ADHD

My therapist recommended a book about how ADHD can be a "superpower," but as I read the book I noticed that nearly every single example they gave of some famous person that "leveraged their ADHD into success" was rich to start with.

Like, it obviously wasn't ADHD that made them successful, it was generational wealth - classic "pull yourself by your bootstraps" BS. I couldn't even finish the book, because it was just making me angry.

There are only a few symptoms of ADHD that Id consider useful:

1. Novelty seeking. If you are able to explore and experiment i.e you are financially secure and/or well connected, this can make someone a great scientist/artist etc. But as other people noted, a lot of this is the result of having the freedom to do more things. If you cant explore or experiment, it'll just make you feel trapped.

2. Greater capacity for creativity. Creativity comes from allowing your mind to wander and jump from one thing to another and thats basically pure ADHD.

That said, ADHD is classified as a disorder for a reason. It can theoretically have positive traits but no one jumps through the hoops to get diagnosed, goes through therapy and takes medication to treat it because things are going better for them because of it. ADHD can be, and often is, debilitating. It can cripple your social life and cause you to either jump from job to job because you are bored to the point of physical suffering or be fired if it isnt controlled. And because emotional dysregulation is common, you are probably going to be emotionally exhausted or even outright traumatized. And of course, school is going to be harder for you than everyone else at some point.

ADHD makes you work 2-3x as hard all the time about everything you care about so when compared to a regular person we are fucking superstars at working our asses off just to get along.

Unfortunately nothing is measured in effort and caring alone. So until you also get good at whatever it is you're doing, you don't get any notice. So we appear from the outside to go from okay to amazing at things pretty quickly and faster than other people, but it's really because we're either working 200% or not at all.

Don't sweat the grade. You've now burned into your memory this failure and you will have an easier time remembering to stop and check your files for that kind of error before submitting. I've been in the workplace 20 years now and I have 1000 past disasters whispering in my ear every time I do something so my work is exemplary compared to my coworkers and I look like I have a superpower. I just have a lot of experience failing first.

hahaha superpower.

more like monkeys paw wish.

I wish I could understand many complex things. Granted, but you don't get to choose them, and their relevance is rare.

I wish I could notice small details no one else could. Granted, but you can't analyze them, and each thing triggers your anxiety, hundreds of times a day.

I wish I could specialize in something. Granted, at least until the dopamine kick ends.

I wish I had motivation to do things. Granted, but it's anything other than what you need to do.

I wish I had super hearing? Granted, but the doctors will grow concerned because your ADHD meds can cause psychosis.

I wish I had great memory. Granted, but you only recall images and never a conversation or video.

There's this movement nowadays that tries to spin every bad thing into a good thing, to the point where people are proud of having ADHD, autism or mental illness. I mean it's great that you accept yourself, but to be PROUD of having a mental health issue us just weird

Some people have made their ADHD (or "neurodivergence" more broadly) a core facet of their identity and worthy of pride and praise instead of an issue to be managed like diabetes or something.

It's a coping strategy in reaction to all the negativity they've endured. So they go a step past acceptance into "actually no, it's a good thing!"

Sorry bro, it isn't. And the more severe it is, the more clear this becomes. Life demands certain things of all of us that require executive function and the side effects of ADHD like creativity and hyper-focus, are not worth being unable to remember to pay your bills, hand in your homework, or complete basic household tasks in a timely manner.

We give ourselves grace, we love ourselves as we are sure, but we just can't start pretending our farts smell great or we lose all touch with reality.

I think part of it is they only see intense amounts of work pulled out of thin air under pressure, they don't see the internal struggle that led to leaving everything to the last minute

I saw a great response to that on this community (or on Reddit, can’t remember). Sure, ADHD is like a superpower. It’s like being able to fly, except you can’t choose when you start flying, how fast you fly, which direction you fly in, or when you stop flying.

I was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, and then pursued a psychiatrist to oversee my treatment, who determined I didn't have ADHD.

The way he described my situation made the "ADHD superpower" meme make more sense than anything I've ever read. I'm gonna butcher it but I'll do my best to share:

There are structural differences in the brain that contribute to a person having ADHD, but the structural differences themselves ARE NOT ADHD. The last D in ADHD is "disorder", and there are a whole bunch of external circumstances that mental health professionals use to determine whether or not you count as "disordered".

