That’s basically how the end of my diagnosis went because aspects of my results were borderline, so she suggested that I just try meds to see. But keep in mind that only one type of ADHD involves being hyper. Some of us are inattentive types where our brain feels like an old 70s pony car engine, and if you pull up to a stoplight you need to keep the motor revving or it will stall. Taking Ritalin for us is the equivalent of keeping the revs up.
If you're borderline, talk to the doc about a trial of guanfacine. (note that some people HATE it, for exactly this reason) It's the opposite - if your engine is always redlining, it sets a rate limiter and gives you the chance to look out the window and enjoy the scenery, metaphorically.
And in the most interesting cases, you can find a lot of value in both - stimulants keeps you going, guanfacine gives you perspective and the ability to unclench.
As an ADHD person who was already planning to ask my psychiatrist if we can try different medication at my next appointment, thank you very much! That description sounds exactly like what I want to achieve.
I cannot overstate the degree to which it has been lifechanging, after years of trials of various other things. Honestly it was overwhelming - like a months-long mild psychedelic trip. I never want to go back. I am much, much less of an asshole now, and I say that advisedly. (note: lower assholery indicates nothing in absolute terms - I am probably still quite a bit of one. But less! and gratefully, joyfully so.)
Edit: And this is me trying to restrain myself so I don't look like someone starting a cult...
This is the case for me. I finally got diagnosed last year and prescribed Ritalin this year, and it has been transformative in aiding me in getting out of ruts/stalls.
I have moved between clients (as a contractor) within the same industry every couple of years for nearly two decades, often cycling back around to the same clients more than once.
There have also been cases where a previous client kept my contract open after I had left and started with the next client. This gets disclosed to the new client, and my previous client gets informed of where I’m moving to so they have the option of immediately closing the contract if they feel there is a conflict that cannot be managed.
None of this is hard. It simply requires transparency and not doing dumb or nefarious things.
As a high-functioning autistic person, the description of being “a half-step outside the frame” perfectly captures the way I live.
I am, and have always been, aware that I am experiencing the world and my own sense of self slightly removed from how people typically experience the world. It is very much like playing a first-person game with the POV set so the view is through the character’s eyes, but you remain aware that you are controlling an avatar in the game nonetheless.
Edit: interesting how they describe the degraded sense of proprioception as part of the cause, given it is often a problem for autistics.
I had a similar reaction to this article. "Why are they talking about these returned astronauts feeling like I feel all the time?"
I recently got diagnosed with ADHD after talking with a doctor on my wife's insistence after she looked up symptoms and spent days arguing with me that I was a walking example of them, and I suspect I have mild autistic traits as well (not diagnosed and not gonna self-diagnose without more confidence).
I'll raise your video game analogy with my pinball analogy: you press some buttons and some flappers move, and off your life goes careening around some path until you once again get an opportunity to press some buttons. The ball almost never goes where you want or expect it, but it's sure interesting and shiny to watch.
I am in the middle of trying to be diagnosed in my 40s, and am glad to have come across your comment because this summarises a life-long feeling. The complete inability to relate to what most people enjoy (communal activities where the joy is deduced from being in a mob) and inability to be understood 95% of the time (they hear things other than what I say, since they hear "intent") is extremely wearying. Masking means I perpetually pretend to be like everyone else and I feel like a passenger in my own life most of the time.
In very traumatic or severely stressful stages of life, the depersonalisation was very bad and I wouldn't really see "me" in a mirror or recognise my hand as being my own.
Avoiding people (and only being involved in quiet natural environments - I write this at home in the garden surrounded by plants) seems to have helped a lot but does anything else help? I have been doing things I enjoy more, even if they are mostly solitary. (My wife is very accommodating).
I find I don't emotionally engage with most experiences, so most of my memories are "seen" in the third person (I see myself doing the activities) and I am struggling to overcome this sensation. I film and photograph a lot so that I can "relive" the events, but if anyone has any alternative tips I'd appreciate them.
Well done. As a colour blind person (and iOS developer) I am thrilled anytime an app doesn’t rely on colour cues alone. I’ve used Hack and Octal but I am going to give your app a try.
Putting aside the greater variety of physical traits that you describe, dogs generally are more adaptable than cats. They are estimated to have twice the number of neurons and are much more malleable whereas cats feel more hardwired into a set of cat behaviours.
I’ve assumed that this greater learning capacity and malleability is both the best part of a dog and a vulnerability that can lead them to become highly anxious and dependent animals.
I’ve had both cats and dogs, and loved them both, but my goodness they are so wildly completely different animals.
I admit to invoking the phrase “Where we’re going, we won’t need eyes to see” at least once a year when something feels like it’s going horribly wrong.
