"TikTok trends or the pandemic? What’s behind the rise in ADHD diagnoses"

[flashbac]

"The striking overlap between ADHD symptoms and garden variety “pandemic brain” only compounds common misunderstandings of the former. Simply, ADHD symptoms can look and sound a whole lot like the struggles that define many people’s everyday workflows, which are so often fragmented by push notifications and digital dopamine hits. Who doesn’t have trouble multitasking or following through with tasks? And who isn’t fighting the urge to impulse-scroll social media during the particularly dull moments of any given afternoon? In the past two years, these difficulties have only become more pronounced."

www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jun/02/tiktok-trends-or-the-pandemic-whats-behind-the-rise-in-adhd-diagnoses

What do you think?

Adhd is underdiagnosed in the UK.

This thread will get all the mumsnet ‘experts’ posting offensive made up bullshit theories about ADHD. Just like the last thread on this subject not too long ago. 🙄

@Winterhail Pubmed has hundreds of papers, going back years and years such as :
"“HEALTHY” DIET PATTERN IN PREVENTION AND TREATMENT OF ADHD
In the Australian Raine study, the re- lationship between dietary patterns and ADHD was examined in a population- based cohort of live births followed to age 14.1 Two major dietary patterns were identified as “Healthy” and “West- ern,” according to foods considered the main contributors. (Table 2) The West- ern dietary pattern associated with an ADHD diagnosis contains higher intakes of total fat, saturated fat, refined sugars, and sodium and is deficient in omega-3 fatty acids, fiber, and folate. The Healthy diet pattern, not associated with ADHD diagnosis, is rich in fish, vegetables, fruit, legumes, and whole-grain foods. A higher risk of having an ADHD diagnosis, inattentive or combined types, is ob- served for boys compared with girls. The major specific foods in a Western diet are also contributory to an in- creased tendency to obesity among nonmedicated ADHD children and adolescents.68
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22232312/. 2012!
More recent
High-Fat Diet-Induced Weight Gain, Behavioral Deficits, and Dopamine Changes : Chronic exposure to a high-fat diet (HFD) may predispose individuals to neuropathologies and behavioral deficits.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33553228/

Pubmed is easy to navigate.

We are pure chemistry. Neurotransmitters respond to nutrients and lack of.

I have a partner with adhd and I work with children who have various disabilities. Are we thinking that all disabilities that aren't visible are just fraud then? Believe me, many children can look very able and yet they have severe life limiting disabilities. It doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It doesn't mean that if we just change their diets or give them better parents their disabilities go away.

My partner was diagnosed as a child and was in specialist education. There is no getting away from the fact they have adhd. Unfortunately, it is so stigmatised. It's great that social media is breaking it down. But, I do worry that people who have traits of adhd can become fixated on them the more they think about them and start putting them together they suddenly think they have a life long disability and class themselves as such.

Many people are disorganised, forget important stuff, even stuff that leads to poor health ect. Goodness there is a huge amount of stuff I should have got health care for over the years. I think the difference is where a person can't actually function at all without another person doing most things for them. It's great that the stigma is being broken down but I hope it isn't at the cost of diluting the impact true adhd actually has.

Thank you very much for these links, I will read them with interest.

O and as a child I had an awful diet. I couldn't be further from having adhd. Yet, I know many children who are offered healthy diets and funnily enough they still have disabilities including adhd 😑

I am diagnosed dyslexic. One of my DC is high flying and constantly at school being told straight level 9 but struggled with friendships - rather see books but school saw no issues no behavioural problems. Another DC struggled with speech, then came dyslexia signs and a full check list of autism traits ticked off. Suddenly dawned he was autistic and is currently on the pathway but they are certain. Suddenly dawned on me doing DC list that the other was also ticking the boxes - they are now on the pathway. Seeing the questions I’m 100% I am as well but I’m on a diagnostic pathway. Self diagnosing is dangerous.

I think mainly learning conditions were missed before lockdown and far more since. Two years of not socialising at primary and secondary have amplified their social issues and that’s the bit that is more obvious.

My DD eats very healthy only drinks water etc. Yet we was told when we took her for diagnosing that her case of ADHD was the worse they had seen for years in a child and she requires 24.7 supervision. She's only just turned 7.

