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

Well, I mean there's always going to be clinical judgement. People who are 'severe' are not all the same either. Are you more similar to people who once got an Aspergers diagnosis or like some with old fashioned level 2, "moderate" autism do you bang your head on the floor in public, make frequent moaning stim noises, have limited speech capabilities and can just about manage in a supported living with a low paid part time job?

Do you support the use of "profound" autism and then autism for everyone else (including those like described above)? Because that is the way it might go.

I think lots of middle aged women may just have too much on their plate, the key is whether the symptoms have been noticeable from childhood. Childhood is generally the same 'responsibilities' wise. I know children that are night and day with their medication and they couldn't even attend school with out it let alone do well. It very much exists. But also juggling too much on your plate having lots of responsibilities will over whelm you where you literally go from task to task and eventually be like a robot saying "malfunction. Brain overload"

I first spoke to a doctor about not being able to sleep in about 1982 -I got diagnosed with adhd in 2002

Many adults would have a received a diagnosis of ADHD if they'd been assessed as a child especially using today's criteria.

Then what?

Either we would have managed to function ana adapt with it as the majority of us have.

Or we would have been able to blame all the struggles we faced as an adult on our diagnosis.

Or we would have sought help in better adapting.

What would not have happened is society making ways to adapt to us in every circumstances as we currently expect.

Ultimately, as a society, we generation X adults have managed quite well, better than the following generations, so maybe we should learn from it and promote resilience rather than the expectations of adaptability.

But people without ADHD also have to use more effort in some parts of their lives than others to do different things - I could list 10 things I find much harder to do than my sister with ADHD and 10 things she finds harder than me. I’d never deny ADHD is very hard for people to cope with but I find always that it’s us and them, and people think that NT people just go about life with no issues and find education/work/social life very straightforward. I am very firmly of the belief that there is no such thing as ND and NT at the lower levels- absolutely everybody struggles with life, and to cope with different things, some of the rationale for people thinking they have ADHD is bonkers. BUT there are so many cases of such severe ADHD and Autism that people
genuinely can’t function and it does them a massive disservice to be lumped in with Brenda who’s 40, married with kids in a high up job but finds it hard to be on time or keep her wardrobe organised

No it really isn't. I just typed a whole list of the ways in which it inhibits everyday life, but I just can't be bothered. This whole rhetoric is exhausting and frustrating for those who are suffering.

I interpret it differently. I think society was so very different and less individualistic that ADHD simply wouldn’t have presented itself in the same way.
I’m not wanting to make any wider claims here.
I think you simply grew up with the knowledge that you did exactly as you were told , or starve.
So if your individual difference meant you couldn’t do what was demanded, you just went to the wall.
People were born into and conditioned into a certain way of life that allowed for no choices. You either got by or you didn’t,

@Neuronimo some people believe that it is society that 'inhibits everyday life' for people with ADHD (or other neurodivergence and any other disability actually). Not saying I completely agree with that, and I do understand how relentless the almost sole focus on ADHD has been recently, but there is some merit to that 'rhetoric' (i.e the social model of disability).

I think plenty of people didn't though. Look at all the people who still committed crimes or 'sins' despite the fact they could be put in the stocks, tortured, sent to an Australian penal colony or killed (sometimes horribly) for it.

Yes, ofcourse, I agree. People stole because they were starving. Whether or not that was because they had ADHD we have no idea. My point is that the question is irrelevant really to society as it has been organised in the past.
I guess ADHD types may have been pretty nifty thieves!
(PS. No insult intended!😂)

Definitely agree that we can't really know. To make a guess though, I'd look more at things like sex before marriage which are not necessary (like stealing to eat). Of course not all people with ADHD are promiscuous, and not all promiscuous people have ADHD, but impulsive or risky sex is one trait people with ADHD can have. Hundreds of years ago it would have been a massive, massive risk for women to have sex before marriage and yet some still did it. ADHD is extremely heritable, I imagine it has always existed in some form.

Personally, I think in some ways society has got much easier for people with ADHD (or other neurodivergence) and in other ways much harder. The comparison is possibly a bit pointless.

I don't know for sure whether my Grandfather was neurodivergent, but I do know that he had learning difficulties. He was in a reform school by the age of 14 for theft, was itinerant moving from from job to job frequently and he died in the street pushing his fruit and veg barrow in his fifties.

Who knows whether any of the babies and children whose cause are listed as 'Failure to thrive' had issues with severe food intolerances or sensory issues, it really is impossible to know. I don't think that society has ever been kinder or that people really just get on with it or learn strategies. A lot of them struggled through life and then died.

