To think most online adult ADHD diagnoses are bullshit?

[OptimismvsRealism]

(I have ADHD btw.)

I know it can manifest in different ways but all these neat ladies organising multiple events a day and keeping a perfect home do not have it. They just paid £600 to Adhd-4-u and (to everyone's suprise !) came out with a diagnosis.

I don't think anyone these days can accept that life is hard and they just have a mediocre intellect.

I never tell anyone about my diagnosis now because it's embarrassing to be lumped in with the buy your own amphetamine prescription brigade.

I think the market should be regulated as there are a lot of unscrupulous practitioners out there.

Your GP friend sounds very ignorant. Autism is well known to change and evolve. It’s hugely common for girls to get missed as girls and then crumble in their teens and be diagnosed.Does your go friend really not know that?😱GPs aren’t qualified to diagnose and he/she sounds as if he/she desperately needs some ND training.

The diagnosis wait can be as long as 5 years .Private is often as much as £3k. Not many people can afford it. As such 1/4 of classes diagnosed with autism is not the norm, far from it.

different MH professionals have advised me to get tested for ADHD. I saw a psychiatrist ( for something else) who suspected ADHD and I absolutely shut it down. As I am one of those people who from the outside look like I am ‘together’. Full time organised job, child, mortgage etc but I actually struggle a lot. But like you I feel like there’s a bandwagon of people desperate to be diagnosed with it and will change their behaviour to fit. But really that could (and is most likely) my own prejudice..

I know a lot of psychiatrists think all adult diagnoses are nonsense. I don't agree with that but I think it takes more than a quiz and a zoom chat.

The post doesn't look complete bullshit, it really is complete bullshit and will probably be taken down soon enough. Can't stand the arrogance of an OP like this one.

I think your touchyness is a bit revealing tbf.

I'd probably feel your ire then

I'm being diagnosed late in life. I score off the scale on NHS scoring and 121 assessment.

It's painfully obvious - but on the surface I'm very bright, very successful and despite being textbook don't appear it. Because I mask and have hundreds of coping mechanisms.

It was actualy at work that it was repeatedly mentioned with complete surprise that I didn't know!

This is a career I'm pretty good at - turns out because it taps into the stuff I'm good at, joining dots, hyperfocus, fast thinking, multi tasking but is flexible enough that I can work in bursts. And then do not much for days.

And I'm senior enough that I don't have to worry about detail or finishing stuff. People always assumed I was ambitious. Nope just desperate to get away from being found out at being woeful at stuff other people just seem to be able to do.

You are being incredibly ignorant to generalise so massively.
I was diagnosed by an online company through an arrangement via my employer's medical insurer. I have struggled with so much my entire life, looking back I was textbook. Low self esteem, eating disorder, bright but inconsistent performance both at work and school. ADHD is fucking awful and having people like you dismiss my diagnosis and the struggles I and thousands of others have is so insulting.

This online company were very thorough before they gave me my diagnosis with a report setting out exactly the basis for it.
They assessed my DD last year. They found that while she does have impairments, she didn't meet the required threshold for diagnosis in children - 6 impairments in more than one setting (I think it's 6) - a whole other thread about the diagnostic criteria being based on boys 🙄. They want to see her next year when she is at secondary school when it is likely her struggles will be more visible to her teachers. So this nonsense about diagnosis being dished out to anyone who pays for it is not only false, but extremely harmful and devalues the accurate diagnoses that the majority of people have got through these companies.

Yes, there are problems with some companies, and you are right that there should be more regulation - aside from anything else, it would prevent people like you spreading this damaging narrative that all online diagnosis are bullshit. Our lives are hard enough as it is without crap like this being peddled by ill informed people basing their opinion on what they have seen on social media.

I think the current number of adults diagnosed in recent years explains the number of children back in my school days who couldn't concentrate and were 'disruptive'. We generally just put those kids down to poor parenting/background. Actually we can now see that were they children nowadays they'd be put on the pathway for a diagnosis and given help.

My 34 year old brother has just had an ADHD diagnosis. It came completely out of the blue and was his GP who suggested he went for the test. In hindsight it may have explained being labelled as the 'class clown' and not finishing schoolwork in the allotted lessons. He's actually quite intelligent so I'm guessing it was not obvious that he needed support. I think my dad has much stronger traits than my brother but has never been assessed. I suffer with sensory overload and anxiety but I will never get tested because I don't think I'd be diagnosed with it.