There are many motivations for shooting jpeg with film sims, from just not wanting to expend the effort editing photos to my motivation as a colour-blind person who simply cannot see colour well enough to manually adjust photos. For me, it’s incredible being able to choose a film simulation and be happy with the result even if I know that the colours I’m seeing aren’t quite the same that others will see. It’s the entire reason I bought into the FujiFilm system.
If you want to shoot to JPEG, and not post process, you aren't really going to need a camera that was designed to capture far more data than the target format is capable of representing. And yet, people pay for really expensive cameras with the kind of dynamic range that is only useful for post-processing. It is like paying for a sports car with a big engine -- and then have someone else drive it no faster than 20mph while you sit in the passenger seat. It is a waste of money. And camera companies are taking advantage of consumers who think they need these expensive cameras to get the kinds of shots they want.
They don't.
Of course I understand that it is more complicated than that. How the camera looks and handles is a huge part of the equation. (I am, after all, the kind of moron who has a Leica in their collection of cameras -- which is a nice camera, but it isn't technically as good as my Nikons :-)). But I still feel that the industry is taking advantage of consumers by selling them capabilities they aren't ever going to use.
Some camera manufacturers do something that is somewhat sensible: they make their film emulation profiles available in post-processing. So you can shoot raw, take advantage of the leeway this provides to get the exposure and tonality right, and then apply the film simulations in post.
As for post-processing, I think the biggest problem is that people think it requires a lot of work and that it is complicated. It is easy to get that impression when you see all of the _atrocious_ editing videos on youtube of people over-editing pictures.
If you do have to spend a lot of time post-processing, the problem is usually that you have no idea how to capture a photo in the first place -- or you have no idea what you want. It pays off to learn how to shoot. And if people aren't interested in learning: mobile phone cameras will usually make more satisfying images with a lot less work. They are _far_ more capable of instant gratification than expensive compact cameras from just 10 years ago.
And I say that as someone who spends a lot of time learning. Even after 30 years. Either you want to up your game, or you don't. If you don't, then there is very little a film preset can do for you.
As for color blindness: you will be no more capable of creating a decent color photo by having the camera slap some color grading on your picture than if you actually edit it in lightroom. Though you can probably learn how to correct images that have obvious color defects without actually being able to see them in post. You can't do that in the camera.
That being said, I do most of my (very rapid) post processing in black and white. The first thing I do is to turn off the colors to adjust exposure, contrast, tonality etc. Once that is in place I turn the colors back on and do any color grading/corrections I want. This is where you'd apply film simulations etc. And as I said in the paragraph above: if you are color blind, it makes no difference if you let the camera do it or some film preset.
I spend perhaps 10-30 seconds per image in post. (Usually I spend more time on the first picture in a series and then apply those edits to all photos of the same scene or with the same settings and lighting with minor variations).
The the big advantage of doing this in post is that you have an entire universe of film simulations to choose from. You are not limited to what comes with your camera. The difference is that you will have a lot more wiggle room to get the exposure and tonality right.
A lot of photographers (myself included) don't actually shoot so the image looks like what I want to end up with, but with specific processing in mind. Usually because you know what the camera sensor is capable of doing, so you optimize for capture of usable raw data so you can get the result you want in post. And with practice, post processing shouldn't be time consuming.
What my doctor has told me, after attending a urology + prostate cancer conference, is to think of the prostate as a sponge that absorbs testosterone. And once the sponge overflows, prostate cancer can be triggered.
But once cancer has occurred, adding more testosterone doesn't matter because the sponge is already super-saturated.
In fact, doctors who have this perspective will permit men with prostate cancer to continue testosterone therapy.
My father was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer and the first treatment was eradicating all testosterone from his body as the affected cells were "feeding" from it.
It's not a cure as they tend to find other ways to grow with time but testosterone does make it faster.
Of course there are many types of cancer so this may not be true for all prostate cancers.
I thought the accepted explanation of Annihilation was a metaphor for cancer. The slow seemingly unstoppable spread. Mutations creating new things that mimic the familiar but in often grotesque ways, mechanistically expanding to destructively consume everything in its path into a new form of life.
Wow, that's a throwback. I remember when my Ontario high-school in '84 or '85 got a whole room full of ICON computers. It was a total miserable nightmare for the teaching staff as each computer class had at least a couple of students with the skills to elevate themselves to root privileges and cause constant mischief.
The ICONs were way more fun from the aging Commodore Pets that had populated Ontario high-schools, and the big trackballs felt futuristic.
Yes! By the time I was in high school in Ontario (early 90s) we had PCs as I recall, but in grade school there were Pets and then later ICONs. At home a lot of kids had C64s, though my family’s first machine was an IBM XT clone.
I vaguely remember a mysterious “other room” where ICON-related things happened - this must have been where the LEXICON server was located.
reply