Different issue but a relative works in an NHS psychiatry unit that diagnoses ADHD. There is now a three year waiting list simply because the system is clogged up with people who have been diagnosed by non NHS therapists, who are not using the official diagnostic guidelines. Hence people with genuine ADHD symptoms can’t get NHS appointments so go to dodgy therapists. A vicious circle that is very profitable for some.
And the person in that video has 4 “neurodivergent” children who cannot decide what sex they are but seem to have terribly non boring careers in show business.
I have relative who’s been diagnosed with ADHD. He’s 13 and a great kid. He had struggled at school for years. Had fallen so far behind his peers and the last thing his parents (my niece) wanted was to put him on meds but it has changed his life. He’s doing so much better. ADHD diagnosis is so misunderstood. He had 18 months to 2 years of tests before he was diagnosed. It makes me so bloody angry.
My eldest son is 21 and struggles and meets the criteria for adhd and/or autism and did from a very young age but as parents we didn’t want to put a label on him and he’s bright and is currently coping with University. Hes been a computer nerd since he was three. All this talk of fixations…he’s studying computer science now. It’s been his thing forever. :)
Let’s just say that I’m surrounded by people with developmental and learning disorders and have spent about 15 years involved with SEND depts and psychologists… if they are struggling, it’s absolutely vital for kids to get a diagnosis (they can’t manage without one)… This is why self-indulgent adults who have more or less breezed through school, exams and uni and only discover they “have” ADHD as a 50-something irk me something fierce. They have no idea what “struggle” is…
I’m so glad your son has found his niche! Thank goodness for computers! 😄 (Though before them it was probably radios and tvs and before that, steam engines… 😉)
He’s actually got to the stage of pulling things apart and actually putting them back together again! He built his own pc at 12. I’m lost when he’s not here and the internet is down 😁
I haven't come across this but I can well believe it. It reminds me of tattoos: you don't suddenly acquire experience or insight with them either. I may be autistic or OCD but I am not bothered to have it diagnosed or even to mention it normally; why do these people think they have become interesting or normal people dull?
It’s like people who think that if they smoke loads of weed they’ll be able to play guitar like Hendrix! 😄 If your life isn’t falling apart, there’s no need for a diagnosis. Also, a diagnosis isn’t the end, it should be the start of a process that helps you learn how to cope with things better. Too often a (self-)diagnosis seems to be all there is.
Yes! When we have a diagnosis for a physical thing, we expect it's going to be the start of a course of treatment or management.
"Neurodivergent" as a self-diagnosis, or diagnosis by non-expert opinion, is like seeing you have a mole or wart in the mirror. A skin specialist might take a biopsy and recommend removal. A beautician (or someone wearing too much makeup on the ground floor of Boots or a department store) might suggest you see a doctor (if you're lucky), but might instead put makeup on it to highlight it and suggest you make a feature of it and call it a "beauty spot".
Loved this post - I had to work with a woman last year for about 6 months who decided part way through that she was "neurospicy" and therefore every mistake she made in the new skills we were both learning we not in any way to be learned from and changed (kind of like evolution) but instead were shiny badges to be polished and cherished. Unsurprisingly, the skills she was learning stopped improving at about the same time as she decided her bugs were in fact features.
Fortunately, my optic nerves stopped my eyes from rolling completely around in their sockets, or they would still be spinning now.
She's not the only one - neurotypical just means "not diagnosed with any kind of disorder" but has been read as "boring or bland" and often "boring and bland white, straight, middle-aged and male".
You have expressed my frustrations with this whole issue way more eloquently than I could have, so thank you!
This is all so true! I have seen these people and they are very annoying. My feeling is that this is the new vegan.
It’s also incredibly annoying for people who do actually have these conditions, as now they get tarred with the same brush as these pretenders and are faced with eye rolling about any legit issues they may have.
This leads to a lot of ignorance about what certain conditions are actually like. Kind of like how everyone started saying they were gluten intolerant when they just actually wanted to avoid carbs but not get judged for it. And then people started to think coeliacs were just trying to be fashionable.
My fav is people self diagnosing as autistic because they ‘feel awkward around other people’. Welcome to being a human, we all feel like this!
I think many of the issues which people argue about in the cultural / identity space is caused by this kind of bandwagon-jumping.
