Comment by egeozcan
1 day ago
As a person who has ADHD, it feels weird when people who obviously do not have it, claim to have it, while there's very little I wouldn't do to "get rid of it" (in quotes because it makes me, me but it's very hard to be me).
I fully agree with you, and I think this trend of glorifying disabilities is cringe - ADHD, autism, etc. are life-altering medical conditions and not desirable.
However, I don't think this specific project is intending to glorify ADHD or help people claim they have it - it's just piggybacking on the idea that telling current-gen LLM models that you have ADHD (allegedly) produces better results for everyone.
Finally. It is scary that this is not the top comment in the thread.
The “I can’t bother to read a paragraph therefore ADHD lolzzz” crowd is really fucking annoying.
I have it and it is absolute gift that I wouldn’t trade for anything. It has taken years to figure how to harness it though.
It's a gift until it's a curse, and ADHD crashout/burnout is an absolute monster to overcome when it arrives.
And for any person who's tasked with any sort of responsibility, it WILL arrive at some point. It's not a question of if, only a question of how well you can prepare for its arrival.
At its core it has striking similarities with a freeze response, which is overcome by increasing heart rate (e.g. stimulants, exercise, temperature shock). Big overlap with CPTSD symptoms as well.
The diagnostic criteria are all about the fact that ADHD is a net negative. If you feel it is a net positive then you shouldn't have a diagnosis. As a fellow sufferer I do understand that in certain contexts I can out-perform and even run rings around "normal" people. But overall, having ADHD is a bad thing and I wish I didn't have it.
Look, I’ve got it too. I’m glad we’ve figured out how to “game” the adhd. But it’s not a gift.
i have it too and it sucks, I have to take medicine every day for it. Why would an attention deficit and hyperactivity be a gift? Maybe you're talking about something else.
Can you explain what about is it a gift? What are the benefits you get from it?
When you can align hyperfocus with your most beneficial vector of productivity, it's like you can accomplish anything, in half the time thought possible.
Problem is, there is no good way to direct the hyperfocus demon. It likes what it likes, it wants what it wants, and that's that.
Medication helps to save a pile of willpower/spoons/executive function safely from the demon so that we can get things that need doing done.
I have found both hyperfocus and the ability to quickly "drop" (i.e. distract from) a train of thought incredibly useful.
2 replies →
I would sum it up as an ability to think out of the box, naturally having creative solutions. Which itself is a double-edged sword...
1 reply →
fighting that fight right now... was doing great until I got to a level with self directed work
...you don't have it.
> while there's very little I wouldn't do to "get rid of it"
I'd be satisfied with removing the crippling executive dysfunction.
I guess it's just become a term for ADHD-like or popularly believed to be ADHD behavior.
It turns out that most of the things that ADHD people use as coping strategies just to be functional, are actually things that most (non-ADHD) people can use to be more effective and productive in their lives and work.
So, no, not everyone can or should be diagnosed as ADHD. But the tools are (mostly) universally applicable. I don't see the downside in popularizing those. (Since you posted a top-level comment instead of a reply to someone claiming to have ADHD, I have to assume that's your complaint, at any rate.)
I mean... like most spectrum disorders, most people experience and can relate to at least some of the core symptoms, even if they don't express the full spectrum or severity.
So when someone says they feel like they have ADHD, they are probably not inaccurate.
No, great, I'm not offended or anything (why would I be), and I wish I could relate back, it's just a weird feeling, that's all.
No doubt.
When you have it, ADHD is such a dominant factor in the way your life is organized and experienced, its not surprising that it can become a core part of your identity.
I do think it's easy for those with it to over romanticize what it's like to not have it. The lack of ADHD isn't a magic bullet for success and good life outcomes.
Like so many of life's real or perceived barriers, when one gets removed, you'll often find there is another one with a different shape just behind.
The challenge, for anyone, is pressing forward anyways.
You know what other thing that those with this fake ADHD can also relate to? Wasting hours a day scrolling on garbage resources.
How can someone say they have a disease or affliction while not understanding what exactly that affliction is as opposed to what they think it is/have been informed by media/society/non-professionals?
How can anyone say anything at all...?
That generalizes all the way.
Everyone's just working off what they've experienced or what they think is true, for mental health or where to find good lunch.
There is no universal truth. Everything is moving relative to everything else. New year, new DSM.
It would be more surprising if our shared experience was more different than more the same.
I think this is a good point. My only push back would be that when people say they have ADHD, in my experience, they're speaking about inattention (and yes, it's one of the big factors).
And while I don't love that aspect in me and often eat cold toast as result, I find that to be the least of what I struggle with (hitting every wall while walking from point A to B or constantly counting / tapping on my fingers or pulling the skin off my fingers or the anxiety or the hyper focus (love it too!) to where I lose hours upon hours...).
All this to say, I'm never offended when people use it but typically it's rooted in a narrow understanding of something that's used as a pejorative. I think there's research that by age 12 kids with ADHD have heard 20,000 more negative or corrective comments than there peers.
I mean, I can read quite a bit but if my agent / harness is producing monographs the fix has nothing to do with my ADHD. So to me, this repo seems lame.
Same. It started on Tumblr around 15 years ago when people were "self-diagnosing" themselves then it spiraled out of control. It really bothers me because I see a lot of of obviously-not-neurodivergent folks try to use it as an excuse (I am diagnosed formally + can easily detect if someone is just spouting nonsense about it)
science is still early here
Ah yes the old "I have it but you don't"
Yeah, that's called diagnosis
So do you have an official diagnosis?