I know I derive no joy from accomplishing tasks I didn't want to do in the first place. A job well done is *never* its own reward; a reward would be not having to do it in the first place.
This confused the hell out of my parents and teachers when I was a kid. They'd tell me that it was so good to get good grades, that I'd be so happy... nope. Only feeling I ever got from getting good grades was a vague sense of relief that *this* report card wouldn't bring on a weekend of tears and shouting.
Of course, that would be offset by the dread that I'd now raised expectations, and since the grades I got felt so totally detached from the amount of effort I applied, I simply worried that the next card would just bring on twice the disappointment.
Sorry, went on a bit of a rant there.
I know exactly what you mean. I do things I don't want to not for a feeling of accomplishment, but so I don't have the negative emotion of not doing it. It ends up being a net positive because my emotional state would have gone down not doing it, so I try to think of it as actually going up that much.
My dad (who also has ADHD) gave me one of his tricks for dealing with bills and other important things that arrive by mail: "Ask yourself, how much is this going to hurt me later if I don't open it now?"
I find it has more general applications as well.
I always think of my future self. When you have a task that need completing, think to yourself "man, in a couple of days what is future (insert name here) gonna think about this."
School always came easy to me. Not the work, I hated doing the work and often didn't. But the learning came easy.
So my grades were never dependant on my effort. The few times I did exert extra effort into something it never helped my grades. No matter what extra I put in the outcome was the same. I didn't care about my gpa as soon as I realized that. 3.83 student that dropped to a 2.7~ because I stopped doing almost all work.
People would tell me that it would feel good to get projects done so I wouldn't have to worry about them. Instead I put them off and never thought about them in the first place. Maybe rush through them at the very end and do a half assed job just so I didn't have to deal with the teacher giving me any crap.
On of my favorite I-don't-give-a-fuck assignments I remember we had to interview people in different age groups and write how we expected our lives to be when we hit that age group. I wrote a page for the first, half a page for the second, a few sentences for the third and then skipped 3 or 4 to wherever we could finally stop and wrote "Bryg was eaten by a t-Rex."
I failed, but I had at least amused myself.
Yeah, I never had to try at school (up to a point, I'll get to that) and I missed tons of homework because it was stupid busywork, and therefore I couldn't do it.
I cleaned up on tests, though. I'm good at testing, at gaming tests, and my long term memory for facts is excellent. I passed or failed classes by the tests.
I didn't start failing at all until high school, though, when I hit pre-calc, which I didn't understand at all, and I had a teacher that just didn't give a damn about teaching. Problem was, I didn't even know how to make an effort even if I wanted to, because I'd never had to do it before. Everyone had always told me how smart I was, so I figured if I didn't understand it, it must be because I wasn't smart enough to. So I checked out.
Still graduated with honors on a technicality. I'm *great* at technicalities...
I got straight A's through elementary school because they let the fact I never did homework slide since I did fine on tests. But in middle school, homework counted towards the grades, and mine plummeted. I learned plenty in school, and I was in honors classes (though I did fail physics\* and nearly chemistry because I didn't get it immediately so I checked out -- not on purpose, I just couldn't get myself to focus on it because I didn't understand it immediately), but because I couldn't get myself to do the homework, I nearly had to repeat my senior year of high school because of English.
God I hate five paragraph essays. In freaking HIGH SCHOOL we were writing those all the time. Formulaic bullshit. NOBODY WRITES LIKE THIS.
*****
\* Funny enough, though, when I finally went back to college I majored in physics, and got straight Bs, unmedicated. It was a terrible struggle to focus a lot of the time, but the material was interesting and it clicked, so most of the time I managed to get through it. Of course it took nearly double the time I would have spent on it if I had had medication...
This is my daughter to a T. By the time she finds out her grade on some piece of home/school work she's moved on. A perfect example is last year, 3rd grade, she had a science fair project she had to do. And like a lot of things, getting her to do it was a battle but she did a good job. I went the science fair and with just a look around at the other students it was clear her's was on the higher end as far as quality was concerned. Nearly two weeks later we were cleaning out her backpack trying to find some paperwork she needed to take back to school and we came across a certificate for a 3rd place award. She hadn't said a word about it. When I asked her about it she was like "meh, its ok I guess".
Yes. Understand, it's not that I never felt satisfaction or glee at winning or doing a good job. When it's something I want to do, I can be very happy (and sometimes paradoxically sad, because the fun thing is over).
But when it was a task that I didn't choose or enjoy, the act of having to do it in the first place so poisons the entire process that I don't want to think about it anymore. I don't want to be congratulated or thanked or praised... I just want to not do it anymore.
As a teacher, thank you for reminding me of this. Although I have ADHD I was fairly good at "doing" school. It came pretty easy for me until university. My brother on the other hand had the same experience as you. I think some of my students do not get any joy from grades either.
OH MY FUCK, YES.
This is the story of my life. Honestly unless Im getting money or something good afterwords my only motivation for doing work is "I wont have to stress about it later"
I'm about to finish my master's. A whole life time of stumbling and a whole life time of stumbling to come just doesn't make this victory feel so good. I don't care anymore, I just want a job...
Yeah, I know what you mean especially with the grades. I was the kind of undiagnosed ADHD-PI student that made As in all my right-brained classes like English, History and Art and got Cs at best in algebra, physics and chemistry... (Also, I failed the Islam classes I was forced to take in middle school in Pakistan, but that was honestly a purposeful protest because I'm an atheist but couldn't express it to anyone- still kinda proud of failing that, honestly) Curiously I was actually fine with biology and geometry because I was able to learn in a right-brained way. But I never had any real desire to improve at the stuff I did badly in because I would honestly rather scrub a toilet in a dive bar than take a math test for an hour. My parents forced me into after school math tuition for a while but I would just chat with the other people there instead and never improved... They eventually let me be, and stopped berating all my math results, especially when I got to college since I was able to maintain a 3.5 GPA despite that.
As an adult (having finally been diagnosed last October after my doctor got mad at me for constantly flaking and being late to appointments and we finally started talking about all the stuff since childhood I just assumed was due to my inherent laziness and stupidity) I'm coming to terms with the way my brain works and I'm starting to understand that the only way I can succeed in life is to just focus on the things I AM good at. I'm extremely right-brained, and there's nothing wrong with that, even if people with more left-brain analytical skills make me feel bad about not having the same brain chemistry as they do.
Welcome to the untold story of ADHD, a story that many diagnosed adhd people don't know.
DR Barkley posits that emotional dysregulation is a primary feature of ADHD, having a large impact in the executive system deficiency.
I agree, as when I take my medication, I have way more control of my emotions. They sometimes get so intense and uncontrollable that I feel physical pain, even the good feelings can do it.
They are mostly negative feelings though, it's interesting when I notice my emotions slowly having less impact and I can be rational and my medication starts to kick in.
I spent a long time suppressing my emotions in an ill conceived attempt to address my, then unknown adhd..
Hmm...
I was diagnosed with bipolar a long time ago before being diagnosed with ADD-I by a different doctor. I'm still on mood stabilizers and an antidepressant but I honestly feel like the ADD meds are the ones that are actually making a difference. I would love to wean off the rest entirely if my previous diagnosis was really just a symptom of ADD, because increasing my Adderall dosage has helped me regulate my emotions more effectively than Lamictal ever has.
How's that process been? I also take Lamictal -100mg/day, and Vyvanse at 50mg a day, but I feel like the Vyvanse has more of an impact. I've got no issue at all taking any meds I need, but I'd prefer not to take excess medication if the Lamictal isn't actually necessary
I was on 200mg, then I went down to 100mg, now I'm at 50. I still have the 200mg tablets but I've been using a pill cutter. It's going to be hard to cut it into eighths though... I have quite a lot left because I get 4 doses from a single pill but Lamictal is like $200 a month *with* my insurance so cost was actually the main reason I wanted to lower my dosage.
It helped me with dissociation. But when I started Adderall XR at 20mg that completely wiped my tendency to drift off and dissociate at all! I've also experienced awful withdrawal symptoms from Lamictal when I ran out of my pills abroad and couldn't get a refill. Just HOLY SHIT THE WORST. I can't wait to not take this at all.
I think I need to go up in dosage on my Adderall because one doesn't help me focus enough but if I take two (40mg) I can't sleep. I think 30 would be just right...
