Here’s a short clip of ADHD expert Dr. Russell Barkley speaking on the subject (“ADHD is not a gift”).
I have every single one of those symptoms, with the exception of losing things, *except *at work. That’s the part you’re not hearing. You don’t seem to get that people can compartmentalize, even people with ADHD.
The diagnostic for ADHD, my symptoms bolded:
Inattention: Six or more symptoms of inattention for children up to age 16, or five or more for adolescents 17 and older and adults; symptoms of inattention have been present for at least 6 months, and they are inappropriate for developmental level:
**Often fails to give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes in schoolwork, **at work, or with other activities.
Often has trouble holding attention on tasks or play activities.
Often does not seem to listen when spoken to directly.
Often does not follow through on instructions and fails to finish schoolwork, chores, or duties in the workplace (e.g., loses focus, side-tracked). <- I do my patient work very well, but I have a stack of paperwork to do at home that often goes unfinished because I get side-tracked.
Often has trouble organizing tasks and activities.
Often avoids, dislikes, or is reluctant to do tasks that require mental effort over a long period of time (such as schoolwork or homework).
Often loses things necessary for tasks and activities (e.g. school materials, pencils, books, tools, wallets, keys, paperwork, eyeglasses, mobile telephones).
Is often easily distracted
Is often forgetful in daily activities.
Hyperactivity and Impulsivity: Six or more symptoms of hyperactivity-impulsivity for children up to age 16, or five or more for adolescents 17 and older and adults; symptoms of hyperactivity-impulsivity have been present for at least 6 months to an extent that is disruptive and inappropriate for the person’s developmental level:
Often fidgets with or taps hands or feet, or squirms in seat.
Often leaves seat in situations when remaining seated is expected.
Often runs about or climbs in situations where it is not appropriate (adolescents or adults may be limited to feeling restless).
Often unable to play or take part in leisure activities quietly.
Is often “on the go” acting as if “driven by a motor”.
Often talks excessively.
Often blurts out an answer before a question has been completed.
Often has trouble waiting his/her turn.
Often interrupts or intrudes on others (e.g., butts into conversations or games)
I meet the criteria. I’ve been diagnosed by a real live breathing doctor. I just happen to do my work very well anyway.
That’s all well and good, but you’re not turning those deficits to strengths. You’re overcoming or working around those deficits.
I said before that ADHD is a dimension, not a category, and may be buffered by other aspects of functioning.
Think about it: if these deficits are really strengths, then all these other people with ADHD really are just fucking lazy stupid slackers who are unwilling to use their strengths.
Is that your argument?
No, my argument (which admittedly is scattered and not well thought out at the moment) is that too many people in this very thread have tried to use evidence of a respected and challenging career as reason why the OP must be off base in his concerns, and that just doesn’t make sense.
There is an additional argument that, yes, the “inattention” and “impulsivity” associated with ADHD can - sometimes - work to my advantage. Sometimes not. But I’ve found myself constantly better at jobs that require me to do a whole lot of things at once than the jobs that are focused on a single task at a time. And yes, I do think that’s linked to my ADHD, and I consider it an advantage in those situations - as long as I’m careful to put myself in a high-stimulus multitasking environment. If I don’t, I can’t focus on the one thing I have to do. If I have 10 things to do, I can do all of them well.
I think those who struggle with their ADHD as adults need to consider putting themselves in careers where their symptoms work to their advantage, yes. I don’t think those who don’t are “lazy” or “stupid”, I think they’ve been told they’re broken, that they have to learn to focus and work like everyone else does, and they believe it.
Well, that’s just ridiculous. You’re arguing that because you can do THE EXACT OPPOSITE of what the symptoms of ADHD are, you’re turning deficits into strengths.
The truth is that you are extraordinary unusual in your ability to both have ADHD and hyperefficiently multitask without error. Congrats to you, but that’s a bit like Oscar Pastorius arguing that not having legs is a strength.
Just keep in mind that essentially everyone else with ADHD would 1) struggle to do what you do and 2) would already face a dubious and dismissive attitude from most people without ADHD; people who will suggest they ought to just will themselves out of it and shouldn’t need treatment of any kind.
People with ADHD should select careers that don’t challenge their difficulties. Suggesting that they find jobs that call for error free multitasking on various cognitive tasks is not a recommendation I would make.
That’s exactly the opposite of the advice I found most helpful myself, as well as the advice commonly given to adults with ADHD. Look at the rest of the list on that article I linked, which is pretty representative:
Firefighters, police officers, nurses, doctors, salespeople, artists, entertainers, entrepreneurs… all challenging multitasking roles. (The one they include that I disagree with is military, but I will admit that I don’t really know enough about military careers to know. What little I do know seems like it would be too regimented, but I can accept that some people thrive with that level of regimentation. I wouldn’t.)
