Well, I have been “tested” by neuropsychologists and they said I have symptoms that looks like ADHD, but it’s probably not that. I never pushed more as it’s difficult to get any diagnosis or help here in Quebec as an adult. In the end they said I may have PDA, and they will not give me a straight answer.
I still consider myself nerodivergent but according to the medical system here, I don’t have ADHD. I just have a lot of symptoms that are common.
You very well still could be. Diagnosing conditions like these is very complicated when different things can present similarly, or even mask each other depending on their presentation. Autism and ADHD have a lot of overlap for example where it’s not uncommon for someone to have one and be mistakenly diagnosed with the other because of how their particular combination of strengths and deficits manifested. Then still other conditions can mask symptoms entirely that without them no one would ever guess that someone might have ADHD.
That’s what happened to my wife in fact. She joined a research study that was aiming to improve diagnosis for ADHD looking to be part of the control because she was reasonably certain she didn’t have ADHD.
We come to find out through participating in that study that no, she did in fact have ADHD and her severe OCD had just been masking it all her life. The second she got on a new medication that got her OCD more under control I got a front row seat to literally watch the things I struggle every day with just manifest in her like I’d given her the damn Curse of the Were-Fuckup.
Autism and ADHD are a such a good example for this. While 15 years ago the DSM still said that it is impossible to have both, today we know that there is a huge overlap. Depending on the studies, when you have Autism, there is a 40-70% chance that you also have ADHD. And if you are diagnosed with ADHD, the chances to also have autism are between 20-50%
And there are enough other common comorbidities that could be seen as the “main” diagnosis and prevent you from being correctly diagnosed, like depression, odd, ocd or anxiety.
It’s so important to get a psychiatrist that is specialized and it’s a shame that it seems to be an almost global problem to even get any.
Or maybe it’s time to understand that mental issues aren’t as clearcut as viruses that you can test in a lab. As long as we don’t understand the fine grain of how the whole brain work (and so far we only have ideas about it, not the whole story), the yes/no diagnostic will stay a dead end imo.
Sorry to hear you have trouble though, I hope you still lives ok <3 good luck!
Apparently DSM6 is giving up on naming disorders and will instead name only the traits. So instead of being diagnosed as autistic and ADHD you’ll be diagnosed with Hyperfocus, Executive Disfunction, Maladaptive Daydreaming and stuff like that…
While it’s a lovely notion that maybe one day we might live in a world that doesn’t otherize and pathologize the way the minds of neurodivergent people function. Or that maybe one day the whole of society might not be organized around the convenience and function of neurotypical people and I would love for either of those would either of those to be the case. The fact of the matter is that this is not the world we currently live in. So if someone with ADHD or Autism wanted support from this society in the form of say medication, or therapy, then in most cases they would need to still engage with that system that pathologizes the way their minds work and acquire a diagnosis.
So what good does it do to come into a conversation about the flaws in that diagnostic process and essentially just say “Well, maybe it shouldn’t be like that.” as if anyone here is in any position to just wave a magic wand and change the diagnostic criteria in the next edition of the DSM?
Ah so you’re LARPing as a civil rights activist, got it.
You do realize that this right here isn’t “activism” right? That in reality I’m doing more activism by giving someone advice on how to navigate the world as it currently exists than you are by pretending that saying “Things should be better than they are” on a random ADHD Meme community is “activism” in any real sense of the word.
I went and got “tested” once and was told it is impossible that I have ADHD because I did not commit crimes as a child.
No, seriously. I didn’t steal things, I didn’t fight people, primarily because I was afraid of my dad and his physical punishment. Apparently this is a key lynchpin criteria of an ADHD diagnosis. Never mind that I constantly got into minor trouble for never shutting up, or that I couldn’t sit still, or that I read literally every single book in the entire fiction section of my middle school library in the 3 years I attended that school. Never mind that ADHD-memes groups read like a structural study of my life.
We all know the medical system is flawed and adopts a paternalist / validist approach to neurodiversity (not to mention straight up corruption by big pharma). I don’t want to fetishize self-diagnostic, but if I went to my doctor to say “I’m depressed”, nobody will doubt my experience, so why would it be any difference for neurodivergence.
