Inside Hyperactivity

Warning: This article was not written by a qualified psychiatrist, but by a patient with severe pathology.



Reminder: ADHD, especially in such a strongly pronounced form, aggravates many cognitive distortions. In patients like me, the effect of Dunning-Kruger is pronounced. The negligence that passes all the boundaries compromises the facts and sources of information, and reduced intelligence, with complete disregard for significant details, calls into question the conclusions and generalizations.



The purpose of this article is to provide the most honest and impartial description of the work of ADHD brain with examples of specific cases with the analysis that is as accessible to me as regards competence.

If this is an important topic for you - it concerns a child or you are a moron yourself, but you really do not want to be one, welcome under cat.

Why am I writing this at all?

There are several reasons, but the main one is that readers have poured comments on the last article , a lot of messages came in PM, some were written by parents, some adults. There were also a few messages that were full of despair and contained literally a cry for help, despite my numerous warnings that I was not a psychiatrist and could not provide expert help. Even give a competent recommendation. But I answered everyone. The main idea that I tried to bring to my parents: ADHD is not freckles on the nose, not just a feature. This mental (hyperkinetic) disorder, which in a mild form complicates life, and in severe form makes it a nightmare.



Unfortunately, by the example of my own parents, I know how far people are from understanding the nature of ADHD: “After all, we asked you to answer the phone while we were on vacation and write down who called. It is important for us to work. And why did you break the vase at home? And broke the towel holder? ”And these questions are asked to me by my mother, a medic, who knows about my diagnosis, knows that I have a severe pathology, and what scale of chaos I am trying to overcome. What can I answer? Just apologize to lower your eyes and keep silent: “Mother, do you have dementia or what? I tried, I recorded one call. ”Before I left, I asked a question about how they estimate the likelihood that I will fulfill their request and how well? But I was handed a phone. Immediately make a reservation, I am very grateful to my mother, and without her participation, help and support, my cautious steps to compensation would be impossible. Just an illustration of the extent to which ADHD is not taken seriously, something to be reckoned with. After all, at first glance, we do not seem like idiots. We have a coherent speech, and it seems that we correctly understand the meaning of words. But understanding at the intellectual level of responsibility and the importance of certain tasks mean little when the motivational signals coming from the hippocampus are completely at odds with this understanding.



Immediately I will answer those who think that this is just a desire to cover up their idiotic behavior with a diagnosis - there were a lot of them in the comments to the previous article. No, just your incompetent idiotic ideas about the world exacerbate the problem. In fact, ADHD is even corrected and compensated for in severe forms, if we take up this issue in time and take it seriously. Get rid of the trade comment from your philosophy. You were heard last time.



Another pleasant reason to continue writing about ADHD was one nice young man who even did work on de-anonymizing me and insistently wrote to me on Facebook that it was time to take the keyboard in hand. Maxim, I express my sincere gratitude to you. I think I promised you this article a month and a half ago.



I will definitely write an article specifically for parents. But it takes a lot of time to collect material and prepare. In principle, I already have a list of specialists from the Institute of Bekhtereva, who wrote candidates on children's hyperactivity, with whom I would like to talk and interview. However, this article will also be useful to you.



The truth is that a huge number of adults live with concentration problems and unhealthy distractibility. The world is full of idiots to whom ADHD has nothing to do. But more than 5% (according to some data up to 15-18%) of people have this congenital mental disorder. Many of them are serious enough. Some try to work on themselves, but the books on motivation do not help, and society gives them the only answer - you are shit, so you are. And you should have seen this society!







Numerous tests on the Internet reveal nothing, and their degree of reliability is 0.



ADHD can be very different and can manifest itself in different ways. Some approaches are trying to separate attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, there have been attempts to introduce the term SDRI (attention deficit disorder and impulsivity). But the problem is that a cocktail of three components: attention deficit, hyperactivity and impulsivity, can be implicated in each specific patient in the most bizarre way. Yes, a classic example of a hyperactive - an electrophoresis machine, into which a screaming cat sucked in. But in other cases, attention deficit may not be accompanied by hyperactivity and, as it were, impulsivity.



