I once had a boss say to me "I notice you have good days where you are very productive and bad days where you are less productive. How can we fix that?" I was like, you have just described existing as a person
I was asked a very similar question in my high school years. I couldn't wrap my head around it then, and I still can't wrap my head around it now. You surely can't be expected to be constantly productive all the time, Right? That's how burnout happens.
i got fired from a couple of job for similar reasons. turns out my average productivity was quite good and both places had to hire several people to do my job after i was gone
I always found it weird that people exclusively talk about adhd as living in the present. I am diagnosed with adhd and 90% of the time I am not living in the present. So much of my thoughts and perception of time is based on the future. I constantly think about something that I want/need later, so I plan out what actions I have to do now to make that happen. My problem comes in the fact that my brain is so constantly occupied by things in the future that I don't have room to do anything else. I'll spend the entire day thinking about stuff I need to do and forget to do things that need more immediate attention. Everyday then becomes just me fumbling around doing whatever to pass the time until it's time to do thing that's been on my mind.
yep. i think its cause we've learned that things tend to not get done unless we've been thinking about it and planning it way ahead of time. but tbh sometimes even thinking too much about a future thing eventually leads to that future thing not even getting done because we feel so paralyzed by the stress of it all. its like a self perpetuating cycle: you feel stressed so you get nothing done, you get nothing done so you feel stressed. i honestly think alot of us would genuinely benefit alot if we actually tried to live in the present and focus on just the things in front of us like neurotypicals seem to think we do
The best reason to change how we think about time is actually just that being able to say to someone “I’ll get it done by around next solstice” goes hard as shit
not me watching this video (with ADHD) thinking I dont have time blindness, but then realizing the only reason I show up to things on time or even early is because I freeze and go into “waiting mode” by getting ready 6 hours prior to the “thing” and then just sitting on the couch until its time to go
Would you like a tip that has helped me not freeze and still get to places on time? If so, here goes: when you realize you are going into waiting mode, set up timer or an alarm that will go off at the time you need to get ready to leave. Take note of how long it tends to take you to get ready to go somewhere and make sure that timer is set to end that many minutes before you need to leave plus about 5 to 10 minutes. You might have to adjust the amount of time you set to get ready. I’ve found that doing this helps me keep out of waiting mode because it is no longer I, but the phone, that is keeping track of when I need to start getting ready to go. An alarm might work best, that’s what I usually use.
@@seDrakonkill can confirm, alarms to bypass waiting mode is big, at least for me. But then, it only halfway bypasses waiting mode, and half the time I'll end up still watching the time as I'm doing things, and I'll be like "oh, it's only 20 minutes till my alarm, I guess I should shut this down now" and still end up with a considerable amount of needless waiting time, but it's only like 20 minutes of extra waiting time instead of 3 hours of waiting time, so still an improvement
I mean I wouldn't say that's time blindness, like the video mentions I don't think the idea of 'time blindness' is a helpful term because it implies that time is this natural objective property that can be perceived correctly or wrongly which is a bunch of bs cause it's a social construction. What we actually struggle with is things like memory, keeping up focus and attention. That then get's interpreted as 'time blindness' because those problems cause us to fail at the task of staying on time, because in the end being punctual is just another task among many other, it's not a problem with our perception of time, it's a problem of staying on task. Your waiting mode is just a tactic to remove external activities or things that could steal away your attention.
I've always been proud for living in the present. Embracing "time management" has always seemed to me like imposing a suffocating dictatorship upon myself.
I mean, realistically you need a balance. If you want people to expect you to be somewhere, you will need to get in the habit of being there on time. And if you want to be there on time, you need to plan to be there. And yeah, being on time isn't something anyone is imbued with. It's a skill you learn. But realistically you need to learn it if you want people to trust you with certain responsibilities (such as a job)
same here! i always whip out the “time is a social concept” line when i’m late to events (partially bc i think it’s funny but also because i love to acknowledge that it can change at any *ahem* time)
As does his other work, Debt: The First 5000 Years and The Dawn of Everything. Highly recommend - Bullshit Jobs is a great gateway into radical literature, but it doesn't really _say_ anything more than the essay he wrote which the book is based on. The other two books I mentioned go more into the history and colonialism of it all. RIP David Graeber.
@@littlestbroccoli So, you go start a business. If my workers tried your bullshit? I would cloes the doors, and retire. I wouldn't bother to thank the employees, I would already be gone with the cash. Of course, I would sell the rest. Lol. So enjoy poverty. Me and mine won't. Just saying.
@@youtubesucks1499You seem like you're only here to flaunt your "3 businesses" and how hard you work unlike the lazy masses instead of actually contributing anything
I struggle with the fact that my personal progress has nothing to do with the money I make, and if my time is spent on unfulfilling things, I get wildly depressed no matter how much money I’m being paid.
Yes, on the one hand it makes you genuine and authentic about the things you do and are interested in unlike a lot of other people, on the other hand, you still need to pay to live somewhere, to eat, to buy necessary things, or maybe afford something you really wanted. I've been offered quite a bit of money in my life, but I just could not do what they wanted, I wanted to die. In fact I died on the inside every second of it.
yeah and theres the fact that cooperate anything basically denies people from have a family work life balance....i dont know how many times i was forced to choose between my daughters needs and keeping my job... the jobs didnt win i finally said f it and went into business for myself doing something i actually liked doing i make suncatchers now and sell them at fairs. I can be creative and use my time for what i need to that is most beneficial to me and my loved ones. its still a struggle but its a better struggle than any 9 to 5
I have ADHD and autism (AuDHD) and it's so hard to function in today's society. I feel so far behind, struggle with basic tasks, and feel terrible when I can't start tasks I need to do. I can't hold down a normal 9-5 job because it's too energy/time demanding, and I wish our society didn't hold neurodivergents to the same expectations as neurotypicals.
So the alternative is that we impose some kind of mandatory relaxation of working conditions and/or expectations for those with these subjectively-diagnosed conditions, but pay them for the same time as others? Others who despite being neurotypical, still might hate working just as much? I’m not trying to be antagonistic, i just don’t see any good solutions being put forward. I think everyone would just go out and get diagnoses of ADD / ADHD if it would give them extra work benefits, just like college kids already do to get amphetamine prescriptions.
I remember seeing this one clip of this psychiatrist who pointed out how crippling ADHD truly is and that it isnt treated like the serious issue it is. and I fully agree! It's like sitting in a room with multiple TVs with different channels going on at full volume and if you try your best you can listen to one of those TVs for a short while but as soon as the focus breaks off for even a single second the other TVs will just mute out the one source that you're trying so hard to watch and listen to.
This is how my brain worked when I was a kid. I still can get distracted easily but not as bad. But I don't have ADHD. According to my mom, the doctor said I didn't have it.
It really is, for me my experience with audhd and other comorbid issues that contribute to why my brain feels like soup it feels like I have dementia sometimes. You know the man who lived with half a brain? Yeah that's my lived experience, except I've never had a lobotomy done on me nor have I had a grand mal seizure(yet, my unstable decaying body is full of tricks and surpises). I can't perceive the past or future, it sometimes feels like I'm a spectator behind a glass wall seperated from my own body. I forget days weeks months years I forget names and faces I forget about my own body and being alive and forget how to breathe and swallow sometimes. If you ask me what I did the other day or even hours ago I wouldn't be able to tell you, I simply just don't remember. Sometimes I'm paralysed and locked inside my own body and brain, fully conscious and aware of my surroundings but not being able to move or react to it. I almost dropped out of high school because of my deteriorating memory and brain I can't get a job because of it friendships have been sabotaged by me not remembering something I did or someone's birthday or even name or face. I just live in the here and now, although I find Dr. Barkley to be problematic as a neurodivergent person what he described as being dragged by the nose by the present described what I experience on a day to day basis. I wish people understood how devastating adhd and even memory loss and brain damage(in my case, oxygen starvation at birth and multiple concussions from contact sports and pe classes during middle school) can be. Neurodiveristy is a beautiful thing and I full heartedly agree it should be something we should be proud of, but the symptoms it can cause whether because of ableism/colonialism or not is life devastating at times. I wish symptoms like these would be taken more seriously by medical professionals and neurotypical people alike as if it's something like early stage dementia or a similar condition which affects memory retention/forming and temporal processing. I just wish people who don't live with it would understand what it's like to be aimlessly floating in the oceans of passing time and memory not having any control of where you're taken or if you're able to keep your head above water or hold onto something. I'm aware that my lived experience with adhd may be different than someone else because my body is deteriorating, my nerves are demylinating slowly, my memory gets worse as the brain fog from multiple tbi's myalgic encenphalomylitis and long covid gets thicker and thicker with any exertion I make, my muscles get weaker and weaker, my heart has to work harder and raises my blood pressure, my immune system is cannibalizing the body it lives in. None of these are simply caused by adhd, but autoimmune disease and chronic conditions can exemplify adhd symptoms more than they would in a healthy person so that is my own anecdote. Unfortunately my body and the way my brain is wired isn't made for this colonial system, my ancestors used the land around them to tell chronological time passing and divided work equally among their peers and worked in bursts, something incompatible with this modern system. That is my two cents as someone who is unfortunately trapped inside this body and is in it for the long haul. Stay safe wear a mask wash your hands and be kind to each other and the land you're on 🫶🪶
Undiagnosed and unmedicated ADHD so working within in Capitalism for me is truly hellish. Time moves at sluggish pace as I hyper focus on my tasks. I'm there for month (3-4 months at the most )before my ADHD make me completely disinterested in the job. Money becomes nothing at that point. I just want out. My anxiety starts to spike and then I leave. This cycle continues endlessly.
That was normalizing, thank you so much for sharing. I do the same thing but it's lead me to great things, think of it as a super power. We are immune to complacency!
This, this, this 👆🏻 It's led me to a freelance career where my schedule suits me. But unfortunately, the only reason I'm able to do this is because of a HUGE amount of privilege. Perhaps one day, this won't be the case, and people from all backgrounds have been able to make it work and do incredible things.
i'm afraid to get a job for this exact reason (also autism). it happens to me with college, though. i've barely done 2 years worth of school when i SHOULD already be finishing up the first semester of my 3rd year. I've completely dropped out of the 4-year school i was attending because i'm constantly in this cycle of starting it and then losing interest and leaving entirely. i've tried telling my mom that school just isn't worth it for me because i don't think i'll ever get out of this cycle, but i'm still going to try community college (i don't think it will work out). my brain is somehow only wired to focus on special interests and hyperfixations, it's absolute hell living in capitalism
@@cronchyskull I'm also in situation where I just do freelance work (manly art) and the only reason I can do that is because I have partner that supports my work. So I understand where you are coming at.
"...having a life defined on the fact that I can't trust myself wears me down more than any other symptom combined." This right here is the perfect summation as to how terrible having this disorder. It feels you're constantly at war with yourself about meeting society's expectations, and it's extremely exhausting.
100%. This hit me on another level too with the fact that our society incentivizes a "dog eat dog" mentality and one of my symptoms for ADHD is not understanding social cues like sarcasm and generally being very gullible trusting with people which has left me burned more often than not. When I started dating my partner, trusting him and trusting my own judgement was a major problem for me initially. Having ADHD (in this modern world) can cause you to constantly question your reality and perception and as a result leave you so vulnerable to being take advantage of. It's debilitating. I've had a few bosses in the past who took advantage of this. I work for myself now and I'm more productive than ever.
@summero-my5in yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if I have both tbh. But I have heard similar things from other ADHD folks, but I guess they're very commonly go together. I'm abnormally expressive, people are often either fascinated or weirded out lol, I thought that meant it was the ADHD and not autism but I recently learned that can be a symptom of autism too and actually less so for ADHD. So 🤷♀️ too bad state insurance won't cover any kind of evaluation or therapy beyond substance abuse. I no longer have the insurance that covered my ADHD evaluation.
@@hotarubinarikohonestly its better not to have an autism diagnosis, it can cause more problems for you than solutions. but by the way the part i meant was not understanding social cues, like sarcasm and such that isnt adhd. adhd would be possibly spacing out and missing a social cue, but adhders have no issue inherently understanding social cues. i say this as someone with adhd and no autism. my friends who have autism as well dont understand social cues or tone of voice the way i do
this video could not have come out at a more perfect time for me. i've been in a state of adhd paralysis the past two university semesters - my adhd has gotten increasingly harder to manage as i get older, and that results in constant overwhelming guilt, anxiety and burnout. i've struggled looking for accessible content and media to consume around mental health that acknowledges intersectionality and adhd in the context of contemporary society and capitalism. thank you - i really needed to hear this today
I dropped out of college because of my adhd. Undiagnosed at the time. You made it two semesters?? I made it about 3 weeks, then spent several weeks in bed, then called my parents telling them I didn't know why but I didn't want to be alive anymore and I needed help. That was.. 13 years ago, now. It hurt so bad I can feel it like it happened yesterday. I can barely remember my past, but that time period really sticks out. It's really tough. I'm proud of you, and I hope you are proud of yourself. We need to be kind to ourselves when often few others are. Stay strong, make the world work for you the best you can, without shame. I love the idea of an environmental prosthesis. External memory aids, for example. Such a good idea. Don't discount the importance of good sleep.
I barely made it through college in 4 years. Had to take summer classes at community college every single year to make up for my struggles with taking multiple really rigorous classes at once during the year. Stayed awake for nearly 5 days straight at the end of my senior year finishing multiple final papers and my senior comprehensive project. Ended up in the ER with a panic attack. I'm proud I made it through, but jebus christ, the whole system was so aggregiously stacked against me, and I have so much bitterness over it. And of course here I am working in a restaurant now because our capitalist order doesn't give 2 sh*ts about environmental studies unless it's in the context of greenifying corporate campuses or surveying for fossil fuels. They can never take away my education though. Or the AMAZING goated people I met there and are lifelong friends.
This comment couldn't have come out at a better time. I failed two semesters at two separate institutions and turned in my medical withdrawal request in the hopes that I could get a fresh start next semester. At one point during a previous semester, I would be doing assignments until daybreak and getting an hour of sleep before heading off to classes. And I couldn't (and still can't) understand how other students were able to pass in homework on time, socialize, hold jobs, and attend clubs all in the span of one day.
I have adhd and autism. Work is... ugh. I worked in pizza as a manager for 3 years. The urgency of orders kept me on task and kicking ass, but the stress of always running on that urgent feeling along with low pay, long hours, and having to (politely) deal with the worst customers treating my mostly teenage staff like crap was too much to take anymore. I started a new job as a school janitor at the beginning of the month and almost quit 2 weeks in. They showed me around my area the first day and said "go". Holy hell was that overwhelming. Managing my time to get the tasks done was stupid hard, so I skipped some... but chose the wrong ones. Turns out spotless tables and sinks in the art classroom is nice and all, but if you skip mopping the staff restrooms one evening it will catch hell. Oops. It took me disclosing my neurodivergences and almost quitting to get my boss to please please help me prioritize this 4 page task list. When she showed me how she'd clean the rooms I realized I was busting my ass making things spotless when a half ass wipe down would do. If only they made that clearer at the beginning. The pay is better than my last job and I can go a whole shift without talking to anyone, but it's still not what I want to be doing.
It is really too frustrating to be neurodivergent. So many things we cannot control we are constantly punished for. This time BS is a major one. I have workplace trauma due to being reprimanded so much for being late/calling out. Now I show up extra early to my own health detriment and they still make fun of me for showing up early. Like wow cannot win with these ppl smh.
Quit being a victim. It's called an alarm and self discipline. The alarm goes off you get up. Now, it's called routine. You get in the shower, get ready for work, make you lunch and drive to work. If works starts at 8am and it's a 15 minute drive... leave the house by 7:30 am. How difficult is that?
@@youtubesucks1499 what makes you assume i don't do that? Doesn't mean it is not mentally draining and wears down on my spirit. Not everyone can be like you - that's why you are special.
I liked this video a lot. I'm autistic and maybe ADHD, and it feels like my natural rhythm is to be awake in the late afternoon-night, and sleep during the rest of the day, but it's completely reversed from society's standards and I feel better about myself when I follow society's rhythm. Even tho it causes me a lot of anxiety to see time go by at night and being unable to sleep yet, even tho I don't do anything with my days so it doesn't matter when I sleep.
Me too. There no actual people putting this feeling on me but I feel “society” as a whole kind of looming over me like “what do you think you’re doing?”
@@cassielee1114 Or the little things, like hearing the first cars in the morning, people going to work, the first bus...That really makes me feel like shit.
I like Dr. Barkley. His phrasing is stemming from western capitalism, but he's addressing neurotypical people who are coming from this system; parents, bosses, teachers, etc. They can't understand nuerodivergent people who are struggling to fit into a system in which they effortlessly fit in. Dr. Barkley is explaining why ADHD is real and how it's not making excuses for bad behavior or being lazy.
my soul kinda aching seeing some harsh responses to barkley. only cause i've found him very enlightening and validating in the severity of adhd. it sucks that we have this many obstacles and problems, but it's more validating to me that someone unlike myself assuredly states that what i struggle with IS difficult and it's not all failures on my part but limitations of what i'm able to do edit: i got to the part of the vid with barkley and, yah. i think he's right. when i was drowning in anxiety i was always on time if not early to things. i was so scared of screwing up if i wasn't on time. but i've improved my anxiety A LOT, and now i relate to what he said about time only existing as the current moment. that's genuinely what i've been feeling. my semester is over in two weeks and i can FEEL that my conception of that is off, that it doesn't even feel real, the realest thing is the current moment i am in. my grasp and concept of time is genuinely different from some other people's grasp of it
> They can't understand nuerodivergent people who are struggling to fit into a system in which they effortlessly fit in. I'm not certain those people 'fit in', per-se, but they've accepted the program, and because they have, they expect everyone else to as well. "I suffered, so you have to suffer too!"
because the lack of research about adhd took his twin brother due to him dying in a car accident. the feeling of guilt come when you realize why your brother die and see the consequences of a disability and others not taking seriously is going to make anyone cranky. Dr. Barkley have first hand experience of how this disability deep scar left him. he is harsh BECAUSE he doesn't want a another incident like this.
@@Haha-bv6yjwow, i had no idea about his brother. i am glad people like Dr. Barkley work so hard to get people to recognize that ADHD can, in fact, be very disabling. speaking from personal experience - it is so frustrating when people are dismissive of it being a disorder, when i absolutely KNOW that it has made my life incredibly difficult. i haven't been able to hold down a job or get good grades in school for most of my life. i am constantly frustrated by my inability to consistently maintain hygiene or any regular schedule. it's vaildating to hear what he says about ADHD.
The reason they are on time all the time is that they never do anything because there is nothing in their mind except for work and obligations. It’s very easy to be on time if you have nothing else to do or think.
Can you explain? Cause I feel like you might be missing parts of what time blindness actually is, however it could also be a symptom you are genuinely struggling with as it can also be a symptom of generalized anxiety disorder, ADHD, and Depression. Depression has been on the rise sense the pandemic from isolation
Whether ADHD is something wrong with me or something wrong with the world is irrelevant because I can’t change the system within my lifetime so I’m still screwed without adderall
Yeah, I feel that. It's one thing to know that I shouldn't beat myself up because I can't measure up to absurd and unfair capitalist standards, and another to actually internalize it. Plus, the reality is that I can't really can't change how society works, at least not alone, so hearing it is kinda cold comfort at best and at worst makes me feel guilty about getting support and taking meds for my ADHD, because doesn't that mean I'm suppressing my true self to feed the imperialist capitalist machine?
