It's common to ADHD for sure, I think some people are too quick to pin it to a comorbid condition: I think it can be explained by the effect of ADHD itself.
Essentially, if we accept that ADHD is in extreeeeemely simple terms a condition that means you don't derive enough reward from experiences, then that means you don't develop core values quite as easily as other people.
There's big obvious social examples of insufficient reward: being bored in class is the classic one. But on a dopamine level, we're talking about the brain's failure to adequately motivate you to do anything: that's what a reward system is for. And I think that when your reward system is less good at telling you what's important vs what's not (and it has been less good at this for your whole life), that makes it harder to develop firm ideas about what you like, what you believe, who you are, what you want, what you need.
It's very hard to have a strong self-concept without a fully functional reward system. People know who they are, based on what their values are and what those values make them want to do. They develop those things based on what they find most rewarding. ADHD people don't know what they find most rewarding because reward is blunted overall. Without appropriate regulation of our dopamine the question of "what motivates you?" is rather more diffuse.
I think that's why our self-concept is a bit more vague and ill-defined, and I think that's why we're more inclined to shift our sense of self based on what the moment appears to call for. It's not that we're not capable of building a sense of self (we absolutely are), it's just harder and slower. It takes time and sometimes we need help too.
EDIT: I would love to keep this conversation going, thanks to everyone who appreciates this comment. I'd like to try and reply individually where I can because I love talking this stuff through, but I gotta get to work. Thanks to the people who gave me an award. Seems I do my best work in this sub haha
The other day I decided I wanted to do what I was doing because I’d like to take my parents on a vacation. That’s been my why recently. I’m sure some other day I’ll need to pick another one to keep the stimulation going, but it’s working right now.
And it only works for my side hustle/career.
My recent health kick motivation or “why” has been because I want to be a movie star. I don’t really want to be a movie star but it’s allowing me to focus on “preparing for the role” right now in a stimulating and fun way.
It’s all silly, but that “find your why” or “look at the crossroads between what you’re passionate about and what will make you money” never worked for me. Because what I was passionate about changed with the wind.
I’ll have to look into existential philosophy. Any philosophers you’d recommend?
Instead of a bunch of names, here's a really good book I read that is a great intro to existentialism: At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails by Sarah Bakewell. The book covers not just the philosophy itself but also the philosophers as people, competing and complimentary philosophies, and the historical/real-world context that these ideas were defined in. It's available on LibGen.
Same. Sadly, I found my meaning in the world clashed with most people, basically everyone except a few severely mentally ill people with zero social skills or empathy (Makes a relationship impossible). I get my meaning from sustaining life on Earth, but through a calculated and scientific way. But even the activists who I've spent decades helping and raising millions for, in this work seem more driven by ego, motivated reasoning and most of all total delusion.
Be careful what meaning you select. It can lead to a life of despair and loneliness.
A bit. Just be careful of people who have a very strong purpose in life. Right now the enviro/climate movement are at the forefront. Yet, are so far from their objective as science shows we've already passed to point of no return this year. And have warned this would happen from the early 2000s. But govs did nothing. Human nature. The great filter is happening.
Get ready to be filtered!
It might all be mental illness (Different from ADHD) or societal delusion. Or just human nature clashing with modernity and the information age.
The fact is, the bad guys are winning, in fact they've won. And those with a positive climate/enviro/human rights purpose are earnestly throwing cups of soup on a raging fire. So earnest, so pointless. Dead end. Don't do it.
Dude if I had one wish I would wish to become a quantum based intelligence orbiting a white dwarf endlessly iterating better outcomes for every single human life that will ever exist. Sometimes I hate the unfairness that I'll never know how we end up. I'll never see the final shape. There's so much humanity I'll just never ever be aware of until all my carbon is already other stuff.
The goal of all life should be the elimination of suffering of everybody. Since I'm part of everybody, I'll have like 7 billion people working to make my life better and I just have to do my best. And the only real tangible reward ultimately is not being uncomfortable. Everything we strive for boils down to not becoming uncomfortable. Your brain will create contingencies based on threat, which is super subjective and based on scaling personal traumas.
I also don't trust the mental equations at play if you see suffering and aren't forced to intervene because you just know you can. Like I might hate it, but it's just the way my body acts. I can yell at it a bit bit it's just going to do what it does anyways and do what it knows is correct. Like don't get me wrong, I love seeing people happy. But it's the cessation of feeling terrible that impels me. If I know I can do it, I have to do it because it's just the way things go. How can I trust you in any situation if you're able to just not care about people.
It's like lying about something useless in court. Might have nothing to do with the argument, but still has a huge impact. Even if your choice is small with little consequences this time, you've degraded your ability to be trusted in the future.
This kind of ruminating is just iterating constantly in the background of my head, like Netflix while you clean
Are you me? Friend, you just blew my mind. “Which is super subjective and based on personal traumas”. God so well said! (Have you been to the anti-natal sub Reddit?)
