“If we add meth to it, it turns into meth!” No shit Sherlock, that’s why we don’t add any meth to it!
…………
Look, guys, yes making minor changes to a molecule can massively alter its behaviour. This isnt one of those cases.
Methamphetamine and dextroamphetamine actually are very similar in how they behave and how they effect people, which is why the FDA allows methamphetamine for ADHD treatment and why people generally cant tell the difference between the two. See also: the similar effects of oxycontin, heroin, and morphine.
The operative part of methamphetamine is “amphetamine”; just because the name has been shortened to “meth” in common parlance doesnt mean getting rid of the methyl group radically changes the drug.
Overall chemical structure isnt an absolute determinate of behaviour, but it actually is usefully predictive, which is the whole point of organizing organic structures into various categories: by and large, chemicals with similar structure really do have similar behaviour.
I knew they were similar but i thought meth was stronger/ more addictive or something. Why is crystal meth the one that’s popular as a recreational drug and regular amphetamine is the one that’s usually used medicinally?
Meth is somewhat stronger and more addictive; the extra methyl group lets the body take it up faster. Its a difference of degrees, though; careful use of either wont hurt you, they can both be used to treat similar conditions, and abuse of both will hurt you in similar ways. One of the major reasons adderall is so tightly controlled is because it keeps getting sold to the drug market as a meth substitute.
I’m not saying they’re identical, I’m saying minor structural differences aren’t enough to safely say “well, these are clearly different drugs, we dont have to worry.” If your friend is buying adderall from a dealer for exam time, she’s probably ok. If she’s buying adderall constantly, you should probably respond to that as if she were regularly taking meth. They’re not wildly different, and they present similar benefits and risks.
And the argument from minor structural differences is a fantastistically bad argument in organic chemistry, a field largely predicated on organizing itself around structural similarity.
This is why if you DON’T have ADD/ADHD you absolutely should not take adderall. If you do it helps you slow the fuck down but if you DON’T it’s basically speed.
Did you know there is a strong correlation showing people who have ASD and/or ADHD being more likely to develop PTSD after trauma than neurotypical people?
The theory is that since our brains are more sensitive to stimuli that trauma impacts us more profoundly.
It’s still just a theory but anecdotal evidence seems to support it. It also supports the theory that PTSD in people with ADHD (ASD wasn’t mentioned but it’s likely the same) is exponentially more debilitating and they are more likely to be disabled by it than neurotypical people.
So If you’re struggling more than you think you should be? Or you think that what happened to you wasn’t traumatic enough to have caused your PTSD? There’s a reason you’re struggling that much and you aren’t alone, and it was traumatic enough. You aren’t weak or pathetic. Your brain works differently than other people’s, that’s all.
❤
There have been a few requests for sources so here are a few I’ve come across. A mixture of scholarly/academic papers and more casual language articles that provide similar information as those papers. Also included an interesting paper I stumbled on that shows a correlation between ADHD and Traumatic Brain Injuries.
Articles and Papers claiming risks of PTSD is higher in individuals with ADHD
– Emerald Insight (Scholarly Journal) *AN This is a slightly different subject as it compares a subgroup of ASD individuals to the larger ASD community but I thought it was important to include.
Articles and Papers claiming severity of symptoms are greater with comorbid ADHD and PTSD
Please let me know if any of the links contain harmful language or ideologies. I’ve read some in full but not all and even the ones I did are pretty dense so I may have missed something.
“children all move a lot and have difficulty paying attention wich is proof that adhd doesn’t exist. Also adult adhd whomst?”
reblogging for the word “whomst” –
Also: by that same logic: No babies can walk on their own. Therefore, cerebral palsy does not exist.
Things that can be equally true, simultaneously:
1) ADHD is real, and people of whatever age who have it need appropriate accommodation and treatment.
2) Sometimes, people of whatever age who have ADHD are never diagnosed, and just called “lazy,” instead. Because it’s easier to blame the person than get the proper diagnosis and offer accommodation.
3) Sometimes, people of whatever age (but especially children, because they are marginalized in this society, and have little autonomy regarding life circumstances) are incorrectly diagnosed with ADHD, because doctors don’t have or take the time to examine more complex symptoms and situations, and jump to conclusions too quickly.
i thought you guys would find this thread i wrote interesting
this is a very real problem! and unfortunately, something similar happens to people of color and adults as well. always try and tie it down to something else when, in fact, the disorder has been clearly present the whole time. it’s so damaging.
newsflash: adhd is real and everyone can have it!
please boost this, whoa.