@@asocksual4910 yeah it feels like it’s coming from an ivory tower. Like it’d be nice if I had a job that wasn’t hostile to ADHD (AKA most jobs) but I don’t so hearing that I’m wrong for getting treatment is annoying
@@PalaGov I’m really sorry about your experiences with adderall, but it doesn’t change how it’s been life changing in a number of people’s lives. It’s not fair that I was born in a world that’s hostile to the way our brains work but we all gotta do what we gotta do to survive
I wish ADHD meds would work for me. We don't even have Adderall here (only Ritalin and Vyvanse) and they don't work well and the side effects (If you can even call them that. I feel they're just effects) make me sad, emotionally unstable, antisocial withdrawn, arrogant, boring, quiet, unable to eat, the whole rebound effect and ever increasing tolerance screw me over and they literally make me feel like I'm on drugs even on the lowest dose. Absolutely no hate against people who use them and it works for them... I wish it did for me. And no, I'm not misdiagnosed and yes I've tried different doses.
@@PalaGov Could be. It certainly makes you feel like there is something wrong with you if you cant fit into society. The names we give to clusters of symptoms are of course socially constructed, and medicating ADHD to make you "function" is really fucked up in comparison to medicating something that makes you suffer directly, like schizophrenia (i know there's plenty of issues with medication for schizophrenia. just an example).
I'm sorry, Elliot. That's not actually what Dr Barkley said or meant. As an ADHDer myself he was trying to validate my experience of life as always being the tardy, late, disorganized, and missed deadlines guy. I agree with your premise that time is a capitalist or colonialist construct. That we are all forced to obey the clocks as if it is objective reality. I differ with you and Jesse in the sense that you are needlessly vilifying people that are using their platforms to fight for every struggling neurodivergent person to assure them their difficulties in life aren't due to them being lazy, disorganized, or have personality disorders that make them incompatible with life. It's a chance to take a breath and realize there is hope for me to live an okay life. An okay life in a failing capitalist society that blames you for your disabilities. In South Africa we are still recovering from an autocratic society that legalized racism and now that the country is struggling to pick up the pieces and build a functioning society we get told as Africans we are inherently not part of the Rational Animal that Aristotle was referring to and that is why we are unable to have a working democracy. Our legs were amputated and now we are blamed for not being able to run. Someone coming out and saying these things does not deserve to be vilified. State the facts and let us work from there. Advocate for those who can't advocate for themselves. Here we should be aware of the dangers of paternalism. So often we take opportunities for advocacy away from people, thinking we're helping. Thank you for your video. It was great for the discourse.
yeah, really boiled my blood that he compared people that caused genocides, and tore our communities and families apart, to some doctor saying "time blindness is a thing in our society". elliot, don't weaponize others struggles for your points. its gross
@@42seventhere is a definite link between colonialism, eugenics and ableism so i think these issues are more related than you may think. however i dont believe he actually accused the man in the video of being a supporter of these things, nor that what he said is in anyway equal to those things, just that the language was eerily similar and is in need of being reexamined
The main struggle is between making ADHD people fit into the capitalistic society (Barkley) vs changing the capitalistic society so it's easier for ADHD people (Elliott). I don't see why we can't have both instead of constant fighting.
I wish it was this easy to express my frustrations of how monotonous and colorless everything has become all from the constructs that the higher-ups in our society have gaslit us into thinking is right... unfortunately, my ADHD mind won't let me.
I don't understand the disagreement on time blindness. Its not the measurement of time thats the issue, its the fact that it easily slips away. ADHD isn't just a lack of focus, its also intense focus on specific subjects (hyperfixations). That hyperfixation is can be so intense that time becomes a non factor and you completely miss it passing by. Hence the term time blindness. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the point you made in that section and for that I'm sorry but as someone with ADHD the idea of time blindness makes sense. Edit: Also went back to listen to that speech by Dr. Barkley and, in my experience with ADHD, he was completely right. I don't know why you felt the need to compare him to phrenologists who used nonsense science to justify committing genocide. Thats just way too disrespectful and gross.
I dont think he was comparing it to phrenology. He was pointing out that "race scientists" and phrenologists in particular viewed time blindness as an inherent flaw in black and indigenous people. Dr. Barkley was being extremely judgemental in that clip and outright claimed that time blindness is where 1 of the 2 primary functions of the prefrontal cortex is broken. The prefrontal cortex does a LOT of stuff. The idea that time is one of the most important is an idea that comes from colonialism, and that seems to be the primary point there.
@@samkadel8185He literally referred to racist brain doctors as "the Dr. Berkeleys of their time." Also, that was two minutes out of a 30 minute lecture which should be perfect evidence that a lot of other information from that lecture is missing. It is dishonest to take two minutes out of a thirty minute lecture and say "welp thats all that Berkeley has said about how the brain works." The lecture that Elliot cites is available on youtube and Dr. Berkeley goes into a lot more detail on how ADHD interacts with the brain. I appreciate you trying to explain it to me but I'm just still not understanding or seeing what the problem is.
@@count_rizzula'Dr Barkleys of their time' as in they were very respected and their theories of the brain were concensus at the time. It's to point out how science ages fast and what we now view as very valid could fairly soon down the line be seen as wrong. The kind of brain science as in the drawings shown in the video were still common science when my late grandpa went to school - the person I suspect I inherited my adhd from. He was racist - everyone were. And stimulant drugs were sold to common folk as 'refresheners' so they could work more. There was no problem and my grandpa didn't have 'adhd'. Times change so fast.
Right. Just because it's hard to hear, doesn't mean he's wrong. I feel completely broken all the time at work because I'm the smartest person in my office, but I can't get anything done. And the need to plan ahead and do boring things isn't solely a problem of capitalism. Farmers have to plant their crops months before they need them, people needed to chop wood and preserve food to get through the winter, and you have to start getting ready by doing a little bit every day. Do you think cave men and cave women with ADHD were able to do this without messing up? If anything, the stakes were even higher. Messing up didn't mean that you had to buy things you should have made, or pay more for things because you didn't buy them in advance, it meant that you froze to death or starved! As hard as I struggle with our regimented capitalism, I think I would have been worse off as a medieval peasant. I definitely wouldn't have made it as a cavewoman. I think Barkley is at least somewhat right In his characterization, but it does sound less worse when it's framed as a problem with executive function. And also, the "gatekeeping" in science where it costs $40 to read a journal article isn't because of science, it's because of capitalism. It's kind of important for you kids to know this. I know that sounds patronizing - it's not meant to. It's my informal way to say that I'm in my 50's and this business of keeping science behind paywalls is not something that scientists did, it's something publishers have done and it's happened almost entirely in the time since I graduated from college.
I might have ADHD. As a kid, teachers asked my parents if I had it and they never wanted to pursue an answer to that. I've coped by becoming hyper vigilant about my time. I always am doing something and I enjoy that, but my hyper focus on time can often make me pretty irritable when things don't go according to plan or something comes up that interferes with one of my "time blocks". It's lead to a lot of stress when I'm working and a lot of restlessness when I don't have anything to do
You could also have autism. Being upset about changes to plans and things interfering with eachother is common there, and autism and adhd are comorbid commonly
@@serbianspaceforce6873 I don't think this is the case for me. Much of this irritability began in early college, where I had an extremely tight schedule. Being late for any one thing was really bad at the time and I likely am holding onto the remnants of that post-graduation. I think the culprit here is the other common comorbidity of anxiety!
I've been able to hold a 9-5 job for the past 5 years. Those years have been met with a lot of challenges, but I've pulled through and even managed to impress some people. Over the past year or so though I am slowly and catastrophically unraveling. My role has expanded and has become too much for my ADHD to manage and I need to leave. Talking with my manager hasn't helped. They don't understand it and I don't know how else to communicate it to them. So I give up. At the same time, I am terrified that I'm going to be trapped in this cycle forever. I don't know how long I would last in my next job. I don't know if I'll end up leaving my current job gracefully or self-destruct.
Similarly- I’ve been working for almost 8 years in the same position, 9-5. My supervisor changed about 2 years ago and now much more tasks and oversight are required by me. I’m not diagnosed, but am probably on the spectrum of adhd- and I also feel like now my workload is more than I can manage. If anyone has any advice about dealing or leaving a position like this, I’d appreciate it. The guilt of missing and procrastinating on tasks is soul-crushing. Like, I used to be fine at managing the work when I had less work but now it’s unsustainable…
Your keen realization of all that is so real about this experience tells me that you will gracefully find a new job ( while you keep this old one until the new one starts). Since you know yourself well, which is obvious from your comment, you will flow into the new job and if you find it works for you great. But if it does not you will gracefully get another job until the job works for you. You do not owe capitalists - they owe you for the surplus value you have providedand they have profited from so make sure the work suits you. ❤
You are absolutely trapped. Trapped in what we call, life. There is no escape. You will have to get more and more done and it will get harder and harder. Or you will be poor, eventually to the point of destitution. It’s not a social construction, it’s the cost of the life we have. Deal
Being controversial about dr barkley is mind blowing. The dude is one of the most compassionate and understanding for the innate struggles of the ADHD brain. He is being blunt and straightforward about the experience of ADHD in modern society. It boggles my mind that people are casting him in a negative light for communicating objective realities about adhd. He is more understanding of what it means to struggle with this condition than probably 90% of the planet. He is taking a serious tone with it because he is speaking to an audience that desperately needs to be educated on it and take it very seriously and recognize ADHD as much more than just being "easily distracted". Russell Barkley advocates every day for accomodations for those with ADHD and is intimately familiar with the things they need to thrive and succeed. You cant blame Russell for the fact that, in the current world and societal structure we have, having time blindness is a devastatingly detrimental condition to navigate the world through. He lost his brother to a car accident which he used to drive recklessly in out of an effort to get some stimulation due to untreated ADHD. I understand where the apprehension is coming in and how you guys are perceiving him as like, being hypercritical of time blindness or perhaps those with ADHD as a whole but it sounds like a lecture because....it is a lecture. It is a lecture to an audience outlining the full impact of a trait like that and how devastating it can be to someone's life. Russell Barkley is our friend, he fights for our rights and survival, and he is the reason there is enough education to inform practitioners on how to help and treat ADHD effectively in the hell that is modern psychiatry, let's not interpret his tone as anything other than an academic one.
I think that rather than Barkley enforcing a rigid, capitalist sense of time, the "internal" time he is referring to is fairly arbitrary. While he frames the examples around school, or getting ready in the morning (since the 3 hour talk is specifically aimed at parents with ADHD children), these are consequences of the current capitalist world we live in, and are presented as issues children/parents will deal with in their day-to-day. I dont remember off the top of my head if he ever questions these time structures in the talk, I think that would be a valid criticism. However, even if I was suddenly living in glorious luxury gay space communism, it'd still not be able to tell how much time had passed while I was really focusing on something, nor would it make perceived boring tasks seem less tedious/reduce the perceived amount of time they would take. The "time blindness" doesn't go away when the clocks go away with my ADHD. It does make me less anxious though.
After finishing the video: While I generally agree with the statements about our current use of time as a construct of capitalist forces, I think the characterization of Barkley as a "pop psychologist" and having stated that ADHD people are "fundamentally broken" is misleading at best. If anything he is fairly compassionate, and gives examples of how to raise children with ADHD in different ways than their peers, but in a way that helps the child's sense of self worth and trains their skills at doing the same for themselves later in life. "Your child is different, so stop yelling at them that they're lazy or foolish. You must approach them differently and work with them differently, or you will both be miserable, and they will resent you". I would take this approach any day of the week over the "willful child" parenting, or any of the other crap that was going around when I was growing up. He also states his opinion that ADHD is a bad name, b/c the "deficit" portion implies that something is missing or broken in the person. He reframes it as "Everything has the same amount of importance". I believe he also criticizes schools for their strict structured schedules and focus on "discipline", but don't quote me. The presentation is like 2-3 hours long. Also, who the fuck tests the ability to sense time over several seconds? The "time blindness" he describes for me is like, in minutes, hours, weeks or months. Wack-ass studies.
That part about how there's no truly objective measure for time brought some flashbacks. I feel like this is exactly how Kant understood it (time as an intensity instead of quantity) and a lot of criticism coming from the neurodivergent community overlap with Nick Land's understanding of time/time sorcery
I don't know if I'm ADHD, but I really relate to the struggle. I can spend a whole day debating on what to do with my time, only to end it frustrated I did nothing. To me it feels like the weight of capitalism is slowly crushing down on me until one day I won't be able to breath. Every prospective job available to me feels meaningless, and I just can't do something I find meaningless for very long. I want to create art and music, but I can't make a career out of that at my current skill level. I've thought alot about universal basic income lately, and how it would save me from worrying about the day I no longer have my family to fall back on. It would allow people to pursue things worth pursuing instead of filling positions better suited to machines or that have no reason to exist except corporate structure. Sure there are some jobs that need doing, but alot of jobs only exist to keep people in their place.
God! I relate to this so much. It may not be ADHD though. It could also be depression. There is some crossover between the 2. In any case. Take care of yourself when possible
Just chiming in with my own personal experiences here but that sounds like it could be ADHD and Depression, I relate a lot to the things you say. Though I'm not a professional and this is only anecdotal. I think a lot about the current landscape of employment and the public resources for that, even with the help of job seeking support I can't trust myself to stay on top what's required of me and finding positions, actively job seeking is a hard task to remember to do and keep on top of. Eventually I end up burnt out or dissociating from my own failings. It makes it hard to pick myself back up because of the guilt and anxiety surrounding it, and even when I do have the a day with a positive mindset or motivation, capitalising on that becomes a difficult task. UBI would really help me pick up the pieces and get my life into a position where I could be more functional.
My previous job fired me because I had a tendency to show up to work and clock in a few (1-4) minutes late. I never understood why they always put up a big fuss considering I would also be given overtime every week cause I finished the work day when I was done, not when the clock said so. Some people/companies want so much control it’s scary. The place wasn’t even a corporate environment but treated itself as one, demanding me to do things even on my time off. I didn’t get a Christmas break last year (like I did all previous ones) because so much time was spent on useless management crap the whole company was behind. I just want to be treated as a human again
getting diagnosed in ukraine by a private clinic (you're pretty much fucked if you weren't diagnosed in childhood because our government doesn't recognize adult adhd) a year ago literally turned my world upside down because i ripped of that fancy facade carefully crafted by my parents and me and revealed pulsating, repulsive lumps of flesh, well it felt like that, required a lot of crying to really come to terms with this thing that seemingly ruined my college experience, it's really ironic that government assumes that every parent is perfect and take their kid to a doctor whenever they see the signs, mine just said that all kids are hyperactive these days, still recovering from a lot of internalized stigma about both adhd and stimulant medication (insanely hard to get here), doing a bit better but i kinda realize that it's probably gonna be rough forever.
The hardest thing is that people asking you , well aren't you taking your meds when you've already explained that something in the system makes it harder for you to get to the equal ground with other people. My meds won't provide a solution I need accommodations to comply with the capitalist society who makes me believe that something's inherently wrong with me just because I am not efficient enough for them
Yep, medication is not a cure. Ideally you don't experience any side effects and it helps you regulate your attention, it should be like putting on glasses. Even then, it does not help you with time blindness, short term memory issues etc... I am lucky Concerta works as well as it does for me as I experience no side effects, have taken them for years and often take a break from them without any withdrawals. Plenty of people can't take any of the different ADHD medications because the side effects are too severe. Varies from painful migraines, anxiety and rebounds to pretty much being drugged down to a husk. All valid reasons to quit taking the meds.
@@rakino4418 I am a student and I need exams that actually test what I've learned, I need accommodations such as quiet exam environment, being able to use my earplugs, exam place with minimum distractions, extra time because no matter how hard I try I would be left behind in a classic test system due to my inattentiveness. Take home exams, homeworks, essay, short-essay, experiment design questions, practical exams for laboratory work, lab reports, these are things that works for me as an adhder biology major.
I feel you man the judgement from society is insane...Unfortunately a lot of people don't think that this is a serious problem. They assume laziness and carelessness. Even when we try our best it's never really enough. We are always on high alert for criticism. Living with ADHD feels like someone playing a really cruel prank on you.
self-dx ADHDer here! Your comment about how art feels dull and meaningless under capitalism really hits for me, as an aspiring author. Working on my novel and reading all these articles of writing/publishing advice and seeing stuff like "You HAVE to pick a genre UP FRONT and WRITE FOR YOUR GENRE" and "The best authors can put out 4 books a year! here's how to fast draft your novel" and "WRITE 1000 WORDS EVERY DAY OR YOU'RE NOT A REAL WRITER" it's kind of exhausting? Not to mention all the shenanniganry of writing a blurb or a synopsis and how you need to basically sell your book to an agent before you can sell it to other people, unless, of course, you want to strike out on your own. Writing is not what I'm intending to do as a career. It's more of a hobby for me. I'd like to actually recieve compensation for my labour, because it is hundreds and hundreds of hours of labour to write a book, but I don't know. I might self-publish with a pay-what-you-can model. And if that's zero dollars then that's zero dollars. But it's very difficult to walk my own path when all of the resources out there are so laser-focused on making writing _profitable._
@@fragrantflorence hello! yeah it's weird i can see that there are 2 replies but its only showing this one. I don't really understand what you mean? Post my work on the internet, or like, post _about_ my work/use social media as marketing..?
I love to write too; i been doing it half of my life. And i like to do it for me, when the Muse really comes to me. Wish luck and yeah, those guys are idiots, art shouldn't be a commodity. Greatings from Mexico c:
As someone with deep, crippling adhd, I had a hard time coming to this understanding, and it was so difficult for me, and I appreciate this a lot. I feel liberated. I feel so intellectually and emotionally liberated by this video.
What you said near the end really really meant a lot since I have to tell myself that “this world isn’t made for me and it’s not my fault” but it’s so good to hear someone valid the reality and reality isn’t easy. Thank you for this video because I feel seen
I try to tell myself the same thing, but at least for me, since it doesn't change anything even if it's true, I just end up depressed anyways. I genuinely hope that it does help you though!
I have bit of an issue with this essay. I completely agree with the thesis and a lot of the points laid out, epically thoughts about being critical of medical academics speaking in absolutes over inconclusive studies. Though as someone has done a lot of their own research when it comes to adhd I feel as though this essay is unintentionally dismissive of a reality; some people have the capacity to work harder. We have found that the capacity to do a thing is directly linked to dopamine, there are other processes that are involved but this is a major player and studies find that when you increase an adhders dopamine they have a larger capacity to work. This being for any kind of work, even things you enjoy working, even at a comfortable pace. Some people simply cannot do whatever it is they want, must, or need to do. This is an important aspect of adhd and I feel this must be respected when talking about adhd, and in talking about the social setting surrounding a kind of neurodivergence it's important to realize there are real differences between neurotypical and neurodivergent brains. Yes every aspect of science should be questioned but at some point you have to take the blocks we have and build an understanding or else we stand around asking questions all day instead of coming up with answers. The current answers are ignoring what you outlined in the video. Though they still conclude that some people have less dopamine, for whatever reason, and that if you give them dopamine they are happier healthier humans. For me that is all I need to understand. I also feel when discussing the legitimacy of a condition you should be wary of undermining the efficacy and importance of treatment. Since in questioning the authorities you question the whole concept; from diagnosis to treatment, making it epically important to pick out the things that work when evolving our understandings.