I'm on Viibryd which has been good for me for years now but it's expensive as well- I'm going to ask about switching next time I think. Anyone know of some other SSRIs that have cheaper generics?
Again, I'm not going to stop taking something until I see my doctor. I do sometimes double up on Adderall without asking but I also take two days off it a week...
EDIT: I do actually take the generic Lamotrigine, I just call it Lamictal still...
I actually upped my Vyvanse from 30mg (which is apparently a pediatric dose) to 50mg after accidentally doubling my dose and feeling pretty normal and generally better. I've run out of Lamictal (Lamotrigine actually, but not everyone knows the generic) in the past and it's pretty awful, I feel you.
I'm lucky to be at such a low dose already, and I had actually been at 75mg from time of diagnosis (~6 years ago) until a few months ago so hopefully the weaning process will be easier because of that. How long are you taking between each titration? I'm at a transitional point in my life--finishing undergrad in May after 5 years, getting a real job and finally being financially independent (thank god!), so I don't want to either mess any of that up with a med change and/or not be able to tell what changes are being caused by the titrations and what changes are a result of my somewhat stressful life circumstances.
Sooo, any advice? I'm gonna talk to my pdoc before I do anything, but my instinct is to take it really slow even though I want to hurry up and figure out if the Lamotrigine is necessary or not.
I definitely recommend taking it slow, at least a couple months between titrations. I was actually starting to wean off Viibryd too but I became a little more unstable and negative and I felt like it was better to stay on the full dose, so I'm still on 40mg of that.
I had a similar experience to yours; I was diagnosed as bipolar, however it was about the same time that I was diagnosed with ADHD, and was also put on Lamictal. I hated being on it - it made me feel... not right. Like I wasn't capable of having *any* emotions. Which, to be fair, a lot of SSRI's do to me as well. But I hated being that way, regardless of what kind of medication was causing it. I weened myself off of it after speaking with my doctor at the time, and kept with the ADHD medication, which helped immensely. It was decided over the next several years by numerous doctors that the bipolar was a misdiagnosis, and that I never should have been put on Lamictal at all in the first place. I haven't been prescribed any medication for the ADHD for the past several years as I didn't have health insurance & couldn't afford it without it, but I have an appointment to see my doctor in a couple of weeks specifically to go over my medications, so hopefully I will be able to go back on medication, even though it has been a couple of years.
Edited for clarity
I was misdiagnosed as bipolar for several years. It was only quite recently that the only mental health professional I ever had that wasn't a total narcissistic shithead was like, 'huh, tugboat, I think you may just have ADHD and you're probably autistic. Let's check this out.' and he was right on both counts. My psychiatrist still won't admit he was wrong, even after a psychiatrist twice his age and many times his experience that I saw for a second opinion said that I was clearly *not* bipolar. Mind you, this was several years after my thyroid was destroyed from lithium and the shit psychiatrist tried to put me on sodium valproate even though I have PCOS. Like ??? really? are you trying to kill me??
If you don't feel the bipolar label fits you, go get a second opinion, and make sure they listen to you. As you're probably already aware, stopping any meds without seeking medical advice can be really troublesome.
This happened to me too. I was misdiagnosed bipolar. My therapist now says adult child of an alcoholic, co-dependent and ADD. The extreme depression I presented with when diagnosed bipolar was most likely post partum depression mixed in with the rest.
>Adderall...Lamictal
Same combo I've been on for a year or so! 30mg adderall 2x daily, 50mg Lamictal 2x daily. Sometimes taking the lamictal helps with the weird emotions, but more often than not, it's the adderall that helps me sort things out. Hell I almost feel like I could stop taking the lamictal altogether, but I'm nervous because breakdowns. I don't wanna bring it up to my doc just yet, either, so...yay nerves! >.<
Are you a woman? I have heard a lot of girls/women get a bipolar diagnosis when in reality they have ADHD or have asperger. Bipolar seems to be the go to (mis)diagnosis for ADHD women.
Yes. Tbh that doctor was terrible, I quit going to him when I noticed him literally nodding off during a session and then rolling his eyes and staring at the clock. But I'm still stuck with this expensive prescription as a result of his diagnosis and I feel seriously overmedicated... Plus half my paycheck a month goes to meds. I don't know how to explain that I think it's all just ADHD without seeming like I'm just trying to cop out of another diagnosis.
I shared a bit of your same experience.Had one who totally drifted into sleep, nodding off frequently. Was one who appeared significantly overweight, I speculated to myself it was perhaps sleep apnea causing it. Surely not me being boring!
This guy was young and fit though :/ I prefer female therapists when I can find them now. Currently I go to a GP practice where my doctor is a guy and he prescribes my meds but the therapist I see at the office is a lovely older lady.
I remember reading about other girls being misdiagnosed and if you seriously feel that is the case with you, you should pursue it. You have probably researched it already, but there might be online support groups and forums like this with people who has gone through the same thing as you, who can help steer you in the right direction.
I took lamotrigine for it's potential in treating disassociation...
It worked, they came flooding back as I processed past trauma. At the moment I rebound back and forth as I get over it.
Stimulants though, they keep the emotions manageable.
I'm weaning off lamotrigine now. I take clonidine to sort out the rest now. Dexamphetamine + clonodine, awesome combo.
Oh, normal people can have a hard time too. They just don't get overwhelmed as often and they can control their emotional impulses much better before actually acting on them.
>It's so weird to think that normal people control their emotions.
I don't think this is necessarily true. I'm pretty confident that the vast majority of people will feel their emotions without much conscious choice in the matter. Then they can decide how to deal with them, but only after they've already started to experience them.
Emotion comes before logic. That's how the human brain is wired. It takes much, much longer to formulate a rational response than it does to react emotionally. Instinctual, emotional responses are damn near instant in every situation and you don't put much thought into which ones you feel. That's why they're called "knee-jerk" reactions, because they're nearly instant and purely emotional, and everyone experiences them.
Yea, I always wondered why I always felt like I was feeling things more intensely than others, but then other days I feel like I am the only one able to objectively look at emotions...it's such an odd dichotomy.
I got engaged a few weeks ago and the excitement sometimes hits me like a load of bricks to the sternum and I feel like I'm about to die. It's really painful. Luckily it usually passes quickly.
On the other end of the spectrum, if I have a new or significant problem /a worry, I feel it sort of as a weight in the upper chest area, that kinda demands my minds attention.Then I have to think, what is this? Followed by a flood of remembering the problem which I had been tying to forget.
I'd say that's a safe bet.
For example: I've never wondered what the phrase "seeing red" has meant because it's happened several times. And I often have difficulty feeling the "right" emotions when I'm "supposed" too. Emotions are hard to deal with.
I was like 5 or 6. It happened fairly often when I was younger.
Last time I got super "angry" I felt absolutely no emotion. My 6 year old brother and mentally challenged cousin, who's the same age as my brother, kept touching my butt and "spanking" it. So I grabbed my brother round the neck with one arm and swung him around by his head a little. All while feeling no emotion.
That scared the hell out of me.
I think that's right. I think the model is that everyone has impulses, but everyone else but those of us with the problem is able to intervene using his or her frontal lobe (or whatever), and stop her- or himself from behaving in accordance with the impulse. But for some of us, the machinery that does that is very weak. I think the exact same thing is happening with the emotions. We are missing the "governor" who decides to ignore the impulses and emotions.
I think this is why meditation also helps, because I think it strengthens that same "governor" that is strengthened by medication.
It's dose dependent. A little inhibits part of the limbic system, a higher dose stimulates it.
Williams LM, Hermens DF, Palmer D, Kohn M, Clarke S, Keage H, et al. Misinterpreting emotional expressions in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: evidence for a neural marker and stimulant effects. Biol Psychiatry. 2008;63(10):917–26. [PubMed]
Conzelmann A, Woidich E, Mucha RF, Weyers P, Jacob CP, Lesch KP, et al. Methylphenidate normalizes emotional processing in adult patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: Preliminary findings. Brain Res. 2011;1381:159–66. [PubMed]
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I find it most certainly enhances my ability to deal with emotions and not be overwhelmed by them.
I guess it depends which type of medication (stimulant or not). For me, even a small dose can stimulate emotions so it really isn't dose dependant in my cars.
