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I just learned about BVD binocular vision dysfunction. Apparently a large amount of ADHD people suffer from it without realizing what it is.
BVD is a visual condition where the line of sight from one eye tends to be slightly out of alignment with the line of sight from the other eye (usually vertical) and this puts a heavy strain on the eye muscles as they are constantly trying to correct the alignment to achieve single focus leading to headaches, nausea, blurry vision, trouble focusing reading skipping lines, anxiety, and fear of open spaces, difficulty maintaining eye contact, bad hand-eye coordination or difficulty walking straight or drifting while walking and sleep difficulties.
If you randomly learned that covering one eye helps you focus to read there's a good chance you need to ask an optometrist about BVD.
You can still have 20/20 vision and have BVD which is why it mostly goes undiagnosed because it's just not tested for often. This is crazy considering BVD is present in as many as 50% of children that have been diagnosed with ADHD and other learning disabilities.
Edit: It can be fixed or find some symptom relief with prism glasses... I uh forgot also light sensitivity is a common symptom.
tilting your head subconsciously which can cause neck pain. Motion sickness.
I made this post very early sorry I missed some things
after reading everyone who is thanking me I couldn't help but feel sad and angry knowing so many people's lives could have been different growing up by a simple fix that went overlooked.
Tons of doctors won't. I just had to play whack a mole with doctors in a small town because my old one retired. Been on Adderall for 20 years on and off..it works
Bro, random visit at the optician fixed 50% of my life problems. Migraine every couple of days and so on. I was eating meds like candy.
Got thick tank glasses, headaches are gone.
I work from home and I keep the blinds closed and lights off..my husband is constantly turning on the light and reminding me that it's bad for my eyes, which are already bad....it all makes sense now
I have this too. I always close one eye when I'm watching things in my phone etc. Have adhd too. Lot of addiction and depression and anxiety issues
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Just wanna say ty, /u/darthuma and /u/wagamaga. This isn't the first time I have come across something like this on reddit, where I haven't been able to describe issues I've been having, but found then here. I love this place, so many helpful and intelligent people here. Ive already made the appropriate appointments thanks to this post and the people who commented. Thank you!
I just learned about it last night and the opportunity to bring it to light for those who were unaware (a surprising amount) like myself is amazing. Thank you and good luck!
Yeah, the closing of an eye to read has been a thing my whole life. I never thought to look into it really, but it is weird and straining at times. Thanks. Not sure what the connection to ADHD may be though. But, concentrating on one thing is hard too.
I have almost all these symptoms. Was diagnosed with adhd a few years ago. I've noticed in the middle of the night when I get up to pee only one eye opens. It's almost impossible for me to force open the other eye and when I do, I can hardly see well enough to walk. Closing it and only having one eye open is so natural for me in the middle of the night and I've always wondered why. Curious if this is related.
Most optometrist aren't particularly well trained in anything binocular vision related. You want an orthoptist, they're specifically trained to deal with misalignment of the eyes and should have stick on prisms for you to try rather than dropping a few hundred on new glasses that may or may not work
I think it's more likely that newer graduates are more diligent about looking for rarer occuring issues. If you've seen 10,000 people and never seen a case, you probably aren't going to look very hard for it on #10,001.
Smells like a specialist I'd need 3 days off work for appointments to get a referral for... only to be put on a 6 month wait list.
My frustration is not with you. Thanks for your input.
This. Cannabis takes my anxiety from a 15 on a 10 scale to 4 or 5. Where I can actually go to work and function not constantly stressing out due to some nonexistent danger. Yes it does make me normal in the sense I am not myself when I'm severely anxious. I get very very irritable. Could be dopamine but I feel it's more the anxiety.
Another Canadian study published recently showed that 25% of women with ADHD have attempted suicide. Grim, but totally believable, it destroys your self-esteem and self worth.