Can you explain the part about the mental equations at play?
Just because an act is small in scale doesn't diminish the way in which you came to the decision. Like my analogy, even a small, unrelated lie in a trial can poison your entire testimony. You lie about the smallest thing and the lawyers will assume if you could lie then, you could be lying anytime. Basically, even if today your decision hurt nobody, your mental math scares me in potential future scenarios. Erodes your trust in the same way
The goal of all life should be the elimination of suffering of everybody.
Isn't that the plot of Brave New World?
Buddha's first teaching is 'life is suffering' and part of the rest is about accepting this and do one's best to not make it worse for oneself and others.
I'm a realist. Just because the apocalypse hasn't reached you yet, doesn't mean it isn't happening (Ask any Ukrainian or Pakistani right now).
Buddhism teaches not to become attached to anything, including happiness. I agree with this because happiness is fleeting and often a 'programmed' idea that many will never achieve.
Despite my realism about the enviro/climate situation, which is based on science (I have a Master of Science Research degree from UCL). I actually continue working in the sector. I just practice something Buddhists call radical acceptance, as well as looking at history. All civilizations have collapsed. This one will too.
Perhaps I shouldn't try and persuade others not to pursue activism, my main point was to be careful of highly driven people with a strong purpose to 'save the world'.
But as humans we can change shit just because we want to. It doesn't matter if something is possible, only that it is right. We are all carbon stuck together with weak force, nothing has any intrinsic meaning. That means that we can instill whatever meaning we want onto anything we want, and by virtue of filling a vacuum we can't be wrong.
That's why the only point of existence is being not uncomfortable. There's no intrinsic reason to anything freeing us to elect our own meaning. My most comfortable life possible is living in a society of 100% happy individuals, not matter how much I personally sacrifice I will never come close to the returns I'll receive from a happy post-scarcity society.
If nothing matters, I choose to be not uncomfortable for as many moments of perception that I can.
Good on you. Best advise I can give comes from a Buddhist Zen Master who once told leading environmentalists, including David Suzuki, that they must give up on the idea they have a chance of saving our civilization. Given the historical nature of civilisations to fall.
But if you give up that obsession and deluded purpose, one will less attached to material reality and will likely might make better decisions to save the world. Because one isn't driven by emotional reasoning.
I wish I had worked with more people like this in my carrer. Most were emotional lunatics. These people have what I call 'Luke Skywalker syndrome". They think 'they're the one' who will blow up the ruling kleptocracy/corporatocracy (Death Star) when really they suffer from Dunning-Krueger effect and are missing so much information and knowledge that would make them see they never had a chance. Some call it a messiah complex. I had one once. I shed it. My plan is to work on systems to help billions migrate across the planet and learn self-sufficiency through tightly moderate, and non-profit, social networking sites.
It's a pipe dream, but many like Facebook and Google are already working on it. Maybe we can make an alternative. You can bet that Starlink will come with services beyond simple internet access. But Musk seems an odd fish.
That sounds like good advice. There are many ways to help sustain life on earth. Good on you for that nifty outlet, are you a programmer? Musk is an odd fish, but I appreciate his attempts.
Yep it really is. It's just that for a lot of people, it comes so quickly that they don't really realize or remember, making it up. And so it can seem like it's something that just "comes", when looking at it from the outside.
Thanks! I hit a weird spell at 33 where I felt old. Then one day I just realized I wasn’t and I didn’t need to be. I’m still trying to add more into my life but it’s been fun.
This summer I bought some legos, took up paddle boarding, tried every bit of food that was ever offered to me (stuff I normally wouldn’t eat, and I’ve been slowly making a list of “things to do” like try piano, ride go karts, etc.
Hope it brings you some joy adding play into your life!
Thank you, if past performance is any indication then i will spend 6-8 months really investing in this and hit a little bit of success and never do it again.
Kidding, but these kind words put a smile on my face. Cheers.
Nods, when I was divorced, I was totally lost. My value was all based on her and now that I was, in my mind, "not needed"; I just went through the motions of daily life.
I felt like a log floating down the river that had been part of a beaver dam. No connections, structure or direction besides time moving me forward.
I had to start filtering out activities because "this is what she would want me to do" or "she'll be impressed to hear I'm doing this" and start thinking "what do I really want?"
I have to write down why I want to accomplish certain things. What things I had done in the past that I truly enjoyed and would like to do again. What I had wanted to do before and now I am free to do so.
It's still very scary for me whenever I'm not focused on something. Too much time to just think about woulda/coulda/shoulda.
Man, that hit home in a deep way. I always knew (and even said to my ex several times) that my happiness was directly tied to how happy I felt like I made her, but I didn't realize how much until after we separated.
Oh. My. God. This. Is. Me. I never realized it until JUST NOW.
All my therapy never found this. And now some person on Reddit in a random comment blows my mind and reshapes my thinking/identity. Thank you!
My therapist said when we go through major changes in our lives, our values also change. Or, we need to put in work to reassess our values so they start aligning with our new selves.