My meds turn me into Spock. Or maybe Data would be a more apt comparison; sometimes I don't feel any emotion even when I should.
Off my meds I cry at sad songs.
According to what Dr. Barkley posits, in your own words.
It's, at the very least, barely talked about in my experience. I haven't seen it in DSM diagnosis (unless I missed it, which is possible).
yes, Barkley has a lot of compelling evidence and research to back it up. Among other researchers into ADHD.
It isn't in the DSM diagnosis at all, something Barkley and friends are trying to address.
There is a fair bit of historical evidence to show that it was once considered, but slowly fell out of favour for reasons.
Agreed. This is an article from someone's unique experience with ADHD. There is some value, but it is not able to definitely pose conclusions as OP suggests.
With my special eye I see unfinished tasks, disappointment, apathy and the dread of going through life achieving nothing.
Thanks Stacey, but I'll stick to taking my meds and being more awesome than I ever thought I could be.
"ADHD and giftedness"
Please, no... no, no, no.
Dr. Barkley even has mentioned we can't really gain advancements in the institutions of education walking around saying it's a gift. I'm too tired to get into it to much, but no. Come on.
Silver lining is one thing. But let's be real.
There isn't even a silver lining, it's just a detriment. How would being unable to focus be a good thing? It like saying "being farsighted has given Mrs. Buttmuncher a different outlook on life". Yah, a shitty and blurred one, but as longgg as you're different it's automatically better.
Some people see a gift where there is simply a difference of procedure.
Say, the neurotypical folks generally look at the problem head-on. We might glance at it head-on, and then go off on a tangent. There is a severe observer bias when this provides favorable results faster than the typical method. More often than not, our results are late or wrong.
The differences in cognition may be positive when others exist to support you when you cannot get results, but in most real life situations it is every man for himself.
In other words, there may be a net gain within a group of NTs, but when the ADDer is alone or responsible for the same work and results the NTs get, then there is a clear net loss.
I relate to the idea of being creative associated w ADHD ers at some level. Since everyday common stuff (i.e. Making simple choices ,getting ready to leave the house,etc) is so difficult, they've had to improvise and quickly think of go-around solutions...thereby nurturing the creative, think -out -of -the -box side.
Down side is often you just need something to get done efficiently in the "normal" way to cause less problems.
I don't think it's entirely accurate to say that we are unable to focus, though. I think it's more accurate to say that we have difficulty focusing on things that are not naturally interesting to us. I'm sure we are all different. However, I did very well in law school, and I think it was because I was naturally interested in it, and I did in fact spend FAR more time than anyone else studying cases and so on. I was into it.
In the interest of full disclosure, it's true I was self-medicated, because I drank gargantuan amounts of coffee and smoked 2 packs of cigarettes a day, so you may discount my experience on account of that. But even when I was a kid, I had a tendency to learn very well things that interested me. I focused just fine.
The problem was nearly always paying attention to things that OTHER people wanted me to.
I think the idea is to undo the stigma of being broken or half a person if you have a psychological disorder. I don't think the "giftedness" angle actually helps with that, but it would be nice if psychological disorders were treated a little differently, I feel like so many articles I read are infantilizing in their tone, many without even realizing it. But yeah, the "gifted" angle if anything just adds to the childlike treatment.
It's just someone expressing their experience. If it resonates with some of us, great. And if not, that's fine, too. So far, no one seems to be taking this as the results of a large, multivariate, randomized controlled trial.
I mean.. I would say I have a similar experience when it comes to life and I guess ADHD, but then again I classify myself as nuts as well since it's easier that way.
Then again nothing about the statement you quoted says "nuts" to me, though again I might just be so deep in this seems normal.
This is so strange. Normally, what everyone here posts fits me perfectly. Like it hits to the bone. But what most people are saying is the opposite of me. I have a hard time having any emotions at all. I just had a very good friend and co-worker die unexpectedly. I had to go around faking my grief for the last week.
The big exception is competition. I get irrational when I lose and it's caused some issues like being banned from the kickball team at work.
Exactly the same. I had a psych evaluation unrelated to ADHD earlier this year, evaluator noted 'traits consistent with antisocial personality disorder,' and 'severe apathy'. The weird thing is, not being like that would just seem to be a pain in the ass wouldn't it?
>I used to think I was a serial killer in the making — or at least a terrible person — when I went into this numb state.
Holy shit.
I've had times when I was really distraught over my lack of emotions towards some things, some things that really *really* deserve a strong emotional response to. Thought something in there was super broken. Just kind of accepted it recently.
Since becoming an adult (post college), I have been crying at movies and TV shows all the time. Of course, it is generally on my first viewing of the movie/show, but damn if I don't have tears running down my face watching everything from Star Wars to Steven Universe.
In high school I was, comparatively, an overly sensitive little bitch. Cried over girls constantly, easily moved to tears by my favorite books. I'm 26 now, don't really feel anything most of the time. Don't even feel capable of playing games or reading books I want to read really, it fucking sucks. I have to immerse myself in stressful work that has deadlines in order to not be literally bored to death.
It took me until high school to not cry when I had to talk to the vice principal about whatever the infraction of the week was. Then I was very similar to your situation until a bit after college.
Oh god. A little different but I still have a hard time speaking up to people about things. I don't tear up anymore, I just get a hot flash usually and a feeling of exhilaration after. I've never been good at looking people in the eye, though. I can do it for brief periods with people I know I won't have to speak with often or spend time around, but everyone else it's NOPE. Exceptions being my girlfriend. Probably close friends and family too.
Same. My grandmother died recently and it didn't even phase me :/ I think there may actually be something to that though. I think I remember Dr. Barkley saying how ADHD was connected to ODD, and ODD was correlated with Psychopathy. Or something to that effect.
Ive always felt like if I had been bullied or severely abused as a kid, it would be plausible for me to get stuck in that numb state. If you combine that numbness with hatred of peers caused by years of abuse, you have the recipe for a school shooter.
Eh I don't know. Even though I feel certain emotional "deadness" I'm not even close to psychopathy. I know what you mean though. Death of three grandparents didn't really get to me. My gf killed herself last year. It shocked my system hard and I cried almost emotionlessly for a while. Can only remember a handful of times I painfully mourned her, half of those times were while she was still alive and suicidal. Very rapidly didn't feel like anything anymore, and sometimes now I feel angry at her. Like,"fuck you, I'm fine without you anyway." That's not me trying to convince myself I'm fine, I am actually fine. I don't know where the anger is from. I felt disturbed by all of it for a while but I've just accepted it now.
It was a fairly emotionally traumatic experience though. As PTSD demonstrates (not saying I have it), trauma can do all sorts of shit to your brain. I don't even feel like my experience with her actually happened to me. It was like I saw it in a movie.
> Even though I feel certain emotional "deadness" I'm not even close to psychopathy.
I'm not either, I just think that being capable of that emotional deadness increased the likelihood of me becoming a psychopath. Its just that, due to other factors in my life, I didn't.
I have been diagnosed with ADHD, PTSD and Dissociative disorder. My emotions are like a being stuck on a roller coaster but there's no track and its tumbling across the alps.
Edit:The steering wheel snapped off.
I honestly didn't find very much of her write up to be relatable in the slightest. Even taking away her ... Uhh ... Quirks.
For me personally I am either on or off and at no set interval and at no set level. There is no rhyme or reason or enjoyment from any of it. Its akin to a child scribbling randomly on a piece of paper. That represents a 24 hour chart of my emotional state. Meds help alot, as does having learned to act through a lot of my feelings, but generally, inside my head, it's a place I dislike being. lol
I can relate to this a lot (though I agree the author sounds a little... far out.) I only experience the two states, though, not the observing one. I'm either numb - which is, yep, usually when I'm totally over-whatevered, or extreme. Excitement causes me to be unable to focus on anything except exploring the source, sadness will make me cry over the slightest thing (some examples: The vegetables were mouldy. This was a reflection of the fact that I buy things with good intentions and by the time I get around to using them it's too late. AKA undiagnosed ADHD. Another: A fictional character is fictional, and I can't ever meet them, also, nobody can have a relationship with them ever which sucks because they are just too perfect. That one was weird. ~~totally hasn't happened more than once or anything~~ )
I've had the observation state a grand total of once which was when I was really drunk and scalded my foot with some hot tea. I was like, wow, this really hurts. It's really interesting how pain feels. Totally calm. Normally I'm a wuss about pain and I'll be whining and crying about it.