Even the trans “issue” is muddied by it; you’ve got a whole spectrum of people, from “old-fashioned” transsexuals that have or intend to fully transition (the “man trapped in a woman’s body” & vice versa); to kids confused by modern consumer capitalism’s insistence that boys play with guns and girls with dolls who realise they don’t fit the stereotype for their assigned gender, but don’t quite know what they do fit who have been drawn into the debate; to transvestite men & women who’s kink is to be treated publicly as women or men or something in between; and any number of other variations. Too often, the most vocal proponents of ‘trans rights’ aren’t actually “transsexual” but are merely transvestites, and the most vocal critics assume that transvestites represent the whole movement. All of these are rolled together into the same “trans” category (in the name of being one’s “true authentic self”) and are either championed or villified depending on who’s talking.
Right. And one of the issues in the 'neurodiverse' world is that because of things like standardised testing and league tables etc etc, more kids are getting diagnoses for things that 30 years ago wouldn't have been an issue, but if it means extra time or being able to use a laptop in an exam, then let's get that diagnosis. So loads of kids are being 'labelled' when, really, they're fine... BUT (I've just debated with myself about saying this, but... ok, let's do it) THE PARENTS seem to think that their kid is delicate/fragile/special/requiring loads of special treatment because of these labels that they've only got because the kid needs to get good marks on exams in order to have a good chance at life. Their kid is fine! Their kid will be fine... OBVIOUSLY there are a small number of kids who do have more serious developmental or learning disorders who sometimes need meds or interventions of some sort and who might find their whole journey in life extra tricky, but most of these labelled kids just need some extra one on one time in learning support and to be introduced to new 'coping' techniques... They are 'normal', it's just the educational situation we have right now doesn't provide them with the flexibility they need... (And I say this from first hand experience btw)
Indeed - And more disadvantaged parents (for example, those whose first language isn't English, those with addiction problems or mental health issues of their own, those nursing sick relatives themselves because NHS cuts, etc) cannot access those sorts of services, or just don't know how.
The results are seen by the rising numbers of genuinely damaged kids that are overwhelming special needs education (I write as the husband of a special needs teacher) - the kinds of schools that the middle class parents who just want extra support for their little ones wouldn't dream of accepting a place at.
Budget cuts are the main problem, of course, but an aggravating factor is that special needs provision in mainstream education is often monopolised by the kids of parents with the sharpest elbows, not those with the greatest need.
Most of this is great - thank you - but I do rather think that your footnote should have been in the main text. Speaking as someone who's spent a lot of her adult life coping pretty effectively with a lot of tough stuff (and yes, doing so with the help of the privilege of a comfortable middle-class childhood that gave me a lot of the tools I needed to do so): the last two years have visited a lot of deeply traumatic experiences on me which I really did have no choice about feeling miserable about, not least because literally none of my usual coping strategies were available to me. Even when things are beginning to get better, I find myself in a place where I can intellectually see and acknowledge the improvements, but the *feelings* are lagging waaaaaaaaay behind, and they're powerful, and that's difficult. I do think that this pendulum-swing against pathologising normal responses to the difficulties of everyday life - which is necessary and reasonable - does sometime risk swinging too far. Please let's not make the genuinely-struggling feel that they 'should' be doing better as we try to point out a different route to those who could be fine.
I put it in a footnote because I was thinking of responses when dealing with PTSD that kind of happen without even having a conscious thought about it - whether that is having flashbacks or physical things like having startle response when touched. And surely if something bad happens to you it is NORMAL to struggle to deal with it? Whatever the traumatic experience there will be feelings of sadness and guilt and anger and hopelessness. That is just a normal, human response... But if someone forms their entire identity around 'the bad thing that happened to me', how can they get better? If years ago by and they keep asking 'Why did that happen to me?' and feeling awful about it... then really they should be reframing their thinking. The past CANNOT be changed. It just can't. There's no point in feeling miserable about it (past the entirely normal recovery period, that is). THAT is the choice I'm talking about...
And I'll point out that 'the entirely normal recovery period' varies from person to person and what they are dealing with. Someone whose 'gorgeous and amazing' boyfriend left them after being together for 2 years right after university really should not be feeling depressed about it 2 years on. Someone who was a passenger in a car crash where people in the vehicle died will need a lot more time. Someone who earns £100,000 a year, but thinks they really should be earning £1,000,000 and is miserable about that needs to get the fuck over themselves today.