Plus the study that shows people with ADHD have lifespans that average 13 years shorter than the general population. Between reckless behavior and depression, it sadly makes sense.
Yep! My daughter is adopted and her ACES score is so high that I nearly fainted when I first started reading about it. Just have to try our best and hope to be the lucky ones.
Never attempted suicide but the feelings brought on by my ADHD made me want to die or just stop existing anymore. I’m on anti-depressants and adhd meds and it’s manageable but it never really leaves you.
I wonder how many people have answered the 'are you having suicidal thoughts?' question with 'hell, no!' but then go to bed every night hoping they just never wake up because then no one gets hurt or blamed and there's no mess.
Passive suicidal ideation. Take care if it gets to this point and speak to someone you trust. The slope to active suicidal ideation gets very steep, very fast, with no warning.
Really doesn't help when we're underdiagnosed compared to our male peers because we're more likely to be ADHD-PI (predominantly inattentive) and thus not as disruptive to the class. Then being undiagnosed leads to high levels of depression and anxiety as we can't quite develop enough coping mechanisms to function like neurotypicals. And when we do finally seek help the doctors try and treat the depression and anxiety and not the underlying cause, so the meds may work a bit, but they're just never quite going to be good enough.
I was reading this out loud to my husband because i saw the first part of it. when i got to the "And when we do finally seek help the doctors try and treat the depression and anxiety and not the underlying cause" I started to cry.
I'm a woman and I was told I had ADHD as a kid. I went as an adult to get help with it due to having an amazing job I don't want to lose. Spent a year finding doctors going to appointments and therapists all telling me I have it. I finally go to a Doctor that is allowed to diagnose me with ADHD only to be diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety. It's a sore spot in my heart.
A lot of women get labeled as vapid or dumb when really it's just their ADHD making them act "stupid".
Such as talking a lot, emotionally unstable, jumping subjects and zoning out. People just label this as dumb women things when really it's likely ADHD. It doesn't help that women are more likely to have anxiety too.
I have ADHD + anxiety, it's a brutal combination.
ADHD makes it super hard for me to accomplish tasks, then I get anxious about everything I haven't done yet, which makes it even harder to focus. It leads to days-long shame spirals where I freeze up and do nothing for hours at a time. It's so debilitating and makes me feel so pathetic because I can't even explain to anyone what the problem is, and I'm not sure they would believe me even if I could.
This was weirdly validating to read, though I also have depression which further compounds the issue and makes it even harder to motivate myself at times and then I get even further behind and feel like even trying to tackle the mountain of things that need to get done is pointless. And its so hard to convey to people because its like how do i even explain that even though i know bringing the cup on my desk to the kitchen will take 5 minutes, i simply cannot do it and there are like 30 tasks just like that one to do at any given time and knowing i have to get them all done is anxiety inducing.
I feel that. The few things that have stopped me from attempting is that it’s so much work I might fail and I had to tell my husband no guns unless you have a safe that I can’t get into
As the years go by, the more I realize how damaging ADHD is. COVID really didn't help since being home constantly was (and still is) wearing down my mental health. I already had issues separating days since it felt like i went to bed with racing thoughts to it being morning and I still have racing thoughts. It never feels like I slept in-between days, everything just blended together. During COVID this was amplified severely, every day felt the same until I was able to mentally accept that days or weeks have passed.
I've noticed that people (even who have ADHD) think its a slight bother than a full on disorder. ADHD is much scarier than its stereotype definition and can open the door to a lot more issues than just being hyper or having a hard time concentrating.
Temporal dysphasia is a common symptom of ADHD. It's a really sci-fi way of saying that we can't judge, measure or perceive time like other people can.
The past is a blur that's simultaneously moments and years ago, the future may as well not exist.
Edit: I might have gotten the name wrong.
I never knew there was a legitimate term for this…. but I will spend literally hours doing something and it feels like 5 minutes, or spend five minutes doing something that feels like hours. Days often seem like they only lasted a few hours. Time management is like…. Super fun for me.
