ADD Drugs Do More Harm than Good

[Freeky]

Monkeys are designed to deal with 5 stressors:

1.  Is there any food?
2.  Is that a leopard coming through the tall grass, or is it just the wind?
3.  Is this a safe place to go to sleep?
4.  What are my chances of getting laid today?
5.  Where do I stand in the tribe?  Am I the alpha, watching out for young bucks, or am I a beta, trying not to piss off the alpha?

That's about it.  Now look at the stresses we face every day, without even necessarily consciously noticing them.

These actually translate pretty well to modern day.

1.  Is there any food resources?  (Food money, if there is not much food in the house, counts).
2.  Is this individual who is a part of a demographic I am intrinsically afraid of actually going to harm me, or am I just responding to   cultural warnings based on fear/the fear of having to review my world views and find them wanting/a drug fuelled hallucination?
3.  Is this home/park/bridge safe to sleep in/under?
4.  What are my chances of getting laid today?  (I don't think this one will ever change, lol)
5.  Where do I stand in my household (seems to me that would be the closest thing to an everyday tribe)?  Am I a renter/owner, keeping shit under control, or am I the couch surfer/spare bedroom mooch trying not to piss off or inconvenience the owner/renter?

Alternatively,

5.  Where is my tribe, and what did I do wrong to get the boot?

[Triple Zero]

Anyone who carries a ADD diagnosis was either diagnosed before the psychologists worked out what their terminology meant, or was diagnosed by a guidance counselor or something.

False.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Anyone who carries a ADD diagnosis was either diagnosed before the psychologists worked out what their terminology meant, or was diagnosed by a guidance counselor or something.

False.

What do you mean, "false"? Maybe things are completely different in Belgium, but in the U.S. ADD was formally reclassified as ADHD/inattentive type in the DSM-IV. There has been no such formal diagnosis as "ADD" according to the APA since 1994. What he said was completely accurate; anyone in the States who has a formal diagnosis of "ADD" either received diagnosis prior to 1994, or received a diagnosis from someone unqualified to make it.

[Bu🤠ns]

I read a book a loooooong time ago (so i'm probably messing up my facts a little but...)  that the person with AD(H)D had, now what was it...something more like a 'hunter mind' describing characteristics like, being able to scan and process information quickly for predators and having a hyper-focus in certain activities (and obviously not others, as is common in add or adhd iirc?).

The main thing being that while it does have some behavioral disadvantages, does ADD and ADHD have any behavioral advantages ?

The whole hunter vs. agriculturist is 100% pure Lo5 bullshit.  Take the sentence "Kids with ADHD aren't mentally ill, they're just natural born hunters born into a world designed around sheep people" and count how many semantic leaps you have to make to get to "Kids with autism aren't mentally ill, they're just vibrating at the frequency of the New Age while their teachers are stuck in the green-blue spectrum."

e.g., people with ADHD are a lot more likely to get into auto accidents.  They have hard time keeping track of all of the things around them that could kill them dead.  I have a very hard time buying the idea that that quality predisposes them to the patience and alertness required to bring home a deer.

My younger sister was one of the people who fell into "would not have graduated highschool without ADHD meds" camp.  Nothing about her is remotely hunterlike.  Now, she is a genius, but so are all the non-ADHD people in my extended family.

Well that hunter/farmer theory does seem a bit haughty but I wasn't really going into the whole, "it's NOT a mental illness" angle but more along the lines of looking for a positive tradeoff

For instance, one part of the diagnosis for me way back in the day was that I had Hyperfocus.  With some every day tasks i was (and still am to a small degree) tend to completely miss out.  But with other tasks I can stay on it for hours without distractions.  This has been both a blessing and  a curse.

or is all that just Lo5 bullshit too?

[Triple Zero]

Anyone who carries a ADD diagnosis was either diagnosed before the psychologists worked out what their terminology meant, or was diagnosed by a guidance counselor or something.

False.