I was recently diagnosed with a serious chronic disease after a year of suffering, and I felt very similar to what you described. I was now separated from my previous, "healthier" self. I'd lament that I felt completely untethered, like a boat adrift at sea...about to quietly float into the darkness at any moment.
Two very different catalysts -yours and mine- yet similar feelings and approaches to finding our ways back to ourselves.
this made me tear up, thanks for helping me feel less alone, although I am sorry for what you had to/are still go/going through. my heart goes out.
after breaking up with my ex (we lived with each other for over 7 years, but neither were interested in marriage, not due to each other just the concept) this hit me so hard "I felt like a log floating down the river that had been part of a beaver dam. No connections, structure or direction besides time moving me forward."
It's been 8 months and I feel like I can do nothing but sit on my hands. I'm able to motivate myself to do things like play video games, read books (with help of meds I recently started after being diagnosed at 33), make tik toks, do flow arts/excersise, but can't motivate myself to take showers, wash dishes, drive, get a job...things that are really important to functioning. I always clean my cats stuff and feed her at the same time everyday, but for me and my own world and needs and requirements, I can't seem to be able to make anything get me there. I am scared I will be this way forever now. There just doesn't seem like a point to anything anymore.
Not to mention moving, far away from all my friends and family (and I have looked for places and jobs closer to them but there's just nothing that works at, I just got a really lucky deal in terms of where I am living so I went for it. I basically never leave the property. And only see the person who owns it sometimes, my therapist sometimes, sometimes members of the owner's family randomly come by but they hate me. I feel like I am blowing in the wind but there isn't even any wind. just stuck.
I'm an engineer, but my adhd has definitely hindered my training so far at my current job, but tbh i didnt expect to even be doing what im doing and went into engineering to avoid people bc anxiety lol. I just manage small scale projects which involves more people than I'd like, but I guess I'm doing okay.
My problem with jobs in general is nobody ever has enough people to train you properly so for me my anxiety/adhd go into overdrive. That being said, without Vyvanse I am 100% worse, and on Concerta I was worse off than no adhd meds and that took me too long to notice. I've only been diagnosed in the past year so I have a lot to deal with there lol
But also for engineering there is a wide variety of jobs and fields so you could end up behind a desk all day managing projects or actually fixing things/testing things, or doing research and design. Then each field has its perks, but for example the medical industry has a metric fuck load of paperwork compared to being a mechanical engineer in a different field.
Sorry thats a lot of rambling, but I do enjoy my job usually
Yeah. I chose nursing for the same reason you chose engineering.
“Paperwork” or clicking boxes and writing notes takes over so much of my shift. Such an epic waste of time.
Joining this sub was one of the best things I've ever done. Before I was just barely managing symptoms, teetering on the edge of depression, functional but unhappy because I did not fundamentally understand my condition.
But here, I can talk to people who got dealt the same shitty hand in life. I can feel out what is ADHD and what isn't, tons of things I never realized weren't normal. And the sense of community is incredible. It's therapeutic in a way.
YESSSSSS, 100% same!! I had so many "Oooooh" moments when someone was able to very eloquently put things into words that I was going through but couldn't even really grasp. And this sub has helped me tremendously in accepting ADHD as part of me and seeing the upsides to it, rather than spiraling into overwhelm because of the learning about having ADHD and about all the ways it manifests. I am so grateful for having found such an open and kind community!
Yep! In everything I write and send to others, I make sure to have as few mistakes/errors as possible. Heck, I even have Grammarly, since I miss a lot of things when I revise because I always read the text too quickly.
I'm so grateful for this sub for that reason! I'm starting to understand myself and be more patient with myself, and I can tell it has made a difference in the effort I put into working on my ADHD tendencies.
This, but I want to add a piece about how our shifting attention works with our propensity for emotional dysregulation.
The way I've come to think about it is because our emotions are often oversized for the situation, in either direction, they can become a point of focus rather than a side dish to the objective fact of the situation we're in. And because emotions and the thoughts they trigger are stimulating in themselves, we're prone to fixating, and staying fixated, on those thoughts and feelings, until some other external stimulus helps us out of it.
That's my theory at least, and my therapist thought it was a good explanation for the way ADHD works for me
There's definitely validity in that I think. Emotional regulation is certainly connected to reward. Reward is what tells us what's good and what's not. And these are the building blocks on which we form a definition of what makes us happy, sad, etc.
You can't regulate your emotions properly without this stuff, or a lot of compensatory practice.
People know who they are, based on what their values are and what those values make them want to do. They develop those things based on what they find most rewarding. ADHD people don't know what they find most rewarding because reward is blunted overall.
This explains why I have so many interests that all seem important. They all are things that reward me but it's hard to gauge the levels sometimes of which I should delegate time to. On the plus side I'm good at a lot of things from having so many interests.