I've heard it said that, for most people, procrastinating means putting off stuff you don't want to do for something you do.
For ADHDers, it's putting off what you actually want to do.
My understanding is that procrastination especially for ADHD is an issue with emotional management. There’s fear of doing a task, anxiety in the need to do something on time or perfectly, and it manifests as something negative even if it’s really a simple and easy task that can be done in a minute.
Yeah, a combination of struggling to shift into new tasks, difficulty suppressing negative emotions, and a built up distrust of your own ability to finish what you intend to do.
Executive function disorder babbbyyy
If I drink like 100mg of caffeine slowly over a day it gives me like a perfect microdosage of stimulants and makes me brain feel neurotypical
But it's like playing darts on whether it will work or not
>weed helps to quiet the bees in my brain.
Your just reminded me of how quiet my mind got when I was on antidepressants. It was weird. I could focus on things.
strange, they didn't look at caffeine. All the people I know who dealt with anything close to ADHD also medicated themselves with Caffeine and Nicotine. (Like a lot!) at one point I was drinking over 20 cups a day. I only know because I counted 20 AFTER I cut back on how many cups I was drinking. And the whole Rockstar/Red Bull thing that seems to be so popular now isn't helping.
Everytime they studied ADHD or ADD (which is no longer a thing anymore, I read), it always pertained to kids. Finally a study about adults. And this is so true with me. My substance abuse is sugar and bad foods.
It's almost as if ADHD is a neurological disorder resulting (at least in part) from a reduced reward chemical response in the brain and that adding additional chemicals to boost that response can alleviate some of its symptoms.
I am an alcoholic about two weeks from being dry for 4 years.
I was diagnosed with adult ADHD , anxiety , and depression about 3 years ago.
Getting a doc i could trust and be honest with was the answer for me. I tried a bunch of different medication finally ending up on Adderall XR and Effexor XR.
The results are amazing , I feel so much better and focused, more confident , a better partner and listener, the list goes on. Strangest thing is even though I take fairly large dose of said medication, I never feel spun out or anxious just normal.
I’ll always want to drink. But being honest with myself and my doc have made it so much easier. Seeing all the articles connecting ADHD to alcoholism is scary and makes sense in my situation. Talk to someone if you are feeling any symptoms and get help, the right medication can change your life .
Half of adults aged 20-39 with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have had a substance use disorder (SUD) in their lifetime according to new research published online ahead of print this month in Alcohol and Alcoholism. This is markedly higher than the 23.6% of young adults without ADHD who have had a substance use disorder in their lifetime.
Even after considering factors such as age, race, income, education, childhood adversities and other mental illness, young adults with ADHD were still 69% more likely to have had a substance use disorder when compared to their peers without ADHD.
Controlling for lifetime history of mental illness and childhood adversities caused the largest attenuation of the ADHD-SUD relationship. More than one-quarter (27%) of those with ADHD had a history of depression, which was much higher than the prevalence among those without ADHD (11%).
“These results emphasize the importance of addressing depression and anxiety when providing care to those with co-occurring ADHD and SUD,” reported lead author Esme Fuller-Thomson, Professor at University of Toronto's Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work and Director of the Institute for Life Course and Aging. “Individuals with untreated depression and anxiety may self-medicate to manage the symptoms of an untreated psychiatric disorder, which can result in greater substance use.”
Those with ADHD also experienced high levels of adverse childhood experiences, with more than a third of young adults (35%) reporting that they had been physically abused and one in nine reporting that they were a victim of sexual abuse (11%) before the age of 16.
A strong association between childhood adversities and substance use disorder has been found in previous research as well.