Psychedelics are just an exceptional mental health breakthrough. It's quite fascinating how effective they are against depression and anxiety. Saved my life.
Can you help with the reliable source I would really appreciate it. Many people talk about mushrooms and psychedelics but nobody talks about where to get them. Very hard to get a reliable source here in Australia. Really need!
Yes, dr.sporesss. I have the same experience with anxiety, depression, PTSD and addiction and Mushrooms definitely made a huge huge difference to why am clean today.
I wish they were readily available in my place. Microdosing was my next plan of care for my husband. He is 59 & has so many mental health issues plus probable CTE & a TBI that left him in a coma 8 days. It's too late now I had to get a TPO as he's 6'6 300+ pound homicidal maniac. He's constantly talking about killing someone. He's violent. Anyone reading this Familiar w/ BPD know if it is common for an obsession with violence.
Enjoyed this video, its great to see more content about adhd from a social perspective, it doesn't get talked about a lot. For example, people with adhd are incarcerated at a rate about ten times higher than the average population! And if you look at a list of ways to tell if someones lying, it basically matches up perfectly with a list of autism and adhd symptoms (Not holding eye contact, not being able to sit still, etc)
Wow, you're right... neurodivergent people could be suspected more because of how they behave. I never thought of this aspect. Although now that I say that it seems obvious...
This comment! The criminal justice system enforces an idea that it's illegal to look neurodivergent (in the same ways they basic try to make it illegal to look black ("intimidating"🙄). And there is not enough proof that you can even read body language that way.
i can already tell this video is going to be so validating for me. i'm in highschool right now and i can't do anything. i'm so scared for when i grow up and have to support myself because i know i'm barely going to be able to
i remember when I was in highschool the youtube channel 'how to adhd' s videos really helped me feel less alone and create strategies for the everyday difficulties. I also got diagnosed officially in high school, and the diagnosis let me make a 504 plan with my school that let me get extra time on tests. If you can do this now it will be a big help and you can customize it to help you in a variety of ways. If you end up going to college the plan will transfer and you can continue to use it in your classes. I'm also medicated now which is SUCH an immense help as well, but not accessible to everyone. Ultimately, as a once-highschooler who couldn't do anything, i am now about to graduate college and build a life for myself. There was lots of cheating the system along the way because the system was not designed for me. But you don't have to follow the system. If you have adhd you probably have some big ideas, some things you're passionate about or bring you joy or don't feel like a chore like everything else does. Harness the power in those. Let yourself appreciate the good parts of adhd. the curiosity, the the capacity to create, the ability to care very much about the things that excite you and the ability to think deeply about the things that matter most to you. put that foot forward. you will meet people and opportunities that embrace these parts of you. and if you dont, you have my permission to exploit the system in any (not too unethical) way that lets you succeed, because you deserve to succeed just like everyone who has different tools then you.
Okay, usually I enjoy ur content, but im gonna go against the grain on this. I have adhd, have only been diagnosed for some 2 years, and have struggled with it all my life without knowing. And while time may be a social construct, having passions and skills you wanna achieve isn't. College and adulting is hard, but ive been able to keep up with them on some level by falling on my supports, using medication, and following the outlines my work gives me. Things I want to be good at and need to invest more in, like writing, instrument playing, and language learning, are all things I need to do independently and is where my real struggles are. They don't give noticeable results, so I lose interest in them. What I ended up doing in that time instead is binging a show or playing games. It's not time on work that adhd fucks me up, it's time on the things I care about. And while you may be right in pointing out this problematic line of thinking Russell barkley used in that point of thinking, pointing him out as the defender of empirialism and the defender of his views to his dying breath is incredibly problematic (this isn't going to me defending him as a person, but what you used him for). I'm in the psychology field, and while he needs to be more honest about what adhd actually is in his talks, he is still a huge advocate of those for adhd and has convinced many people who are ableist of our need for assistance. And while I do find the things you pointed out true to be condescending, the real threat is that of people who deny that adhd is even real, and we just need to work harder, something that barkley has indeed defended against. You're right that I matter and that I need to advocate for myself against capitalism, but that doesn't change the problem that I struggle following my passions, sometimes say and do inappropriate things on impulse. These are real problems, and medication and therapy help me handle these. That prehistoric farm example wasn't just adhd people, but neurotypicals. I'd probably die if I was head of that farm because it'd only be 2 hr days. And while capitalism may not understand or accommodate my type of brain, that doesn't change that this is the system I live in and need to adapt to. So please, next time you use a group of people as an example, please try to consider the needs of the groups of peoples actual needs rather than as a stepping point to a grander thing, like how imperialism/capitalism organizes wrong.
i'm a little chilean guy living at the south of the world that just happen to know a bit of english, I watched this video while working a few hours ago and then had dinner with my mom, an art teacher in her 40s, we both think we have ADHD, we're starting to accept it on the last years, and I mentioned this video to her while we were eating and had a long talk about it, it made so much sense to her and it made her feel so understood, about all the pressure she feels at work, what's expected of her, what's impossed on us, she thanked me for bringing this talk up and ended up really happy and I want to thank you elliot, it was a really reassuring video full of things that i never ever considered! you make great content, thanks a lot for sharing it and for making us give a second thought to all the things we think we know, big fan of you !!!!!!!!!!!!
I have time agnosia and have been called lazy or accused of not caring or being disrespectful because of it my whole life. Ironically, when I try my darnest to be on time or do things on time, that's when I fail most because I get destroyed by stress. People have given me so much bad advice over the years, it was suffocating. The only way I can plan my day is by writing down what has to be done, maybe establishing some sort of priority but I should never write time. Planning my day using specific times is the most crippling nonsense.
NEVER pay the $40 to access a research paper. Researchers don't get any of that money, it all goes to the publisher. All studies list a "corresponding author," if you email them saying you're interested in the research they will send you the PDF for free.
I really enjoyed this video. A long time ago I realised the standard clock time keeping was arbitrary and an imposition. I was always at war with a schedule I could never keep up with. It was making me feel miserable and a failure. So I stopped using clocks altogether unless really necessary, and switched the rhythm of the day to how I felt when to do things. Like it's hungry o' clock, sleepy o'clock, relax o'clock...
I have been diagnosed with adhd, and I was really excited to see what this video would cover, but honestly I was pretty disappointed. I know other people have already commented on how the discussion of Dr. Barkley’s work doesn’t really give much credit for the wide range of other lectures he has produced, but I was also surprised by the video topic generally. I would have thought that there would have been more attention paid to the fact that work environments and school systems are extremely hostile to the needs of people with ADHD, but instead it was devoted entirely to a symptom I haven’t personally heard much discussion of before in either direction. I generally love this channel, but this video felt like a huge missed opportunity.
Clarification* When I said work and school environments are hostile, I meant more in the sense that people are not given access to adaptive work environments & are expected to just magically sit still and focus for 8 hours at a time
Not me watching this on break from my worthless busywork job for a button-pushing company where I battle google sheets all day. Barely able to pay attention to the vid, cause I'm constantly anxious I'll log back in too late and have to listen to a lecture from people who care just as much as I do, if not less. What a meaningful existence I surely should be grateful for :,)
This hurts. I’m 60 and imagine having NO WORDS for the way your life is so different from other people’s! I’m amazed that we can talk about this. Thank you, young geniuses. ❤
Actually, the best thing I've done for my adhd is just let it be. Work with it. I decided I'm not broken, i don't need fixing, this is just how i operate. It's not easy but I'm not gonna rework who i am to make a society someone else created comfortable. So yeah I'll be late occasionally, I'll wait until the last minute to get certain tasks done, I'll forget what I'm meant to be doing. But life keeps going, I'm okay 🥰
I think this is a bit of a simplification of Dr. Barkley's views. I can agree that he's maybe over emphasizing time, especially as the root cause rather than a consequence of other things. But it's funny, I wonder if that's an older video? because usually what I see him talking about are the executive function issues. he talks a lot more about emotional control, tasks initiation, impulse control, etc.. Besides, it always seemed to be through lense of getting people to understand the frustrations of ADHD and how they think differently, not that ADHD sucks cause they can't be productive under capitalism. I think it's pretty harsh to compare that to things like phrenology.
I love my ADHD, the random thoughts, the bursts of energy and creativity. There's so much that I appreciate about my experience with it, the more I learned what it was the more I understood myself. Having ADHD in itself wasn't the issue. After learning how I am I had the heavy realization that I live in a world that was not built for me or people like me. The stiff schedules at work, the long hours, the constant stream of things that I need to do and keep track of felt overwhelming - no matter how many check/to-do list I had, to keep track of things. I feel suffocated, constantly running /or atleast my brain/ at top speed, every day it feels like my brain is collapsing in on itself. I couldn't understand how people could put up so easily with the hours forced on us by our bosses, although I understand some dont have a choice. It feels like the metaphorical skin is getting stripped off my body everyday that I have to spend trading my living hours for the right to live under the threat of homelessness. I see so much potential in people, we could spend our lives pursuing interests and bettering ourselves and our communities, but instead we are forced to labour to enrich the ones holding our leashes.
As an adult who has struggled with ADHD for nearly 30 years now, this video has made me feel so seen, and understood. Thank you so much for making this video. My entire childhood and young adult life, I was made to feel stupid and incompetent because I'm disorganized and forgetful, and all of the adults around me were more than ready to criticize instead of teach me to be better. But now as an adult, I see their version of what "better" would be is just someone who takes orders like a machine, like we exist to serve. Ironically, my refusal to fit that mold is what has allowed me to become independent, start my own business, and live the life I want.
It’s funny how everyone in society hates people that complain or are too real yet those very same people complain. They are blind to their own hypocrisy. I like your videos because instead of blindly complaining or joking about deeply rooted problems, you discuss the philosophy and psychology of many serious topics and how we can objectively better our experiences in life. I hope to show that people want to be negative in their own way and not actually fix their problems.
This brought me to tears. I honestly struggle so much with making friends, maintaining friends in the same way that I do with trying to find some kind of employment that engages me. Both of these struggles make my life a lonely, depressed one. I use spirituality to try to enforce to myself that I'm never alone, but damn. It's rough. I get about 30 minutes of therapy per month. Not enough time to help me get through ANYTHING. My therapist isn't very insightful or helpful, it's like she repeats back my own realizations in slightly different words. If anyone knows how to make friends, even if it's just online.. let me know. I'd love to hear anyone else's experiences with friendships.
I'm ADHD and friendships is the thing in my life I've never struggled with. Personally, whenever I'm in a new environment, like uni or jobs, I try to make one friend. Some of them stay after I leave the environment, most of them are also neurodivergent.
If you don’t feel like anything is happening in therapy, it’s probably time to find a new therapist. The first therapist I went to helped me to overcome some social anxiety, but he had no clue how to deal with ADHD so we didn’t do anything helpful for at least six months. I felt like I was stuck with him because the clinic made it seem that way, but if I’d known it was normal to try different therapists, I could have just found someone else. I just want you to know that trying to find a therapist who you can actually connect with is important.
throughout all of elementary, middle school, and about half of high school. I was genuinely abused by the system and almost every single teacher i had. My IEP was ignored, i was called out infront of entire classes, screamed at, laughed at, people would look at my handwriting and just laugh and make fun of me. I was told i would “never be able to function in a workplace” because of my ADHD and there were talks of me being on disability for the rest of my life. That was my life until about 8th grade when i tested into our states college credit program, and suddenly i was a genius. I also took a Berkeley College of Music class that year on Jazz improvisation and Horn Arrangement. Today i’m a professional musician, I play in pit orchestras for musicals, i write music and record for artist from Hawaii to New York, I compose music for video games and all sorts of other stuff, I teach Saxophone lessons, im the director my schools jazz band and show choir combo, and this year i’m about to head to college for my jazz studies degree, all at age 18 in my gap year My ADHD friends, society hates the shit out of you because your potential is limitless, I said fuck society and i still managed to outpace all of those who told me id “never be able to work in a normal workplace”. Thats the worst way to think about life in general. So go out and prove all of them wrong
I remember someone saying “the world is disordered, not us” and it definitely feels more and more accurate. The deeper I dig into why i feel certain ways about time and how I use it or how I feel like I’m useless just because i’m ’inefficient’ is just not healthy.
im diagnosed with adhd and OCD and I can tell time almost to the minute. On average, I do lose track of time with what I'm doing. Although, in retrospective, I am very good at estimating how long each action or task is going to take. I attribute this to my OCD and how good i've become at compartmentalizing tasks and concepts. For example, I can get around town extremely easily. I can remember a place I've visited only once like 5 years apart. Some people get amazed and, to me, it just feels normal.
Currently diagnosed and medicated for adhd. I am currentky procrastinating. When you mentioned time, i checked the time and 4 hours has gone by. I dont know how or when or why. It feels like its been 3 minutes. I dont know whats happening. Its so hard doing this man.
A lot of other people have already explained that dr barkley was taken out of context there, and how beneficial he is, but even the clip shown describes my experience pretty naturally lol. Like yes, there is basically now and there is not now, and i personally enjoy humorous descriptions of adhd
I had the priviledge of being able to take a month awaay from life in a winter cabin. And I was allowed to just totally focus on my own health, routines, schedules, motivations. I felt like I was healed or cured in ways. Like I had full control of my mind and tasking and mental clarity where I felt love and happiness again. Then when I came back home to my life, slowly but surely I couldn't sleep or stay on task anymore and have been struggling since.
I really appreciate how Elliot makes use of the community tab. He’s far more in touch with what his subscribers wanna hear that some bread tubers, and it makes this channel really feel like an ongoing, dynamic conversation rather than just a dude talking at you.
I appreciate taking the politics of time and applying it to ADHD. However, I think the conclusion you came to has some problems. I understand the urge to say that nothing is wrong with people who have ADHD, since the opposite has been repeatedly shoved in our faces, but I think that's a dangerous precedent to set. The fact is, there is something wrong. ADHD isn't always just a personality trait or a different neurotype. For a lot of folks, its a serious health condition. Its generally caused by genetics, but can also be caused by early brain damage or things like fetal alcohol syndrome. Its literally caused by an underdeveloped portion of the brain. This underdevelopment has some serious consequences. People with untreated adhd (treatment does not just mean stimulant medication, but includes all kind of treatments like therapy, exercise, etc.) have a massive risk of developing depression, a significantly shorter life expectancy, and their chance of early death is doubled compared to neurotypical people. Not to mention a massive risk of addiction. Some of this is, at least in part, because of how adhd brains interact with our industrial, capitalist society and how we construct time, true, but that is only part of it. Because we have a tendency to only pay attention to matters that are urgent, we are worse at maintenance. Its harder for us to maintain our minds, bodies, homes and relationships. Being unable to maintain these aspects of our lives has all kinds of consequences that lower our quality of life and gradually, or quickly, erode our health. Because of our tendency to live in the moment, we tend to engage in risker behaviors, which regularly results in injury, death, addiction, disease, and social isolation. You're absolutely right to criticize Barkley from a political/philosophical angle. He's a conservative libertarian and the way he communicates information reflects that. But the fact is, he is an expert on ADHD. He will and has criticized other conservative commentators when they spread misinformation about ADHD. Obviously he's not beyond reproach, but he has a deep understanding on how this condition works from a scientific perspective. His information is generally correct, just painted by his personal biases. That's how it works with every scientist and every communicator. And one last thing, I think its a bit irresponsible to disregard the structure of our society and how folks with adhd struggle with it because its wrong. It *is* wrong, and I hate it. I want to be clear on that, but we don't have a choice in whether or not we live in it. We basically have no choice but to adapt to our environment, no matter how shitty it is.. We can and should work to change it, but that takes time. For a lot of us, if we don't actively manage our condition with whatever treatment or philosophy that works for us, we suffer in many different ways.
I don't think you can dismiss the interest in time entirely. Western modes of production and fascination with productivity even in personal time are damaging. BUT it's genuinely unpleasant to really want to do particular things with the part of the day that is left to you by the pressures of production, and find yourself pulled away from those desired activities into things you don't actually value because you can't find the focus.
I was diagnosed in 2000 when I was 15 but thanks to ig & tik tok I didnt really even learn soooo much about it until recently. Ppl saying it’s over diagnosed now that is not a new sentiment ppl said that back when too. It feels like the most gaslit diagnosis and I have fibromyalgia something that wasn’t even universally recognized as ‘real’ back when I was diagnosed in the mid 2000s lol
I was recently diagnosed with ADHD a few weeks ago. I’ve always liked living in the moment and I feel that’s the best thing. You’re living now, and enjoying the now is the most satisfying thing. But when I’m doing something I hate, it’s that much more torturous which is one of the reasons why there such thing as ADHD burnout. I hate feeling like the time for things I like to do is so restricted and it’s an endless cycle of doing something you hate for most of the day (school/work) going home to finish your homework/work which takes another several hours and going to bed at a time that I don’t even get tired, get like 5 hours of sleep and just to wake up exhausted and do it all again. I’ve always felt that I’m not able or allowed to enjoy my time and everyone’s putting pressure on me to think about the future that’s not even guaranteed. Like, what if I die tomorrow? I spent most of my time alive working and “preparing” for a future that never came.
I really appreciate the little talk at the end validating those who feel so different, I felt so confused for so long especially right out of highschool. I was bullied really hard for years by my old coworkers for all the symptoms I’m now learning are from my adhd. I was diagnosed when I was 8 and was taking adderal until I was about 15 and am now 24 still unmedicated and have been really considering gettin medicated again
As Engels detailed, one of the biggest factors of capitalist society that contributes to mental illness, and is central to the wider misery of many, is labor.
All of us need to work in order to support ourselves, that's just life. However, the issue is that a lot of the jobs available today aren't meaningful. A farmer grows food to feed themself and their family. Builders builds structures that have a function. Nurses heal the sick. A data analyst does... what exactly? A lot of jobs out there are just cogs in some great machine. What is the purpose of this machine, who knows? There's a lot of jobs that have this disconnect between the labor and the fruits of this labor.
Labor isn't the problem, labor exists anywhere because people do things lol but the problem is the labor expectations and how labor is viewed. People are expected to work over 40 hours a week to barely afford housing, food, etc. People are also expected to do labor in school and internships and pay for it, which would require them to work as well. People are expected to be content with barely being able to pay for anything. People are expected to be content with their labor being heartless, time consuming, replaceable, and have little to no benefits. That's a terrible way to view labor in society and under capitalism where the wealth gap will always get larger and larger, it makes all paid labor even more meaningless, because more and more money is going to an ever-shrinking group of rich people. Labor should be important, valued, and laborers should have a huge say in their pay and benefits. I can argue about the fact you have to pay for basic necessities when you live in an extremely rich country later lmao but the point is paid labor under capitalism will probably always become pointless as the wealth gap increases. We can't get rid of labor and we most likely can't get rid of money, but we can make it so that laborers have a say in their work and companies aren't allowed to do inhumane stuff to workers without punishment. And of course, working for yourself and your community will always be more meaningful and worthwhile than working for some big company that sees you as a number, so that's a whole other thing lol
@@Skylerdouglas731 jobs like that are unfortunately required to have such an advanced society as we have. Even in neolithic settlements there were professions that seem meaningless, like the data analyst you mentioned, so we'd have to basically revert to the level of paleolithic hunter-gatherers if we wanted all our jobs to be meaningful
@@pablobro5944I guess it depends on what you mean by meaningful. Data analysts, for example. They go through a blob of raw data to pull out and format that data for someone else to use. I miss those parts of my past jobs. Taking numbers and putting them in context so they become useful.
