For what it's worth, I remember coming across this claim a couple years ago about AWS on HN. I don't think it's fiction, it's possible that their PR has scrubbed these allegations from the internet.
Irving Kirsch, psych professor at Harvard, wrote a book called "The Emperor's New Drugs" which argues that antidepressants are basically just placebos. I haven't read the book but I have seen a lot of interviews and articles on his research and it's pretty damning.
I have read this book, and can confirm, it is extremely interesting and pretty damning.
I'm frankly surprised it hasn't had more of an impact; it really does seem like SSRIs are causing a lot of harm to a lot of people in the form of side effects, and the scientific evidence seems to point strongly toward them being no better than any other active placebo. Yet, they continue to be prescribed in ever-increasing numbers.
Well, to be blunt, it's because there are billion dollar pharmaceutical companies that want to keep making money off of these drugs, with around 20% of adults taking anti-depressants at any given time.
They're only subject to large fines if those laws are in place and actually being enforced, though. Companies keep getting away with these huge data breaches in the United States with almost no real consequences.
It's getting harder and harder to ignore these laws unless you're willing to stay out of some major markets (such as Europe and California).
I think we'll see a national privacy law in the United States at some point in the next five years. There's appetite for it in both major parties (Democrats to protect bodily autonomy, Republicans to stick it to Big Tech), and I think the targets of the regulations themselves will at some point lobby for a consistent national law rather than the patchwork of state laws that we have now.
The RESTRICT Act suggests that there's political will in the US to solve the same problems that the GDPR solves. If the RESTRICT Act fails, the US might get federal-level privacy protection (subject to the PATRIOT Act, of course).
I don't think this is true about brain chemistry or that ADD is a life-long disability. Just speaking from experience here, I was diagnosed with ADD as an adult in my mid-20s and then started using IFS therapy (parts work) a couple years later for childhood trauma. After two years of IFS therapy my ADD is pretty much non-existent and my executive functioning is better than most people I know.
My hunch is that for a lot of people, ADD is a result of growing up in a home that felt unstable so they never gained a basic internal sense of stability that you need for things like task switching or staying focused.
You can't generalize your experience (trauma mimicking ADD symptoms) to 'ADD [is not] a life-long disability' -- people have symptoms for different reasons and there are biomarkers for ADD.
Which specific ADHD biomarkers are you referring to? There are some promising areas for research but I'm not aware that any are yet accepted for clinical purposes.
IMHO many people with ADHD diagnose has really some kind of PTSD that started when they were children. And I believe that kind of condition is treatable. It would need a long therapy of course and a lot of changes in life. And I say this as a person with ADHD diagnose.
(I'm not GP.) I don't think the question here is whether trauma is mimicking ADHD or ADHD is a result of trauma, either in general, or in any particular case.
I think people lean into the personality traits, 'neurotype', cognitive styles, talents, and inherent tendencies they have as kids when it comes to coping with trauma. You use the tools you have. If you have ADHD and a situation is unbearable, hyperfocus is a tool you have— or at least a pattern you can fall into— that can prevent you from being overwhelmed by the feelings that weigh on you when that situation is on your mind. It would be shocking to me if ADHDers didn't often end up relying on features of ADHD to adapt to traumatic situations.
These things are interrelated in people who have both, and I don't think it's generally easy (or necessary) to pick apart 'which is which' when it comes to a specific behavior or experience.
Internal Family Systems therapy is a form of therapy that uses the idea of different "parts" of ourselves, and postulates that we can heal these different parts of ourselves by accessing an inner source of compassion underneath all these "parts" - suppressed emotional pain, defense mechanisms, coping mechanisms, etc. I've found it to be the most effective form of therapy for healing anxiety, depression, and childhood trauma, when combined with other mind-body practices.
IFS is the "Internal Family Systems" model of psychotherapy. I'm coincidentally in the midst of reading No Bad Parts, which was written by the originator, and covers the basic ideas behind the practice and gives some instructions for exercises. I've enjoyed the book so far.
