Does anybody know what I type to summon Mumsnet Towers ?
Seriously if anybody would like to participate in a push back I’d appreciate any hands willing to be on deck. PM away.
I’d like to make it clear why I am saying what I am saying.
A) I’m out in real life. I’m a teacher. A dyslexic, English teacher with ADHD. I’m out with parents & students because I want them to see you can have this and still fall somewhere between Richard Branson and Hot Mess. The former and latter get lots of exposure. But those of us in the middle, doing OK, most of the time, having productive work lives and family (with blips, but then who doesn’t?) I don’t want to go back in the closet because ADHD got the same treatment other “Thou Shalt Handle With Kid Gloves And Never Challenge Their Facts”. I’ll have to if this takes hold. The Hot Messes Who Need Attention of the world will become my (unelected) representative online. It will impact my ability to attract new clients and contracts if my condition becomes seen as “hot potato walking into the staffroom”-ish. How can I show kids it’s not the end of the world to get this label, your life is still yours to shape and improve, if I have to go back to hiding the label out of self-preservation ?
B) I think not perceiving people with ADHD as just as capable of knowing right from wrong, just as capable of interacting on forums with both the rough and the smooth is othering. Frankly, discriminatory. Like we are some kind of poor little failing humans who can’t help ourselves. That ideology sets people like me up for failure. Is it seductive? Oh hell yes. Does it create a way to a personal hell paved with good intentions by the kind hearted, or censorious ? Sure does. That’s cruel. It might feel good to say it, or hear it, or repeat it. But the people with ADHD who take that message on board as “this is how the world should be, so this is how the world is” are the ones most at risk of being doomed to live with the belief that their locus of control is entirely in “society’s” hands. And that can be a bad, bad place to live if you want better than the cards you were handed by the gene pool.
C) It’s fine to disagree with me. Think I’m wrong. (Bound to be, human = fallible) Argue the toss with me. All good. I don’t claim to have all of the answers for all of the people, all of the time. But if you want me to hear your arguments. Then make them. Show me all the persuasive reasons you think I should switch to your perspective to at least some degree. But if you censor NTs about ADHD and force them to self-censor from now on, then expect a hard push back. Because NOBODY speaks for all of us. And I will not be dragged down by those who want us shoved into an “untouchable” box, for their own reasons. I will not just sit here like a helpless bystander while a group of people feeling all oppressed make the world think we are incapable of having a moral compass, making good judgments, running our own lives as equal adults, and parenting our children appropriately because we can’t “help ourselves”.
The vast overwhelming majority can help ourselves. Few people are deemed incapable of being responsible for themselves due to ADHD. The few that are in that place, need all of the “oh hey, back off now, unequal playing field” points, nobody should be trying to pocket their compassion points.
And while we might have our own ADHD flavoured issues with a playing field somewhat on a slope, so does most of humanity. Genetic, environmental, bit of both, few get a perfect hand and the perfect instincts for playing it as well as it can be.
There are more somewhat lame ducks in human geography than there are tidy waddlers. So before deciding “the NTs” (dear god I wishing that particularly terminology would leave the planet) need to be shut down unless they are all Nodding Doggy when ADHDers speak, bear in mind, they too likely have their own unlevel playing field issues. Which pretty much makes us equal. As it should be.