I'm a psychiatrist, so I obviously have a bias, but I have been pretty alarmed by the caviler attitude to the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD and Autism-spectrum disorders.
This is not specifically directed at this product launch, rather a general observation, but we have evidence based instruments to aid in diagnosis (that still requires a contextual clinical interpretation!) and evidence about what works and what doesn't. Most of the stuff I see is pretty squarely an evidence-free affair. Wether it's a cash grab or a well-intentioned effort, both can be harmful.
Marketing interventions to a specific diagnosis with known treatments should not be taken lightly. Non-medical interventions can be effective, and therefore they can be harmful.
I both agree and disagree with you. I think neurodivergence has become a bit "trendy" lately, and some people have latched onto these labels when they may not be clinically appropriate. However, these evidence-based diagnostic tools aren't perfect.
My sister was properly diagnosed with ADHD several years ago, and she encouraged me to get tested. My tester, a PhD psychologist who specialized in neuropsych testing, said the evidence was borderline, but ultimately refused to give a diagnosis because I did well in high school and that's unheard of in "true" ADHD. I promise I'm not exaggerating--I have the report to prove it. He completely ignored that I never had to pay attention in school because it was so easy for me, and I only started to run into problems in college when the material got more difficult.
Thankfully my psychiatrist disagreed with that and started me on medication anyway, and since then I've actually been able to understand why I am the way I am and work through my issues. (I found out a year later that my parents actually had me tested in first grade and I was diagnosed then, but they intentionally kept it from me my whole life.)
I know this is just one anecdote, but it's a common discussion point online that mental healthcare like this isn't always the most accessible. I think well-intentioned research and self-diagnosis can certainly have their place, depending on one's circumstances, and as long as care is taken to avoid unscientific information.
i had a very similar experience as well... who knew that you can't have ADHD if you do well in school, even if school (even college) was easy enough to not ever need to dig deep in the way that you have to do every day in real life (if you're ambitious, anyway).
I constantly read people that have experiences like this, then on the other hand, I know countless people that lied about having ADHD and received treatment with virtually no issues at all.
I do not advocate for drug-seeking behaviors, but I find it wild how there are such contrasting diagnostic experiences.
I wonder if professionals would be less adverse to treatment administration if patients were more willing to trial non-stimulants first?
Same here. No ADHD if you are not failing miserably in school, work, etc. Doesn't matter that you struggle every meeting understanding what's going on as you have trouble listening to one sentence from beginning to the end.
Same for me, except I'm nearing 40. All my brothers have it to various degrees, and since I have a job and doing OK, I cannot be helped. It's extremely annoying that access to medicine is gated by the personal opinions of professionals (and that the medicine is jail-worthy to begin with). Specifically, I was denied because too old, in writing.
As a late diagnosed ADHD person, I’d rather there be over diagnosis than under diagnosis. We don’t understand the brain. There are a lot of us that suffer in silence.
I don't know what to think about it anymore myself. it does seem like a trend.
But at the same time as someone diagnosed in my 30's that meds really helped. i'd feel like i'm pulling up the ladder on others.
The neurodiversity at work trend does irk me a little, especially when people start talking about so called "superpowers" and their benefits to the company.
I am not trying to be all 'woe is me', but ADHD has had non-stop negative impacts on my life from childhood through present time. I am in my 30s too (diagnosed in early 20s and treated since), and I've basically just given up on life.
What are your clinical observations and opinions on actual research backed treatments? I am mainly concerned about the efficacy of stimulants as a treatment as opposed to non-stimulants and psychotherapeutic interventions.
Also, is there are evidence based instruments to aid in diagnosis, then why do those same instruments tend to magically be removed from care during the treatment phase?
For the sake of analogy, if a patient were to be diagnosed with hypertension and an anti-hypertensive medication regiment is started. I imagine upon returning for a follow up visit, the patient's blood pressure will be remeasured in order to verify the efficacy of the treatment.
For ADHD, I had to go through quite a significant diagnostic process before being given the green light for treatment. Upon returning for a follow up, the only methodology used to gauge treatment efficacy is being asked, "How is <insert medication> work for you?"
I always try to answer the question honestly, but after almost 12 years of treatment, I still am not sure what to expect in terms of treatment. Are such questions truly the only evaluation of treatment? How can one tell if medication is working better than they realize or not at all? Perhaps my expectations are too high? Also, wouldn't some metric help determine if tolerance is occurring?
The biggest quarrel I have with it is that even if you get clinically tested, at least in the cases where I asked friends who got tested, they did not even try to rule out other causes, like repressed childhood trauma/cPTSD. People might end up on potentially lifelong medication, where other treatment options and recovery may be available.
What is even more insidious is if your own abusers adopt the clinical methodology and label you with a condition (ADHD in my case) such that you as a young person are incentivized to forget about the abuse they themselves perpetrated. I have lost decades of treatment to this exact phenomenon and it was completely iatrogenic.
I no longer think any label suits my lived experience anymore other than "traumatized", which is something that happened to me (as opposed to "ADHD", which is something I am).
In my (anecdotal but decades long) experience, psych folks tend to be overconfident in their methods and tools and evidence. As if studies provide ironclad proof that your way is the best and only way to go. That hasn't been my experience at all and it's pretty easy to find a crapton of neurodivergent folks that would agree.
I am biased too but I have endured a lot of anguish putting my faith in psych professionals. The vast majority of progress I've made over the years has come via discussions with other folks like me. But you claim it's unsafe? It's been more effective (and safer) to find my own way.
