yeah, I found this last night and posted it on Reddit. Thanks for the cross post. I have a github repo open for it I if anybody wants to fork. I won't merge pull requests. github.com/mortdeus/legacy-cc
270 karma · joined September 8, 2012
Effect: No impact whatsoever towards a more secure internet because the Law has just inspired a new wave of vigilante script kiddies to fight for the cause of pointless chaos.
Conclusion: Let the internet fight our own battles. Its all bits of zeros and ones until you put a price tag on it. If there wasnt people out there abusing the system, there wouldnt be a need to invent new ways to innovate the system.
Only legitimate patent ive seen in along time. http://goo.gl/cu88N
But dont get me wrong, I suffered from depression as well. The trick to beat depression is to push yourself past the depressive thoughts by counter arguing with them. "You cant do that", so keep trying it until you do. "You arent attractive", fuck that who cares. Im me. "There were so many people who did this better", well fuck them too, Ill keep doing it until im better.
Of course this is after you get started on a treatment. Depression is too hard to motivate yourself to argue back without some sort of help. :P
For instance mixed amphetamine salts (sounds like you were on adderall,), works for some people, while methylphenidate (ritalin) works much better. Then there is straterra which works for people where the other two failed. Another thing you should take into consideration is that there is a HUGE difference between Dexedrine and the typical generic amphetamine pills you would get at Walmart for example. (pure Amphetamine-D isomer, vs the mixed salt combo of Amphetmine-D and Amphetamine-L)
What I take specifically is generic amphetamine mixed salt instant release 30 mg that I split up into 4 doses ~3 hours apart. That is for a 12 hour day of work. Then Im also prescribed sleeping pills for insomnia.
The thing is, if I dont break up my pills, or if I make a bad call and decide to pull an all nighter. I get anxiety, swollen lymph nodes, rashes, zombie effect, head aches, cotton mouth, sensitive teeth, ect. One of the main reasons this happens is because you dont properly stay hydrated and well fed.
You need to be strict about your body's needs if you expect to be able to provide for what this medication requires to be effective. You need to support living habits beyond the scope of what the medication provides so that that your brain itself has the chemicals necessary for the medication to be effective.
If your stop eating, drinking, exercising, sleeping while on this medication it will stop working effectively gradually more and more after awhile. A perfect example of this, is if you have ever taken 4 pills in a row, they dont provide the same effectiveness, as if you were to take each of those pills after a full night of sleep. Or if you wait 3 days, they are even more effective.
You have to find a routine that works for you, and you have to research into your disorder. Research into the drugs. When I met my psychiatrist and told him exactly all that I know about the drugs and the neurology behind it, he said he really wished all of his patients took the time to educate themselves on these type of issues like I did because it makes his job a million times easier to find therapies that actually work.
Deciding to forsake medication, or your psychiatrist suggesting its the only choice is wrong. No offense, but you could achieve much greater potential and stability in your life/relationships when you are properly medicated.
I am very productive without my medications, especially as a musician. I had my adhd as under control and manageable as you can get it. People couldnt tell I had adhd. But it is extremely uncomfortable living that way. Learning to live with adhd, without medication only puts walls in your way. This isnt really a debatable matter whether disorders like this should be treated depending on a case by case patient's experience, I highly recommend you dont give up on it because other unfortunate individuals like us, going through a similar experience like you did, might try to give up as well rather than try something new.
All I know, is that im about 8 days without my medication right now, and while I can still code, that doesn't change the feeling that I'm back in my mental cage.
The difference is that the adhd brain is deprived of euphoric dopamine until you have that "hyper focus" activity that the adhd mind begins to depend on.
People with adhd are highly prone to becoming mentally dependent on activities like video games because of this euphoria. However, I find that being medicated appropriately and focusing on what I want to focus on is more rewarding than the activities I depended on pre-diagnosis and treatment.
I dont think it is a gift at all, rather the only option we end up having to escape.
Though I agree people with adhd each have their self medications. Mine was actually music growing up. My best friend likes cars.
Can you read text books and stuff? I have a hard time studying code, thinking about problems without my meds.
Are you inattentive too? Or just hyperactive?
ADHD is not primarily an attention disorder. Its primarily a motivational disorder. There are 3 types of ADHD recognized in American Psychiatry with a closely related disorder called SCT. ADHD-Hyperactive, ADHD-Inattentive, ADHD-Combined, Slow Cognitve Tempo.
