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

Especially children who can only eat certain foods, etc, or like children in my family, have neede prescription formula or have complex allergies and intolerances - they would have just died before modern medicine!

Even though I have an ASD and ADHD diagnosis myself I'm finding it increasingly hard to believe this so called Spectrum of ASD and ADHD actually exists anymore aside from actual severe autism coupled with LD.

It feels like a very convenient way to withdraw mental health support by giving people a Neurological diagnosis to shut them up which in turn gives NHS mental health services the perfect excuse to terminate their help like they did with me saying because it's neurological there's nothing they can do anymore.

I know that will anger some but it's how I feel and I'm very down as initially I thought getting my ASD and ADHD diagnoses would help me access support and get my life back on track but after reading about both conditions and how broad the diagnostic criteria have become they basically sound like bullshit unless you're at the very bottom of the spectrum and when I attempted to access a local ND support group it was full as they accepted "self diagnosed" people to be "inclusive" so if charities and support groups allow you to self diagnose and fill up spaces what was the bloody point! This has only made me more sceptical and depressed and left me questioning myself.

I apologise if I've upset anyone I'm not very tactful as my only hope of trying to understand myself and the issues I've had via those diagnoses seem to have been watered down to the point where even mentioning you have the conditions will do you more harm than good as an adult because the general public and employers see it as a convenient "excuse" and at best dismiss it/ignore it and at worst use it as a way to prove you're unreliable and untrustworthy. My diagnoses now simply make me feel like a worthless fraud I wish that wasn't the case but it's how I feel.

Again I'm sorry if this offends anyone I just needed to get it off my chest.

I hate the social model of disability. It only works for a certain conditions, particularly ones where there is no cognitive impairment or behavioural issues or complex needs. There is no amount of social change which enables my child with chronic illness to stay well.

ADHD is normal. Its just a different way of functioning and makes us special. I can do things like others can't like hyper-focusing when its something I find interesting. For every ADHD trait that makes things hard, there are other traits that they are so much better at than others.

But as with all humans, people are good at different things.

My DS has autism. His social skills suck. He can be a nightmare with sensory stuff. But he is super clever.

Lots if famous people are/were autistic.

Psychologists have already shown that lots of kids are being misdiagnosed with ADHD when it is actually down to poor life structure and lack of boundaries/discipline.

Well we aren't all in a commune. Where others step in to cover for those who cannot do certain things for whatever reason.
It's a capitalist society and you need money to cover food, heating etc. If everyone who doesn't fit in with routine boring work, or 9-5 hours etc etc etc it would mean some people carrying others, having to do their work for them or to earn money which they then gift to them (I suppose the tax system is a bit like this) - how many are each individual willing to provide for off their own back - not many I suspect

ADHD and Autism are both spectrum conditions and vary massivley in how they impact individuals
It doesnt help anyone to minimise them.

I think so sometimes. I’d be fine in the stuff around me allowed me to just be. My kids would be ok in school if school wasn’t so rigid I think

I agree in principle here and when I initially got my diagnoses I was happy as I thought it would allow me to understand why I'd struggled so much and find ways to counteract it and contribute more to society but now I feel I've literally branded myself as someone not to be trusted and if I can avoid it I rarely mention it and survive by going form job to job as I always have because eventually it becomes apparent I can't keep up so I'm let go but I can at least eek a little more time out of each job if I keep my mouth shut as the mere mention of ASD and ADHD at work will have all eyes on you. The equalities act is easy to bypass.

The only reason more and more people are getting diagnosed is because more is known about it now days then there was say 20 years ago. When I was at school you were just seen as a naughty child or far too quite, rarely was someone diagnosed with autism or adhd back then. Now more children are getting diagnosed their parents are seeing similar traits and going after a diagnosis they should have got as a child, not just labeled as naughty or quiet.
Society isnt really aimed at neurodivergent people. Its aimed more at neurotypically people (those who dont have things such as autism and adhd) there's more to neurodivergent individuals then just autism and adhd. Things like dyslexia comes under it as well.
Society is the problem. We're in a world that still isnt built for us. Although things are slowly moving in the right direction as more is learnt about it.
Sorry kinda waffled on there. I have a qualification in autism awareness and have researched a lot into neurodivergentancy

So do I actually, but I also kind of find it irritating when people think they've just invented it - it's been knocking around for decades.

The Biopsychosocial model (as used in the WHO's International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health) is more nuanced.

I think adhd and autism are variants of ' normal' .

I agree that modern society itself causes problems. Now everyone has the opportunity to an education andis expected to meet a standard.

In the past , people who were considered to be simple or the village fool weren't expected to meet these standards and they weren't forced into an environment designed for everyone else.

Illiteracy was common in a lot of societies in the past, that meant people didn't suffer with dyslexia, there just wasn't the chance for it to happen.

I think adhd and autism are variants of ' normal' .

I agree that modern society itself causes problems. Now everyone has the opportunity to an education andis expected to meet a standard.

In the past , people who were considered to be simple or the village fool weren't expected to meet these standards and they weren't forced into an environment designed for everyone else.

Illiteracy was common in a lot of societies in the past, that meant people didn't suffer with dyslexia, there just wasn't the chance for it to happen.

You're guessing are you?