What do you think of what the app is trying to accomplish? I see it as a attempt at self intervention or helping someone get started.
You mentioned evidence about what works and what doesn't. As someone who struggled with ADHD, I am curious about your thoughts on the app intentions or goals.
Curious about your thoughts on homebuilt AI tools for dealing with ADHD side effects. I've identified a handful of habits I struggle with but want to do, and thought processes that can be challenging. I've planned to plug these into an LLM to have it do midday checkins about how I'm feeling and then respond in line with what I want to focus on.
Never occurred to me that something focused on symptoms instead of treatment could be harmful, but I suppose it's worth considering.
Thank you for sharing this. I have often been very cynical here, and elsewhere online, about ADHD, especially amongst adults. Most of the cynicism stems from the capitalistic nature of modern pharmaceutical companies - it literally seems like they are trying to create a market for their "ADHD" drugs through online social marketing - "You can't concentrate on a task? Must be ADHD.", "You don't feel like doing something productive? Oh, that's ADHD for sure", "Do you frequently procrastinate and feel guilty about? Yup, that's ADHD" and so on ...
The issue I have with "ADHD" in general is that there are so many other well-recognized and researched causes that more satisfactorily explain many of these behavioural issues - like depression and / or anxiety - than "ADHD". There are even personality disorders that can cause such long-term behavioural issues - for e.g., Avoidant Personality Disorder or even Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (both stemming from anxiety issues), and they can be more correctly and confidently diagnosed than the cluster** that is "ADHD" (whose diagnostic criteria has been already revised multiple times in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual).
Alan Schwarz, the author of the book ADHD Nation has investigated the ties between pharmaceutical companies and doctors:
> "The six-question screening instrument that was endorsed by the World Health Organization was devised by doctors with a very long history in ADHD research," he says. "These are, generally, men who have been enriched by the pharmaceutical industry in order to churn out research and churn out things like this that merely expand the ADHD market. "What we've seen over the past 10 [to] 20 years is a constant enthusiasm on the part of the ADHD lobby to get more and more adults to consider the possibility that they, too, have ADHD," Schwarz says.
I am not against self-help or personal research. But please note that it is very easy to be mislead by such things and very easy to misdiagnose your symptoms. Even the professionals have a tough time with this!
I was not familiar with it until now. At a quick glance, it looks like it has some overlap with the CPT. But generally speaking, this is going to give a snapshot in time in one setting, which is helpful, but just one part of the picture. As the makers of the test note, it still requires a clinical interview and rating scales to arrive at a diagnosis:
> Should QbTest be used with other measures?
> It is not meant to be a standalone tool for diagnosing ADHD. Instead, it has been designed to be added to the assessment process along with a clinical interview and rating scales.
- Those images on the blogs look potentially AI Generated, which I'm personally turned off by. Others may vary.
- The first blog (by you?) is _very_ long, also "ADHD as Superpower" is somewhat of a trope that I, and others I've spoken with, aren't happy to have as a bullet point of why ADHD isn't the end of the world.
- Anyway, clicked on the "Procrastination" mood button and oh sweet lord there are so many buttons on this page and why do they have "likes" counted in the corner?
- The web developer in me admires the automatic resizing blocks. The user in me doesn't like that the buttons jump around as I click on them. E.g. I clicked on "breath loop" and the interface totally changed an I wasn't actually sure how to get back to where I was (Figured it out: Musical Stimulation), additionally I know there _was_ a button below breath loop but its moved and I forgot which one it was. I'd suggest categorizing the buttons and either hiding them in drawers or collapsible sections so there aren't quite so many immediately visible. And then I'd suggest keeping the controls for each technique in the same place on the screen and just highlight which technique is selected from the buttons, instead of dynamically moving the controls around. On any user interface I interact with regularly I don't even see or read them much anymore because I just know where the buttons I want to interact with are. On this page the buttons are constantly moving around, and I'm only on desktop, I'm sure its different on a phone but I'm almost scared to look (I looked, its good, but the constantly changing height of the scrollbar is a pet peeve of mine, so its functional, I just don't like it). If you don't want to move the controls to a consistent spot, I'd suggest giving the movement a bit of an animation (maybe with an option to disable it?) so people can at least get a feel for what is happening when they click a button instead of an instantaneous change that is impossible to track with their eyeballs.
- I don't love the "Atmosphere" button being in the bottom middle where text/images appear from the content, feels messy.
The AI generated images were an immediate turn-off to me as well. Whatever one thinks of the aesthetics, they're a huge signal that I'm looking at a product that's focused on monetizing me.
The overall design is unfocused and cluttered, just the exact thing I don't need as someone with ADHD.
Not only that, but it would also raise significant concerns about how any of the recommendations, treatments, blog posts, etc are made. Like are the different people for those blog posts real people?
This is particularly concerning for a tool like this, you already took shortcuts on images why should we expect anything less for the rest of the app? Has anyone that knows anything about ADHD actually ever looked at anything this app is saying?
The blog is written by real people. So do the techniques. I'm just a bad designer so I decided to generate the pictures. But actually I have diagnosed ADHD myself and all the techniques are all I've collected all my life.
It makes it impossible. The content gives off the feeling that it will "take" and grab more than it will "give" and release.
ADHD, to me, always, even before the diagnosis, felt like a valve that doesn't open for no reason and due to the build up pressure, some other valve with different "filters" releases whatever mixture of thoughts and actions to compensate.
