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.
I mean, yeah it’s an unpopular opinion. That’s because it’s utter bullshit, and a good bit douchey tbh.
You confuse self discipline with executive function. Most people with ADHD have plenty of self discipline, it just isn’t always enough to overcome a neurological difference.
Self discipline is about building habits, and setting up tools to assist in executive function. That is where the self discipline comes in to adhd, and there’s a shit ton of success at it.
Nevermind what I said in my post. This comment is a better TLDR (if a bit blunt)
I don’t think most people enjoy feeling like a burden, judged as lazy, or living in filth and failing to achieve their goals.
Usually for someone to smoke weed all day and play video games or w/e without maintaining hygiene and health something has to be seriously wrong. Animals not maintaining themselves is like the biggest warning sign that something is wrong.
To simplify that as ‘So and so lacks self discipline’ is moronic. Maybe they claim they have adhd and they don’t but something is fucking wrong with a brain in that state and they need help.
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.”
How is this not the mental health version of racism?
OP walks by black homeless person. “They might be black, but they are using their race as an excuse to be lazy. They are only getting in their own way”
OP walks by a disheveled person with ADHD. “They might have ADHD, but they are using it as an excuse to be a mess. They are only getting in their own way”
You are being judgemental, if not prejudicial AF.
If a homeless person claims the color of their skin is the sole reason they’re homeless then they’re absolutely using it as an excuse.
'Just pull yerself up by yer own bootstraps, lad!
While I do agree (or at least hope) that we all have the agency to positively influence our own lives and those around us, the main point there in my opinion is that different people have different resources in life. Someone that’s experienced systemic racism, or someone who’s brain is a wee bit non-standard just has it harder than someone not experiencing these issues.
I never claimed some people don’t have it harder than others. It’s a spectrum and a large number of people are not in the far end of it. Those are the people I’m talking about. Would it be easier if they didn’t have this condition? Ofcourse it would. That however still doesn’t mean that personal agency doesn’t have a role in it. There are several reasons for why people struggle with getting things done and in the vast majority of cases having ADHD is just one of the contributing factors. It’s an explanation, not an excuse.
Yea, fair
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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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Someone not too long ago linked me to research saying self diagnosis at least for autism is, in adults, practically just as accurate as professional diagnosis.
Edit: also I’ve been self diagnosed as having synaesthesia since my early 20s, was later confirmed and I even participated in synaesthesia research as a subject for three different entities. So, I disagree with you, especially for mental stuff. There is a lot of room for error but from there to say self diagnosis is bs, that’s a stretch
In countries without free and efficient health care? Hell no. I am against self medication for obvious reasons, but my self diagnosis(On autism and ADHD), and discussing it with my doctor (Not telling the doctor “I have X and Y”, but telling them "I think I might have X and Y but haven’t been able to follow through with all the hoops they make me jump through to get diagnosed) got me the push I needed to actually go ahead and pay to get properly diagnosed.
Mostly because I thought “I am already an adult, so it won’t make a difference”, my GP asked me a few questions, told me he wasn’t legally qualified to diagnose me, but recommended a private clinic where they did walk Ins, was pretty affordable and I would not have to worry about the main reason why I wasn’t tested and diagnosed yet, the fact that my country’s free health insurance gives those appointments after a grueling process of going for a general evaluation, scheduled months into the future, then having to bring the medical reference to a different city, waiting for them to be approved, then get the reference + the approval to another office, which would then set up your appointment about a year after that date. Go make 10 people with ADHD and no help try to follow that process by themselves, which I tried and failed multiple times, and tell me how well it goes.
Oh, and I forgot to add, everything is valid for just 10 days after it is released from their current step, to bring to the next step, if those 10 days run out, start over from zero. Doing that while also having a full time job, which falls at the same time as the times when those offices open, recipe for absolute disaster.
I’m on the camp of, “offer the self diagnosed support but encourage them to get diagnosed before actually treating them”, and not only “You’re supported” clichés, actually get in there and help them with all the red tape and paralizing issues they will end up facing, and the reasons why they haven’t been diagnosed yet.
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.
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.