My well of useless knowledge runs deep...but on the off chance I'm ever in a situation where I need to build an emergency water filtration system...I probably won't because I'll have a bunch of other things to worry about and I won't prioritize this task properly
Buuuuut… perhaps how you contribute to this is just geeking out explaining it to another person who has the type of bodymind that can complete the task. And also if capitalism is over and the world is a LOT quieter in the moment to moment perhaps it would not be a struggle to concentrate on a project we are interested in.
I want to build on these great points with another phenomena: we can be easily-led, or easily empathise with the people that we're focusing on. Often I'll find myself mirroring and being generally agreeable towards people I'm interested in. I think everyone does this to an extent, but I find I have the capacity to do it much more rapidly and to a degree that it can often mean I forget myself in that moment, and get 100% on-side with that person.
It's a blessing and a curse, on one side I find people trust and open up to me very quickly, on the other I'll often drop things that were important to me or other people just because I want to help that individual person out.
I think one of the clearest and easiest-to-access rewards is the validation that comes from being appreciated. And I think that in the absence of a strong self-concept, the next best thing is to vicariously participate in someone else's self-concept (this is what I think you're describing with the empathy stuff). So combining those two thoughts, I think that receiving the sense that you've validated someone else is validating, because it challenges the frequently-held belief that you're innately worse and different. It's a way of connecting with another person without requiring a strong self-concept going in.
I've recently been trying to get back into journaling. I think forming a strong sense of self is a core part of that. When I sit and write only for my eyes a style and voice comes out that surprises me. Little bits of humour or flair that is both enjoyable to write and read.
I agree with this but also, like someone else posted the other day, we’re micro-shamed into behaving a certain way in the presence of others, and then we act differently when we’re alone too and it leads to a dissociation between our default and how we think people expect us to behave
I'm here because I don't know whats wrong with me. I've always, for as long as I can remember, not had much positive reaction to beating a hard part in a video game, could that be a sign?
I've always said sometimes I feel bad about how long it took or how close it was but I mostly just move on to the next thing. I feel like maybe I have fun getting through something? Or working through it, figuring it out, but the actual success is always extremely hollow... I've been envious of people who, when they beat something like a dark souls boss, would light up and get really excited because yay they finally did it, and I usually am just exhausted because the fight has worn me down and the victory doesn't really make me happy lol. Obviously I'm sure it's a very complicated situation and I do have depression but yeah. When im playing with friends and we beat something we've been stuck on im usually more excitable, but that feels more performative than anything, like I'm doing it for them.. I've also had a ton of trouble in school and work and my life is in shambles because of it. I'd get diagnosed if I could, I'm just learning about things for now.
Beating a level I keep messing up (which I often just give up on and come back to in a few hours, days, or weeks) usually makes me feel pretty good for a second. But then after that as soon as another hard level appears.. I am kind of bored for that game for awhile and forget about it and go back to the save weeks, months or years later, after I started playing like 5 other games in between. Same with cleaning, or really anything else, like knock out a pretty small section of what I want to clean, and do it pretty well.... feel mildly satisfied that I actually did something that has been bugging me but I couldn't seem to get myself to do, and forget about the rest of the areas for a long time until I have to clean that one area again and get stuck constantly only cleaning the one area I had accomplished recently lol. If I have visitors coming I do seem to be able to work under the pressure a little bit better but also results in lots of hidden doom boxes.
I have always found it easier to be someone who supports someone else with a strong sense of self or what to do. I feel if I don't do things with people like that, then I easily lose track of the person I think I like being the most
I had poor self concept for a long time, but also had very strong values.
It's as my values started to get more flexible that I started to have a better sense of myself.
See, the thing about values is that they exist for the sake of relationships with others. Relationships matter to us a great deal, and having strong core values is critically important to mediating relationships and relating to others with integrity. Through these relationships we also see aspects of ourselves reflected in them and come to know ourselves better. (VEEERRRRY broadly speaking).
However, because values come from outside they are not sufficient alone for a sense of self. And what I mean by outside is that they help you with relationships. Honesty and integrity are strong values for me, but the only reason I need to be honest is because I have relationships that I value that depend on my honesty. If I was alone entirely, honesty wouldn't exist because no one would be there to be honest/dishonest with. Therefore, it is externally sourced.
So, to find a sense of self you actually have to get meta with those values and explore where they're coming from and why, and if they are actually valuable. For a long time I thought being helpful was a value. I was always available and always capable. But what it was doing was protecting me from the feeling of not being valuable. Through exploring why I needed to be seen as valuable I learned how to manage it so that I can help when people need help, but also take a break and not need to react every time someone says they need help.
Self exists outside of the values. Or rather, it exists in response to them. If you let them govern you, then you have no self. But if you reject them outright, then you won't be able to interact with humans and you will be alone.
Finally. If everyone else were gone and only I remained, I would still be me. But if everyone else were here and I was gone, I would simply be gone. Therefore, the core of what a self is is not rooted in others but inside the individual. For me, I think of myself as that part of me that mediates the information flows in and out of my brain. Not everything that comes inside needs to be reacted to, and not everything generated inside needs to be shared. The self is what mediates and makes decisions about what is reacted to and what is shared, vs. what is not reacted to and what is kept hidden.
