No not everyone has ADHD

[HobnobsChoice]

My sister in law has over the last few months come to the conclusion that she azxnd her child have ADHD. Which they might well do. Certainly my nephew has something going on. Fine, they get their diagnosis and support etc.
But since reading about ADHD she is now claiming almost everyone she knows has ADHD. Both of her parents, both of her exes, one of my kids, her colleague, her former neighbour.

All she talks about is ADHD, traits of ADHD, effects of ADHD. We literally can't have a cup of tea without it being discussed and her suggesting that Person A couldn't do DIY because they probably have ADHD or that person B can't lock a door because they have ADHD. She doesn't seem to realise that someone can just be crap at something without it being indicative od neurodiversity.
Am I being unreasonable to ask her to stop talking about it all the time and remind her that she is a civil servant and in no way qualified to making such sweeping generalisations. And that it's becoming quite frustrating and boring that we no longer talk about anything else. Or is her fixation on this a sign that she probably does have ADHD and she cannot help it.
(To not be accused of drip feeding.She's in her late 30s, a single parent in a responsible role and never had any difficulties at school or university or home which would typically suggest ADHD according to her parents and my husband (her brother). I am aware of masking but they genuinely cannot remember her ever struggling either socially or academically. She's always been employed in either voluntary or public sector and done well in her jobs.)

And your professional experience and training in this area is what, exactly?

There’s no blood tests or genetic tests of course, it’s not an exact science. Diagnosis isn’t meaningful for everyone, but for some it’s essential to get the support and adjustments they need. As imperfect as it is, we have a system that requires it for certain reasons.

Yes this!

Both my children have had speech delays. The talk of autism has been so frustrating. Some children have speech delays for other reasons!!

@RavenclawsPrincess

Oh sorry are you an expert? Sounds about right with that tone. Very “us” and “them”. No such thing. Whether or not a diagnosis is useful or not is just based upon the current structure of our MH services. The fact is, there are so many conditions now that many different “professionals” themselves disagree on what the actual “diagnosis” is. I have a family member who was diagnosed with several different conditions over the course of her lifetime because psychiatrists just couldn’t agree. She had numerous meds for years and a few different labels. No doubt if she was still alive now she would have potentially been diagnosed with ADHD.

Turns out it was just a normal trauma reaction from her childhood (which she did not disclose until she was very old and then received a lot of psychological help with improved her “conditions” immensely)….. so the whole thing was a farce. Every single label. It was trauma, end of.

Now I’m not saying every single ADHD case will be trauma related but when a society seems to be saturated with labels and there are question marks over the validity of a diagnosis then it’s no wonder people are beginning to think the whole thing is just one big farce! ADHD for a lot of people now it’s just next in thing. Like I said the meds will be as normal as sertraline in a couple of years.

Are you the OP's sister in law?

Yes! My friend has suddenly self-diagnosed herself from instagram, it's bizarre!
I am involved with SEN and know many ADHD people, in all the twenty years I've known my friend, I've never seen any of the symptoms in her and she's never mentioned any of them before either.
I think she's just unhappy and looking for a reason. I try to be supportive but non-committal when she brings it up, i guess, who knows what really goes on in peoples heads?

@MissWings

I’m a trained neurodevelopmental assessor. I’m also autistic. So yes, I do know a bit about how neurodevelopmental conditions are assessed thank you, and have been through an autism assessment. But most people on this thread, based on not actually seeing me struggle IRL, or at work, would probably armchair diagnose me as lazy and attention seeking or something, or assume I’d just watched a few TikToks!

Yes, professionals do sometimes disagree. Psychiatry and psychology are not always right and they are not perfect by any means. I have worked with many autistic and ADHD women who were diagnosed wrongly with BPD, for example, and done untold harm by poor treatment in services. But there is also a lot of erroneous and ableist stuff on this thread being said. Difficult reading as a neurodivergent person.

My friend does this and it drives me nuts. I do have adhd and was diagnosed 20 years ago, ds has adhd and was diagnosed 4 years ago.

