This is no way disregards the difficulty of living with an actually severe case of ADHD but is not what most of these people are dealing with.
EDIT: many seem to have misunderstood what I mean by this. I’m not saying these people are only claiming to have ADHD to use it as an excuse. What I mean, is that they may very well do have, and they’re using it as an excuse. Mostly to themselves.
As a person with (yes, diagnosed) ADHD, this is pretty harmful. Idk how you’re gonna go get tested if you don’t at least think it’s something that might apply to you.
No one ever thought I had ADHD except my ADHD wife, but the shame of thinking you’re just useless and lazy is incredibly damaging. Even with a diagnosis I can’t afford medication, so my quality of life hasn’t improved at all because I can’t access treatment. My parents said they would “never have thought” I had ADHD despite my assessor saying I fit the symptoms basically to a T.
Most clinicians won’t suggest ADHD as a diagnosis because the patient might not even realize that they have executive dysfunction or problems noticing things. They might have come in for depression and anxiety, not knowing that those are side effects of not being able to manage their ADHD. This is why specialists are necessary, not because ADHD is uncommon.
Edit: Also this opinion is extremely popular, btw. It’s kind of the dominant view everywhere except in very online spaces, where people with ADHD tend to congregate for support and community.
Not sure if I should upvote for being properly unpopular, or downvote for being absolutely fucking wrong.
In countries where people actually have easy access to ADHD testing, the numbers diagnosed are higher than anyone expected (~20%). It’s still underdiagnosed in most countries IMO.
And the high numbers cast doubt on whether it’s actually a disorder, or rather a symptom of our society being increasingly incompatible with human nature.The first part is great. The “cast doubt” part sounds like naturalist bullshit.
If 1/5 of people can’t “correctly” function in society in some specific way, you have to at least wonder if it’s them who is wrong or society.
What are you getting at? It’s simply human nature to desire to toil under capitalism. Those who struggle to devote 1/3 of their waking lives to making other people money are the wrong ones!
There’s a difference between not being able to devote third of your life to capitalism and being unable to handle mundane tasks such as doing the dishes or taking out the trash. A lot of the ADHD memes here normalize the unability to even do the bare minimum.
or downvote for being absolutely fucking wrong
What am I wrong about exactly?
But what if those people that claim having ADHD actually do have it but never have been diagnosed with it? What are you gonna say then, do they also only lack self discipline as demonstrated by not making an appointment?
You can have ADHD and still use it as an excuse for not getting things done. It may be a contributing factor but not the entire reason. It’s not binary, there are more and less severe cases of it.
I don’t think you have a strong understanding of ADHD.
I do think you’re looking at the outsized influence of a very tiny subset young influencers that are making ADHD content.
Even if it were the case that people are using the “excuse” to be lazy, what do you think that has to do with the “you must constantly produce to be a contributing member of society” outlook on labor in latestage capitalism. Or how this could be the youth’s response to feeling undervalued and under compensated for their labor.
Here’s a source that’s guaranteed to be milquetoast enough for you to believe https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/06/03/inflation-hit-gen-z-hardest/73901354007/
A large number of people are using it as an excuse. I don’t see how this in any way refutes my claim. I think you’re arguing against a point I haven’t made.
You sound like someone with ADHD who has been made feel inadequate, told they don’t have it, and are continuing the cycle of shaming for something outside your control.
Making this about me doesn’t refute my claim either.
I don’t believe in free will, thus nothing is under my control. I still try and get stuff done according to my best abilities despite my struggles. Telling a fat person that it’s about their genes and there’s nothing they can do about it is not true nor helpful.
I see you are getting a lot of flack but this point I think can be better understood if they think of the classic story about someone who gets messed up in an accident and does not have the will to do physical therapy because they tell themselves they just can’t do it. I do think you will get that with things like this. Still the answer is not necessarily to kick the person out of the wheelchair although in the movies with that trope you do see that.
I think people want simple explanations for the world around them but more often than not the truth is not simple. A person without ADHD can suffer from poor self-discipline. I don’t see any reason why someone with ADHD couldn’t. It doesn’t make them immune to the other personality quirks that people commonly have. I personally just don’t think that a diagnosis gives anyone the excuse to stop trying. Play with the cards you’ve been dealt.
Even in this thread there are gatekeepers implying that because I’m not a completely dysfunctional wreck myself I must therefor not have ADHD.
yeah I was trying to help thornyinsight buy expanding on the excuse angle. Something can limit someone but they can also use that limit to sorta accept being stopped when actually they are being slowed.
Yup, I think that’s genuinely my case as well. I know I can pull it off, I just don’t want to for the time being.