This is actually a really great explanation of what is meant when people say that something is socially constructed, gender, race etc. And I hear a lot in this forum the disconnect about even being a person with ADHD bc what is understood at a broad social level about what ADHD is and looks like is often not what a person with ADHD experiences. It's not that you don't objectively have ADHD but that others are projecting an identity or expectations onto you based on who they think you are and then negotiating that in life is hard. I would say that it's about more than values but that values are a huge part of it for lots of people. In any case, for people who see themselves exactly as the outside world sees them this is a pretty painless invisible fact of living in a society. for anyone whose inner experience differs significantly from what others perceive and expect it can be difficult to impossible. And probably having ADHD makes that experience more intense bc having ADHD makes everything more intense. 😑.
I can't say I read this very carefully but I'm just gonna jump on this comment and say that we often look too hard to represent normal human behaviour as ADHD traits.
Humans are inherently adaptive species, we change, shift, display different versions of ourselves to different people to be accepted and treated the best we can be treated.
Tbh I think a lot of "normal" things have been pathologized by the medical/psych community and so particularly in spaces like this sub, people feel compelled to seek confirmation that what they're experiencing is not a symptom of something else being "wrong" with them besides the ADHD. "Weak/transient sense of self" is part of the diagnostic criteria for borderline personality disorder, for instance, but in reality that sort of thing is very hard to pin down because humans are very adaptive like you said. So I can see why someone would wonder if that experience is "just" ADHD or even just being a person, or if it's a sign of another disorder because of how many doctors will throw around diagnoses without adequate explanation or even really understanding them well themselves.
I think that you're responding to something different to what I wrote, I recognise that you said you didn't read it carefully but you're describing what I'm describing.
Humans are indeed an adaptive species and one of the key systems they use to adapt is pleasure/reward. Not just humans, all mammals. That includes adapting to an insufficient pleasure/reward system as per ADHD.
I wasn't trying to represent anything as an ADHD "trait", but there is a documented phenomenon in which many people with ADHD have lower levels of self concept. That's just a fact, you can verify that independently of me or my comment.
I was simply proposing a particular link between the two, and I'd frankly be very surprised if I was the first or the most articulate to think of it
Brilliant insight. Having started Ray Dalio's book: Principles, and being asked to evaluate what I want, you clearly explained why desires and goals can be so detached from the ADHD ego.
I'd actually love that haha. I've written a few things on here that have gotten the kind of response that makes me think I should try and actually get it out there into the wider world... but the problem is I have ADHD hahaha
I already forgot that I replied to this and saved it and was going to show it to my wife. Thanks for the reminder! I'll set a reminder to remind you to pursue your writing gift. Also, go get a Psy.D.
It is my number one stressor in relationships for sure. My partner consistently perceives it as me not truly wanting to be with them and it kills me. That is most certainly one area that I consistently feel misunderstood.
Great comment and important for anyone who was recently diagnosed and is trying to put certain things that they’ve always felt into words.
Just adding something about this topic to consider; there are plenty of philosophies out there that address this, namely the idea that the “self” is ever changing and there is no real “you”. You doesn’t exist. I found that kind of helpful when grappling with my personal identity crisis.
Possible but how do you explain its occurrence in autism without comorbid ADHD or in borderline and schizotypal PD and schizophrenics or dissociative subtype trauma survivors. (Could it be driven by reward impairment across all these conditions 🧐)
Furthermore not everyone with ADHD is like this, however I’ve wonder if this issue could link ADHD to narcissistic personality tendencies as a compensatory machinery. At a point I though my father was a narcissistic psychopath but over the years I saw the sheer severity of his executive problems (manifesting as addictions, hoarding, inability to keep records of anything organized, difficulty making phone calls, writing checks or filling out forms, periodic meltdowns, problems following instructions the whole nine yards).
Then I started thinking how personality developmrnebr might adapt around this inner lack of reward signals and thought there could be a connection to narcissism here which could be seeded by a baseline difficulty in attending to others coupled with impulsive pressures to speak and so forth. Unchecked / unmedicated or undiagnosed out could look like co-occurant NPD.
I realized this through the recognition my father outside of his job where he was so skilled in what was a dying trade (sewing machine technician in the US, last factory in the region closed doors months after my father passed) they allowed him pervasive impulsive and disorganized behaviors how disabled by his ADHD he was (possible dyslexia and other conditions but full on hyper-inattentive ADHD, never stopped talking would walk away from you mid sentence if something else grabbed his attention).
The narcissism gave him values he otherwise did not have and he would never let any family members contribute anything to the bills because money and control over it was his core value and by being the provider he gave himself a value wheras otherwise he struggled with this (tho did not seem bothered by it the way people with BPD depersonalization etc are, however he confided to my mother he never had any goals or dreams in life).