Excuse me? I have a 'proper' diagnosis thank you. Through the GP and waiting two years for a diagnosis and everything! (To be clear, I dont think you need this type of formal diagnosis- or any diagnosis at all!- to have ADHD).

I am a highly organised person (who is actually an event planner for a job!) so by your initial post i wouldn't fit your narrow definition, but I have received my diagnosis through 'legitimate' means. Where does that leave me in your eyes?

Your opinion smacks of snobbery and is downright harmful. The more people who are aware of ADHD and get help for it the better, regardless of how they get diagnosed. Or if they get diagnosed at all! It took 2 years for my formal diagnosis, I have ADHD as much as I did before I was diagnosed.

It's hardly just my opinion. The deluge of online diagnoses make a massive joke out of it and nobody takes it seriously (understandably).

ADHD and autism are spectrum disorders like hypertension. Whether you are diagnosed or not just depends on where the threshold for number and severity of symptoms is placed and it appears that we as a society have lately decided to place it a bit lower than it used to be resulting in more diagnoses. It's just the same as if we lowered the hypertension cut off from 140 systolic to 130 more people would have hypertension and be offered medication for it.

Are you saying your opinion cannot possibly be harmful because other people might share it?

I'm narrating the problem, not creating it.

I paid for an assessment. I - in my own judgement - barely scraped through. The assessor kept asking me if I was sure when I gave specific answers - he was guiding me to give the "correct" answers. It was a nonsense. I'd paid £600. Of course I got a diagnosis! ADHD, my fucking eye.

I am as autistic as the day is long though and perfectly happy with that.

The 'problem' is only a problem IN YOUR OPINION that's the point!

So what's the alternative for those not diagnosed before the age of 6? I wonder if your GP friend is aware of the statical outcomes for people with ADHD who do not get diagnosed and treated? What exactly is his experience in this field? I ask because it's an area where General Practitioners do seem to profess specialist knowledge which, when challenged by someone who knows just a little bit, seems to dissipate.

So, what is the alternative? Do we refuse neurodivergent young people and adults NHS care for their neuro divergence? Will this apply to other conditions or just autism and ADHD? Can he quote the figures on statistical outcomes (ADHD takes 20 years off life span according to Hallowell & Ratey, ADHD 2.0) Does this not concern you GP friend? If not, why not? Does he not value the contribution neurodivergent people make to society? Does he have an empathy problem? - one has to wonder. What's his remit as a GP, is it to 'trust' diagnoses or is he over reaching? Does he have access and make use of research developments into neurodivergence or is he lazily basing his opinion on the textbook that got him through med school?

To be fair to OP I hardly think it's an uncommon opinion

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12812475/amp/Cambridge-students-accused-gaming-actively-seeking-mental-health-diagnoses-conditions-like-ADHD-time-exams.html

I don't think it's bullshit but I think if that many people have it then surely it becomes a norm rather than some exceptional diagnosis IYSWIM?

Ah the weekly ADHD bashing thread, where people diagnosed with ADHD don't actually have ADHD but are just 'a bit thick' and shit at life.

Plenty of people share the opinions that are bad and harmful, I am not sure what this proves.

OP didn't come here to talk about who shares their opinion, they came here to bash ADHD diagnoses that they consider less valid than their own because they are the protagonist of ADHD. It's harmful and ableist.

Hypertension affects 1 in 3 adults.

Almost 11% of women have asthma.

1 in 2 people will get cancer.

Are these things 'a norm'? No.

I have ADHD, 3 degrees, a great job, why is it to do with low intellect?!

What's it revealing?

Emotional dysregulation? Nah, that might make me neurodivergent. Us adhd-ers are known for flying off the handle at the slightest thing.

I note you seem very cool headed...don't take this the wrong way...but do you think it might be your diagnosis that's wrong?

www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/finding-purpose/202208/the-real-reason-everyone-seems-to-have-adhd-these-days?amp

This article sums up my opinion on it.
TLDR: There is a spectrum of executive performance and as our modern society places high demands on executive function it becomes more noticeable if yours is at the bottom end of the spectrum

@jimjamjames Have you accepted that you don't have ADHD then, if you've been assessed by psychiatrists and don't meet the criteria? Not hating, just curious about what happens after someone has sought assessment for a diagnosis thinking they have ADHD but turns out they don't?