Or this one: teacher, daycare worker, journalist, copy editor, cosmetician, food industry, nurse, arts/entertainment, high-tech/IT, EMT Again, fast paced, multitasking jobs with high levels of responsibility and autonomy. That’s where we do best.
What happened to the bit about “If you can’t help, at least do no harm”?
Or am I required to prove my authority to refer to that line?
You don’t want to help the OP, fine.
There is no reason to attack.
The girlfriend may or may not “have ADHD”*, but unless the girlfriend comes to consider it an undesirable condition, your (MorphinePoet’s) opinion that it’s an undesirable condition that it is doesn’t carry any authoritative weight. As others have said, you’re welcome to suggest to her that she might benefit from a psychiatric consultation. You are not, however, in any shape way fashion or form entitled, ethically or legally, to subject her to it if she isn’t so inclined.
- I once went to the doctor because I was sneezing, my nose was running constantly, and my eyes were red and running with tears. Doctor said I have “rhinitis”. That was not an explanation for why I was sneezing, my nose running, and my eyes watering. It was a restatement of the fact that I was sneezing, my nose running, and my eyes watering. Doctors have a short choppy term for it because it’s a recurrent pattern that has been noticed and described in the literature, but “rhinitis” is not “what causes it”, it’s just a label for the phenomenon. The psychiatric diagnostic categories are mostly of this sort: they identify a phenomenon with a label, but the label does not reflect a cause for the phenomenon; “ADHD” is a term kin to “rhinitis”, in other words, not kin to “the common cold” or “influenza avian flu strain IVb-2016” for that matter.
Making it kin to Alzheimers disease, cancer, vertigo, diabetes, kidney stones, and a shitload of other medical conditions. That is, something that can be identified but for which the cause is not known.
At yet, it’s better than the alternative: describe a set of symptoms to a doctor and have her say, “Fuck if I know what that is.”
Agreed, but that’s not the only alternative for the doctor. The doctor can say “you’ve got Alzheimer’s. Fuck if I know what’s causing it but we can predict the trajectory of it and we have some limited symptom relief”. And then the patient can read the literature and listen (or not) and say “OK, so I’m fucked and you can’t fix it, laters, bye, nope won’t be making a follow-up appointment” if so inclined.
Are you suggesting that we cannot predict the trajectory of ADHD symptoms and provide limited symptom relief? If so, you’re simply flat wrong. We do those two things quite well.
To try to reduce the TLDR factor here, I am breaking what I’ve written up into two posts.
WhyNot, when I read your description, I get the sense that you have worked very, very hard to develop a variety of organizational strategies, and that you are expending a great deal of energy at work to carry out your duties - you describe “falling apart” at home, which implies that you’re working hard to maintain at work. You should be lauded for developing these strategies and being able to exert this effort to maintain high performance, but those do not sound like someone reaping the benefits of strengths being conferred by ADHD. They sound like someone working very hard to overcome the deficits associated with ADHD.
You describe yourself as responding well to the motivation of life and death decision making, and as being a genius when it comes to creating organizational systems. You must recognize that you are high on these two other dimensions of functioning. Not everyone will be motivated by such decision-making – indeed some will find it overly daunting and anxiety provoking. Additionally, not everyone will be a genius at developing organizational strategies – some will suck donkey balls at it.
So, imagine you were someone with ADHD who was also low in motivation to make life and death decisions and low in ability to develop organizational strategies. Would you still argue that ADHD is a strength for your occupation?
WhyNot,I think it is critical to have people like you serve as role models for people with ADHD, and as important examples to show that ADHD does not necessarily mean that a person cannot engage in a career that they love.
However, you do a terrible disservice if you present your experience with ADHD by suggesting that ADHD presents strengths, especially strengths in multitasking.
People with ADHD succeed very well in a variety of occupations, in spite of their ADHD, not because of it. A person with ADHD will succeed as a teacher if: 1) they possess the attributes that make one a good teacher; and 2) their ADHD impairments do not interfere too greatly in their ability to carry out the activities associated with being a good teacher; or 3) they possess elevated abilities to counteract or overcome the interference ADHD presents in their ability to carry out the activities associated with being a good teacher. You can repeat the preceding for any occupation you like.