Put simply, a large cohort of mental health providers will look at anyone asking about ADHD as if they are lying and just fishing for a prescription for stimulants. Especially if you look like you’re college age. So if you get unlucky with who you see when you finally go to get tested they might just take one look at you and decide “This person is looking for drugs” and ignore literally everything you present with because of it.
no ofc not. I go on lemmy to fucking relax not take your sarcasm. I had to carry an suicidal SO to the psychward, where the fucking guy told me "I’m only handling pure psychiatric cases (aka so i can prescribe pills), then the day afterward I found her unconscious and I had to carry her to the emergency. Fuck you for defending psychiatrists and all the people that suffered because of them.
Obviously I don’t have your entire story, and I’m prepared for you(edit:wanted to change my wording to be less accusatory) to immediately jump down my throat again for “defending psychatrists” for this. But you do know there’s also a chance that they just… didn’t have any more capacity at the ward at that time to provide the kind of care your SO needed right? Which is horrible, and I’m very sorry that the both of you went through that. But not everything is about psychiatrists wanting to push pills. There’s a very real chance that their capacity to care for in-patient suicide risks was maxed out and all they could handle at that time. Would you rather they have taken her into the ward and not had proper supervision on her and something happened to her in there because they took in too many patients?
The healthcare system is deeply flawed, it sucks, there are bad actors all over it. But that doesn’t mean that everyone who shares a specialty with those bad actors is themselves also a bad actor. You might want to find someone to talk to about that experience, because it seems to have really deeply affected you.
The funniest thing to be is you calling me ableist because what? I don’t agree with you and called you out for LARPing at activism? I’m disabled, I’ve got 3 developmentally disabled kids, all with varying degrees of autism and ADHD, my partner is disabled to the point where even if I was personally physically able to work I couldn’t because she needs me available 24/7 to care for her.
Oh but no, I’m talking about engaging with the system as it exists as a neurodivergent person. That obviously must mean my only goal is to perpetuate the current system of wage slavery. Not to idk maybe help some people like me make it through their day without it taking literally every ounce of energy they have just to exist, let alone keep up with any of the demands of living like rent, food, etc.
And none of this is my fucking fault. Remember when i said “sorry that happened to you” and tried to find a middle ground and you kept attacking me for no reason?
Kept attacking you? What are you talking about? All I did was ask you what good it does to come into a conversation about the difficulties in getting diagnosed with ADHD and basically just saying “Well maybe we shouldn’t diagnose it like that.” If I came off like I was attacking you, I’m sorry. That wasn’t what I was trying to do there. I was genuinely just confused at what the point was of that comment.
But then the very next thing you did pretty much was to imply that if I was in Rosa Parks’ shoes I’d have moved to the back of the bus. But I guess it’s not attacking people when you’re just “hitting back” huh?
That’s not what i said. I’m fully aware ADHD meds allows some people to simply function, even regardless of the environment.
That being said, it’d be naive to think pharma companies aren’t bribing psychiatrists on a daily basis. Medicalizing neurodivergence is problematic in its own right.
Come on buddy we’re all friends here, don’t sarcasm me, please :)
Then think about what you’re saying. If you actually believe that medication can be helpful, but then you go around saying things that can be easily misconstrued as “Half of them will ignore you, and the other half are shills for big pharma you shouldn’t trust them,” how can those two things coexist? How can you not see that those words are going to lead to people just deciding against even attempting to get on medication even if they might be among the group that it helps to not suffer in a society built around the convenience and function of neurotypicals?
So you don’t actually believe that medication can help people with ADHD at all, got it. There’s no other reason for you to make a disingenuous comparison like that. You can just say it, you aren’t going to hurt my feelings hon.
Well, I have been “tested” by neuropsychologists and they said I have symptoms that looks like ADHD, but it’s probably not that. I never pushed more as it’s difficult to get any diagnosis or help here in Quebec as an adult. In the end they said I may have PDA, and they will not give me a straight answer.
I still consider myself nerodivergent but according to the medical system here, I don’t have ADHD. I just have a lot of symptoms that are common.
You very well still could be. Diagnosing conditions like these is very complicated when different things can present similarly, or even mask each other depending on their presentation. Autism and ADHD have a lot of overlap for example where it’s not uncommon for someone to have one and be mistakenly diagnosed with the other because of how their particular combination of strengths and deficits manifested. Then still other conditions can mask symptoms entirely that without them no one would ever guess that someone might have ADHD.