We've had to fight to be rehoused as we couldn't even have a window open a fraction as she'd try to force her body out of a window 235ft above ground to feel air on her or to do jumping. It's hard hard work.

She's also broke into kitchens at school and got knives out! Very hard work but I can't do no more with her diet.

It’s not really about the internet 🤨

Before I was diagnosed with ADHD, and started medication, these are the kind of things that happened to me:

I used to lose my car as I’d forgotten where I’d parked it in car parks. Really lose it though and be hunting about for some time, panicking and hating myself for being so stupid. Once I even forgot what colour it was. Imagine the rising sense of panic and the “WTF is wrong with me?” thoughts..

I put the wrong fuel in my car and had to have it all cleaned out. Yes, that is something that happens to non-ADHD people. However, I did it three times in under 12 months. The last time it was a new car and it cost a huge amount to repair. While the car was being towed away, I somehow lost my debit card at the same time, in the panic. I felt SO stupid.

While I was sitting in my car that day, waiting for the breakdown people to arrive, I remember sitting in the car with my head leaning against the wheel, and thinking to myself “I just can’t live like this anymore, I want to kill myself”.

It wasn’t a feeling that lasted for a long time that day, but in that moment it was just a feeling of absolute hopelessness and failure, and trying to live my life on a daily basis whilst fucking up the most basic things. I was also late for somewhere I really needed to be, letting people down, and had to phone up and explain, still full of shame.

Another car related one, even since medication (I have so many more examples but my mind is on a car theme now 😂):

I was pulled over by the police and told they couldn’t find any licence, MOT or tax for me. As it happens, I had actually renewed my insurance ! (All done online, with email reminders, with paper it would never have happened). It had been renewed only a few days before though, so wasn’t showing.

Licence - Well, I do have one. But it is in my maiden name (I’ve been married twice since then but didn’t get around to changing it) and has an old address on. This caused some confusion. I also didn’t have the actual card as I’d lost it.

MOT - overdue by a few days (I had a vague idea and believed it wasn’t due yet)

Tax - A year overdue 😳 As I explained to the policemen - who were very patient and quite kind - it was a bit tricky as I’d lost the letter with the renewal number on, and the log book, then when I eventually downloaded and printed the bloody form, the chassis number wasn’t recognised.. then I just procrastinated for a year and use to lie in bed at night worrying about it.

The policeman said to me “I’m getting that admin isn’t your strong point” 🙈 When I said “I have ADHD, and it really isn’t my strong point” (I was feeling quite tearful by this point) he gave me such a look of pure sympathy that I concluded that he must know someone with ADHD, he looked like he actually got it 😂

I then had to phone my DH and explain to him that the dog and I were sitting in the back of a police car and needed to be picked up, as my car was being taken away.

Believe it or not, I have a professional job and am educated to masters level in subjects that people generally see as being very difficult to study. I was known as “the brainy one” all through school. For some reason, people still perceive me to be ‘clever’ in many settings. There are some things that very come easily to me. I’m very good at taking exams, as I have an almost photographic memory for facts, dates and memorising academic texts 🤷🏻‍♀️ (I know quite a few ADHD adults and there are always so many contradictions!)

There is so much more to it than just being forgetful though, so much more, but this post is long enough already. (If I got started on the emotional and impulsive side of things I’d be here forever).

I once worked with a man who’d suffered a serious head injury and we found that he had strikingly similar struggles to me. He also used similar strategies to work around them.

It is so insulting and upsetting to suggest that living with this isn’t real.

That depends on your definition of a healthy diet, and whether 'offering' a healthy diet means that the child eats it.
The science doesn't say that eating a healthy diet prevents ADHD, or that a poor diet is the sole cause of ADHD, it just says that the symptoms can be diminished by getting the essential nutrients.

I'm not getting Holland and Barratt ads on the thread!

I have a doctorate and a professional job.

But i also regularly:

Turn up on the wrong day to appointments (or wrong time)

Completely forget entire (important) conversations

Run out of petrol

Run out of petrol when I have also forgotten my phone and purse

Go into work when I have booked annual leave

Book tickets to things and forget to go

Do a shop, and realise I have no purse

Forget to do really important admin

Lose things. I lost my engagement ring 3 times in 3 weeks (each time I left it on a sink in a public loo while I washed my hands)

Become completely overwhelmed by mess but can't do anything about the mess

Stare out of the window for hours and hours when I really, really need to do something important.