Children's sugar-induced behavioral roller coasters have a similar characteristic. And this website looks like too much candy without there being any candy.
Be that as it may, it _does_ still raise questions about the content and sources. If you're a bad designer (I'm a pretty terrible artist/designer myself) then I urge you to source your images from someplace ethical. Try unsplash, or google free stock images, or go on fiverr and pay an artist who won't use AI (if you can find one? I haven't tried to user fiverr in a while)
Sorry, I don't believe you. The way that the initial post has identical paragraph lengths with headers on every one is extremely uncanny. The prose is very dry, repetitive, often written in passive voice, and completely lacking in personality.
What? He should have paid an illustrator on top of doing everything else? I actually prefer AI art to be used, because more of the resources likely went to the essence of the product.
I don't blame you for it, as it's cheap, fast, and fits the context better than what can be provided usually. If you find that people are turned off by it, and want to act on it, I suggest stock images from places like Pixabay. They are royalty free so it's not much of a pain to use them, and there is a lot of good ones on the site as well. Downside is that they will probably be disjointed, like, every image will be its own style, which detracts from the unity of your website, but the upside is that you get rid of the negative associations with AI. Random idea, but you can use classical art as well, as they are all in public domain now. Then you could have the cohesion back: art, and humanity, which would fit the content well on a meta-level too.
I concur on the AI generated images. There is frankly significant overlap between folks who struggle with ADHD and folks who are direct harmed or displaced by the use of AI generated images, I think you would be better off without images at all.
> There is frankly significant overlap between folks who struggle with ADHD and folks who are direct harmed or displaced by the use of AI generated images
Can you expand on this? I don't see the connection.
OP not a publicly established personality, and the website is new too. So, they have a lot to prove, credibility chief among them, especially since the topic is mental health. Users discovering that some of the things are AI generated leads to a thought that maybe more, subtler things are AI generated as well - like the texts on the website. AI output is currently distrusted, and the companies' treatment of the authors of their training material is frequently questioned. So, this way, discovering AI content erodes trust, of which the author didn't have any to begin with - because they are just starting out!
So that is why AI is a deal. Looks-wise they are good, and they fit their context very well. But they do communicate much more than that, and that makes them iffy for many.
This is going to sound like a shilled comment, but for the past week, I've been using Motion [0] to manage all of my tasks and scheduling. My lifelong weakness has always been so-called "time blindness", and I cannot overstate how much of a game changer Motion has been for me in keeping me focused and on-track. Both for personal and professional tasks. It really feels like I've just put on mental "glasses" and can see where I am and what I should be doing with clarity.
It's only been a week, so maybe my opinion will change. Who knows. I'm half writing this comment as a historical record for myself to look back at in a year.
I don’t have ADHD but I did the test. My answers would vary with amount of sleep:
4 hours/night - Poor executive function, can’t figure out what order to do things in, lose keys and random things, forget to lock doors and not even realize it
6 hours - Mild executive dysfunction, never sure if I locked the door but I did
ui feels too stateful per interaction, every click shifts layout, adds/remove elements, resets focus. that's expensive for working memory esp if im mid-task. layout stability might need to be treated like a cognitive affordance, otherwise good going smooth
Aren't those kind of tests... how I'd put it politely?... less than meaningful?
First of all, it's not really well done: there are no control questions, no inverted questions, no consistency checks (like re-phrased duplicate questions) or anything a well-designed self-test must have. All answers are obviously ranked, introducing perception biases. Questions like "how often do you interrupt someone" or "how often you were told" or "did parents notice" are highly culturally-dependent. The childhood questions do not discern between younger and older ages (where behavioral differences are drastic), and likely to introduce a skew based on one's age and long-term memory function (which, AFAIK, ADHD does not directly affect). To me it looks like nothing of value would be lost if the whole test would be replaced with a short description what ADHD is and then a single yes/no question "do you think you may have some of the described symptoms?"
I would understand something like ANT, which (as I understand it) tests way closer to actual brain behavior, than those distant derivatives smeared over social prisms, self-perception lenses, and dice rolls of life's [pseudo-]randomness.
Great idea, and I'm looking forward to trying this out!
Each person with ADHD is affected a little differently, based on anecdotal evidence from family and friends. What are the available customization options?
Thank you! For now, there are customization options only for background sounds. But in the future there will be an intelligent system for selecting self-help techniques. And you can take a short test to find out your current state.
Hi HN! I've built ADHD Help, a simple yet powerful web app designed to help manage common ADHD-related states like anxiety, procrastination, irritability, overwhelm, hyperactivity, and distraction.
The app offers:
Interactive Coping Techniques: Immediate guided steps for calming anxiety, managing procrastination, and handling emotional overwhelm using CBT, DBT, and mindfulness methods.
Ambient Sound Mixer: Customize and layer soothing background noises (nature, white noise, café sounds) to enhance focus or relaxation.
Quick ADHD Self-Test: A quick screening to help identify ADHD symptoms.
Curated Blog: Practical articles, personal insights, and evidence-based advice on living better with ADHD.
I concur with the other comments about AI-generated content, so let me hit you with some positive:
I like the idea, and I like that the website gets right down to business with the "How are you feeling?" at the very top. It reminds me a bit of https://youfeellikeshit.com/ (which I mean as a good thing). You might actually want to crib a little bit of that site's minimalism. I also like that you're not asking for the user to signup right off the bat.
