But the med industry will sell you a drug for that.
If you are bored to the point of looking at cat pictures 7h day instead of working for 130k/y at 21, just leave that shithole and go work with a decent team for 80k. It will have a much better outcome for your future.
It depends on the degree. I think the more compelling factors for the OP are that (a) this has been going on for years, (b) he has a very strong feeling that this is holding him back, and (c) his dad is the same way.
It's possible that he's so incredibly smart that he finds many things boring, and that's not ADHD. ADHD tends to lead to a lot of disorganization (across different settings: home, work, school), plus attempts at compensation (self-medication, self-stimulation, etc.)
But just to be clear: This is a random list, it's not meant to be diagnostic. If these resonate with the OP or someone similar then it might be worth learning more about ADHD and talking with a professional. Please don't assume you have ADHD just because these things hold true.
I'm not "incredibly" smart. Top 5% sure, but there are people on here who have accomplished way more than me by my age and are way way smarter than me when it comes to programming.
One of the smartest people I've met online is a kid who is 18 now and built an entire OS, compiler etc all in Javascript just because he could. He routinely builds new languages and compilers for himself just to get better.
I really envy that kind of passion. I know in 10 years he'll probably have invented the next Ruby on Rails etc. But at the same time, I don't necessarily want to be the best programmer. I think I'm more inclined to be the best "product person" which at the end of the day still means programming, just with more of a business aspect.
Nope. Pathologising the normal range of human behavior is a popular activity of neurotic western privileged people. Or whatever the mental illness that's trending at the moment.
Before I went to med school, I was similarly skeptical about the med/pharma industry. But like the global warming debate, once you understand the science, you begin to realize how facile the conspiracy theories are.
Here's the science behind ADHD: Functional MRI allows us to image actual brain activity. And there are clear differences between the brains of those diagnosed with ADHD and those diagnosed without (and yes, they do these studies blind, so researchers can't be biased).
And more recently they have found that stimulants such as methylphenidate (aka Ritalin) and others actually reverse these changes. Here is a recent study, plus a metareview (which compared several such studies):
Of course, we could still have an interesting philosophical discussion about what we label a medical condition and what are variations of normal that nevertheless have a biological basis. Clearly, ADHD is not on par with debilitating psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia or a bipolar manic episode.
But ADHD can cause functional impairment in school, jobs, and personal relationships; it can lead to decreased happiness and satisfaction in life (and not only for the person affected, but also their families, partners, and colleagues); there are clear neurophysiological differences underlying it; and we have treatments that can make an important difference. So why not use them?
And as for the big drug companies? Most of the ADHD drugs are generic these days, so they don't profit.
I think the truth lies in between. The conspiracy theories are not completely off regarding that about half of the authors of the ADD/ADHD sections of the DSM-IV were paid by pharma companies [1].
That does not change the fact that ADHD is a dysfunction of the brain where the regulation of Dopamin and/or Serotonin does not meet the requirements of the environment.
I think it rather tells us something about the diagnosis which isn't handled very carefully in many cases, especially for children. A proper long term validation of symptoms and evaluation of treatment methods should be a starting point, not a standardized set of questions and a recipe at the end of the session. Behavioral therapy can sometimes be as effective as drug use but it is not even considered most of the time.
Without extended knowledge of the topic the public almost has to think that ADHD is a fraud. It's nothing one can see as a broken leg and the media only reports about Fraud and instant subscriptions to children that might not even have ADHD. Sometimes even MD's claim it's not a real disease because of these reasons. It's not their field and what they hear about it only makes them suspicious. There is so much misinformation about the topic it's just sad.
Look, I am not disputing that ADHD is a very real thing.
What I am being sarcastic about, is this completely unrelated thing that people on the internet do, this game of "Guess the mental illness", which usually isn't very helpful.
Another favourite past-time of Western-privileged-folks: waxing poetic about subject matter they have no acquaintance with outside of internet articles and forum comments.
Regardless of contrasts with "more serious" psychological or physical illness, ADHD is debilitating without treatment and destroys the suffer's quality of life.
