But an upvote doesn’t mean “I like this”. It means you judge the post/comment to be high quality. There’s a correlation for sure, but quality is a holistic judgement based on context. It measured by the same spectrums as downvoting: to what extent is the post/comment relevant, original, funny, entertaining, informative, rule-abiding, respectful, etc. We don’t need separate buttons for all of these, the voting buttons just wear many hats. You’re generally going to think more highly of stuff you agree with or that makes you happy, but accurate bad news and unpopular opinions can still succeed score-wise despite these disadvantages.

Here’s the thing…if you get upset that a random woman that you don’t know would take the hyperbolic position that they would rather be in the same room as a bear than with you, you’re likely the exact type of man that these memes are talking about.

What the heck? Expressing resentment at the implication that you are more threatening than a bear based solely on gender is evidence that you are, in fact, more threatening than a bear? How does that follow? You don’t need to have a fragile ego to recognize the unfairness of it.

They know how dangerous a bear is.

If they would rather be alone with a bear than a random stranger of any gender I’m going to say they don’t.

The original post was a bad-faith engagement farm that became much more popular than it ever should have been. It ended up bringing up a bit of good discussion and a lot of insane takes.

I was using it almost daily from the start and felt worse for it, so I started dreading taking it and quickly preferred no medication. I eventually finished it off and instead of getting a refill, I switched to something that worked great from the start and was cheaper.

I’m not saying it’s not a good medication, I even recommend it, but if it requires a strict schedule and that much of a miserable buildup just to still be worse than an alternative it’s simply not the right one for me.

I went through a month’s supply of strattera before switching to adderall. I also only took it on “need to be productive” days, which may have been the wrong approach. I was reluctant to take it otherwise because of the side effects. I felt like it did help me focus on tasks, but the benefit was essentially offset by the drowsiness it caused making it something of a wash for my productivity. I work at home so I would end up needing to take a nap most days I took it. Sleeping became very refreshing though, which was a silver lining.

Other symptoms were a pounding head, a decrease in appetite, and an increase in anxious thoughts. None of the symptoms were intense except drowsiness, and all of them mellowed out after a few weeks.

Adderall works a lot better for me now and has fewer side effects. But I’ve seen others in the community really appreciate what straterra has done for them, so it seems to vary a lot from person to person. Despite my disappointment with it, it may be worth trying if stimulants aren’t working well for you. My doctor recommended it initially because it was working well for some of her other patients.

Socializing well is one of the hardest struggles of being a human, and even people that are naturally social still may not get along well with others. I like to recommend the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. Think of it like a “For Dummies” book on socializing. It has a lot of real-life anecdotes for difficult social situations people overcome and how. I should mention I just pirated the audiobook for it though.

Also, like others have said, I like listening to Healthy Gamer on youtube/twitch. He’s a real, active therapist with a lot of experience helping people with these kinds of things, particularly for gamers. You can also just play it in the background while doing other things.

This is good advice. Interactions between people usually have loose scripts, but are mostly improv, and a big part of that is encouraging the other person to keep talking about what they are interested in. The hard part for me is usually when I find I don’t have much to add, but usually I try to agree and paraphrase what they’ve said. This shows you’re genuinely paying attention and care about what they have to say, and invites them to clarify or keep going. Really, just try to find things in what others say that you can agree with in general and you’ll likely be in a pretty good spot.

Yeah I am the only vegan I know and I don’t get shit about it from anyone. In fact, my friends and family are very supportive. If people are going after someone for being vegetarian/vegan, they are exceptionally rude and by no means represent meat-eaters in general.

I am sympathetic to the commentors who are being given a hard time for their diet but that is not a universal experience and pretending otherwise is not going to help anyone.

Burgers are something I missed a lot too! Fortunately plant-based options are becoming more common in fast food places and grocery stores. It usually does come at an upcharge though, so I don’t get them too much. Other people have mixed opinions on meat substitutes, but they have been great for me.

Besides exhausting the audience’s willing suspension of disbelief if they think about it, it honestly just feels like a waste of potential when shows do this. Redemption arcs go hard.