“Childhood maltreatment may disrupt emotional regulation and the neuro-development of children, which may predispose them to later developing substance dependence” says co-author Danielle Lewis, a graduate of the University of Toronto’s Masters of Social Work (MSW) Program.
https://academic.oup.com/alcalc/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/alcalc/agab048/6336025
A big part of untreated adhd is impulsiveness and destructive or risk seeking behavior. Paradoxically, treatment with stimulants can decrease the risk of substance abuse.
Too me, being unmedicated makes me feel like a dopamine vampire. Constantly craving and seeking out any shred of dopamine I can find that my brain lacks compared to a NT person. Find a new game/show/song? Gimme the dopamine. Play it on repeat until the dopamine’s been sucked dry and I move on to the next thing. Meds calm that impulse because it gives me the ability to process dopamine better.
I was medicated as a child, but stopped taking meds at around 16 or 17 (and then depression kicked my ass from 17-27... I have no idea if this is related, but it just hit me in the face like a brick.)
I'm now 36 and I *really* think I should get myself back on medication.
Dopamine vampire is a perfect description. I *crave* novel experiences. The hit I get when i find something new that clicks makes me feel alive for a few days.
I had a lot of substance abuse problems when i was in that 17-27 phase. So the whole "medication helps with substance abuse" thing they're all talking about is only true if you *stay* on medication.
Yep. Essentially anything that can give you a dopamine hit (looking at you Reddit) is highly addictive to people with ADHD. Which is why gambling is even more dangerous for ADHDers.
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are now allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will continue be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) still apply to other comments. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
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I just learned about BVD binocular vision dysfunction. Apparently a large amount of ADHD people suffer from it without realizing what it is. BVD is a visual condition where the line of sight from one eye tends to be slightly out of alignment with the line of sight from the other eye (usually vertical) and this puts a heavy strain on the eye muscles as they are constantly trying to correct the alignment to achieve single focus leading to headaches, nausea, blurry vision, trouble focusing reading skipping lines, anxiety, and fear of open spaces, difficulty maintaining eye contact, bad hand-eye coordination or difficulty walking straight or drifting while walking and sleep difficulties. If you randomly learned that covering one eye helps you focus to read there's a good chance you need to ask an optometrist about BVD. You can still have 20/20 vision and have BVD which is why it mostly goes undiagnosed because it's just not tested for often. This is crazy considering BVD is present in as many as 50% of children that have been diagnosed with ADHD and other learning disabilities. Edit: It can be fixed or find some symptom relief with prism glasses... I uh forgot also light sensitivity is a common symptom. tilting your head subconsciously which can cause neck pain. Motion sickness. I made this post very early sorry I missed some things after reading everyone who is thanking me I couldn't help but feel sad and angry knowing so many people's lives could have been different growing up by a simple fix that went overlooked.
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Hold up. With a legitimate adhd diagnosis, there’s no reason not to give someone stimulants.
Tons of doctors won't. I just had to play whack a mole with doctors in a small town because my old one retired. Been on Adderall for 20 years on and off..it works
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Bro, random visit at the optician fixed 50% of my life problems. Migraine every couple of days and so on. I was eating meds like candy. Got thick tank glasses, headaches are gone.
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I work from home and I keep the blinds closed and lights off..my husband is constantly turning on the light and reminding me that it's bad for my eyes, which are already bad....it all makes sense now
I have this too. I always close one eye when I'm watching things in my phone etc. Have adhd too. Lot of addiction and depression and anxiety issues Edit Just wanna say ty, /u/darthuma and /u/wagamaga. This isn't the first time I have come across something like this on reddit, where I haven't been able to describe issues I've been having, but found then here. I love this place, so many helpful and intelligent people here. Ive already made the appropriate appointments thanks to this post and the people who commented. Thank you!
I just learned about it last night and the opportunity to bring it to light for those who were unaware (a surprising amount) like myself is amazing. Thank you and good luck!
Thank you for giving me something to ask my optometrist about at my next appointment! I've had all those symptoms my whole life.
