To think people who wear ADHD as a ‘quirk’ are insufferable?

[ShotDowninFlames]

I’m bracing myself a little here but let me start by saying I have ADHD. Diagnosed in my 30s after I had a massive burnout. I work really hard to try and keep on top of life: calendar reminders, voice memos to myself, post it’s everywhere! Still things get missed sometimes but usually my DH helps me stay on top of things.

Whilst talking to my DM about it last year (I strongly strongly suspect she has it too) my SIL said she also thought she might have AdHD.

She went online and did a test which confirmed she has a lot of the attributes.

My issue is, since then she has made it her ENTIRE personality. Almost every SM post is about her ‘ADHD riddled brain’. She is chaotic and disorganised and I’d argue has become even more so since the diagnosis. When something slips down to her flakiness she does this very annoying ‘ooopss, silly me and my ADHD’.

Some recent examples;
-SIL and her kids came to stay recently (DB working) and she didn’t pack any sun hats, swimming costume for either kid and no underwear for one at all (the are 4 and 7). She thought it was hilarious and was posting about it in the group chat. Didn’t seem that bothered so I went and bought replacement bits for them.

-Borrowed a very expensive dress of mine and never returned it. Insisted she had and I must be mistaken. Then came down to go out while staying here wearing it! When I pointed it out she sort of shrugged and did the whole ‘Pops’s… that’s adhd for you’

-We met in London for an experience with the entire family. Reminded everyone a week before, the night before and the morning of that everyone needed photo ID. She forgot and made a massive drama about it not being her fault and could we just skip the experience and have dinner so she wasn’t alone.

Now, I’m going to get a lot of ‘you don’t really like her much’ posts and my opinion is coloured by the fact she cheated on my DB before the kids were born-over a long period. She has now rewritten this as it being down to her brain just not being able to cope with normal married life and wanting to create drama due to her ‘adhd’

Yes this is very specific to her but I’ve seen more and more people either posting or talking about their adhd and using it as a personality trait that is cute and quirky…

AIBU that this is becoming more common (using it as personality, not ADHD itself)

Would you prefer people felt guilty and ashamed instead? You don’t like her (probably fairly) but not taking accountability isn’t an ADHD trait. But sometimes you do have to laugh at yourself and be okay with not finding things as easy as other people, no matter how hard you try.

Yep! I hear you!

Constantly from virtually every female friend I have 😩. “Oh that’s the ADHD tax!” “Oh silly me, late again!” “Oh I forgot - that’s my ADHD!”

Never noticed any issues before they all went and diagnosed themselves 🙄

I work with people with diagnosed ADHD - funnily enough they don’t find it cute or funny.

this. Why keep her as a friend?

Yep. Mostly young females. No woman of 55 or 65 is self diagnosing, and blaming everything they do wrong, (or mess up) on their 'ADHD brain.'

Not saying older women don't have it/aren't diagnosed later in life, but older women who have it will have had an official diagnosis... (And they won't use it as an excuse for their lateness/messing up...)

As has been said, it's the self diagnosed ones who are annoying. They fuck me right off. As I say, IME it's pretty much all younger women - younger millennials and Gen Z - so like, aged 21-22 to about 37 who self diagnose.

Agree with a lot of above posters.
Every 9 out of 10 threads on MN start with i have he as my kids have SEN.
Its like a green pull out card to be a twat and not control / parent your kids.

Please tell me you got the dress back after you saw her wearing it again!

I I have a old friend like this think very respected head hunted vet. High salary and good life one very long relationship her boyfriend from school now husband no big difficulties. We went to school primary and secondary and remained friends a long time after. The second she got her adhd dignosis she completely changed left her husband as she said she kept forgetting he was there. Got signed off work she now claims universal credit and pip. She brings it up in every conversation and I mean every conversation sorry I’m later it’s my adhd. If you ask what she’s been up to she’s been hyper fixing on something. If you say something she doesn’t like she’s got rejection sensitivity and to be careful. Part of me wonders if I’m just jelous she had a chance if a ok life. I was diagnosed as a child had multiple kids with different dads had a extreme drug addiction and struggle to keep a job got kicked out of schools and so on. We grew up close friends throughout all out school life and we were close after. It was almost like the dignosis ruined her life. Maybe she masked for to long and had a breakdown but it was sad to watch. She mentions having adhd constantly and we grew apart and she would ring all the time because she learnt something new on TikTok and wondered if i did it. I think mental helath and social media can be wonderful but extremely dangerous too.