That’s what happened to my wife in fact. She joined a research study that was aiming to improve diagnosis for ADHD looking to be part of the control because she was reasonably certain she didn’t have ADHD.
We come to find out through participating in that study that no, she did in fact have ADHD and her severe OCD had just been masking it all her life. The second she got on a new medication that got her OCD more under control I got a front row seat to literally watch the things I struggle every day with just manifest in her like I’d given her the damn Curse of the Were-Fuckup.
Autism and ADHD are a such a good example for this. While 15 years ago the DSM still said that it is impossible to have both, today we know that there is a huge overlap. Depending on the studies, when you have Autism, there is a 40-70% chance that you also have ADHD. And if you are diagnosed with ADHD, the chances to also have autism are between 20-50%
And there are enough other common comorbidities that could be seen as the “main” diagnosis and prevent you from being correctly diagnosed, like depression, odd, ocd or anxiety.
It’s so important to get a psychiatrist that is specialized and it’s a shame that it seems to be an almost global problem to even get any.
Or maybe it’s time to understand that mental issues aren’t as clearcut as viruses that you can test in a lab. As long as we don’t understand the fine grain of how the whole brain work (and so far we only have ideas about it, not the whole story), the yes/no diagnostic will stay a dead end imo.
Sorry to hear you have trouble though, I hope you still lives ok <3 good luck!
Apparently DSM6 is giving up on naming disorders and will instead name only the traits. So instead of being diagnosed as autistic and ADHD you’ll be diagnosed with Hyperfocus, Executive Disfunction, Maladaptive Daydreaming and stuff like that…
While it’s a lovely notion that maybe one day we might live in a world that doesn’t otherize and pathologize the way the minds of neurodivergent people function. Or that maybe one day the whole of society might not be organized around the convenience and function of neurotypical people and I would love for either of those would either of those to be the case. The fact of the matter is that this is not the world we currently live in. So if someone with ADHD or Autism wanted support from this society in the form of say medication, or therapy, then in most cases they would need to still engage with that system that pathologizes the way their minds work and acquire a diagnosis.
So what good does it do to come into a conversation about the flaws in that diagnostic process and essentially just say “Well, maybe it shouldn’t be like that.” as if anyone here is in any position to just wave a magic wand and change the diagnostic criteria in the next edition of the DSM?
Yeah if you wanna go to work, just sit on the back of the bus, grandma
I’m not sure what you’re saying here.
That with that kind of defeatism the US would still live under jim crow laws.
Ah so you’re LARPing as a civil rights activist, got it.
You do realize that this right here isn’t “activism” right? That in reality I’m doing more activism by giving someone advice on how to navigate the world as it currently exists than you are by pretending that saying “Things should be better than they are” on a random ADHD Meme community is “activism” in any real sense of the word.
Maybe we could give benzos to women so they can bare their shitty housewife life.
Ah wait, we’re already doing that lmao
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I went and got “tested” once and was told it is impossible that I have ADHD because I did not commit crimes as a child.
No, seriously. I didn’t steal things, I didn’t fight people, primarily because I was afraid of my dad and his physical punishment. Apparently this is a key lynchpin criteria of an ADHD diagnosis. Never mind that I constantly got into minor trouble for never shutting up, or that I couldn’t sit still, or that I read literally every single book in the entire fiction section of my middle school library in the 3 years I attended that school. Never mind that ADHD-memes groups read like a structural study of my life.
Guess I’ll just fucking suffer I suppose 🤷
Wow, crime that wasn’t something that came up when I got my diagnosis. Impulsiveness, sure, but not criminal enterprise.
We all know the medical system is flawed and adopts a paternalist / validist approach to neurodiversity (not to mention straight up corruption by big pharma). I don’t want to fetishize self-diagnostic, but if I went to my doctor to say “I’m depressed”, nobody will doubt my experience, so why would it be any difference for neurodivergence.
Put simply, a large cohort of mental health providers will look at anyone asking about ADHD as if they are lying and just fishing for a prescription for stimulants. Especially if you look like you’re college age. So if you get unlucky with who you see when you finally go to get tested they might just take one look at you and decide “This person is looking for drugs” and ignore literally everything you present with because of it.
