A crushing blow to internet douchebaggery...

[Sky]

So far the only side effect is still the delayed orgasm, and as predicted it's a giant pain in the ass.

[sigil]

So far, so great. So far the only side effect is still the delayed orgasm, and as predicted it's a giant pain in the ass.

So many different ways to respond to that. 

[Soukyan]

I wonder how many diagnoses there would be if people just ate healthy and got some fucking exercise once in awhile. When I'm feeling a blah or dumpy or whatever I find just getting off my ass for a little while really helps, even if the "getting up" part takes the most motivation.

The brain is great at manufacturing its own drugs (most of the time), but people are generally too lazy and impatient to let it happen.

This is so very true for times when people have mild to moderate symptoms. And you are right, the hardest part is getting up.

[SnakeCharmer]

With as much respect as I can muster to this, and not directed at anyone here, just outloud.  It's also a bit of a ramble:

With regards to kids, I wonder how much of their 'problems' is lack of parental supervision and teaching kids discipline and focus?  If you toss your kid into the corner and don't work with them, and they're left up to their own devices, I can't imagine much good can happen.  And mostly, I honestly believe, is parents not taking an active enough roll in their children's lives due to whatever reason - whether it's working too much, both parents working too much, etc.  There's just too much going on around children.  Parents toss TVs and consoles in their kids bedrooms just so they won't have to deal with them.  Parents feel the need to have their children constantly entertained on car trips with built in DVD players in their cars.  How much of it is parents just not wanting to having to deal with them?

Yeah, it's tough after a long workday to come home and cook dinner and clean house and interact in a positive way with your kids AND find time for each other AND find time for downtime.  But Goddamn, it's your children.  Make the time.  Make the effort.  It's not about you anymore.  The minute that baby boy or girl is born, your life becomes secondary.  Hell, it's not even in third place.  As a man, your focus should be on your wife and child/children.   Everyone and everything else?  Not even close.  Life is hard.  So what?  Quit crying about it, cowboy up, and accept your responsibilites as a significant other/husband/wife/father.  Life isn't MTV.  Or All My Children.  Or a 22 minute sitcom.

The kids never learn to just sit quietly for any stretch of time, or how to effectively deal with boredom, or even how to entertain themselves.  TVs and such have taken over coloring books and Dr Seuss.  They're taught to express themselves RIGHT THERE AND RIGHT THEN!! because holding it in is bad and noone should tell them they can't do something.  It gets taken to extremes.  There's a time and place for an outburst or display of anger, and they aren't learning how to process and compartmentalize that.

I realize the days of stay at home moms are over for the majority of people for a myriad of reasons.  The mother wants a career.  They think they can't afford it.  Which likely they couldn't without making some major lifestyle changes.  My son is amazing.  He's healthy, happy, smart, and just an absolutely beautiful, handsome little boy.  I firmly believe that the reason he is such an amazing creature is because we're lucky enough that my wife CAN stay at home and WANTS to stay at home.  He's supremely well adjusted, I can take him anywhere and not worry about a temper tamtrum.  Hell, I started taking him to Hooters when he was 4 months old (a great deal of fun, I might add).  He's socialized, as we are lucky that many of my wifes friends all seemed to get pregnant within 3-6 months of each other, and they all get playdates 3-4 times a week.  Which all the fathers believe was a conspiracy :P.  Anyway, to compare him to my best friends kid who is 1 month older, there is none. He's always sick, he's finicky, and pretty much an unholy terror.  They both work, and the kid is in daycare.  They've got severe cases of Keeping Up With The Jones, and it should probably be noted that they are both two high strung high maintanence individuals.  My wife and I are about as laid back as you can get. 

Which leads me to...

Children at an early age emulate their parents.  People are just angry.  Violent.  They exhibit extreme amounts of passive aggressive qualities.  Hell, look at F13.  Look at ANY forum.  Look how quickly some people can get spun like a top and go from 0 to full throttle nerd fury rage hulk smash in no time flat?  You don't think kids pick up on that?  Just your mood without saying anything?  Heh, the minute they are born, they're just cooing pooping drooling sponges.  They can't help but pick up on their parents mannerisms and moods(swings) and emulate it because that is what they accept as norm.