Someone else posted a link to this Twitter thread. It seems that psychologists are interested in this whole area, too: "Are mental health awareness efforts contributing to the increase in reported mental health problems?" https://twitter.com/lfoulkesy/status/1625069021350486018
I was diagnosed with ADHD at age 54. I was genuinely excited to have a way forward, and told people so. That stopped pretty quick when I realised I was sounding like One Of Those People. I now absolutely stfu about diagnoses and just do my lifestyle and meds.
I started with my GP ‘I know how this probably sounds but I've been online…’ but she did refer me to a psychiatrist. Best outcome is distinguishing those things that are ADHD manageable from the rest of life's mess that I just have to get onto like everyone else.
Would I have wanted a teenage diagnosis? No, it's taken the maturity of knowing who I am to see symptoms, and be carefully mucking around with a developing brain. Diagnosed 10 years earlier would’ve been handy tho.
This post speaks to me in so many ways. I have been so frustrated at being told that supposedly neurodivergent, but actually incredibly functioning people suffer from things that I consider to be the Human Condition.
Only just read this now. A few thoughts. I'm a bit ambivalent regarding the "looking down on people who self-diagnose ADHD" part. But let me qualify that.
- ADHD is about 2-4% of the adult population (depending on what estimates you take); in France (Switzerland no better), approx 1% of this ADHD population is diagnosed. Meaning: it's largely undiagnosed
- disability/disorder as identity versus as... something that's an aspect of you? The self-diagnosed people you describe here seem to be the "identity, flag-waving" type. Bugs me too. There's a difference between being "out" and reducing your whole being to one aspect of who you are
- instrumentalising (does that work in English? probably not), "weaponising" disability or a condition/disorder to make the other the "bad one" or paint oneself as a victim. I see a lot of this today and it drives me up the wall. It doesn't mean prejudice doesn't exist, but does one want to define oneself as a victim? identity again.
- ADHD is very poorly understood by the general public and also, sadly, by mental health professionals; it's not just "can't concentrate"; it's a whole pile of things that boil down to reduced working memory and executive dysfunction – it can manifest in a variety of ways depending on one's life story and what compensation strategies one might or might not have had the opportunity to develop.
- ADHD can also be more or less severe. So, yes, it is possible to sail through school and uni, have friends, have a career, and also have ADHD. Bright people with ADHD often end up under the radar because they function and compensate sufficiently that it is not very visible – but it comes at a price that may not even be recognised by the people in question.
Disclosure: unsurprisingly, given what I wrote above, I was diagnosed with ADHD 3 years ago. By a psychiatrist who is one of the best French-speaking specialists of ADHD in adults. I'm on medication and it has properly given me my life back (I could remove "back": at 47, I finally felt like I'd been handed admin rights to my internal operating system). And yes, I'd "self-diagnosed" a few months before my "real diagnosis": that's what gave me the drive to get an actual diagnosis to access medication. (Before that, it had never crossed my mind ADHD could have anything to do with me. I could concentrate fine!)
So, for me the issue is not so much the self-diagnosis (here at least, access to the required professional for that is a nightmare) as what one does with the diagnosis, whether it's a "real" one or a "self" one. There are people with "real, proper" diagnoses who use them as a tool in power plays that don't say their name, who sit on them without showing an interest in treatment or therapy or learning to manage things better, who hang onto them for dear life and reduce their whole identity to four letters.
Today, with my "ADHD glasses" on, I am tempted to explain pretty much everything through that lens. I know it's excessive, of course, but that diagnosis explained SO MUCH of what was going on with me and had been going on with me literally forever, and was so life-changing that even three years later, I'm still on a kind of high for having finally been given these much-needed missing pieces of my personal puzzle.
Thank you for this! I’m glad a diagnosis has given you your life back!
When you look at information about getting help for “adult ADHD”, it is very clear that it is a lifelong condition and isn’t something that just appears when you are 50 years old. This is why psychologists who are diagnosing people ask for information from parents or to read school reports etc. The signs will be there. Everyone I know who was diagnosed by a proper professional as an adult had very clear evidence of having it as a child.
