A real problem is that many teachers blame everything on the phone and are like: Well, would like to help, but that kid is too much on the phone. Often, they are not. Often, the ADHD and need for more stimulation causes the use of the phone, not (only) the other way round. They even make up weird shit, like several 7 year olds have been accused of playing / watching Squid Game, which is really, really unlikely. I believe the actual number is 0. Seems to be the result of suggestive questioning, especially since it’s always Squid Game.

It’s complicated. Apps that are designed to milk or dopamine can cause symptoms that have some overlap with ADHD, and for even neurologically similar reasons. But having ADHD can also make it more attractive to be on the phone while doing other things in order to reach the comfortable level of stimulation.

Hey, I am offended! I’ll give the bottom panel a shot once I have my new glasses.

Not sure if related, but I need to see everything I need for a task on the computer. alt+tab or virtual desktops don’t do it for me - I need 3 or more physical screens.

Just upped my productivity a lot by having a dedicated screen that always only shows the mindmap with the todos & plan.

I’m still getting “high” 9 months in, but suspect it’ll be the same soon. Also, it’s more like a coffee-rush than recreational drug at this point, but it gets the job done.

It does feel too good to be true. But I suspect that, while the intended regulation of neurotransmitters in the prefrontal cortex may not diminish too much, other effects of the stims, e. g. on the vegetative system, which cause much of the rush, are just like recreational drugs - they’ll fade unless the dosage is increased more and more.

Engineered staple foods in stock are a blessing with ADHD. Don’t even have to think about how much you need if meds took the appetite; they typically come in 500 kcal units.

I’m currently trying to get away from using them for 1 or 2 meals per day, but it’s a great fallback option.

Also, how often did I NOT do a nice trip idea because buying, making and packing food seemed overwhelming?

Interesting insight! I travelled the same road in the other direction. As someone who loves science, I always saw my role as a patient to just report symptoms and let the doctors do their thing. And I’m sure this would be the ideal approach if everybody had the House M.D. team on their case.

But after decades of this failing, I realised that this method does not work with a real-world medical system where doctors have more bias than they should, work with methods from their studying days that assumed they had more time and resources per case, and wrong monetary incentives.

So Method 1: I say I have X, and make it clear that I’ll be a PITA if their test doesn’t confirm it. If there were no bias, there would be no harm to this, but if there is, it’s working to my advantage now.

Method 2: Just think of them as the idiot who is clueless but gatekeeper of the much wanted prescription.

Nobody wants to hear this, but a layman’s web research, LLM and 1000 hours of thinking often beats 10 years of medical training if the doctor interrupts the patient after 20 seconds and only thinks about the case for 5 minutes. (With 30 minutes, my money would be back on the trained professional, but nobody has 30 minutes.) A patient can also fixate on a premature assumption just like a doctor can, but my very subjective experience is that doctors are more prone to that.

I started with the most basic guided meditations almost 30 years ago. Next step, learn to focus on a candle or a dot on the wall without thinking about anything else. Increase the time to hold this focus. It should be a “relaxed focus”; when your head turns read or wrinkly, it’s wrong.

From there, it can go to really emptying your head. Thoughts will come up, but think of them like something external that you can observe, you see the thought, you aren’t the thought. Same with feelings, in my case, especially that I have to stop and get up. I see the urge to jump up, but I am not the urge.

Imagination can help at an early stage, like: I’m this scaffold full of gaps where thoughts and emotions just pass through like a smoke cloud without affecting it. But it’s supposed to go to a point where even that is considered a thought that should pass.

Effects are great in many areas of life: Dreaming, sleep, notice needs like sleep or hunger or thirst before they become overwhelming. Studying and retaining the information.

Yet still, I surprisingly manage to drop the habit for a day, weeks, even years at times.

My most stupid reason is: There is a lot to do / I need to get to bed right now, so there is no time for even 5 minutes of meditation. (But there was time to browse Reddit for let’s-not-say-how-many-minutes, “research” the making of for a movie I don’t even like etc.) Yet that argument seems quite compelling in the moment.

If I could get over the problem of over-listening to a song, I could live in eternal bliss.

Odd enough, this is among the things I can only relate to AFTER starting meds. Before that, unthinkable.

My own diagnosis: I had super-ADD, and thanks to meds, I now have normal ADD.

At least in Germany, it’s hopeless. I just paid the whole thing out of picked, in addition to my EUR 1,100 insurance premiums.

I knew memes can save a life! Just need to up the dose and try to scroll 3 % more every day.

Me in executive dysfunction, imagining how sweet it would be to be done with the task:

What I do then is to observe myself making the list, or to observe the thoughts involved in making the list as they swim past me.

This could lead to an infinite chain, where I then observe myself observing and so on. But with practice and methods beyond normal thought and expression, that can fade into nothingness.

Sometimes I wonder if my “advanced” meditation skills from a decade of training is just what neurotypicals always experience when they meditate, even with just like 10 times of “practice”.

I know it’s not what you asked, but for when size does not matter (e. g. nap at home), I just use the big over-ear things for construction workers. Very cheap and very effective.

I recurring problem is that I keep thinking “It’s just 3 things, plus that other one that happens on the way to #2 anyway, no need to write a list”. Then I keep wondering why I fall behind.

Only when I make a list, I realise how much there is to do, and that my plan is entirely impossible for one day!

On the other hand, it’s surprising how even the biggest “backlog” melts away like snow when I really do one backlog thing per day. In addition to “the dailies”, of course.

Well, overall, I’m glad about the hoarding, because on treatment, I actually work through that 4 year stack of put off tasks, and it’s very satisfying.

Wow, so different for everybody! For me, it went from the feeling of giving myself a cigarette burn to “eager to start”.

Yes, essential. I like to do it in an electronic mindmap, so in order to have it always visible, I needed to attach an extra screen where it’s always visible.

“Mental effort” to get on the task that needs to be done is a different matter. I still needed to push through the pain to star. That got much better with treatment.

Like the whiteboard though; not as easy to shift things around and make changes, but advantages might outweigh that.