@pablobro5944 that's a very fair point but we could just, automate those jobs, if ai can play chess better than anyone and make "art" it can do accounting, of course this is assuming a system where everyone can live well at base which is surprisingly controversial
Literally all my life as far back as I can remember I've had a hatred for clocks and the way they dominate how and what I do and upon seeing this video I feel a sense of validation I've never experienced, especially surrounding the anti-clock sentiment. I thank you for that
While this is largely accurate, how do you account for the other behaviors exhibited by ADHD people? For example, only my friends with ADHD do this thing where they completely zone out in the middle of a 1:1 conversation. Not even long ones either, they just suddenly stop listening and their brain completely shifts focus.
@@banquetoftheleviathan1404 I’ve never heard it explained that way, but that actually sounds more like epilepsy. Regardless-there seem to be some real issues that aren’t socially constructed that exist among ADHD patients
There is a real thing behind adhd, it's just not necessarily portrayed accurately in pop science. Pop science simplifies things in order to raise awareness in the general public, and frankly, not that much is even known about what adhd is and what causes it, among the scientists.
Elliot has such a dedicated following. 120K subs and 60,000 views only 2 days after it was put out. I must not be the only one who enjoys his long form video essays. Keep up the thoughtful work.
I have had the honor to be present at a longhouse religious ceremony of the haudenosaunee and learned that the days in that culture start at night. It never really occurred to me that something as simple as that can completely change how a culture functions. That and attending a larger powwows in east and midwest really opened my eyes to how different cultures have roles for people with neurodivergency (and multiple genders) with no judgement or even second thought. I really believe that decolonizing my perspective and how i interact with the others and nature has immensely helped my mental health. Its been a long continuous journey and its full of grief, but I now finally feel for the first time in my life that I am not alone and that we can learn from others and fight for a better future together.
i didn’t know i had ADHD until i was 16-17. it was at the same time my little sibling was being diagnosed. at the time he was 8-9. he showed the “stereotypical” signs of adhd; class clown, talked a lot, couldn’t stay still, etc. i didn’t show those, i was; on time, quiet, a “gifted” kid, etc. but that didn’t change the fact that we both had adhd, just that mine was there but ignored since people thought adhd was one specific type of person and not the spectrum disorder that it is. for years i felt like something was wrong with me since none of my peers understood what i was going through. but once i got that explanation that there wasn’t something wrong with me, i suddenly felt like i was faking it. like i lied during testing (even tho i didn’t fill anything out). it’s seems that other people with disorders have felt that to.
This explains some of my gut reaction I had when trying to explain what I learned about ADHD to my German coworkers. It felt somewhat off, and untrue. I *can* guess how long things will take, but I can't predict my ability to get something done when it's in front of me. I meant to go to a certain store weeks ago. Every Tuesday I say "Tomorrow I have off, and I have lots of time to go to the store. I need to go to the store badly, so I'm going to go" And I *never* do. The worst feeling is that I feel I'm constantly standing in my own way. That's not even mentioning the trouble I have being in my own thoughts for any amount of time, and just filling it with videos and videogames.. I feel kind of like a candle, and I burn wildly, and I've tried to dampen the fire to manage it. Now it feels like a smoldering wick, just barely burning. So many little factors play into it. Did I go outside early in the day, have I met a friend? I feel isolated in a little windless box at the edge of town. The commute and work that I have to put in drains all the rest, and I don't know how to restore it in this city, especially with these rents. I don't have hardly any time to see people enough to actually make friends. I can't work part time, and I'm already living in a tiny apartment. Oh how the "minimum" can feel like such a high bar.
I’m indigenous to the Arabic gulf , we do have our own schedule that’s perfect for our climate and lifestyle. We fish , farm and have so many crafts personally my family are jewelers our schedule was Wake up at 4:00am (before sunrise) get ready for the day and leave for work after sunrise around 5:30 Work till 11:00am or when the sun is very high in the sky, go back home eat pray and rest till 3:00 pm , the you can go back to work or socialize till sunset around 7:00 PM eat pray and go to bed We have (different)names for every time slot that isn’t used now as much, like al-daha al-oud (big sunrise meaning 12:00PM when the sun is strong and the weather gets hot )
as an AuDHD haver who spent a lot of time reading about astronomy as a kid, I struggle to agree with the idea that time is a social construct - it absolutely exists, and is absolutely real, it's just the way we make use of it as a society is inefficient at accommodating neurodivergent people. (I guess you could say the we "literally constructed our society around it" and that might be what people really mean by that, but the distinction I prefer to draw is whether or not society is _constructed around_ a thing, or whether society _constructs the thing itself,_ and I do find this to be a meaningful distinction to make). Maybe I'm missing the point (if any allistic ADHD peeps can maybe fill in the gaps here that'd be appreciated) or maybe I'm using a different definition of "time" than is meant, but that's just what I think. We could definitely do with better ways to measure it that are useful to everyone, though.
I believe what people usually mean is that the uniform measuring of time, and measurements like seconds or hours are a social construct? But yeah like i get your point, and saying that time is a social construct may be over simplifying it in certain situations
I overcompensate for time blindness by being early to everything because I have such a severe anxiety about being late. I also go into "standby mode" if I have an appointment or something because if I allow myself to do anything else, I will get distracted and risk being late. But that means I don't manage to get anything done other than that one meeting. I was always taught that employers value workers who are on time, so I would regularly arrive to work at least 5 minutes early, but not clock in, spending the time getting my uniform ready or waiting out in the parking lot before heading in 1 minute before I was supposed to clock in, so I could make it to the time-clock and not be late. I was seriously chewed out by my boss for this, accused of trying to clock in early to "steal" wages I didn't deserve. I was also told that waiting in the parking lot was unacceptable. There is no winning.
my ADHD has me watching your video in small portions. I'm 5 minutes in, and taking my first break. The desire to focus, makes focusing harder sometimes LOL.
This video is really good, and I agree immensely with the notion that the way that we construct time and work is rooted in the harm done to us by capitalism and imperialism. However, I have to say that I don't think that the struggles of ADHD come completely from the ways in which our society is broken. I think that if I lived in a post-capital post-imperial utopia, I'd probably still have trouble making friends because my ADHD makes it difficult to stay in communication with people who aren't physically near me, and I'd still be afraid to do whatever intimidating tasks are laid before me even if my performance in school or livelihood aren't dependent on it. And I just have to say that I don't feel comfortable with the comparison about Dr. Barkley's description of ADHD with that old missionary's opinions, and frankly I think it's pretty messed up to compare him so closely with racist phrenologists. I'll admit that I'm biased because the way that because the way that he put it didn't make me feel repulsed but very _seen._ I don't know much about Dr. Barkely so I could be wrong, but I generally feel like he doesn't see people with ADHD the same way the same way those imperialists saw indigenous people. No one is above criticism, of course, and I think someone as influential as him should be scrutinized even more, but that comparison seemed pretty uncalled for. I'm sorry if that got a bit defensive, but I really really really like science, and it bothers me how often leftists online only seem to talk about it in terms of its racist and imperialist and sexist history. Thank you very much for emphasizing that we shouldn't be dismissive of it but that we should be critical. Also, I know that _they_ might want us to think there's something wrong with us, but who is "they"? Are they the CEOs of pharmacutical companies, or are they people like psychologists and therapists and coaches? Because if that is who "they" are, than I flat-out disagree.
And it is funny because so many coworkers and I discuss “time” as a construct. We always joke how it is made up, that *someone* is speeding up and slowing down the clocks depending on the day/season, and how weird it is when it feels like it is definitely noon, but it is 3 pm, and vice versa.
Yeah it’s funny, on one hand, time is absolute in that it can be precisely measured and recorded, but on the other hand, the _meaning_ of the hours are all up to us. Who says I have to start being productive at 9 and stop at 5 every day, 6 days a week? Who says I shouldn’t be eating lasagna by dawn and scrambled eggs by dusk?
I dont understand with what dr Russel Barkley said though,it was very validating to me and his recent content about time blindness has helped me so much.
yes. now what to we do about it? how do we live lives that make us happy while still being able to support ourselves under this oppressive system? that's what i'm struggling with. i don't know where to start or what to do to change things. it feels like an impossibly big task (in part because it is). we all need to get together and figure some shit out lmao. i can't be living like this for my whole life.
Time is one of the only things that is not abstract, though. It is a basic tenant of the laws of physics and things, like the second law of thermodynamics would not exist, if time were not an objective thing that existed. The way in which we measure in categorize time are socially influenced, but time itself exists whether we build a culture around it or not.
Absolutely amazing and on point. These hegemonic ideas give me the ick, and I'm always trying to defy them. Wanna add to the conversation of complexity. I've been analyzing a lot about how people don't have the capacity to understand the complexity of situations, and yes, every situation is complex. For example, when you say everyone should have access to health care, is an outcome idea, because the situation itself, on how to do that, will always demand a loooot of thought and reflection.
This is an important perspective. What I would add is that ADHD also makes it hard for people to pursue their intetests/passions, even if they have no external pressure on them. Also many ADHDers actually LIKE said pressure, because it helps them to make their goals more "real". Many times I was able to finish something I WANTED to finish only because I impossed a deadline on myself. Nevertheless, I never felt like my way of being is "unnatural", but definitely felt that about capitalist culture (and I have MA in culture).
wow! you nailed it. like, this is a life-changing, paradigm-shattering essay, and i intend to do my part to spread it to the therapeutic community that desperately needs to absorb and integrate the views and language you put out here. really great work, man.
As a man who's been clinically diagnosed with ADHD and had to deal with it being undiagnosed until I was 16, I'll provide my own experience as it seems that's what we're doing. When I was in elementary school, I was assigned to do a certain amount of pages in my grammar book a day. However, I wasn't doing that and when my teacher asked why, I told her that I didn't know. She pressed me for an answer and I eventually broke down in tears, not knowing what to say other than I didn't know. I truly didn't understand why I couldn't sit down and study like my brother or the rest of my peers. I had the hardest time focusing on anything and it was a massive pain. When I was diagnosed in high school, a lot of puzzle pieces which were missing fell into place and gave me an answer to that question. But there was still school to do, work to be completed and due dates to meet. It wasn't a lot, but it gave me a clear answer on why I was having such a hard time. However, I still struggled. I had exactly what Dr. Barkley described as "time blindness", I would end up taking a break for an hour rather than 20 minutes. I would study for 3 hours rather than 1 hour. It's a real thing and I don't understand why it's an issue in any way. I'm in my 2nd year of college now and have gotten time management down pretty well. This is because expectations and deadlines have allowed me to be able to organize myself. I've worked on functioning with time, I've managed how to solidify habits. It's made my life a lot better to be held to the same standard as everyone else, doing things and being expected to hold a certain level of quality, quantity or whatnot. I've found a passion in History and Computer Science which I'm able to explore in depth. Changing time doesn't do anything. We need time in order to be able to function as a society, especially with how much relies on the precision of time for measurement. So I don't think that's going to be able to change anything. There is nothing wrong with becoming a regular person in a world which needs regular people in order to do regular tasks. Everyone has to pitch in, with their own way.
Probably the most personally relatable video essay that I saw on RUclips. My life with ADHD is made worse by the fact that due to absurd anti-drug policies in my country all stimulant medications (Methylphenidate/Ritalin, Adderall etc.) for ADHD are totally prohibited and the only available medication is Atomoxetine (which efficiency is limited in my case and has unwanted side effects).
thank you for an outstanding video Elliot, Elle, and Danae. as a system with adhd struggling to organize ourselves within capitalist time structures, your points were super validating! we should listen to our intuition. go with our flow because our mind and body know what we need if we listen. we think by doing so, and if more neurodivergent folks do, not only is it powerful rebellion-it's taking care of ourselves and we can care for each other better when our own needs our met. /gen /pos
you're definitely right, but there also needs to be something that gives for this to be possible on a larger scale. it's the same case here, and has been an ongoing struggle to just try to get on disability pay to get by, stuck relying on others. -not prone to using plural pronouns in self-reference in yt comments, but it's relevant,- we've lost the deadline twice in a row now just to get the papers in because of the exact thing we're trying to send it in for, and I can almost guarantee that without finding a way to get more things diagnosed, it's going to be rejected anyways. people do need to listen more to their own internal sense of time for more wellbeing, but society has all the screws turned so tightly that it's nearly impossible to do that
As an ADHDer who is working on a shitty work where I'm constantly critizied for my "Time management" (even when I'm the only one who plan her day with to-do list, pomodoros and things like that here), thanks for this video. Sometimes the problem it's more the inmediatism expected in the laboral work + my own dificulty on priorise activities, not that I'm "oNly In tHe prEsenT".
I got diagnosed with ADD this year at 26. I was adamant about getting the diagnosis. Psychiatrist told me it’s hard to diagnose adults. I honestly thought it’d take lots of convincing but she was pretty quick to agree with me on all my points 💀 I’ve always had this feeling in my bones that none of this is real… although this topic might be morbid to some this is actually right up my alley. I love this shit 😂
I'm Severely ADHD, the one trait that always makes my doctors question that is a borderline hyper perception of time. So as I watched the video I realized one of my hyperfixations is time. My tics like tapping my finger to my palm happen at a regimented interval, everything I do is subconsciously timed. My problem is generally memory. Outside of the moment I am aware of what I need to do. In the moment there is only the moment. It's frustrating because I'll plan to talk to loved ones then the moment will come and I'll be drowning in a hyperfixation that out side of the moment isn't what I want, but in the moment it is all I care about, and usually I just brush myself off and prepare for the next failure, I feel like I'm in a Neverending battle to fail upwards and that I will never be able to maintain a meaningful relationship for more than a few months at a time. I am however always aware of the time, and I hate it.
That stone age time is how I conduct myself when I have no external schedule and I always thought I was broken for it. Holy shit. Edit: also I always thought that neurodivergent people were closer to how humans were naturally wired to be for some reason, or as you put it, having a harder time stopping themselves from being natural. (I'm neurodivergent myself so I'm not trying to put a group I don't know on a pedestal or something)
As someone that has suffered under the social weight of my ADHD for nearly 50 years, this is the most refreshing take I have seen to date on the topic of ADHD. I have had similar thoughts and felt sad when I see people I know in the ADHD community swapping the latest "hack" as they desperately cling to the job that is sucking them dry. We joke around about time being a construct yet I've seen so many of my fellow community members use it as a club to beat themselves down and not because they feel they deserve it, but because someone, a long time ago that was tasked with caring and nurturing them, showed them how to do it.
The experiencing time slowly part is so real. I can only handle work for about five hours a day at most, any more than that and my mental health takes a nosedive. I also have level one autism.
Idk man sometimes adhd is so severe that a person will struggle to eat regularly or do basic self care tasks and even *desired* tasks. Even without capitalism that is still very disabling and prevents from a fullfilling life of doing things you want to do. Not everyone can function through with adhd even if capitism does make it much worse. It is still very much a disability, specially on the severe end.
Well said, I feel the same way. Capitalism 100% makes life way harder, but I don't think it's right to say that it's the *only* reason people with ADHD struggle.
The analysis by Jess is quite wrong though. Just read the said part in the papers for a minute and it's easy to understand that distinctions are made by the authors, and that it actually support time blindness and even give more informations about what it really is. Furthermore, diagnosis aren't made just to look down on people (english isn't my native language and I don't know how to better convey my thoughts here, sorry). They are there to describe an alteration in the functioning of the brain, which leads to an impairment for individuals. This is descriptive for research, and prescriptive when it comes to therapy. When we talk about ADHD we are actually describing functions in the brain that go below the expected standards in certain areas. Those standards are objectionable and subject to questioning of course, but it doesn't make sense to me to reject any diagnosis because they make someone feel bad about themselves. It's literally just here to describe the phenomenons we're talking about and to get the adequate help when/if needed. That's not becoming worthless, that's actually the opposite. It's getting recognised with our struggles as something valid, and it doesn't ever cast shadow on what we are. It's here to help us. If I have *said pathology*, then it's just a part of my being and it's completely okay. Rejecting it will just hurt more in the end because you might suffer from the consequences of your mental health problems AND of the lack of help you aren't allowing you to get. Love yourself as you are. Imho refusing it is telling more about the person than anything.
I once had a boss say to me "I notice you have good days where you are very productive and bad days where you are less productive. How can we fix that?" I was like, you have just described existing as a person
The answer was to slow down until my good days matched my bad days btw
I was asked a very similar question in my high school years. I couldn't wrap my head around it then, and I still can't wrap my head around it now. You surely can't be expected to be constantly productive all the time, Right? That's how burnout happens.
Fr lmao I would roll my eyes
@@BlitzkriegOmega cappie brainworms
i got fired from a couple of job for similar reasons. turns out my average productivity was quite good and both places had to hire several people to do my job after i was gone
I always found it weird that people exclusively talk about adhd as living in the present. I am diagnosed with adhd and 90% of the time I am not living in the present. So much of my thoughts and perception of time is based on the future. I constantly think about something that I want/need later, so I plan out what actions I have to do now to make that happen. My problem comes in the fact that my brain is so constantly occupied by things in the future that I don't have room to do anything else. I'll spend the entire day thinking about stuff I need to do and forget to do things that need more immediate attention. Everyday then becomes just me fumbling around doing whatever to pass the time until it's time to do thing that's been on my mind.
Yep! Me too. Always planning the future, struggle with doing stuff right now.
this is literally how I'm living my life and it's not fun
EXACTLY!!! THIS DESCRIBED ME PERFECTLY
I like to live in my mind most of the time. I find my world or universe to be more apealing than real life, at least like 60 or 80% of the time.
yep. i think its cause we've learned that things tend to not get done unless we've been thinking about it and planning it way ahead of time. but tbh sometimes even thinking too much about a future thing eventually leads to that future thing not even getting done because we feel so paralyzed by the stress of it all. its like a self perpetuating cycle: you feel stressed so you get nothing done, you get nothing done so you feel stressed. i honestly think alot of us would genuinely benefit alot if we actually tried to live in the present and focus on just the things in front of us like neurotypicals seem to think we do
The best reason to change how we think about time is actually just that being able to say to someone “I’ll get it done by around next solstice” goes hard as shit
Alternatively, I’m using that phrase as an excuse to do things when I get to them and not on any schedule that people are familiar with
It'll be done when it's done.
@NotVille_ong
Real
Fuckin cringe
not me watching this video (with ADHD) thinking I dont have time blindness, but then realizing the only reason I show up to things on time or even early is because I freeze and go into “waiting mode” by getting ready 6 hours prior to the “thing” and then just sitting on the couch until its time to go
Would you like a tip that has helped me not freeze and still get to places on time?
If so, here goes: when you realize you are going into waiting mode, set up timer or an alarm that will go off at the time you need to get ready to leave.
Take note of how long it tends to take you to get ready to go somewhere and make sure that timer is set to end that many minutes before you need to leave plus about 5 to 10 minutes. You might have to adjust the amount of time you set to get ready.
I’ve found that doing this helps me keep out of waiting mode because it is no longer I, but the phone, that is keeping track of when I need to start getting ready to go.
