anyways can we start recognizing adhd as an actual and serious disorder that
can affect on functioning in every day life so badly that it interferes with taking care of very basic human needs
is not 10 yrs old white boy exclusive disorder
is not a fake disorder created to benefit medicine companies
definitely should not be reduced to “kid who cant sit still and wont stop screaming” stereotypes because adhd has a whole fuckton of symptoms ranging from serious memory issues to fine motor control difficulties
ADHD is:
One of the most treatable “psychiatric” disorders (although it’s more accurately a neurodevelopmental disorder), with approximately 90% of patients able to find a treatment regimen that works well for them, given appropriate medical support. ADHD stimulant medications in particular (Ritalin and Adderall and their variations) are some of the most effective psychiatric medications in existence.
Contrary to popular opinion, extremely under diagnosed overall, particularly in populations that are not young white boys (women, adults, people of color, etc.)
So there are a LOT of people out there who could be helped by getting a diagnosis and treatment but are not, in part because of the negative stereotypes around ADHD and ADHD medication that are prevalent in pop culture.
Able to coexist with a number of other conditions or traits that may change its presentation and/or impact, including mental illnesses such as anxiety or depression and various learning disabilities but also giftedness/high intelligence.
In fact, in adults diagnosed for the first time, it is extremely common to have comorbidities, in large part because ADHD can be so hard to cope with.
Sleep disorders are also frequently comorbid with ADHD. Additionally, being poorly-rested makes ADHD symptoms worse, which makes you more likely to sleep badly. It’s a hellish merry-go-round.
In some cases, “twice exceptional” people (gifted + ADHD) have extra trouble getting appropriate support, because some ADHD symptoms can be masked by intelligence (for instance, if a child is bright enough to do their homework in the ten minutes between classes and master the test material by cramming the night before, they may never see the poor academic performance that might lead to testing), and because the symptoms of ADHD may also mask their giftedness - so they end up stuck in classes that are too easy for them, and therefore boring, which makes the ADHD symptoms worse. Also, people who know they are intelligent but have untreated ADHD can be really prone to some of the other psychological comorbidities, especially as they become adults, because they know what to do and how to do it and that they SHOULD do it, and they WANT to do it, but they still can’t make themselves actually do it, so they start to beat themselves up, thinking “I’m too smart to constantly be this stupid, I must just be really lazy, maybe I really DON’T care, maybe I’m just a terrible person.” Ask me how I know.
Can also have less-common symptoms associated with it. I actually had my hearing tested before my diagnosis because I had so much trouble following conversations if there was background noise. My hearing is fine: my issue is auditory processing. My brain just can’t focus on conversations if too much else is going on. (This also applies to following dialogue on television if there is a lot of background noise/music. I use the captions a lot.
In some cases, extremely disabling. Under the Americans With Disabilities Act, a disability is “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activity.” A sampling of major life activities that might be substantially limited by untreated ADHD includes:
Managing finances (largely through impulsive spending, frequent lost items that need replacing, forgetting to pay bills, forgetting to do routine maintenance and having issues like larger repairs needed)
Basic self-care (remembering to take meds, go to doctor appointments, eat and drink at appropriate times, go to bed at appropriate times)
Employment (difficulty being on time for work or work activities, difficulty meeting deadlines, propensity to make “careless errors”, difficulty with emotional regulation)
Interpersonal relationships (memory problems so you never remember important dates, time issues meaning you’re late meeting them, forgetting commitments, easily distracted during conversations, impulsivity leading to interruptions/saying or doing stuff you didn’t think through, difficulty responding appropriately to social cues (through distraction/impulsivity), difficulty with emotional regulation)
Maintaining a clean and sanitary home (forgets steps in household chores, distracted away from finishing them, loses key equipment, impulsive purchases clutter up the home, loses interest in projects and leaves them out half-done)
If untreated, linked to higher rates of all manner of negative outcomes when compared to similar neurotypical populations, including:
unemployment
divorce
substance abuse
injury or death in accidents, especially car accidents
arrest
None of this is because people with ADHD as a group are, like, bad or lazy or evil or irresponsible or don’t care. People with ADHD are just people, and exist on the same range of good, bad, and in-between that all people do. However, the parts of our brains that are meant to help us regulate our emotions, plan for the future, remember to do important things, and not act on every impulse that crosses our minds just don’t work properly. A lot of us might lean in to an airhead, spacy artistic type, class clown, or similar persona to mask our deep shame over not being able to “just” do all these basic things that other people seem to do with no trouble at all.
Additionally, even accessing ADHD treatment can be extremely challenging, because stimulant medications are controlled substances and there are so many false and damaging perceptions about the condition and medications out there. And even when you have a well-established diagnosis and are well controlled on a medication you’ve taken for years, you are never far away from potential disruptions to your treatment. I personally am a white professional with good health insurance and was able to get diagnosed and medication prescribed - which in itself is often really difficult - but even from that position of privilege I have experienced multiple gaps in my treatment for reasons like:
My pharmacy lost a prescription and had to get a new one. (My medication cannot be refilled; each month has to be a brand new prescription.)
