Re:Cognitive AI for ADHD
by vanderZwan on Friday August 04, 2023 @06:47AM
(#36998081)
It's crazy, huh? Nobody would ever say "how dare physically disabled people rely on things like wheelchairs to be less disabled" (well, nobody I would consider worth listening to at least). Yet medication for ADHD, depression, and other mental health issues are stigmatized.
I assumed I wasn’t applying myself, or didn’t use the right learning style, or whatever else was being offered as a suggestion. It didn’t help that I was a kid in the early 90s, when Ritalin was getting big, and some parents (like mine) were staunchly opposed to medicating kids for supposed normal behavior.
I found much later in life that the only things that consistently motivated me were a looming deadline, or severe consequences to failure. The lone exception was computer puzzles, by which I mean things like “how do I get this obscure Chinese sound card running in Gentoo,” or “how does a file actually get written to a drive? oh look blkparse…”
About a year ago, I got an ADHD diagnosis for primarily inattentive type, and my life changed. There have been some tweaks here and there to medication and dosage, but the amount of focus I can now devote to tasks which previously would be monstrously difficult - like writing Jira stories - is amazing.
I've been through a degree, a masters and years of work using every trick in the book to force myself to work and not get distracted. I have super detailed plans, all of my work is accountable, I write down everything I have to do. It goes on and on how I micro-manage my day just to force myself to work or do my tasks.
Then I got an ADHD diagnosis, started medication and my life changed. Suddenly I can just sit down and get to work instead of fighting myself to put the phone down and close reddit. I don't get up and wander off unexpectedly, I don't feel a physical urge to walk off out of my seat and in my 30s I realised that's what normal is. I don't put off every little 5 minute task, I just do them without a second thought.
Sure, I can survive without the meds, but life is so much easier not having to fight against myself for every single damn task.
I also take antidpressants and I view them in the same way. The tablets don't "cure" me, but they clear my head enough so that I can make the conscious decision to improve my behaviour.