AIBU to wonder whether ADHD is normal and society is the issue

I agree, @TigerRag anyone who has experienced a lifelong psychotic disorder, or lived with someone who does, or worked in a mental health hospital would not think the two are truly comparable.

The point about ADHD in prisons is a real phenomenon however ADHD only makes you more impulsive, it doesn't change your personality. People aren't going around stealing off grannies, raping and murdering just because they have ADHD. Not saying people with schizophrenia do these things, but rather that ADHD is nearly always just one factor in someone's criminality (hence why it is not used as a full defence in law).

"Mild" schizophrenia carries with it a constant risk of relapse, significant "negative symptoms" (like social withdrawal, self neglect, depression, difficulty forming thoughts) and usually life long medications which have horrendous side effects.

I think, as a society, we've lost perspective of what the spectrum of disability actually looks like in reality, hence why we get people claiming that autistic people who need 24/7 support have a profile of autism that is no more "severe" than a professional with 4 kids who does need lots of accommodations but can more or less live freely and independently.

Loving the way you’ve described and dismissed anybody autistic that doesn’t have a comorbidity of a learning disability as “a professional with 4 kids who does need lots of accommodations but can more or less live freely and independently.”

It you’re living freely then your life isn’t severely impacted by autistim and as such you wouldn’t have a diagnosis. Try telling my kids they live “.freely”🙄

That's not true. I have described some autistic people. There are autistic people who raise multiple children alongside professional careers. There are autistic people who live freely and independently who still get a diagnosis. Diagnosis requires clinically significant impairment across some areas of functioning. "Clinicially significant" is NOT the same as "severe". In fact most autistic people live lives where they are free to come and go from their own homes and do not need 24/7 support workers.

This is exactly what I'm talking about with regards to losing perspective on what a severe disability looks like.

Edit to add: autistic people who require 24/7 care do not always have a co-occuring learning disability. The people who are dead set against saying autistic people who require 24/7 care are no more severely disabled than autistic people with careers and children ALWAYS bring it down to learning disability, that is not always the case.

Managing byprofessionals careers and 4 children is rare and you’ve deliberate picked a rarity and extreme. Autistic people are hugely under and unemployed. It’s well known.

And you’re not just dismissing the disability that is autism but any other disability where people can leave their home.

Many autistic people without a comorbidity of learning disability have high support needs and none can ever be free of their disability. It goes with them wherever they go and its for life.

I deliberately picked that example because I was literally saying that there are people out there who will compare a professional with 4 kids and someone who needs 24/7 care and say with a straight face that one is not more severe than the other.

You can get high needs autistic people without LD.

I could just as easily compare an autistic person who works 30 hours a week, has one kid, gets a lot of support from their spouse has real difficulties, is still autistic, still needs the diagnosis but lives a relatively free life and how that is no where near comparable to an autistic person who requires 24/7 care and cannot leave home when they want. One has a more severe disability than the other, or they are more disabled by society.

Like I said, we have lost all perspective.

Don’t be ridiculous. The vast majority of autistic people struggle with relationships and work, many have high care needs that impact their ability to work. Some are in hospitals or have a history of hospitalisation. A learning disability is separate to autism and actually there are many autistic people without learning difficulties that can’t leave home and need constant care. Some have other comorbidities too. You can’t pigeon hole or rag rate autism. There is zero need to. Any services or support is allocated on need.

I understand autism and its many different presentations very well. You might not see the "need" for autism severity labels, I actually personally have mixed feelings towards them, but you don't speak for all autistic people. The only thing that is ridiculous (and actually rather offensive) is denying that some autistic people are more severely disabled by their autism than others.

You don’t speak for all autistic people either and you most certainly don’t get to decide and put in some kind of order the Autism of people you’ve never met and are never likely to, dismissing need, disability and severity. Neither does anybody else. I mean how dare you comment on try to pigeon hole and decide that my children’s autistic is less because they don’t have a learning disability. You have no idea how their autism impacts their life or their care needs. Now that is offensive and ableist to boot!

I have made no comment on your children at all.

I have specifically stated that any ideas of "severity" are not always tied to learning disability.

I made it clear I personally have mixed feelings about severity labels, although I pointed out the reality that some people's disability as a result of their autism is more severe than other people's.

About pigeon holes - why have an autism label / diagnosis at all? Why not just say "neurodivergent"?

Because they’re not neurodivergent they have autism and adhd.

They are also neurodivergent. Why pigeon hole them into a specific diagnosis? Services are all needs led, right? And all autistic people are different anyway. Why need the box/ pigeon hole of autism?

Because they’re autistic!!

Someone by exactly the same logic could say that someone is "severely autistic", "Kanner's autistic" or "profoundly autistic" ...
"because they're severely autistic!!",
"because they're Kanner's autistic!!" or
"because they're profoundly autistic!!"

How is it that different types of autism used to be "true" but is now definitely not true? That categories of patterns within neurodivergence are important, but categories of patterns within autism are not?

Neurodivergence is just a new mop up word. My children are autistic,severely autistic. They don’t have a learning disability. Their autism is however still severe and impacts life severely. Neither you or anybody else is going to downgrade it because they don’t have a comorbidity you require to go with it. They have other comorbidities but that’s neither here nor there.

I mean again by exactly the same argument autism is just the new mop up word for Kanner's/Classic, Aspergers, PDD-NOS and Childhood Disintegrative Disorder.

I don't know your children or anything about them.

