AIBU to ask why ADHD and autism are dismissed as disabilities?

I have ADHD, quite severely. It affects my day to day life and much more so since the menopause. I don't consider myself disabled.

Why? Because although managing the symptoms of ADHD are hard, I don't consider that makes it a disability.

Very few people have an easy life. We all struggle with one thing or another, and with it all, we all have to make many efforts to cope.

I consider ADHD a disability when the effects of the disorder is such that there really is little chance the person can do anything about it. Having to make efforts, mask, deal with it, try to improve etc....well, that's just normal life.

Disability ‘tax’ is very real. Having to buy multiple pairs of shoes because the first pair that were suitable upon first wear are no longer suitable on the third wear due to sensory issues.

Having to stockpile ‘safe’ foods and then when they get discontinued they either no longer eat that food ever again or you have multiple wasted packs of things in the search for a suitable alternative.

Having to buy ear defenders/earplugs to minimise sensory overload, but the first pair aren’t quite right due to sensory issues so you have to order a second or even third pair.

Regarding “people who aren’t severely affected” - you only get a formal diagnosis for autism or ADHD if your symptoms/traits are causing significant impairment in several aspects of your life and have done since early childhood.

Also, bear in mind that it might look to the observer that somebody is doing well in life when actually they aren’t. Intelligent women in particular are fantastic at masking. Most people - including my family - were extremely surprised when I was diagnosed with autism and ADHD. It looked like I was managing but I wasn’t. I lived with domestic abuse for 20 years (this is common for ND women). I didn’t realize and nor did anyone else. I eventually imploded and am now too ill to work.

So I have been bullied and manipulated all my life. I have a degree, yet I don’t understand inferences, body language and facial expressions. My language processing is terrible so I struggle to understand what a lot of people are saying and struggle to take in spoken information, I find talking to a group of people exhausting. I take things literally so often misunderstand things. I struggle with planning and organizing free text (essays, reports etc) and can easily get distracted. I have complex systems to remind me of appointments and still manage to forget them.

i have had to work far harder than anyone else to succeed and in the end, my body could no longer cope with the stress of this extra workload. I’m late 50s and had to retire over a year ago due to ill health.

The problem is that they have become fashionable diagnoses (or self-diagnoses) for people who aren't severely affected, OP.

Genuinely disabled people are being marginalised within their own diagnostic category, which is being co-opted by people who may well be gathered at one end of the "normal range" spectrum but who are simply choosing a medicalised framework for challenges that are faced by very many.

Some of these "normal range" people are even clamouring to get the terminology of "disability" removed from autism/adhd discourse, calling it a "difference" instead. Of course it is a difference rather than a disability if you have pushed the diagnostic threshold to its absolute bottom limit or below! The solution to that is to stop medicalising yourself unnecessarily, not to trivialise a serious developmental disorder.

Anyone who points out this injustice on MN is vulnerable to an accusation of dismissing the challenges faced by people with autism or ADHD. But in reality, the failure to challenge it is harming vulnerable people.

I know but it’s taken for a ride. The criteria are such that they can ONLY be met by people who are very physically disabled (eg a feeding tube and hoists) OR people with ‘neurodiversity’ who can do enjoyable things alone but also somehow need somebody to supervise their every movement otherwise. I’m sorry but it’s so blatantly abused, I see it every day at work. People on PIP for ADHD claiming they’re so absent minded they need somebody to remind them not to leave the hob on, yet anything that benefits them or is enjoyable and suddenly it’s amazing what they can do without supervision

I know but it’s taken for a ride. The criteria are such that they can ONLY be met by people who are very physically disabled (eg a feeding tube and hoists) OR people with ‘neurodiversity’ who can do enjoyable things alone but also somehow need somebody to supervise their every movement otherwise. I’m sorry but it’s so blatantly abused, I see it every day at work. People on PIP for ADHD claiming they’re so absent minded they need somebody to remind them not to leave the hob on, yet anything that benefits them or is enjoyable and suddenly it’s amazing what they can do without supervision

They already are
You dont get DLA / PIP becsuse you have a disabillty its how that disabillity impacts a person.

On the water bill have you contacted your water company? They do actually have different rates and/or schemes for people who have a genuine need for more water.

That's a misconception of autism that everyone who has autism isn't sociable or has no friends. My son has adhd and autism. He is really sociable with friends and always out and about. However he makes poor decisions and continuously ends up some sort of trouble - not big trouble but fights, falling out with people, arguments etc

I hadn't thought about claiming DLA, my main driver was his lack of engagement with school despite them making huge adjustments for him. Well now we know we can make the right adjustments for his rather than guessing. It helps me to create strategies for him at home.

I would think benefits should be applied to the individuals on a case by case basis and given to those who need it. I know of two children who very autistic and unlikely to work at all. I think they need help but there are people in the middle who need it too.

We use DS’s DLA for speech therapy (he’s had one session in 3 years on the NHS, despite being 7 and having the speech of a 2 year old), occupational therapy (NHS refuse to even assess), a new pair of school shoes every 4 weeks because his autism related dyspraxia means that he wears holes in his, sensory equipment, our insane water bill because when he’s having a meltdown water is the only thing that calms him, a 3 hour specialist respite babysitter once a month… I’d much rather he wasn’t disabled and he wasn’t therefore eligible for DLA, but here we are.

I don’t understand some things and the reasons why people need extra money because they forget to eat. Just set a reminder on your phone surely? I don’t understand either why needing multiple pairs of ear defenders should be funded by the tax payer (as per pp). Lastly, and I’m sure I’ll get slated for this, but if life is challenging why do people have so many children, esp knowing they will likely be ND too. I’m NT but stopped at 2, defo couldn’t do anymore!

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.

I don’t understand some things and the reasons why people need extra money because they forget to eat. Just set a reminder on your phone surely? I don’t understand either why needing multiple pairs of ear defenders should be funded by the tax payer (as per pp). Lastly, and I’m sure I’ll get slated for this, but if life is challenging why do people have so many children, esp knowing they will likely be ND too. I’m NT but stopped at 2, defo couldn’t do anymore!

My husband is self employed. He can tell better than me when I might need help.

It is always out of the blue. Some days i wake, and I literally cannot move. My conscious wants me to get up, to do housework, to make dinner. My mind is an ever revolving door of all the things that need to be done. I can see my kids sad and unfed. I can see my husband coming home from a hard day at work. I can ‘see’ everything that needs to be done. I just can’t do it. My brain doesn’t work like that.

I don’t understand some things and the reasons why people need extra money because they forget to eat. Just set a reminder on your phone surely? I don’t understand either why needing multiple pairs of ear defenders should be funded by the tax payer (as per pp). Lastly, and I’m sure I’ll get slated for this, but if life is challenging why do people have so many children, esp knowing they will likely be ND too. I’m NT but stopped at 2, defo couldn’t do anymore!

I don’t understand some things and the reasons why people need extra money because they forget to eat. Just set a reminder on your phone surely? I don’t understand either why needing multiple pairs of ear defenders should be funded by the tax payer (as per pp). Lastly, and I’m sure I’ll get slated for this, but if life is challenging why do people have so many children, esp knowing they will likely be ND too. I’m NT but stopped at 2, defo couldn’t do anymore!

I think you’re spending far too much time thinking and not enough doing.

If a fire alarm went off, you’d get out of bed.

If somebody promised you £10,000 you would get out of bed.

Your children need you. Get out of bed.

My kids are not starved… I’m saying on my worst days, when I’m paralysed that’s all that runs through my mind. That I’m not being the mum they deserve. That they’re better off without me. Which I absolutely do not agree with.