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

ASD has a whole host of debilitating possible traits including being entirely non verbal. That's not a personality trait.

I think there’s an issue with the diagnostic system for it tbh. I think there needs to be clearly defined terms for extreme cases and not the same as mild cases. I also think it will come to light that modern lifestyle & early exposure to screens causes it / plays a big part in causing it.

I could be wrong but id be against blaming screens considering history is full of examples eg di vinic himself im guessing would have had it

My dad has ADHD and is in his 80’s now… late life diagnosis. It stopped him being able to access education in the 50’s as he was labelled a “naughty boy” and just written off from education at a young age
Are we sisters? 😁This was my dad too, but thankfully, he was taken out to an apprenticeship and that was his transformation. He loved being out and active and was able to focus for the first time. Turns out my dad has exceptional math skills, very clever but he was told over and over he would never amount to anything.

He bade it through pure determination and ambition.

Hif I asked him if he has ADHD now in his 80s, he would look at me like I was mad and say as ad...what? He does think there anything wrong him, would never think he needs a diagnosis! ADHD makes him who he is, and so does it me.

As a fellow child of the 80s I think society was already too hard for some of us to feel comfortable with. At school I daydreamed to a wild extent. I played with the lads so I could run and wrestle and was forever being asked to be still or quiet. I look at school now and think it would have forced me out completely as my mayhem and truancy was tolerated. But it was the 80s I got away with the drink and drugs and teen pregnancy and all that because there was no recorded evidence so now I get to be a middle aged weightlifter with freaky energy, two jobs and a passion for running. I woe with adhd kids and most would be great in a different time with physically a mentally demanding jobs. A minority would still have needed help but today even those who could self regulate with time and tolerance are likely to be excluded and less employable.

fully agree with this always have.

Having to use much more effort to do things other people don’t even have to think about can eventually lead to burnout, depression etc. though.

What are the benefits of having ADHD?

There is some truth in what you say but it is oversimplified. ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition. Some of the difficulties people with ADHD experience are from the condition itself and some are down to the the fact that society favours certain ways of behaving eg sitting still at school or in workmeetings. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the problems arise where the condition and society intersect.

One think that certainly doesn't help it is the fact that parents don't see the need or don't have the willingness to teach their kids to focus/concentrate.

I can still my parents telling me off and telling me to focus on a task. I was always easily distracted but ultimately I learn to focus when I needed to because they certainly trained me enough to do so!

Ha was replying to someone and forgot the quote - ha!

Having to use much more effort to do things other people don’t even have to think about can eventually lead to burnout, depression etc. though
But that's not just ADHD or autism. A person with a lower IQ will have to make more efforts. A person whose first language is not the one they live in will have to make more efforts. People with poor vision will have to make more efforts.

Very few people are lucky enough not to need to. Burnout, depression and stress is reduce by perseverance and resilience, increased by seeing oneself as helpless.

What are the benefits of having ADHD
Quick thinking
Doing things faster
Able to multi task
High energy

i agree our chat was in basic terms,

Benefits - too impulsive to tolerate shits, tons of energy to get things done, full of ideas and impulses other people can deliver on, amazing in a crisis, able to focus in all of the most intense moments when most people lose their ability to think.

That's called the social model of disability - it's been around for decades and it's is very mainstream to say that people have conditions or differences but the conditions / differeces are not in themselves disabilities - individuals are only disabled by society.

The Idea of another time or society makes absolute sense. When at primary school nearly 60 years ago, we had all sorts, including those a little bit less normal, whether socially or academically. But we all got on together and moved forward educationally. With hindsight, some would always end up in manual work and some fly high after grammar school.
I wonder if it was the drive to provide even child with equal opportunities that became translated into everyone can achieve that made those travelling through life on a less usual path stick out enough that some wag decide they need interventions.
We can’t all be the same, and I’d rather celebrate individual differences that place focus on someone not the norm, whatever that might be.

Pretty confident I'm neurodivergent. I can concentrate beautifully on my job in healthcare as it is entirely based on my very niche special interest. If I had a housewife I'd be grand. I'm a straight woman with an autistic husband who is also fortunate to work in his special interest. Therefore we both do very well. Except at housework. We're both rubbisha and overwhelmed by housework.

Did you? Because at my school in the 80s and every generation I've known before that those who were different were sidelined and bullied. So I think you've some rose tinted hindsight specs on. They also didnt manage to access the curriculum and ended up with a very poor education.

Then those more effected were institutionalized so they were out of your hair altogether.

Disability exists as a standalone thing not just as society changes. It's very ableist to suggest otherwise.

“You lose everything….” - yes but what flashed through my mind was my career, my earning capacity, my marriage, friends, my MH, my self esteem and self respect.

'Personality traits'. Fuck me, you're absolutely clueless.

Right, I haven't read the whole thread but I will. I just wanted to say I'm struggling which way to vote. I thought what I now think could comfortably diagnosed as ADHD as a combination of 1. My personality 2. Being a woman/mother and having to juggle a million things at any one time 3. Being a scientist and sensitive - inevitable over-analysis/perfectionism/people-pleasing. 4. Perimenopause 5. Under-performing due to rebellion after a very strict childhood. I have no idea which of the two options it is because I haven't spoken to someone who could diagnose it.

That being said, I have (male) friends who clearly, clearly have hyperactive ADHD who really struggle and medication has been life-changing. It's a whole different thing to the things I struggle with. No amount of society change would make things easier for them. I'm 'lucky' enough to work in tech which (in the companies I've worked in) is remarkably well set up for brain diversity and so my...erratic nature kind of works. More of society could make more allowances too - it's a benefit where I've worked to accommodate different ways of thinking

I've worked with children (in special edition) whose Autism and ADHD is nothing like the type social media content creators and celebrities getting diagnosed in mid life have. Children whose ADHD prevented them focusing for ling enough to acquire functional language until they were medicated, and children who are overwhelmed to the point of smashing their heads against the wall by sensory issues and who don't initiate interactions with the purpose of communicating intentionally with anyone, ever, despite having disproportionately higher skill levels in other areas.

There is a book about ADHD which describes it in evolutionary terms, suggesting that people with ADHD would have been ideal hunters when we were all living in hunter-gatherer societies, which was our norm until relatively recently in evolutionary terms. I like that theory. It makes sense to me. Obviously there’s more to it than that but I think it shows how any behaviour can be seen as normal/disordered depending on the context : high energy, hyper focus and quick decision making would be fantastically helpful for a hunter. Not so great for someone expected to sit quietly at a desk for 8 hours a day..

This is my family's experience to a T! Clearly neurodivergent granddad who emigrated here years ago and has been super successful, leaving a host of ASD/ADHD children and grandchildren in his wake 😂

This only works for people being diagnosed now, often in adulthood - not for the children who can't stay still and concentrate for long enough to acquire language, or learn to use a knife to cut food, or be toilet trained, until they are on the right medication.

Lots of people have made points about people with ASD/ADHD that is so severe that they haven't been able to learn basic skills - I often think about this, and it sounds terrible, but it's a basic fact that infant/childhood mortality used to be a lot higher, especially in hunter-gatherer times, which probably took out many of the children who today need medication to learn basic life skills.