It's funny. People with ADHD suffer from attention deficit but at the same time they display hyperattention when they encounter a subject they like. I've experienced it as well: once I start programming I have no problem doing it for 12 hours straight. I've found this trait in many ADHD patients. There's usually something that really turns them on and I always try to find it.

I think of it as an signal/noise ratio problem. Very high signal is needed to grab their attention and there is very low tolerance for noise.

However it isn't until older age I finally been able to force my exert executive control to focus. It has taken a lot of practice and challenging myself and it wasn't until the age of 26 I finally been able to go to college. I keep challenging myself and I feel it get easier and easier every year.

So now I start to question the inability part. Or if it's something you can actually practice and get over.

Honestly, I think therapy had the least effect except realization what was wrong. Drugs I think helped the most.. lately it feels like they're not as good though, or I feel like I'm in a funk. I don't know if that's just life or being overworked or just I need a dose change. Maybe if I cut it cold turkey a week, then get back on it'd reboot or something.

TLDR: I just feel I'm getting off track a lot more lately than I was the previous 14 months. Not sure what I should do, maybe go back to therapy? Maybe focus more on mindfulness/stoicism? Up my dose of Vyvanse? Go back to the gym? All the above?

i also tried cold turkey for near a month in the hope it would lower my tolerance but sadly no such luck, it did however give me some spare meds with which to try the higher dose

My understanding is that tolerance is essentially inevitable when you're taking stimulants. I've made a point of checking in with a psychiatrist on a monthly basis so they can help me measure it semi-objectively and adjust if necessary. When resistance does start to develop, a psychiatrist will also have plenty of options for managing it; for example, I think that some people rotate between amphetamine salts, methylphenidate, and other stimulants over the course of several years. They'll also be able to help you figure out which other courses of action would be most helpful, figuring out what issues are actually causing you the most problems and how to address those effectively and so on.

TL;DR There are specialists for "I think my medication isn't working any more" and I'd strongly recommend talking to one, both for this specific problem and on an ongoing basis so you're not forced to try to observe your head from the inside.

There are many books on the subject of good exercises, and some therapists that specialise in helping adhd people.

This has nothing to do with ADHD.

> i would often under perform on the easier parts and over perform on the harder parts

It is very common that people with ADHD perform better on harder things and will have a problem focusing on simpler (and thus boring) problems.

it literally does have to do with it because it was part of the results of being tested for adhd. i had mentioned the iq thing because i meant to elaborate. it was explained to me that the testing is designed to be independent of iq. however, i am a little suspicious of that fact.

when i say performed well above average i meant that i fell statistically well away from results that point to adhd.

Those with ADHD spend 90% of their time imagining, thinking, doing everything and nothing. And to any observer they look stupid, or undisciplined, or lazy.

Like the hunt, when somebody with ADHD encounters an situation with very high (perceived) consequences, they will lock into intense hyperfocus, completely singular in their goal.

So the modes of operation are 1) philosophize and daydream or 2) hunt

Is this real? I have no idea, probably not, but it helps me reason about myself better than feeling like a permanent victim

My theory extends to my desire for action and my risk taking behavior as a younger person.

Some people think that a lot of ADHD people or misdiagnosed, others that it's just another symptom of ADHD.

Which is why some people have to fidget, or listen to music, or move around in order to get stuff done. Or why I'm a worse driver if I can't have the radio on.

The pinnacle of this for me was about half a dozen years ago, I was slugging out some code for a personal project. But I was also feeling nostalgic for an old movie (can't recall which, but let's say it was The Princess Bride). So I put it on in the background. But this isn't quite getting me in The Zone, so this is the scene my partner walks into:

I'm sitting on the couch typing. In all likelihood my knee is bouncing (makes laptops a bit tricky). There's 90's music coming out of my laptop, The Princess Bride is on the TV.

Her head is about to explode. You would think I was killing kittens. She has an ADHD diagnosis, and this plan I have enacted is so anathema to her coping mechanisms that she can't even bear to witness it. Which is too bad because I was getting rather a lot done.

The other part of this analogy is that when there is something that grabs my interest, it grabs it with all 12 brains and I bury myself in that interest until I burn out after a few hours.

I find that ADHD makes me a very good architect and a very bad regular programmer.

I know what you mean. I think if I could click with someone who's really organized and good at execution we could turn one of my 9 billion potentially-pretty-good ideas into an awesome company (I have a pet theory that this pattern is often why it takes 2 to found), but I have never really been able to connect with neurotypicals. They can play along where I can't even tune in, and worse, they are content where I am passionate.

But also that Flow state is often a bad way to write code.

One, virtually everyone has a tremendous case of Sunk Cost Fallacy around things done in Flow state. If someone spent 10 hours in a week working on code that you say is badly conceived in a code review, you'll get pushback and grumbling. Argue with someone who did the PR in a single sitting? They will fight you. Hard. This is the most amazing code ever written (because I felt amazing while I was writing it). The rush goes to their heads.

Two, writing code for other people requires empathy. Rumination. Flow state is considerably absent of both of those. So the problems and gotchas you know about ahead of time get handled, but anything you find along the way is very likely to get ignored. The quantity of your code goes way, way up, the quality goes considerably in the other direction.