My brother does this. Since diagnosis everything he doesn't want to do is "because X is sooooo hard for me because of my ADHD". He uses it as the ultimate get out. By contrast I have friends who have also been diagnosed and have said to me "if there's several things you're asking me can you send it in separate messages because it hard for me to work through a big box of text" and so I do and it's fine.

But then again since childhood he's always had a thing where he has to be the main character on every situation. I think the issue is you can be a neuro typical twat and a neuro diverse twat, still a twat.

The difference I find is between people who understand and advocate for things they need but ultimately still adult and those who just use ADHD as an excuse to be babied. Sadly my brother and your SIL seem to be in that category

Anyone who takes on a quirk/illness/personality trait and makes it their whole identity needs help quite frankly.

Absolutely sick to the back teeth of people, often self-diagnosed, who call themselves neuro spicy as though being ASD and/or ADHD is cute, or makes them special or super-powered.

Yes, it’s important to understand that it’s a ‘difference’ rather than always a disability, but it’s not sexy and something to be aspired to. It is just part of who we are and whilst it can enhance some aspects of our lives, it usually significantly hinders others - it is this latter bit which is then minimised or even dismissed entirely. It means that the support we need is not always there, that people think we should lighten up, and the struggles we and out DC have in an every changing and fast-moving world are not recognised or respected.

Yeah, sick of it. I may possibly clock the next person who suggests using Neuro Spicy in the title of my thesis or post doc research. 🤬

I find that the people who wear it as a quirk are generally not the ones disabled by it, or indeed even clinically diagnosed...it's awful really, as it plays into the over-diagnosis rhetoric and truly diminishes lived experience of those of us that are really negatively affected by it. It's the next anxiety, sadly.

I have a diagnosis and on medication for my Audhd and I have a couple of friends also fully diagnosed and the only people I hear 'oh thats the adhd' etc from are people not diagnosed.
It is not a quirk. It is not a trend. It is a realistic thing people DIAGNOSED have to deal with. If you are not diagnosed you do not have it until a diagnosis. If you have a diagnosis and are using it as a get out of something card you are just a dickhead with adhd.

I don’t think you are being unreasonable. ADHD can genuinely explain certain difficulties, but it should not become a blanket excuse for behaviour that affects other people. There’s a difference between understanding why something happens and avoiding responsibility for it.

YADNBU only people who behave like the way you describe would disagree with you.

Plenty of the ND people I know and I know very, very many would not dream of behaving how you describe and are the more loyal, considerate people out there in spite of their difficulties but there are a small minority who have what to all intents and purposes appears to have a comorbid PD and it is really exhausting to deal with them. You can be an absolute dick and ND or you can be a decent skin and ND. Your sister in law is an absolute dick.

I have some reservations about this thread, but I do agree that using ADHD or any similar diagnosis as an excuse for simply being thoughtless or careless is a no-no, and indeed is in itself quite discriminatory as it implies that people with ADHD cannot ever find ways to organise themselves, avoid forgetting things etc.

Perhaps the most extreme example I came across was a man who could be quite extraordinarily rude about anyone who dared to disagree with him about anything, particularly if they were of a different ethnicity to him. I came across him in connection with a voluntary activity, and some people tried to suggest that we should just put up with this because of his ADHD; however, he was allegedly quite successful in a profession where he simply would not get or keep a job if he behaved like that routinely, so it was obvious he was perfectly capable of keeping his nastiness under control.

See also people who come up with the excuse of dyslexia if anyone dares to point out that it's "could have" not "could of". It's really quite offensive to dyslexic people to suggest that that sort of error is down to dyslexia.

I do feel like having ADHD is the cooler sister of Autism. It's the more 'pick me girl' of the two.