An alarm might work best, that’s what I usually use.
@@seDrakonkill can confirm, alarms to bypass waiting mode is big, at least for me. But then, it only halfway bypasses waiting mode, and half the time I'll end up still watching the time as I'm doing things, and I'll be like "oh, it's only 20 minutes till my alarm, I guess I should shut this down now" and still end up with a considerable amount of needless waiting time, but it's only like 20 minutes of extra waiting time instead of 3 hours of waiting time, so still an improvement
Same
Fuck call me out aswell why dontchu😂😅😰😭 fluff my life!
I mean I wouldn't say that's time blindness, like the video mentions I don't think the idea of 'time blindness' is a helpful term because it implies that time is this natural objective property that can be perceived correctly or wrongly which is a bunch of bs cause it's a social construction.
What we actually struggle with is things like memory, keeping up focus and attention. That then get's interpreted as 'time blindness' because those problems cause us to fail at the task of staying on time, because in the end being punctual is just another task among many other, it's not a problem with our perception of time, it's a problem of staying on task. Your waiting mode is just a tactic to remove external activities or things that could steal away your attention.
I've always been proud for living in the present. Embracing "time management" has always seemed to me like imposing a suffocating dictatorship upon myself.
That's the plan. Time management was originally imposed on factory slaves.
I mean, realistically you need a balance. If you want people to expect you to be somewhere, you will need to get in the habit of being there on time. And if you want to be there on time, you need to plan to be there. And yeah, being on time isn't something anyone is imbued with. It's a skill you learn. But realistically you need to learn it if you want people to trust you with certain responsibilities (such as a job)
@ville__(said ADHD is a choice) - Accepting it is a choice. You can either struggle miserably, forever trying to be "normal", or embrace who you are
@NotVille_ this is an anti-science opinion. science proves the existence of adhd.
Super suffocating. Like all them old dudes that used to yell at us back in the day have won when you are compressing yourself like this.
I like saying “Time is a social construct.” not only because it’s fun to say but also because it blew my mind when I realised that.
same here! i always whip out the “time is a social concept” line when i’m late to events (partially bc i think it’s funny but also because i love to acknowledge that it can change at any *ahem* time)
@@Crystalcreates33 You should use “A Queen is never late. Everyone else is simply early.” too.
yo #6
Indeed it is
I always remind myself this when I get way too anxious around time. It’s hard 😅
The book "bullshit jobs" explains how time became an object to be sold and rented. I dream of being free from that, I want it so much
As does his other work, Debt: The First 5000 Years and The Dawn of Everything. Highly recommend - Bullshit Jobs is a great gateway into radical literature, but it doesn't really _say_ anything more than the essay he wrote which the book is based on. The other two books I mentioned go more into the history and colonialism of it all. RIP David Graeber.
So go start your own business.
@@littlestbroccoli So, you go start a business.
If my workers tried your bullshit?
I would cloes the doors, and retire. I wouldn't bother to thank the employees, I would already be gone with the cash.
Of course, I would sell the rest. Lol.
So enjoy poverty. Me and mine won't. Just saying.
@@youtubesucks1499You seem like you're only here to flaunt your "3 businesses" and how hard you work unlike the lazy masses instead of actually contributing anything
This is a dead Internet bot graveyard
I struggle with the fact that my personal progress has nothing to do with the money I make, and if my time is spent on unfulfilling things, I get wildly depressed no matter how much money I’m being paid.
Yes, on the one hand it makes you genuine and authentic about the things you do and are interested in unlike a lot of other people, on the other hand, you still need to pay to live somewhere, to eat, to buy necessary things, or maybe afford something you really wanted. I've been offered quite a bit of money in my life, but I just could not do what they wanted, I wanted to die. In fact I died on the inside every second of it.
then people tell you you're stupid for not groveling to keep that job😓 even when you try to explain @@alexandroh.3
yeah and theres the fact that cooperate anything basically denies people from have a family work life balance....i dont know how many times i was forced to choose between my daughters needs and keeping my job... the jobs didnt win i finally said f it and went into business for myself doing something i actually liked doing i make suncatchers now and sell them at fairs. I can be creative and use my time for what i need to that is most beneficial to me and my loved ones. its still a struggle but its a better struggle than any 9 to 5
I have ADHD and autism (AuDHD) and it's so hard to function in today's society. I feel so far behind, struggle with basic tasks, and feel terrible when I can't start tasks I need to do. I can't hold down a normal 9-5 job because it's too energy/time demanding, and I wish our society didn't hold neurodivergents to the same expectations as neurotypicals.
I have autism, ADHD and OCD, so I can relate to you very well.
@ville__ I wish it was lmao, I would not have it in a heartbeat if i could get rid of it
So the alternative is that we impose some kind of mandatory relaxation of working conditions and/or expectations for those with these subjectively-diagnosed conditions, but pay them for the same time as others? Others who despite being neurotypical, still might hate working just as much?
I’m not trying to be antagonistic, i just don’t see any good solutions being put forward. I think everyone would just go out and get diagnoses of ADD / ADHD if it would give them extra work benefits, just like college kids already do to get amphetamine prescriptions.
I wish our society didn't hold _anyone_ to the expectations it does now. We shouldn't be hoarding this freedom to ourselves.
Can you imagine a realistic society that wasn't a struggle for you?
I remember seeing this one clip of this psychiatrist who pointed out how crippling ADHD truly is and that it isnt treated like the serious issue it is. and I fully agree! It's like sitting in a room with multiple TVs with different channels going on at full volume and if you try your best you can listen to one of those TVs for a short while but as soon as the focus breaks off for even a single second the other TVs will just mute out the one source that you're trying so hard to watch and listen to.
This is how my brain worked when I was a kid. I still can get distracted easily but not as bad. But I don't have ADHD. According to my mom, the doctor said I didn't have it.
it's bizarre how hard it is to get disability for ADHD in america. it quite literally makes work physically painful for me.
It really is, for me my experience with audhd and other comorbid issues that contribute to why my brain feels like soup it feels like I have dementia sometimes. You know the man who lived with half a brain? Yeah that's my lived experience, except I've never had a lobotomy done on me nor have I had a grand mal seizure(yet, my unstable decaying body is full of tricks and surpises). I can't perceive the past or future, it sometimes feels like I'm a spectator behind a glass wall seperated from my own body. I forget days weeks months years I forget names and faces I forget about my own body and being alive and forget how to breathe and swallow sometimes. If you ask me what I did the other day or even hours ago I wouldn't be able to tell you, I simply just don't remember. Sometimes I'm paralysed and locked inside my own body and brain, fully conscious and aware of my surroundings but not being able to move or react to it. I almost dropped out of high school because of my deteriorating memory and brain I can't get a job because of it friendships have been sabotaged by me not remembering something I did or someone's birthday or even name or face. I just live in the here and now, although I find Dr. Barkley to be problematic as a neurodivergent person what he described as being dragged by the nose by the present described what I experience on a day to day basis. I wish people understood how devastating adhd and even memory loss and brain damage(in my case, oxygen starvation at birth and multiple concussions from contact sports and pe classes during middle school) can be. Neurodiveristy is a beautiful thing and I full heartedly agree it should be something we should be proud of, but the symptoms it can cause whether because of ableism/colonialism or not is life devastating at times. I wish symptoms like these would be taken more seriously by medical professionals and neurotypical people alike as if it's something like early stage dementia or a similar condition which affects memory retention/forming and temporal processing. I just wish people who don't live with it would understand what it's like to be aimlessly floating in the oceans of passing time and memory not having any control of where you're taken or if you're able to keep your head above water or hold onto something. I'm aware that my lived experience with adhd may be different than someone else because my body is deteriorating, my nerves are demylinating slowly, my memory gets worse as the brain fog from multiple tbi's myalgic encenphalomylitis and long covid gets thicker and thicker with any exertion I make, my muscles get weaker and weaker, my heart has to work harder and raises my blood pressure, my immune system is cannibalizing the body it lives in. None of these are simply caused by adhd, but autoimmune disease and chronic conditions can exemplify adhd symptoms more than they would in a healthy person so that is my own anecdote. Unfortunately my body and the way my brain is wired isn't made for this colonial system, my ancestors used the land around them to tell chronological time passing and divided work equally among their peers and worked in bursts, something incompatible with this modern system. That is my two cents as someone who is unfortunately trapped inside this body and is in it for the long haul. Stay safe wear a mask wash your hands and be kind to each other and the land you're on 🫶🪶
Undiagnosed and unmedicated ADHD so working within in Capitalism for me is truly hellish. Time moves at sluggish pace as I hyper focus on my tasks. I'm there for month (3-4 months at the most )before my ADHD make me completely disinterested in the job. Money becomes nothing at that point. I just want out. My anxiety starts to spike and then I leave. This cycle continues endlessly.
That was normalizing, thank you so much for sharing. I do the same thing but it's lead me to great things, think of it as a super power. We are immune to complacency!
This, this, this 👆🏻 It's led me to a freelance career where my schedule suits me. But unfortunately, the only reason I'm able to do this is because of a HUGE amount of privilege. Perhaps one day, this won't be the case, and people from all backgrounds have been able to make it work and do incredible things.
Saaame. The boredom/burnout cycle is REAL
i'm afraid to get a job for this exact reason (also autism). it happens to me with college, though. i've barely done 2 years worth of school when i SHOULD already be finishing up the first semester of my 3rd year. I've completely dropped out of the 4-year school i was attending because i'm constantly in this cycle of starting it and then losing interest and leaving entirely. i've tried telling my mom that school just isn't worth it for me because i don't think i'll ever get out of this cycle, but i'm still going to try community college (i don't think it will work out). my brain is somehow only wired to focus on special interests and hyperfixations, it's absolute hell living in capitalism
@@cronchyskull I'm also in situation where I just do freelance work (manly art) and the only reason I can do that is because I have partner that supports my work. So I understand where you are coming at.
"...having a life defined on the fact that I can't trust myself wears me down more than any other symptom combined."
This right here is the perfect summation as to how terrible having this disorder. It feels you're constantly at war with yourself about meeting society's expectations, and it's extremely exhausting.
100%. This hit me on another level too with the fact that our society incentivizes a "dog eat dog" mentality and one of my symptoms for ADHD is not understanding social cues like sarcasm and generally being very gullible trusting with people which has left me burned more often than not. When I started dating my partner, trusting him and trusting my own judgement was a major problem for me initially. Having ADHD (in this modern world) can cause you to constantly question your reality and perception and as a result leave you so vulnerable to being take advantage of. It's debilitating. I've had a few bosses in the past who took advantage of this. I work for myself now and I'm more productive than ever.
This. Hit the nail right on the head. It hurts so much to feel like a failure just because I'm not able to complete all the tasks in time
@@hotarubinarikothat’s not adhd that’s autism…
@summero-my5in yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if I have both tbh. But I have heard similar things from other ADHD folks, but I guess they're very commonly go together. I'm abnormally expressive, people are often either fascinated or weirded out lol, I thought that meant it was the ADHD and not autism but I recently learned that can be a symptom of autism too and actually less so for ADHD. So 🤷♀️ too bad state insurance won't cover any kind of evaluation or therapy beyond substance abuse. I no longer have the insurance that covered my ADHD evaluation.
@@hotarubinarikohonestly its better not to have an autism diagnosis, it can cause more problems for you than solutions. but by the way the part i meant was not understanding social cues, like sarcasm and such that isnt adhd. adhd would be possibly spacing out and missing a social cue, but adhders have no issue inherently understanding social cues. i say this as someone with adhd and no autism. my friends who have autism as well dont understand social cues or tone of voice the way i do
this video could not have come out at a more perfect time for me. i've been in a state of adhd paralysis the past two university semesters - my adhd has gotten increasingly harder to manage as i get older, and that results in constant overwhelming guilt, anxiety and burnout. i've struggled looking for accessible content and media to consume around mental health that acknowledges intersectionality and adhd in the context of contemporary society and capitalism.
thank you - i really needed to hear this today
take care rachel, hope your frustrations will ease soon 🫂💞 /gentle
I dropped out of college because of my adhd. Undiagnosed at the time.
You made it two semesters?? I made it about 3 weeks, then spent several weeks in bed, then called my parents telling them I didn't know why but I didn't want to be alive anymore and I needed help. That was.. 13 years ago, now. It hurt so bad I can feel it like it happened yesterday. I can barely remember my past, but that time period really sticks out.
It's really tough. I'm proud of you, and I hope you are proud of yourself. We need to be kind to ourselves when often few others are.
Stay strong, make the world work for you the best you can, without shame.
I love the idea of an environmental prosthesis. External memory aids, for example. Such a good idea.
Don't discount the importance of good sleep.
I barely made it through college in 4 years. Had to take summer classes at community college every single year to make up for my struggles with taking multiple really rigorous classes at once during the year. Stayed awake for nearly 5 days straight at the end of my senior year finishing multiple final papers and my senior comprehensive project. Ended up in the ER with a panic attack. I'm proud I made it through, but jebus christ, the whole system was so aggregiously stacked against me, and I have so much bitterness over it. And of course here I am working in a restaurant now because our capitalist order doesn't give 2 sh*ts about environmental studies unless it's in the context of greenifying corporate campuses or surveying for fossil fuels. They can never take away my education though. Or the AMAZING goated people I met there and are lifelong friends.
@@Pensnmusicproblem is ADHD ,(my experience) affects me making it to where I can't sleep. My brain never shuts off, and stuck in a constant fog.
This comment couldn't have come out at a better time. I failed two semesters at two separate institutions and turned in my medical withdrawal request in the hopes that I could get a fresh start next semester. At one point during a previous semester, I would be doing assignments until daybreak and getting an hour of sleep before heading off to classes. And I couldn't (and still can't) understand how other students were able to pass in homework on time, socialize, hold jobs, and attend clubs all in the span of one day.
I have adhd and autism. Work is... ugh. I worked in pizza as a manager for 3 years. The urgency of orders kept me on task and kicking ass, but the stress of always running on that urgent feeling along with low pay, long hours, and having to (politely) deal with the worst customers treating my mostly teenage staff like crap was too much to take anymore.
I started a new job as a school janitor at the beginning of the month and almost quit 2 weeks in. They showed me around my area the first day and said "go". Holy hell was that overwhelming.
Managing my time to get the tasks done was stupid hard, so I skipped some... but chose the wrong ones. Turns out spotless tables and sinks in the art classroom is nice and all, but if you skip mopping the staff restrooms one evening it will catch hell. Oops.
It took me disclosing my neurodivergences and almost quitting to get my boss to please please help me prioritize this 4 page task list. When she showed me how she'd clean the rooms I realized I was busting my ass making things spotless when a half ass wipe down would do. If only they made that clearer at the beginning.
The pay is better than my last job and I can go a whole shift without talking to anyone, but it's still not what I want to be doing.
It is really too frustrating to be neurodivergent. So many things we cannot control we are constantly punished for. This time BS is a major one. I have workplace trauma due to being reprimanded so much for being late/calling out. Now I show up extra early to my own health detriment and they still make fun of me for showing up early. Like wow cannot win with these ppl smh.
I'm sorry to hear about that 😣.
Quit being a victim.
It's called an alarm and self discipline.
The alarm goes off you get up.
Now, it's called routine.
You get in the shower, get ready for work, make you lunch and drive to work.
If works starts at 8am and it's a 15 minute drive... leave the house by 7:30 am.
How difficult is that?
@youtubesucks1499 a common neurotypical response
@@emexcorner2500 What did I post that was incorrect?
@@youtubesucks1499 what makes you assume i don't do that? Doesn't mean it is not mentally draining and wears down on my spirit. Not everyone can be like you - that's why you are special.
I liked this video a lot. I'm autistic and maybe ADHD, and it feels like my natural rhythm is to be awake in the late afternoon-night, and sleep during the rest of the day, but it's completely reversed from society's standards and I feel better about myself when I follow society's rhythm. Even tho it causes me a lot of anxiety to see time go by at night and being unable to sleep yet, even tho I don't do anything with my days so it doesn't matter when I sleep.
Me too. There no actual people putting this feeling on me but I feel “society” as a whole kind of looming over me like “what do you think you’re doing?”
@@cassielee1114 Or the little things, like hearing the first cars in the morning, people going to work, the first bus...That really makes me feel like shit.
ah, chronotypes, another little thing normies like to push others around for.
I like Dr. Barkley. His phrasing is stemming from western capitalism, but he's addressing neurotypical people who are coming from this system; parents, bosses, teachers, etc. They can't understand nuerodivergent people who are struggling to fit into a system in which they effortlessly fit in. Dr. Barkley is explaining why ADHD is real and how it's not making excuses for bad behavior or being lazy.
my soul kinda aching seeing some harsh responses to barkley. only cause i've found him very enlightening and validating in the severity of adhd. it sucks that we have this many obstacles and problems, but it's more validating to me that someone unlike myself assuredly states that what i struggle with IS difficult and it's not all failures on my part but limitations of what i'm able to do
edit: i got to the part of the vid with barkley and, yah. i think he's right. when i was drowning in anxiety i was always on time if not early to things. i was so scared of screwing up if i wasn't on time. but i've improved my anxiety A LOT, and now i relate to what he said about time only existing as the current moment. that's genuinely what i've been feeling. my semester is over in two weeks and i can FEEL that my conception of that is off, that it doesn't even feel real, the realest thing is the current moment i am in. my grasp and concept of time is genuinely different from some other people's grasp of it
> They can't understand nuerodivergent people who are struggling to fit into a system in which they effortlessly fit in.
I'm not certain those people 'fit in', per-se, but they've accepted the program, and because they have, they expect everyone else to as well. "I suffered, so you have to suffer too!"
because the lack of research about adhd took his twin brother due to him dying in a car accident. the feeling of guilt come when you realize why your brother die and see the consequences of a disability and others not taking seriously is going to make anyone cranky. Dr. Barkley have first hand experience of how this disability deep scar left him. he is harsh BECAUSE he doesn't want a another incident like this.
@@Haha-bv6yjwow, i had no idea about his brother. i am glad people like Dr. Barkley work so hard to get people to recognize that ADHD can, in fact, be very disabling.
speaking from personal experience - it is so frustrating when people are dismissive of it being a disorder, when i absolutely KNOW that it has made my life incredibly difficult. i haven't been able to hold down a job or get good grades in school for most of my life. i am constantly frustrated by my inability to consistently maintain hygiene or any regular schedule. it's vaildating to hear what he says about ADHD.
The reason they are on time all the time is that they never do anything because there is nothing in their mind except for work and obligations. It’s very easy to be on time if you have nothing else to do or think.
Time blindness is such a perfect description of my life these past few years.
@ville__ bro you’re trolling, right?
@@mallory7198 It's a bot. Report it and move on, it's all we can do.
Can you explain? Cause I feel like you might be missing parts of what time blindness actually is, however it could also be a symptom you are genuinely struggling with as it can also be a symptom of generalized anxiety disorder, ADHD, and Depression. Depression has been on the rise sense the pandemic from isolation
Time blindness? Dude, there is an invention called an alarm clock.
@@youtubesucks1499 it's when 5 hours feels like 45 minutes.
Whether ADHD is something wrong with me or something wrong with the world is irrelevant because I can’t change the system within my lifetime so I’m still screwed without adderall
Yeah, I feel that. It's one thing to know that I shouldn't beat myself up because I can't measure up to absurd and unfair capitalist standards, and another to actually internalize it. Plus, the reality is that I can't really can't change how society works, at least not alone, so hearing it is kinda cold comfort at best and at worst makes me feel guilty about getting support and taking meds for my ADHD, because doesn't that mean I'm suppressing my true self to feed the imperialist capitalist machine?