I made a conscious decision a while back (making official an unconscious one I'd already made) to stop seeking out Flow state. I felt better, but objectively, it hasn't done me any huge favors professionally. From a practical standpoint, me writing less code means that people who write more baroque code than I do at my worst get to set the narrative for larger slices of the codebase. But I've also done something I hate: reason that if a lot of something is bad, none of it is better.

I need a new plan, and I need it bad.

Yeah, I thought "flow" required extremely low resistance in the task (i.e., someone sewing, playing an instrument, or playing a relatively simple game competently and with no interruption of confusion, frustration, or distraction).

I wish I could code like that. xD Constant typing to an ambient soundtrack. Instead, it's a minefield of "uh wait I have to Google this thing", "uh, what should happen here?", "oh no, an error with a complicated message I probably also have to Google".

And I can only carry on the rubber ducking to competently deal with those with a FULL MARSHALLING of my mental resources, which seems too strenuous for "flow" and is exhausting after a few hours.

But if you're sewing, you're just sewing.

There were times before I accepted that “massive refactor” is an oxymoron where I would keep some very complicated task lists in my head and manage to recall nearly all of them. Day to day? I can’t remember your name twenty seconds after you’ve told it to me, unless I work at it.

As a code reviewer they should be giving you a compliment sandwich where the criticism or constructive feedback is placed in between two compliments. As a coder, I've found adding async and await to functions does a lot to make your code look sexier to code reviewers even if it doesn't have a perceptible performance impact on non-network calls.

If I were to comment on a new plan for you, I'd say let flow state be your friend and not your enemy. After all, you have a chair you probably have to sit in for ~8 hours a day while you stare at a computer screen full of code and that's hard for anyone to do for that long let alone someone with ADHD. Flow state will give you an advantage over others. Invariably, your flow state will break. Use that time to spend more time talking to the stakeholders in your group because sometimes stakeholders want what they want and nothing else. They'll appreciate the time you took to listen to them, they'll trust and believe in you more (instead of you being an unknown variable), they'll be more confident that they'll get what they want, and you'll benefit from the confirmation bias. If you deliver what they want, it's less likely that their sandcastle will get kicked over -- though still not unlikely.

Getting away from the desk for 5 minutes can give you a lot of perspective, and unstick you from a host of problems. I think if I go back (when I go back?) I'll find a pomodoro app that lets you customize the intervals.

I think I agree with everything except this:

> As a code reviewer they should be giving you a compliment sandwich where the criticism or constructive feedback is placed in between two compliments.

Manageable when the code review is 50 lines. Not so easy to do when it's over 500 lines. Damned awkward when the person outranks you, too. I don't know where the cutoff is, but I feel like there's a point where this advice feels like victim blaming, or at least codependency. Don't put your coworkers in this situation, please.

As for knocking over the sandcastle, I agree this is something all humans wrestle with, maybe developers especially. Almost nobody wants to accept that their code is ephemeral. We always push back. Zen or a little horticulture can give you perspective. Kids might too, but that takes decades to play out. Plants are always changing, and they'll never be exactly the way you picture them in your head for longer than a moment. They're alive, and making them 'do' anything is a negotiation that often goes in directions you didn't anticipate. For good or ill.

Yep, and that something can drift over years, days, even minutes. I find code very conducive to hyperfocus, maybe more so than something like playing guitar - it's funny, because so much of coding can be mundane and repetitive, but that quality seems to help with getting started and finding a flow state.

I rarely hyperfocus on writing music or playing instruments anymore, but I used to zone out and play for hours. I'm not sure what changes in a person that makes that more difficult one day than the next.

Playing the same chords over and over again, making fewer and fewer mistakes, all while this song you used to love, you are now beginning to have serious doubts about.

Each time you try, just as you get close, they slide off one another and all around, until they stick at a different spot. Those sticky spots, are all the very stimulating tasks.

it makes it difficult to become good at things you naturally arent good at, once ive been knocked off my obsessive focus on something theres a solid chance ill likely never go back to it. at times i can become almost an expert at things in a very short space of time but as soon as something else takes my focus the new subject basically erases the previous one from my memory

medication has helped greatly but i think i may need to either get my dose adjusted or shift to an alternative medication as im starting to fall back into getting easily distracted again

crap i just noticed i spent so long reading and thinking about this that im now late for work, its this sort of thing that causes issues (and yet here i am wasting more time writing this!)

Poor executive functioning is why I could never make myself start writing a paper prior to the day or two before it was due, despite the rising sense of panic I would get for weeks. (This is key -- it's not laziness, because good lord did I wish I were able to do the work. To me, lazy ~= apathy, and what I felt was just about the polar opposite of apathy.)

Poor executive functioning is also why, unmedicated, it was sometimes difficult to not let my initial emotional reactions just come flying out. It was like there was an express lane between my limbic system and my action system, totally bypassing my ability to control it. I would find myself snapping out something and as it was coming out of my mouth, I would be kicking myself and thinking "Why in god's name am I saying this right now?"

Medication has helped with all of the above and more.

