The last D is for disorder. If you have ADHD, it’s not cute and relatable, it’s making your life worse to the point of needing to be addressed. Everybody having “a little ADHD” is a way of trivializing the level of actual problems that are required for it to be called a disorder.
This is the correct answer and I feel it’s very important to emphasize this point. You can have “symptoms” of whatever the fuck, but in order for it to be considered a disorder, it must disrupt your life in some way. I usually lean more into the camp of just trying to be supportive of people when they speak about mental health disorders, but there are definitely those kids out there self-diagnosing disorders like they’re collecting pokemon. As someone who legitimately has been diagnosed with multiple disorders by actual licensed psychological professionals, it’s aggravating to see those kids infantilize mental health in that capacity, where it perpetuates the already uphill battle for many of us to be taken seriously in the first place. ADHD has absolutely ruined my life and I would absolutely(in a hypothetical) take a relatively high chance of death at “curing” my ADHD without a single hesitation. Life is hard enough with all these fucking disorders, definitely don’t need the added burden of always feeling like I have to prove that I really am that fucked up.
Fucking spot on. I feel this way about most of my disorders, except ASD. My ASD is a part of me, though it does have its downsides.
The ADHD is the most significant, though. If I could just remove this anchor from my brain, my quality of life would skyrocket. I don’t find it a “superpower” at all. I am not exaggerating when I say that it has stolen my childhood and early adulthood, and from the outside it looks like laziness or a lack of discipline. Solidarity.
There’s an element at play here that communicates an issue with how society treats you. I would argue that ADHD just by the curiosity and random attention it can focus on spawns an interesting idea of creativity in being drawn by and interested in all sorts of ideas that may have no overlap.
To be fair, with the amount of shit bombarded in your face with a dozen devices, everything fighting for your attention including ads on your vehicle infotainment, there is a zero chance that most people havent developed some sort of ADHD, whether clinically diagnosed or not. Disorders evolved also.
Try sitting in a room for 10-15 minutes and do absolutely nothing, just sit with your thoughts. I’m willing to bet most people can’t.
As someone diagnosed with ADHD, I can easily sit quietly in a room with my own thoughts for 20+ minutes.
What I can’t seem to do is make the two simple phone calls I need to make and write the one page report that I need to write before the end of the week. That’s literally all I need to do today, I’ve been at my desk for two hours and have done none of it. If I got that done now, I could coast the rest of my work day but instead I’m going to sit here and stress for a few more hours before I finally do any of it. Why? I can’t tell you because I don’t know.
The symptoms of ADHD happen to be things all people deal with. The inability to pay attention to things, or the restlessness of a quiet room are universal experiences. In that part you are kind of right. However ADHD specifically refers to the actual clinical deficit in executive function representing a chemical difference in the brain. Saying “Everyone has a little ADHD” is just a condescending way to put it. Different people may have different levels of annoyance with the phrase.
Everyone gets sad, not everyone has depression.
Everyone worries, not everyone has General Anxiety Disorder.
Everyone has pains sometimes, not everyone has Chronic Pain.
The sentiment isnt necessarily wrong, and the colloquial meaning still comes across, but it’s just degrading to hear. I hate hearing someone call out a disorder as one of their quirks as much as the next guy, but more than being mildly annoying it can stand to change the perception of the thing in the public consciousness enough that someone that has a disorder might believe they are just making a big deal out of something that “everyone” deals with. Whether intended or not just keep that in mind.
(TLDR I have ADHD please don’t minimize it by saying stuff like “lol computers destroy attention span”, you’re not wrong, just condescending.)
Christ, that is a trite oversimplification or complete misunderstanding. ADHD includes worse outcomes in employment (lower wages, difficulty keeping jobs), relationships (impulsivity can lead to anything from speaking before processing to forgetting plans to seeking out more stimulating things in lieu of relationships), health (higher rates of car accidents, higher use of recreational drugs, difficulty with self care), and a bunch of other things. It doesn’t “develop” over time from looking at your phone. Please please please do some actual reading of things by experts in the field on it before saying this sort of thing again.
ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder, either you’re born with it or you’re not. Sure, lots of things fight for our attention and that probably affects us in some way, but distractability isn’t the same thing as ADHD. It’s primarily a regulation disorder rather than ‘can’t focus disease’. Where I think you bring up a good point in a mechanism that probably reveals ADHD in some people, I would definitely give pushback on what appears to be a suggestion that the advertising industry as it exists causes ADHD. I don’t think any serious psychological professional would make that assertion.