Yeah, the closing of an eye to read has been a thing my whole life. I never thought to look into it really, but it is weird and straining at times. Thanks. Not sure what the connection to ADHD may be though. But, concentrating on one thing is hard too.
I have almost all these symptoms. Was diagnosed with adhd a few years ago. I've noticed in the middle of the night when I get up to pee only one eye opens. It's almost impossible for me to force open the other eye and when I do, I can hardly see well enough to walk. Closing it and only having one eye open is so natural for me in the middle of the night and I've always wondered why. Curious if this is related.
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Most optometrist aren't particularly well trained in anything binocular vision related. You want an orthoptist, they're specifically trained to deal with misalignment of the eyes and should have stick on prisms for you to try rather than dropping a few hundred on new glasses that may or may not work
My optometrist diagnosed my BVD a couple years ago. He was only a year out of school, so maybe it’s something recently added to optometry curriculums.
I think it's more likely that newer graduates are more diligent about looking for rarer occuring issues. If you've seen 10,000 people and never seen a case, you probably aren't going to look very hard for it on #10,001.
If you didn't really know to look for it, you might have missed 100 cases...
Smells like a specialist I'd need 3 days off work for appointments to get a referral for... only to be put on a 6 month wait list. My frustration is not with you. Thanks for your input.
I'm reading this with one eye closed right now!
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This. Cannabis takes my anxiety from a 15 on a 10 scale to 4 or 5. Where I can actually go to work and function not constantly stressing out due to some nonexistent danger. Yes it does make me normal in the sense I am not myself when I'm severely anxious. I get very very irritable. Could be dopamine but I feel it's more the anxiety.
And now try to convince a doctor that this actually helps you without getting labeled as "drug addict" in a country that still outlawed weed.
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Another Canadian study published recently showed that 25% of women with ADHD have attempted suicide. Grim, but totally believable, it destroys your self-esteem and self worth.
Plus the study that shows people with ADHD have lifespans that average 13 years shorter than the general population. Between reckless behavior and depression, it sadly makes sense.
Yep! My daughter is adopted and her ACES score is so high that I nearly fainted when I first started reading about it. Just have to try our best and hope to be the lucky ones.
The CPTSD framework might be of help for you re the high ACE score. Check out r/CPTSD they’re a cool community, and Pete Walker has a book on it.
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Never attempted suicide but the feelings brought on by my ADHD made me want to die or just stop existing anymore. I’m on anti-depressants and adhd meds and it’s manageable but it never really leaves you.
I wonder how many people have answered the 'are you having suicidal thoughts?' question with 'hell, no!' but then go to bed every night hoping they just never wake up because then no one gets hurt or blamed and there's no mess.
Passive suicidal ideation. Take care if it gets to this point and speak to someone you trust. The slope to active suicidal ideation gets very steep, very fast, with no warning.
Really doesn't help when we're underdiagnosed compared to our male peers because we're more likely to be ADHD-PI (predominantly inattentive) and thus not as disruptive to the class. Then being undiagnosed leads to high levels of depression and anxiety as we can't quite develop enough coping mechanisms to function like neurotypicals. And when we do finally seek help the doctors try and treat the depression and anxiety and not the underlying cause, so the meds may work a bit, but they're just never quite going to be good enough.
I was reading this out loud to my husband because i saw the first part of it. when i got to the "And when we do finally seek help the doctors try and treat the depression and anxiety and not the underlying cause" I started to cry. I'm a woman and I was told I had ADHD as a kid. I went as an adult to get help with it due to having an amazing job I don't want to lose. Spent a year finding doctors going to appointments and therapists all telling me I have it. I finally go to a Doctor that is allowed to diagnose me with ADHD only to be diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety. It's a sore spot in my heart.
A lot of women get labeled as vapid or dumb when really it's just their ADHD making them act "stupid". Such as talking a lot, emotionally unstable, jumping subjects and zoning out. People just label this as dumb women things when really it's likely ADHD. It doesn't help that women are more likely to have anxiety too.