And parents really need to take a hard look at themselves, and quit making excuses for their own (fixable) shortcomings as parents. 

If you aren't one hundred thousand percent ready to be a parent and everything it entails, don't have a kid.

Ah well.  Chances are if you read that wall of text, you aren't ADD or ADHD or whatever.

[Sky]

Chances are if you read that wall of text, you aren't ADD or ADHD or whatever.

Har. Skiptotheendftw, good punchline for the attention-challenged. 

[Morat20]

With regards to kids, I wonder how much of their 'problems' is lack of parental supervision and teaching kids discipline and focus?  If you toss your kid into the corner and don't work with them, and they're left up to their own devices, I can't imagine much good can happen.  And mostly, I honestly believe, is parents not taking an active enough roll in their children's lives due to whatever reason - whether it's working too much, both parents working too much, etc.  There's just too much going on around children.  Parents toss TVs and consoles in their kids bedrooms just so they won't have to deal with them.  Parents feel the need to have their children constantly entertained on car trips with built in DVD players in their cars.  How much of it is parents just not wanting to having to deal with them?

I hear that a lot. Generally from parents whose kids don't have problems -- or who don't consider their kids to BE problems even if, for instance, they are.

ADHD kids aren't that way because they're bored. Or over stimulated. Or because they weren't raised by a loving, stay-at-home parent. They're that way for the same reason clinically depressed people are -- because their neurochemistry is off.

You take ritalin, and it's like taking speed. It IS taking speed. Your brain and body react in a very specific manner. It's like that for every normal person who takes ritalin. Give it to my son, or a child with ADHD, and they have a completely different reaction. Somehow I don't think "child rearing" is on the list of things that changes biochemical reactions.

It's really easy to blame parents, in abstract. Because we all know bad parents. And we all know bad parents who blame their bad parenting on something else -- bad teachers, ADHD, whatever. It's a cop out, though. It's sitting up on your high horse and saying "My kid's fine. You're just a shitty parent", even if you don't mean it that way. Even if sometimes it's true. It's still a copout, and an insulting one no matter how carefully you phrase it.

Let's face it -- there's really no way to phrase "I wonder how much is the parents, because here's how I raise my kid and he's great" in abstract without, in effect, saying you know better than all those abstract parents about how to raise a child.

And for the record: The great "overmedicating" of children in the US is about as real a story as the incredible dangers of shark attacks. Try here

His testimony during a hearing by the House Committee on Government Reform, which looked at the prevalence of ADHD and questions surrounding the prescription of stimulant medications, emphasized that "there is no evidence of widespread overtreatment with medication." In contrast, he testified, the studies indicate that there are areas of the country where the majority of children with ADHD are not receiving appropriate and effective treatment.

"The findings from these studies are consistent with previous reports suggesting that overdiagnosis and/or overtreatment of ADHD is not a widespread phenomenon," Fassler told Psychiatric News. "This certainly doesn’t mean that it does not occur or is not a problem in specific communities. However, the current literature suggests that we have a much larger problem with underdiagnosis and undertreatment."
[...]
Jensen and his colleagues assessed 1,285 children in Atlanta, New Haven, Conn., Westchester County, N.Y., and San Juan, P.R. The communities were selected because of their demographic diversity.

Jensen found rates of ADHD to be quite variable, ranging from a low of 1.6 percent in San Juan to a high of 9.4 percent in Atlanta; 5.1 percent of all the children met DSM-III-R criteria for ADHD. Interestingly, Fassler said, only 12.1 percent of those children had been treated with stimulant medications. In contrast, out of the 1,285 children who were prescribed stimulant medications, Jensen found only eight who did not meet diagnostic criteria; however, these children did show significant (but subthreshold) symptoms of the disorder.

Second study is mentioned as well.

Another mention here:

Todd, who also is the chief of child psychiatry, said among the 1,251 kids in the study who did not have ADHD, some did take stimulant medications, but it was a very small percentage — only 3.6 percent of the boys and 2.6 percent of the girls.

He said, however, that in many cases, there's an understandable reason those children have sought treatment. The study found that most of the children without ADHD who took medication did have some symptoms of ADHD — some hyperactivity or problems with inattention — but not enough symptoms to meet formal diagnostic criteria as defined by the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. The study also found that most of the kids who took medication without an ADHD diagnosis had a twin who did have the disorder.

