ADHD and electronic music

The Lounge General Discussion
#42

That all fits pretty closely. The first quote is spot on for how I live my work life. If I can get away with not doing it, I won’t until the last minute but it WILL get done in time. As sad as it sounds I’ve often felt I’d do better in an office with three bosses breathing down my neck than what I’m doing now where I’m basically left to my own devices.

The last sentence of the second quote feels a tad hyperbolic for how I feel but I pretty much never want to try and publish my creative work. I don’t mind showing trusted friends and peers to get advice on how to do better. I spent three years in a creative writing MFA and only published a few things and I’ve rarely sent a demo to even like a mid range net label.

I’ve honestly always felt like I need an assistant to keep my schedule and send out my work. I always chalked that up to “when I’m rich” pipe dreams.

About the MDMA…I’ve certainly done my fair share. Less than some, more than others. I forget when they say the brain stops developing, most of my use was between the ages of probably 22-32. I’ve often wondered about it too, just generally.

I’ll also have to give that book a read. It’ll go on a long list of books I’ve gotten to because I’ve always got something else to do lol

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#43

I’m 100% sure my bordering on obsessive cannabis habit when I was a teenager has a lot to do with my issues now. Don’t do too much drugs, kids!

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#44

I was diagnosed two years ago, age 30. Suddenly realised I’m not “smart but lazy”, as everyone always told me, and as I told myself, but in fact I’m just riddled with neurological imbalances that make even the most simple tasks into a chaotic process. I’ve been medicated for the last two years, and suddenly I’m able to do shit that I simply wasn’t able to do before. I read documentation for things now without having blackouts as I flip through pages vacantly. It’s no silver bullet though - I’ve not done a lick of actual work today.

Anecdotally, I have loads of mates who make music, and once I learned a bit more about ADHD, I started realising similar patterns of behaviour in a lot of them, and some went on to get diagnosed after I suiggested they read up on it. I read a study a while ago about ADHD being massively over-represented in creative fields, which I found quite interesting. I’ll see if I can dig up a link.

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#45

Cannabis is a scary drug. I think it needs to be taken a lot more serious, than it is.

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#46

Oh mate, I absolutely abused the stuff from age 14-19. I realised after my ADHD diagnosis that I was actually self-medicating with it; it tuned everything out and allowed me to focus on one thing at a time. Having said that, it also sent me into the one and only psychotic episode I’ve ever had, and if I smoke it now it’s like I’m inhaling pure fear.

Far too many people underplay the psychological dangers of high-THC cannabis.

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#47

Yeah, when I started out with was pretty mild stuff, you could get a small buzz that was light enough so that teachers wouldn’t even notice it. By the time I quit I was smoking daily, I had moved to smoking weed so potent that it would have incapacitated me when I was starting out. Weed also gave me pretty bad anxiety and other mental issues I struggled with for a while after quitting. Those high THC strains are no joke.

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#48

It’s an interesting area, as there’s clearly a link between ADHD and recreational drug use, especially when it’s undiagnosed in teenage years.
But given the difference in neurology, there’s a decent bet that drugs would affect the ADHD brain quite differently.

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#49

It’s always a risk to identify a correlation as a causal relation.

Are people getting diagnosed because they smoked a lot in the past?
OR
Are people who get diagnosed later more likely to smoke a lot in their youth?

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#50

Most later diagnosed ADHD people have their symptoms and characteristics long before they could light a spliff.

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#51

I wasn’t thinking along the lines of any sort of causality, just the more impulsive nature of ADHD and other aspects making it more likely to use recreational drugs.

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#52

Very true, who knows I might be just the same even if I had not smoked a lot of weed, but then I’d have had a lot less fun. Also a lot less anxiety, but having a lot of fun with drugs is always a trade off.

#53

I was diagnosed as a young child, 6 or 7. Ritalin (for which I have extremely strong feelings against, but wouldn’t deny anyone’s positive experiences) up until I was thirteen. Only last year (at 37) did I finally admit to myself that…maayyybbeee I don’t have this as under control as I thought. Of course one of the first things I did in my new research was learn addressed ADHD gets worse as an adult.

Lockdown put a wedge in my attempts to regroup, but I’ve been doing my best to keep up. Exercising is just extraordinarily helpful: burning off all that energy really centers me. In attempting my own research, my list is ever increasing. I know meditation is meant to work wonders, and I tried, but admittedly didn’t stick with it long enough to know if and how it worked for me.

I fidget; not really concerned about it. I am hyperfocused when I am in to something. There was a bit of self-medication, esp with alcohol, but I gave it up for other reasons.

The issue I deal with, aside from the distractibility (I blame you people), is mostly the stubborn aversion to doing anything I don’t want to do and that is most of adulting. And I am sick of myself for it. I don’t have much more to say on that at the moment as I’m both exhausted and perplexed by it. A vicious loop.

I don’t know what I’m adding to this. I’ll just say that I think Aphex Twin has ADHD as his music just oozes ADHD symptoms.

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#54

You didn’t suggest causality indeed. Although a bit higher up the discussion causality was suggested quite explicitly by some others…

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#55

There is actual evidence for people with ADHD being much more likely to abuse drugs. I’ve read some stuff about links between cannabis use in young adults and adult ADHD onset, but IIRC it was inconclusive.

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#56

My line of thinking was that cannabis did amplify my anxiety by quite a bit, which in turn made my neuroatypical behaviour worse for a number of years. I’m definitely not sure whether all that weed actually affected my brain or not, but it certainly did make the symptoms worse for a long time. So some causality, but more of the uncertain kind.

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#57

This is my experience also. The weed definitely didn’t help, but I’m pretty sure I was ADHD as shit before then anyway.

#58
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#59
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#60

tl;dr LOL

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#61

Look into labeling theory and the Pavlovian responses to being told “what we are” regardless of what they tell you you’re human, you’re a musician, and you’re a great person. Don’t let labels keep you down or act out.