Sorry, if the title comes across as inflammatory (it's not intended as you will see). I also didn't want to put this in the neurodiverse section either as I wanted opinions from people with adhd and without.
I was diagnosed with inattentive adhd almost a year ago, at the age of 52. I have struggled with many aspects of my mental (and physical) health since I was a child. I have kept my diagnosis to myself only telling dh, dc (adults), Dsis and my father. Obviously, my diagnosis is no one else's business and I am also wary that it is sometimes controversial, people seem to have various opinions on the subject.
My concern that I have atm came up during one of my recent counselling sessions. I have been in counselling for the last 3 months, sadly not adhd counselling as I can't afford that. My counsellor is lovely and we get along well. I have mentioned my diagnosis to her a few times but it is not the subject of the counselling so I've said little about it, we are trying to work through my current issues (low self-esteem, consistently high anxiety, panic attacks, physical issues and the stress from caring for my elderly mum with advanced dementia). It's going ok, nothing ground-breaking but ok.
However, she said something to me at the end of our last session which I can't stop thinking about (not unusual for me to deeply mull over things, my brain never stops over thinking).
We were talking about how I handle certain situations in life and I said maybe I am that way or act that way because of my adhd and maybe it's because my brain is simply wired differently to a neuro-typical persons? She paused for a moment and then told me that she didn't think it is healthy for people to label themselves, that we are all individuals and have the right to be different, to think differently and we should all be kind to ourselves and labelling gets you nowhere in life.
I absolutely appreciate that we are all individuals with different life experiences and different ways of dealing and handling those experiences and of course we should be kind and easy on ourselves but I am not sure what I think of her mentioning 'labelling'. I am sure that I haven't labelled myself, as I say I don't go around telling people about my ADHD diagnosis and I don't excuse myself because of it but at the same time isn't it who I am at the end of the day or was the assessment and diagnosis a waste of time? If someone spend years in physical pain only to find there was actually a diagnosis for it and they could finally reach a better understanding as to why they experienced this pain and why it held them back for so long, wouldn't they want to know? Can that not be used in the same way for different mental health issues? I am genuinely confused and not sure where to go from here.
I have seen posts on MN regarding adhd and have noticed others say it's over-diagnosed in their opinion or that many issues are more than likely down to some kind of childhood trauma etc rather than from any kind of neuro diverse issue (I had a great childhood btw).
And is a 'label' not the same as a diagnosis? I am genuinely confused about neurodiversity at times and it is something that I am still navigating. Or should I just drop it, stop navigating and let it go?)