"These children have what we might call subsyndromal, or mild, forms of ADHD, and they seemed to come from families where other children had full-blown ADHD," Todd explained. "We didn't find that children got these drugs because they had other problems, such as conduct disorder or a learning disability."

Which does make sense, if you think about it. As I've said several times -- treating a child for ADHD when he or she doesn't have it will make his or her behavior worse. It's really hard to "overmedicate" children, at least for ADHD.

And I've yet to hear anecdotal warnings about overmedicating children for any other form of mental disorder.

So no, it's really not the parents. Or rather, if the parent says "It's not his fault, he has ADHD" and then says "But we don't medicate him for it" then it IS the parent's fault. Either they're lying, or they're not taking any steps (whether medication, therapy, behavioral training, whatever) to deal with it.

[sigil]

With as much respect as I can muster to this, and not directed at anyone here, just outloud.  It's also a bit of a ramble:

With regards to kids, I wonder how much of their 'problems' is lack of parental supervision and teaching kids discipline and focus?  If you toss your kid into the corner and don't work with them, and they're left up to their own devices, I can't imagine much good can happen.  And mostly, I honestly believe, is parents not taking an active enough roll in their children's lives due to whatever reason - whether it's working too much, both parents working too much, etc.  There's just too much going on around children.  Parents toss TVs and consoles in their kids bedrooms just so they won't have to deal with them.  Parents feel the need to have their children constantly entertained on car trips with built in DVD players in their cars.  How much of it is parents just not wanting to having to deal with them?

Yeah, it's tough after a long workday to come home and cook dinner and clean house and interact in a positive way with your kids AND find time for each other AND find time for downtime.  But Goddamn, it's your children.  Make the time.  Make the effort.  It's not about you anymore.  The minute that baby boy or girl is born, your life becomes secondary.  Hell, it's not even in third place.  As a man, your focus should be on your wife and child/children.   Everyone and everything else?  Not even close.  Life is hard.  So what?  Quit crying about it, cowboy up, and accept your responsibilites as a significant other/husband/wife/father.  Life isn't MTV.  Or All My Children.  Or a 22 minute sitcom.

The kids never learn to just sit quietly for any stretch of time, or how to effectively deal with boredom, or even how to entertain themselves.  TVs and such have taken over coloring books and Dr Seuss.  They're taught to express themselves RIGHT THERE AND RIGHT THEN!! because holding it in is bad and noone should tell them they can't do something.  It gets taken to extremes.  There's a time and place for an outburst or display of anger, and they aren't learning how to process and compartmentalize that.

I realize the days of stay at home moms are over for the majority of people for a myriad of reasons.  The mother wants a career.  They think they can't afford it.  Which likely they couldn't without making some major lifestyle changes.  My son is amazing.  He's healthy, happy, smart, and just an absolutely beautiful, handsome little boy.  I firmly believe that the reason he is such an amazing creature is because we're lucky enough that my wife CAN stay at home and WANTS to stay at home.  He's supremely well adjusted, I can take him anywhere and not worry about a temper tamtrum.  Hell, I started taking him to Hooters when he was 4 months old (a great deal of fun, I might add).  He's socialized, as we are lucky that many of my wifes friends all seemed to get pregnant within 3-6 months of each other, and they all get playdates 3-4 times a week.  Which all the fathers believe was a conspiracy :P.  Anyway, to compare him to my best friends kid who is 1 month older, there is none. He's always sick, he's finicky, and pretty much an unholy terror.  They both work, and the kid is in daycare.  They've got severe cases of Keeping Up With The Jones, and it should probably be noted that they are both two high strung high maintanence individuals.  My wife and I are about as laid back as you can get. 

Which leads me to...

Children at an early age emulate their parents.  People are just angry.  Violent.  They exhibit extreme amounts of passive aggressive qualities.  Hell, look at F13.  Look at ANY forum.  Look how quickly some people can get spun like a top and go from 0 to full throttle nerd fury rage hulk smash in no time flat?  You don't think kids pick up on that?  Just your mood without saying anything?  Heh, the minute they are born, they're just cooing pooping drooling sponges.  They can't help but pick up on their parents mannerisms and moods(swings) and emulate it because that is what they accept as norm.