ADHD does not provide any advantage for task-switching. Quite the opposite. Here’s a small sample of the literature on the subject:
Bekker, E. M., Overtoom, C. C., Kenemans, J. L., Kooij, J. J., De Noord, I., Buitelaar, J. E. E. A., & Verbaten, M. N. (2005). Stopping and changing in adults with ADHD. Psychological medicine, 35(06), 807-816.
Cepeda, N. J., Cepeda, M. L., & Kramer, A. F. (2000). Task switching and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology,28(3), 213-226.
Cubillo, A., Halari, R., Ecker, C., Giampietro, V., Taylor, E., & Rubia, K. (2010). Reduced activation and inter-regional functional connectivity of fronto-striatal networks in adults with childhood Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and persisting symptoms during tasks of motor inhibition and cognitive switching. Journal of psychiatric research, 44(10), 629-639.
Ewen, J. B., Moher, J. S., Lakshmanan, B. M., Ryan, M., Xavier, P., Crone, N. E., … & Mahone, E. M. (2012). Multiple task interference is greater in children with ADHD. Developmental neuropsychology, 37(2), 119-133.
Kenemans, J. L., Bekker, E. M., Lijffijt, M., Overtoom, C. C. E., Jonkman, L. M., & Verbaten, M. N. (2005). Attention deficit and impulsivity: selecting, shifting, and stopping. International journal of psychophysiology, 58(1), 59-70.
People with ADHD in general do worse than people without on task switching or multitasking activities. There is simply no evidence whatsoever to support the assertion that ADHD confers task switching advantages.
And again, when you argue that ADHD confers strengths, you argue that we should discontinue providing treatment and support for people with ADHD. We simply do not provide treatment for people’s strengths.
Imagine that. It’s almost like we’re individual people, with individual strengths and weaknesses…just like every other person on the planet.
Of course not. What does that have to do with the OP’s girlfriend, who is a doctor that we’ve no indication is low in such motivations and strengths?
No, I’m not.
So, OP, if you want advice on approaching an adult with ADHA, do everything the opposite of Hentor the Barbarian, okay? Because I just can’t even with this anymore…
Would it be ok if “strength” was replaced with “difference”? This article is about autistic workers:
[QUOTE"Most people not on the autism spectrum get bored," Davis says. But for someone with autism, “routine isn’t a problem for them.”
In fact, those with autism tend to thrive when paying close attention to detail and following rules but have trouble improvising, says Ami Klin, chief of autism and related disorders at the Marcus Autism Center at Emory University in Atlanta. They also tend to be extremely reliable and have a strong work ethic.
“Intentions, thoughts, feelings and beliefs are hard for them to grasp,” Klin says. “They are used to predicable behavior.”]
[/QUOTE]
Being able to tolerate routine and greater attention to detail are differences that could be useful in certain jobs or duties.
I don’t think any of these are true, speaking as someone who’s dealt with ADHD my entire life.
1)Why in the world would you suggest that amphetamines aren’t addictive?
2)Nope, no doing this, you made the claims you back them up.
Since the OP is asking advice about getting his girlfriend to go seek medical advice about her messiness and forgetfulness, I would suggest the first thing you do is:
Talk to your girlfriend.
As clearly demonstrated, asking us will get you a myriad of opinions and ideas, which will and probably have left you frustrated.
That’s exactly what I’ve written. Repeatedly.
Yes, let’s pretend that a disorder that is empirically and demostrably associated with impairments in cognitive switching confers strengths in cognitive switching, because magic.
Hentor, are you a psychiatrist?
JoeyP, have you tried any of the amphetamine medications for your ADHD? I know it’s difficult to grasp, but with many ADHD people, the brain is wired differently and they don’t become addicted. I realize it’s impossible to believe. I thought that way myself until I lived with someone who took Adderall daily until insurance wouldn’t cover it anymore, then who switched to Dexedrine (not as effective). They’re both difficult to get with the med crackdowns lately so sometimes there’s a lapse of a few days between refills. He has no withdrawal symptoms whatsoever. NONE. Maybe sleeping a few more hours than usual, but that’s it.
Psychologist.
The non-addictiveness is not due to differential wiring between ADHD and non-ADHD folks. It’s because the formulation in medical usage makes these medications different from the amphetamines that people become addicted to.
As you note, people often transition readily from taking to not taking their ADHD medications, without any indicators of dependence or abuse. Kids often stop taking their ADHD medications over the weekend, or take medication vacations in the summer. ADHD medications clear the system quite rapidly.
People have to snort ADHD medications in order to start to get effects like those of drugs of abuse, and even then have to take more than a typical medical dosage to get abuse-like effects.
People simply do not become addicted to prescription ADHD medications.