It's not that they don't fit, it's that AI-generated images are commonly used on spam/scam sites, and thus have that inauthentic/low-effort stink to them. It casts a shadow on the rest of site that says "is any of this authentic or am I reading AI slop?". You might do better to have someone do some scribbles for you on fiverr.com imo.
> I built an ADHD app with interactive coping tools, noise mixer and self-test
Remeber kids! Self-medication with the Voight-Kampff test is dangerous and can lead to the serious consequences including , but not limited to:
depression
personality disorders
suicide thoughts
obsession with a wooden minutae
giant meta-corporations hunting for you
overall quality of life decrease, including death
Please consult a doctor before using the test!
(somehow the last words of the post title gave me this reaction)
I would like app developers to please stop trying to monetize ADHD. This one doesn't seem as predatory and snake oil as most of the others, but, kindly refrain. Our neurodevelopmental condition is not your cash cow.
As someone in their 40s with ADHD, I'll offer a counterpoint.
I'm happy for people to try to make a business of this if the tools are helpful.
I've had a successful career, so I obviously had to develop my own strategies for managing it. But I'd be very happy if my kids didn't have to spend 20 years figuring it out for themselves. Monetize away.
Personally, I fall somewhere in the middle. I'd be happy to pay a modest bit of money to buy a simple app, and see if it helps -- but I'm very reluctant to sign up for a subscription.
Perhaps ironically, the less the app claims to do, the more likely I am to be interested.
I've only signed up for a paid mental health app subscription once -- and that was an app designed by a well-known psychologist with both an M.D. and a Ph.D., and even then only after reading his book.
Yes, exactly. A one-time purchase is great because ADHDers can impulse buy it and be done. A subscription is an extra mental burden I don't want or need.
Ryder Carroll is a good example. He created the bullet journal through trial and error to manage his own ADHD. He shared it for free. While he did write a book and partnered with a company to design a notebook (due to popular demand), he still gives away everything someone needs for free, and will be the first one to tell people you don’t need a special notebook.
i'm less worried about people monetizing it than I am about people pushing a lot of bad self-diagnosis memes based on nonsense criteria ("if you sleep with your arms in this pose, you have ADHD (and maybe autism)!") or just describing completely typical events as a meaningful symptom ("if you ever procrastinate, you might have ADHD")
I have ADHD myself. Honestly, I'd like to make a service that will help everyone. To do that, I need money. I think that 5 dollars a month is not so much nowadays.
Sure, there might be people out there selling snakeoil, but that's the case for every domain. Does that mean we nobody should try to make apps to solve domain problems at all? Of course not.
So you're asking everyone to stop monetizing ADHD. So the two alternatives are make the apps for free or don't make them at all. The former is not realistic or sustainable and later gives up potential upside.
I mean, do you think all ADHD apps will just be bad and are just people trying rip off ADHDers?
I think a more reasonable premise is yes, just in every domain, there will be snake oil sellers unfortunately and it's up to the consumer to watch out for those. But there will also be genuine people who are trying to solve this problem and that will potentially give people a lot of value for the money they pay for it.
I'm a psychiatrist, so I obviously have a bias, but I have been pretty alarmed by the caviler attitude to the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD and Autism-spectrum disorders.
This is not specifically directed at this product launch, rather a general observation, but we have evidence based instruments to aid in diagnosis (that still requires a contextual clinical interpretation!) and evidence about what works and what doesn't. Most of the stuff I see is pretty squarely an evidence-free affair. Wether it's a cash grab or a well-intentioned effort, both can be harmful.
Marketing interventions to a specific diagnosis with known treatments should not be taken lightly. Non-medical interventions can be effective, and therefore they can be harmful.
I both agree and disagree with you. I think neurodivergence has become a bit "trendy" lately, and some people have latched onto these labels when they may not be clinically appropriate. However, these evidence-based diagnostic tools aren't perfect.
My sister was properly diagnosed with ADHD several years ago, and she encouraged me to get tested. My tester, a PhD psychologist who specialized in neuropsych testing, said the evidence was borderline, but ultimately refused to give a diagnosis because I did well in high school and that's unheard of in "true" ADHD. I promise I'm not exaggerating--I have the report to prove it. He completely ignored that I never had to pay attention in school because it was so easy for me, and I only started to run into problems in college when the material got more difficult.
Thankfully my psychiatrist disagreed with that and started me on medication anyway, and since then I've actually been able to understand why I am the way I am and work through my issues. (I found out a year later that my parents actually had me tested in first grade and I was diagnosed then, but they intentionally kept it from me my whole life.)
I know this is just one anecdote, but it's a common discussion point online that mental healthcare like this isn't always the most accessible. I think well-intentioned research and self-diagnosis can certainly have their place, depending on one's circumstances, and as long as care is taken to avoid unscientific information.
i had a very similar experience as well... who knew that you can't have ADHD if you do well in school, even if school (even college) was easy enough to not ever need to dig deep in the way that you have to do every day in real life (if you're ambitious, anyway).
I constantly read people that have experiences like this, then on the other hand, I know countless people that lied about having ADHD and received treatment with virtually no issues at all.
I do not advocate for drug-seeking behaviors, but I find it wild how there are such contrasting diagnostic experiences.
I wonder if professionals would be less adverse to treatment administration if patients were more willing to trial non-stimulants first?
Same here. No ADHD if you are not failing miserably in school, work, etc. Doesn't matter that you struggle every meeting understanding what's going on as you have trouble listening to one sentence from beginning to the end.