Underestimate how long things will take

It's exhausting, frustrating and humiliating.

Well that depends on the child, some do and some don't. Just like any other children but also adhd can often come with sensory issues with food too. Perhaps it is the adhd that causes some children not to want healthy food and it makes symptoms worse. Like I say there are plenty of healthy children that do and don't eat offered food too.

I don't agree it predisposes people to it though and most people I know with adhd are thin, the opposite of obese which these bad foods are meant to cause.

The children I know with adhd that do eat a healthy diet as far as I am aware are most definitely on the severe end of adhd.

Many people with adhd are incredibly intelligent. But, if the adhd is severe enough unfortunately this never seems to make a big difference to their life because they just cannot function at all intelligent or not. It can feel like such a waste.

It's becoming obvious potentially half the population is nurodiverse and on the spectrum somewhere/adhd etc

Or so my consultant told me anyway

So if this is true then that would account for what appears such a increase

"...easily get a diagnosis"

It takes up to two years to even get an initial appointment for a diagnosis.

You then have very thorough assessments which include speaking to various other people in your life including speaking to your parents about your childhood.

Does that sound easy?

I suspect i have ADHD, it explains a lot. But I'm too afraid of asking for a referral because of all the tiktok related stuff at the moment. My son has recently been diagnosed with asd and they also think he has ADHD, its through looking in to ways to support him that I've recognised a lot of the innatentive traits in myself that have been there my whole life. I'm managing, so I'll just keep on managing until i feel in a place I'll be listened to rather than being written off as someone who is following a tiktok 'trend'.

As a kid I

• was messy and had the piss taken out of me by teachers and classmates

-really struggled to focus and listen so I'd either switch off or become disruptive (passing notes,talking to myself or other,giggling, fiddling with things,swinging on chairs)

• was described often as bright but lazy, or some teachers actually thought I was stupid

-that I did not have the brain for maths and I'll fail any test. I actually love maths now, but I didn't until I was about 14 and a maths teacher took an actual interest in me

• I was naughty ,impulsive,reckless ,immature
• i was either a tear away/always on the go or lazy
• really struggled with big feelings, boundaries,relationships and I was over emotional/attached
• I really struggled to write neatly and would often get left behind and would get frustrated and often just stopped writing
• i was described as chaotic in behaviour and environment. My room/desk were chaos, but I actually knew where everything was. I hated when everything was tidy and put away
• struggled in test because my brain would go ahead of me so missed things. Sometimes it happens when i speak too. Put half words together or skip them .
• struggled to process information of it was too fast or too slow.

-forgot/lost things

• damaged things during imaginative play , without any malicious intent, simply because that's where my imagination took me. This was further proof of how bad I was to my parents and teachers. As an example: while doing homework I started day dreaming and the tassels on the table mat became fairies trapped by an evil witch. They were tied up by their "hair" . I had to free them.
• I wanted (so so badly) to be good and appreciated and liked but I really struggled to and failed more often than not
• I loved reading ,not only because it kept me engaged (I can see the stories in my head) but it also kept me out of trouble. I preferred it to anything else and it was weird apparently. It wasn't just an escape and coping mechanism, it kept me safe.

-I was often in the wrong and any praise would be followed by a but... -I was accused of cheating for doing well in a maths test.

• I was often an outsider, friends would turn on me , I didn't understand many of their behaviours or thought patterns

-I was made to feel like I wasn't a proper girl. Too loud,too messy, too bouncy , too brash . Everything bad that happened to me was then blamed on me being too much in just about everything. I actually tried pretending I'm a boy for a while.

• I'd forget to eat, get changed before bed, do homework etc.
• some teachers were ready to fail me and then be surprised after some 1 2 1's that I'm quite clever and I did get it. Some going as far as to put me up for competitions in their subject.
• I was quite clumsy and got hurt a lot because I didn't notice my surroundings.

-one of the best teachers I had , kinda got it and she'd let me read in her class as long as it was a fairly educational book ,even if fiction. Kept me out of trouble , and I did listen and engage when I actually could. -bar a few subjects I never learned much in a classroom, I simply couldn't. I did manage well in my tests because I'd read at home or find my own ways to research/learn.