I will try to describe the factors common to the whole spectrum and, as far as possible, to disassemble the mechanism of occurrence of failures, as well as to pay attention to the key features if you suspect Attention Deficit Syndrome in yourself or your child.



If you remember my previous article, then I noted that I live with a constant sense of the Messiah, sent down by the highest force to mankind (not in a schizophrenic sense, but in the sense that it would be fucking smart). Some messages in lichku carried desperate pleas for help: at least give advice or send, give a hint or stretch a straw ... Such messages greatly reduce the degree of false self-esteem, because I have no answers, but I myself am far from being smart, what would I not seemed to be sitting by the window.



But ADHD is corrected and compensated. The more severe pathology you encounter, the more dedication and effort it will require.



Request: if you are healthy, successful, everything is working out for you, every business is going well and you are not a psychiatrist who examines such cases in tons, but still you really want to communicate your incompetent opinion about spineless fools, then try to restrain yourself. I know it's damn hard. Especially if you firmly believe that you just need to drink potassium permanganate at night and temper in the hole in the hole - this will make a person out of everyone. However, I am always glad to have pleasant communication and will gladly join an interesting and informative discussion and just flood.



Short retreat:

When I wrote the first article, all the friends in one voice pointed out to me that this is not the format of Hicktimes. And the first comment fully confirmed their hypothesis. (Denkenmacht 02.02.18 at 10:32 - Why is it here?) In general, I doubted the correctness of writing such an article. But the number of comments puzzled me. At that time, not a lot of articles caused such heated discussions. I remember exactly the post about the launch of Falcon Heavy and the article of Meklon about teeth. But damn it, Meklon is a lump, a seasoned man, and everyone has teeth, unlike ADHD. The red roadster flew into space for the first time. And I sculpted my first cake in the sandbox of Giktayms.



Short distraction: (b ..., yes, when you start the article idiot ...) Sorry, I can not help it, very briefly about the red typewriter ... ches word.



I really wanted to write an article about the red typewriter, but ... Wanting to do something and do it is not the same thing. It was a stunning artistic performance, an act of genuine art, which raised the genre to unattainable heights. Leonardo closed the issue of perfecting the laws of painting forever, a portrait for sure. After “Dzhokonda” the rest could go home or begin to develop artistic interpretation. Interpretations of feelings, phenomena of nature, human states gave rise to countless directions, schools and painting techniques. But Kazimir Malevich “Black square” closed the question of interpretations in painting. You can practice any technique, but you cannot do more concisely and more fully. Ilon Mask, intentionally or accidentally, in general, completely without positioning himself as an artist-performer with his act of creation in the genre of performance, stepped into where only the most brilliant of artists go. I think Tesla got on a par with Mono Lisa and Black Square. The performance genre will not die from this, as painting has not died.





Often, outstanding artists, creating their creations, go so far beyond the expectations of the public that most are not even able to see, feel the phenomena. There are many examples ... Gauguin, who never waited until he was understood. Stravinsky, who was booed in 1912, spitting on one of the greatest experiments in music. Masked Perfect, not just a wow effect! Many consider this an excellent PR-action and not only in Russia. PR was beautiful! But it was an act of art, which in its significance, content and power infinitely surpasses all imaginable utilitarian tasks. A phenomenon that affects the course of human culture. But no longer distracted!



Hyperactivity Two very important factors!



Factor one. Hyperactivity always accompanies mania. Rather, in the overwhelming case, not mania, but hypomania. And its strength varies greatly throughout the day, month and year.

If we compare mania with a hurricane, then hypomania is still a storm.







Manias are of several kinds. Hypomania can also in a weakened form repeat for the older sister some features of the course. But we are not interested in all this. I am not a general psychiatrist. It is important for me to note what will be key to ADHD.



For notorious bore:



MANIA



Hippomania

Altman scale for self-esteem mania.



Young's Mania Scale

Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS)



MMPI - But you definitely do not need this.



Mania is a painful mental state with concentration of consciousness and feelings on any one idea.



Mania (or manic syndrome) is characterized by a manic triad, including:



Hyperthymic A good mood. Self-confidence, overestimation of their strength and abilities. Minimizing the complexity of tasks. Ignoring risks. Conviction in the feasibility of any plans.