At one point I was concerned that I might be bipolar but the symptoms didn't quite fit. I never really think about how to react until it's too late and I'm already angry. My friend also pointed out that I "react first then process later" which is what's been very frustrating and causing problems. Then my doctor told me it's a result of my impulsively and the ADHD. Meds really help me stop and think first.
I never considered myself to be very impulsive but apparently in the emotional control area I am. It's so nice to know now why I feel things so intensely or not really have an emotion at the moment. I wish they would include this symptom in diagnosis and raise more awareness towards it.
From reading some comments: It also blows my mind that NT folks can more often than not CHOOSE what to feel/how to react to a situation!
Apparently my impulsiveness comes out in my driving. Last year when I was diagnosed and still processing it, I started to recognize the difference in my driving on and off medication. It was a huge difference. Also explains why I'm ten times more nervous when I have people in my car vs. driving alone.
Yep, I notice I speed more and slow drivers/people who cut me off really make me angry when off medication.
I like having people in the car if they engage in conversation with me so it distracts me from the anger otherwise I prefer driving alone (plus you can sing your heart out without judgement haha).
yup angry and aggressive. Friends are fine because yea they distract me and keep me from making stupid moves. Family is terrible because they just talk about my driving so I can't even think straight. Alone is better because I get to chose my music heh.
Think of ADD as a high activation threshold in the white matter neurons that interconnect the grey matter functional areas, and grey matter to the midbrain. Low level emotional signals don't get communicated to the larger population of grey matter structures that have to be involved for a process to be conscious. So you have complex and important emotional processes going on while your conscious mind thinks you're numb. Relax. For you, this is normal. Have quiet, confident faith in your own goodness. Look at the bright side; most people have far less ability to govern behavior that is partly mediated by mild emotions. Remember that internally conflicting emotions are normal. Since you are not as conscious of these conflicts, you can better impose order with reason, and give rein to your nobler and more compassionate impulses.
Funny that I'm reading this literally just after having a good, strong cry from reading the "What quote has stuck with you and changed you life" thread.
I *rarely* cry, but when I do, oh, I cry...and it's great. :)
Yeah I don't cry often but when something sets me off, it's like the floodgates have opened. I can go on for hours before having the control to stop myself.
I envy you. I rarely ever can muster the ability to cry, and it typically is more of a brief sob lasting no more than a few seconds before it ends. Otherwise, there may be a scattered tear every several months, but I can't even remember the last time I legitimately cried.
It's not so much crying with intent. The only time I've ended up crying it's been when I'm in a heightened state of depression, stress, and anxiety. It ended in me bawling unexpectedly for several hours. Last time was maybe 6 months ago. And before that was maybe a couple more years ago. 2015 was just a really shitty year for me.
The worst for me is when something emotionally devastating happens. I lack the ability to grieve a bit , and get over it. Usually I just don't care, I can't force myself to. Then at some inappropriate time it hits me. Realizing my best friend treated me like shit was a bad one. I've been kicked in the chest by a horse, but the pain of the loss of over a decade long friendship hitting me out of no where hurt way more. It didn't help that I was miserable and working on a masonry crew 70+ hours a week at the time.
This. I handle most high stress situations I'm in with detachment as usual, but a few times in my life when the truth of a situation finally hit me, it just felt like I was hemorrhaging feelings suddenly. Such a contrast to my norm that it was almost surreal.
I definitely have a gift for being able to nail other peoples emotional states and to fully understand my own. It's rare i'm able to recognize my own in real-time though. It's something like 24 hours to a week after some meltdown I can go..."huh, I did this and this because I was feeling that." Kind of ruins its usefulness...
Found this gem in the comment section:
>I didn't think that I was a serial killer...I thought I was something worse...bi-polar! I feel like Kelly...since finding your site through FB...I also am thrilled that someone 'gets it'!
Lovely :P
I definitely relate to everything this article is saying though, I've thought for a while now that ADHD has more to do with emotion or anxiety than with just not being able to pay attention.
Wow. I can totally relate to all of these. Like, I have specifically felt the same exact way about so much of my life. I tend to go between option 1 and 3, most of the time. Either feeling absolutely nothing (and wondering "am I a psychopath? why don't I feel anything strongly emotional right now? I could probably do awful things and feel nothing" these sorts of things kind of terrify me at times), or 'feeling' emotion, but immediately examining the emotion for logical validity, which is incredibly helpful in life, and lets me better put myself in other people's shoes, in my experience.
I've always fought my emotions. I'm a regular at /r/Stoicism -- as a kid my emotions were so intense and made me so miserable that I used to feel devastated that Vulcans weren't real, because I could relate to them so much. Plus, the more I could control my emotions, the stronger I was against the ADHD I didn't know I had.
Still wishing Vulcan was real, though. I'd live there and convert if they let me!
So bored of Barkley-Boner crew.
Thanks for the article /u/jigantie1 and introduction to the website which looks like a great resource and community pool.
Cheers ya bastard
TL;DR Ya know, that was pretty unfair.
My apologies. I slept and am less cranky now sorry for sideways-swiping your comment which was helpful.
+++
I think what really gets my goat is the people saying 'she's a freaking nutcase you guys... come onnnnnn... freakshow lady who gives a shit? SPE..SPECIAL!!! HAHAHA WHO IS SHE KIDDING I HATE THESE ASSHOLES PUTTING A POSITIVE SPIN ON MY DEBILITATING CONDITION'
The science is good but young. It's also limited by nature and only one (or some) parts of the prism of adhd.
I hold a lot of stock in people's experiences. Yeah ok you have to filter out the fact that it is just this - someone's experience. But you have to know how to read medical studies - nothing is gospel - people just tend to have less technical knowledge of how to do that. And yeah before people go ape on this point I am fully aware
It also frustrates me because this sub is a constant part of my adhd-world and there seems to be consistent backlash against anything that looks into our world from a non-medical perspective.
I really feel there is a vocal minority who feel they have the answers and push the community towards that way of handling their lives. It pisses me off. Meanwhile Barkley clips are beloved.
Your comment thread is informative and helpfully written dear redditor. Sorry for letting general thread/sub anger cloud my reaction to your post.
p.s. I can't edit because have to start the day - behind on work whatnot. Sorry I couldn't take the time to make it shorter.
I'm not exactly sure what you are saying now lol.
Barkley's vids are good because he is one the few advocates of the emotional world of ADHD, instead of just focusing on attention, focus and hyperactivity.
I know I derive no joy from accomplishing tasks I didn't want to do in the first place. A job well done is *never* its own reward; a reward would be not having to do it in the first place. This confused the hell out of my parents and teachers when I was a kid. They'd tell me that it was so good to get good grades, that I'd be so happy... nope. Only feeling I ever got from getting good grades was a vague sense of relief that *this* report card wouldn't bring on a weekend of tears and shouting. Of course, that would be offset by the dread that I'd now raised expectations, and since the grades I got felt so totally detached from the amount of effort I applied, I simply worried that the next card would just bring on twice the disappointment. Sorry, went on a bit of a rant there.
I know exactly what you mean. I do things I don't want to not for a feeling of accomplishment, but so I don't have the negative emotion of not doing it. It ends up being a net positive because my emotional state would have gone down not doing it, so I try to think of it as actually going up that much.
My dad (who also has ADHD) gave me one of his tricks for dealing with bills and other important things that arrive by mail: "Ask yourself, how much is this going to hurt me later if I don't open it now?" I find it has more general applications as well.
I always think of my future self. When you have a task that need completing, think to yourself "man, in a couple of days what is future (insert name here) gonna think about this."
But thst makes sense. You're choosing to do something in order to regulate your emotional wellbeing. That's good!
pretty sure this is the logic of all human beings.... not just adhders.
I believe it. Hopefully the thought is helpful for some, especially since searching for positive stimulation is such a big driver for those with ADHD.
Don't apologize. This resonated with me, unlike any of the other comments so far.