Same for me, except I'm nearing 40. All my brothers have it to various degrees, and since I have a job and doing OK, I cannot be helped. It's extremely annoying that access to medicine is gated by the personal opinions of professionals (and that the medicine is jail-worthy to begin with). Specifically, I was denied because too old, in writing.
they once told me "if you had ADHD the assessment paper you filled out at home would have come back all crumpled up and dirty"
As a late diagnosed ADHD person, I’d rather there be over diagnosis than under diagnosis. We don’t understand the brain. There are a lot of us that suffer in silence.
I don't know what to think about it anymore myself. it does seem like a trend.
But at the same time as someone diagnosed in my 30's that meds really helped. i'd feel like i'm pulling up the ladder on others.
The neurodiversity at work trend does irk me a little, especially when people start talking about so called "superpowers" and their benefits to the company.
> start talking about so called "superpowers"
I cannot stand people like that.
I am not trying to be all 'woe is me', but ADHD has had non-stop negative impacts on my life from childhood through present time. I am in my 30s too (diagnosed in early 20s and treated since), and I've basically just given up on life.
What are your clinical observations and opinions on actual research backed treatments? I am mainly concerned about the efficacy of stimulants as a treatment as opposed to non-stimulants and psychotherapeutic interventions.
Also, is there are evidence based instruments to aid in diagnosis, then why do those same instruments tend to magically be removed from care during the treatment phase?
For the sake of analogy, if a patient were to be diagnosed with hypertension and an anti-hypertensive medication regiment is started. I imagine upon returning for a follow up visit, the patient's blood pressure will be remeasured in order to verify the efficacy of the treatment.
For ADHD, I had to go through quite a significant diagnostic process before being given the green light for treatment. Upon returning for a follow up, the only methodology used to gauge treatment efficacy is being asked, "How is <insert medication> work for you?"
I always try to answer the question honestly, but after almost 12 years of treatment, I still am not sure what to expect in terms of treatment. Are such questions truly the only evaluation of treatment? How can one tell if medication is working better than they realize or not at all? Perhaps my expectations are too high? Also, wouldn't some metric help determine if tolerance is occurring?
> How can one tell if medication is working better than they realize or not at all?
in my case, if i still have a job, then its working lol
The biggest quarrel I have with it is that even if you get clinically tested, at least in the cases where I asked friends who got tested, they did not even try to rule out other causes, like repressed childhood trauma/cPTSD. People might end up on potentially lifelong medication, where other treatment options and recovery may be available.
see e.g. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00922-8 , https://www.healthline.com/health/adhd/adhd-linked-to-trauma
What is even more insidious is if your own abusers adopt the clinical methodology and label you with a condition (ADHD in my case) such that you as a young person are incentivized to forget about the abuse they themselves perpetrated. I have lost decades of treatment to this exact phenomenon and it was completely iatrogenic.
I no longer think any label suits my lived experience anymore other than "traumatized", which is something that happened to me (as opposed to "ADHD", which is something I am).
In my (anecdotal but decades long) experience, psych folks tend to be overconfident in their methods and tools and evidence. As if studies provide ironclad proof that your way is the best and only way to go. That hasn't been my experience at all and it's pretty easy to find a crapton of neurodivergent folks that would agree.
I am biased too but I have endured a lot of anguish putting my faith in psych professionals. The vast majority of progress I've made over the years has come via discussions with other folks like me. But you claim it's unsafe? It's been more effective (and safer) to find my own way.
What do you think of what the app is trying to accomplish? I see it as a attempt at self intervention or helping someone get started.
You mentioned evidence about what works and what doesn't. As someone who struggled with ADHD, I am curious about your thoughts on the app intentions or goals.
Curious about your thoughts on homebuilt AI tools for dealing with ADHD side effects. I've identified a handful of habits I struggle with but want to do, and thought processes that can be challenging. I've planned to plug these into an LLM to have it do midday checkins about how I'm feeling and then respond in line with what I want to focus on.
Never occurred to me that something focused on symptoms instead of treatment could be harmful, but I suppose it's worth considering.
bear with me for the tangent. And don't take what i say here as a reason you shouldn't try tools or try to build your own tools.
I used to try the Pomodoro technique it worked fantastic ...briefly.
Once the novelty wore off I stopped using it. It turned into an extra task I needed to do in order to do other tasks.
AI would probably follow the same trajectory for me unless you make it impossible to turn off.
I don't know your tools, but if you aren't recommending them to others for money, then we're already in a different category.
But succinctly, if something can help you form habits, it can probably help you form bad habits.
How is $5/mo a cash grab? Psychiatrists charge more
Something can be a cash grab even if it’s cheap if it doesn’t do something effectively or is just trying to take advantage of people in need
scaling.
Psychiatrist charges one person more. But if you can charge a million people $5 dollars you'll make a lot more.
scaling.
Thank you for sharing this. I have often been very cynical here, and elsewhere online, about ADHD, especially amongst adults. Most of the cynicism stems from the capitalistic nature of modern pharmaceutical companies - it literally seems like they are trying to create a market for their "ADHD" drugs through online social marketing - "You can't concentrate on a task? Must be ADHD.", "You don't feel like doing something productive? Oh, that's ADHD for sure", "Do you frequently procrastinate and feel guilty about? Yup, that's ADHD" and so on ...