Her kids do not have adhd, I have never seen a single symptom of adhd yet she has diagnosed herself and her 2 children with adhd. I get sent TikTok's about adhd and she asks me things about me and if I do this or do I do that. I've stopped answering these texts and TikTok's now. It's very frustrating that someone would want to have this condition because I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

Til tok has everyone self diagnosing ADHD, Autism.....l in everyone. Does she spend much time on there?

i guess, who knows what really goes on in peoples heads?

Yeah I know. It's almost as if they could have ADHD with symptoms they have never shared with anyone - not even you. Oh no, hang on a minute, if you haven't seen them or heard about them, they're not there - because you 'know many ADHD people'. Your friend could be wrong, but not because you say so.

The fact is, there are so many conditions now that many different “professionals” themselves disagree on what the actual “diagnosis” is. I have a family member who was diagnosed with several different conditions over the course of her lifetime because psychiatrists just couldn’t agree

I would second this. I have a relative who was sectioned (after years of problems) and after months of assessment/ meds/ therapy 2 different diagnosis were thrown up. The meds he’s on work for him right now but one psychiatrist differed from another quite substantially. For people on the severe end of the spectrum of anything (be that ND or a MH condition) it’s never ever straightforward. Yet apparently millions upon millions of people can be diagnosed with adhd within a few months of seeking a diagnosis because they have a mildly difficult time doing certain tasks.

@RavenclawsPrincess

I don’t disagree that some people are autistic. That is evidently true. Certainly in terms of being organic autism and dementia are up there. The problem we now have in society is the over labelling of these conditions. It actually does discredit people who genuinely do have the conditions. I don’t believe that every diagnosis is ADHD even one made by the “professionals”. Yes it can be a long and arduous process to get a diagnosis but I do think there is a portion of society that will be incredibly persistent in their search for a label. They’ve often read incredible amounts of information around ADHD and utterly convince themselves that they have it, therefore it can become a self fulfilling prophecy. There are also parents who really do want their child to have a diagnosis of ADHD. My sister in law being one of them. She will absolutely not accept that her son is the way he is because of poor parenting/neglect and incredibly toxic family environment. They actually did see a psychiatrist who recommended family therapy. They are a wealthy family and were not at all happy about this NHS consultant’s recommendation (who I happened to agree with). They are now in the middle of long road with private practitioners whereby money is no object. Whether or not their child gets diagnosed with ADHD I do not yet know. I certainly wouldn’t be surprised though as they are hell bent on it being that and not a problem with their own family dynamic.

Yes I also dislike the whole ‘oh thank your lucky stars you’re NT’. Like some ‘ND’ people seem to seriously think that being ‘NT’ means swanning about without a care in the world, no negative emotions, no difficulties with anything and a natural ability to make all social interactions seamless and easy. I hardly know any NT people who breeze through life like this, literally everyone has their own difficulties or personality deficits in some way.

There will be some money trail back to tiktok. I’m guessing the people that flog the drugs have something to do with it. I agree re. Antidepressants. There’s a bit of a backlash against them as studies begin to show they aren’t that effective in the way they are being used so it’s on to the next thing £. I’m sure you’ll diagnose me as bonkers.

There is a really interesting book called stolen focus.
The premise is that so many aspects of a modern way of life drain our attention span so yes most people probably do feel they have signs of adhd these days which is one reason of many why it seems so prevalent at the minute.

@MissWings yes, I have seen things like what you are describing and that’s really sad. Some parents - both ND and NT, with both ND and NT children, find it difficult to see their own or their family system’s shortcomings and would much rather find an explanation in there being something “wrong” with the child or adult who is “acting out” as they might see it. And even if a child/adult is autistic/ADHD or even both, that doesn’t negate the need for addressing the issues systemically and for psychosocial support. We can have both. I didn’t like solely working as an assessor because there wasn’t much support offered post diagnosis, it was like here’s your bit of paper, off you go. Which is no good. Finding out you have a neurodevelopmental difference as an adult is a big deal, you look at your life in a whole different way. People need support with that.

But everyone is ‘neurodevelopmentally different’. Do you know any 2 people who are exactly the same?

