Comment by wikiburner | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wikiburner | Hacker News Reader

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I haven't been medicated for my pretty severe ADD in years (I was very uncomfortable with the personality changes/dampening of creativity/unknown health impact of meds, etc.), thinking I could summon the willpower and discipline to get through it.

I've been spiraling downward in a tailspin of "unproductivity" - to coin a state of being - for a while now, leaving a trail of half started startups and projects in my wake. I've got freelance deadlines that I've missed this week, but I'm sitting here with 30+ HN tabs open in my browser, and probably 10,000 more bookmarked that I'll never read.

I've been working on the "final 10%" of several projects at a snail's pace, for way longer than the first 90% took, and I constantly vacillate between thinking they're the next big thing or a complete waste of time, but I can't - or won't - finish them. More importantly, I'm incapable of doing the smart thing and just choosing one to focus on.

If I'm honest with myself, I haven't been nearly as aggressive as I should have been in researching cognitive behavioral therapy techniques and other non-pharmaceutical coping techniques, or even pursuing some sort of therapy.

Am I kidding myself thinking I can somehow get past this without medication? Is there any other REAL path forward?

Just like depression (oversimplified) is being fed up with life, ADD is being bored with life. Your environment has created artificial boundaries that prevent you from doing what interests you, hence said boredom.

Get into the hyper-focus at all cost (it's actually just 'really caring about something,') then learn to stay there longer and longer (also known as 'finding your passion.')

You'll have to break through some boundaries to get there, but that's OK. Once you're passionate about something most of the time, you'll be fine.

P.S. This is intentionally written from the one-sided perspective that does considers ADD to be caused by external factors and not a mental illness or chemical imbalance. Those perspectives are equally valuable; pick the one(s) that works for you.

P.P.S. Remember that if your hyperfocus is valuable enough to other people, you'll be able to pay people to do anything you can't bring yourself to.

The book the OP mentioned, Delivered From Distraction, is a great resource. The author is a psychiatrist who does a good job of presenting med and non-med options in a balanced way. He has ADD himself and did not find that meds helped him (they work for 80-90% of folks), though they have helped his children and many other patients/friends he describes.

Basic things like regular exercise can help, but meds are still a mainstay for treatment. Although studies have shown therapy to be as effective as meds for depression, there isn't great evidence for therapy for ADD. Meds are effective for most folks, have practically no side effects (at least the stimulants, Strattera can have side effects though it has other advantages), and have been safely used for decades without safety issues. The effects of the stimulants also disappear within hours so if you don't like being on a med you can simply stop. It won't change who you are. And if one med doesn't work well, sometimes another works better.

Stop blaming ADD. Even if it is related to ADD, this situation could not possibly have been caused by ADD alone. You know that at the crux of it, poor planning was to blame. Poor time management followed, and you screwed yourself.

If you want to get out of this hole, you've got to get off HN now, (I use noprocrast). After that, do 1 project per night at a time. Yes. You will need to work in the dead of night, all notifications off. 1 project at a time, only. It is also incredibly important that your projects are broken down into microtasks so you can cross them off one at a time. I find often the easiest way to become late is to not understand how much work was left. Break it down. Think about 1 task at a time, ONLY. Don't think about B while you're doing A. Not even a tiny bit!

When you've made considerable progress on each project, submit the latest work, say what you've done, and then gather specific requirements and make it clear, that after you finish these next things that the project is "done" and by that I mean, you are at the end of your first iteration of development.

If you can't get those final requirements, and establish an agreed upon state that is "done" the client will drag out the project as far as you're willing to go. Hope it's not fixed price! That's just what people do. You need to put your foot down about what constitutes complete, have a mutual understanding of it, and execute those objectives.

If your client keeps asking for new stuff, put it on a separate list and tell him not until XYZ is done and we're agreed on this.

You can get out of this, but it's important to realize, you won't get out of this using the same time or project management strategies that got you into it.

Spoken like someone who hasn't the slightest clue how mental illness and mental disorders work, or what it feels like to suffer from them.

"Just do X"! If only it were so easy, the world would be a much different place.

1. I never said the commenter above didn't have ADHD.

2. There's nothing we can do to help him other than say "just do it" because frankly if he doesn't "just do it" pretty soon he's fucked.

3. ADHD 1/3 scapegoat 1/3 misdiagnosed 1/3 ? maybe. Neurological evidence for disease? Yes. Vague diagnostic criteria for actual patients? Check.

I see you're an expert on ADD. You should write a book based on your expertise, you could make a lot of money and help a lot of people.

ADHD patient here.

I do agree with him. Most ADHD/ADD patients put too much focus on the disease, when the only thing that matters is to be willing to do something about it, asap!

Sounds a lot like me. I hear meditation can help. I'll do it tomorrow...

>Am I kidding myself thinking I can somehow get past this without medication? Is there any other REAL path forward?

Maybe. But this is something that you really need to talk to a therapist or doctor about.

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