The issue I have with "ADHD" in general is that there are so many other well-recognized and researched causes that more satisfactorily explain many of these behavioural issues - like depression and / or anxiety - than "ADHD". There are even personality disorders that can cause such long-term behavioural issues - for e.g., Avoidant Personality Disorder or even Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (both stemming from anxiety issues), and they can be more correctly and confidently diagnosed than the cluster** that is "ADHD" (whose diagnostic criteria has been already revised multiple times in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual).
Alan Schwarz, the author of the book ADHD Nation has investigated the ties between pharmaceutical companies and doctors:
> "The six-question screening instrument that was endorsed by the World Health Organization was devised by doctors with a very long history in ADHD research," he says. "These are, generally, men who have been enriched by the pharmaceutical industry in order to churn out research and churn out things like this that merely expand the ADHD market. "What we've seen over the past 10 [to] 20 years is a constant enthusiasm on the part of the ADHD lobby to get more and more adults to consider the possibility that they, too, have ADHD," Schwarz says.
(Source: Adult ADHD Can't Be Diagnosed With A Simple Screening Test, Doctors Warn - https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/05/29/5276546... ).
I am not against self-help or personal research. But please note that it is very easy to be mislead by such things and very easy to misdiagnose your symptoms. Even the professionals have a tough time with this!
Maybe your experience is different to mine but the amount of hoops i had to jump through to get medication didn't make it seem that way.
And i was lucky in a way as I have family that they could also interview about my behavior to help confirm the diagnosis.
Not to mention the medical checks to make sure I don't have preexisting heart issues etc
It was a fight against my own feelings that "other people sometimes get these thing but not me" and then it was fight to get the diagnosis.
I'm neurodivergent and honestly this comment causes me pain.
What are your thoughts on the QbTest? Is it rigorous or is it incomplete for diagnosing ADHD?
I was not familiar with it until now. At a quick glance, it looks like it has some overlap with the CPT. But generally speaking, this is going to give a snapshot in time in one setting, which is helpful, but just one part of the picture. As the makers of the test note, it still requires a clinical interview and rating scales to arrive at a diagnosis:
> Should QbTest be used with other measures?
> It is not meant to be a standalone tool for diagnosing ADHD. Instead, it has been designed to be added to the assessment process along with a clinical interview and rating scales.
Immediate thoughts:
- Neat.
- Those images on the blogs look potentially AI Generated, which I'm personally turned off by. Others may vary.
- The first blog (by you?) is _very_ long, also "ADHD as Superpower" is somewhat of a trope that I, and others I've spoken with, aren't happy to have as a bullet point of why ADHD isn't the end of the world.
- Anyway, clicked on the "Procrastination" mood button and oh sweet lord there are so many buttons on this page and why do they have "likes" counted in the corner?
- The web developer in me admires the automatic resizing blocks. The user in me doesn't like that the buttons jump around as I click on them. E.g. I clicked on "breath loop" and the interface totally changed an I wasn't actually sure how to get back to where I was (Figured it out: Musical Stimulation), additionally I know there _was_ a button below breath loop but its moved and I forgot which one it was. I'd suggest categorizing the buttons and either hiding them in drawers or collapsible sections so there aren't quite so many immediately visible. And then I'd suggest keeping the controls for each technique in the same place on the screen and just highlight which technique is selected from the buttons, instead of dynamically moving the controls around. On any user interface I interact with regularly I don't even see or read them much anymore because I just know where the buttons I want to interact with are. On this page the buttons are constantly moving around, and I'm only on desktop, I'm sure its different on a phone but I'm almost scared to look (I looked, its good, but the constantly changing height of the scrollbar is a pet peeve of mine, so its functional, I just don't like it). If you don't want to move the controls to a consistent spot, I'd suggest giving the movement a bit of an animation (maybe with an option to disable it?) so people can at least get a feel for what is happening when they click a button instead of an instantaneous change that is impossible to track with their eyeballs.
- I don't love the "Atmosphere" button being in the bottom middle where text/images appear from the content, feels messy.
The AI generated images were an immediate turn-off to me as well. Whatever one thinks of the aesthetics, they're a huge signal that I'm looking at a product that's focused on monetizing me.
The overall design is unfocused and cluttered, just the exact thing I don't need as someone with ADHD.
I don't think I'd use this.
Not only that, but it would also raise significant concerns about how any of the recommendations, treatments, blog posts, etc are made. Like are the different people for those blog posts real people?
This is particularly concerning for a tool like this, you already took shortcuts on images why should we expect anything less for the rest of the app? Has anyone that knows anything about ADHD actually ever looked at anything this app is saying?
The blog is written by real people. So do the techniques. I'm just a bad designer so I decided to generate the pictures. But actually I have diagnosed ADHD myself and all the techniques are all I've collected all my life.
I opened the first blog post and I’m fairly certain most of this post is generated by AI.
I’m not trying to be mean, but it makes it difficult to trust any content on this site.
It makes it impossible. The content gives off the feeling that it will "take" and grab more than it will "give" and release.
ADHD, to me, always, even before the diagnosis, felt like a valve that doesn't open for no reason and due to the build up pressure, some other valve with different "filters" releases whatever mixture of thoughts and actions to compensate.
Children's sugar-induced behavioral roller coasters have a similar characteristic. And this website looks like too much candy without there being any candy.
Be that as it may, it _does_ still raise questions about the content and sources. If you're a bad designer (I'm a pretty terrible artist/designer myself) then I urge you to source your images from someplace ethical. Try unsplash, or google free stock images, or go on fiverr and pay an artist who won't use AI (if you can find one? I haven't tried to user fiverr in a while)
Thank you. I didn't even know people were so negative about AI pictures.