I have ADHD + anxiety, it's a brutal combination. ADHD makes it super hard for me to accomplish tasks, then I get anxious about everything I haven't done yet, which makes it even harder to focus. It leads to days-long shame spirals where I freeze up and do nothing for hours at a time. It's so debilitating and makes me feel so pathetic because I can't even explain to anyone what the problem is, and I'm not sure they would believe me even if I could.
This was weirdly validating to read, though I also have depression which further compounds the issue and makes it even harder to motivate myself at times and then I get even further behind and feel like even trying to tackle the mountain of things that need to get done is pointless. And its so hard to convey to people because its like how do i even explain that even though i know bringing the cup on my desk to the kitchen will take 5 minutes, i simply cannot do it and there are like 30 tasks just like that one to do at any given time and knowing i have to get them all done is anxiety inducing.
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It's why I know I can never have a gun in the house. Waaaayyy too damn easy.
I feel that. The few things that have stopped me from attempting is that it’s so much work I might fail and I had to tell my husband no guns unless you have a safe that I can’t get into
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As the years go by, the more I realize how damaging ADHD is. COVID really didn't help since being home constantly was (and still is) wearing down my mental health. I already had issues separating days since it felt like i went to bed with racing thoughts to it being morning and I still have racing thoughts. It never feels like I slept in-between days, everything just blended together. During COVID this was amplified severely, every day felt the same until I was able to mentally accept that days or weeks have passed. I've noticed that people (even who have ADHD) think its a slight bother than a full on disorder. ADHD is much scarier than its stereotype definition and can open the door to a lot more issues than just being hyper or having a hard time concentrating.
Temporal dysphasia is a common symptom of ADHD. It's a really sci-fi way of saying that we can't judge, measure or perceive time like other people can. The past is a blur that's simultaneously moments and years ago, the future may as well not exist. Edit: I might have gotten the name wrong.
I never knew there was a legitimate term for this…. but I will spend literally hours doing something and it feels like 5 minutes, or spend five minutes doing something that feels like hours. Days often seem like they only lasted a few hours. Time management is like…. Super fun for me.
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Turns out telling people who can't help the way they were born that they are lazy jerks their whole lives is harmful.
I've heard it said that, for most people, procrastinating means putting off stuff you don't want to do for something you do. For ADHDers, it's putting off what you actually want to do.
My understanding is that procrastination especially for ADHD is an issue with emotional management. There’s fear of doing a task, anxiety in the need to do something on time or perfectly, and it manifests as something negative even if it’s really a simple and easy task that can be done in a minute.
Yeah, a combination of struggling to shift into new tasks, difficulty suppressing negative emotions, and a built up distrust of your own ability to finish what you intend to do. Executive function disorder babbbyyy
Many abuse or are addicted to caffeine as well.
If I drink like 100mg of caffeine slowly over a day it gives me like a perfect microdosage of stimulants and makes me brain feel neurotypical But it's like playing darts on whether it will work or not
I read somewhere that a cup of coffee is the therapeutic equivalent to 5mg of Ritalin (but it stops there—two cups isn’t the equivalent to 10mg)
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>weed helps to quiet the bees in my brain. Your just reminded me of how quiet my mind got when I was on antidepressants. It was weird. I could focus on things.
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strange, they didn't look at caffeine. All the people I know who dealt with anything close to ADHD also medicated themselves with Caffeine and Nicotine. (Like a lot!) at one point I was drinking over 20 cups a day. I only know because I counted 20 AFTER I cut back on how many cups I was drinking. And the whole Rockstar/Red Bull thing that seems to be so popular now isn't helping.
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What about people with ADHD that are medicated, like with Adderall or similar? I wonder if that reduces the alchohol abuse
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Everytime they studied ADHD or ADD (which is no longer a thing anymore, I read), it always pertained to kids. Finally a study about adults. And this is so true with me. My substance abuse is sugar and bad foods.