My pharmacy was out of stock of my medication (I can’t transfer that prescription to a different pharmacy, and even if I had a paper prescription, you can’t call a pharmacy and be told the medication is in stock, you have to physically go there and ask.)
I forgot to make a doctor appointment in time (I have to have a doctor visit every three months to continue to get the prescription.)
I forgot to fill the prescription (since I, you know, HAVE ADHD, and you can’t set them up to auto-renew like you can other meds.)
My prescription is really expensive and there aren’t many savings options because it’s a controlled medication. (Even with savings I pay over $100 out of pocket for my ADHD meds every month. If the manufacturer isn’t offering a coupon that month it’s close to $300.)
Again, this is a LEGAL medication that I am LEGALLY prescribed by my supportive doctor with consultation from my supportive psychologist, for my actual disabling medical condition, and which all parties involved agree is extremely effective in helping me manage said condition. I’m in about the best situation you can be in short of being a millionaire who doesn’t have to worry about things like preapprovals or copays or taking sick time from work.
I’ve also heard from others who have had to change doctors due to moving, job or insurance changes, etc., only to get issues like:
medical practices that flatly refuse to prescribe any controlled medications at all.
medical practices that don’t deal with ADHD specifically at all.
doctors that “don’t believe in” medicating adults/women/people with good jobs/people with good grades/anyone for ADHD.
doctors that won’t accept existing diagnoses or treatment plans.
ADHD is a treatable and manageable condition, but it isn’t a joke, it isn’t “made up,” we aren’t “all a little ADHD these days anyway”. It’s a complex and wide-ranging condition that can impact nearly every part of your life in serious and possibly very damaging ways.
Hold on I need to schedule an appointment
OP you could’ve gone to my house and punched me in the face
Wait, sleep disorders, too?!
There’s a reason the joke goes “five out of 100 people have ADHD. One’s diagnosed, one’s getting by, one’s depressed, one’s an addict and one’s in jail”.
Seriously though, I quit binge drinking cold the week that I got properly medicated for ADHD. If you have substance use issues, gambling (including loot boxes etc), or other significant behavioural addictions, and you recognise the things described here as problems in your life, for the love of god please go get tested. Even just take a look at the Brown Adult ADD Self-Report Scale and see if it reads like a callout post.
#eddie izzard voice: ‘i’m an executive dysfunctional!’ (via @natalunasans
I have yet to witness something as fucked up as this
WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST READ
wow
Holy shit
This is an ace attorney trial
“Now comes the exquisite twist”
Here’s a transcription, as the text in the image is way too small:
Murder or Suicide?
At the 1994 annual awards dinner given for Forensic Science, AAFS President Dr Don Harper Mills astounded his audience with the legal complications of a bizarre death. Here is the story.
On March 23, 1993 the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head. Mr. Opus had jumped from the top of a ten-story building intending to commit suicide.
He left a note to the effect indicating his despondency.
As he fell past the ninth floor his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast passing through a window, which killed him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the deceased was aware that a safety net had been installed just below the eighth floor level to protect some building workers and that Ronald Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide the way he had planned.
“Ordinarily,” Dr Mills continued, “A person who sets out to commit suicide and ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he intended, is still defined as committing suicide.” That Mr. Opus was shot on the way to certain death, but probably would not have been successful because of the safety net, caused the medical examiner to feel that he had a homicide on his hands.
In the room on the ninth floor, where the shotgun blast emanated, was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing vigorously and he was threatening her with a shotgun. The man was so upset that when he pulled the trigger he completely missed his wife and the pellets went through the window striking Mr. Opus. When one intends to kill subject “A: but kills subject “B” in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject “B.”
When confronted with the murder charge the old man and his wife were both adamant and both said that they thought the shotgun was unloaded. The old man said it was a long-standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her. Therefore the killing of Mr. Opus appeared to be an accident; that is, if the gun had been accidentally loaded.
The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple’s son loading the shotgun about six weeks prior to the fatal accident. It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son’s financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother.
Since the loader of the gun was aware of this, he was guilty of the murder even though he didn’t actually pull the trigger. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.
Now comes the exquisite twist.
Further investigation revealed that the son was, in fact, Ronald Opus. He had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother’s murder. This led him to jump off the ten story building on March 23rd, only to be killed by a shotgun blast passing through the ninth story window. The son had actually murdered himself so the medical examiner closed the case as suicide.
A true story from Associated Press, Reported by Kurt Westervelt.
Bizarre or what?
Dude holy HECK
I mean, talk about karma…
Id seen this before but i couldn’t read the picture so thank you for the transcript but also THE FUCK??
That is one hell of a convoluted way to die
So if he had lived… would he be convicted for attempted murder?
real life should have titles you can equip like an mmo character and they have to put like <Bearer of The Torch> on your driver’s license because you worked as a welder for 15 years
Rhys - 28 - He/They - Queer
Timezone: PST - California Gamer, Writer, sometimes Student.
Daytime Manic; Nighttime Depressive.
Never NSFW ever again starting Dec 27, 2018.