@@asocksual4910 yeah it feels like it’s coming from an ivory tower. Like it’d be nice if I had a job that wasn’t hostile to ADHD (AKA most jobs) but I don’t so hearing that I’m wrong for getting treatment is annoying
@@PalaGov I’m really sorry about your experiences with adderall, but it doesn’t change how it’s been life changing in a number of people’s lives. It’s not fair that I was born in a world that’s hostile to the way our brains work but we all gotta do what we gotta do to survive
I wish ADHD meds would work for me. We don't even have Adderall here (only Ritalin and Vyvanse) and they don't work well and the side effects (If you can even call them that. I feel they're just effects) make me sad, emotionally unstable, antisocial withdrawn, arrogant, boring, quiet, unable to eat, the whole rebound effect and ever increasing tolerance screw me over and they literally make me feel like I'm on drugs even on the lowest dose. Absolutely no hate against people who use them and it works for them... I wish it did for me. And no, I'm not misdiagnosed and yes I've tried different doses.
@@PalaGov Could be. It certainly makes you feel like there is something wrong with you if you cant fit into society. The names we give to clusters of symptoms are of course socially constructed, and medicating ADHD to make you "function" is really fucked up in comparison to medicating something that makes you suffer directly, like schizophrenia (i know there's plenty of issues with medication for schizophrenia. just an example).
As an indigenous and an ADHD person, this video slaps. Amazing work to everyone who worked on it.
I'm sorry, Elliot. That's not actually what Dr Barkley said or meant. As an ADHDer myself he was trying to validate my experience of life as always being the tardy, late, disorganized, and missed deadlines guy. I agree with your premise that time is a capitalist or colonialist construct. That we are all forced to obey the clocks as if it is objective reality. I differ with you and Jesse in the sense that you are needlessly vilifying people that are using their platforms to fight for every struggling neurodivergent person to assure them their difficulties in life aren't due to them being lazy, disorganized, or have personality disorders that make them incompatible with life. It's a chance to take a breath and realize there is hope for me to live an okay life. An okay life in a failing capitalist society that blames you for your disabilities.
In South Africa we are still recovering from an autocratic society that legalized racism and now that the country is struggling to pick up the pieces and build a functioning society we get told as Africans we are inherently not part of the Rational Animal that Aristotle was referring to and that is why we are unable to have a working democracy. Our legs were amputated and now we are blamed for not being able to run. Someone coming out and saying these things does not deserve to be vilified. State the facts and let us work from there. Advocate for those who can't advocate for themselves. Here we should be aware of the dangers of paternalism. So often we take opportunities for advocacy away from people, thinking we're helping.
Thank you for your video. It was great for the discourse.
Hello fellow South African 🇿🇦
yeah, really boiled my blood that he compared people that caused genocides, and tore our communities and families apart, to some doctor saying "time blindness is a thing in our society". elliot, don't weaponize others struggles for your points. its gross
@@42seventhere is a definite link between colonialism, eugenics and ableism so i think these issues are more related than you may think. however i dont believe he actually accused the man in the video of being a supporter of these things, nor that what he said is in anyway equal to those things, just that the language was eerily similar and is in need of being reexamined
He did call phrenologists the “dr Barkleys of their time”
The main struggle is between making ADHD people fit into the capitalistic society (Barkley) vs changing the capitalistic society so it's easier for ADHD people (Elliott).
I don't see why we can't have both instead of constant fighting.
I wish it was this easy to express my frustrations of how monotonous and colorless everything has become all from the constructs that the higher-ups in our society have gaslit us into thinking is right... unfortunately, my ADHD mind won't let me.
I remember the colorless world.
I was very depressed and hopeless at the time.
How did you find the color?
@@Pensnmusic
@NotVille_bot
No no, I think you explained it well. I feel it, too.
Educate yourself and strive to grow and learn. You can. It's possible. It's all in your head. (not adhd just bad thoughts)
I don't understand the disagreement on time blindness. Its not the measurement of time thats the issue, its the fact that it easily slips away. ADHD isn't just a lack of focus, its also intense focus on specific subjects (hyperfixations). That hyperfixation is can be so intense that time becomes a non factor and you completely miss it passing by. Hence the term time blindness. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the point you made in that section and for that I'm sorry but as someone with ADHD the idea of time blindness makes sense.
Edit: Also went back to listen to that speech by Dr. Barkley and, in my experience with ADHD, he was completely right. I don't know why you felt the need to compare him to phrenologists who used nonsense science to justify committing genocide. Thats just way too disrespectful and gross.
Same!! That part of the video felt really harsh and dismissive, and it bothered me a lot.
I dont think he was comparing it to phrenology. He was pointing out that "race scientists" and phrenologists in particular viewed time blindness as an inherent flaw in black and indigenous people. Dr. Barkley was being extremely judgemental in that clip and outright claimed that time blindness is where 1 of the 2 primary functions of the prefrontal cortex is broken. The prefrontal cortex does a LOT of stuff. The idea that time is one of the most important is an idea that comes from colonialism, and that seems to be the primary point there.
@@samkadel8185He literally referred to racist brain doctors as "the Dr. Berkeleys of their time." Also, that was two minutes out of a 30 minute lecture which should be perfect evidence that a lot of other information from that lecture is missing. It is dishonest to take two minutes out of a thirty minute lecture and say "welp thats all that Berkeley has said about how the brain works." The lecture that Elliot cites is available on youtube and Dr. Berkeley goes into a lot more detail on how ADHD interacts with the brain. I appreciate you trying to explain it to me but I'm just still not understanding or seeing what the problem is.
@@count_rizzula'Dr Barkleys of their time' as in they were very respected and their theories of the brain were concensus at the time. It's to point out how science ages fast and what we now view as very valid could fairly soon down the line be seen as wrong. The kind of brain science as in the drawings shown in the video were still common science when my late grandpa went to school - the person I suspect I inherited my adhd from. He was racist - everyone were. And stimulant drugs were sold to common folk as 'refresheners' so they could work more. There was no problem and my grandpa didn't have 'adhd'. Times change so fast.
Right. Just because it's hard to hear, doesn't mean he's wrong. I feel completely broken all the time at work because I'm the smartest person in my office, but I can't get anything done. And the need to plan ahead and do boring things isn't solely a problem of capitalism. Farmers have to plant their crops months before they need them, people needed to chop wood and preserve food to get through the winter, and you have to start getting ready by doing a little bit every day. Do you think cave men and cave women with ADHD were able to do this without messing up? If anything, the stakes were even higher. Messing up didn't mean that you had to buy things you should have made, or pay more for things because you didn't buy them in advance, it meant that you froze to death or starved! As hard as I struggle with our regimented capitalism, I think I would have been worse off as a medieval peasant. I definitely wouldn't have made it as a cavewoman. I think Barkley is at least somewhat right In his characterization, but it does sound less worse when it's framed as a problem with executive function.
And also, the "gatekeeping" in science where it costs $40 to read a journal article isn't because of science, it's because of capitalism. It's kind of important for you kids to know this. I know that sounds patronizing - it's not meant to. It's my informal way to say that I'm in my 50's and this business of keeping science behind paywalls is not something that scientists did, it's something publishers have done and it's happened almost entirely in the time since I graduated from college.
I might have ADHD. As a kid, teachers asked my parents if I had it and they never wanted to pursue an answer to that. I've coped by becoming hyper vigilant about my time. I always am doing something and I enjoy that, but my hyper focus on time can often make me pretty irritable when things don't go according to plan or something comes up that interferes with one of my "time blocks". It's lead to a lot of stress when I'm working and a lot of restlessness when I don't have anything to do
You could also have autism. Being upset about changes to plans and things interfering with eachother is common there, and autism and adhd are comorbid commonly
@@serbianspaceforce6873 I don't think this is the case for me. Much of this irritability began in early college, where I had an extremely tight schedule. Being late for any one thing was really bad at the time and I likely am holding onto the remnants of that post-graduation. I think the culprit here is the other common comorbidity of anxiety!
I've been able to hold a 9-5 job for the past 5 years. Those years have been met with a lot of challenges, but I've pulled through and even managed to impress some people. Over the past year or so though I am slowly and catastrophically unraveling. My role has expanded and has become too much for my ADHD to manage and I need to leave.
Talking with my manager hasn't helped. They don't understand it and I don't know how else to communicate it to them. So I give up.
At the same time, I am terrified that I'm going to be trapped in this cycle forever. I don't know how long I would last in my next job. I don't know if I'll end up leaving my current job gracefully or self-destruct.
Similarly- I’ve been working for almost 8 years in the same position, 9-5. My supervisor changed about 2 years ago and now much more tasks and oversight are required by me. I’m not diagnosed, but am probably on the spectrum of adhd- and I also feel like now my workload is more than I can manage. If anyone has any advice about dealing or leaving a position like this, I’d appreciate it. The guilt of missing and procrastinating on tasks is soul-crushing. Like, I used to be fine at managing the work when I had less work but now it’s unsustainable…
Your keen realization of all that is so real about this experience tells me that you will gracefully find a new job ( while you keep this old one until the new one starts). Since you know yourself well, which is obvious from your comment, you will flow into the new job and if you find it works for you great. But if it does not you will gracefully get another job until the job works for you. You do not owe capitalists - they owe you for the surplus value you have providedand they have profited from so make sure the work suits you. ❤
You are absolutely trapped. Trapped in what we call, life. There is no escape. You will have to get more and more done and it will get harder and harder. Or you will be poor, eventually to the point of destitution. It’s not a social construction, it’s the cost of the life we have. Deal
@@gregtaylor9806 good Lord greg
@@gregtaylor9806 Do you feel better now? :)
Being controversial about dr barkley is mind blowing. The dude is one of the most compassionate and understanding for the innate struggles of the ADHD brain. He is being blunt and straightforward about the experience of ADHD in modern society. It boggles my mind that people are casting him in a negative light for communicating objective realities about adhd. He is more understanding of what it means to struggle with this condition than probably 90% of the planet.
He is taking a serious tone with it because he is speaking to an audience that desperately needs to be educated on it and take it very seriously and recognize ADHD as much more than just being "easily distracted". Russell Barkley advocates every day for accomodations for those with ADHD and is intimately familiar with the things they need to thrive and succeed. You cant blame Russell for the fact that, in the current world and societal structure we have, having time blindness is a devastatingly detrimental condition to navigate the world through. He lost his brother to a car accident which he used to drive recklessly in out of an effort to get some stimulation due to untreated ADHD.
I understand where the apprehension is coming in and how you guys are perceiving him as like, being hypercritical of time blindness or perhaps those with ADHD as a whole but it sounds like a lecture because....it is a lecture. It is a lecture to an audience outlining the full impact of a trait like that and how devastating it can be to someone's life. Russell Barkley is our friend, he fights for our rights and survival, and he is the reason there is enough education to inform practitioners on how to help and treat ADHD effectively in the hell that is modern psychiatry, let's not interpret his tone as anything other than an academic one.
yeah i like dr barkley a lot i have his book it's sick
yeah that part of the video was kind of misguided
Yeah I've never thought of him as having bad intentions
Very good comment, please add some paragraph breaks so that it can become an exellent comment.
@@Sara3346 thank u chief, u are right. Thanks for reminding me
I think that rather than Barkley enforcing a rigid, capitalist sense of time, the "internal" time he is referring to is fairly arbitrary. While he frames the examples around school, or getting ready in the morning (since the 3 hour talk is specifically aimed at parents with ADHD children), these are consequences of the current capitalist world we live in, and are presented as issues children/parents will deal with in their day-to-day. I dont remember off the top of my head if he ever questions these time structures in the talk, I think that would be a valid criticism.
However, even if I was suddenly living in glorious luxury gay space communism, it'd still not be able to tell how much time had passed while I was really focusing on something, nor would it make perceived boring tasks seem less tedious/reduce the perceived amount of time they would take. The "time blindness" doesn't go away when the clocks go away with my ADHD.
It does make me less anxious though.
After finishing the video: While I generally agree with the statements about our current use of time as a construct of capitalist forces, I think the characterization of Barkley as a "pop psychologist" and having stated that ADHD people are "fundamentally broken" is misleading at best.
If anything he is fairly compassionate, and gives examples of how to raise children with ADHD in different ways than their peers, but in a way that helps the child's sense of self worth and trains their skills at doing the same for themselves later in life. "Your child is different, so stop yelling at them that they're lazy or foolish. You must approach them differently and work with them differently, or you will both be miserable, and they will resent you". I would take this approach any day of the week over the "willful child" parenting, or any of the other crap that was going around when I was growing up.
He also states his opinion that ADHD is a bad name, b/c the "deficit" portion implies that something is missing or broken in the person. He reframes it as "Everything has the same amount of importance". I believe he also criticizes schools for their strict structured schedules and focus on "discipline", but don't quote me. The presentation is like 2-3 hours long.
Also, who the fuck tests the ability to sense time over several seconds? The "time blindness" he describes for me is like, in minutes, hours, weeks or months. Wack-ass studies.
That part about how there's no truly objective measure for time brought some flashbacks. I feel like this is exactly how Kant understood it (time as an intensity instead of quantity) and a lot of criticism coming from the neurodivergent community overlap with Nick Land's understanding of time/time sorcery
nick land
I don't know if I'm ADHD, but I really relate to the struggle. I can spend a whole day debating on what to do with my time, only to end it frustrated I did nothing. To me it feels like the weight of capitalism is slowly crushing down on me until one day I won't be able to breath.
Every prospective job available to me feels meaningless, and I just can't do something I find meaningless for very long. I want to create art and music, but I can't make a career out of that at my current skill level.
I've thought alot about universal basic income lately, and how it would save me from worrying about the day I no longer have my family to fall back on. It would allow people to pursue things worth pursuing instead of filling positions better suited to machines or that have no reason to exist except corporate structure. Sure there are some jobs that need doing, but alot of jobs only exist to keep people in their place.
Mate, it's like you pulled out a file in my mind. Exactly my case.
God! I relate to this so much. It may not be ADHD though. It could also be depression. There is some crossover between the 2. In any case. Take care of yourself when possible
real so real so real so real
Just chiming in with my own personal experiences here but that sounds like it could be ADHD and Depression, I relate a lot to the things you say. Though I'm not a professional and this is only anecdotal.
I think a lot about the current landscape of employment and the public resources for that, even with the help of job seeking support I can't trust myself to stay on top what's required of me and finding positions, actively job seeking is a hard task to remember to do and keep on top of. Eventually I end up burnt out or dissociating from my own failings. It makes it hard to pick myself back up because of the guilt and anxiety surrounding it, and even when I do have the a day with a positive mindset or motivation, capitalising on that becomes a difficult task.
UBI would really help me pick up the pieces and get my life into a position where I could be more functional.
My previous job fired me because I had a tendency to show up to work and clock in a few (1-4) minutes late. I never understood why they always put up a big fuss considering I would also be given overtime every week cause I finished the work day when I was done, not when the clock said so. Some people/companies want so much control it’s scary. The place wasn’t even a corporate environment but treated itself as one, demanding me to do things even on my time off. I didn’t get a Christmas break last year (like I did all previous ones) because so much time was spent on useless management crap the whole company was behind. I just want to be treated as a human again
getting diagnosed in ukraine by a private clinic (you're pretty much fucked if you weren't diagnosed in childhood because our government doesn't recognize adult adhd) a year ago literally turned my world upside down because i ripped of that fancy facade carefully crafted by my parents and me and revealed pulsating, repulsive lumps of flesh, well it felt like that, required a lot of crying to really come to terms with this thing that seemingly ruined my college experience, it's really ironic that government assumes that every parent is perfect and take their kid to a doctor whenever they see the signs, mine just said that all kids are hyperactive these days, still recovering from a lot of internalized stigma about both adhd and stimulant medication (insanely hard to get here), doing a bit better but i kinda realize that it's probably gonna be rough forever.
I realized the same thing... I'm so fucked, hope you can get though life okay at least😅
I resonate so much with ‘repulsive lump of flesh’. That feeling when you want to crawl out of you body ;-;
The hardest thing is that people asking you , well aren't you taking your meds when you've already explained that something in the system makes it harder for you to get to the equal ground with other people. My meds won't provide a solution I need accommodations to comply with the capitalist society who makes me believe that something's inherently wrong with me just because I am not efficient enough for them
What accomodations would you need from a job?
Yep, medication is not a cure. Ideally you don't experience any side effects and it helps you regulate your attention, it should be like putting on glasses. Even then, it does not help you with time blindness, short term memory issues etc...
I am lucky Concerta works as well as it does for me as I experience no side effects, have taken them for years and often take a break from them without any withdrawals.
Plenty of people can't take any of the different ADHD medications because the side effects are too severe. Varies from painful migraines, anxiety and rebounds to pretty much being drugged down to a husk. All valid reasons to quit taking the meds.
@@Ozzianman yeah I am taking concerta too and it helps but it doesn't solve everything
@@rakino4418 I am a student and I need exams that actually test what I've learned, I need accommodations such as quiet exam environment, being able to use my earplugs, exam place with minimum distractions, extra time because no matter how hard I try I would be left behind in a classic test system due to my inattentiveness. Take home exams, homeworks, essay, short-essay, experiment design questions, practical exams for laboratory work, lab reports, these are things that works for me as an adhder biology major.
I feel you man the judgement from society is insane...Unfortunately a lot of people don't think that this is a serious problem. They assume laziness and carelessness. Even when we try our best it's never really enough. We are always on high alert for criticism. Living with ADHD feels like someone playing a really cruel prank on you.
self-dx ADHDer here! Your comment about how art feels dull and meaningless under capitalism really hits for me, as an aspiring author. Working on my novel and reading all these articles of writing/publishing advice and seeing stuff like "You HAVE to pick a genre UP FRONT and WRITE FOR YOUR GENRE" and "The best authors can put out 4 books a year! here's how to fast draft your novel" and "WRITE 1000 WORDS EVERY DAY OR YOU'RE NOT A REAL WRITER" it's kind of exhausting? Not to mention all the shenanniganry of writing a blurb or a synopsis and how you need to basically sell your book to an agent before you can sell it to other people, unless, of course, you want to strike out on your own.
Writing is not what I'm intending to do as a career. It's more of a hobby for me. I'd like to actually recieve compensation for my labour, because it is hundreds and hundreds of hours of labour to write a book, but I don't know. I might self-publish with a pay-what-you-can model. And if that's zero dollars then that's zero dollars. But it's very difficult to walk my own path when all of the resources out there are so laser-focused on making writing _profitable._
helpppp i didnt mean for that to link 💀 (ps ffnet is fanfictionnet)
oh my other msg didnt go through but what it was saying was basically post on the internet if u wanna have a small audience for ur work :D
@@fragrantflorence hello! yeah it's weird i can see that there are 2 replies but its only showing this one. I don't really understand what you mean? Post my work on the internet, or like, post _about_ my work/use social media as marketing..?
I love to write too; i been doing it half of my life. And i like to do it for me, when the Muse really comes to me. Wish luck and yeah, those guys are idiots, art shouldn't be a commodity. Greatings from Mexico c:
Work gets in the way of my writing hobby. It exhausts my motivation to do anything other than play video games.