There are books full of people being retro diagnosed. Neurotribes starts like that (written by a journalist but treated as though it's a text book). It's pseudoscience at best.

My son is autistic and non verbal he can only communicate in a very basic way that is not a variant of normal it is a severe disabillity

well the human mind and body has not altered much since when humanity first walked, and if adhd exists now then it stands to reason it existed in previous eras, because it suddenly does not pop up because of screens because before then society would be blaming books and reading fever etc and i bet if all screens vanished in society then adhd would still exist so then what would we say the cause was etc

Yes. I'd argue that ADHD/ autism levels have remained the same through time, we just have more diagnosis as those with ADHD/ on autistic spectrum are struggling in modern society.

Up until recently in terms of our society a lot of ADHD and autism traits would be useful and a lot of the regulation techniques that those with ADHD and autism use would naturally fit into general life.

Up until recently we didn't have lots of computers and other appliances whiring and clicking in the background. Until fairly recently in human evolution we didn't have electric lighting which can be overstimulating. A lot of time was spent outside in much lower stimulating environments. Life was much more physical - most jobs had aspects of manual labour which naturally provides heavy work which calms sensory overstimulation. Most jobs involved lots of repetition and were rather predictable everyday e.g. farm work (get up, feed animals back from breakfast, ploughing or sowing or harvest, lunch, continue ploughing/ sowing/ harvest , dinner, animals to bed ect). Pace of life was slower.

The current school system isn't great, there is a lot of sitting and writing involved with very minimal playtimes. Even back in the late 80s lunchtimes were at least an hour if not 2, teachers had a mandated 20 minute morning break and there was also often a 20 minute afternoon break. Usually to accommodate lots of teachers who smoked. All in all your looking at closer to 2 or 2 and a half hours of break time - outside running around in the school day. Same with PE. It was usually much more physical and lasted around 2 hours instead of the 50 minutes now.

A lot of expendable energy is great if you are ploughing fields/ engaging in manual labour for 10+ hours a day. Hyper focus is great if you are doing repetitive labour. Extensive obsessive knowledge at deep dive levels is useful if you know about animals/ seeds/ plants/ pollinators ect in a time without the internet. Pattern recognition is an asset when farming to recognise when something is going wrong before a crop failure.

Absolutely…

Ive thought this for ages.

For millennia, human education & daily occupations were much simpler, more repetitive, and required far less executive function. Eg gathering food, weaving baskets, carpentry, farming & animal husbandry, sewing/weaving/felting, building structures to live in, caring for children and the elderly.

These tasks & activities are also more intrinsically motivating. Gather food/farm so you can eat. Make useful, pretty things & feel rewarded by completing them.

For most of us, our brains are not wired to perceive managing corporate projects or juggling emails. We can do it but it requires a tremendous effort to override the desire to deprioritise this activity we dont find fulfilling

Plus how many of us had that "weird uncle/ aunt/ grandparent" who had huge collections or were a "bit withdrawn" or "odd". Relative's who ate the same meals every day at the same time every day and were known as just fussy eaters.

I hate these threads. They're always full of people desperate to minimise ASD and ADHD. It's so shitty.

DS is high functioning. He had no friends through the whole of secondary school and spent every lunch and break time alone. You might call that 'a variant of normal' but it's fucking heart breaking.

In my view sensory disorders to that degree should be separated out

You can have sensory disorders without being ND and have various diagnoses for ND without having significant sensory difficulties

They are different things, but happen to have a common comorbidity is all

There are people with such severe ADHD symptoms that its clearly nothing to do with modern society as such, but the vast majority of people with lesser significant traits of ADHD are likely to simply be responding to modern life which is unhuman, inhuman, however you want to phrase it

I also disagree with someone above who says that prehistoric people with ADHD would have made good hunters, you need to have good impulse control, be patient, have good time awareness, good social and physical awareness to hunt effectively. You need to be able to communicate effectively and work as a team well. Some of that would be natural disadvantaged by some ND traits.

minimise was never my intention, i was arguing that its society that makes it more difficult and that adhd seems to be a natural part of humans being human

And they are highly physical too. Much of modern society involves sitting on our backsides. Just like I am now

Humans need physical movement, its good for MH and that also affects how calm our brains are.

I've struggled socially all my life but I do lay some blame at the foot of social media and some folk who have gotten a diagnosis and then taken the absolute piss in the workplace which has created a sense of suspicion amongst the general public.

Other media doesn't help either I can't stand things like big band theory or the god Awful Atypical series that paint ND as some sort of extension to having "geeky" hobbies.

Unfortunately conversations like this get shut down as ableist

As do conversations that ADHD is potentially an auto immune disease. Our daughters paediatrician has been doing research to evidence this, but he said it has often been shut down by those who feel it is medicalising something which people feel is part of them rather than a condition they have - such as the preference of saying I am Neurodivergent, rather than I have a neurodivergent condition for example. And of course trying to 'change' a person is seen as negative. So he has struggled to get it published in any major journals.

But the same is often true of autoimmune conditions 'I am coeliac' 'I am diabetic' 'I am asthmatic'

The difference between adhd and the above conditions is there is no actual treatment for it yet, only management strategies. And the funding to research into this isn't forthcoming as it is seen as a part of a person rather than something to cure/actively treat.