It's an interesting characterization of ADHD I've never considered. I absolutely have ADHD, but personally don't have this chronic problem of being able to "plan" for the future but not to follow through on my plans (provided I am sufficiently motivated toward the goal). I procrastinate like crazy, but in the end I follow through on and tend to achieve my goals.
For me, ADHD has always mainly been about 1) impulsivity and 2) lack of sustained focus (although this can fluctuate with my level of interest in what I am trying to focus on).
Impulsivity is related to "thinking about the future" because people with ADHD can often make poor decisions in the moment without seeming to consider about negative consequences for the future. But that doesn't stop them from, say, planning to get into graduate school (long term goal) and then taking the steps they need to do so.
I've always thought of the procrastination bit as being related, but definitely not the "hallmark" trait of ADHD.
What I am getting at is, I don't think that if you have the particular quality OP described necessarily means you have ADHD if you don't have some of the other classic symptoms. Procrastination and motivation issues can exist without ADHD.
For me the absolutely biggest parts of my adhd is decision fatigue, restlessness and constant anhedonia.
If I have to make many seemingly pointless decisions I'll run out of "decision making fuel" and I'll just get angry and confused and generally make bad decisions or just shut down.
I can almost never relax. I can't get home from work, feel tired and just chill out and recharge my batteries. Nope. Gotta do shit! Anything! Right now! I'm gonna.. uhh... build a soil sifter! But shit I'm tired after a long day of work. I should rest. Nah, fuck resting, that's boring. Hey that's a cool article on reddit! It's about guitars. I could learn to play guitar. Right, I already have one! I should play some guitar right now. What's that? We gotta make dinner? Again? But we ate yesterday. I don't have time for that! Etc...
And whatever I do, it's never enough. I almost never feel satisfied or "done". That's the worst part of it. Nothing ever feels very good for long. It's like a constant dopamine itch I gotta scratch. Gotta do something to get my fix, but I'm not sure what.
Then there's the whole attention and procrastination bits, but with a bit of practice and discipline anyone can get those bits under control. The other stuff I mentioned seems to be beyond my control unfortunately...
I also have the type of restlessness you're describing, but I actually never associated it with my ADHD...maybe because I have a couple close friends like this too who definitely don't have ADHD themselves. There's still so much we don't know about any of these conditions.
I directly link that to the H in my ADHD. My SO has ADD and is usually fine doing absolutely nothing all day long for the same reason I have to do things all day long. It's just not rewarding enough to do normal things like normal people. Her brain decides that means it's best not to do anything cause what's the point, while my brain decides that I should try to do as much as possible as fast as possible to make it feel stimulating.
Anyone can have basically adhd trait and not have ADHD. That's why the condition is not taken seriously by so many people. Most people can relate to at least some part of ADHD, because it's a bunch of pretty normal personality traits.
It's just that in adhd, there are many of these traits at the same time, and they're more severe than in most.
Browsing /r/adhd is a good way to get a grip on what ADHD does to people in an everyday context. It's given me so much insight about things I never would have guessed were connected to ADHD that aren't typically mentioned by psychiatrists and the like.
I've actually used other psychatric subreddits to get a good understanding on what some mental illnesses actually are. I've read several articles on borderline personality disorder, but I never really understood what it was other than some emotional disorder. I randomly decided to check out /r/borderline and it only took a few minutes of browsing to get a feel for how it actually affects people. One of the most eye opening posts there was something like "Right now I'm really angry for no reason. There must be a reason for my anger. I bet my BF cheated on me. That's a perfectly legitimate reason to be angry. What an asshole, why would he cheat on me!?". Apparently it seems you have very little control of your emotions, and you tend to adjust the facts and the world around you to fit your emotions, rather than the other way around.
I have the decision fatigue but not the H. My wife and I just put a garden in and it was suppose to be her project. So I asked her "Do you know where you are going to plant things?" She of course didn't 3 hours later I am still working on a layout that takes into account plant spacing, height, compatibility, fertilizer needs and of course how many of each. I have all these plants that were started under grow lights and they really just need to get in the ground. Luckily on my meds it only took me a few hours to come up with a plan and I was able to force myself to put the tomato plants in and that limited my choices moving forward enough to finish the task. Unmedicated I would be writing a program to figure out the optimal placement until well after the plants had died of neglect.
Lol, that sounds pretty hyper to me. It's mainly physical mostly in children.
I hate that sort of involuntary hyperfocus. When you just... can't stop. I can be doing something i don't even want to do anymore but I just can't stop. It's awful. Sometimes I have to call for my SO and ask her to sort of physically pull me away.
I agree with you about the OP. I am not saying they have ADD. They seamed to be latching onto the idea that ADD people can't plan for the future. Like the fact that they think about the future and understand the negative consequences of inaction means its not ADD.
Planning to get into graduate school and then taking the steps they need to can happen with ADD. For an ADD person its just going to go differently. The application is going to be finished on the last day. They might not apply to all 3 schools they wanted to because they didn't have time on that last day. They will have many late nights where they start and finish a project they should have worked on for a week or more. Their high test scores will help make up for bad project scores. Long term educational goals were easier for me because the University supplies a series of impending deadlines that I can run into. Life goals are harder.
Goals you care about are another thing altogether. I call it hyper focus. Tonight I will spend way too much time configuring a new 3d printer. I will be so intently focused on it that I neglect other things that I should be doing. When you care about something the dopamine release is greater when you accomplish things and that is enough to activate an ADD person. Then the problem is shutting them off. I have been thinking about my garden almost constantly for the last 5 days.