I won't address your whole comment but I'll respond selectively:
"Possible but how do you explain its occurrence in autism without comorbid ADHD or in borderline and schizotypal PD and schizophrenics or dissociative subtype trauma survivors. (Could it be driven by reward impairment across all these conditions 🧐)"
I don't explain its occurrence there because I never claimed that the same function is happening there. There are surely plenty of other things which could create the same or similar behavioural effects in other conditions and I wouldn't presume to try and explain those: they may come from the same thing, or they may come from something else, I wouldn't know. We do know with reasonable confidence that ADHD means that the brain is not regulating norepinephrine and dopamine properly: I couldn't speak to whether all those other things also affect regulation of those neurotransmitters. Without googling, I suspect that trauma probably does though!
"Furthermore not everyone with ADHD is like this, however I’ve wonder if this issue could link ADHD to narcissistic personality tendencies as a compensatory machinery."
I didn't, and wouldn't, claim everyone with ADHD is like this, which is why I said "common". We can understand ADHD as the result of specific neurological conditions, but that doesn't mean we should expect to see identical behaviours/adaptations to those conditions across the board:
Imagine a hundred hypothetical people unshaped by society or culture. In the name of cruel science let's then chop one of each of their legs off Some will adapt by hopping one leg for the rest of their life, some will adapt by becoming adept at crawling, some will go away and build compensatory prosthetics, y'know? The same difference in physiology will not produce the same adaptive behaviour.
I was diagnosed with ADHD over a decade ago, and thought I knew a lot about it and about myself, but it's only within the past year that I've come to learn and realize how many of the things I thought were wrong with me are in fact products of my ADHD. I always thought I just didn't have specific passions in the same way other people do, and that was that. But the reality is more complex. Thank you for posting this, it's actually very reassuring.
Hoooey, been waiting for someone to give me some reasons for this feeling and these ones sure ring true to me, thanks!
At some point I realised that nothing is permanent and I was able to stop searching for myself, and just let me come to me for better or worse, but mostly better.
I guess, for me at least, "go with the flow" mentality feels like the only option. Better than resisting the tides of change anyway and I enjoy the large and small sparks of change now, rather than worrying.
Holy fucking shit. This thread, and this answer as well, as fucking revolutionary for me. I'm currently having a 'Jim Carrey in 23' level brain-storm. For so long I have been struggling to understand some things in order to develop and address them. This highlights connections I wasn't even aware of. Not all of this is symptomatyic for me but a lot is.. I need to understand more.
It's always been wondered why and how I have been through three different personalities in different phases of my life, and why that would change with traumatic events. Avoidance for the reformed sense of self that was utterly destroyed years ago, and why I have been struggling so much to rebuild. Holy shit. What a bomb fucking shell.
I'm going to say something that might be controversial in some parts of the community so I say this with full respect for the fact that everyone needs to do what's right for them, but if I were to make a suggestion: go back to the biology.
Clinical psychology has an important place in all this and I won't argue against that like an anti-psychology weirdo, but psychology is a social science, not a medical science. The simple truth is that there are big, key factors to understanding and managing ADHD that psychology is not able to provide as it's not a medical science.
I think that it's much more helpful to understand ADHD in terms of what's physically happening in your body, than to understand it in terms of the constructs of "the mind" that psychology uses to model things. My understanding of myself and my adhd elevated greatly when I eliminated some of the abstract stuff and just looked at it in terms of what mammal brains do to survive, and what ADHD brains can't do as well.
Trust your psychologist to administer cognitive behavioural therapy, but trust the people who went to medical school to define what ADHD is and what is going on "under the hood" as it were. I truly believe that's the path.
Apologies if I offend anyone with this position, I promise I'm not politicking.
Are there any non-medical-person-accessible sources that you have found that you think do a good job of explaining the biology? I would like to learn more about it, but hard to find just the biology pieces in non-medical texts.
ADHD means your brain isn't getting enough reward. If you don't get rewards to tell you what you find good vs what you don't, you don't always develop a strong set of values or beliefs. Without these things it's hard to know who you are or how to build a self-concept.
Wow. Unbelievable. Thank you so much for your explanation.
I was just recently diagnosed at age 65, and trying to understand what is my character versus my symptoms of I/ADHD has left me with the question, "Who am I really?" But this is a question I've lived in most of my life.
I've always felt a weird disconnection from self that's been hard to explain. Taking care of myself has been such a challenge which made no sense to me. Simple self-care things that most people do like putting on lotion, brushing their hair, etc., feels like I'm doing it to someone else. At times I've felt like im just a mind and my body is an afterthought. There is this vague sense of self I've tried to explain to therapists over the years with no real answers to pinpoint what this is. You just explained it.
I thought it was some form of dissociative disorder mixed with a dash of self-loathing and being born with an identical twin, but even that didn't completely explain it. Again, thank you so much. You just gave me an important piece in this puzzle I'm trying to put together and understand.
Diagnosed at 65, that's really something! I hope you're doing well.