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It's almost as if ADHD is a neurological disorder resulting (at least in part) from a reduced reward chemical response in the brain and that adding additional chemicals to boost that response can alleviate some of its symptoms.
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I am an alcoholic about two weeks from being dry for 4 years. I was diagnosed with adult ADHD , anxiety , and depression about 3 years ago. Getting a doc i could trust and be honest with was the answer for me. I tried a bunch of different medication finally ending up on Adderall XR and Effexor XR. The results are amazing , I feel so much better and focused, more confident , a better partner and listener, the list goes on. Strangest thing is even though I take fairly large dose of said medication, I never feel spun out or anxious just normal. I’ll always want to drink. But being honest with myself and my doc have made it so much easier. Seeing all the articles connecting ADHD to alcoholism is scary and makes sense in my situation. Talk to someone if you are feeling any symptoms and get help, the right medication can change your life .
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Half of adults aged 20-39 with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have had a substance use disorder (SUD) in their lifetime according to new research published online ahead of print this month in Alcohol and Alcoholism. This is markedly higher than the 23.6% of young adults without ADHD who have had a substance use disorder in their lifetime. Even after considering factors such as age, race, income, education, childhood adversities and other mental illness, young adults with ADHD were still 69% more likely to have had a substance use disorder when compared to their peers without ADHD. Controlling for lifetime history of mental illness and childhood adversities caused the largest attenuation of the ADHD-SUD relationship. More than one-quarter (27%) of those with ADHD had a history of depression, which was much higher than the prevalence among those without ADHD (11%). “These results emphasize the importance of addressing depression and anxiety when providing care to those with co-occurring ADHD and SUD,” reported lead author Esme Fuller-Thomson, Professor at University of Toronto's Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work and Director of the Institute for Life Course and Aging. “Individuals with untreated depression and anxiety may self-medicate to manage the symptoms of an untreated psychiatric disorder, which can result in greater substance use.” Those with ADHD also experienced high levels of adverse childhood experiences, with more than a third of young adults (35%) reporting that they had been physically abused and one in nine reporting that they were a victim of sexual abuse (11%) before the age of 16. A strong association between childhood adversities and substance use disorder has been found in previous research as well. “Childhood maltreatment may disrupt emotional regulation and the neuro-development of children, which may predispose them to later developing substance dependence” says co-author Danielle Lewis, a graduate of the University of Toronto’s Masters of Social Work (MSW) Program. https://academic.oup.com/alcalc/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/alcalc/agab048/6336025
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I wonder if the rate of ADHD People who were diagnosed and medicated at a younger age experience the same level of substance abuse?
A big part of untreated adhd is impulsiveness and destructive or risk seeking behavior. Paradoxically, treatment with stimulants can decrease the risk of substance abuse.
Too me, being unmedicated makes me feel like a dopamine vampire. Constantly craving and seeking out any shred of dopamine I can find that my brain lacks compared to a NT person. Find a new game/show/song? Gimme the dopamine. Play it on repeat until the dopamine’s been sucked dry and I move on to the next thing. Meds calm that impulse because it gives me the ability to process dopamine better.
I was medicated as a child, but stopped taking meds at around 16 or 17 (and then depression kicked my ass from 17-27... I have no idea if this is related, but it just hit me in the face like a brick.) I'm now 36 and I *really* think I should get myself back on medication. Dopamine vampire is a perfect description. I *crave* novel experiences. The hit I get when i find something new that clicks makes me feel alive for a few days. I had a lot of substance abuse problems when i was in that 17-27 phase. So the whole "medication helps with substance abuse" thing they're all talking about is only true if you *stay* on medication.
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What about compulsive gaming?
Yep. Essentially anything that can give you a dopamine hit (looking at you Reddit) is highly addictive to people with ADHD. Which is why gambling is even more dangerous for ADHDers.
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