What I will say is that stimulants also can have a tendency to put some people on edge and increase sympathetic nervous system activity, so shorter temper could be a side effect for sure. If it's affecting you that strongly, maybe speak with your doctor about a slightly lower dose?

Or is there a possibility that you only became aware of your tendency to have a short temper once you became medicated? An interesting chicken/egg question; I'm just asking rhetorically, mind, because I have a lot of similar questions.

That sounds like a good explanation for why I've been avoiding studying for something for weeks but feeling guilty, even sick, the whole time about it.

I don't know though. It's hard for me to not call that lazy, and I don't think lazy denotes apathy. Isn't it possible to be lazy and still care about a thing?

Poor executive functioning is also why, unmedicated, it was sometimes difficult to not let my initial emotional reactions just come flying out. It was like there was an express lane between my limbic system and my action system, totally bypassing my ability to control it. I would find myself snapping out something and as it was coming out of my mouth, I would be kicking myself and thinking "Why in god's name am I saying this right now?"

I still struggle with emotional impulsivity anytime I take a few days off meds. Drug holidays can be surreal. Or sometimes they might not be special at all. But I've taken time off before and noticed everything - birds, wind in the air, music on the radio, and it felt so surreal that I broke down crying.

Why in god's name am I saying this right now...

Executive function may be involved, but the inability to filter sensory information is a pretty big part of things for many people.

When I'm two rooms away shouting "What is the dog eating?" to two people who are sitting in the same room as the dog, that's not about executive function.

The cars don’t even have to be that loud or close by. A few tens of metres away at 30mph and I still can’t hear anything anyone says.

Sometimes I have to swap places with a friend when walking down the pavement just so I can try to hold a conversation.

Actually, I'd argue that it is. The other people's executive function is what allows their sensory filtering: they can almost completely filter out sounds their brain has decided is unimportant.

Back to the topic of the irritability/temper, yeah it's basically when it's active. Afterwards I'm a bit tired but otherwise totally kosher. For context, I am also on a very low dose of 5 mg. 10mg starts putting me on "talk really fast, move really fast" sort of stimulant buzz. 20mg was utterly uncomfortable. IIRC the higher doses exacerbated the positives and negatives: even better focus, even less patience, even shorter temper.

In regards to your comment about shortened temper on stimulants, I think this is very normal and expected, and I have experienced the same at times. I don't know how to explain it, but I think overall I'm more agreeable than I was before I was medicated. This might be an age thing; I honestly don't know. Maybe I just grew out of it (I was the kid who threw tantrums lol).

I, on the opposite end of the spectrum, would get strong symptoms of depression, and a constant feeling of nausea and lack of appetite to the point of being suspected of anorexia/bulimia by my physician. I tried a wide variety of medications throughout grade school and high school, and eventually gave up because they all gave me negative side effects of some kind.

However, one symptom of ADHD is something my therapist refers to as "explosiveness" which is a very sudden change from not angry to extremely angry and then often right back to not angry. Note that this can also be a symptom of bipolar, and misdiagnosis between the two is why they tend to screen for bipolar before prescribing ADHD meds.

This is not what I experienced on Vyvanse; rather my baseline level of "being annoyed at things" was much higher, so it was easier to make me angry.

    That's interesting to hear about ADHD causing mood 
    swings/anger/irritability and the stimulants doing 
    away with them. Is that a common trait of the illness

The stimulants made me crankier and more high-strung.

However, sometimes it was a net improvement in my mood because I was getting my stuff done and therefore my stress level was lowered.

I use modafinil now which is less effective for the ADHD but also makes me less cranky.

This is not really a trait of the Inattentive-subtype. However, a person grows up:

- Being frequently told that they are a disappointment.

- Would have succeeded (at something they really cared about) if they'd actually cared.

- Being tuned out because they're talking in a way that seems scattered or boring to the listener.

Can develop an unhealthy relationship with anger.

That scans closer to my experience. I’ve been on Adderal for years, and when I started it I learned that I have the potential to get angry much quicker.

1. Sort of a vast simplification, but basically hulking out and raging - maybe physically, maybe passive aggressively, maybe verbally - the form it takes varies wildly.

I sent the article to my girlfriend though and she'll read all of it and ask me questions about it so I can cleverly get a proxy summary. ADHD Lifehack!

I think that's the hardest part of ADHD, you'll always find some exceptions to the "rules" used to diagnose it.

I think a lot of times ADHD is spotted because a kid is bright, but underachieving. There's a glaring disconnect between potential and performance... could be many reasons, many of which aren't ADHD, but it grabs teachers' and parents' attention.

But, what about a kid whose intelligence is not above average? If they are underperforming, would it be so obvious? I wonder if a lot of folks with ADHD in this category are more likely to go undiagnosed.

"Long form" is at least partly a function of reading speed.

I found that getting started and momentum going is my biggest challenge. Maintaining it for several days after was not as hard.

When writing to us... maybe just try bullet points.... Don't run past the page fold - or I'm out.

I'll admit, I skimmed it. But I bookmarked it!

How many bookmarks do you have left to read?

Yes, me too I didn't read all the article, as I skipped around parts in articles, books, and similar stuff.