social media is convincing all our kids they are nd?

Being profoundly disabled doesn’t make you unintelligent. Not unless you’re judging their IQ.

All autistic brains are very intelligent, including those who have severe learning disabilities. It’s a different intelligence but I assure you, it’s there.

It seems that the biggest issue people have here is with the diagnosis of neuro-divergent women. I personally celebrate and respect the women coming forward to say that they are seeking a diagnosis.

There is a generation of neurodivergent women who have drowned internally because no one was studying what it meant to be a girl or a woman with ADHD and Autism. Now there is more information and knowledge out there but we continue to question and invalidate the experience of girls and women because of ignorance and outright/internalised misogyny. Women will always be fighting for the same respect and validation that men are given by default.

Perhaps some people are over-diagnosed but TikTok is not the source to help you to come to that conclusion. If you are basing your standards for the diagnosis of women on the behaviour of a neurodivergent man you know then this is ignorance. You can’t make a conclusion with half the picture and a heavily masked neuro-divergent woman will never show you the full picture.

It is a privileged position to be so unaware of the pain, suffering and loss that comes with a late-diagnosis that it is so easy to trivialise and question what it means to be a neurodivergent woman. Many have spent a life-time torturing themselves without the correct diagnosis to make sense of their brain. To have that understanding can be life-changing and can bring hope and self-esteem. I wish people were more careful with their words, especially when they don’t have all of the information. By so casually dismissing the experience of women with ADHD and Autism as a trend, we are creating the conditions to erase a lifetime of pain all over again.

My daughter got a private adhd diagnosis this week.

I have called ambulances on my sister several times after finding her unconscious. she cannot work after she fell apart mentally in her early 30’s. She has been sectioned endless times (ASD)

my daughters dad fell apart when he tried to stop drinking which was his coping mechanism. (ADHD)

Too right I’m fucking pushy trying to get my dd a diagnosis so she has a chance to get the support she needs in her teens to help her stay in school and not send her MH down the toilet.

I count myself very lucky that I can afford to do this and I have all sympathies for people who can’t or who have their own challenges and cannot fight the school to get it recognised that she’s not just naughty and being difficult. It’s all very well saying act in needs not diagnosis but when you have a HOY telling you the fact she has an ADHD assessment coming up the next week has absolutely nothing to do with her behaviour and that other children with it can do as they are told maybe you do need a sodding diagnosis.

it’s taken me 18 months and cost a lot of money - I’m not doing it for the fun of it.

I do not have any SM except a rarely used Facebook page….and this here I suppose…..my life is INFINITELY better without all that shite. I did once have a Twitter account but I quickly realised what a cesspit it is so deleted my account within a few months. More people should remove themselves from it for their own mental wellbeing.

But that isn’t what the poster you originally quoted said. They said you can’t get a motability vehicle purely because of a diagnosis. That is correct. You don’t/can’t get it because of a diagnosis.

I KNOW!

But people are always saying ‘you can’t get full pip with Audhd’ or aren’t ’allowed a car’ with AUDHD.

But some people do get these.

Both of which are huge spectrums and a diagnosis alone doesn't wouldn't necessarily mean the person qualifies

Your first point is a common myth. I was actually worried that I had done this in my autism assessment. A few years later, saw a consultant psychiatrist for an ADHD assessment. She commented that she thought I was downplaying things and then I said I explained that I was worried that I had exaggerated thiings in my autism assessment and that I was never 100% convinced it was correct. She said this was incredibly common to think that but it was very rarely the case.

When I think about it, even though I am very bright, I don't think I would have been able to trick my autism assessors. The assessment lasted several hours and was incredibly in-depth. They were also very bright and very experienced and they would have spotted inconsistencies. Also, even though I had done a lot of research about autism, there was absolutely masses of stuff that I didn't know about and they spotted in me. In the end they were highly experienced professionals and I a knowledgeable amateur.

Completely incorrect, it’s been around for a long time.

https://www.healthline.com/health/adhd/history

Yes. It reminds me of people who tell others not to have vaccines because they "have done their research" and found out they're dangerous. They also think that with a bit of googling, they know more on the subject than highly qualified and experienced scientists and doctors.

No, she didn’t. She got it because her needs arising from her ASD &/or ADHD meant she got enhanced mobility. The point being made is the diagnosis alone doesn’t qualify someone for enhanced mobility and thus a motability vehicle. PIP is based on needs, not diagnosis.

I think there are three problems here:

1. If someone decides that they are ND, then they have endless ways they can go and research it. Now that can be helpful, but equally well, as any medic can tell you, that if you read a medical dictionary you can easily diagnose yourself with everything except housemaid's knee". It also means that someone who wants to be diagnosed can use what they find online to use when they are being diagnosed.
2. There seems to be a lot of online stuff from people who have been diagnosed who then use it as an "excuse" not to do what they don't want to do. Now it may be that the diagnosis gives them the excuse not to do something that they've always found very difficult, or to adapt, but I've seen it where it's used as a non-arguable reason why they can't be expected to do anything they don't want to.
3. If there are people who are either being misdiagnosed because they have managed to "trick" the system with what they've learnt online, or are announcing that they're ND because they've decided they are due to watching a video, then it dilutes it for the people who really are ND. There are less resources for them, less space for them, but also (in exactly the same way when people "decide" they have an allergy, but don't) it means that people take it less seriously and will think "oh yes, I know someone who says that, but isn't" and assume that all others are the same.