And the rest of that cohort will blindly oblige as big pharma’s paying for their holiday. I have no trust in psychiatrists tbh
Ah yes, because it’s totally impossible that medication can help people with ADHD cope with a world that was set up for them to fail.
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Feel better now?
no ofc not. I go on lemmy to fucking relax not take your sarcasm. I had to carry an suicidal SO to the psychward, where the fucking guy told me "I’m only handling pure psychiatric cases (aka so i can prescribe pills), then the day afterward I found her unconscious and I had to carry her to the emergency. Fuck you for defending psychiatrists and all the people that suffered because of them.
Obviously I don’t have your entire story, and I’m prepared for you(edit:wanted to change my wording to be less accusatory) to immediately jump down my throat again for “defending psychatrists” for this. But you do know there’s also a chance that they just… didn’t have any more capacity at the ward at that time to provide the kind of care your SO needed right? Which is horrible, and I’m very sorry that the both of you went through that. But not everything is about psychiatrists wanting to push pills. There’s a very real chance that their capacity to care for in-patient suicide risks was maxed out and all they could handle at that time. Would you rather they have taken her into the ward and not had proper supervision on her and something happened to her in there because they took in too many patients?
The healthcare system is deeply flawed, it sucks, there are bad actors all over it. But that doesn’t mean that everyone who shares a specialty with those bad actors is themselves also a bad actor. You might want to find someone to talk to about that experience, because it seems to have really deeply affected you.
The funniest thing to be is you calling me ableist because what? I don’t agree with you and called you out for LARPing at activism? I’m disabled, I’ve got 3 developmentally disabled kids, all with varying degrees of autism and ADHD, my partner is disabled to the point where even if I was personally physically able to work I couldn’t because she needs me available 24/7 to care for her.
Oh but no, I’m talking about engaging with the system as it exists as a neurodivergent person. That obviously must mean my only goal is to perpetuate the current system of wage slavery. Not to idk maybe help some people like me make it through their day without it taking literally every ounce of energy they have just to exist, let alone keep up with any of the demands of living like rent, food, etc.
How is it funny? You’re being hurtful and mean and jump on my throat for expressing something I lived through. I’m not launghing. I’m sad
And none of this is my fucking fault. Remember when i said “sorry that happened to you” and tried to find a middle ground and you kept attacking me for no reason?
Kept attacking you? What are you talking about? All I did was ask you what good it does to come into a conversation about the difficulties in getting diagnosed with ADHD and basically just saying “Well maybe we shouldn’t diagnose it like that.” If I came off like I was attacking you, I’m sorry. That wasn’t what I was trying to do there. I was genuinely just confused at what the point was of that comment.
But then the very next thing you did pretty much was to imply that if I was in Rosa Parks’ shoes I’d have moved to the back of the bus. But I guess it’s not attacking people when you’re just “hitting back” huh?
That’s not what i said. I’m fully aware ADHD meds allows some people to simply function, even regardless of the environment.
That being said, it’d be naive to think pharma companies aren’t bribing psychiatrists on a daily basis. Medicalizing neurodivergence is problematic in its own right.
Come on buddy we’re all friends here, don’t sarcasm me, please :)
Then think about what you’re saying. If you actually believe that medication can be helpful, but then you go around saying things that can be easily misconstrued as “Half of them will ignore you, and the other half are shills for big pharma you shouldn’t trust them,” how can those two things coexist? How can you not see that those words are going to lead to people just deciding against even attempting to get on medication even if they might be among the group that it helps to not suffer in a society built around the convenience and function of neurotypicals?
Maybe we could give benzos for free so the woman can bare sexism.
So you don’t actually believe that medication can help people with ADHD at all, got it. There’s no other reason for you to make a disingenuous comparison like that. You can just say it, you aren’t going to hurt my feelings hon.
Did that occur to you that medication isn’t for everybody? I’ve been prescribed pills and I felt terrible.
There’s nothing to be misconstructed. https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/193nmt1/142_million_in_undisclosed_conflicts_of_interest/
It’s the truth.
There’s a difference between “it’s not for everybody,” and “half of them can’t be trusted and the other half won’t believe you.”