To understand what causes these disorders, im going to have to summerize basic neurology fundamentals. The brain produces a chemical called dopamine that just about runs the entire show upstairs. When you accomplish a task, and you feel good about yourself; thats because dopamine will stimulate your brain with reward signals. When you look at the dishes and say "Im going to do that today." Its because you have dopamine to motivate you to get stuff done. Even sex and orgasms is directly related to dopamine release and stimulation.
The thing about dopamine is that it is stored inside a dopamine "bank" where dopamine is also generated by exercising, eating healthy foods, getting enough sleep, ect. This healthy lifestyle allows for a healthy amount of dopamine to accumulate in the brain.
The way dopamine leaves these banks to do work in the brain is by these cells called neurotransmitters that are responsible for fitting into the molecule sized "keyhole like doorways" to basically grab and push dopamine out.
After alot of dopamine is released out to act as messengers between neurons via the synapses, some of it is collected up by norepinephrine transmitters to be carried away and converted into adrenaline. (Adrenaline is where the "hyperactive/impulsive" aspect of the disorder comes in btw.) And of course any excess dopamine/norepinephrine that isnt carried away by other transmitters to other parts of the body is recollected back into their banks for future use.
In a normal healthy human, this all works wonderfully.
However in all the ADHD disorders and SCT disorder somewhere in this system is one or more types of neurotransmitters acting... disorderly. Basically they are not doing what they are supposed to be doing. Sometimes it is a problem primarily in the dopamine neurotransmitter department with not enough being brought out or too much being carried away which causes too much norepinephrine to be produced. Sometime its too little dopamine, and not enough norepinephrine (SCT). Sometimes its just the norepinpherine transmitter. This is the reason why different ADHD medications work on different ADHD patients. Adderall might cause too much dopamine out, where ritalin just stops to much dopamine from being carried to away. Sometimes straterra works which only affects the norepinephrine. Its a complicated disorder to say the least.
Which is why people say ADHD is commonly misdiagnosed. This is very true. Sometimes its depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder. Sometimes its just a kids bad diet and sleep habits, therefore they cant produce enough dopamine the natural way in the first place. (happy meal kids) ADHD doctors get a bad rep because they are giving kids speeds when in reality the parent is the disorder, not the childs brain. Its just highly complicated for a psychiatrist to know. Parents say fix my kid, and this is all the info they get to work with. Once a month, 15 minutes, "fix my kid", sign a pharmacy script that will be a hundred bucks. Happens like that all the time.
However what people dont realize, is that the reality of adhd is very very underdiagnosed also. More people live today, struggling everyday to make the best out of their lives, than there have ever been people misdiagnosed with ADHD period. People dont accept mental disorders exist, and that you need to get help for them.
The other problem with ADHD that people dont understand is that it is highly common to not only have ADHD but to have comorbid disorders like depression and anxiety either caused by the adhd, or completely unrelated to it requiring their own individual treatments.
Considering those disorders are linked to the same brain mechanics it is highly likely somebody who gets diagnosed with ADHD, thought they didnt have it when the perscriptions didnt fix all the problems despite the fact they do have adhd. They are likely to jump from anti anxiety medicine, over to Prozac, etc. The fact is this is a really hard to treat disorder because of the many different variations. Its complicated enough to justify the there are no two cases of ADHD that are the same. Its hard to diagnose something so broad and ETHICALLY treat it. For this reason, sometimes people seek help, hate the medications they get put on and try to fend for them selves again. I feel sorry for these people because their psychiatrists failed to help them. :(
Here is my personal story regarding ADHD. (btw calling it "ADD" was thrown out like 20 years ago. Let it go people.)
Im somebody who has/(d? who knows/cares) an IQ of ~145 growing up and dropped out of school. I can read perfectly fine. I also have and understand a sophisticated vocabulary. However I cant "read" without my medication.
I can not force myself to focus on what im supposed to think about. I can read a paragraph over and over again and not remember what I just read to the point that I just give up. I havent passed an english class since the 4th grade. I was the kid who was just "a lazy son of a bitch, fucking off all of his potential." growing up.
