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540 points drankl | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.318s | source
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_benton ◴[] No.44485177[source]
Fascinating article. It's think the author's experiences are fairly context-dependant, with where you live, the political leanings of your social circle, your online community etc. But I have noticed an increase in the pathologizing of normal human behaviours and traits. Maybe not all character flaws should be fixed.
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rtpg ◴[] No.44485461[source]
I think "normal" is the tough part.

I dislike the "you don't have adhd, you live in capitalism" meme in general, but there is a big difficulty in knowing how much you might be overloading yourself, trying to get to an unattainable normal because your actual material conditions are not normal.

If you're working 60 hour weeks for most people there's not much saving you from having a very messy life! But your peers might all also be in that environment, and you will see people who navigate that somewhat successfully.

Of course you could be working much less and simply "be lazy" and suffer downstream of that. You might be two mindset changes away from being a lot less stressed.

Or you might have a medical condition that makes certain things harder! Or you might not.

At the end of the day there are medical conditions that exist and are fairly scientifically proven to exist in some form and have treatment. And plenty of people who spend time saying that stuff doesn't exist, so there's vocal pushback against that which rubs some people the wrong way.

But there's also just human introspection (which is part of how we grow). The new thing is that this introspection often happens more in the open, a lot of times with the whole world watching.

Even 20 years ago you might talk with other people around the world but it would at least be in more closed spaces.

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Gigachad ◴[] No.44485510[source]
To some extent I think it’s valid though. The inability to want to sit in a chair and reorganise spreadsheets for 8 hours straight isn’t a disability, it’s a natural response of your brain telling you that this activity sucks and you should get up and move.

Combined with the change in society where most active jobs are being replaced with sitting down at a computer.

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1. Doxin ◴[] No.44487803[source]
> The inability to want to sit in a chair and reorganise spreadsheets for 8 hours straight isn’t a disability

I mean sure, but that's also not what ADHD is. It's how ADHD gets described, by medical professionals too, but in my lived experience the attention deficit part of ADHD is the least bad part.

It's the executive function stuff that's real fucked up. You know how if you gotta do something you don't reaaaally wanna do it's kinda hard to get started? Imagine instead if it was nigh impossible. Imagine if it happened with things you DO want to do. All the time. On the outside you just look lazy, while on the inside you're screaming at yourself to go do the thing for hours. Imagine being unable to attain your goals specifically because they are your goals.

Imagine the only way to keep your house even slightly clean is to wait for the planets to align and give you the power to even start cleaning. Half the time it happens at 1AM, but you can either clean until 3AM and be completely fucked at work the next day or just not clean at all until the next time the planets align, which might be the next day or next month.

Imagine being told your entire life you're a lazy fuckup that's not living up to their potential.

Yeah not being able to do boring shit for 8 hours straight is normal. Not having sufficient executive function is a real handicap and being told that it's a moral failing repeatedly will really fuck up a person for a good long while.