This is a bit of a tangent, but is this person saying that hyperactivity, “chatterboxing,” and emotional volatility are the same basic trait manifested in different ways? Has that been demonstrated? Is that true for men as well as women (but with men more likely to be hyperactive)?
I’m curious about the research behind this, in part because if true, it means I actually have combined type ADHD, not the inattentive type I was diagnosed with.
That would make a lot of sense. Though I’m not aware of any research.
I also need to add again that even if two people of different assigned genders are showing exactly the same behaviors? Those are likely to get interpreted very differently, viewed through the lens of cultural gender expectations.
It’s not always even variations in presentation leading to the different diagnosis rates with ADHD, autism, or other labels. Classically hyperactive girls do exist–and they’re too often seen as having other (andfrequentlyscarier) problems, as evidenced by just how badly their behavior matches certain gendered expectations.
It also might be a socialization thing? Like girls and boys having different behavior is usually socialization based but that doesn’t actually work as a clear cut line, most people technically are probably getting both just at a really skewed ratio. Like the girl/boy typing follows stereotypes enough some of it might be because it is a brain construction thing and by the time you are old enough for them to actually notice you have probably absorbed a bunch of stereotypes about what gender you are treated as.
And that is not even getting into the fact the symptoms being gendered means you might get mixed socialization for having mixed presentation of symptoms and then that makes more symptoms which makes more mixed socialization until you get some fucked up ouroboros of gender stereotyping.
i thought you guys would find this thread i wrote interesting
this is a very real problem! and unfortunately, something similar happens to people of color and adults as well. always try and tie it down to something else when, in fact, the disorder has been clearly present the whole time. it’s so damaging.
newsflash: adhd is real and everyone can have it!
please boost this, whoa.
This is a bit of a tangent, but is this person saying that hyperactivity, “chatterboxing,” and emotional volatility are the same basic trait manifested in different ways? Has that been demonstrated? Is that true for men as well as women (but with men more likely to be hyperactive)?
I’m curious about the research behind this, in part because if true, it means I actually have combined type ADHD, not the inattentive type I was diagnosed with.
That would make a lot of sense. Though I’m not aware of any research.
I also need to add again that even if two people of different assigned genders are showing exactly the same behaviors? Those are likely to get interpreted very differently, viewed through the lens of cultural gender expectations.
It’s not always even variations in presentation leading to the different diagnosis rates with ADHD, autism, or other labels. Classically hyperactive girls do exist–and they’re too often seen as having other (andfrequentlyscarier) problems, as evidenced by just how badly their behavior matches certain gendered expectations.
cleaning with ADHD is a nightmare. it’s an endless cycle of finding a half-finished chore and stopping the one you were already working on, then remembering that something else needs to be done and getting started on that, then finding half-finished chore and
i have the solution! i call it ‘junebugging’.
have you ever seen a junebug get to grips with a window screen? it’s remarkably persistent, but not very focused. all that matters is location.
how to junebug: choose the location you feel you can probably get some shit done on today. be specific. not ‘the bathroom’ but ‘the bathroom sink’. you are not choosing a range, you are choosing a center; you will move around, but your location is where you’ll keep coming back to. mentally stick a pin in it. consider yourself tethered to that spot by a long mental bungee cord.
go to your location. look at stuff. move stuff around. do a thing. get distracted. remember you’re junebugging the bathroom sink and go back there. look at it some more. do a different thing. get distracted. get a sandwich. remember you’re junebugging and go back to the bathroom sink.
nt’s will go crazy watching you, and if they demand to know When You Will Be Done you will probably have to roll them in a carpet and stuff them up the chimney. you’re done when you feel done, or you’re too bored to live, or it’s bedtime, or any number of other markers, you get to pick. but the thing is, by returning repeatedly to that one spot, you harness the ‘hyperactivity’ part instead of wasting all that energy battling with the ‘attention deficit’ part.
not only will the bathroom sink almost certainly be clean, and probably the mirror and soap dish too, you might’ve swapped in a fresh toothbrush, a new soap, you might’ve unclogged the drain – you will probably also have cleaned or fixed up several things in the near vicinity, or in the path between the sink and where you get the fresh toothbrush, or maybe you did your grocery shopping cuz you were out of soap, or maybe you couldn’t find a clean hand towel and ended up doing laundry.
this is good. you got shit done! it wasn’t necessarily Cleaned The Bathroom in the way nt’s think of it, but screw ‘em. things are better than they were.
plus you worked off enough energy to be able to sleep. which is not small potatoes when living the ADHD life. 😀
Earlier I realised that when something bad happens suddenly, I tend to react to it quite well. Like if I drop something, i’m good at catching it, or if someone hurts themselves badly, i do what needs to be done with a suprisingly cool head.