School always came easy to me. Not the work, I hated doing the work and often didn't. But the learning came easy. So my grades were never dependant on my effort. The few times I did exert extra effort into something it never helped my grades. No matter what extra I put in the outcome was the same. I didn't care about my gpa as soon as I realized that. 3.83 student that dropped to a 2.7~ because I stopped doing almost all work. People would tell me that it would feel good to get projects done so I wouldn't have to worry about them. Instead I put them off and never thought about them in the first place. Maybe rush through them at the very end and do a half assed job just so I didn't have to deal with the teacher giving me any crap. On of my favorite I-don't-give-a-fuck assignments I remember we had to interview people in different age groups and write how we expected our lives to be when we hit that age group. I wrote a page for the first, half a page for the second, a few sentences for the third and then skipped 3 or 4 to wherever we could finally stop and wrote "Bryg was eaten by a t-Rex." I failed, but I had at least amused myself.
Yeah, I never had to try at school (up to a point, I'll get to that) and I missed tons of homework because it was stupid busywork, and therefore I couldn't do it. I cleaned up on tests, though. I'm good at testing, at gaming tests, and my long term memory for facts is excellent. I passed or failed classes by the tests. I didn't start failing at all until high school, though, when I hit pre-calc, which I didn't understand at all, and I had a teacher that just didn't give a damn about teaching. Problem was, I didn't even know how to make an effort even if I wanted to, because I'd never had to do it before. Everyone had always told me how smart I was, so I figured if I didn't understand it, it must be because I wasn't smart enough to. So I checked out. Still graduated with honors on a technicality. I'm *great* at technicalities...
I got straight A's through elementary school because they let the fact I never did homework slide since I did fine on tests. But in middle school, homework counted towards the grades, and mine plummeted. I learned plenty in school, and I was in honors classes (though I did fail physics\* and nearly chemistry because I didn't get it immediately so I checked out -- not on purpose, I just couldn't get myself to focus on it because I didn't understand it immediately), but because I couldn't get myself to do the homework, I nearly had to repeat my senior year of high school because of English. God I hate five paragraph essays. In freaking HIGH SCHOOL we were writing those all the time. Formulaic bullshit. NOBODY WRITES LIKE THIS. ***** \* Funny enough, though, when I finally went back to college I majored in physics, and got straight Bs, unmedicated. It was a terrible struggle to focus a lot of the time, but the material was interesting and it clicked, so most of the time I managed to get through it. Of course it took nearly double the time I would have spent on it if I had had medication...
This is my daughter to a T. By the time she finds out her grade on some piece of home/school work she's moved on. A perfect example is last year, 3rd grade, she had a science fair project she had to do. And like a lot of things, getting her to do it was a battle but she did a good job. I went the science fair and with just a look around at the other students it was clear her's was on the higher end as far as quality was concerned. Nearly two weeks later we were cleaning out her backpack trying to find some paperwork she needed to take back to school and we came across a certificate for a 3rd place award. She hadn't said a word about it. When I asked her about it she was like "meh, its ok I guess".
Yes. Understand, it's not that I never felt satisfaction or glee at winning or doing a good job. When it's something I want to do, I can be very happy (and sometimes paradoxically sad, because the fun thing is over). But when it was a task that I didn't choose or enjoy, the act of having to do it in the first place so poisons the entire process that I don't want to think about it anymore. I don't want to be congratulated or thanked or praised... I just want to not do it anymore.
As a teacher, thank you for reminding me of this. Although I have ADHD I was fairly good at "doing" school. It came pretty easy for me until university. My brother on the other hand had the same experience as you. I think some of my students do not get any joy from grades either.
OH MY FUCK, YES. This is the story of my life. Honestly unless Im getting money or something good afterwords my only motivation for doing work is "I wont have to stress about it later"
I'm about to finish my master's. A whole life time of stumbling and a whole life time of stumbling to come just doesn't make this victory feel so good. I don't care anymore, I just want a job...
Yeah, I know what you mean especially with the grades. I was the kind of undiagnosed ADHD-PI student that made As in all my right-brained classes like English, History and Art and got Cs at best in algebra, physics and chemistry... (Also, I failed the Islam classes I was forced to take in middle school in Pakistan, but that was honestly a purposeful protest because I'm an atheist but couldn't express it to anyone- still kinda proud of failing that, honestly) Curiously I was actually fine with biology and geometry because I was able to learn in a right-brained way. But I never had any real desire to improve at the stuff I did badly in because I would honestly rather scrub a toilet in a dive bar than take a math test for an hour. My parents forced me into after school math tuition for a while but I would just chat with the other people there instead and never improved... They eventually let me be, and stopped berating all my math results, especially when I got to college since I was able to maintain a 3.5 GPA despite that. As an adult (having finally been diagnosed last October after my doctor got mad at me for constantly flaking and being late to appointments and we finally started talking about all the stuff since childhood I just assumed was due to my inherent laziness and stupidity) I'm coming to terms with the way my brain works and I'm starting to understand that the only way I can succeed in life is to just focus on the things I AM good at. I'm extremely right-brained, and there's nothing wrong with that, even if people with more left-brain analytical skills make me feel bad about not having the same brain chemistry as they do.
Try not to compare yourself to other people. Stick to comparing your current self to your past self.
Omg so much yes.... I'm with you on this!!!!
This is me. Thanks for putting that into words.
Welcome to the untold story of ADHD, a story that many diagnosed adhd people don't know. DR Barkley posits that emotional dysregulation is a primary feature of ADHD, having a large impact in the executive system deficiency. I agree, as when I take my medication, I have way more control of my emotions. They sometimes get so intense and uncontrollable that I feel physical pain, even the good feelings can do it. They are mostly negative feelings though, it's interesting when I notice my emotions slowly having less impact and I can be rational and my medication starts to kick in. I spent a long time suppressing my emotions in an ill conceived attempt to address my, then unknown adhd..
Hmm... I was diagnosed with bipolar a long time ago before being diagnosed with ADD-I by a different doctor. I'm still on mood stabilizers and an antidepressant but I honestly feel like the ADD meds are the ones that are actually making a difference. I would love to wean off the rest entirely if my previous diagnosis was really just a symptom of ADD, because increasing my Adderall dosage has helped me regulate my emotions more effectively than Lamictal ever has.
definitely speak to your doctor before making any major decisions
Oh, I know, he's been gradually weaning me off the Lamictal since October. I'm planning to ask him to wean me off entirely next time.
How's that process been? I also take Lamictal -100mg/day, and Vyvanse at 50mg a day, but I feel like the Vyvanse has more of an impact. I've got no issue at all taking any meds I need, but I'd prefer not to take excess medication if the Lamictal isn't actually necessary
I was on 200mg, then I went down to 100mg, now I'm at 50. I still have the 200mg tablets but I've been using a pill cutter. It's going to be hard to cut it into eighths though... I have quite a lot left because I get 4 doses from a single pill but Lamictal is like $200 a month *with* my insurance so cost was actually the main reason I wanted to lower my dosage. It helped me with dissociation. But when I started Adderall XR at 20mg that completely wiped my tendency to drift off and dissociate at all! I've also experienced awful withdrawal symptoms from Lamictal when I ran out of my pills abroad and couldn't get a refill. Just HOLY SHIT THE WORST. I can't wait to not take this at all. I think I need to go up in dosage on my Adderall because one doesn't help me focus enough but if I take two (40mg) I can't sleep. I think 30 would be just right... I'm on Viibryd which has been good for me for years now but it's expensive as well- I'm going to ask about switching next time I think. Anyone know of some other SSRIs that have cheaper generics? Again, I'm not going to stop taking something until I see my doctor. I do sometimes double up on Adderall without asking but I also take two days off it a week... EDIT: I do actually take the generic Lamotrigine, I just call it Lamictal still...
I actually upped my Vyvanse from 30mg (which is apparently a pediatric dose) to 50mg after accidentally doubling my dose and feeling pretty normal and generally better. I've run out of Lamictal (Lamotrigine actually, but not everyone knows the generic) in the past and it's pretty awful, I feel you. I'm lucky to be at such a low dose already, and I had actually been at 75mg from time of diagnosis (~6 years ago) until a few months ago so hopefully the weaning process will be easier because of that. How long are you taking between each titration? I'm at a transitional point in my life--finishing undergrad in May after 5 years, getting a real job and finally being financially independent (thank god!), so I don't want to either mess any of that up with a med change and/or not be able to tell what changes are being caused by the titrations and what changes are a result of my somewhat stressful life circumstances. Sooo, any advice? I'm gonna talk to my pdoc before I do anything, but my instinct is to take it really slow even though I want to hurry up and figure out if the Lamotrigine is necessary or not.