There are many other things and examples of not being quite right and failing when I desperately didn't want/mean to. Maybe it's normal and everyone was like that ,maybe it's all in my head or whatever else some posters want to think. I sure hope not because it fucking sucked and it cause much pain and trauma.

And it had fuck all to do with tiktok or social media or awareness. I got my first phone at 16 and it was a Nokia brick. I hadn't heard about ADHD until well in my 20's. My behaviours and struggles were still there. They still are actually, I just have a lot of things in place(plenty of trial and error) , a very rigid routine to help me cope and I avoid a lot of situations where my impulsive /dangerous/reckless side might come out to play. Looking back at some of the things I did and the decisions I made it's a wonder I'm still fucking alive sometimes.

It's not a question of how long it takes to get a diagnosis. It can take a long time to get a diagnosis of anything at all. My point is that many people nowadays self diagnose and say they have ADHD when in fact, they have personality traits that predispose them to being disorganized or forgetful.

I also doubt that having a diagnosis will make much difference, unless you are on medication, and that can be problematic too.

There is no physical exam that can prove ADHD, it's assessed on a wide range of symptoms. Often people opt for a private diagnosis, which is obviously making money for those doing the diagnosing.

In my opinion, and just looking at Mumsnet threads, there are many, many parents with ADHD children - far more than one would expect in the general population. Can it really be so prevalent?

I am so glad I read this. I'm just short of 30 and I'm like this. I can't remember to do things. I don't reply to messages, miss important appointments, forget to pay things. Its cause havoc on my life and relationships. I also have about a million things in my mind that I can't get out quick enough. I interrupt people and overshare and I don't know why I do it. I've been this way most my life. Its so hard to explain. But I have a professional job like you, and you wouldn't even guess I am like this. I'm good at my job but I've noticed it happening at work now and I know I need to do something.

Do you mind me asking how you explained this to a GP? I've thought about what to say but I'm aware I sound bonkers trying to explain it.

I'm glad you've got your diagnosis and I hope things improve for you.

I found the article quite interesting as it seemed to be taking aim at a certain kind of ‘trendy’ ADHD self - diagnosis that is certainly A Thing. There’s a lot of Instagram content as well that makes ADHD seem sort of sexy and almost aspirational, like it makes you a more interesting person. As people on this thread point out that is not the reality for a lot of people with ADHD. I also think there CAN be a tendency to assign an ADHD label to pretty normal ways of behaving in a way that makes me wonder what people expect life/your brain to be like.

I don’t think ADHD is made up, I do think some of the Instagram content I’ve seen is a load of crap. I’ve looked into it through work and also for myself and so much of ‘managing’ ADHD seems to come down to pretty boring and unsexy procedures and routines, which isn’t reeeeallly the social media angle I’ve seen.

But you clearly can remember about the paperwork to do with your business, as you are writing about it now.

Similarly, with the form to return to get genetic testing.

What's wrong with writing yourself a note, leaving it on your breakfast table, and doing those things tomorrow?

I don't understand why you think you can't remember these things, or why you think you may have ADHD (if you're suggesting that ADHD is the cause).

Are you suggesting that having ADHD is causing you to be disorganized? And will the diagnosis make it any better?

You will see from my regular posts on this subject, that it's something that interests me.

Some people, yes. Social contagion. Young people watching mental health content on SM and self diagnosing.

Yep I find that I relate to almost zero of the popular ADHD "content" I've seen. I'm no fan of self-diagnosers taking over online communities to the extent that the collection of commonalities they gather around morphs into something different from the original condition (hello there #ActuallyAutistic).

But the article mostly seems to centre around increased diagnoses, and I'm not about to start policing anybody's professionally-diagnosed conditions. If an appropriate professional thinks someone meets the criteria, and that person finds the drugs/strategies/whatever helpful, then good for them for finding something to help them live the life they want to.

It's estimated that ADHD is relatively common - about 2.5% of the population. Until recently, it was really hard to get a diagnosis unless you were a floridly hyperactive boy who was destroying the classroom. So it kind of makes sense that many people are playing catch up.

@Winterhail - If it is something you are so interested in, why don’t you educate yourself?

Your “why don’t you write yourself a note and do it in the morning?” suggestion (😂) shows that you know very very little about a condition that you write regular posts about. Why is this?