And I realised it’s probably something to do with my ADHD?
Like, with our brains, time is weird. There is only NOW and NOT NOW. We don’t cope well with NOT NOW. But if something needs to be done NOW, we’ll do it NOW. Like getting an assignment done only when it’s about to be due in.
So if say, there’s a fire to put out (and yes, I have had to put out… too many fires because of my inattention) then it needs to be put out NOW.
And I dunno, I guess with ADHD you get a lot more practice at getting stuff done in panic mode, because that’s the only way I usually get stuff done? Friends of mine will get their homework done on time, but freak out and run away when something catches fire. But because I have to put out a lot of “life fires” I am better at dealing with “actual fires”.
Just a weird thought… what do you think?
A few years back I read that that was a thing with some people who had survived trauma as well – basically a tendency to function well under certain kinds of extreme acute stress/physical peril even if they were sort of people who got overwhelmed by minor daily life things. I wonder if it has something to do with adrenaline and executive function?
i hope it’s ok to add this, i probably don’t have adhd but the above addition seems to have broadened the topic.
this is so true. shit goes down, im ur guy. anything from emotional upset to honest to god disaster, i am There. i am a firefighter. i lock into emergency mode and im not just ok, im better than normal. calm, clear, confident, and ready. rest of the time im a confused disaster.
and yeah, i think it’s the trauma/survival mode thing. once it kicks on, you can handle whatever is coming your way so much better. but it’s exhausting and unsustainable.
it’s emergency mode for a reason – your body will sacrifice anything to achieve it, since it is supposed to be brief and a matter of life or death. living like this long enough wears down your body and immune system. i think this is a major reason i am sick, i think it is a big reason so many of us are.
Earlier I realised that when something bad happens suddenly, I tend to react to it quite well. Like if I drop something, i’m good at catching it, or if someone hurts themselves badly, i do what needs to be done with a suprisingly cool head.
And I realised it’s probably something to do with my ADHD?
Like, with our brains, time is weird. There is only NOW and NOT NOW. We don’t cope well with NOT NOW. But if something needs to be done NOW, we’ll do it NOW. Like getting an assignment done only when it’s about to be due in.
So if say, there’s a fire to put out (and yes, I have had to put out… too many fires because of my inattention) then it needs to be put out NOW.
And I dunno, I guess with ADHD you get a lot more practice at getting stuff done in panic mode, because that’s the only way I usually get stuff done? Friends of mine will get their homework done on time, but freak out and run away when something catches fire. But because I have to put out a lot of “life fires” I am better at dealing with “actual fires”.
Just a weird thought… what do you think?
A few years back I read that that was a thing with some people who had survived trauma as well – basically a tendency to function well under certain kinds of extreme acute stress/physical peril even if they were sort of people who got overwhelmed by minor daily life things. I wonder if it has something to do with adrenaline and executive function?
Yes, this is hyperfocus and inertia. Inertia is a type of executive dysfunction where you are stuck doing whatever you’re doing until something happens to jolt you out of it so you can do something different. It gets its name from Newton’s first law of physics, which states that an object at rest will remain at rest, or an object moving in a straight line will continue in that straight line unless it is acted upon by an external force. (Source) Hyperfocus is the part where you’re focused on something and not really aware of anything else.
Yeah, that’s really weird. Most of the things that are affected by ADHD aren’t even things typical children can do until they’re at least seven years old anyhow. Autism, on the other hand, can definitely be apparent from birth in some cases and by 18 months for sure.
If you can get more details about it, that would probably be really enlightening.
-J
No idea when that was, but there was maybe even more diagnostic overlap and confusion before professional views of autism expanded up into the ‘90s. Because ADHD was more on the radar as a possibility. (Some earlier discussion, at the end.)
I got dx’ed with the precursor to ADHD when I was maybe 3, based on things that would make people think autism now, with more labels added on later to cover what didn’t fit as ideas of ADHD changed. That didn’t used to be an uncommon thing, from talking to other people.
Mostly chiming in because that does sound awfully early for an ADHD dx.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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