Yes, people *can* get through school and university while dealing with undiagnosed ADHD, but that is not the norm (maybe it’s more likely with girls/women???)… and certainly once they start living their adult life there will be issues (eg holding down a job or having a successful relationship will be extremely difficult). If someone has breezed through school and university then had a successful freelance career and a family and THEN at 50 decided that they have ADHD (but they won’t bother with getting a diagnosis), then I’m suuuuuper skeptical. It’s, like, instead of having an affair or buying a motorcycle, they self diagnose with ADHD… 😄
A (proper) diagnosis is the first step to providing answers and help- whether that’s medication, therapy or both. I know it can be transformative. To eschew seeing a professional, but to use a self-diagnosis (after watching a lot of TikTok videos) as an excuse to just behave badly (“I’m no longer masking, that’s why I scream at you when I’m stressed out.” “I can’t do any housework anymore because I can’t focus. It’s too boring”) is just… uncool. As you say, it’s choosing to be a victim (or a jerk!) as opposed to gaining understanding about yourself.
Also, as I mentioned, there are a lot of symptom overlaps between ADHD and other things (eg an inability to focus might be depression, ptsd or bipolar…) and ignoring potentially more serious issues and self-diagnosing with ADHD because it is “cool” right now is pretty dumb… and perhaps even dangerous.
I had sooooo many responses to this post from people often with details of this kind of behaviour from friends or colleagues. One told me how a colleague used their “self-diagnosed ADHD” as an excuse to not help moving stuff at work… but their colleague who is in a wheelchair did the work with everyone else. A lot of people are seeing it and it’s making them very angry.
I’m angry because I know how hard it is for people who actually have these issues and for people to be LARPing and giving the whole issue a bad name helps absolutely no one.
Different issue but a relative works in an NHS psychiatry unit that diagnoses ADHD. There is now a three year waiting list simply because the system is clogged up with people who have been diagnosed by non NHS therapists, who are not using the official diagnostic guidelines. Hence people with genuine ADHD symptoms can’t get NHS appointments so go to dodgy therapists. A vicious circle that is very profitable for some.
I’ve heard about this. It’s such a shitshow… it makes me so angry…
And the person in that video has 4 “neurodivergent” children who cannot decide what sex they are but seem to have terribly non boring careers in show business.
The new Indigo Children https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigo_children
I have relative who’s been diagnosed with ADHD. He’s 13 and a great kid. He had struggled at school for years. Had fallen so far behind his peers and the last thing his parents (my niece) wanted was to put him on meds but it has changed his life. He’s doing so much better. ADHD diagnosis is so misunderstood. He had 18 months to 2 years of tests before he was diagnosed. It makes me so bloody angry.
My eldest son is 21 and struggles and meets the criteria for adhd and/or autism and did from a very young age but as parents we didn’t want to put a label on him and he’s bright and is currently coping with University. Hes been a computer nerd since he was three. All this talk of fixations…he’s studying computer science now. It’s been his thing forever. :)
Let’s just say that I’m surrounded by people with developmental and learning disorders and have spent about 15 years involved with SEND depts and psychologists… if they are struggling, it’s absolutely vital for kids to get a diagnosis (they can’t manage without one)… This is why self-indulgent adults who have more or less breezed through school, exams and uni and only discover they “have” ADHD as a 50-something irk me something fierce. They have no idea what “struggle” is…
I’m so glad your son has found his niche! Thank goodness for computers! 😄 (Though before them it was probably radios and tvs and before that, steam engines… 😉)
He’s actually got to the stage of pulling things apart and actually putting them back together again! He built his own pc at 12. I’m lost when he’s not here and the internet is down 😁
I haven't come across this but I can well believe it. It reminds me of tattoos: you don't suddenly acquire experience or insight with them either. I may be autistic or OCD but I am not bothered to have it diagnosed or even to mention it normally; why do these people think they have become interesting or normal people dull?
It’s like people who think that if they smoke loads of weed they’ll be able to play guitar like Hendrix! 😄 If your life isn’t falling apart, there’s no need for a diagnosis. Also, a diagnosis isn’t the end, it should be the start of a process that helps you learn how to cope with things better. Too often a (self-)diagnosis seems to be all there is.
Yes! When we have a diagnosis for a physical thing, we expect it's going to be the start of a course of treatment or management.
"Neurodivergent" as a self-diagnosis, or diagnosis by non-expert opinion, is like seeing you have a mole or wart in the mirror. A skin specialist might take a biopsy and recommend removal. A beautician (or someone wearing too much makeup on the ground floor of Boots or a department store) might suggest you see a doctor (if you're lucky), but might instead put makeup on it to highlight it and suggest you make a feature of it and call it a "beauty spot".