I have experienced this. My SIL (who is also one of my closest friends and who I love very much) is undergoing diagnosis and is convinced that her whole family have it, including family that are not related. This includes her step daughters, her step brothers (one is my DP) and.... me. I have been supportive but I really do not think that I am neurodivergent. The traits she ascribes to me are very generic things like poor time management and a hatred of housework. It's hard because if I say NT people have that too, she says "Aha! they are probably NT too". If I say I don't have a trait, it's "Aha! typical to not have all traits". I sometimes come close to thinking she's right and I have ADHD, even though I have never ever suspected this about myself, then give myself a shake and feel a bit peeved.

Partly it's because for her its been so transformative to learn this about herself, that she wants everyone to have that opportunity. It's hard to imagine what it's like to realise that your entire life your brain has been functioning differently to how everyone, including you yourself, thought and differently to how you were being treated. Part of it is that she's read that ND people befriend ND people, and she is trying to make sense of why she gets on so well with the people she gets on well with, including me, but others are a mystery to her. And I think she's concluded that she only likes ND people, and therefore everyone she likes must be ND. If it's recent I think it's kind to indulge, but also fine to move conversation on to other things.

So “diagnosing everyone you know” is a super common stage that late diagnosed adults go through.

Partly because neurodivergent people genuinely are drawn together without knowing it. So once you realise you’re ND and learn much more about the signs, it’s suddenly abundantly clear which other family members are too and how many of your friends over the years have been too. 😅

But the main reason is this;
We lived our whole lives not knowing that we had genuinely different brains and experiences to people around us. We might have often felt like we didn’t fit, but we really believed other people thought the way we do because we had no reason to think otherwise.

Once you know you have a neurodivergent brain you subconsciously do the same thing you always did, I.e; assume other people think like you. So you end up in topsyturvy land for a while where you think almost everyone is ND…

And then you start to think that doesn’t seem totally likely and realise that you still have no frigging clue what’s going on in other peoples’ brains 😂👍

@RavenclawsPrincess thank you for all your comments, I agree that lack of post diagnosis support really sucks :(

How common does a disorder have to become that it is just considered natural variation?

@DiastasisRectiSucks 😂

Sigh. I am just going to require something which was shared with me when I was awaiting assessment.

It's like peeing - everyone needs to pee regularly, but if you're going to the loo 62 times a day there is probably a problem. - this sums it up for me. Everyone forgets their keys sometimes - I manage to lose mine several times a day, every day. Most people don't like getting up in the mornings - if I don't set a minimum of 17 alarms I will sleep through everything from appointments to work to weddings.

It is not fun and it is not something I'd especially wish on anyone, though the hyperfocus can be useful when it matches up with what I need to do, which is not very often.

Many ADHD traits are present in the general population and can be made worse at times by stress, life events, etc.

But in order to get a diagnosis, those traits have to be assessed as causing significant obstacles to day to day functioning.

I was diagnosed with ADHD at 35 nearly two years ago and the meds have profoundly changed my life, because despite being high achieving academically and good socially, my life was absolute chaos underneath the "it's fine" mask.

Reshare not require - argh no edit button!

My friend is EXACTLY the same. Her daughter and her have recently been diagnosed.
She's had mental health issues for a long time. I think it's a massive relief for her as it explains a lot of her decisions. However, she's become a bit of an armchair expert on neuro diversity.

She keeps insinuating that I'm autistic because I had some social anxiety (which, I've worked hard to overcome with years of cbt). I know myself really well following lots of therapy. I read autism symptoms and it's not me. I have no reason to think I have it. But she just goes on and on. My son is quite hyper and she also insinuates that he had adhd. I don't think he does. His school don't think he does but every time he's running about and not listening (like 90 % of under 5s) she says 'classic adhd'.

It grates me because I start to doubt myself.maybe I do have autism? Maybe my son does gave adhd and I'm a terrible parent for not realising. ???

I think she does it to make herself more comfortable with her diagnosis, which I understand. So I don't say anything, I just hope a years go by she'll mellow out.

I was like that when I realised that I’m autistic. I spent hundreds of hours researching and I’ve got 50 years of lived experience plus experience of having children with autism and ADHD. It’s the same for many neurodiverse people. We consider ourselves experts because we are - we just don’t have official qualifications.