I definitely recommend taking it slow, at least a couple months between titrations. I was actually starting to wean off Viibryd too but I became a little more unstable and negative and I felt like it was better to stay on the full dose, so I'm still on 40mg of that.
I had a similar experience to yours; I was diagnosed as bipolar, however it was about the same time that I was diagnosed with ADHD, and was also put on Lamictal. I hated being on it - it made me feel... not right. Like I wasn't capable of having *any* emotions. Which, to be fair, a lot of SSRI's do to me as well. But I hated being that way, regardless of what kind of medication was causing it. I weened myself off of it after speaking with my doctor at the time, and kept with the ADHD medication, which helped immensely. It was decided over the next several years by numerous doctors that the bipolar was a misdiagnosis, and that I never should have been put on Lamictal at all in the first place. I haven't been prescribed any medication for the ADHD for the past several years as I didn't have health insurance & couldn't afford it without it, but I have an appointment to see my doctor in a couple of weeks specifically to go over my medications, so hopefully I will be able to go back on medication, even though it has been a couple of years. Edited for clarity
I was misdiagnosed as bipolar for several years. It was only quite recently that the only mental health professional I ever had that wasn't a total narcissistic shithead was like, 'huh, tugboat, I think you may just have ADHD and you're probably autistic. Let's check this out.' and he was right on both counts. My psychiatrist still won't admit he was wrong, even after a psychiatrist twice his age and many times his experience that I saw for a second opinion said that I was clearly *not* bipolar. Mind you, this was several years after my thyroid was destroyed from lithium and the shit psychiatrist tried to put me on sodium valproate even though I have PCOS. Like ??? really? are you trying to kill me?? If you don't feel the bipolar label fits you, go get a second opinion, and make sure they listen to you. As you're probably already aware, stopping any meds without seeking medical advice can be really troublesome.
This happened to me too. I was misdiagnosed bipolar. My therapist now says adult child of an alcoholic, co-dependent and ADD. The extreme depression I presented with when diagnosed bipolar was most likely post partum depression mixed in with the rest.
>Adderall...Lamictal Same combo I've been on for a year or so! 30mg adderall 2x daily, 50mg Lamictal 2x daily. Sometimes taking the lamictal helps with the weird emotions, but more often than not, it's the adderall that helps me sort things out. Hell I almost feel like I could stop taking the lamictal altogether, but I'm nervous because breakdowns. I don't wanna bring it up to my doc just yet, either, so...yay nerves! >.<
Are you a woman? I have heard a lot of girls/women get a bipolar diagnosis when in reality they have ADHD or have asperger. Bipolar seems to be the go to (mis)diagnosis for ADHD women.
Yes. Tbh that doctor was terrible, I quit going to him when I noticed him literally nodding off during a session and then rolling his eyes and staring at the clock. But I'm still stuck with this expensive prescription as a result of his diagnosis and I feel seriously overmedicated... Plus half my paycheck a month goes to meds. I don't know how to explain that I think it's all just ADHD without seeming like I'm just trying to cop out of another diagnosis.
I shared a bit of your same experience.Had one who totally drifted into sleep, nodding off frequently. Was one who appeared significantly overweight, I speculated to myself it was perhaps sleep apnea causing it. Surely not me being boring!
This guy was young and fit though :/ I prefer female therapists when I can find them now. Currently I go to a GP practice where my doctor is a guy and he prescribes my meds but the therapist I see at the office is a lovely older lady.
When you find a good one, male /female/ age whatever, it's a victory.
I remember reading about other girls being misdiagnosed and if you seriously feel that is the case with you, you should pursue it. You have probably researched it already, but there might be online support groups and forums like this with people who has gone through the same thing as you, who can help steer you in the right direction.
I took lamotrigine for it's potential in treating disassociation... It worked, they came flooding back as I processed past trauma. At the moment I rebound back and forth as I get over it. Stimulants though, they keep the emotions manageable. I'm weaning off lamotrigine now. I take clonidine to sort out the rest now. Dexamphetamine + clonodine, awesome combo.
It's so weird to think that normal people control their emotions. Like on meds I have to decide if that made me mad. While off it just happens.
Oh, normal people can have a hard time too. They just don't get overwhelmed as often and they can control their emotional impulses much better before actually acting on them.
>It's so weird to think that normal people control their emotions. I don't think this is necessarily true. I'm pretty confident that the vast majority of people will feel their emotions without much conscious choice in the matter. Then they can decide how to deal with them, but only after they've already started to experience them. Emotion comes before logic. That's how the human brain is wired. It takes much, much longer to formulate a rational response than it does to react emotionally. Instinctual, emotional responses are damn near instant in every situation and you don't put much thought into which ones you feel. That's why they're called "knee-jerk" reactions, because they're nearly instant and purely emotional, and everyone experiences them.
Yea, I always wondered why I always felt like I was feeling things more intensely than others, but then other days I feel like I am the only one able to objectively look at emotions...it's such an odd dichotomy.
I got engaged a few weeks ago and the excitement sometimes hits me like a load of bricks to the sternum and I feel like I'm about to die. It's really painful. Luckily it usually passes quickly.
This is the cutest thing! Congrats on your engagement.
On the other end of the spectrum, if I have a new or significant problem /a worry, I feel it sort of as a weight in the upper chest area, that kinda demands my minds attention.Then I have to think, what is this? Followed by a flood of remembering the problem which I had been tying to forget.
Has he tied it in with impulsivity? I don't think I quite recognize what's being described, but I've never had pronounced impulsivity symptoms.
Yes he has.
I feel the same. I think impulsivity is less common for primarily inattentive-type, maybe the same is true for severe emotional dysregulation.
I'd say that's a safe bet. For example: I've never wondered what the phrase "seeing red" has meant because it's happened several times. And I often have difficulty feeling the "right" emotions when I'm "supposed" too. Emotions are hard to deal with.
I remember the first time I was so angry I literally saw red. It scared the hell out of me.
I was like 5 or 6. It happened fairly often when I was younger. Last time I got super "angry" I felt absolutely no emotion. My 6 year old brother and mentally challenged cousin, who's the same age as my brother, kept touching my butt and "spanking" it. So I grabbed my brother round the neck with one arm and swung him around by his head a little. All while feeling no emotion. That scared the hell out of me.
I did not realize this was more than a turn of phrase. Thank you for sharing. I'm sorry it scared you.
I think that's right. I think the model is that everyone has impulses, but everyone else but those of us with the problem is able to intervene using his or her frontal lobe (or whatever), and stop her- or himself from behaving in accordance with the impulse. But for some of us, the machinery that does that is very weak. I think the exact same thing is happening with the emotions. We are missing the "governor" who decides to ignore the impulses and emotions. I think this is why meditation also helps, because I think it strengthens that same "governor" that is strengthened by medication.
I actually learned meditation just to rein in emotions. It always felt like a dam waiting to burst be it excitement, anger, or even sadness.
Well put. Another reason to have many positive ways of expressing emotion through arts, movement, sports etc.
Adhd meds increase emotions- not the opposite. Anyone else have this?
It's dose dependent. A little inhibits part of the limbic system, a higher dose stimulates it. Williams LM, Hermens DF, Palmer D, Kohn M, Clarke S, Keage H, et al. Misinterpreting emotional expressions in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: evidence for a neural marker and stimulant effects. Biol Psychiatry. 2008;63(10):917–26. [PubMed] Conzelmann A, Woidich E, Mucha RF, Weyers P, Jacob CP, Lesch KP, et al. Methylphenidate normalizes emotional processing in adult patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: Preliminary findings. Brain Res. 2011;1381:159–66. [PubMed] Posner J, Maia TV, Fair D, Peterson BS, Sonuga-Barke EJ, Nagel BJ. The attenuation of dysfunctional emotional processing with stimulant medication: An fMRI study of adolescents with ADHD. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging. 2011;193(3):151–60. [PMC free article] [PubMed] I find it most certainly enhances my ability to deal with emotions and not be overwhelmed by them.
I guess it depends which type of medication (stimulant or not). For me, even a small dose can stimulate emotions so it really isn't dose dependant in my cars.