I’m interested in this type of thing so have picked up bits of knowledge, while definitely no expert.
I do believe that many women were pregnant when they got married, while birth outside of wedlock was surprisingly common. I learned the latter by studying parish birth registers, which recorded ‘bastards’. There were a lot of them. This despite the belief that churches would not baptise illegitimate babies.
So, another challenge is that our beliefs about the past can be woefully inaccurate,

@SixtySomething yeah, it definitely happened a lot but it was generally socially unacceptable to have a baby outside wedlock, particularly if the father didn't then go on to marry the mother. It could affect marriage prospects, financial prospects, social prospects. You could be turned out of your home, your church may or may not baptise your baby, you might believe you are eternally damned, or you might not. You might be locked up in an insane asylum because for middle class women it was sometimes considered a type of insanity... You might have your child taken from you, even less than 100 years ago you might have been sent to a Magdalene laundry... Some communities were probably kinder than others / just got on with it as a fact of life, but it was a hell of a risk (even if you didn't get pregnant), and many still did it. It's just one example of one type of impulsiveness that couldn't be socialised out of people even in the 'past'.

I’d never deny ADHD is very hard for people to cope with but I find always that it’s us and them, and people think that NT people just go about life with no issues and find education/work/social life very straightforward
This one hundred percent.

I'm so tired of hearing people with whichever disability constantly quoting 'yes but non disabled people don't struggle like we do'. Says who?

I'm the one with quite severe ADHD, but I'd say that overall, my sister has struggled more in life than me. ADHD has taught me resilience and that has taken me through tough life situations my sister didn't cope as well with.

There's so much more to life making it a challenge than ADHD.

Yes, of course it’s impossible to generalise about the past. I agree that the Irish mother and baby homes are a true abomination and absolutely no excuse can justify that. Also for middle and upper classes illegitimacy was a scandal. Even in my lifetime, actually.
Nevertheless, I don’t think working class people have generally bothered so much, perhaps because they didn’t have inheritance issues.
My delving into historical records also told me, that when a woman had an illegitimate baby, the parish would force the supposed father to pay. If he wouldn’t/ couldn’t/ disappeared, they would go after his nearest male relative and make him support the baby!
So that’s another type of social control! 😆

I don't think it's normal but I do think modern lifestyles have made it come to the surface for more people and that's why we're more aware of it now.

Thank you!! Exactly that, I had a severe speech problem as a child and my life was an awful lot harder in school and work than my sisters was who has ADHD, the ‘system’ wasn’t created for people like me, or people who are deaf, or people who have childhood illnesses etc yet we all fall under the NT umbrella and people think that school and work are so easy for us

I'm the same - I find it really weird when people with ADHD diagnoses think they'd be fine as agricultural workers a few hundred years ago. I can't get started on most tasks no matter what they are (unless very enjoyable which farming doesn't sound like it is). On the small chance I got started I probably wouldn't managed to finish the tasks.

I think if you didn't get started, someone would give you a good kick, because you were leaving more for them to do. I think it was less individualistic, and people worked more in teams, say harvesting crops, and you might not get the chance not to get started.
Likewise, if you didn't get up in the morning, someone you were sharing a bed with would just boot you out! The pour cold water over you.
Also, don't forget people sometimes sang as they were working. Perhaps that was a way of focussing the mind.
Sorry if the above sounds flippant. I think life was extremely harsh in the past.

Might kind of work if you were living with others, temporarily at least, but what if you lived alone? Ultimately if you just can't do something sustainably, no amount of pressure from others will help. You will just be low functioning and possibly outcast at some point due to the disability which absolutely nobody would understand at all.

Im from generations of farmers. Very very poor farmers. My grandfather definitely would be described as having ARFID, when he married my Great Granny took my Granny aside to teach her how to cook what he'd eat. "Fussy eaters" are so normal in my extended family that I can't relate to people who think its a choice.
And the ADHD ones were all so bad at farming that my Great Granny became an expert at hunting down job opportunities her "odd" kids could cope with. Lots of woodworkers and barmen in my family tree.

I don’t think it’s just work and education that ADHD doesn’t fit with. I’m sure my teenage son has ADHD - one of his symptoms is severe time blindness - surely even many hundreds/thousands of years ago humans had to be “on time” for things even if time as we know it didn’t exist. He also gets very hyper focused with things that don’t necessarily matter right now - that also wouldn’t have worked for early man. Loads of other stuff to although I’m on the fence as I definitely agree society isn’t working for many.

I completely agree with this. At the end of the day, adhd is a label that describes difficulties in certain areas. There are plenty of other areas that people could struggle in, but they just don't have a fancy label for it (yet). We ALL have difficulties.

I think it depends on the sevetity of ADHD. You meet some people who have led miserable, extremely chaotic lives, living impulse to impulse and there's no way anyone would actively choose that life. It quite clearly is a significant disability at that point and way beyond the normal life difficulties other people experience.