And parents really need to take a hard look at themselves, and quit making excuses for their own (fixable) shortcomings as parents. 

If you aren't one hundred thousand percent ready to be a parent and everything it entails, don't have a kid.

Ah well.  Chances are if you read that wall of text, you aren't ADD or ADHD or whatever.

TLDR

[SnakeCharmer]

I actually would love to see a comparison study done between Europe and US with regards to ADD/ADHD. 

[Tebonas]

The only thing I found with some numbers in a hurry:

http://liberalengland.blogspot.com/2007/11/children-adhd-and-ritalin.html

Don't have a clue how reliable the author is. What he writes sounds awfully close to what I already suspected, though.

[voodoolily]

For one thing, Europeans (and Asians, for that matter) continue to eat as much fish as they want while pregnant and have markedly lower rates of childhood behavior disorders than Americans. Again, I think that diet is a factor, and fuck the FDA.

[cmlancas]

Since we were talking about ADHD so much, doctors did a CT scan of my brain and noted that the part that generally denotes ADHD (something about something in the front -- this was a long while ago) was smaller than most other people's. Anyone else experience this?

[lamaros]

I don't think any sensible person disputes that diet and parenting (and economic situation, and culture, and etc etc) are huge influences on children (and adults) but it's also true that people can still have problems despite all these other things being handled well.

[stray]

If it makes you feel better, you now know you probably don't have any form of ADHD. :)

It makes me feel like shit! Haven't messed with that stuff in years.

[Venkman]

Any thread where Ironwood uses a :) and Sky sounds just like me is a winner in my book. 

I'm a list maker too, known for it at work, as well for the fast talking hyperactivity. I probably would have been on Ritalin as a kid though, and may have eventually "outgrown" whatever it was I couldn't control. But ya know? I wouldn't really change anything. I didn't really actively work through it per se. Rather, I found the right kind of people to be social with (we're all unique in a way) and backed into the right kind of career for it. It helped that while my folks didn't quite know how to manage me, they were very supportive of what I wanted to do (once I got to college and they couldn't control how much I drew pictures and how often I used computer... best thing ever was my first real job, calling them and telling them that's what I do for a living now! ;) ).

Pills get a bad rap in America, but they are useful in the right situations. Blame does fall on the establishment, but it is still about the individual practitioners more so than some grand triad conspiracy between the FDA, drug companies and insurance companies. If meds work for you, than goddamn, take the meds. 

I did like SnakeCharmer's cowboy-up comment though  I was like that, in my 20s, on my own when I could be as narcissistic as I wanted. Now in my late 30s, a few polevaults from a broken hip, two kids (one with chronic intestinal issues and a wife taking Effexor, yea, there's a lifestyle difference.

[bhodi]

I was diagnosed as being ADD as a kid and was on both ritalin and dizipramine(sp?) and I have a similar story as Darniq, in that it made me talk fast, lack the ability to concentrate, and hyper-attention. As I've grown, the effects have become more mild; Practice has made me talk at more normal speed (even though I'm still thinking very fast) and caffeine and other non-prescription stimulants help me concentrate when I really need it. I still have the hyper-attention, but have learned triggers to break myself out of it.

For those of you who don't know what hyper-attention is, let me explain. When I'm engrossed in an activity, like reading, playing a video game, coding, or anything that requires focused attention, I literally tune everything else in the world out. Unless you call my name, or there's a loud, jarring sound like a phone ringing, or physical contact, I won't hear you or pay attention to anything in the 'outside world'. It's like wearing headphones all the time and living in a world that skips forward at irregular intervals.

It's normal to have something similar to this, people daydream or go into light trances all day long, but for me it's taken to an unreasonable extreme. It's both a blessing and a curse. I have an advantage in that I can stay focused for hours on end, making me good at things like coding and troubleshooting which require long periods of focused attention. This is offset by the the fact that I can easily miss meals because I'm simply not paying attention and didn't notice myself getting hungry. I'll slip into this mode unintentionally and by time I come out, hours have passed. I miss appointments all the time.