You can have an addictive, impulsive, obsessive, stim-hungry brain and not have ADHD.

Many children develop habits, coping strategies, or other accommodations that allow them to "overcome" the weaknesses that come along with these brain structure differences.

This is the situation where ADHD looks like a superpower.

In my case I have a very, very easy time slipping into flow state. When I'm intensely focused on a task I am time blind, I often don't respond to questions or acknowledgements, and I have an intense temper if I'm interrupted. So I've used timers and meditation/CBT to manage those drawbacks.

By comparison most people I know have a difficult time motivating themselves and accessing flow state. So to those people, especially when they DON'T see the extra work I do, it could look like I have a sort of super power.

It's not a super power, my brain just works differently and I've come up with ways to manage the problems and use it to my advantage.

Nobody does, it's a white lie so people don't feel as bad about being born with irregular brains.

Superpower is a stretch. It's more that if you can understand your ADHD you can maybe find jobs/pursuits that match up better with it.

My gf has ADHD and has found that the only way for her to stay engaged is to be in a situation of high impact/high complexity/high urgency. ADHD isnt always inability to concentrate, its switching back between that and hyper-concentration, often involuntarily, so finding an environment that fits that has helped her.

She works at the same company as me in medical software (im a dev were pretty opposite) and basically puts out customer fires. Its highly urgent and impactful (medical issues need to be fixed ASAP) to keep her engaged and complex enough that it doesn't get boring or monotonous. She's really fucking good at it and makes good money, but it does come at a cost. Its pretty stressful but she acknowledges this is the type of thing she can best excel at. And in other areas that arent like this - like in her personal life - she's always slipping and needs other people to help her out (I'm pretty organized and can assist there).

I'd recommend the book ADHD 2.0. The authors, who also have ADHD, kind of echo what we've seen. One of them calls it a curse as the only careers that keep him engaged are stressful and relentless. But its what he does.

They had a pretty good analogy - ADHD is like a car with a super powerful engine but no breaks. You can do some things better than other people but its incredibly easy to get way off track faster than you can blink, so its important to understand how yours works and have the right guardrails in place in your professional and personal lives. And of course meds help a lot too.

One thing I am really good at is getting shit done miraculously quickly.

You know, because of all the years of experience procrastinating and having to work my ass off quickly to make it look like I'm not debilitated. Lol

So when emergency projects come up at work or timelines are laughably aggressive, I'm all "I got this" 😎

To be clear, I don't cut corners or do the wrong thing. I do things by the book just fast. I know how to pull out the stops and get the help I need quickly. Ok sometimes I might schedule the review a little late but only after checking with the main stakeholder. To do all that you have to have built am good reputation for quality, thorough work and be empowered and authorized to make some decisions on your own and whatever.

Other than that ADHD is a curse.

I mean I wouldn't call it a super power. but I'm working as a AV tech guy and the more stressful an event gets and there's hundreds of things going on at the same time, the more I'm becoming calm and tackle it waaay better than all of my colleagues. so I made (at least in this regard) peace with it, to know that I choose the perfect job for it/ me.

I think the people who have mild ADHD symptoms are just trying to find a positive, but for those of us who have deeper issues it can seem like an insult when people talk about it in a positive way.

For me the worst part of ADHD is letting my emotions stifle momentum. If you have chronic depression, you will rarely feel the upsides of ADHD. So you get deadlocked - you're a fuckup because you're depressed, and you're depressed because you're a fuckup. Somehow you gotta break the cycle.

I wouldn’t call it a superpower by itself but I have definitely learned how my brain works to my advantage. Programming is a perfect example, I have found that my brain makes connections that others do not when writing code to solve a problem. I have also found that I am able to work through large complex problems when troubleshooting as well which has definitely been a bonus.

Over the years I have been able to get myself to form habits that make me check my own work or strict work so it’s impossible to miss something. For example, working in and with infrastructure automation etc ended up being a fantastic fit for me because I can hyperfocus and make the automation run flawlessly and then I don’t have to worry about using it because I already know it works.

Definitely anecdotal and might not apply to you but hope it was at least a little helpful. You are definitely not alone either, those types of things absolutely happened to me all of the time when I was in school. Thank the computer gods for version control, code linters, and unit tests 😃

When I'm sending emails with files attached. I check the file like 10 times before clicking send.

