It's not a personality trait that I cannot physically do something I want to do and need to do without medication and, frankly, I'm sick of people who don't experience it offering new theories on it as if they have some grand insight into it.

Get a head injury that breaks your executive functions. Join us. Then try to offer it up as a personality trait.

For the perspective of the broken toys in the box, let me explain. :)

When an NT is asked to do a boring, repetitive task, he'll do it for eight hours and then get drunk afterwards to recover. Good job.

When an ADHD-afflicted individual is asked to do a boring, repetitive task, he'll do it for about five minutes and then spend eight hours trying to find a way to not do it again. Or stare at the wall. Or berate himself for not working. Or rack up a disabling level of anxiety because he's not working.

You present this as something everyone does, and you're right to. The disorder comes in when someone cannot do it. Not that the person will not muster some internal whatever to push on, but that the person's brain is physically incapable of doing it. The same kind of incapable as a major depressive being incapable of talking himself out of an anxiety-induced depression.

When it's a disorder, it's a disorder. The problem is that so many people see the high numbers of people being diagnosed and write it off as a fad. It's not. Maybe the numbers are high and some are being misdiagnosed, or maybe we're learning about all the edge cases. I don't know. I do know it exists and it's an impairment and it goes well beyond basic motivation.

I've had "do it or you're fired" moments where THAT wasn't enough to motivate me, and I had a very real fear of being unemployed.

They forget to shave and flush the toilet, so no. When I mean full-blown clinical ADHD I don't mean interrupting people and being unable to finish a coding project on time. I mean "gets fired from Mickey D's for randomly staring at the walls". Inattentiveness on a scale that's not being discussed in this article or this thread.

Perhaps I feel so strongly about all of this because I've attended group sessions with non-tech people that are truly suffering because of this thing and I don't have any way of bridging the understanding gap with mere comments on a website. This is a difficult malady for those in tech. Outside of tech? It's sink or doggy paddle, and when you sink there's a whole ocean under you, not a swimming pool.

I've since stopped the anxiety med and feel I've trained myself a little more on how to handle it. I have my moments but have the skills I need now to recognize those moments and bring myself down. Luckily one can do that with mild anxiety, unlike ADHD...

The biggest non-medicinal benefits are absolutely sleep, nutrition, and exercise -- you're right. Without a good foundation, nothing can be built.

It really is like a devil on my shoulder sometimes.

"I want to read a book."

"No."

"Really! It's good! We've done this be-"

"No. Look, shiny!"

"Neat! Now, the book..."

"No. We're going to watch a show now."

Sigh.