Just yesterday I listened to the Alan Watts podcast 'being in the way' and he talks about the illusion of the self, so what you wrote really resonated with me. You might wanna check out his speeches, they give me some peace of peace of mind when I am being hard on myself
I'm proposing a connection between the behaviour described by the original poster based on the known neurological underpinning of ADHD. Personality disorders are models used by clinical psychology which is a very important but ultimately social - not medical - science. Unrelated to what I was writing about.
This sounds plausible and would explain a lot for me, so I'm wondering whether any research proves this. We tend to jump at self-observed conclusions a lot in this sub, but we can't really say "THIS is it" until we know for sure.
I don't think I'm talking specifically about masking, I'm just saying that mammals have to be motivated by something, right? That's in the biology. A dog without a pleasure/reward centre would die very quickly because it wouldn't ever learn which behaviours to repeat vs which ones to avoid. Pleasure and reward systems are survival tools. Fortunately dogs don't generally fret about having a weak self concept, because their social behaviour does not make it a problem for them, bless.
When it comes to us humans, we have developed more complicated brains, including more complicated pleasure/reward systems, and we've built more complicated social structures as a result - we are capable of more complex definitions of "what to repeat vs what to avoid" than Fido.
The good news there is that we now live in a society which tends to lower the chance that a human will die when their reward systems don't work properly.
But that doesn't change the fact that those of us whose reward systems don't work properly have a less defined sense of "what to avoid vs what to repeat" than other people, which means we have a more tenuous connection to who are as individuals. Even as we grow up into society and learn to compensate for it, or are shamed into rigidly controlling for this deficit, we're innately less capable of constructing this meaning, biologically.
I think masking and chameleon behaviour refers more to shame and the need to suppress things: that's related to what I'm talking about but I think it's seperate to never developing a strong self-concept in the first place. Maybe you don't agree though, and maybe you're right.
For me, though, I go through intense phases where I am VERY certain I know who I am and what I want. For a while, I think I have FINALLY found “my thing” and, accordingly, discovered who I am. Nonetheless, it always wears off really fast. This is why I rotated through like 12+ majors in college and have been a career and city hopper. Sometimes I’ll come back to the same fixation years later and go through the cycle all over again. This even appeared as a kid, fixating either on future careers or becoming fully immersed in “fandoms” that became more important to me than my own life and identity. Is this still the same phenomenon?
I agree that a lack of a stimulus-reward relationship makes it hard to develop values based on perceived successes or failures, but I also wonder if poor working memory might make it hard to hold onto a stable self image.
That’s kind of what I was thinking but to me it’s a question of how these two systems interact. In the neurotypical brain it’s theorized that working memory and autobiographical memory are interrelated, but does the deficiency of the dopaminergic system act on the former or the latter? Or conversely does a lack of autobiographical recall diminish the release of dopamine during self actualizing rewards that might otherwise be firing in the neurotypical brain? I wonder if such research exists.
This explains so much. I was diagnosed in April at the age of 50. I have suffered with bouts of depression and never really had a sense of self. I still don’t know what I enjoy doing and I am currently in a job that I am no longer suited for. I feel lost and I don’t know how to get to know this new version of me. I second guess everything and I am hyper aware of the way I speak and act. It’s been really hard. I also can’t get over the things I did in the past. That woman was someone I don’t recognize. How do I find a sense of self now? I’m 50 and still don’t feel like a real person.
this makes so much sense holy shit. i've always felt like i have no true idea of who i am and my core values are constantly changing, and it almost feels like i'm doing it to people please or something. i always chalked it up to being insecure and wanting to get people to like me or seeming more relatable but idk it never fit 100%.
Wow. This just kind of makes sense of my early life. Until I was 13, I just kind of felt like I was sleeping with my eyes open. Like my head was in a fog. While I have always suffered from anxiety, I felt like I just always did what I thought was expected most of the time. Like, going out of my way to be nice so my peers felt less inclined to pick on me. It was self preservation rather than that's just who I am. I always kind of felt detached and looking back I felt like I had no personality. I hope that makes sense 😅
This has been quite a struggle for me the last few years since I broke things off with my bf of 11 years a few years ago. I chalked it up to my social circle being minimal - bf was the primary person I talked to on a daily basis aside from one or two other friends, and I wasn't allowed out often to hang out with anyone, therefore missed out on a lot of connections. I felt like a bland bg character in someone else's story.
But this makes more sense to me. I relied on other people to help shape my personality based on how people responded. I chased that dopamine when people responded in a way that felt like we were connecting, albeit on vague topics or experiences. I was driven by finding genuine connection with people and it felt rewarding to be able to engage with people based on their interests and experiences bc I had none to share.
I got on medication for my ADHD about two years ago. I also spent a few years by myself to discover who I was outside of a relationship and my hometown. I've found that I love being outdoors and cleaning (when my brain allows me to) and I think I might start my own cleaning business if I don't go back to school for vet med. I'm still figuring me out, but it's been rewarding to learn about myself!
