AIBU to wonder whether ADHD is normal and society is the issue

[LadyBeatriceBeaHiggins]

No offence intended

Discussing about Adhd with a friend who has Adhd and we wondered what if Adhd is naturally a part of being human and its the way society trys to make humans into machines that is the problem ?

so figured id open up our debate for fellow mumsnetters

I've always wondered why many of the greatest geniuses of our era are often neurodivergent, yet this is classified as a disability.
It's the environment that disables, not the person

The thing is, just because some environments can be better suited to an ADHD profile doesn't mean that ADHD is not a disability or a problem.

If you look at Stephen Hawking for example, he was a brilliant man with an incredibly intelligent mind, and his disability clearly did not affect his intelligence or his ability to do his work. But you cannot argue that he wasn't disabled. He had difficulties and needed adaptations in many areas of life which were related and unrelated to work. And the vast majority of people with his disability would never get the chance to progress in a career the way that he did, and much of the time the reasons they do not have that chance are directly related to their disability.

ADHD is obviously a different kind of disability and it's true that people should look for work and living conditions which reflect their own profile of strengths and weaknesses, but just because you find a job which works well with ADHD doesn't mean that the ADHD doesn't exist.

Dr Gabor Mate wrote a lot about the effect of trauma in ‘Shattered Minds” which is a very good book.

But the assumption is that the smart phone is the cause and ADHD symptoms as a result. When in fact, it is more likely that ADHD people are less able to self-regulate smartphones use.

I think it is more likely because the impact is very much like other addictions and we do know ADHD makes a person have poor impulse control and more likely to become addicted to anything that creates a dopamine reaction. By anything, that includes activities not just devices or drugs.

Big percentages of people with ADHD are under or unemployed, with autism it’s even worse. Many have both.

YY exactly. ADHD can be a barrier to finishing education and/or gaining/maintaining employment in the first place. There might be jobs better suited but that is no use if you can't access them.

This is so absolutely not how I experience my ADHD at all. I do not have any of those benefits with the exception of quick thinking in some very specific situations (not most situations) and it can take me hours of bed rest to recover from merely washing a few plates. Taking ADHD meds removes this need to recover - it becomes a far lower energy task but I can't tolerate them so I just can't do things like dishes, cleaning and tidying without a massive crash/days of recovery needed. This is not normal and wouldn't be any better if I lived at some point in the past. There was one study I think I read that suggested that ADHD is a huge spectrum when it comes to energy and functionality. While some people zip about achieving all sorts of things, albeit often in a chaotic and somewhat disorganised fashion, others are at the other end of the scale completely to the point that their condition is actually more towards the ME/CFS side of things. I actually got both diagnosed in the end but my ME/CFS symptoms improve massively with ADHD meds (which I sadly can't take so I just have to live with it) and many people in the ME/CFS support groups I am in say they have found the same. For those like me, tiny tasks involving tiny amounts of executive function can cause loss of all functionality for hours or even days (or in some cases longer). Many of us cannot work as a result or cannot work without meds.

ironically my niece with adhd who needs meds to focus was brought up without screens.

And a number of the children on adhd meds at school don’t like screens. They actually can’t focus / are not interested in watching things. A couple aren’t even interested in playing games.

we need to move away from the idea of dopamine as it’s more of an issue with executive function and concentration. Both of which can be affected by other factors. (I don’t think we are taking deficiencies seriously enough; there is now some research into giving teens with adhd multi vitamin. Apparently The first effect was placebo - not a bad thing tbh - but the second notable impact was emotional regulation and concentration.)

It can also definitely be caused by trauma growing up. I’ve seen it countless times.

The wider conversation needs to be had. Sami Timini was in the times yesterday; this is an earlier one too: Medical labels are making us unhappier — and I should know

https://www.thetimes.com/article/0075bd82-83a3-4553-bf26-f45c35cc0ae0?shareToken=61ffffc2a23508f7e03b0878a113066a

I was listening to —wading through all 4 fucking hours— of the Huberman diary of a ceo podcast yesterday from a couple of years ago.

He spoke a lot about the evidence around dopamine regulation and how to counter it. He described that working too hard crashes the system which I hadn’t understood before. And lots of tips on natural ways to regulate it all.

Yesterday’s article

‘When my ADHD diagnosis was removed, it was a relief’

https://www.thetimes.com/article/2803c431-ab6a-4721-b2d2-ae3f6d6be413?shareToken=ed27ad07079370df68569f21e43b5c0a

A GP I know of recently had a diagnosed patient be refused entry to the army due to adhd diagnosis. Obviously I don’t know the kid at all but it strikes me as a good career for many young men with adhd rather than prison, which is where many end up.