I think your SIL is a school mum I know, it’s bloody infuriating! I totally understand how you feel. I dunno if I’m being unreasonable but doing an online ten minute test then saying you have ADHD is ridiculous! It’s a serious problem to have I hate how people make light of it!

It is so so annoying.

I also resent the 'adhd people' who think that it's one big tribe.

I have long thought DH has undiagnosed ADHD and he agrees. He has lost another job, broke down telling me. I really feel for him as I could see how hard he was working but he goes the wrong direction with things, doesn't get the big picture, can't prioritise, prepares incorrect material. Unfortunately we don't have the 2k needed for a diagnosis until he gets another job but as soon as we have it, he will be getting proper support. He's done multiple free courses in the meantime. He is clever and a high earner, he's not lazy at all and has always done the lion's share at home too. He is extremely fit and exercise seems to regulate him.

I don't say much about it to other people but sometimes say it in passing by way of explanation when he does something very confusing or can't follow conversations when he's overwhelmed.

One of the women in the friend group has - also undiagnosed - ADHD. This makes perfect sense. I've known her for thirty years, perpetually very late, can't get things completed, has meltdowns, doesn't brush her teeth or wash her hands (she says this is down to ADHD, I'm not commenting on other people's hygiene levels). She also doesn't work ever, expects everyone to pay for her, drive her places and all other adult related tasks - you get the picture.

When she first heard me mention ADHD in passing she was scornful but I gave a few examples of recurring patterns and she has now seized upon this with excitement - he's worse than me, you just don't understand how our brains work (I am really really trying to understand how HIS works), it's so great to not be the biggest weirdo in the group etc.

I hate it and feel it is very unfair. He has done his best with all his challenges and she has - for decades - breezed about in a cloud of marijuana demanding other people look after her. He's the exact opposite.

Yeah she’s being out of order. It’s may be a reason but it’s not an excuse.

i speak as one DX’d with a trifecta of joy. You can’t just blame shit on it and expect people to be nice about it. All that happens is people consider you unreliable and stop asking you to things and so on. Been there done that so got my shit together and have been the list queen since my late teens. If writing was banned I’d be stuffed (although visual reminders are good but not always an efficient use of space!)
dont lend her anything and just be concise but blunt about arrangements.

unfortunately it’s common in the world of autism too. Really winds me up as I have always said to son it’s a reason, never an excuse.

Sorry, putting the kids to bed but appreciate the responses

Yes i have fixated on my SIL but i am seeing it more and more. Theres a woman at work who’s recently been diagnosed and suddenly can’t seem to make a meeting on time despite never having a problem previously. She seems to love bumbling in late and muttering about adhd time keeping.

As most suspected my SiL has no official diagnosis and while I wouldn’t want to suggest she doesn’t have it, she just seems to play up to it in the 18 months or so since she did the online test.

My brother adores her and my nieces just laugh at ‘silly mummy’ so not much I can do but suck it up!

She hasn’t discovered this hashtag yet but I anticipate its arrival soon on all of her online posts!

I wish I could but I won’t see my nieces go without and whilst she acknowledges her errors, she never seems to sort them out. It’s always ‘oh yes, I’ll get to it!’. Meanwhile we’re out in the garden with the paddling pool in heat and her poor girls don’t have any sun protection in the form of hats or uv rash vests/swimming bits. They’re great girls so I just popped down to Sainsbury’s and got some bits.

And she definitely knows family will bail her out which I know just enables it but when there’s kids….

Yanbu

There’s a constant need to medicalise what is often simply human behaviour and it tends to follow trends. In the 18th century people had ‘nerves’, over the last 30 odd years we’ve lived through depression, anxiety, ocd and now adhd, there’ll be something else in 5 years that people will attach to themselves.

I actually think it makes it harder for those people who genuinely have these difficulties because people start doing an internal eye roll every time they hear it.

Yep.

She sounds highly irritating, not because of suspected ADHD, but...because she is an annoying prick.
I got diagnosed in the '90s as a teenager, which was nigh on unheard of back then, such was the severity of my brand of ADHD, so I could easily find it irksome when people get to their 30s and 'discover' they have ADHD after a 'burnout'.
But, I don't, as I'd never diminish another's struggles.