There’s been a tonne of threads about benefits recently and there seems to be a recurring theme that ‘only the most severe disabilities should get any help’ and they almost always mention that people suffering with MH health issues, or ‘non issues’ like ADHD should be cut off from help. I’d like to know what those people in particular think adhd is, and why they don’t consider it to be a disability.
I am 44 years old, I have level 1 autism and ‘combined type’ adhd. I have worked since I left school at 16. I raised my eldest 3 children from my first marriage by myself, all 3 are diagnosed with varying degrees of neurodivergences (didn’t know that at the time)
I am now married to a wonderful man, and we have children together, they are also ND.
It is a challenge every single day to just make myself wash & brush my teeth. And I need to try and herd 2
other people with the same issues to do the same.
I am massively in debt, because the filter that everyone else seems to have that tell you, no don’t do it, just isn’t there.
I literally cannot sleep. I try. But my brain is almost always stuck in a loop of catastrophising, and is running a chorus of a song that I hate over and over and over and there’s nothing I can do about it. When I do sleep I’m still catastrophising and have incredibly vivid nightmares and wake up sad, anxious and depressed and I can’t shake off my dreams easily.
I go from 7 or so days of zero sleep, then pass out and am comatose for 48-72 hours approx.
I forget to eat, I forget to drink water. I don’t know that I need the bathroom until my bladder is literally about to burst.
I suffer from boredom so extreme that I’ve attempted suicide multiple times.
‘Masking’ takes everything that I have. By the time I get home after any social event (by event I mean anything that needs me to present as a ‘normal’ person, school drops offs, appointments etc) leave me gasping for breath, physically stimming to the point my muscles are crying out and I still can’t stop, endlessly ruminating over conversations I had to participate in against my will.
This is not a comprehensive list. I’ll remember this post for the rest of my life and there will always be things I should have added to it.
My body is perfectly fine. I’m not disabled in that way. But my brain, my bodies operating system, IS disabled. I’m so tired of hearing that adhd and lower levels of autism are not disabling. They absolutely fucking are. I manage the school run these days and that’s pretty much it. I haven’t been able to work for around 8 years now.
Go ahead. Tell me how you’d employ me.