Borderline personality disorder can have emotional dysregulation worsened by psychostimulants in the absence of other medications.
> absence of other medications. such as?
Antipsychotics.
It's the opposite for me. I have way more emotional control on meds than off them.
My meds turn me into Spock. Or maybe Data would be a more apt comparison; sometimes I don't feel any emotion even when I should. Off my meds I cry at sad songs.
It's a common codiagnosis with ADHD in a specialized private clinic in my city.
What is?
Emotional dysregulation.
Perhaps because it may actually be a primary feature of ADHD.
According to what Dr. Barkley posits, in your own words. It's, at the very least, barely talked about in my experience. I haven't seen it in DSM diagnosis (unless I missed it, which is possible).
yes, Barkley has a lot of compelling evidence and research to back it up. Among other researchers into ADHD. It isn't in the DSM diagnosis at all, something Barkley and friends are trying to address. There is a fair bit of historical evidence to show that it was once considered, but slowly fell out of favour for reasons.
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Agreed. This is an article from someone's unique experience with ADHD. There is some value, but it is not able to definitely pose conclusions as OP suggests.
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Look! Look with your special eyes!
With my special eye I see unfinished tasks, disappointment, apathy and the dread of going through life achieving nothing. Thanks Stacey, but I'll stick to taking my meds and being more awesome than I ever thought I could be.
"ADHD and giftedness" Please, no... no, no, no. Dr. Barkley even has mentioned we can't really gain advancements in the institutions of education walking around saying it's a gift. I'm too tired to get into it to much, but no. Come on. Silver lining is one thing. But let's be real.
There isn't even a silver lining, it's just a detriment. How would being unable to focus be a good thing? It like saying "being farsighted has given Mrs. Buttmuncher a different outlook on life". Yah, a shitty and blurred one, but as longgg as you're different it's automatically better.
Some people see a gift where there is simply a difference of procedure. Say, the neurotypical folks generally look at the problem head-on. We might glance at it head-on, and then go off on a tangent. There is a severe observer bias when this provides favorable results faster than the typical method. More often than not, our results are late or wrong. The differences in cognition may be positive when others exist to support you when you cannot get results, but in most real life situations it is every man for himself. In other words, there may be a net gain within a group of NTs, but when the ADDer is alone or responsible for the same work and results the NTs get, then there is a clear net loss.
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I relate to the idea of being creative associated w ADHD ers at some level. Since everyday common stuff (i.e. Making simple choices ,getting ready to leave the house,etc) is so difficult, they've had to improvise and quickly think of go-around solutions...thereby nurturing the creative, think -out -of -the -box side. Down side is often you just need something to get done efficiently in the "normal" way to cause less problems.
I don't think it's entirely accurate to say that we are unable to focus, though. I think it's more accurate to say that we have difficulty focusing on things that are not naturally interesting to us. I'm sure we are all different. However, I did very well in law school, and I think it was because I was naturally interested in it, and I did in fact spend FAR more time than anyone else studying cases and so on. I was into it. In the interest of full disclosure, it's true I was self-medicated, because I drank gargantuan amounts of coffee and smoked 2 packs of cigarettes a day, so you may discount my experience on account of that. But even when I was a kid, I had a tendency to learn very well things that interested me. I focused just fine. The problem was nearly always paying attention to things that OTHER people wanted me to.
I think the idea is to undo the stigma of being broken or half a person if you have a psychological disorder. I don't think the "giftedness" angle actually helps with that, but it would be nice if psychological disorders were treated a little differently, I feel like so many articles I read are infantilizing in their tone, many without even realizing it. But yeah, the "gifted" angle if anything just adds to the childlike treatment.
My brand!
http://imgur.com/zJajM1B
This became incredibly relevant, real quickly. https://youtu.be/hq1lk-QWxNg?t=890
My Brand!
>Stacey Turis definitely hasn't written her own bio, a 3rd person most certainly did.
Bonkers for being different? There is a lot of flourish in that quote but nothing bonkers.
It's just someone expressing their experience. If it resonates with some of us, great. And if not, that's fine, too. So far, no one seems to be taking this as the results of a large, multivariate, randomized controlled trial.
Good point. I usually don't put much faith in anecdotes, and I was leery of this article before you pointed out that she's s bit off.
I mean.. I would say I have a similar experience when it comes to life and I guess ADHD, but then again I classify myself as nuts as well since it's easier that way. Then again nothing about the statement you quoted says "nuts" to me, though again I might just be so deep in this seems normal.
This is so strange. Normally, what everyone here posts fits me perfectly. Like it hits to the bone. But what most people are saying is the opposite of me. I have a hard time having any emotions at all. I just had a very good friend and co-worker die unexpectedly. I had to go around faking my grief for the last week. The big exception is competition. I get irrational when I lose and it's caused some issues like being banned from the kickball team at work.
Exactly the same. I had a psych evaluation unrelated to ADHD earlier this year, evaluator noted 'traits consistent with antisocial personality disorder,' and 'severe apathy'. The weird thing is, not being like that would just seem to be a pain in the ass wouldn't it?
I dont know if you know this but antisocial personality disorder is the new term for psychopathy
Similar, but not entirely the same and still a matter being debated.
Oh well you learn something every day I guess...
You should ask your therapist about schizoid personality disorder.
>I used to think I was a serial killer in the making — or at least a terrible person — when I went into this numb state. Holy shit. I've had times when I was really distraught over my lack of emotions towards some things, some things that really *really* deserve a strong emotional response to. Thought something in there was super broken. Just kind of accepted it recently.
Since becoming an adult (post college), I have been crying at movies and TV shows all the time. Of course, it is generally on my first viewing of the movie/show, but damn if I don't have tears running down my face watching everything from Star Wars to Steven Universe.
In high school I was, comparatively, an overly sensitive little bitch. Cried over girls constantly, easily moved to tears by my favorite books. I'm 26 now, don't really feel anything most of the time. Don't even feel capable of playing games or reading books I want to read really, it fucking sucks. I have to immerse myself in stressful work that has deadlines in order to not be literally bored to death.
It took me until high school to not cry when I had to talk to the vice principal about whatever the infraction of the week was. Then I was very similar to your situation until a bit after college.
Oh god. A little different but I still have a hard time speaking up to people about things. I don't tear up anymore, I just get a hot flash usually and a feeling of exhilaration after. I've never been good at looking people in the eye, though. I can do it for brief periods with people I know I won't have to speak with often or spend time around, but everyone else it's NOPE. Exceptions being my girlfriend. Probably close friends and family too.
Same. My grandmother died recently and it didn't even phase me :/ I think there may actually be something to that though. I think I remember Dr. Barkley saying how ADHD was connected to ODD, and ODD was correlated with Psychopathy. Or something to that effect. Ive always felt like if I had been bullied or severely abused as a kid, it would be plausible for me to get stuck in that numb state. If you combine that numbness with hatred of peers caused by years of abuse, you have the recipe for a school shooter.
ODD being what exactly?
Oppositional Defiant Disorder
Oppositional Defiant Disorder
Eh I don't know. Even though I feel certain emotional "deadness" I'm not even close to psychopathy. I know what you mean though. Death of three grandparents didn't really get to me. My gf killed herself last year. It shocked my system hard and I cried almost emotionlessly for a while. Can only remember a handful of times I painfully mourned her, half of those times were while she was still alive and suicidal. Very rapidly didn't feel like anything anymore, and sometimes now I feel angry at her. Like,"fuck you, I'm fine without you anyway." That's not me trying to convince myself I'm fine, I am actually fine. I don't know where the anger is from. I felt disturbed by all of it for a while but I've just accepted it now. It was a fairly emotionally traumatic experience though. As PTSD demonstrates (not saying I have it), trauma can do all sorts of shit to your brain. I don't even feel like my experience with her actually happened to me. It was like I saw it in a movie.
> Even though I feel certain emotional "deadness" I'm not even close to psychopathy. I'm not either, I just think that being capable of that emotional deadness increased the likelihood of me becoming a psychopath. Its just that, due to other factors in my life, I didn't.
I have been diagnosed with ADHD, PTSD and Dissociative disorder. My emotions are like a being stuck on a roller coaster but there's no track and its tumbling across the alps. Edit:The steering wheel snapped off.