It wouldn't be based on the diagnosis though. It would be because the diagnosis caused difficulties which meet the threshold for enhanced mobility

No one gets a mobility car purely because they have a diagnosis of ADHD or autism.

My dd did.

My adult autism diagnosis was life changing for me. On the outside, I appear competent and well-adjusted, successful even as hold down a managerial role. On the inside it’s another matter. If I could never talk I would be happy. It’s so much effort, I have no internal or social read of my own or other people’s emotions. I struggle to use my mouth to talk and trained hard to be able to articulate. I struggle massively processing what people say let alone then process meaning or other meanings. I’m also very gullible. I toughened up due to being subject to abuse as a teen. I spent years thinking I was faulty and trying to cover for it. A stressful day at work isn’t just scattiness or tiredness, some times my head is like a brick and i need to block out anyone or anything that needs processing power. Can’t read facial expressions. Don’t know how loud or direct my voice is. Have to put a lot of effort into trying to talk like other people or tv shows. Don’t have feelings about a lot of things. Come across rude.

Also had adhd diagnosis with autism. That was more the out of sight out of mind inattentive and need to stim in evenings. I have everything out in my house or I forget eg products or medicine. Things in cupboards don’t exist. Bags have to be same things or I’m out without because I won’t remember.

So no adhd isn’t just scattiness but wanted to put my two pence out there that the publicity around neurodivergence helped me discover who I am and accept it. Accept my life with a disability. It was more than pathologising it for me.

Stupid advice that focussing on exams is hyper focus. I don’t think it’s the act of focus that’s neurodivergent, it’s the shitshow that goes with it like not being able to tell if you need a wee or knowing if your hungry or making your body ill because your brain fires all cylinders at something when only 1-2 parts of brain were needed (adhd brain scans show this is what happens).

I’ve learnt accept time is spiral not sequential for me, etc and western industrial standards are de-habilitating. It’s a whole different way of being. Stupid TikTok.

The anger is always at regular people too. Why not direct anger at the terrible healthcare workers that are apparently giving out these wrong diagnoses willy nilly?

The ignorance and misinformation on this thread is absolutely mind-boggling.

Riiigggjhhtttt. Brain chemistry differences are such a fashionable accessory.

The irony of this thread attracting a bunch of NT posters who think they know better than Psychiatrists and ND people who should be afforded a diagnosis.

having an official diagnosis of ADHD means you are less likely to be disabled by it. These days it really most likely means affluent and pushy mother

I also work in a school, and you're talking nonsense. We have children from all socio-economic backgrounds who are diagnosed ND, including those living in poverty. Some of our diagnosed children have very high support needs, with EHCP plans in place and support from the Children's Services Disability Team. Some of them are so heavily impacted by ADHD or Autism that their traits were obvious from a very young age and picked up by Nursery/Health Visitors before they started school, hence the early diagnosis.
Of course support in school should be based on need and not just diagnosis, but for a school to openly disregard a child's diagnosis because of unfounded and misogynistic assumptions (I note there is no mention of "pushy" Dad's!) is ableist and discriminatory.

ADHD is just a trend given time it will pass but I worry for the long term consequences of people using ADHD for every single thing o we Johnny jumped in a puddle he has ADHD o I jumped in puddles when I was a kid i now have ADHD it getting ridiculous as every action is now put down to this latest trend

I haven't read the full thread - but I read enough of it to see it's full of the usual ignorant comments.

Here, have a sample, just from the first couple of pages.

"These days it really most likely means affluent and pushy mother."

"Serious disabilities are being completely trivialised by this epidemic of diagnosis"

"Far easier to have somebody tell you it isn’t your fault and give you a prescription for speed (which will make everyone, NT or not, better at focusing on things and getting stuff done)"

"The difference between my 45 yr old brother (whose life has been severely impacted by ADHD but was only formally diagnosed last year after waiting 4 years for an NHS assessment), and the 40 odd yr old women I know who are getting private diagnoses and ADHD meds within months because they're scatty and get bored easily in a job...well it's indescribable."

"Actually women in their 50s are largely suffering from shit life syndome, that should be the diagnosis....We might be falling apart but its not ND."

"This perfectly describes all the women I know who have been diagnosed in their 40s (5 of them and I don’t know many people).
All of them have been “successful” in life. Now it’s all excuses about this and that because of their ADHD."

" its either internet-enabled anxiety-wrought parents insistent the kids are ND or shit parents wanting a diagnosis to explain away difficult behaviour so they always have a fallback option to say “well he’s ND” to avoid having to parent"

The amount of these threads that appear is just sickening. Every week these appear, with loads of people weighing in to point out that neurodivergence is made-up and fictional, and that if we only just pulled our socks up, we'd be just fine. The female presentation of autism and ADHD is often very different to the stereotypical male, and it's the female presentation which is so often dismissed and ignored, as can be seen by the comments on this thread.

Yep and a 50 year old such as myself who was presenting with symptoms many years before screens are going to have an awful
lot more evidence than those who’ve lived their whole lives with screens .

Well I presume the way they differentiate is by ascertaining that the behaviours happen in all settings and started in early childhood.

Yes I agree with this 100%. I've actually seen parents pushing for diagnosis for there perfectly fine NT dc because they know they'll be quids in from the benefits system if they can get a diagnosis. This actually worked for a family member of mine. absolutely nothing wrong with their dc who is now a young adult leading a completely normal life. they also qualified for a mobility vehicle so took full advantage.
meanwhile people who are genuinely in need of support are missing out.