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Uh oh
I hate “don’t want to label them” with a vengeance of a thousand suns. It says so many fkd up things in those few words.
Do all your countries still call it ADHD? I know it as ADHS (syndrome instead of disorder)
But to the topic, my son is 6 years old, and we won’t just ignore it 🫶🏻
Yeah 45+ years of that…
I’m feeling that.
I have AuDHD. I got dx at 30 for ADHD, then everyone kept asking me if I am autistic other than family after meds, it may be some kind of OCD (mom is dx), hard to say, lots of overlap. Medication just made the other stuff more obvious. Regardless, I am very, very exhausted from the rage of feeling misunderstood for so long, but happy to slow down and figure out how to work with it. It cost me a lot of people in my life, but I am far less anxious. The only problem is, trying to motivate myself without the anger lol. I still get mega pissed off with family members not recognizing it. I am trying to unlearn people pleasing.
Goddamn, do I feel this. The urge for people-pleasing is real. Establishing boundaries that respect your limits is hard. I keep hearing the voice of ignorant neurotypicals throughout my life, echoing in my head, “You don’t need a break.” “You’re just lazy.” “Answer, answer now! You must speak!”
No! I can say no! I can say, “I need some time alone,” or, “I’ll get back to you tomorrow.” Acknowledging that I have limits IS OKAY. MOST PEOPLE WILL RESPECT THAT. Even if my own freaking parents can’t.
What’s “dx”?
Diagnosed
I see, guess we don’t use that abbreviation where I’m from. Thanks!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_diagnosis
It’s used by practicing medical professionals. :)
“What are you talking about? You’re not different. Everyone feels that way, we just all learned how to deal with it ourselves.”
— Undiagnosed parents
What becomes epidemic can often be assumed as normal.
A Cautionary Tale: Sudden Infant Death Syndrome And The “enlarged” Thymus Gland
In the first half of the 19th century, physicians were becoming alarmed by sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Healthy infants would be put to bed and found dead in the morning. In 1830, pathologists noted that SIDS-affected infants had enlarged thymus glands compared with “normal” autopsy specimens. It seemed logical to conclude that these “enlarged” glands were in some way responsible for the deaths.
…
If an enlarged thymus was leading to sudden infant death, removal of the thymus might be of preventive value. Radiology had advanced to the point at which physicians began making the diagnosis of thymic enlargement from x-ray films. After radiographic diagnosis, thymectomy was initially recommended, but the mortality rate was unacceptably high. Thymus irradiation became the treatment of choice.
The first “successful” use of irradiation to shrink the thymus was reported by Friedländer in 1907. Thousands of children eventually received radiation to prevent status thymicolymphaticus. Some physicians advocated prophylactic irradiation for all neonates.
There was only one slight problem. It turned out to be deadly
The cadavers used by anatomists to determine the “normal” thymus size were from the poor, most having died of highly stressful chronic illnesses such as tuberculosis, infectious diarrhea, and malnutrition. What was not appreciated at the time was that chronic stress shrinks the thymus gland. The “normal” thymus glands of the poor were abnormally small. Here is where the fatal mistake occurred: because the autopsied thymus glands of the poor were regarded as normal in size, the SIDS-affected infants were erroneously believed to have thymic enlargement
In a household or community where large numbers of people express the same symptoms, it is very possible for people to assume this condition to be the normal one and good health to be the abnormality. They may even conclude healthy people are in need of treatment to bring them back to “normal” patterns of behavior.
You can see this error repeated historically, from abusive parents assuming “being beaten by my parents toughed me up so I should do the same” to anti-vaxxers who think measles and whooping cough build character.
Something that pisses me off to no end is the commonly accepted idea that confidence is a momentary emotion you can conjure in yourself like a joyful laugh at a memory. Sure, for people who have had a life that structurally empowered them and rewarded them for having the brain they did maybe it is…
For someone with ADHD who has been told they aren’t enough and are also too much their whole life and never had the diagnosis? You can’t just make that go away with telling them they have ADHD and giving them a hug. Lasting damage has been done to that child and they may never recover their confidence in adulthood the way other people do.
I wish we would stop treating confidence like it is child’s play, it isn’t. If you undermine a child’s confidence you have hurt that child at a more permanent level than almost any other way you can non-physically hurt them.
Especially for someone who is very sensitive about what other people think of them, which a lot of ADHD people tend to be (a lot of us rely on it to motivate us to get things done!), you can’t just think better about yourself. Your confidence is like an instinct that has been learned through the summation and culmination of your experiences. If those experiences are people shitting on you for things you can’t help, you won’t be a confident person, period. That is how that works and I wish people would stop pretending it is all just wishy washy perspective taking that can be undone by simply thinking harder. Maybe for a very narrow range of people in a much larger subset this is possible, but beyond that? No
And it doesn’t just go away if the parents/guardians just decide to stop treating it entirely for arbitrary reasons.
I know i have ADHD, i know i was treated for ADHD until like 10 years old (and symptoms never went away) but because my parents “didn’t like how i was when i was on medication”, i had no treatment at all through middle school and high school, and they long since destroyed my childhood medical records so i have nothing to show for it. Frankly I feel like i should be more angry at them than I am. I probably shouldn’t have graduated high school.
In my experience, even with a diagnosis you don’t stop feeling broken.
A diagnosis is just a generalization of the “symptoms”. And the “cures” for the symptoms are almost always drugs and almost never address the actual problems - family, society, etc.
The idea that society is the problem could be true from the point of view of an ND person, but I don’t feel it’s the whole picture. I think there is a more helpful way to frame it.
ND naturally think and act in ways that are different from NT people, and may need different things, just as NT have needs and ways of thinking and acting that are natural to them.