“It is particularly important for the diagnoses for conditions such as ADHD, argues Timimi, which he says “is not a legitimate medical diagnosis because it describes (badly and vaguely) behaviours but cannot explain them”. The label “just describes behaviours that occur in all of us to a greater or lesser extent”. Saying the reason a child is struggling to pay attention at school is because they have ADHD “is like saying the reason for the pain in my head is a headache,” he believes. “We are pathologising a variety of things that are getting lumped together.””

Thats just like me with depression and anxiety though, I have to have medication, I have to have self care and management strategies. Other wise I wouldnt be able to function and engage appropriately with other people.

@yellowpostitnote · Today 07:59
Thank you for those articles about Dr Sami Timini’s opinions. I first saw him about 5 years ago on a television programme about
how medicines we turn to are not the best way to help, then I read a book about him
and was always impressed.

I wonder when parents should seek a diagnosis with children who seem to have some symptoms concurring with autistic ones but who have also suffered trauma of some sort in their young lives, and how much trust anyone can have in finding a differential analysis?

Parents seek a diagnosis as it may help open a pathway to more help and awareness of their difficulties in school; and guide the parents with ideas of how to help the child function better in everyday life.

It’s awful to see that a diagnosis may just prove to be a barrier in some cases. Presumably, in the case of autism, S T is referring to what once was called Asperger’s, where a person can be high functioning, not those children who are profoundly affected.

One of my pet peeves as an ND person is when I hear other ND folk refer to ASD and ADHD and "Superpowers". Not only is it incredibly condescending but it's the assumption our ND makes us somehow mentally superior.

It's something I hear all too often and it's not a suprise that it gets under the skin of the NT majority when they see a group of people asking of help yet claiming a superpower.

Sometimes I think we in the ND community can be our own worst enemies.

It doesn’t show ADHD to be an advantage or have benefits
It shows that it CAN be an advantage. I'm not a celebrity or world athlete but I can also relate to it.

Ultimately, some people will always seek victimhood to justify others adjusting to their needs rather than seeking to make efforts for them to adjust. They see a diagnosis as a way to 'prove' their inability to adapt.

thats the thing some it will help others it hinders etc

Err they omit people with adhd for a reason. A good reason. My dc have adhd and I totally support them not being able to be in the forces. Not everybody’s suitable. You still have adhd!

All of the children we work with have trauma and abuse histories, a huge number also have diagnoses of ASD/ADHD, far more than the general population. So diagnoses can be made even with a trauma history

Thank you for your answer @likelysuspect

So, in the cases you deal with is the autism or adhd a symptom a consequence of the trauma, or a separate but concurrent condition?

How can you help with both of these please?

Both conditions are highly heritable so trauma caused by dysfunction caused by undiagnosed and unmanaged nejrodivergence in parents which can lead to outcomes like suicide and substance abuse as well as poverty and difficulty keeping employment all of which screw a child up and impact them more if the child is also neurodivergent

For some, ADHD is a condition. For others, it's a disability. For as long as those for whom it's a condition don't understand what those of us who have ADHD as a disability are living with, we won't get anywhere in helping those who don't have ADHD understand what ADHD actually is. Not that that will affect those who aren't disabled by it. I do think we need to think about the criteria used though when people who aren't disabled by their ADHD are openly critical of those who are and have no qualms about calling their struggles "victimhood".

ASD is not a personality trait. It’s a disability that impacts my son’s life. Sensory issues, overload, voluntary mutism. Meltdowns. The list goes on

Well Ive sat in countless ADOS assessments and there are some assessments where the parent will not really give the whole picture of the child's background, some children come to us already with a diagnosis.

Ive had psychiatrists tell me a couple of times for particular children that if they were assessing the same child now (now that the child is a teen), they wouldnt diagnose ASD but attachment disorder instead.

We have had children assessed multiple times where one psychiatrist says one thing and another says another and then back and forth again

We've had children assessed privately and via NHS, the route and clinicians are often different in terms of qualification. We had one child whose parents sought an assessment, she met the child for one hour. There was no school reports as he hadnt been to school, he has now a diagnosis for ASD

Its a very mixed bag.

The current working theory is that ND is genetic. That is not the same as heritable. There is of course an overlap

Thank you very much for answering. Getting an accurate diagnoses certainly seems difficult and hit and miss.