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

is like me i can do desk work, but i prefer to be active and hands on etc even if mentally it seems not too much thinking needed so to speak because then its like my mind is quiet

I have a childhood duliagnosis of dyspraxia, and today, I think if I was diagnosed as a child, I would have also had a diagnosis of autism.

But, when I was duliagnosed (80s) it was super rare. I had one university friend with a an ADHD diagnisis and he had super, super strong symptoms.

Definately, people wirh milder symptoms are being diagnoses than was the case in 80s. Also, life is more complex.

It is great if it helps people understand themselves better. But not great, if it dilutes government and statutory support from those who absolutely cant live independently to those who need the help less.

I think there's certainly truth in the idea that modern life makes ADHD worse.

Constant dopamine hits from screens destroy focus and enhance boredom when there's nothing to do. Rushing, always being busy and having to try to keep multiple balls in the air causes overwhelm.

Looking back through family history though ADHD has always been a problem for my family. Lots of problems with alcohol and mental health. There's a link between ADHD, impulsive behaviour and addiction and that is very obvious in my family, it was just never diagnosed as ADHD.

My mum did our family tree and this theme is consistent even in relatives that had little contact growing up so it's far more likely to be nature over nurture.

ADHD stops people fulfilling their potential, and worse than than puts people at risk of poorer health and even domestic abuse. It’s not right to just accept that as a normal difference when medication and relatively small interventions can enable someone to lead a happy, successful and healthy life. It’s no different to any other significant diagnosis eg depression which most of us would agree should be treated.

Agree. Once in motion I'm unstoppable. It's hard at times though as I can end up working long hours if things go wrong onsite. Like, I started 06:00 today, finished 19:30 and I'm typing this from the gym without having been home yet.

When I get home I'll need to get straight in the shower else I know I'll sit there for two hours procrastinating. Sometimes I've dozed off and woken up at 3am and had to go and shower lol.

on this part "ADHD stops people fulfilling their potential" id say society stops them and their potential, by wanting square pegs in round holes

plus risk of poorer health and even domestic abuse can happen to anyone in any relationship etc

That’s not how it works. People with ADHD are hugely over represented in prisons and you are significantly more likely to attempt suicide if you have it. We can’t afford to just dismiss ADHD.

Maybe educate yourself by reading this, produced by the NHS and experts in the field.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/report-of-the-independent-adhd-taskforce-part-1/

the metaphor lands cleanly with the report’s central argument: the current model is the round hole; many people with ADHD and related neurodivergence are the square pegs. The recommended response is to redesign the systems (early support, stepped care, single front door, cross-sector working) so they accommodate the actual shape of people’s needs instead of demanding everyone squeeze into the old shape.

I think it can. But personally I'd have probs still been sat in a mind numbing office job had I not struggled with it. On the weeks where I work the back shift on HS2 I get paid £360 for working 18:00-21:45 and am stood down on Friday on my base rate of £200 as the builders don't work Friday eve due to travelling home. Three day weekend and great money for less than a four hour day.

Aside from the odd long day like today it's much better than my office job. It was only my ADHD that drove me to seek out something more stimulating.

EDIT: I missed the medication bit. Agree that I'd be screwed without it.

I read a study which found that 23% of ADHD sufferers surveyed had used cocaine in the past 12 months. For the general populace it was around 3.5%. Another study found that in the US around 1/4 of people in drug rehab had ADHD.

ADHD has a long list of health problems that you are more likely to suffer from than the general population. My ADHD doctor wrote to me about a month ago saying that anyone with ADHD is more than twice as likely to get diabetes than anyone else. Other examples of comorbid conditions are depression, migraine, EDS, ME/CFS, POTS, drug and alcohol addiction

I really love this; great that you found your thing.

I found my niche in teaching exercise classes. It’s the perfect work for me- I’m constantly moving and work in multiple different venues. Each job is only 45 minutes to an hour and I meet lots of different people. I’ve found that all the time I’m moving purposefully, my brain is quiet- it’s my meditation. The only admin is making my playlists and planning/learning choreography, all of which I really enjoy doing- they’re the type of admin tasks I can really hyper focus on.