I used to pull out of my parking lot every morning while listening to an audiobook in the morning and the next time I notice the outside world, I'm at work with no memory of the intervening time. In fact, this is how I stayed sane when I had a daily 3 hour commute. I wasn't in the car, I was in the book's world.

I didn't struggle with public school only because classes were a joke. When I went to college my grades took a nosedive because I had never learned to study and the classes were actually difficult. To this day, I have great trouble studying - I pretty much can't do it. As a friend of mine put it, lots of comprehension, no retention. I remember methods but completely forget details like names and dates. I tend to remember specifics if I do them, so all is not lost with instruction manuals and the like.

[Signe]

EEK!  I think EVERYBODY has ADD!  Everyone here, anyway.  Maybe you should form a support group secret society.  You could get handshakes.

[bhodi]

Your avatar is gross and also mean and spiteful to two certain someones who are quitting and you know it!. You should change it!

[Signe]

I think it's inspiring for people who want to quit.  When I quit, I remember quite a few people here telling me to go smoke because I was cranky and somewhat insane.  Anyway... like I said... I think it's inspiring.  Who want's to look like my avatard?  VDL and Sauced KNOW I wub 'em to bits.

So there.

[Venkman]

Oh yea? Your avatar spoils the ending of a game some still haven't finished

(just kidding)

Interesting description of your daily routine. Mine is similar, and I've been able to use it to similar advantage for a time. I hit a wall at my company though, where if I continued doing that I'd be an "individual contributor" forever with only cost-of-living raises and bonuses thereafter. In going the management track though, I've had to make a bunch of adjustments.

Luckily people just know I talk fast But other things have had to change. Management is more about knowing what's going on than knowing the specific micro details about how things are getting done. Whatever amount of ADD I do have has helped in other ways. It even has its own labels! "Solutions oriented", "Focused", "Proactive". 

And Signe, I agree. Which, of course, is also part of SC's point I guess

[Sky]

Again, I think that diet is a factor, and fuck the FDA.

It's funny more people don't pay attention to diet. What do they think their bodies are built and maintained with?

[Signe]

Sugar and spice and everything nice?  Snips and snails and puppy dog tails?  Fairy dust? 

Actually, my nephew used to say there were tiny mice in his body making his muscles and everything else work.  I sort of like his theory.  Anyway, the only way we'll ever know what people are made of is if we open them up and take a look.  AND NOBODY WANTS THAT!

[Sky]

There's a little old man that lives in my brains and fetches things when I ask for them. Well, he starts to fetch them when I ask, no promise on when he delivers them, though. If he feels like it. And he uses a filing system, dern them computers! I've held to this belief since I was a teenager.

[Signe]

That one's good, too.

[Yegolev]

This book helped me immensely in understanding how my brain works.  I don't have hyperactivity (in fact, I'm incredibly slow and methodical), but I have most of the other symptoms.

[Samwise]

When I was a kid, we just called it "being a nerd".   

[Yegolev]

Yeah, me too.

[Yegolev]

Hello, my name is Yegolev.

Hello Yegolev!

I'm on the Lexapro now.  At least my heart is fine.

ONE OF US.  ONE OF US.

[Llava]

Coincidentally, I just had another zombie dream.

[cmlancas]

  at your picture, Llava. :D

[Selby]

Stupid lexapro.  Made me all angsty and cranky.  Same with wellbutrin and all of the other drugs.  My psychiatrist that I had to talk to recently said "obviously you aren't depressed, so anti-depression medication isn't going to do anything for you."  Stellar.

[Llava]

at your picture, Llava. :D

Thanks, I was highly amused when I found it.

[Yegolev]

In addition to the lexapro, which at worst isn't hurting me so far, I also have some klonopin... but I'm going to try to stay away from that stuff.  The lexapro isn't exactly keeping the mental noise down (they are NOT voices!), but it does seem to blunt the major symptoms of the stress-response.  Basically, I still worry about shit but it doesn't cause my chest to tighten and my throat to close, also my digestion isn't stopping for hours on end.

[Signe]

I know what's wrong with you.

[Yegolev]

Kinky.

[voodoolily]

I recommend heavy pain killers. The dull roar can be further reduced to a pleasing purr.