ADHD is neither a flaw nor a superpower IMO, (in most, non severe cases)- most 'ADHD' is a normal neural varient. Some people are starved of dopamine due to desensitization/lack of rewarding tasks in life, and some people have a clinical lack of neurotransmitters that need to be supplemented.

I struggled for years through highschool and most of college with my ADHD, and it wasn't until I (somewhat accidently) found myself working in emergency medicine that I could see it as positive at all.

In a hunter gather society, most of what we term 'ADHD' would be a huge benefit- the ability to rapidly learn, rapidly switch tasks, and do a little of everything. The issue is our current society doesn't reward these traits- we are physically sedentary, and ask ever increasing concentration on ever more abstract tasks of our workers. It's not that you are broken; it's that society doesn't play to your strengths- AT ALL.

In the ER, I'm very happy, because most of my work consists on hyperfocusing for super short stents, then moving on to the next thing. Additionally, I actually calm down somewhat and can self regulate much, much better than I can in ordinary life. As you may know, one of the hallmarks of ADHD is a lack of dopamine- part of what makes concentration so difficult for us and why we seek constant stimulation. In the high pressure, high stimulus enviroment of the ER, it's almost feels like time slows down for me- I feel calm and super focused, which is very rare for me in daily life.

I'm not saying all this to convince you to work in emergency medicine, only to provide a contrast- I used to want to be an engineer, and frankly I would be (even nore) dependent on stimulants if I tried to do a job like that.

ADHD is my super power as long as I do not need to be productive.

In work or school then yeah, i can barely function

I think it stems from mistranslation.

Even before I knew I had ADHD, I tried to focus on the things I was good (less terrible) at, and when I got in the zone, things came together for me. If I were to explain hyperfocus to a normy as an increased focus and clarity, they will imagine it from THEIR normal amount of focus, but in reality, hyperfocus probably isn't superhuman, it's just catching up to everyone else.

"Nice work" this is your adhd trick, that dopamine release when you solve a problem. I'm 25 plus years working now, different career's but that trick, that solve issue get dopamine, I've realized I can quite literally fix anything now, could change jobs in the morning and be working on my own with no support in under a month.

Anything except chemisty and this phone's autocorrect.

You can take that trick and apply it on anything else, just frame what you need to do as problem.

I don't disagree but thinking of the disorder in purely negative terms is not helpful. It feels like there are some things we are better at. Listening to comedy podcasts I discover many comedians are ADHD and adjacent types e.g. autism. It wouldn't be a surprise to learn that many creative people are classified as 'disordered'. I think the key to managing this condition are

• medication
• good routines (sleep, work, diet, exercise)
• self awareness and acceptance

If you take one or more of these away, life among neurotypical people becomes untenable. It's in comparison to neurotypical people that we can feel inadequate and anything we can do to address those issues will improve the situation for everyone.

People who claim having ADHD has benefits or is a super power are just saying it to make it sound less bad. The reality is that ADHD sucks. It's not impossible to deal with most of the time once you learn more about yourself and how your ADHD impacts you and what can help you manage the symptoms. Every individual is different. And sometimes we just have to accept that we mess up and that, although we are responsible for those mess ups and we have to work extra hard to blend in and try not to mess up too badly, it's also a handicap that we didn't ask for.

I don't get why people say they have certain positive traits thanks to their ADHD. Why can't it be because they themselves, as people, are good at something? Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses and every individual is unique. ADHD makes things more difficult, but not impossible. We just have to work with what we have and all we can do is try to find ways to get what we want in a way that works for us.

This may be a not well-liked opinion, but I think ADHD is severely overdiagnosed. And I believe the biggest reason for that is our extremely competitive society. And also a misunderstanding about what it means to be happy or fulfilled.

Another reason could be that people who do not have ADHD share some of the symptoms because of how our society interacts with technology/media.

People are looking for an explanation why they can't reach what they believe is a necessity. But it's often just a bar that is way too high for the average person. And it should actually be okay to not reach it.

There is probably a bunch of other health issues that also share this problem.

If ADHD is a superpower for someone, it quite obviously isn't a mental health issue for them (anymore). They either never had it in the first place or they have gotten rid of it.