Nice story! My career has been disappointing. Never once got promoted. I’m now too ill to work, but finally on ADHD meds. It might have been a very different story had I been diagnosed a few decades ago. (Late 50s -
diagnosed last year).

Like I said, I didn’t know if that was an ADHD trait or not. I would say that the way I multitask might be a bit atypical, but I could be wrong. (Leaving tasks until there is almost no time left and then rush at it all at once. Sometimes making tasks more complicated and long-winded by combining activities that really don’t work together. My husband laughed at me recently when he found me hoovering while holding a load of laundry in the other arm. At the time it made sense because I wanted to take the laundry from A to B and I also knew that I wanted to hoover the little bit of floor between A and B. I though I was saving time and being efficient but I just made things awkward for myself)

Thanks and sorry to hear that. You've still got plenty of time to find stuff you enjoy.

This is what confuses me - so much points to ADHD being a medical condition - it has a medical cause, medical treatment, direct medical co-morbities, often linked to the condition itself rather than as a consequence, in line with other auto immune conditions.

It seems very distinct from autism (although like many things people can have both), which has no clear chemical mechanism, no direct medical treatment.

Yes, both can be managed through support strategies, but that is true of many conditions, such as mental health etc

The missing dopamine can't be fixed without meds though.

An interesting statistic I read recently is that untreated ADHD can shorten your lifespan by up to 13 years. The average I think was eight years.

Agree☝️

I have severe OCD and have zero doubts that I would be given an ADHD diagnosis today, it was definitely considered by my teachers way back in the stone age (early 90s)

To start with OCD is debilitating, but it is undeniably exacerbated by our society. The Intrusive thoughts for example are traumatic to people purely because we have a complex moral system. If we were living in a cave being hunted by sabertooth tigers it would probably be bloody useful to be constantly expecting terrible things to happen. Checking that the tiger hadn't stolen the baby. We also wouldn't get stuck on the thoughts because no guilt would be attached to the thought. So it would happen less generally.

The hand washing and cleanliness that some OCD suffers have is just a heightened awareness of danger. It's only "bad" because we're not actually in danger now, we live an easy life. My extreme "anxiety" now which has rendered me suicidal for years would have meant I was aware of real danger. So while yes, it's a disorder now, I'm not sure it would have been. That's not to say I don't have loads of weird rituals etc, but again those things may well have kept me alive.

But dyslexic is normal, isn't it? Humanity has only been reading for how long? A few thousand years. The ability to read isn't a part of humanity and if you had pictograms instead of letters you wouldn't be dyslexic. Some languages are easier to decode for people with dyslexia, so yes, it is cultural to an extent.

I really dont know true that is tbh 😭

Well most cultures until recently would have had a very plain limited diet. New and confusing textures wouldn't be routinely offered.

I don't think anyone would say that those with severe autism aren't disabled and wouldn't have been in any society. But my dc for example, who nearly had to go into care due to violence from anxiety would be fucking fine living in a cave fighting bears. It's society that turned them into a mess. They were diagnosed because it was the only way I could get any help but deep down I just think they don't belong here in this particular time/society and would be very happy ina world that was less loud and less... Constant

Really it's the type A get everything done, pay bills, run PTA, while being CEOs that don't make any sense if you think about it.

But it can be effectively treated medically, unlike other ND conditions. In the same way diabetes, or asthma, or arthritis can be treated effectively, but not fixed permanently, treatment is often lifelong. And these usually come with a reduced life expectancy, even when well managed

Not claiming to be an expert, but some languages are easier/ more difficult so you can't ignore that there is an element of it being an issue we created.

Choosing a language
Some languages may be more problematic for dyslexic learners. Languages such as French and English are less transparent than other languages. This means that the sounds of the language don’t match clearly to letter combinations and there are more irregularities in pronunciation and spelling.

Spanish, Italian and German, on the other hand, are much more transparent languages with clear letter-sound correspondence. This makes reading and spelling easier. German has the additional advantage of having a sound system that is very close to English and the two languages share a large number of words. However, dyslexic learners may struggle with other aspects of German such as cases, gender of nouns, multiple consonant combinations, long multisyllabic words and unfamiliar word order.

-British dyslexia association