So a better way to understanding the problem might be as miscommunication and lack of understanding. Sometimes the problem is ignorance and lack of empathy. This can happen on both sides.
A diagnosis gave me language and understanding to identify ways I’m different from other people, and helped me understand and communicate these differences.
personal mitigation is a lot easier than changing family/society/&c. i get why people medicate.
True, but it helps.
I’ll probably never stop feeling irrationally guilty at times when my ADHD and/or my anxiety hinders me from getting stuff done, but being able to remind myself and explain to others makes it easier to carry it and not let myself descend into a guilt spiral that hinders me even further and for longer.
It helps once you have the emotional maturity and skills to contextualize your own dysfunctions and divergences as such. Even with a diagnosis on the early side, everything I do wrong or fail to execute on is inherently still, and always will be, my fault.
Sure, emotional maturity is a big part of it as well, but with no knowledge about the causes for your more vexing hurdles and limitations, you can be endlessly mature and STILL not know how to tell laziness or apathy from executive dysfunction 🤷🏻
Rafiki whacks you on the head with his staff.
Go talk to a therapist!
I do that too!
That really sucks dude. Nobody should feel like that.
It’s not helped me that much either, but it has at least given me a level of understanding, and a route to direct self compassion down. It’s a really slow process, and it’s not linear or steady, but it is something.
I have ADHD, and this was my childhood. But I also learned some important coping methods, like how to mask. Given how resistant I am to learning behaviors like that, I’m not sure I could have done it without a struggle. Meanwhile the kids who were diagnosed had a stigma on them that I’m glad I was able to avoid.
My parents did their best with what they knew. I’ve got bad memories and good ones, just like every person ever.
With that said, we’ve decided to hold off on having my daughter tested, even though she’s showing some symptoms. If she has it, I don’t want that to be part of her identity until it has to be. If she starts struggling, we’ll take action. Until then, it’s best not to burden her.
We also got extremely lucky with her first grade teacher. She started the year with a very traditional, veteran teacher. Her seating arrangement changed three times in a month because, according to her, the other kids kept talking. But then the school said they had too many kids in the first grade classes, so they started a new class of just 13 students and moved my daughter. The teacher is brand new, just recently certified.
My daughter came home talking about how they constantly do “brain breaks” in between lessons, and other unusual things.
We went to the parent teacher conference, and this teacher is the most ADHD woman I’ve ever met. We did a one-on-one meeting that lasted two hours. And she’s wonderful. She’s the best thing that could have happened to our daughter. She approaches everything in a way that’s perfectly tailored to someone with ADHD, and it sounds like the other kids love it too.
So maybe we’ll have her tested next year.
I was diagnosed with Autism at the ripe old age of 33. When I told my parents about it, my mum lost her mind because I was actually diagnosed at 7, she just never told me in hopes I will be “normal” and thought she got away with it.
😳 she lost her mind?!
Or in the sense of guilt?
I can only imagine the anger that would trigger in Me learning that like you did.My parents just don’t understand it… (while dealing themselves with it thinking it is how everyone is)
They learned to live with it in a healthy way, without knowing or acknowledging it…
Fuck!
I’ve known several kids in upper elementary school who have a diagnosis but their parents won’t tell them or get them school accommodations or services. It’s just setting them up for failure.
I was tested for something or things in 3rd grade. My mom never told me what the diagnosis was. I was diagnosed at age 41 and my mom was dead so I never got to ask her.
She was afraid of how it would make her look, I imagine, because her rep was all she was concerned with.
Similar, but my mom didn’t even want to get me tested because even the hint of something different would make her look bad.
audhd. still dealing with those “I’m stupid, a failure” every day because of that.
existing really messes you up
I never understood willful ignorance, it’s gotta be better to know. And to have the diagnosis, being able to access directed care, have been life changing. I went through all those feelings growing up, knowing I was different, but not having the framework to know it was ADHD and what that meant and not being able to access treatment, it was rough. My kid got diagnosed when he was 9 as soon as it was evident he likely had it as well, he will not go through the same hardships I went through.
I just never considered it, things used to be so much more black and white, to put it bluntly you were normal or retarded basically, so you had so many kids who thought they were just weird/dumb/lazy/unambitious or worse, myself included. I’m so glad things have got so much better though there’s still a long way to go.
Yeah I was high performing, best test taker in our graduating class, highest act score, one of the lowest gpas… I got called lazy a lot. But that never made sense to me because I was incredibly passionate about things and would toil away for weeks on some project, but you couldn’t make me care about homework, you couldn’t make me listen to a lecture, you couldn’t stop me from sleeping in class, and neither could I. It did make me feel very different from my peers.
I got diagnosed with ADHD when I was 6 and still concluded I am stupid, weak, annoying, and unlovable.
Yeah I didn’t get diagnosed until like 20, and I don’t think not knowing negatively impacted me. I knew I was different, but I didn’t think there was anything wrong with me. I still often thought “If they can do it, I can too.”
Now I know there’s something wrong with me I do often wonder what’s the point of trying. I feel like I’m fighting an uphill battle, but I guess I also think that my successes are even more of an accomplishment?
Now I know there’s something wrong with me
There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re being forced to live in an extremely unnatural situation.
TBH people don’t really “have” these things. People exhibit “symptoms” that are described as these things. For me it’s the difference between “having a disorder” (helpless, exploitable) and “having a natural reaction to a dysfunctional society” (aware, empowered).
Plenty of disorders are not helpful or rational reactions to a dysfunctional society. Natural, maybe, but that doesn’t say much. It’s one thing to be sad or angry about capitalism, another entirely to hear voices coming from the walls or think your loved ones have been replaced by body doubles.