Fred Johnson immediately got to work investigating the job after it went wrong, and when he was convinced he was working for the wrong side, immediately dedicated himself to working to make amends. He continued to do this for years (decades?) all while making himself a progressively bigger target when just looking the other way from the start would have served him very well. He was never a villain. He just worked with limited information in his backstory. And since then basically everything he does is aimed at the betterment of the belters/humanity. His early victims probably would have forgiven him relatively quickly if they saw what he was doing afterwards and knew the initial setup. They cared about the cause more than their own lives after all.

I also get them occasionally despite having “Hide Youtube Premium promotion” enabled in Revanced:Extended. I haven’t updated in a long time however, so it might be fixed in later versions

Yeah I get that prices vary based on where you live but people taco bell is not expensive if you know what to order. I usually spend about $12 for about 2400 calories worth of food I enjoy over the course of two days. If you want to eat cheaply and not make it yourself, it is hard to beat their value menu or a build your own cravings box.

Milk in the US uses a different pasteurization technique the most of the rest of the world, so we need to keep it refrigerated while other places don’t until it’s opened.

Second this. It is free for federal, and iirc $15 for state. Also, you can upload submissions from Turbotax if you used them before so many fields will be pre-filled out. I actually preferred the freetaxusa experience to turbotax having used both.

Audiobookbay and smart audiobook player is my setup too. I probably got it from a similar thread. My only annoyance is using audiobookbay’s search can be annoying sometimes, but altogether I love both.

I haven’t been in the workforce all that long but I did experience burnout at my previous job. I sacrificed my mental health so much that I couldn’t concentrate well, meaning I spent longer on work which made me more on edge and things just kept spiraling like that. I had a couple of months to reset with unemployment that did wonders for me.

I found for me the problem wasn’t the work itself but the amount and requirements for it. I am now at a different company doing much of the same tasks but with a less demanding schedule and can work from home. If I can’t focus, I can just walk away and come back to a task instead of feeling like I’m going to explode being trapped in front of work I just cannot pay attention to. And when I am working, I usually have Youtube, an audiobook, music, or a podcast playing to capture overflowing attention. There are still times when it gets bad but it’s uncommon and much more manageable.

I would focus on finding a company that has an emphasis on work-life balance, and is able to retain employees. Flexible schedules and work from home can be dangerous for people with ADHD but I honestly feel like it’s almost necessary. I am not sure I could go back even if it doubled my salary.

For these types of threads, I usually upvote things that are actually hot takes with some justification or unique insight. People that post an extremely popular decision or just insult something that a lot of people see value in get downvoted. Mostly it’s moderately common takes or unusual opinions with no elaboration, so I don’t vote on those.

If you have Outlook, it will use a popup with a sound before meetings. The default is 15 minutes before and at the the start time, but it should be customizable. It’s very helpful for me.

I was able to get a prescription just from a family doctor: no referral needed. In fact, it was my first appointment with them since I had moved a few years ago and hadn’t needed a doctor since. They went through a questionnaire about how frequently I experienced certain manifestations of symptoms in regular interactions with people, and the score was enough for them to move forward with medication.

From what I have seen, it is typically a much more involved process. If it matters, the prescription was for Straterra, which is not a controlled substance, so that might have meant we needed to go through fewer hoops. My doctor seemed willing to try other medications though. I also went to a smaller practice rather than a big hospital, so maybe that makes it easier to advance things.

I chose to get evaluated in the exact same process as you, even first thinking about the idea after seeing a lot of relatable neurodivergent memes. Over a couple months, I made a list of odd behaviors I seemed to do unusually frequently, and what prompted them. I realized it was very likely more than just unrelated personality quirks that were disrupting my life and making it harder for me to do basic things that others seemed to not struggle with. I also had a decent amount of my list be best explained by autism, but honestly I was more scared of that label and didn’t bring it up with my doctor. I wanted to see if ADHD treatment would help with the others first.

So far, the benefit I’ve had with Straterra has been pretty minor compared to the side effects, but I saw other people saying it took time to adapt to it, and anyway I can try others too. My doctor originally recommended it because it was working for some of her other patients. I’m going to probably finish the supply I have and try something else.

Anyway, that’s my ADHD diagnosis story so far. I can answer questions if you think of any.

Thank you for this research, it gives great perspective.