Comment by IanCal | Hacker News Reader

Comment by IanCal | Hacker News Reader

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This is exceptionally early days (hours really), and perhaps over sharing a little personally but I found the same things hard and easy that you describe for working - personally I would work either by rapidly jumping between things (becoming the fix-it guy or go-to person for short things, I was totally fine being constantly interrupted because my head is doing that anyway), or working when exhausted so I found it harder to be distracted, or working last minute for deadlines.

I started some ADHD medication today. I have been able to see distractions and just not engage. I've got a bunch of things done. I've been able to cleanly focus blocks of time that I'd drift away otherwise. I do not have music in my head for the first time in *many many years*. I can stop and breathe.

I have absolutely no idea what would or could work for you, but your comment resonated with me and I wanted to help share something that feels like a big change for me personally and hopefully others. I waited decades to ask a professional and I absolutely should not have done that.

You shouldn't be evaluating your diagnosis and the effects of a drug upon it, to the point of advocacy, within hours.

Your perception that you have been helped is not coming from the drug, it's coming from the conditioning before you got to the point of trying it. I was willing to put up with a lot of bullshit that would have to be rolled back if RFK just stopped prescription drug advertisements, which are definition targeted to the weakest people in their weakest moments, but that immediately disappeared from the agenda.

What on earth makes you think you could know what's going on in someone else's brain with such confidence.

Wild.

Likely because of own experience and shared experience of others?

Medication here is not exactly new.

I'll quote Chris Gethard:

...mental health medications, to my knowledge, that’s the only type of medication that when people find out you’re taking it, they feel this freedom to offer up their entirely unsolicited opinions about it, right to your face, it happens all the time...

Like nobody has ever been diagnosed with diabetes and had their ignorant cousin go, “You’re gonna take insulin?” “For now, right? You’ll get off that shit someday.” No one in human history has ever said the words, “What’s so wrong with your life that you need chemotherapy?”

I have not advocated for anything. At best you could say I advocated for talking to a professional, and I do. I certainly didn’t say it would help them (try reading all the words).

> Your perception that you have been helped is not coming from the drug, it's coming from the conditioning before you got to the point of trying it.

I’ve had lots of things that were supposed to help and didn’t. I was told this may or may not help and is the first thing that has made a real difference in decades. Other than taking stimulants before and finding it weird it made me very calm.

I do not live in your country and do not see any prescription drug adverts.

Maybe that's true of some drugs for some illnesses, but stimulants absolutely do just straight-up fix most of the issues you struggle with as an ADHD person, pretty much immediately (as in, they take about an hour to kick in, and then boom). As someone who's taken them for a couple years, it really is life changing, and it's obvious it's life changing within about an hour of taking your first dose.

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