Not all people. HN crowd specifically
> The blog is written by real people
Sorry, I don't believe you. The way that the initial post has identical paragraph lengths with headers on every one is extremely uncanny. The prose is very dry, repetitive, often written in passive voice, and completely lacking in personality.
What? He should have paid an illustrator on top of doing everything else? I actually prefer AI art to be used, because more of the resources likely went to the essence of the product.
Thanks for the feedback. I'm a bad UI designer. But I've already found one and will make the UI better soon!
One of the file name is "1750927062274_ChatGPT Image Jun 26, 2025, 11_33_18 AM (1)" - so yes, +1 for AI.
I'm just a bad designer so I decided to generate the images. :)
I don't blame you for it, as it's cheap, fast, and fits the context better than what can be provided usually. If you find that people are turned off by it, and want to act on it, I suggest stock images from places like Pixabay. They are royalty free so it's not much of a pain to use them, and there is a lot of good ones on the site as well. Downside is that they will probably be disjointed, like, every image will be its own style, which detracts from the unity of your website, but the upside is that you get rid of the negative associations with AI. Random idea, but you can use classical art as well, as they are all in public domain now. Then you could have the cohesion back: art, and humanity, which would fit the content well on a meta-level too.
I concur on the AI generated images. There is frankly significant overlap between folks who struggle with ADHD and folks who are direct harmed or displaced by the use of AI generated images, I think you would be better off without images at all.
> There is frankly significant overlap between folks who struggle with ADHD and folks who are direct harmed or displaced by the use of AI generated images
Can you expand on this? I don't see the connection.
[flagged]
To add some variety, I think the images look fine.
Idk wtf is wrong with these people whining about AI generated images.
OP not a publicly established personality, and the website is new too. So, they have a lot to prove, credibility chief among them, especially since the topic is mental health. Users discovering that some of the things are AI generated leads to a thought that maybe more, subtler things are AI generated as well - like the texts on the website. AI output is currently distrusted, and the companies' treatment of the authors of their training material is frequently questioned. So, this way, discovering AI content erodes trust, of which the author didn't have any to begin with - because they are just starting out!
So that is why AI is a deal. Looks-wise they are good, and they fit their context very well. But they do communicate much more than that, and that makes them iffy for many.
This is going to sound like a shilled comment, but for the past week, I've been using Motion [0] to manage all of my tasks and scheduling. My lifelong weakness has always been so-called "time blindness", and I cannot overstate how much of a game changer Motion has been for me in keeping me focused and on-track. Both for personal and professional tasks. It really feels like I've just put on mental "glasses" and can see where I am and what I should be doing with clarity.
It's only been a week, so maybe my opinion will change. Who knows. I'm half writing this comment as a historical record for myself to look back at in a year.
[0]: https://www.usemotion.com/
Small piece of product feeback related to grammar:
The landing page asks, how are you feeling? For which the possible responses are "Anxiety", "Procrastination" ... "Overwhelm".
When a person says, I a X, X is always an adjective. One doesn't say "I am Irritability" one says "I am irritable".
All of these options are nouns, except for "Overwhelm" which is actually only a verb but is being used incorrectly as a noun.
The correct responses would be "Anxious", "Hyperactive", "Overwhelmed", "Irritable".
Except for "Procrastination", which doesn't have any associated adjective. You might need to rephrase the whole header
an entire section of the ADHD test questions appear to assume I am school/college age :/
My ADHD partner was actually quite relaxed at the time I asked her how she was feeling. That didnt appear to be an option to choose.
I don’t have ADHD but I did the test. My answers would vary with amount of sleep:
4 hours/night - Poor executive function, can’t figure out what order to do things in, lose keys and random things, forget to lock doors and not even realize it
6 hours - Mild executive dysfunction, never sure if I locked the door but I did
8 hours - Zero problems
10 hours - I’ve never actually experimented
ui feels too stateful per interaction, every click shifts layout, adds/remove elements, resets focus. that's expensive for working memory esp if im mid-task. layout stability might need to be treated like a cognitive affordance, otherwise good going smooth
A repost from three months ago to re-ignite engagement.
It didn’t get any attention last time. I give them a pass for trying again.
You know, a lot of ADHD will be reading this at night.
Why no dark mode?
have you tried Dark Mode in a browser like Brave?
I use that on mobile so the referenced website, HN, and 99.9% of the web is in dark mode by default.
> Dark Mode in a browser like Brave ... and 99.9% of the web is in dark mode by default.
I turned on Appearance -> Brave Colors = Dark. That darkened the browser components but not web pages, inc HN.
Is the self test for people who know they have ADHD? Because there was no option for what I’m currently feeling.
Aren't those kind of tests... how I'd put it politely?... less than meaningful?
First of all, it's not really well done: there are no control questions, no inverted questions, no consistency checks (like re-phrased duplicate questions) or anything a well-designed self-test must have. All answers are obviously ranked, introducing perception biases. Questions like "how often do you interrupt someone" or "how often you were told" or "did parents notice" are highly culturally-dependent. The childhood questions do not discern between younger and older ages (where behavioral differences are drastic), and likely to introduce a skew based on one's age and long-term memory function (which, AFAIK, ADHD does not directly affect). To me it looks like nothing of value would be lost if the whole test would be replaced with a short description what ADHD is and then a single yes/no question "do you think you may have some of the described symptoms?"