People didnt understand. I didnt understand, because no matter what I did, I could not motivate myself to do what I really wanted to do. People with adhd fail, because they dont have the ABILITY to succeed. "So try harder.", You dont understand. Its literally like asking a double amputee to try harder at running in a foot race. (okay... little tink tink is an exception. :P) Sometimes ADHD feels like a cage you are confined in that you constly feel unaware you are there in the first place. Sometimes the mind is like a hurricane where you think 90 mph when everyone else is driving in the slow lane. When we speak our mental thoughts have to be put on loop over and over when we want to say something fluent and slow, only to forget in the middle of the sentece what the entire conversation is about.
I always thought this was just normal for some people like me. I was never diagnosed as a kid because my intelligence allowed my parents and teachers to blame the school's material for my failures. "I was bored". Which is true, I was, but that didnt mean I didnt want to succeed I dropped out of highschool because I was tired of failing there. I thought perhaps the answer was out in the world, however things didnt get better. I could hold a job either. I was depressed for along time, not having an answer, until my brother said I acted like my Dad. That I had adhd.
At the time, I didnt want to think I had a "disorder". So I never looked at myself like that. Then I started reading about it adhd, watched dr russell barkleys talks (i saw somebody mentioned him. :) ), scheduled an appointment to see a psychiatrist and 2 years later i'm a software developer working on compilers and web servers. I study operating systems, graphic pipelines, use linux/unix (flex). I finally feel, successful after getting help for the first time in a long time. In fact, out of most of the people I know right now. Im heading towards a much higher pay job then them. Im already working free lance and making twice what they make in college a month, every 2 weeks. Its alot of hardwork to make up, but Im driven to succeed because 19 years of failing was horrible.
Look, Im going to be straight forward. There is no "cure" to adhd. Some people grow out of it because the human brain doesnt stop growing until sometime in your 20s, however people with adult adhd are stuck with it forever. I will grow into an old man with this disorder. My dad is an old man with ADHD. People learn how to manage by self medication.
Hyper focusing is a form of self medication via stimulating meditation. We can still think just like everyone else. Its just we do alot more thinking. Different stimulating activities grab different people. Video games, music for me, racing dirt bikes, sports.
Its just that these activities are not voluntary, nor are they experiences I would compare to programming because alot of reading and focus to fine detail is involved; which are traits most effected by ADHD.
For example when Im not on my medication, I cant work. However when im on my medication I can read a text book in two weeks. Its a black and white difference. I cant say that you are not the exception. (little think think?), but medication would be the metal prosthetic legs in this adhd footrace regardless.
I hope everyone understands us better if you actually read this. And pardon me if its full of grammar errors. I tried my best to proof read. (which ends up in me adding to it and making it worse. Lol) I wrote this without being on my meds btw. Which is why I wrote an essay. :P
There is a high demand for talent in Silicon Valley and any company who will not hire programmers without a degree is probably skipping by alot of talented people who could give that company the competitive edge over the competition.
What you need to do is examine the qualities about you that makes her attracted to you. If shes a smart girl and she knows what she personally wants out of a relationship dont let your self esteem ruin that because you assume she is looking for a rocket scientist boyfriend. Chances are she has dated smart guys and believe it or not. Smart guys tend to be just as egotistical and insecure as anybody else even if they have everything going for them. (attractive, good job, big house, ect). The thing about smart guys like this, is that they like to feel like they are the smartest thing that walked into the room and that their opinions and theories are the one and only true way of processing information. They would feel threatened by the woman and try to make himself better than her, usually by manipulating her self esteem.
This does happen more often then we would like to admit and women in today's age, especially a smart one just wants to be recognized for the characteristics that define her. You are already showing a quality she probably values in you by identifying the fact that she is intelligent and that is a value worth appreciating in a woman.
Which I must say, speaks alot for your own intelligence and sense of maturity. Just listen to what she says because intelligent people love to share the things they know and be asked questions. Discussions and perhaps even a little debating. (have to be careful that you debate and not argue, know what you are talking about :P).
Dont stress the details when it comes to romance. Just love every minute of it and focus on providing for your partners emotional needs and always encourage them to improve themselves in life. Thats what makes a successful long lasting relationship, not this notion of being the "alpha" male that society likes to sell us on. Sure there are woman like that in the world. But they tend to be the kind who ends up valuing the opinions on the Jersey Shore as apposed to the opinions held by leading research scientists in the world. :P