The last D is for disorder. If you have ADHD, it’s not cute and relatable, it’s making your life worse to the point of needing to be addressed. Everybody having “a little ADHD” is a way of trivializing the level of actual problems that are required for it to be called a disorder.
This is the correct answer and I feel it’s very important to emphasize this point. You can have “symptoms” of whatever the fuck, but in order for it to be considered a disorder, it must disrupt your life in some way. I usually lean more into the camp of just trying to be supportive of people when they speak about mental health disorders, but there are definitely those kids out there self-diagnosing disorders like they’re collecting pokemon. As someone who legitimately has been diagnosed with multiple disorders by actual licensed psychological professionals, it’s aggravating to see those kids infantilize mental health in that capacity, where it perpetuates the already uphill battle for many of us to be taken seriously in the first place. ADHD has absolutely ruined my life and I would absolutely(in a hypothetical) take a relatively high chance of death at “curing” my ADHD without a single hesitation. Life is hard enough with all these fucking disorders, definitely don’t need the added burden of always feeling like I have to prove that I really am that fucked up.
Fucking spot on. I feel this way about most of my disorders, except ASD. My ASD is a part of me, though it does have its downsides.
The ADHD is the most significant, though. If I could just remove this anchor from my brain, my quality of life would skyrocket. I don’t find it a “superpower” at all. I am not exaggerating when I say that it has stolen my childhood and early adulthood, and from the outside it looks like laziness or a lack of discipline. Solidarity.
There’s an element at play here that communicates an issue with how society treats you. I would argue that ADHD just by the curiosity and random attention it can focus on spawns an interesting idea of creativity in being drawn by and interested in all sorts of ideas that may have no overlap.
To be fair, with the amount of shit bombarded in your face with a dozen devices, everything fighting for your attention including ads on your vehicle infotainment, there is a zero chance that most people havent developed some sort of ADHD, whether clinically diagnosed or not. Disorders evolved also.
Try sitting in a room for 10-15 minutes and do absolutely nothing, just sit with your thoughts. I’m willing to bet most people can’t.
As someone diagnosed with ADHD, I can easily sit quietly in a room with my own thoughts for 20+ minutes.
What I can’t seem to do is make the two simple phone calls I need to make and write the one page report that I need to write before the end of the week. That’s literally all I need to do today, I’ve been at my desk for two hours and have done none of it. If I got that done now, I could coast the rest of my work day but instead I’m going to sit here and stress for a few more hours before I finally do any of it. Why? I can’t tell you because I don’t know.
The symptoms of ADHD happen to be things all people deal with. The inability to pay attention to things, or the restlessness of a quiet room are universal experiences. In that part you are kind of right. However ADHD specifically refers to the actual clinical deficit in executive function representing a chemical difference in the brain. Saying “Everyone has a little ADHD” is just a condescending way to put it. Different people may have different levels of annoyance with the phrase.
Everyone gets sad, not everyone has depression. Everyone worries, not everyone has General Anxiety Disorder. Everyone has pains sometimes, not everyone has Chronic Pain.
The sentiment isnt necessarily wrong, and the colloquial meaning still comes across, but it’s just degrading to hear. I hate hearing someone call out a disorder as one of their quirks as much as the next guy, but more than being mildly annoying it can stand to change the perception of the thing in the public consciousness enough that someone that has a disorder might believe they are just making a big deal out of something that “everyone” deals with. Whether intended or not just keep that in mind.
(TLDR I have ADHD please don’t minimize it by saying stuff like “lol computers destroy attention span”, you’re not wrong, just condescending.)
Christ, that is a trite oversimplification or complete misunderstanding. ADHD includes worse outcomes in employment (lower wages, difficulty keeping jobs), relationships (impulsivity can lead to anything from speaking before processing to forgetting plans to seeking out more stimulating things in lieu of relationships), health (higher rates of car accidents, higher use of recreational drugs, difficulty with self care), and a bunch of other things. It doesn’t “develop” over time from looking at your phone. Please please please do some actual reading of things by experts in the field on it before saying this sort of thing again.
ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder, either you’re born with it or you’re not. Sure, lots of things fight for our attention and that probably affects us in some way, but distractability isn’t the same thing as ADHD. It’s primarily a regulation disorder rather than ‘can’t focus disease’. Where I think you bring up a good point in a mechanism that probably reveals ADHD in some people, I would definitely give pushback on what appears to be a suggestion that the advertising industry as it exists causes ADHD. I don’t think any serious psychological professional would make that assertion.