As someone with deep, crippling adhd, I had a hard time coming to this understanding, and it was so difficult for me, and I appreciate this a lot. I feel liberated. I feel so intellectually and emotionally liberated by this video.
What you said near the end really really meant a lot since I have to tell myself that “this world isn’t made for me and it’s not my fault” but it’s so good to hear someone valid the reality and reality isn’t easy. Thank you for this video because I feel seen
I try to tell myself the same thing, but at least for me, since it doesn't change anything even if it's true, I just end up depressed anyways. I genuinely hope that it does help you though!
I have bit of an issue with this essay. I completely agree with the thesis and a lot of the points laid out, epically thoughts about being critical of medical academics speaking in absolutes over inconclusive studies. Though as someone has done a lot of their own research when it comes to adhd I feel as though this essay is unintentionally dismissive of a reality; some people have the capacity to work harder. We have found that the capacity to do a thing is directly linked to dopamine, there are other processes that are involved but this is a major player and studies find that when you increase an adhders dopamine they have a larger capacity to work. This being for any kind of work, even things you enjoy working, even at a comfortable pace. Some people simply cannot do whatever it is they want, must, or need to do. This is an important aspect of adhd and I feel this must be respected when talking about adhd, and in talking about the social setting surrounding a kind of neurodivergence it's important to realize there are real differences between neurotypical and neurodivergent brains. Yes every aspect of science should be questioned but at some point you have to take the blocks we have and build an understanding or else we stand around asking questions all day instead of coming up with answers. The current answers are ignoring what you outlined in the video. Though they still conclude that some people have less dopamine, for whatever reason, and that if you give them dopamine they are happier healthier humans. For me that is all I need to understand. I also feel when discussing the legitimacy of a condition you should be wary of undermining the efficacy and importance of treatment. Since in questioning the authorities you question the whole concept; from diagnosis to treatment, making it epically important to pick out the things that work when evolving our understandings.
Thank you, I'm glad I'm not alone in my complicated feelings about this vid.
Psychedelics are just an exceptional mental health breakthrough. It's quite fascinating how effective they are against depression and anxiety. Saved my life.
Can you help with the reliable source I would really appreciate it. Many people talk about mushrooms and psychedelics but nobody talks about where to get them. Very hard to get a reliable source here in Australia. Really need!
Yes, dr.sporesss. I have the same experience with anxiety, depression, PTSD and addiction and Mushrooms definitely made a huge huge difference to why am clean today.
I wish they were readily available in my place.
Microdosing was my next plan of care for my husband. He is 59 & has so many mental health issues plus probable CTE & a TBI that left him in a coma 8 days. It's too late now I had to get a TPO as he's 6'6 300+ pound homicidal maniac.
He's constantly talking about killing someone.
He's violent. Anyone reading this Familiar w/ BPD know if it is common for an obsession with violence.
Is he on instagram?
Yes he is. dr.sporesss
Enjoyed this video, its great to see more content about adhd from a social perspective, it doesn't get talked about a lot. For example, people with adhd are incarcerated at a rate about ten times higher than the average population! And if you look at a list of ways to tell if someones lying, it basically matches up perfectly with a list of autism and adhd symptoms (Not holding eye contact, not being able to sit still, etc)
holy fuck
Wow, you're right... neurodivergent people could be suspected more because of how they behave. I never thought of this aspect. Although now that I say that it seems obvious...
This comment! The criminal justice system enforces an idea that it's illegal to look neurodivergent (in the same ways they basic try to make it illegal to look black ("intimidating"🙄). And there is not enough proof that you can even read body language that way.
i can already tell this video is going to be so validating for me. i'm in highschool right now and i can't do anything. i'm so scared for when i grow up and have to support myself because i know i'm barely going to be able to
i remember when I was in highschool the youtube channel 'how to adhd' s videos really helped me feel less alone and create strategies for the everyday difficulties. I also got diagnosed officially in high school, and the diagnosis let me make a 504 plan with my school that let me get extra time on tests. If you can do this now it will be a big help and you can customize it to help you in a variety of ways. If you end up going to college the plan will transfer and you can continue to use it in your classes. I'm also medicated now which is SUCH an immense help as well, but not accessible to everyone. Ultimately, as a once-highschooler who couldn't do anything, i am now about to graduate college and build a life for myself. There was lots of cheating the system along the way because the system was not designed for me. But you don't have to follow the system. If you have adhd you probably have some big ideas, some things you're passionate about or bring you joy or don't feel like a chore like everything else does. Harness the power in those. Let yourself appreciate the good parts of adhd. the curiosity, the the capacity to create, the ability to care very much about the things that excite you and the ability to think deeply about the things that matter most to you. put that foot forward. you will meet people and opportunities that embrace these parts of you. and if you dont, you have my permission to exploit the system in any (not too unethical) way that lets you succeed, because you deserve to succeed just like everyone who has different tools then you.
Okay, usually I enjoy ur content, but im gonna go against the grain on this. I have adhd, have only been diagnosed for some 2 years, and have struggled with it all my life without knowing. And while time may be a social construct, having passions and skills you wanna achieve isn't. College and adulting is hard, but ive been able to keep up with them on some level by falling on my supports, using medication, and following the outlines my work gives me. Things I want to be good at and need to invest more in, like writing, instrument playing, and language learning, are all things I need to do independently and is where my real struggles are. They don't give noticeable results, so I lose interest in them. What I ended up doing in that time instead is binging a show or playing games. It's not time on work that adhd fucks me up, it's time on the things I care about.
And while you may be right in pointing out this problematic line of thinking Russell barkley used in that point of thinking, pointing him out as the defender of empirialism and the defender of his views to his dying breath is incredibly problematic (this isn't going to me defending him as a person, but what you used him for). I'm in the psychology field, and while he needs to be more honest about what adhd actually is in his talks, he is still a huge advocate of those for adhd and has convinced many people who are ableist of our need for assistance. And while I do find the things you pointed out true to be condescending, the real threat is that of people who deny that adhd is even real, and we just need to work harder, something that barkley has indeed defended against.
You're right that I matter and that I need to advocate for myself against capitalism, but that doesn't change the problem that I struggle following my passions, sometimes say and do inappropriate things on impulse. These are real problems, and medication and therapy help me handle these. That prehistoric farm example wasn't just adhd people, but neurotypicals. I'd probably die if I was head of that farm because it'd only be 2 hr days. And while capitalism may not understand or accommodate my type of brain, that doesn't change that this is the system I live in and need to adapt to.
So please, next time you use a group of people as an example, please try to consider the needs of the groups of peoples actual needs rather than as a stepping point to a grander thing, like how imperialism/capitalism organizes wrong.
i'm a little chilean guy living at the south of the world that just happen to know a bit of english, I watched this video while working a few hours ago and then had dinner with my mom, an art teacher in her 40s, we both think we have ADHD, we're starting to accept it on the last years, and I mentioned this video to her while we were eating and had a long talk about it, it made so much sense to her and it made her feel so understood, about all the pressure she feels at work, what's expected of her, what's impossed on us, she thanked me for bringing this talk up and ended up really happy and I want to thank you elliot, it was a really reassuring video full of things that i never ever considered! you make great content, thanks a lot for sharing it and for making us give a second thought to all the things we think we know, big fan of you !!!!!!!!!!!!
I have time agnosia and have been called lazy or accused of not caring or being disrespectful because of it my whole life. Ironically, when I try my darnest to be on time or do things on time, that's when I fail most because I get destroyed by stress. People have given me so much bad advice over the years, it was suffocating. The only way I can plan my day is by writing down what has to be done, maybe establishing some sort of priority but I should never write time. Planning my day using specific times is the most crippling nonsense.
NEVER pay the $40 to access a research paper. Researchers don't get any of that money, it all goes to the publisher. All studies list a "corresponding author," if you email them saying you're interested in the research they will send you the PDF for free.
I really enjoyed this video. A long time ago I realised the standard clock time keeping was arbitrary and an imposition. I was always at war with a schedule I could never keep up with. It was making me feel miserable and a failure. So I stopped using clocks altogether unless really necessary, and switched the rhythm of the day to how I felt when to do things. Like it's hungry o' clock, sleepy o'clock, relax o'clock...
I have been diagnosed with adhd, and I was really excited to see what this video would cover, but honestly I was pretty disappointed. I know other people have already commented on how the discussion of Dr. Barkley’s work doesn’t really give much credit for the wide range of other lectures he has produced, but I was also surprised by the video topic generally. I would have thought that there would have been more attention paid to the fact that work environments and school systems are extremely hostile to the needs of people with ADHD, but instead it was devoted entirely to a symptom I haven’t personally heard much discussion of before in either direction. I generally love this channel, but this video felt like a huge missed opportunity.
Clarification*
When I said work and school environments are hostile, I meant more in the sense that people are not given access to adaptive work environments & are expected to just magically sit still and focus for 8 hours at a time
watching this while i’m procrastinating on my final projects 😮💨
Not me watching this on break from my worthless busywork job for a button-pushing company where I battle google sheets all day. Barely able to pay attention to the vid, cause I'm constantly anxious I'll log back in too late and have to listen to a lecture from people who care just as much as I do, if not less. What a meaningful existence I surely should be grateful for :,)
This hurts. I’m 60 and imagine having NO WORDS for the way your life is so different from other people’s! I’m amazed that we can talk about this. Thank you, young geniuses. ❤
Actually, the best thing I've done for my adhd is just let it be. Work with it. I decided I'm not broken, i don't need fixing, this is just how i operate. It's not easy but I'm not gonna rework who i am to make a society someone else created comfortable. So yeah I'll be late occasionally, I'll wait until the last minute to get certain tasks done, I'll forget what I'm meant to be doing. But life keeps going, I'm okay 🥰
I think this is a bit of a simplification of Dr. Barkley's views. I can agree that he's maybe over emphasizing time, especially as the root cause rather than a consequence of other things. But it's funny, I wonder if that's an older video? because usually what I see him talking about are the executive function issues. he talks a lot more about emotional control, tasks initiation, impulse control, etc.. Besides, it always seemed to be through lense of getting people to understand the frustrations of ADHD and how they think differently, not that ADHD sucks cause they can't be productive under capitalism. I think it's pretty harsh to compare that to things like phrenology.
I love my ADHD, the random thoughts, the bursts of energy and creativity. There's so much that I appreciate about my experience with it, the more I learned what it was the more I understood myself. Having ADHD in itself wasn't the issue. After learning how I am I had the heavy realization that I live in a world that was not built for me or people like me.
The stiff schedules at work, the long hours, the constant stream of things that I need to do and keep track of felt overwhelming - no matter how many check/to-do list I had, to keep track of things.
I feel suffocated, constantly running /or atleast my brain/ at top speed, every day it feels like my brain is collapsing in on itself.
I couldn't understand how people could put up so easily with the hours forced on us by our bosses, although I understand some dont have a choice. It feels like the metaphorical skin is getting stripped off my body everyday that I have to spend trading my living hours for the right to live under the threat of homelessness.
I see so much potential in people, we could spend our lives pursuing interests and bettering ourselves and our communities, but instead we are forced to labour to enrich the ones holding our leashes.
As an adult who has struggled with ADHD for nearly 30 years now, this video has made me feel so seen, and understood. Thank you so much for making this video. My entire childhood and young adult life, I was made to feel stupid and incompetent because I'm disorganized and forgetful, and all of the adults around me were more than ready to criticize instead of teach me to be better. But now as an adult, I see their version of what "better" would be is just someone who takes orders like a machine, like we exist to serve. Ironically, my refusal to fit that mold is what has allowed me to become independent, start my own business, and live the life I want.
It’s funny how everyone in society hates people that complain or are too real yet those very same people complain. They are blind to their own hypocrisy. I like your videos because instead of blindly complaining or joking about deeply rooted problems, you discuss the philosophy and psychology of many serious topics and how we can objectively better our experiences in life. I hope to show that people want to be negative in their own way and not actually fix their problems.
This brought me to tears. I honestly struggle so much with making friends, maintaining friends in the same way that I do with trying to find some kind of employment that engages me. Both of these struggles make my life a lonely, depressed one. I use spirituality to try to enforce to myself that I'm never alone, but damn. It's rough.
I get about 30 minutes of therapy per month. Not enough time to help me get through ANYTHING. My therapist isn't very insightful or helpful, it's like she repeats back my own realizations in slightly different words.
If anyone knows how to make friends, even if it's just online.. let me know. I'd love to hear anyone else's experiences with friendships.
I'm ADHD and friendships is the thing in my life I've never struggled with. Personally, whenever I'm in a new environment, like uni or jobs, I try to make one friend. Some of them stay after I leave the environment, most of them are also neurodivergent.
If you don’t feel like anything is happening in therapy, it’s probably time to find a new therapist. The first therapist I went to helped me to overcome some social anxiety, but he had no clue how to deal with ADHD so we didn’t do anything helpful for at least six months. I felt like I was stuck with him because the clinic made it seem that way, but if I’d known it was normal to try different therapists, I could have just found someone else.
I just want you to know that trying to find a therapist who you can actually connect with is important.
throughout all of elementary, middle school, and about half of high school. I was genuinely abused by the system and almost every single teacher i had.
My IEP was ignored, i was called out infront of entire classes, screamed at, laughed at, people would look at my handwriting and just laugh and make fun of me. I was told i would “never be able to function in a workplace” because of my ADHD and there were talks of me being on disability for the rest of my life. That was my life until about 8th grade when i tested into our states college credit program, and suddenly i was a genius. I also took a Berkeley College of Music class that year on Jazz improvisation and Horn Arrangement.
Today i’m a professional musician, I play in pit orchestras for musicals, i write music and record for artist from Hawaii to New York, I compose music for video games and all sorts of other stuff, I teach Saxophone lessons, im the director my schools jazz band and show choir combo, and this year i’m about to head to college for my jazz studies degree, all at age 18 in my gap year
My ADHD friends, society hates the shit out of you because your potential is limitless, I said fuck society and i still managed to outpace all of those who told me id “never be able to work in a normal workplace”. Thats the worst way to think about life in general. So go out and prove all of them wrong
I remember someone saying “the world is disordered, not us” and it definitely feels more and more accurate. The deeper I dig into why i feel certain ways about time and how I use it or how I feel like I’m useless just because i’m ’inefficient’ is just not healthy.
im diagnosed with adhd and OCD and I can tell time almost to the minute. On average, I do lose track of time with what I'm doing. Although, in retrospective, I am very good at estimating how long each action or task is going to take. I attribute this to my OCD and how good i've become at compartmentalizing tasks and concepts. For example, I can get around town extremely easily. I can remember a place I've visited only once like 5 years apart. Some people get amazed and, to me, it just feels normal.
Currently diagnosed and medicated for adhd. I am currentky procrastinating. When you mentioned time, i checked the time and 4 hours has gone by. I dont know how or when or why. It feels like its been 3 minutes. I dont know whats happening. Its so hard doing this man.
A lot of other people have already explained that dr barkley was taken out of context there, and how beneficial he is, but even the clip shown describes my experience pretty naturally lol. Like yes, there is basically now and there is not now, and i personally enjoy humorous descriptions of adhd
I had the priviledge of being able to take a month awaay from life in a winter cabin. And I was allowed to just totally focus on my own health, routines, schedules, motivations. I felt like I was healed or cured in ways. Like I had full control of my mind and tasking and mental clarity where I felt love and happiness again. Then when I came back home to my life, slowly but surely I couldn't sleep or stay on task anymore and have been struggling since.
I really appreciate how Elliot makes use of the community tab. He’s far more in touch with what his subscribers wanna hear that some bread tubers, and it makes this channel really feel like an ongoing, dynamic conversation rather than just a dude talking at you.
I appreciate taking the politics of time and applying it to ADHD. However, I think the conclusion you came to has some problems. I understand the urge to say that nothing is wrong with people who have ADHD, since the opposite has been repeatedly shoved in our faces, but I think that's a dangerous precedent to set. The fact is, there is something wrong.
ADHD isn't always just a personality trait or a different neurotype. For a lot of folks, its a serious health condition. Its generally caused by genetics, but can also be caused by early brain damage or things like fetal alcohol syndrome. Its literally caused by an underdeveloped portion of the brain. This underdevelopment has some serious consequences.
People with untreated adhd (treatment does not just mean stimulant medication, but includes all kind of treatments like therapy, exercise, etc.) have a massive risk of developing depression, a significantly shorter life expectancy, and their chance of early death is doubled compared to neurotypical people. Not to mention a massive risk of addiction. Some of this is, at least in part, because of how adhd brains interact with our industrial, capitalist society and how we construct time, true, but that is only part of it.
Because we have a tendency to only pay attention to matters that are urgent, we are worse at maintenance. Its harder for us to maintain our minds, bodies, homes and relationships. Being unable to maintain these aspects of our lives has all kinds of consequences that lower our quality of life and gradually, or quickly, erode our health.
Because of our tendency to live in the moment, we tend to engage in risker behaviors, which regularly results in injury, death, addiction, disease, and social isolation.
You're absolutely right to criticize Barkley from a political/philosophical angle. He's a conservative libertarian and the way he communicates information reflects that. But the fact is, he is an expert on ADHD. He will and has criticized other conservative commentators when they spread misinformation about ADHD. Obviously he's not beyond reproach, but he has a deep understanding on how this condition works from a scientific perspective. His information is generally correct, just painted by his personal biases. That's how it works with every scientist and every communicator.
And one last thing, I think its a bit irresponsible to disregard the structure of our society and how folks with adhd struggle with it because its wrong. It *is* wrong, and I hate it. I want to be clear on that, but we don't have a choice in whether or not we live in it. We basically have no choice but to adapt to our environment, no matter how shitty it is.. We can and should work to change it, but that takes time. For a lot of us, if we don't actively manage our condition with whatever treatment or philosophy that works for us, we suffer in many different ways.
Thank you.
I don't think you can dismiss the interest in time entirely. Western modes of production and fascination with productivity even in personal time are damaging. BUT it's genuinely unpleasant to really want to do particular things with the part of the day that is left to you by the pressures of production, and find yourself pulled away from those desired activities into things you don't actually value because you can't find the focus.
I was diagnosed in 2000 when I was 15 but thanks to ig & tik tok I didnt really even learn soooo much about it until recently. Ppl saying it’s over diagnosed now that is not a new sentiment ppl said that back when too. It feels like the most gaslit diagnosis and I have fibromyalgia something that wasn’t even universally recognized as ‘real’ back when I was diagnosed in the mid 2000s lol
I was recently diagnosed with ADHD a few weeks ago. I’ve always liked living in the moment and I feel that’s the best thing. You’re living now, and enjoying the now is the most satisfying thing. But when I’m doing something I hate, it’s that much more torturous which is one of the reasons why there such thing as ADHD burnout. I hate feeling like the time for things I like to do is so restricted and it’s an endless cycle of doing something you hate for most of the day (school/work) going home to finish your homework/work which takes another several hours and going to bed at a time that I don’t even get tired, get like 5 hours of sleep and just to wake up exhausted and do it all again. I’ve always felt that I’m not able or allowed to enjoy my time and everyone’s putting pressure on me to think about the future that’s not even guaranteed. Like, what if I die tomorrow? I spent most of my time alive working and “preparing” for a future that never came.