Loved this post - I had to work with a woman last year for about 6 months who decided part way through that she was "neurospicy" and therefore every mistake she made in the new skills we were both learning we not in any way to be learned from and changed (kind of like evolution) but instead were shiny badges to be polished and cherished. Unsurprisingly, the skills she was learning stopped improving at about the same time as she decided her bugs were in fact features.
Fortunately, my optic nerves stopped my eyes from rolling completely around in their sockets, or they would still be spinning now.
She's not the only one - neurotypical just means "not diagnosed with any kind of disorder" but has been read as "boring or bland" and often "boring and bland white, straight, middle-aged and male".
You have expressed my frustrations with this whole issue way more eloquently than I could have, so thank you!
This is all so true! I have seen these people and they are very annoying. My feeling is that this is the new vegan.
It’s also incredibly annoying for people who do actually have these conditions, as now they get tarred with the same brush as these pretenders and are faced with eye rolling about any legit issues they may have.
This leads to a lot of ignorance about what certain conditions are actually like. Kind of like how everyone started saying they were gluten intolerant when they just actually wanted to avoid carbs but not get judged for it. And then people started to think coeliacs were just trying to be fashionable.
My fav is people self diagnosing as autistic because they ‘feel awkward around other people’. Welcome to being a human, we all feel like this!
I think many of the issues which people argue about in the cultural / identity space is caused by this kind of bandwagon-jumping.
Even the trans “issue” is muddied by it; you’ve got a whole spectrum of people, from “old-fashioned” transsexuals that have or intend to fully transition (the “man trapped in a woman’s body” & vice versa); to kids confused by modern consumer capitalism’s insistence that boys play with guns and girls with dolls who realise they don’t fit the stereotype for their assigned gender, but don’t quite know what they do fit who have been drawn into the debate; to transvestite men & women who’s kink is to be treated publicly as women or men or something in between; and any number of other variations. Too often, the most vocal proponents of ‘trans rights’ aren’t actually “transsexual” but are merely transvestites, and the most vocal critics assume that transvestites represent the whole movement. All of these are rolled together into the same “trans” category (in the name of being one’s “true authentic self”) and are either championed or villified depending on who’s talking.
Right. And one of the issues in the 'neurodiverse' world is that because of things like standardised testing and league tables etc etc, more kids are getting diagnoses for things that 30 years ago wouldn't have been an issue, but if it means extra time or being able to use a laptop in an exam, then let's get that diagnosis. So loads of kids are being 'labelled' when, really, they're fine... BUT (I've just debated with myself about saying this, but... ok, let's do it) THE PARENTS seem to think that their kid is delicate/fragile/special/requiring loads of special treatment because of these labels that they've only got because the kid needs to get good marks on exams in order to have a good chance at life. Their kid is fine! Their kid will be fine... OBVIOUSLY there are a small number of kids who do have more serious developmental or learning disorders who sometimes need meds or interventions of some sort and who might find their whole journey in life extra tricky, but most of these labelled kids just need some extra one on one time in learning support and to be introduced to new 'coping' techniques... They are 'normal', it's just the educational situation we have right now doesn't provide them with the flexibility they need... (And I say this from first hand experience btw)
Indeed - And more disadvantaged parents (for example, those whose first language isn't English, those with addiction problems or mental health issues of their own, those nursing sick relatives themselves because NHS cuts, etc) cannot access those sorts of services, or just don't know how.
The results are seen by the rising numbers of genuinely damaged kids that are overwhelming special needs education (I write as the husband of a special needs teacher) - the kinds of schools that the middle class parents who just want extra support for their little ones wouldn't dream of accepting a place at.
Budget cuts are the main problem, of course, but an aggravating factor is that special needs provision in mainstream education is often monopolised by the kids of parents with the sharpest elbows, not those with the greatest need.
🙏🙏🙏
Narcissistic Personality Disorder
is possible cause of some people’s problems .
I think in the case of the balloon
It is not the ballon that is the cause of happiness it is the mind of love which is a peaceful mind.
When we grasp at the ballon we forget
the mind of love .
If we just stay moment by moment with
mind of love .
Then we are happy regardless of what the balloon does.
