That all sounds like a good reason to treat ADHD as a medical problem, to manage it with treatment and medication and then to move on as one would when managing diabetes or dermatitis. None of it sounds like a reason to try and declare ADHD an identity category.
Also, your "secondly" in the last paragraph - does that not risk simply having self-diagnosis metastasize until the ADHD distinction is no longer a distinction at all?
I tend to agree with you here. I probably have undiagnosed adhd. DidnтАЩt quite realize it until middle age and have lots of coping mechanisms and have been successful in life in some ways and other ways not. Medicating (in my case with coffee and anger and downtime) got me very functional, but I am still in a brain that has a much higher context switching cost than average together with a difficulty focusing on tasks I donтАЩt care about. That doesnтАЩt cause cognitive distortions so much as thoughts that are perceived as odd and a presentation that seems aloof yet randomly enthusiastic. In short, just a bit out of sync with the world. What would it be like to sync up, I can guess, but not know.
Diabetes and dermatitis don't impact your mind and behavior. People don't identify deeply with the subtle operations of their skin and pancreas, but they do with their minds and behaviors. This seems pretty straightforward to me am I missing something?
You've talked elsewhere in the thread about the self, in kind of unitary terms, standing alone and reckoning with the universe. I'm really curious to hear more exposition on what kind of thing that is to you and its relationship to the mind and brain.
In any case I'd say that both "ADHD is just like hypertension and has nothing whatsoever to do with who I am as a person" and "ADHD is the only interesting thing about me" are both unnaturally extreme and nonsensical positions. ADHD impacts domains of life that are central to how people think about what matters about who they are. Forget whether it's useful--I don't think it's possible for people to think about their mental conditions in just the way they think about hypertension or other medical problems that have nothing to do with how they think or act. Nor do I think it would be especially desirable or conducive to overall mental health to do so. It can actually be pretty destructive to externalize parts of your psyche in this way (but boy does our culture love externalizing parts of our psyches lately).
Didn't we kind of decide the opposite thing about depression, that reifying it as a very well-understood medical condition with a straightforward solution was both conceptually and practically problematic for people? In fairness I'd say the state of art re: ADHD is on marginally better theoretical footing, but still, the difference isn't radical.)
Do the people who have adopted the totalizing vision of ADHD seem particularly healthy, regarding their disorders? Are they healing better than someone who sees it as a challenge but not an aspect of their personality? Are they managing the disorder better?
Did you take me to be arguing for that totalizing vision anywhere? I explicitly disavowed it, and there's no expectation that I restate the case you've already made to you in my attempt to point to a more moderate position.
That all sounds like a good reason to treat ADHD as a medical problem, to manage it with treatment and medication and then to move on as one would when managing diabetes or dermatitis. None of it sounds like a reason to try and declare ADHD an identity category.
Also, your "secondly" in the last paragraph - does that not risk simply having self-diagnosis metastasize until the ADHD distinction is no longer a distinction at all?
I tend to agree with you here. I probably have undiagnosed adhd. DidnтАЩt quite realize it until middle age and have lots of coping mechanisms and have been successful in life in some ways and other ways not. Medicating (in my case with coffee and anger and downtime) got me very functional, but I am still in a brain that has a much higher context switching cost than average together with a difficulty focusing on tasks I donтАЩt care about. That doesnтАЩt cause cognitive distortions so much as thoughts that are perceived as odd and a presentation that seems aloof yet randomly enthusiastic. In short, just a bit out of sync with the world. What would it be like to sync up, I can guess, but not know.
Diabetes and dermatitis don't impact your mind and behavior. People don't identify deeply with the subtle operations of their skin and pancreas, but they do with their minds and behaviors. This seems pretty straightforward to me am I missing something?
The question is not whether that distinction is real. The question is whether or not maintaining it is useful for healing and management.
You've talked elsewhere in the thread about the self, in kind of unitary terms, standing alone and reckoning with the universe. I'm really curious to hear more exposition on what kind of thing that is to you and its relationship to the mind and brain.
In any case I'd say that both "ADHD is just like hypertension and has nothing whatsoever to do with who I am as a person" and "ADHD is the only interesting thing about me" are both unnaturally extreme and nonsensical positions. ADHD impacts domains of life that are central to how people think about what matters about who they are. Forget whether it's useful--I don't think it's possible for people to think about their mental conditions in just the way they think about hypertension or other medical problems that have nothing to do with how they think or act. Nor do I think it would be especially desirable or conducive to overall mental health to do so. It can actually be pretty destructive to externalize parts of your psyche in this way (but boy does our culture love externalizing parts of our psyches lately).
Didn't we kind of decide the opposite thing about depression, that reifying it as a very well-understood medical condition with a straightforward solution was both conceptually and practically problematic for people? In fairness I'd say the state of art re: ADHD is on marginally better theoretical footing, but still, the difference isn't radical.)
Do the people who have adopted the totalizing vision of ADHD seem particularly healthy, regarding their disorders? Are they healing better than someone who sees it as a challenge but not an aspect of their personality? Are they managing the disorder better?
Did you take me to be arguing for that totalizing vision anywhere? I explicitly disavowed it, and there's no expectation that I restate the case you've already made to you in my attempt to point to a more moderate position.