Accelerated thinking and speech. Acceleration of associative processes.



Excitement with the desire for any kind of activity.



Remember:

Fixing thoughts and feelings on one single thing.

A strong desire to do something.



Understanding these two important symptoms will explain a lot to us. And do not ask ahead of time the question, why the hell hyperactives do not do anything, and they can not even be charged with half the battle, not only that one thing. You will get the answers literally the paragraph below.



Regular mania of ADHD has little in common with the mania of a full-fledged schizophrenic who has deciphered a conspiracy of reptiloids for the past ten years using the numerical code of the headlines of the journal “SAD. GARDEN".

In fact, I use the term mania for hyperactive on completely voluntaristic grounds. It is very likely that, despite some similarities, the internal state of ADHD is due to completely different factors. A huge number of teams are now involved in research into the causes of ADHD, but it’s still very far to fully understand the causes of the disorder. In short, abnormalities are found in seven areas of the brain: pallidum, thalamus, caudate nucleus, shell, nucleus accumbens, amygdala and hippocampus, add to this equation the noradrenalin disturbance in the function of the reticular formation, the problem of accelerated dopamine reuptake and it becomes clear how complex character is this phenomenon.



Probably, I have somewhat thickened the paint, and it may seem that ADHD is a sentence. And although, other things being equal, our intellect is less developed than if we were brought up in the same way, but did not suffer from hyperkinetic disorder, we are not talking about serious mental retardation or, even more, imbecility. We are well aware of the importance of certain life tasks, the need to complete the coursework on time, to pass the project on time. People in general tend to draw time, to do everything at the last moment, and perfectionism is not so common. Simply, as deadlines or deadlines for healthy people approach, deadline signals are amplified, while our tonsil does not seem to provide the necessary regulation of emotions, but the adjacent core, whose work is probably related to motivation through its role in the system The rewards also appear to be junk. Emotions are the control signals for Homo. In healthy, intellectually developed people, logical decisions trigger an emotional cascade that encourages them to perform a deliberate action. ADHD introduces spurious signals that are incredibly difficult to resist.



Although almost all methods of compensating for hyperactivity unequivocally prescribe the exclusion of any multitasking, the majority of ADHDs are sure of their super multitasking, thanks to the ability to instantly switch. But the truth is that we are not just not multi-tasking, we are painfully single-tasking. Instead of a ranked system - one powerful impulse. Most often we do what we want most at the moment. But enough descriptions. Let us turn to examples and their analysis.