Why is it that I scan the soothing blue/green chart and feel that every adult heterosexual male in meetings in the tech industry had late onset ADHD.
Most of this is great - thank you - but I do rather think that your footnote should have been in the main text. Speaking as someone who's spent a lot of her adult life coping pretty effectively with a lot of tough stuff (and yes, doing so with the help of the privilege of a comfortable middle-class childhood that gave me a lot of the tools I needed to do so): the last two years have visited a lot of deeply traumatic experiences on me which I really did have no choice about feeling miserable about, not least because literally none of my usual coping strategies were available to me. Even when things are beginning to get better, I find myself in a place where I can intellectually see and acknowledge the improvements, but the *feelings* are lagging waaaaaaaaay behind, and they're powerful, and that's difficult. I do think that this pendulum-swing against pathologising normal responses to the difficulties of everyday life - which is necessary and reasonable - does sometime risk swinging too far. Please let's not make the genuinely-struggling feel that they 'should' be doing better as we try to point out a different route to those who could be fine.
I put it in a footnote because I was thinking of responses when dealing with PTSD that kind of happen without even having a conscious thought about it - whether that is having flashbacks or physical things like having startle response when touched. And surely if something bad happens to you it is NORMAL to struggle to deal with it? Whatever the traumatic experience there will be feelings of sadness and guilt and anger and hopelessness. That is just a normal, human response... But if someone forms their entire identity around 'the bad thing that happened to me', how can they get better? If years ago by and they keep asking 'Why did that happen to me?' and feeling awful about it... then really they should be reframing their thinking. The past CANNOT be changed. It just can't. There's no point in feeling miserable about it (past the entirely normal recovery period, that is). THAT is the choice I'm talking about...
And I'll point out that 'the entirely normal recovery period' varies from person to person and what they are dealing with. Someone whose 'gorgeous and amazing' boyfriend left them after being together for 2 years right after university really should not be feeling depressed about it 2 years on. Someone who was a passenger in a car crash where people in the vehicle died will need a lot more time. Someone who earns £100,000 a year, but thinks they really should be earning £1,000,000 and is miserable about that needs to get the fuck over themselves today.
Genuinely had an ‘Oh I seeee!’ moment when reading about the balloon and Buddhism - thanks!
A couple other similar posts that have popped up in my circles:
Sarah Ditum (https://sarahditum.substack.com/p/37-mixed-realities) posted this article by Freddie DeBoer: "Mental illness doesn’t make you special: Why do neurodiversity activists claim suffering is beautiful?" https://unherd.com/2022/04/mental-illness-doesnt-make-you-special/
This article popped up in a private group: "Is Internet Spoonie Culture Keeping People Sick? While the FDA keeps experimental treatments out of reach, the spoonie world makes a diagnosis into an identity." https://reason.com/2023/03/15/is-online-illness-culture-keeping-people-sick/
Someone else posted a link to this Twitter thread. It seems that psychologists are interested in this whole area, too: "Are mental health awareness efforts contributing to the increase in reported mental health problems?" https://twitter.com/lfoulkesy/status/1625069021350486018
I was diagnosed with ADHD at age 54. I was genuinely excited to have a way forward, and told people so. That stopped pretty quick when I realised I was sounding like One Of Those People. I now absolutely stfu about diagnoses and just do my lifestyle and meds.
I started with my GP ‘I know how this probably sounds but I've been online…’ but she did refer me to a psychiatrist. Best outcome is distinguishing those things that are ADHD manageable from the rest of life's mess that I just have to get onto like everyone else.
Would I have wanted a teenage diagnosis? No, it's taken the maturity of knowing who I am to see symptoms, and be carefully mucking around with a developing brain. Diagnosed 10 years earlier would’ve been handy tho.
This post speaks to me in so many ways. I have been so frustrated at being told that supposedly neurodivergent, but actually incredibly functioning people suffer from things that I consider to be the Human Condition.
Only just read this now. A few thoughts. I'm a bit ambivalent regarding the "looking down on people who self-diagnose ADHD" part. But let me qualify that.
