> I think it's more accurate to say that the combination of factors that influence attention is different for people with ADHD, with a lot more emphasis on interest and less on other factors. When you say "its something I wish I wanted just to avoid the consequences of being berated, feeling inadequate, etc." - I think most people without ADHD are able to choose to do those things anyways if they decide it is a top priority, and put a lot of effort into it. I have chosen to do those things, tried to put in a lot of effort and energy, to no effect. That's not to say it's even a good idea to be able to do that, but it is a fundamental difference. I've wanted things a lot badder than other people, fought a lot harder for them, and been unable to do them, when I saw other people with very little interest or desire do them easily- and they were even less fundamentally capable of actually doing them, but able to consistently sit down and make progress.

My question to you, what makes you so sure that your feelings are accurate about this? We know how we feel about something, we don't quite know what other people are going through. If were to talk about this as a science, its 100x more difficult to measure and quantify these things.

But let me point a few things out here.

1. I think most people are not hard working at all. Most people to me seem like they don't have much hobbies or interests in the first place, and don't try to get into something to begin with. Most people seem unable to stick with doing things they are interested in, like playing music or picking up a sport or etc. This is pretty evident if you been in a club, or taught a class or something. Most people will simply not stick with it and drop out. I think you're comparing yourself to a rather small subset of the population.

2. You said you're a scientist. This is above what most people achieve. Now I don't know when you got your diagnosis/treatment but I assume you did well enough up until that point that this was still a possibility for you. Same is true for me, I graduated college and am software engineer and I did really well in my field. Career aside, I've got pretty into skiing, rollerblading, dancing, playing keyboard, chess, got my pilots license, etc. Now I haven't really stuck with anything more than 6 months really, but I think this is more than most people. I didn't get diagnosed until last year.

My point here is, our feelings aside, we did pretty damn well and by all accounts are functional adults capable of doing many many many things. So where is the deficiency exactly? I'd venture to say your feeling is that you haven't accomplished as much as you believe you could have.

> Where someone is different mentally in a way they can't control, that causes them to suffer, within the context of a given cultures norms and expectations, that is the origin of all mental disorders. ADHD is a 'different' brain phenotype that isn't fundamentally worse- it also has some serious advantages, and I agree that in a culture where ADHD people were normal, non-ADHD people would be seen to be disabled

Glad we agree on this. A lot of people see it as simply being a defect, and attempt to attribute all their behaviors, shortcomings or otherwise, as being fundamentally tied to the diagnosis. I saw a popular thread on /r/adhd for example saying "Trouble with eye contact during sex, does anyone else have this?", with all the comments saying "omg, thats me too!". Even without a diagnosis, I think a lot of people (and this used to be me, which is why I know its true to some extent) will start to conceptualize their issues in terms of ADHD.

This is where I see it being harmful. Yes, as a matter of treatment, like I said I don't have much qualms. I don't even care if people take illegal drugs for stress relief, so I certainly don't care even if people wanted to take stimulants to make their job easier. My issues are with the science of it.

>But I see the effectiveness of these situations as exactly supporting the narrative of executive control dysfunction - if you engineer your environment and situation so less executive control is required to meet your goals, this is a powerful tool for managing ADHD. If you understand ADHD and what factors affect the level of executive control required, instead of happening on good periods in your life just by luck, you can create them consistently. That is, I think a more powerful (but not mutually exclusive) approach than even medication. Consistently having fun, playing, and adventuring in your work and life in general is a very effective ADHD management technique.

Well this is effective for everyone ain't it? Having friends, going out, trying something new once in a while, seeing progress in your relationships or interests or work or whatever. It was a wild time because I had been depressed all my years prior, and all of sudden it made sense why. How could I have expected to be happy sitting at home all day every day doing the same things over and over again?

>Would you summarize your view on ADHD as that it is just a mismatch between some subset of people, and protestant work ethic as a system for motivation? And that, since the protestant work ethic is fundamentally shitty, ADHD shouldn't be seen as a disability? I can agree with that somewhat, but it's of little help to a kid suffering in school. Moreover, I find ADHD treatment to make me better at things I do love. I want to be able to finish projects I start. I want to be able to notice when I'm in a sailboat race that a sail is trimmed wrong, and not hyperfocus on something else.

In part, yes. Because it doesn't matter if you functionally perfectly fine in all other aspects of your life, or even if you don't function in a ton of ways, its your ability to work and succeed in this environment that will determine how you feel about yourself and whether or not you go into a psychiatrists office. It doesn't matter if you could have been a chess grandmaster, or an author or another Alex Honnold, its primarily that you can't be happy being an obedient kid doing what you hate for 20 years that determines a diagnosis.

But my view first and foremost is that human behavior is extremely complicated, and short of physical evidence, trying to tie 10 different complex behaviors into a singular unknown cause is an entirely manufactured approach. I have a lot to say about this but it goes back to my initial comment.

Categorizing something doesn't add information. Nay, it takes out all the actual details and abstracts it into something that is easier to understand. If I talk about all my issues and a psychiatrist says "we call that ADHD", they haven't discovered something new that is true about me, they have just given it a label. And if we communicate through those labels, were working with less information, not more. Then we find facts that are you true about these generalizations, and then people take those facts and thinks it applies to them, because they're part of that label. Its so silly logically. Its like if a scientist was like "all these things with fur are Jababas.", "we studied all the Jababas and found eating leaves increases their mortality by 20%", and then thinking "its got fur, leaves are good for it" Hell thats better science since at least the attribution to the categorization is definite.

I personally find it so reductive of the human experience but that's beside my point.

>kid suffering in school

Imo, get rid of the prison-like school system. Get rid of the standardized testing and required certifications like a GED. Stop advocating for this singular path of school->(high paying field degree) college->job. Give more avenues for education, different learning styles, etc. I mean hell, for anyone who actually gives a shit its easy to see that a kid with social anxiety isn't going to do so well being in school with thousands of kids. Problem is no one gives a shit and our systems are so set in stone, its very difficult to change anything.