For me my ADD's worst symptom is how everything gets equal attention in my brain. If I go out to eat I listen to every conversation. I watch the servers, the bartender, the people walking in and out. Most people seam to be able to pay attention to one thing and ignore the rest. I can't do that. I need to put myself in some form of isolation. If I am actually interested in something then all the distraction won't take me out of the task they will just frustrate me. Of course I am medicated and have been for years. Its worse when I am not medicated.
Yeah, that's a good point with the graduate school example. I just got into the program of my dreams, but it basically took me like a year longer than I originally intended to apply (decide exactly what I want to study, research programs, contact potential mentors, take entrance exam, write essays, get all the necessary files/transcripts in order, etc. for 8 different schools). It was not a smooth process for me and the tendency to save things the last minute was a pretty big factor in my delay getting there.
So there is probably some element of that "time myopia" this professor was talking about. I just took issue with the suggestion that people with ADHD can't act properly with the future in mind--in my experience, I care about the future and its consequences (albeit I didn't much when I was younger) and will eventually act in my own best interest, even if the way there is...sloppy. Anyway, I see now that that is not what you meant.
Side note, I have that inhibition problem, too. Its really embarrassing being out with people and having someone talk directly to you and you can't really follow what they're saying because you're also paying attention to the conversation at the next table, the waiter with the funny tie and wondering why he seems so frustrated, that weird burning smell, etc.
You're right and you've developed valuable and unteachable skills to cope. The problem is, as in my case, that at some point in your life, those skills aren't enough. You can get through school, finances, jobs, and life MOST of the time with your finely tuned skillset, but inevitably you're going to hit a point where it STOPS working. The lecturer is trying to say that we can't rely on our "skills." Ultimately there is something ELSE. I wish I knew what that was, because I'm well into my 30s and I don't want to damage my family because my skills have run out of steam.
Word. It's exciting to realize you can bullshit your way through every class with good grades because you're "smart", but it's not as fun to realize that's the only way you can do it. To then muster the confidence to get a job you're technically qualified for may turn out to be quite hard.
I have three upper secondary degrees (or what the 'murican equivalent may be called) in different fields, have never worked in any of them and have no idea what I want to be when I grow up. Recently got diagnosed though (at 32) and I really hope medication will allow me to make a real effort at actually learning something and stick with it. Luckily, all education is tax funded in my country so I've got that going for me, which I'm really grateful for.
I spent the first 20-25 years of my life being so proud of myself because, with near zero effort, I could accomplish what those "fools" that studied and gave two shits could do. Now I'm at a terrifying crossroad realizing that my bullshitting skills mean absolutely dick when I'm trying to teach my kids how to react to the world. I never had to pay attention or give more than half of a fuck because I was invincible... but now it's obvious that there's no longevity in that mindset--and no mix of meds is making it any better. Life is hard, I just didn't realize that for the first 75% of it.
For me its a two part answer. One is medication. The other is an acceptance that when you reach the point where your skills STOP working it just means you failed that day. Life is rarely about any single task or day. Life is the result of thousands of days strung together. You are going to damage your family, your career, yourself someday. Other days you are going to repair that damage and build something even stronger. Its ok to fail. The trick is to have more successes than failures. If you have more failures than successes right now then your goal is to have a few more successes and a few less failures today. Try and build up some momentum until the pendulum swings for you. For people with ADD we can't come up with a plan and execute that plan but like the doctor says we know everything we need to know. Try to capitalize on your actions more. To a certain extent I think we need to steer into the wind so to speak. I try to surround myself with people who can motivate me and can handle me. I have had many chats with my boss and told him flat out. I can do a better job in half the time. The down side is I am only going to be working half the time so you will have to accept that your end result is just the "better job" part and in order to get that you will need someone to nudge me. I work in IT and I love technology and work well under pressure so I found a job in IT with a lot of autonomy where we work with mostly last minute type clients. So every day is another emergency and that works for me. I feel your pain though. I am 38 and it hasn't been a perfect ride.
Its SO frustrating that the video ends before he gets to talking about what that "else" is, haha. Does he ever? I haven't looked through his other videos yet.
There is also just boring old ADD...not everything is ADHD and can just be the ADD because I have ADD since I do not have the hyperactivity elements of it.
What we call ADHD is itself a broad, messy amalgamation of a bunch of characteristics, behaviors, etc...scientists are still arguing over what parts qualify as part of the disorder, what parts are manifestations of other comorbid disorders (anxiety is a common one), whether things that get lumped in with ADHD are actually something different entirely (e.g. Sluggish Cognitive Tempo), how to tell when a particular behavior/trait is a reflection of a physiological deficit versus something learned...and much more.
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u/no_notthistime May 30 '17 edited May 30 '17
It's an interesting characterization of ADHD I've never considered. I absolutely have ADHD, but personally don't have this chronic problem of being able to "plan" for the future but not to follow through on my plans (provided I am sufficiently motivated toward the goal). I procrastinate like crazy, but in the end I follow through on and tend to achieve my goals.
For me, ADHD has always mainly been about 1) impulsivity and 2) lack of sustained focus (although this can fluctuate with my level of interest in what I am trying to focus on).
Impulsivity is related to "thinking about the future" because people with ADHD can often make poor decisions in the moment without seeming to consider about negative consequences for the future. But that doesn't stop them from, say, planning to get into graduate school (long term goal) and then taking the steps they need to do so.
I've always thought of the procrastination bit as being related, but definitely not the "hallmark" trait of ADHD.
What I am getting at is, I don't think that if you have the particular quality OP described necessarily means you have ADHD if you don't have some of the other classic symptoms. Procrastination and motivation issues can exist without ADHD.