How come there's no such thing as "severe autism", it's only as a result of co-occuring learning disabilities but at the other end of the spectrum other comordibities "are neither here nor there"?

You’re just talking nonsense. We were talking about Autism not comorbidities. You can’t grade or pigeon hole autism, it’s nigh on impossible and pointless anyway. You get support based on need not some impossible to calculate or pigeon hole title. Maybe go and hijack another thread. This one is about ADHD.

Right, so you can't answer the questions.

I'm pretty sure it was literally you who brought up comorbidities.

All kinds of neurodivergence and mental illnesses have been brought up on this thread, it's all been relevant. The discussions exist around all of it.

You obviously feel the need to police the thread, decide what is or is not worthy of a category or label, and have to have the last word on behalf of us all about whether it is true that some autistic people are more severely disabled than others. Fill your boots ...

I'm not sure I agree although it depends on what basis you're making the comparison. The multiple people I know with schizophrenia live with a very similar level of disability to what I live with on account of my ADHD, as measured by the PIP assessment process (while I also have other conditions, many were disregarded in my benefits assessments as I didn't have diagnoses at the time, which isn't supposed to matter but frustratingly seems to). In that we we struggle with similar things to similar degrees and consequently score very similarly on the PIP assessment scale and get (or would get) very similar amounts from what I understand (my UK friends actually get PIP and we've discussed it but one is someone I lived with abroad so I'm making my own judgement on what I saw day in day out). They have "moderate" schizophrenia, I would say, and I have moderate/severe inattentive ADHD but executive function is a big problem in both conditions. I also know or know of multiple people who are less disabled by their schizophrenia using the same measure of disability than I am by my ADHD. One even has a full time, high earning job and a wife and kids.

This is just my own personal experience, but if you look at the figures for PIP claim success rates, they show that just under a third of people applying for PIP with schizophrenia seen as their main condition are not successful. Compared to ADHD where around 50% of people deemed to have it as their main condition are awarded and 50% are not. While this does suggest that, overall, schizophrenia disables to a higher degree (or that mild ADHD is more common than mild schizophrenia), it does also seem to imply that there are a significant number of people living with schizophrenia who are less functionally impaired by it, than a significant number of those living with ADHD. Although obviously, as anyone who's been through the process knows, distress levels are not seen as overly significant - it's functional impairment and your ability to carry out the tasks of daily living and getting around that matter. I do take your point about the poster mentioning a case in which a schizophrenia sufferer was having an acute episode rather than it necessarily being the most extreme of cases.

If you're looking at how dangerous someone is to others, most people with schizophrenia are not dangerous at all (just looked it up and it's apparently less than 1 in 20 for women and less than 1 in 4 for men. Which is obviously massively higher than for the general population but still isn't an issue for most - I'm guessing those 1 in 4 men really bump the figures up for disability benefits awards). Whereas there's probably a lot of violent crime caused by ADHD, I'm guessing the perpetrators have been historically less likely to be identified as having it as it's not as obvious as the more extreme forms of schizophrenia.

Argh. This conversation is infuriating. You can have a disability/ a difference (if you prefer that language) that can be hammered or supported by society and the existence/ lack there of of a reasonable adjustments. But that does not mean there is a not a disability that makes some things harder in the first place.

ADHD has a global prevalence rate of 3.5% to 5%. Cause is likely a hereditary risk factor with contributing environmental factors. With more than one potential cause (for example neurofibromatosis 1).

Having differences in impulsiveness, hyperactivity, emotional regulation, and attention can be somewhat mitigated by having more flexible work/ social/ educational set ups (things that benefit many other people too).

That does not mean they do not exist, and some people may benefit from additional help (medication/ therapy/ support) too. ADHD predates social media, the internet, easy screen access and our current school systems.

In the same way, that if someone has substantial mobility issues - but you put in ramps, wide access doors make places easier to get to in a wheel chair or with a mobility aid - those things make life easier to function in... That person still has the mobility issues in the first place.

But I'd imagine it's the emotional dysregulation of ADHD which causes the violence in most cases - it certainly was with me. You're not going to stab a random stranger to death because you think they're the devil.

You're quite possibly right (emotional dysregulation combined with impulsivity sounds like a pretty dangerous combination in its most extreme form) but does it make a difference to the person who was stabbed to death? They're dead either way. Although they might be more likely to feel they got justice if the person with ADHD couldn't claim diminished responsibility in the way a schizophrenic might be able to.

I don't think the incidents would necessarily be similar in nature though. Somebody with poorly controlled anger still isn't likely to assault somebody out the blue like a schizophrenic person might. I'd imagine it'd be things like arguments getting out of hand.

The acts of moderately severe violence I committed as a child were 100% disproportionate responses to being wound up. Things like stabbing a metal pencil completely through another child's hand, breaking a boy's front teeth with a metal ruler, and hitting somebody over the head with a big hole punch.

Yes 100%. I suspect I would be diagnosed with AuDHD if I pursued it, but I also feel like in another time or society I would be absolutely unremarkable.

The pressure of this life, with its responsibilities and distractions, is just too much for me to manage and I’ve never been able to fit in to what people expected of me.

I feel like a simpler life without being bombarded with information and stimulation would suit me so much better. I’ve tried to carve out a role for myself over the years that moulds to my particular skills and abilities but it’s still overwhelming just existing tbh. I don’t want to romanticise the life I could have had as I know women’s lot was not a happy one for much of history, but I do feel like I wasn’t meant for this era.