I really appreciate the little talk at the end validating those who feel so different, I felt so confused for so long especially right out of highschool. I was bullied really hard for years by my old coworkers for all the symptoms I’m now learning are from my adhd. I was diagnosed when I was 8 and was taking adderal until I was about 15 and am now 24 still unmedicated and have been really considering gettin medicated again
As Engels detailed, one of the biggest factors of capitalist society that contributes to mental illness, and is central to the wider misery of many, is labor.
All of us need to work in order to support ourselves, that's just life. However, the issue is that a lot of the jobs available today aren't meaningful. A farmer grows food to feed themself and their family. Builders builds structures that have a function. Nurses heal the sick. A data analyst does... what exactly? A lot of jobs out there are just cogs in some great machine. What is the purpose of this machine, who knows? There's a lot of jobs that have this disconnect between the labor and the fruits of this labor.
Labor isn't the problem, labor exists anywhere because people do things lol but the problem is the labor expectations and how labor is viewed.
People are expected to work over 40 hours a week to barely afford housing, food, etc. People are also expected to do labor in school and internships and pay for it, which would require them to work as well. People are expected to be content with barely being able to pay for anything.
People are expected to be content with their labor being heartless, time consuming, replaceable, and have little to no benefits.
That's a terrible way to view labor in society and under capitalism where the wealth gap will always get larger and larger, it makes all paid labor even more meaningless, because more and more money is going to an ever-shrinking group of rich people.
Labor should be important, valued, and laborers should have a huge say in their pay and benefits. I can argue about the fact you have to pay for basic necessities when you live in an extremely rich country later lmao but the point is paid labor under capitalism will probably always become pointless as the wealth gap increases.
We can't get rid of labor and we most likely can't get rid of money, but we can make it so that laborers have a say in their work and companies aren't allowed to do inhumane stuff to workers without punishment. And of course, working for yourself and your community will always be more meaningful and worthwhile than working for some big company that sees you as a number, so that's a whole other thing lol
@@Skylerdouglas731 jobs like that are unfortunately required to have such an advanced society as we have. Even in neolithic settlements there were professions that seem meaningless, like the data analyst you mentioned, so we'd have to basically revert to the level of paleolithic hunter-gatherers if we wanted all our jobs to be meaningful
@@pablobro5944I guess it depends on what you mean by meaningful. Data analysts, for example. They go through a blob of raw data to pull out and format that data for someone else to use. I miss those parts of my past jobs. Taking numbers and putting them in context so they become useful.
@pablobro5944 that's a very fair point but we could just, automate those jobs, if ai can play chess better than anyone and make "art" it can do accounting, of course this is assuming a system where everyone can live well at base which is surprisingly controversial
Literally all my life as far back as I can remember I've had a hatred for clocks and the way they dominate how and what I do and upon seeing this video I feel a sense of validation I've never experienced, especially surrounding the anti-clock sentiment. I thank you for that
yeah, those clocks always make you feel like you are under someone's control and can't live your life freely!
While this is largely accurate, how do you account for the other behaviors exhibited by ADHD people? For example, only my friends with ADHD do this thing where they completely zone out in the middle of a 1:1 conversation. Not even long ones either, they just suddenly stop listening and their brain completely shifts focus.
just get lil mini mindwipes throughout the day. will forget what i was just thinking about. I t does help with getting over a bad mood tho
@@banquetoftheleviathan1404 I’ve never heard it explained that way, but that actually sounds more like epilepsy. Regardless-there seem to be some real issues that aren’t socially constructed that exist among ADHD patients
@banquetoftheleviathan1404 People with ADHD struggle with working memory.
There is a real thing behind adhd, it's just not necessarily portrayed accurately in pop science.
Pop science simplifies things in order to raise awareness in the general public, and frankly, not that much is even known about what adhd is and what causes it, among the scientists.
@@raapyna8544 Fair enough!
Elliot has such a dedicated following. 120K subs and 60,000 views only 2 days after it was put out. I must not be the only one who enjoys his long form video essays. Keep up the thoughtful work.
I have had the honor to be present at a longhouse religious ceremony of the haudenosaunee and learned that the days in that culture start at night. It never really occurred to me that something as simple as that can completely change how a culture functions. That and attending a larger powwows in east and midwest really opened my eyes to how different cultures have roles for people with neurodivergency (and multiple genders) with no judgement or even second thought. I really believe that decolonizing my perspective and how i interact with the others and nature has immensely helped my mental health. Its been a long continuous journey and its full of grief, but I now finally feel for the first time in my life that I am not alone and that we can learn from others and fight for a better future together.
i didn’t know i had ADHD until i was 16-17. it was at the same time my little sibling was being diagnosed. at the time he was 8-9. he showed the “stereotypical” signs of adhd; class clown, talked a lot, couldn’t stay still, etc. i didn’t show those, i was; on time, quiet, a “gifted” kid, etc. but that didn’t change the fact that we both had adhd, just that mine was there but ignored since people thought adhd was one specific type of person and not the spectrum disorder that it is. for years i felt like something was wrong with me since none of my peers understood what i was going through. but once i got that explanation that there wasn’t something wrong with me, i suddenly felt like i was faking it. like i lied during testing (even tho i didn’t fill anything out). it’s seems that other people with disorders have felt that to.
This explains some of my gut reaction I had when trying to explain what I learned about ADHD to my German coworkers. It felt somewhat off, and untrue. I *can* guess how long things will take, but I can't predict my ability to get something done when it's in front of me. I meant to go to a certain store weeks ago. Every Tuesday I say "Tomorrow I have off, and I have lots of time to go to the store. I need to go to the store badly, so I'm going to go"
And I *never* do.
The worst feeling is that I feel I'm constantly standing in my own way. That's not even mentioning the trouble I have being in my own thoughts for any amount of time, and just filling it with videos and videogames..
I feel kind of like a candle, and I burn wildly, and I've tried to dampen the fire to manage it. Now it feels like a smoldering wick, just barely burning. So many little factors play into it. Did I go outside early in the day, have I met a friend? I feel isolated in a little windless box at the edge of town. The commute and work that I have to put in drains all the rest, and I don't know how to restore it in this city, especially with these rents. I don't have hardly any time to see people enough to actually make friends. I can't work part time, and I'm already living in a tiny apartment. Oh how the "minimum" can feel like such a high bar.
I’m indigenous to the Arabic gulf , we do have our own schedule that’s perfect for our climate and lifestyle. We fish , farm and have so many crafts personally my family are jewelers our schedule was
Wake up at 4:00am (before sunrise) get ready for the day and leave for work after sunrise around 5:30
Work till 11:00am or when the sun is very high in the sky, go back home eat pray and rest till 3:00 pm , the you can go back to work or socialize till sunset around 7:00 PM eat pray and go to bed
We have (different)names for every time slot that isn’t used now as much, like al-daha al-oud (big sunrise meaning 12:00PM when the sun is strong and the weather gets hot )
as an AuDHD haver who spent a lot of time reading about astronomy as a kid, I struggle to agree with the idea that time is a social construct - it absolutely exists, and is absolutely real, it's just the way we make use of it as a society is inefficient at accommodating neurodivergent people. (I guess you could say the we "literally constructed our society around it" and that might be what people really mean by that, but the distinction I prefer to draw is whether or not society is _constructed around_ a thing, or whether society _constructs the thing itself,_ and I do find this to be a meaningful distinction to make). Maybe I'm missing the point (if any allistic ADHD peeps can maybe fill in the gaps here that'd be appreciated) or maybe I'm using a different definition of "time" than is meant, but that's just what I think. We could definitely do with better ways to measure it that are useful to everyone, though.
I believe what people usually mean is that the uniform measuring of time, and measurements like seconds or hours are a social construct? But yeah like i get your point, and saying that time is a social construct may be over simplifying it in certain situations
I overcompensate for time blindness by being early to everything because I have such a severe anxiety about being late. I also go into "standby mode" if I have an appointment or something because if I allow myself to do anything else, I will get distracted and risk being late. But that means I don't manage to get anything done other than that one meeting.
I was always taught that employers value workers who are on time, so I would regularly arrive to work at least 5 minutes early, but not clock in, spending the time getting my uniform ready or waiting out in the parking lot before heading in 1 minute before I was supposed to clock in, so I could make it to the time-clock and not be late. I was seriously chewed out by my boss for this, accused of trying to clock in early to "steal" wages I didn't deserve. I was also told that waiting in the parking lot was unacceptable. There is no winning.
my ADHD has me watching your video in small portions. I'm 5 minutes in, and taking my first break. The desire to focus, makes focusing harder sometimes LOL.
@NotVille_ not sure what you're implying here. I was dragging myself, nothing to do with your content? or you? tf?
This video is really good, and I agree immensely with the notion that the way that we construct time and work is rooted in the harm done to us by capitalism and imperialism. However, I have to say that I don't think that the struggles of ADHD come completely from the ways in which our society is broken. I think that if I lived in a post-capital post-imperial utopia, I'd probably still have trouble making friends because my ADHD makes it difficult to stay in communication with people who aren't physically near me, and I'd still be afraid to do whatever intimidating tasks are laid before me even if my performance in school or livelihood aren't dependent on it.
And I just have to say that I don't feel comfortable with the comparison about Dr. Barkley's description of ADHD with that old missionary's opinions, and frankly I think it's pretty messed up to compare him so closely with racist phrenologists. I'll admit that I'm biased because the way that because the way that he put it didn't make me feel repulsed but very _seen._ I don't know much about Dr. Barkely so I could be wrong, but I generally feel like he doesn't see people with ADHD the same way the same way those imperialists saw indigenous people. No one is above criticism, of course, and I think someone as influential as him should be scrutinized even more, but that comparison seemed pretty uncalled for.
I'm sorry if that got a bit defensive, but I really really really like science, and it bothers me how often leftists online only seem to talk about it in terms of its racist and imperialist and sexist history. Thank you very much for emphasizing that we shouldn't be dismissive of it but that we should be critical.
Also, I know that _they_ might want us to think there's something wrong with us, but who is "they"? Are they the CEOs of pharmacutical companies, or are they people like psychologists and therapists and coaches? Because if that is who "they" are, than I flat-out disagree.
And it is funny because so many coworkers and I discuss “time” as a construct. We always joke how it is made up, that *someone* is speeding up and slowing down the clocks depending on the day/season, and how weird it is when it feels like it is definitely noon, but it is 3 pm, and vice versa.
Yeah it’s funny, on one hand, time is absolute in that it can be precisely measured and recorded, but on the other hand, the _meaning_ of the hours are all up to us.
Who says I have to start being productive at 9 and stop at 5 every day, 6 days a week? Who says I shouldn’t be eating lasagna by dawn and scrambled eggs by dusk?
I dont understand with what dr Russel Barkley said though,it was very validating to me and his recent content about time blindness has helped me so much.
yes. now what to we do about it? how do we live lives that make us happy while still being able to support ourselves under this oppressive system? that's what i'm struggling with. i don't know where to start or what to do to change things. it feels like an impossibly big task (in part because it is). we all need to get together and figure some shit out lmao. i can't be living like this for my whole life.
This made me realize even more just how abstract time/temporal existence is.
Time is one of the only things that is not abstract, though. It is a basic tenant of the laws of physics and things, like the second law of thermodynamics would not exist, if time were not an objective thing that existed.
The way in which we measure in categorize time are socially influenced, but time itself exists whether we build a culture around it or not.
Absolutely amazing and on point. These hegemonic ideas give me the ick, and I'm always trying to defy them.
Wanna add to the conversation of complexity. I've been analyzing a lot about how people don't have the capacity to understand the complexity of situations, and yes, every situation is complex. For example, when you say everyone should have access to health care, is an outcome idea, because the situation itself, on how to do that, will always demand a loooot of thought and reflection.
Then you also know in most cases the hegemon prevails where the individual is swept a way like a speck of dust.
This is an important perspective. What I would add is that ADHD also makes it hard for people to pursue their intetests/passions, even if they have no external pressure on them. Also many ADHDers actually LIKE said pressure, because it helps them to make their goals more "real". Many times I was able to finish something I WANTED to finish only because I impossed a deadline on myself. Nevertheless, I never felt like my way of being is "unnatural", but definitely felt that about capitalist culture (and I have MA in culture).
I'm avoiding work by watching this more interesting video. 😊
wow! you nailed it. like, this is a life-changing, paradigm-shattering essay, and i intend to do my part to spread it to the therapeutic community that desperately needs to absorb and integrate the views and language you put out here. really great work, man.
As a man who's been clinically diagnosed with ADHD and had to deal with it being undiagnosed until I was 16, I'll provide my own experience as it seems that's what we're doing. When I was in elementary school, I was assigned to do a certain amount of pages in my grammar book a day. However, I wasn't doing that and when my teacher asked why, I told her that I didn't know. She pressed me for an answer and I eventually broke down in tears, not knowing what to say other than I didn't know. I truly didn't understand why I couldn't sit down and study like my brother or the rest of my peers. I had the hardest time focusing on anything and it was a massive pain.
When I was diagnosed in high school, a lot of puzzle pieces which were missing fell into place and gave me an answer to that question. But there was still school to do, work to be completed and due dates to meet. It wasn't a lot, but it gave me a clear answer on why I was having such a hard time. However, I still struggled. I had exactly what Dr. Barkley described as "time blindness", I would end up taking a break for an hour rather than 20 minutes. I would study for 3 hours rather than 1 hour. It's a real thing and I don't understand why it's an issue in any way.
I'm in my 2nd year of college now and have gotten time management down pretty well. This is because expectations and deadlines have allowed me to be able to organize myself. I've worked on functioning with time, I've managed how to solidify habits. It's made my life a lot better to be held to the same standard as everyone else, doing things and being expected to hold a certain level of quality, quantity or whatnot. I've found a passion in History and Computer Science which I'm able to explore in depth.
Changing time doesn't do anything. We need time in order to be able to function as a society, especially with how much relies on the precision of time for measurement. So I don't think that's going to be able to change anything. There is nothing wrong with becoming a regular person in a world which needs regular people in order to do regular tasks. Everyone has to pitch in, with their own way.
Probably the most personally relatable video essay that I saw on RUclips. My life with ADHD is made worse by the fact that due to absurd anti-drug policies in my country all stimulant medications (Methylphenidate/Ritalin, Adderall etc.) for ADHD are totally prohibited and the only available medication is Atomoxetine (which efficiency is limited in my case and has unwanted side effects).
thank you for an outstanding video Elliot, Elle, and Danae. as a system with adhd struggling to organize ourselves within capitalist time structures, your points were super validating! we should listen to our intuition. go with our flow because our mind and body know what we need if we listen. we think by doing so, and if more neurodivergent folks do, not only is it powerful rebellion-it's taking care of ourselves and we can care for each other better when our own needs our met. /gen /pos
you're definitely right, but there also needs to be something that gives for this to be possible on a larger scale. it's the same case here, and has been an ongoing struggle to just try to get on disability pay to get by, stuck relying on others. -not prone to using plural pronouns in self-reference in yt comments, but it's relevant,- we've lost the deadline twice in a row now just to get the papers in because of the exact thing we're trying to send it in for, and I can almost guarantee that without finding a way to get more things diagnosed, it's going to be rejected anyways. people do need to listen more to their own internal sense of time for more wellbeing, but society has all the screws turned so tightly that it's nearly impossible to do that
I just found your channel and I'm binge-watching everything. All I can say is keep up the great work
As an ADHDer who is working on a shitty work where I'm constantly critizied for my "Time management" (even when I'm the only one who plan her day with to-do list, pomodoros and things like that here), thanks for this video. Sometimes the problem it's more the inmediatism expected in the laboral work + my own dificulty on priorise activities, not that I'm "oNly In tHe prEsenT".
I got diagnosed with ADD this year at 26. I was adamant about getting the diagnosis. Psychiatrist told me it’s hard to diagnose adults. I honestly thought it’d take lots of convincing but she was pretty quick to agree with me on all my points 💀 I’ve always had this feeling in my bones that none of this is real… although this topic might be morbid to some this is actually right up my alley. I love this shit 😂
I'm Severely ADHD, the one trait that always makes my doctors question that is a borderline hyper perception of time. So as I watched the video I realized one of my hyperfixations is time. My tics like tapping my finger to my palm happen at a regimented interval, everything I do is subconsciously timed. My problem is generally memory. Outside of the moment I am aware of what I need to do. In the moment there is only the moment. It's frustrating because I'll plan to talk to loved ones then the moment will come and I'll be drowning in a hyperfixation that out side of the moment isn't what I want, but in the moment it is all I care about, and usually I just brush myself off and prepare for the next failure, I feel like I'm in a Neverending battle to fail upwards and that I will never be able to maintain a meaningful relationship for more than a few months at a time. I am however always aware of the time, and I hate it.
That stone age time is how I conduct myself when I have no external schedule and I always thought I was broken for it. Holy shit.
Edit: also I always thought that neurodivergent people were closer to how humans were naturally wired to be for some reason, or as you put it, having a harder time stopping themselves from being natural. (I'm neurodivergent myself so I'm not trying to put a group I don't know on a pedestal or something)
As someone that has suffered under the social weight of my ADHD for nearly 50 years, this is the most refreshing take I have seen to date on the topic of ADHD. I have had similar thoughts and felt sad when I see people I know in the ADHD community swapping the latest "hack" as they desperately cling to the job that is sucking them dry. We joke around about time being a construct yet I've seen so many of my fellow community members use it as a club to beat themselves down and not because they feel they deserve it, but because someone, a long time ago that was tasked with caring and nurturing them, showed them how to do it.
The experiencing time slowly part is so real. I can only handle work for about five hours a day at most, any more than that and my mental health takes a nosedive. I also have level one autism.
Idk man sometimes adhd is so severe that a person will struggle to eat regularly or do basic self care tasks and even *desired* tasks. Even without capitalism that is still very disabling and prevents from a fullfilling life of doing things you want to do. Not everyone can function through with adhd even if capitism does make it much worse. It is still very much a disability, specially on the severe end.
Well said, I feel the same way. Capitalism 100% makes life way harder, but I don't think it's right to say that it's the *only* reason people with ADHD struggle.
The analysis by Jess is quite wrong though. Just read the said part in the papers for a minute and it's easy to understand that distinctions are made by the authors, and that it actually support time blindness and even give more informations about what it really is.
Furthermore, diagnosis aren't made just to look down on people (english isn't my native language and I don't know how to better convey my thoughts here, sorry). They are there to describe an alteration in the functioning of the brain, which leads to an impairment for individuals. This is descriptive for research, and prescriptive when it comes to therapy. When we talk about ADHD we are actually describing functions in the brain that go below the expected standards in certain areas. Those standards are objectionable and subject to questioning of course, but it doesn't make sense to me to reject any diagnosis because they make someone feel bad about themselves. It's literally just here to describe the phenomenons we're talking about and to get the adequate help when/if needed. That's not becoming worthless, that's actually the opposite. It's getting recognised with our struggles as something valid, and it doesn't ever cast shadow on what we are. It's here to help us. If I have *said pathology*, then it's just a part of my being and it's completely okay. Rejecting it will just hurt more in the end because you might suffer from the consequences of your mental health problems AND of the lack of help you aren't allowing you to get. Love yourself as you are. Imho refusing it is telling more about the person than anything.
Productivity Bros found shaking. My reason for following some of them is mostly for fun because I’m not in STEM.
i knew there were reasons i don't and can't respect the concept of linear time but can never articulate why so thank you
Same