavior", it may be required to also treat the symptoms.
Exercise more, eat 'better'.
Do you know anyone with ADHD? When you talk with them and something happens, like a phone rings, their minds completely zoom out and they instead become focused on something else. It is not possible to continue the original conversation because they have forgot everything about it. It can be incredibly frustrating because it is like talking to a human gold fish. Although they can't do anything about it because it is just the way they are.
My point is that it is incredibly obviously a clinical condition and not something "behavior change" can fix.
thanks for sharing your experience
This is like telling depressed people to be happy or victims of violence with PTSD to 'grow a pair' and 'snap out of it'.
This is the kind of simplistic, unhelpful, shaming advice that keeps mental illness taboo.
Unlike "stop staying awake" which is not actionable.
A book might not be a good suggestion for everyone, and finding the right "off internet thinking environment" is not easy for some, but it's doable for most.
That's the problem: you think "stop staying awake" is not actionable, while "leave your phone at home" is actionable for a person with ADHD.
Again, this is not different than saying "just be happy" to a depressed person. To that person, in that moment, "stop wasting time on the internet" is not actionable just as much, otherwise it would not be a problem in the first place.
I'm not an insomniac; nor do I have ADHD, as far I know.
I assure you that I cannot action an instruction to 'stop staying awake'. I certainly can 'leave [my] phone at home', and frequently do.
It might go against the "just feed them drugs" mentality, but lots of times it totally works.
They had plenty of "traumatic stress" before the 21st century, in all parts of the world -- huge wars, conflicts, disasters, even genocide. But those involved (like older friends and relatives that have survived bombings and wars and dictatorship) also could grow a pair and snap out of it, and even thrive afterwards. I don't believe they had a different DNA or mental wiring back then.
At an FDA hearing on March 23, 2006, I testified: “Saying any
psychiatric diagnosis ‘is a brain-based problem and that the medications
are normalizing function’ is an anti-scientific, pro-drug lie” [ 14].
Yet this has become standard practice throughout medicine, for example, at the American Psychiatric Association [ 15], American Medical
Association [ 16], American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry,
American Academy of Pediatrics, Child Neurology Society, American
Academy of Family Physicians [ 17], FDA [ 13], and virtually all US
government health-care agencies.
Journal articles [ 6], press releases, ads [ 18], drug inserts, and
research informed consent documents say, or infer, that psychological
diagnoses are abnormalities/diseases. All patients and research
participants with psychological problems are led to believe they have an
abnormality/disease, biasing them in favor of medical interventions, and
against nonmedical interventions (e.g., love, will power, or talk
therapy), which presume, as is the case, that the individual is
physically and medically normal and without need of a
medical/pharmaceutical intervention.
Currently, depression is not diagnosed via objective chemical
tests, nor is treatment guided by any such tests. If depression did
result primarily from a known chemical imbalance, such tests
would likely be available and in widespread use, and depression
would be easily and quickly resolved for most patients.
Luckily, a number of effective interventions are available for
treating depression. Such interventions include a variety of
pharmacological as well as nonpharmacological approaches, sometimes
used alone and sometimes in combination with one another
To the contrary, I think the past generations of my family who have survived WW2 and Stalinism were, till the end of their days, heavily impaired by it. They "snapped out of it" to the degree that was required for not starving, but I would not say they had developed nearly up to their full potential.
In hindsight, it was painfully obvious with so many of them. And the number of functional alcoholics (with often a rather loose definition of "functional") was huge.
I'm talking more general war and civil war scenarios (e.g. having your city bombed, being in a war, having family members die in such scenarios, etc -- which have been common in many places in the developing world (and Europe).
But the constant terror of a concentration camp for months or years on end is another thing.
https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/schedules-arent-a-constraint-...
It's super distracting, but you can easily break out of it with being accountable for your time.
Nowadays I've found a healthy balance and am more productive / happy / successful than ever.
A lot of it had to due with following these 3 things too: https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/how-to-overcome-procrastinati....
No doubt though, being able to sit down and work 12 hours straight without eating, absorb a crazy amount of information... crazy. But then the come down/depression afterwards. Also the effects on your body, weight loss is cool but other stuff not so much.
In the case of someone recreationally taking stimulants, whether Adderall or methamphetamine/speed, they’re putting the control centers of the brain in overdrive which makes them feel pumped up and exhibit excited off-the-wall behavior.
In the case of someone with ADHD they have a deficiency that ameasured amount of the drug will address, bringing them back up to “normal” levels. Without the drug this might seem excited it off the wall with distraction, but this is due to a lack of self-control rather than too much stimulation. Even though the symptoms are nearly identical externally.
Hence the “paradoxical” effect on ADHD patients where the application of stimulants results in focused, normalizing behavior.
This is a great article and there’s plenty to talk about in organizational systems, even if this seems to be subtly pitching his own products in places. But if anyone reading this identifies with this sort of chronic procrastination, consider seeking psychiatric help. This is a giant red flag for adult ADHD, which is a serious and often misunderstood issue, and one of the few psychiatric diagnoses for which there is solid treatments (stimulants) with near universal efficacy and very few side effects. Getting on Adderall, then Vyvanse changed my life for the better, and basically solved this issue overnight, as well as a bunch of other benefits.