AIBU to ask why ADHD and autism are dismissed as disabilities?

[SummerAtaris]

There’s been a tonne of threads about benefits recently and there seems to be a recurring theme that ‘only the most severe disabilities should get any help’ and they almost always mention that people suffering with MH health issues, or ‘non issues’ like ADHD should be cut off from help. I’d like to know what those people in particular think adhd is, and why they don’t consider it to be a disability.

I am 44 years old, I have level 1 autism and ‘combined type’ adhd. I have worked since I left school at 16. I raised my eldest 3 children from my first marriage by myself, all 3 are diagnosed with varying degrees of neurodivergences (didn’t know that at the time)

I am now married to a wonderful man, and we have children together, they are also ND.

It is a challenge every single day to just make myself wash & brush my teeth. And I need to try and herd 2
other people with the same issues to do the same.

I am massively in debt, because the filter that everyone else seems to have that tell you, no don’t do it, just isn’t there.

I literally cannot sleep. I try. But my brain is almost always stuck in a loop of catastrophising, and is running a chorus of a song that I hate over and over and over and there’s nothing I can do about it. When I do sleep I’m still catastrophising and have incredibly vivid nightmares and wake up sad, anxious and depressed and I can’t shake off my dreams easily.

I go from 7 or so days of zero sleep, then pass out and am comatose for 48-72 hours approx.

I forget to eat, I forget to drink water. I don’t know that I need the bathroom until my bladder is literally about to burst.

I suffer from boredom so extreme that I’ve attempted suicide multiple times.

‘Masking’ takes everything that I have. By the time I get home after any social event (by event I mean anything that needs me to present as a ‘normal’ person, school drops offs, appointments etc) leave me gasping for breath, physically stimming to the point my muscles are crying out and I still can’t stop, endlessly ruminating over conversations I had to participate in against my will.

This is not a comprehensive list. I’ll remember this post for the rest of my life and there will always be things I should have added to it.

My body is perfectly fine. I’m not disabled in that way. But my brain, my bodies operating system, IS disabled. I’m so tired of hearing that adhd and lower levels of autism are not disabling. They absolutely fucking are. I manage the school run these days and that’s pretty much it. I haven’t been able to work for around 8 years now.

Go ahead. Tell me how you’d employ me.

It minimises the difficulties we have. I've seen people dismiss autism as a disability and say it's literally a difference. I wouldn't have been assessed if I wasn't disabled by it

@TigerRag so you want young people diagnosed with autism to purely see it as a negative?

No I didn't say that. But this superpower stuff is just ridiculous. You don't get it with other disabilities. It just ignores the difficulties we have

I completely agree with you which ever way you look at it autism is by definition a disabillity
It impacts people in many different ways and some people are more impacted then others but it remains a disabillity
Nobody would try and minimise other disabillties yet t its constant with autism.

DLA is to help with the extra costs disability causes.

Maybe it's not as bad as superpower but I've also heard people calling Down syndrome a "chromosome difference". I remember thinking wtf? So the increased risks of congenital heart defects, leukaemia and early onset dementia are just "differences"?

The cynic in me thinks it's awfully convenient to use language to play down the potential hardships of living with a disability when things like adaptations and DLA cost money.

I've seen that too. I used to have a friend whose DS has down syndrome. He'd now be 21. I last met him when he was about 11 or 12. It was like having a toddler. I am aware that some people with DS are fairly independent

Agree, I have a chromosone abnormality (not DS) which affects grpwth and comes with potential risks to vital organs, and it's important not to downplay this, to ensure that the necessary regular health checks are done

So you don't think anyone with autism should ever describe it in a positive way, even though that's her lived experience. OK.

Yep, no one goes to their GP and asks to be assessed because they are good at something, or has a "superpower".
They ask to be assessed because they are struggling.

That's totally different to describing it as a superpower and telling people who disagree that they're wrong

@TigerRag well take it up with Greta Thunberg then.