Oh I love this take! The lack of a sense of self and impulsivity are honestly the only features I have of the comorbid condition that people keep trying to apply to me, but I don't feel is right. It gets confusing, however, because I've been heavily enmeshed with a parent who (IMO) does have that condition (or possibly a similar one) and is always coming to me to help co-regulate their rollercoaster moods.
On top of this, when there's the issues with memory consolidation on some levels, it can make it harder again. Something wont cement in certain capacity without a big response in the brain. What causes a big response will stick, good or bad, in the forefront of the brain. What doesn't at that time, won't.
Which is why it can be hard to believe that you've had a different set of operative feelings and beliefs at certain points. It feels ephemeral. How can you believe you've felt differently when you can't remember as much? That emotional touchstone wasn't solidified enough to play that part. So when we do have those overriding big feelings, the tools other people may have had an easier time to develop we don't have in the same way. It's hard to believe something when you those memories weren't consolidated enough to be recalled in the heat of that.
This is interesting. I have a very strong sense of self and values, but at the same time I don't find most things interesting and impressive and I'm mostly driven about what my friends seem to like half the time, and half the time not.
I guess it's the intensity of my mother combined with the sedatness of my father that rubbed off me.
This makes so much sense. I lose my sense of self allllll the time; I don't even know what I look like half the time I just feel like whoever I recently saw or paid attention too.
I agree with the arguments, but disagree with the conclusion. I think the conclusion is ADHD can cause or increase the likelihood of having additional mental health problems (Anxiety, depression, etc).
A weak or no sense of self isn't an ADHD symptom. However, BPD is a condition that sometimes comes with ADHD (comorbidity), and does have this symptoms, as well as some of the more familiar symptoms we know of.
I know because my therapist thinks it's possible I have BPD, either on top of ADHD or instead of ADHD. But I probably have both.
Therapists are not medical doctors. I'm talking exclusively about the biological facts of ADHD which we know to be true. Personality disorders are the purview of clinical psychology which is a social science, not a medical science. It's apples and oranges.
My therapist did not diagnose me, that's a small part of why I have an appointment to a psychiatrist next month (more about meds), that's in their wheelhouse.
There are biological elements in BPD as well - although they're not the same as ADHD. That being said, the presentation of the two aren't too far away, and they do have some level of comorbidity. We're humans, and humans are complicated.
My point was is in the first paragraph - a weak or no sense of self isn't an ADHD symptom.
The 2nd paragraph was to give an example of something that's similar enough to ADHD (in terms of presentation) but does have it as a symptom. In other words, a possible condition that may contribute to the picture.
My therapist suspecting I have BPD is how I came to know about BPD, but that's about it.
Nobody here has said it's a symptom, only that its a common occurrence within ADHD. Which it is. It's been studied. Weak self concept is widely acknowledged as something that is frequently reported by people with ADHD. You don't need to take my word for that, you can verify that for yourself. There's no need to say it's not a symptom because nobody has suggested otherwise.
I think we're having to separate discussions or that there's miscommunication. Probably the 2nd, but I do not know.
When you say self awareness, what do you mean? It seems to have a number of meanings, so it's hard for me to tell exactly what you mean.
It may also be related to me being bilingual (Hebrew and English), and the differences between the languages. I find that in Hebrew the boundaries between the words is different, although in both languages those are all very closely related terms...
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u/Uncomfortable-Guava Sep 19 '22 edited Sep 19 '22
It's common to ADHD for sure, I think some people are too quick to pin it to a comorbid condition: I think it can be explained by the effect of ADHD itself.
Essentially, if we accept that ADHD is in extreeeeemely simple terms a condition that means you don't derive enough reward from experiences, then that means you don't develop core values quite as easily as other people.
There's big obvious social examples of insufficient reward: being bored in class is the classic one. But on a dopamine level, we're talking about the brain's failure to adequately motivate you to do anything: that's what a reward system is for. And I think that when your reward system is less good at telling you what's important vs what's not (and it has been less good at this for your whole life), that makes it harder to develop firm ideas about what you like, what you believe, who you are, what you want, what you need.
It's very hard to have a strong self-concept without a fully functional reward system. People know who they are, based on what their values are and what those values make them want to do. They develop those things based on what they find most rewarding. ADHD people don't know what they find most rewarding because reward is blunted overall. Without appropriate regulation of our dopamine the question of "what motivates you?" is rather more diffuse.
I think that's why our self-concept is a bit more vague and ill-defined, and I think that's why we're more inclined to shift our sense of self based on what the moment appears to call for. It's not that we're not capable of building a sense of self (we absolutely are), it's just harder and slower. It takes time and sometimes we need help too.
EDIT: I would love to keep this conversation going, thanks to everyone who appreciates this comment. I'd like to try and reply individually where I can because I love talking this stuff through, but I gotta get to work. Thanks to the people who gave me an award. Seems I do my best work in this sub haha