- ADHD is about 2-4% of the adult population (depending on what estimates you take); in France (Switzerland no better), approx 1% of this ADHD population is diagnosed. Meaning: it's largely undiagnosed
- disability/disorder as identity versus as... something that's an aspect of you? The self-diagnosed people you describe here seem to be the "identity, flag-waving" type. Bugs me too. There's a difference between being "out" and reducing your whole being to one aspect of who you are
- instrumentalising (does that work in English? probably not), "weaponising" disability or a condition/disorder to make the other the "bad one" or paint oneself as a victim. I see a lot of this today and it drives me up the wall. It doesn't mean prejudice doesn't exist, but does one want to define oneself as a victim? identity again.
- ADHD is very poorly understood by the general public and also, sadly, by mental health professionals; it's not just "can't concentrate"; it's a whole pile of things that boil down to reduced working memory and executive dysfunction – it can manifest in a variety of ways depending on one's life story and what compensation strategies one might or might not have had the opportunity to develop.
- ADHD can also be more or less severe. So, yes, it is possible to sail through school and uni, have friends, have a career, and also have ADHD. Bright people with ADHD often end up under the radar because they function and compensate sufficiently that it is not very visible – but it comes at a price that may not even be recognised by the people in question.
Disclosure: unsurprisingly, given what I wrote above, I was diagnosed with ADHD 3 years ago. By a psychiatrist who is one of the best French-speaking specialists of ADHD in adults. I'm on medication and it has properly given me my life back (I could remove "back": at 47, I finally felt like I'd been handed admin rights to my internal operating system). And yes, I'd "self-diagnosed" a few months before my "real diagnosis": that's what gave me the drive to get an actual diagnosis to access medication. (Before that, it had never crossed my mind ADHD could have anything to do with me. I could concentrate fine!)
So, for me the issue is not so much the self-diagnosis (here at least, access to the required professional for that is a nightmare) as what one does with the diagnosis, whether it's a "real" one or a "self" one. There are people with "real, proper" diagnoses who use them as a tool in power plays that don't say their name, who sit on them without showing an interest in treatment or therapy or learning to manage things better, who hang onto them for dear life and reduce their whole identity to four letters.
Today, with my "ADHD glasses" on, I am tempted to explain pretty much everything through that lens. I know it's excessive, of course, but that diagnosis explained SO MUCH of what was going on with me and had been going on with me literally forever, and was so life-changing that even three years later, I'm still on a kind of high for having finally been given these much-needed missing pieces of my personal puzzle.
Thank you for this! I’m glad a diagnosis has given you your life back!
When you look at information about getting help for “adult ADHD”, it is very clear that it is a lifelong condition and isn’t something that just appears when you are 50 years old. This is why psychologists who are diagnosing people ask for information from parents or to read school reports etc. The signs will be there. Everyone I know who was diagnosed by a proper professional as an adult had very clear evidence of having it as a child.
Yes, people *can* get through school and university while dealing with undiagnosed ADHD, but that is not the norm (maybe it’s more likely with girls/women???)… and certainly once they start living their adult life there will be issues (eg holding down a job or having a successful relationship will be extremely difficult). If someone has breezed through school and university then had a successful freelance career and a family and THEN at 50 decided that they have ADHD (but they won’t bother with getting a diagnosis), then I’m suuuuuper skeptical. It’s, like, instead of having an affair or buying a motorcycle, they self diagnose with ADHD… 😄
A (proper) diagnosis is the first step to providing answers and help- whether that’s medication, therapy or both. I know it can be transformative. To eschew seeing a professional, but to use a self-diagnosis (after watching a lot of TikTok videos) as an excuse to just behave badly (“I’m no longer masking, that’s why I scream at you when I’m stressed out.” “I can’t do any housework anymore because I can’t focus. It’s too boring”) is just… uncool. As you say, it’s choosing to be a victim (or a jerk!) as opposed to gaining understanding about yourself.
Also, as I mentioned, there are a lot of symptom overlaps between ADHD and other things (eg an inability to focus might be depression, ptsd or bipolar…) and ignoring potentially more serious issues and self-diagnosing with ADHD because it is “cool” right now is pretty dumb… and perhaps even dangerous.
I had sooooo many responses to this post from people often with details of this kind of behaviour from friends or colleagues. One told me how a colleague used their “self-diagnosed ADHD” as an excuse to not help moving stuff at work… but their colleague who is in a wheelchair did the work with everyone else. A lot of people are seeing it and it’s making them very angry.
I’m angry because I know how hard it is for people who actually have these issues and for people to be LARPing and giving the whole issue a bad name helps absolutely no one.