What do you mean, "false"? Maybe things are completely different in Belgium, but in the U.S. ADD was formally reclassified as ADHD/inattentive type in the DSM-IV. There has been no such formal diagnosis as "ADD" according to the APA since 1994. What he said was completely accurate; anyone in the States who has a formal diagnosis of "ADD" either received diagnosis prior to 1994, or received a diagnosis from someone unqualified to make it.

Thanks for clarifying, I stand corrected. The phrase "ADHD/inattentive type" (or the Dutch translation thereof) indeed appears on formal paperwork I have on the matter. My psychiatrist apparently just tends to informally call it ADD when there's no (physical) hyperactivity involved. My point was that he's neither a guidance counselor nor did I get the diagnosis before 1994.

(whether that particular part of my diagnosis is entirely accurate is a separate question, as I'm not really like most people with ADHD I know personally, my case is just kind of unusual I suppose--but that's another story)

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I read a book a loooooong time ago (so i'm probably messing up my facts a little but...)  that the person with AD(H)D had, now what was it...something more like a 'hunter mind' describing characteristics like, being able to scan and process information quickly for predators and having a hyper-focus in certain activities (and obviously not others, as is common in add or adhd iirc?).

The main thing being that while it does have some behavioral disadvantages, does ADD and ADHD have any behavioral advantages ?

The whole hunter vs. agriculturist is 100% pure Lo5 bullshit.  Take the sentence "Kids with ADHD aren't mentally ill, they're just natural born hunters born into a world designed around sheep people" and count how many semantic leaps you have to make to get to "Kids with autism aren't mentally ill, they're just vibrating at the frequency of the New Age while their teachers are stuck in the green-blue spectrum."

e.g., people with ADHD are a lot more likely to get into auto accidents.  They have hard time keeping track of all of the things around them that could kill them dead.  I have a very hard time buying the idea that that quality predisposes them to the patience and alertness required to bring home a deer.

My younger sister was one of the people who fell into "would not have graduated highschool without ADHD meds" camp.  Nothing about her is remotely hunterlike.  Now, she is a genius, but so are all the non-ADHD people in my extended family.

Well that hunter/farmer theory does seem a bit haughty but I wasn't really going into the whole, "it's NOT a mental illness" angle but more along the lines of looking for a positive tradeoff

For instance, one part of the diagnosis for me way back in the day was that I had Hyperfocus.  With some every day tasks i was (and still am to a small degree) tend to completely miss out.  But with other tasks I can stay on it for hours without distractions.  This has been both a blessing and  a curse.

or is all that just Lo5 bullshit too?

Hyperfocus is real, and can be useful, and can also cause problems. But that's another topic.

Whether ADHD is a mental illness, per se, is pretty much a matter of how you define "mental illness".

Strictly speaking it's a neurological disorder that affects mental function and behavior. http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/adhd/adhd.htm

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Anyone who carries a ADD diagnosis was either diagnosed before the psychologists worked out what their terminology meant, or was diagnosed by a guidance counselor or something.

False.

What do you mean, "false"? Maybe things are completely different in Belgium, but in the U.S. ADD was formally reclassified as ADHD/inattentive type in the DSM-IV. There has been no such formal diagnosis as "ADD" according to the APA since 1994. What he said was completely accurate; anyone in the States who has a formal diagnosis of "ADD" either received diagnosis prior to 1994, or received a diagnosis from someone unqualified to make it.

Thanks for clarifying, I stand corrected. The phrase "ADHD/inattentive type" (or the Dutch translation thereof) indeed appears on formal paperwork I have on the matter. My psychiatrist apparently just tends to informally call it ADD when there's no (physical) hyperactivity involved. My point was that he's neither a guidance counselor nor did I get the diagnosis before 1994.

(whether that particular part of my diagnosis is entirely accurate is a separate question, as I'm not really like most people with ADHD I know personally, my case is just kind of unusual I suppose--but that's another story)

But you also don't have a diagnosis of ADD, so your point is moot.