TL:DR You’re not lazy, there’s brain chemistry at work
There’s a depression comorbidity with ADHD for a lot of adults.
https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-017-1463-3
Which can lead to executive function disorder, so you “know” you can do t you just cannot find the energy or will to.
https://psychcentral.com/adhd/adhd-executive-dysfunction
This is why early on stimulants were perscribed to patients with ADD/ADHD
I wonder how much of ADHD could be alleviated society wise. I think of it like how we made curbs to be wheelchair accessible which of course made it stroller, bike, wagon accesible. Its like if we had single payer healthcare in a system with one record system then we can just worry about getting to the doctor and being healthy and not how to pay or getting things from one doc to another or redoing tests. And if we had the pre filled tax return we can update or sign. Its like the world is made to be hard and it hurts everyone. both those overwelmed and those who can handle it but its still not great. We should be able to concentrate on what we need to concentrate on.
I feel like an asshole for saying this but I tend to agree. I relate to every meme/post about ADHD I’ve ever seen, and most people I know do as well, so either we all have ADHD or, more likely, it’s being misrepresented.
I likely have some combination of autism / ADHD myself as I relate hard with much of the posts / memes I see here but I also realize that I don’t need pats on my head about how I shouldn’t feel bad about my struggles because it’s “all due to ADHD”. Yeah, maybe I’m playing life on a hard mode but I still want to play.
Bro is a big tough guy careful guys he does not need pats on his head, thats cool bro but do u realyse there are people really struggling unlike u ? I dont know if u noticed but lifes not a game for a lot of people
Im sorry i meant that
I’m playing life on a hard mode
some people are not playin majority of us have it easy here in Europe/USA, and even then everyone has its own struggles and u cannot think u know whats happenin for them, at least thats my way of seein it, IMO i think u have a gud attitude if u keep to urself. TLDR: i like too to imagine im in a game but i dont think everyones plays a game some people are just struggling to survive
do u realyse they are people really struggling
I aknowledge this in my open post. Those are not the people I’m refering to. That’s why I said “a large number of…” instead of “everyone”
Judging from your responses in this thread I don’t think you do. As it’s very evident you do not have a diagnosis. If you are undiagnosed you are not managing your internal feelings of inadequate production and I think you would be best served to talk to a mental health professional about an ADHD evaluation.
You shouldn’t feel lazy or that it’s extra effort for you to participate in society. That’s a very lonely and terrible feeling I don’t wish upon anyone.
You diagnose ADHD (or lack thereof) from messageboard replies?
Same basis as you diagnosing yourself with autism / adhd without a visit to the specialist. Oh no wait, that’s just what your original post says. Weird how that happens.
My post doesn’t claim these people don’t have ADHD or that I do.
I wonder this myself. I relate to a lot as well but I do wonder as I was that shy, introverted, bookish, nerdy kid who also spoke in class today (although when you are a target for cruel jokes is that really about something wrong with me as a kid) who evolved into a hippie type. Honestly the names have changed but I just mentioned in another post how I have not really in relation to most folks I know. Im definately always been different and hung our with folks who like that to which you found at conventions and dNd groups and anime clubs and such. Now a days those things are mainstream but at the time it was quite the nerdy thing. Remember though that harrison ford was in the AV club in high school which was the nerd club of that age.
I’ll toss in my 2cents. There are a few informed replies I think OP should go back and reread. I agree with OP that most of the comments are skewing AWAY from the actual topic. And, yes of course lazy dimwits are using the latest convenient terms to get out of doing whatever they ought to be doing.
Lazy will do what lazy can which I can personally corroborate. I know someone with severe ADHD who functions perfectly well in society, at home, and at work; they need patience, self-awareness, therapy, and a lot of medication that would melt my brain but let’s them functional adequately. There are also periods where their house is a wreck because they can’t get it together to clean up for a few days.
I know someone who celebrates when they “finally” get a diagnosis they know they’ve had for years but doctors “are so ignorant”. This person just wants to smoke weed all day and watch D&D let’s plays on YT; it’s my niece btw, and they have issues-ADHD is not one of them.
My filter works like this: people with a genuine hidden disability will inform you instead of using it as an excuse for why something didn’t get done. “I know I have been dropping the ball on kitchen duties. Could we swap household duties? Maybe I am more consistent with bathroom cleaning than the kitchen. And I will talk to my doctor about this at our next visit” OR “I have really bad ADHD. That’s why we don’t have any clean dishes and the kitchen stinks. But I will get right on it.”
ADHD is overdiagnosed, but I don’t think laziness or a lack of self-discipline have anything to do with it.
This is to say that while ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder, in our very stimulus rich world today a lot of people have disorders reminiscent of ADHD due to an excess of stimuli compared to the level their brain is capable of processing.
That’s to say our world has gotten too fast for a lot of brains to keep up with, and when those brains compensate, they get symptoms similar to ADHD, despite those symptoms not being neurodevelopmental, per se. So similar meds help with the condition.
And that’s fine.
Still, ADHD is way overdiagnosed. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4500182/
And to anyone saying they’re not, I would like to point to the people who were vehement that opioids weren’t being overprescribed.
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