I would understand something like ANT, which (as I understand it) tests way closer to actual brain behavior, than those distant derivatives smeared over social prisms, self-perception lenses, and dice rolls of life's [pseudo-]randomness.
I have ADHD myself. I do a lot of my service based on my experience and the experience of others with ADHD.
Great idea, and I'm looking forward to trying this out!
Each person with ADHD is affected a little differently, based on anecdotal evidence from family and friends. What are the available customization options?
Thank you! For now, there are customization options only for background sounds. But in the future there will be an intelligent system for selecting self-help techniques. And you can take a short test to find out your current state.
Hi HN! I've built ADHD Help, a simple yet powerful web app designed to help manage common ADHD-related states like anxiety, procrastination, irritability, overwhelm, hyperactivity, and distraction.
The app offers:
Interactive Coping Techniques: Immediate guided steps for calming anxiety, managing procrastination, and handling emotional overwhelm using CBT, DBT, and mindfulness methods.
Ambient Sound Mixer: Customize and layer soothing background noises (nature, white noise, café sounds) to enhance focus or relaxation.
Quick ADHD Self-Test: A quick screening to help identify ADHD symptoms.
Curated Blog: Practical articles, personal insights, and evidence-based advice on living better with ADHD.
Would love your feedback and thoughts!
Check it out here: https://adhdhelp.app
Make the website version when open doesn’t dim the screen
Awesome tool, thanks for caring about the well-being of others!
Thank you!
Spend one minute "embracing imperfection"...
As soon as I loaded the page, I wanted to click on the Procrastination page..but I guess I can do it tomorrow.
Selling supplements to vulnerable people seems scummy to me.
I concur with the other comments about AI-generated content, so let me hit you with some positive:
I like the idea, and I like that the website gets right down to business with the "How are you feeling?" at the very top. It reminds me a bit of https://youfeellikeshit.com/ (which I mean as a good thing). You might actually want to crib a little bit of that site's minimalism. I also like that you're not asking for the user to signup right off the bat.
Thank you. I didn't even realize so many people wouldn't like these pictures. I think they really fit the articles.
Personally I think these people are over-vocal, insane, and unlikely to pay you in the first place.
I see no problem with AI generated pictures, but there's a really loud minority who find them ethnically untenable
It's not that they don't fit, it's that AI-generated images are commonly used on spam/scam sites, and thus have that inauthentic/low-effort stink to them. It casts a shadow on the rest of site that says "is any of this authentic or am I reading AI slop?". You might do better to have someone do some scribbles for you on fiverr.com imo.
I used it as a distraction from something I need to accomplish.
> I built an ADHD app with interactive coping tools, noise mixer and self-test
Remeber kids! Self-medication with the Voight-Kampff test is dangerous and can lead to the serious consequences including , but not limited to:
depression personality disorders suicide thoughts obsession with a wooden minutae giant meta-corporations hunting for you overall quality of life decrease, including death
Please consult a doctor before using the test!
(somehow the last words of the post title gave me this reaction)
I would like app developers to please stop trying to monetize ADHD. This one doesn't seem as predatory and snake oil as most of the others, but, kindly refrain. Our neurodevelopmental condition is not your cash cow.
As someone in their 40s with ADHD, I'll offer a counterpoint.
I'm happy for people to try to make a business of this if the tools are helpful.
I've had a successful career, so I obviously had to develop my own strategies for managing it. But I'd be very happy if my kids didn't have to spend 20 years figuring it out for themselves. Monetize away.
Personally, I fall somewhere in the middle. I'd be happy to pay a modest bit of money to buy a simple app, and see if it helps -- but I'm very reluctant to sign up for a subscription.
Perhaps ironically, the less the app claims to do, the more likely I am to be interested.
I've only signed up for a paid mental health app subscription once -- and that was an app designed by a well-known psychologist with both an M.D. and a Ph.D., and even then only after reading his book.
Yes, exactly. A one-time purchase is great because ADHDers can impulse buy it and be done. A subscription is an extra mental burden I don't want or need.
Strategies can be shared for free as well.
Ryder Carroll is a good example. He created the bullet journal through trial and error to manage his own ADHD. He shared it for free. While he did write a book and partnered with a company to design a notebook (due to popular demand), he still gives away everything someone needs for free, and will be the first one to tell people you don’t need a special notebook.
i'm less worried about people monetizing it than I am about people pushing a lot of bad self-diagnosis memes based on nonsense criteria ("if you sleep with your arms in this pose, you have ADHD (and maybe autism)!") or just describing completely typical events as a meaningful symptom ("if you ever procrastinate, you might have ADHD")
Would you like to elaborate why you feel this way?
I have ADHD myself. Honestly, I'd like to make a service that will help everyone. To do that, I need money. I think that 5 dollars a month is not so much nowadays.
But why would it need to be subscription based?
Presumably the person is doing work on it on an ongoing basis..... This isn't that hard to figure out
I don't understand this sentiment.
Sure, there might be people out there selling snakeoil, but that's the case for every domain. Does that mean we nobody should try to make apps to solve domain problems at all? Of course not.
So you're asking everyone to stop monetizing ADHD. So the two alternatives are make the apps for free or don't make them at all. The former is not realistic or sustainable and later gives up potential upside.
I mean, do you think all ADHD apps will just be bad and are just people trying rip off ADHDers?
I think a more reasonable premise is yes, just in every domain, there will be snake oil sellers unfortunately and it's up to the consumer to watch out for those. But there will also be genuine people who are trying to solve this problem and that will potentially give people a lot of value for the money they pay for it.