Case №1. Evening, night, morning



A business meeting is scheduled for the morning. I will need to make a presentation of our product for a potential client. A virtual tour of his company for virtual reality glasses, which will be his killer features at industry shows, as well as a tool for his sales managers on the road. To prepare, I am doing a quick google in the evening. In general, I have an abstract picture in my head. Now, logic prompts you to make a summary of notes, fix the most problematic points and prepare formulations of how VR can visualize one time or another, and ideally prepare an example of a specific artistic solution for this part. Maybe in the course of the conversation it turns out that it is not relevant, but it is better when there are blanks. But I googled, understood something, and at the same time, in order to fulfill the plan and go to bed to be fresh, I do the opposite. Consciousness marks a task that seems to be partially made, and my brain immediately begins to occupy the plot of a short VR film about personalized AI, a friend and helper, which is a digital, personally adapted continuation of the user. The script is ready for a long time, and the main character there is a girl. All commercial projects serve one purpose - to get, to earn money for this film. Recently, I have matured a small refinement that introduces a second main character - a young man. Moreover, there is a familiar young actor in mind who is very suitable for his type. He is quite talented, but also from a very rich family. Probably if he is interested in the role, then he will not even have to contact Dad. By his standards, the budget of the film - pocket spending. I would not agree to invite a mediocre idiot into the project who would fuck him with my game for any money. As well as breaking the structure of the script under the type, which is not appropriate here. That is why the original plan is to earn and finance it yourself. But it all fits. The truth is that the actor is a theatrical and not a fact that he will be interested in participating in a VR film, that he will like the role, or he will like it so much that he invests his money in the project. But this thought becomes manic for me. During the night I make several approaches to the text of the script, but some shit comes out. Perekroit ready story - a fairly thorough work, requiring a calm and thoughtful approach. But I'm screwed. I can not sleep and can not write. As a result, I smoke all night and just think about how cool it would be if it happened. Morning. I'm completely sleepy. Our director comes. She goes to this meeting with me. Begins to collect the necessary equipment. It does this long and thoroughly. Then pours coffee and lights a cigarette. Now I want to leave. In the city of traffic jams! I'm starting to customize it. In five minutes I turn a calm girl into a Persian cat rubbed with an ebonite cudgel. As a result, I grab a briefcase with glasses, run out onto the street. To warm the car. I remember that Samsung is not charged. I go upstairs, there must be at least one charged power bank somewhere. I find it, and we, together with the director, go down to the car. She asks a question, did I take a soft cloth for wiping optics? I turn around, go to the studio again. Because I forgot also hygienic masks for glasses. On the table at the exit are two neodymium magnets that someone moved from the iron surface and they stuck together. If I were sleepy, less wound up, I would be able to suppress the parasitic impulse by logic. But I am extremely exhausted, winding up and just do not notice that the impulsive desire to separate the magnets is inappropriate now. Forces to pull them apart is not enough. I go to the kitchen, take a knife to squeeze the blade between them. Big knife is not included. I take a thin, sharp, sloppy motion, shove it between the magnets, break the blade and sit my palm. Begins to gash the blood. I get a clear understanding: “What kind of magnets! Fuck, I actually took them now! ”But now I need to stop the blood. Everything that I have ever taken, I do not return to the place. Therefore, I can not find alcohol and cotton wool, with which I last rubbed something and threw it in an unknown place. I rush about in the studio, pouring everything in blood. Need to go out. I unwind the toilet paper and wrap it with tape to the palm of my hand. I go out, get in the car.



Analysis: So, at the level of logic, I knew from the very beginning how to do the right thing. But in response to a runaway googling, manic self-confidence sent an emotional response - everything is clear, and so I can handle it. The script has been bothering me for a long time, and I easily succumbed to a powerful impulse, switching attention to it. . , , . , , , ( ), , , , , . , , , . , Samsung, . , . . , , — . . , , .



2.



show that people with ADHD are more often injured and more likely to have accidents. Both serious and small. Serious accidents are associated with dangerous driving, reassessment of their capabilities, poor prediction of the road situation. Small ones are connected with distraction in traffic jams on the phone, social network, people passing by. There have been many dangerous situations in my career. I crashed the first car on the second day, having got into a serious accident on a wet road. For the first two years of driving, I was at least six times in a situation that could be fatal. Now I try not to get behind the wheel unnecessarily. I am not afraid of serious accidents because I have completely eliminated dangerous driving. But in traffic jams I often get distracted and brake on the last centimeters. In a traffic jam, I may lose focus. Therefore, in every way I avoid them.During the evening or normal city driving, I occupy myself with a game - “super smooth fuel economy ride”. I have to pay attention to the traffic lights ahead, slow down as often as possible in advance, and ideally roll under the green. And the economizer should never leave the green zone. This simple game helps me to keep the focus of attention on the road.



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I also have plans to contact the guys from the Bekhterev Institute, if I succeed, I will interview Makarov Igor Vladimirovich, he is the supervisor of the 4th Department of Child Psychiatry. Terms do not call. But I will try not to delay.



Therefore, for those to whom it is relevant, leave questions in the comments, but better in lichku.



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And yes, of course, ADHD has a wide spectrum - from almost imperceptible to my extreme case, when the arrow of ADHD meter is stuck in the red zone and tries to give another turn, trying to curl up in a spiral. Most cases lie somewhere in the median zone, manifesting only by implicit impulsivity, absent-mindedness, problems of long concentration on the task.



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And you, of course, remember that it seems to me that I am a Guru. You should not think so. I try to be attentive, but I can always blast nonsense. Therefore, it is wrong to ask me: how to be and what to do. That's right - to correctly describe the problem and formulate a question that I will include in the interview. But if the suspicions are serious, do not wait for the weather by the sea, but act without delay. Especially when it comes to children.