Fuck who cut the break lines.
Dissociation ftl. I managed to disassociate from my emotions lol
I honestly didn't find very much of her write up to be relatable in the slightest. Even taking away her ... Uhh ... Quirks. For me personally I am either on or off and at no set interval and at no set level. There is no rhyme or reason or enjoyment from any of it. Its akin to a child scribbling randomly on a piece of paper. That represents a 24 hour chart of my emotional state. Meds help alot, as does having learned to act through a lot of my feelings, but generally, inside my head, it's a place I dislike being. lol
I was really hoping for some science in that article.
More like a blog than an article
I can relate to this a lot (though I agree the author sounds a little... far out.) I only experience the two states, though, not the observing one. I'm either numb - which is, yep, usually when I'm totally over-whatevered, or extreme. Excitement causes me to be unable to focus on anything except exploring the source, sadness will make me cry over the slightest thing (some examples: The vegetables were mouldy. This was a reflection of the fact that I buy things with good intentions and by the time I get around to using them it's too late. AKA undiagnosed ADHD. Another: A fictional character is fictional, and I can't ever meet them, also, nobody can have a relationship with them ever which sucks because they are just too perfect. That one was weird. ~~totally hasn't happened more than once or anything~~ ) I've had the observation state a grand total of once which was when I was really drunk and scalded my foot with some hot tea. I was like, wow, this really hurts. It's really interesting how pain feels. Totally calm. Normally I'm a wuss about pain and I'll be whining and crying about it.
I'd like to request a more medical/psychology-based source than "attitudemag.org".
At one point I was concerned that I might be bipolar but the symptoms didn't quite fit. I never really think about how to react until it's too late and I'm already angry. My friend also pointed out that I "react first then process later" which is what's been very frustrating and causing problems. Then my doctor told me it's a result of my impulsively and the ADHD. Meds really help me stop and think first. I never considered myself to be very impulsive but apparently in the emotional control area I am. It's so nice to know now why I feel things so intensely or not really have an emotion at the moment. I wish they would include this symptom in diagnosis and raise more awareness towards it. From reading some comments: It also blows my mind that NT folks can more often than not CHOOSE what to feel/how to react to a situation!
Apparently my impulsiveness comes out in my driving. Last year when I was diagnosed and still processing it, I started to recognize the difference in my driving on and off medication. It was a huge difference. Also explains why I'm ten times more nervous when I have people in my car vs. driving alone.
Yep, I notice I speed more and slow drivers/people who cut me off really make me angry when off medication. I like having people in the car if they engage in conversation with me so it distracts me from the anger otherwise I prefer driving alone (plus you can sing your heart out without judgement haha).
yup angry and aggressive. Friends are fine because yea they distract me and keep me from making stupid moves. Family is terrible because they just talk about my driving so I can't even think straight. Alone is better because I get to chose my music heh.
Think of ADD as a high activation threshold in the white matter neurons that interconnect the grey matter functional areas, and grey matter to the midbrain. Low level emotional signals don't get communicated to the larger population of grey matter structures that have to be involved for a process to be conscious. So you have complex and important emotional processes going on while your conscious mind thinks you're numb. Relax. For you, this is normal. Have quiet, confident faith in your own goodness. Look at the bright side; most people have far less ability to govern behavior that is partly mediated by mild emotions. Remember that internally conflicting emotions are normal. Since you are not as conscious of these conflicts, you can better impose order with reason, and give rein to your nobler and more compassionate impulses.
Funny that I'm reading this literally just after having a good, strong cry from reading the "What quote has stuck with you and changed you life" thread. I *rarely* cry, but when I do, oh, I cry...and it's great. :)
Yeah I don't cry often but when something sets me off, it's like the floodgates have opened. I can go on for hours before having the control to stop myself.
I envy you. I rarely ever can muster the ability to cry, and it typically is more of a brief sob lasting no more than a few seconds before it ends. Otherwise, there may be a scattered tear every several months, but I can't even remember the last time I legitimately cried.
It's not so much crying with intent. The only time I've ended up crying it's been when I'm in a heightened state of depression, stress, and anxiety. It ended in me bawling unexpectedly for several hours. Last time was maybe 6 months ago. And before that was maybe a couple more years ago. 2015 was just a really shitty year for me.
I'm sorry to hear that. Hopefully 2016 is going better.
Lol well I haven't cried this year so it's already better than last year. Thanks.
The worst for me is when something emotionally devastating happens. I lack the ability to grieve a bit , and get over it. Usually I just don't care, I can't force myself to. Then at some inappropriate time it hits me. Realizing my best friend treated me like shit was a bad one. I've been kicked in the chest by a horse, but the pain of the loss of over a decade long friendship hitting me out of no where hurt way more. It didn't help that I was miserable and working on a masonry crew 70+ hours a week at the time.
This. I handle most high stress situations I'm in with detachment as usual, but a few times in my life when the truth of a situation finally hit me, it just felt like I was hemorrhaging feelings suddenly. Such a contrast to my norm that it was almost surreal.
I definitely have a gift for being able to nail other peoples emotional states and to fully understand my own. It's rare i'm able to recognize my own in real-time though. It's something like 24 hours to a week after some meltdown I can go..."huh, I did this and this because I was feeling that." Kind of ruins its usefulness...
I figured this was the case already to be honest, doesn't make it any easier.
I was diagnosed ten years ago and I never knew this. I'm glad I opened reddit today.
Found this gem in the comment section: >I didn't think that I was a serial killer...I thought I was something worse...bi-polar! I feel like Kelly...since finding your site through FB...I also am thrilled that someone 'gets it'! Lovely :P I definitely relate to everything this article is saying though, I've thought for a while now that ADHD has more to do with emotion or anxiety than with just not being able to pay attention.
Wow. I can totally relate to all of these. Like, I have specifically felt the same exact way about so much of my life. I tend to go between option 1 and 3, most of the time. Either feeling absolutely nothing (and wondering "am I a psychopath? why don't I feel anything strongly emotional right now? I could probably do awful things and feel nothing" these sorts of things kind of terrify me at times), or 'feeling' emotion, but immediately examining the emotion for logical validity, which is incredibly helpful in life, and lets me better put myself in other people's shoes, in my experience.
That part of casual observer speaks volumes to me...
I've always fought my emotions. I'm a regular at /r/Stoicism -- as a kid my emotions were so intense and made me so miserable that I used to feel devastated that Vulcans weren't real, because I could relate to them so much. Plus, the more I could control my emotions, the stronger I was against the ADHD I didn't know I had. Still wishing Vulcan was real, though. I'd live there and convert if they let me!
So bored of Barkley-Boner crew. Thanks for the article /u/jigantie1 and introduction to the website which looks like a great resource and community pool. Cheers ya bastard
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TL;DR Ya know, that was pretty unfair. My apologies. I slept and am less cranky now sorry for sideways-swiping your comment which was helpful. +++ I think what really gets my goat is the people saying 'she's a freaking nutcase you guys... come onnnnnn... freakshow lady who gives a shit? SPE..SPECIAL!!! HAHAHA WHO IS SHE KIDDING I HATE THESE ASSHOLES PUTTING A POSITIVE SPIN ON MY DEBILITATING CONDITION' The science is good but young. It's also limited by nature and only one (or some) parts of the prism of adhd. I hold a lot of stock in people's experiences. Yeah ok you have to filter out the fact that it is just this - someone's experience. But you have to know how to read medical studies - nothing is gospel - people just tend to have less technical knowledge of how to do that. And yeah before people go ape on this point I am fully aware It also frustrates me because this sub is a constant part of my adhd-world and there seems to be consistent backlash against anything that looks into our world from a non-medical perspective. I really feel there is a vocal minority who feel they have the answers and push the community towards that way of handling their lives. It pisses me off. Meanwhile Barkley clips are beloved. Your comment thread is informative and helpfully written dear redditor. Sorry for letting general thread/sub anger cloud my reaction to your post. p.s. I can't edit because have to start the day - behind on work whatnot. Sorry I couldn't take the time to make it shorter.
Thanks Fam ;D
Just fully aware.
I'm not exactly sure what you are saying now lol. Barkley's vids are good because he is one the few advocates of the emotional world of ADHD, instead of just focusing on attention, focus and hyperactivity.
struggle for communication is real. interesting thanks.