Channel 4 ADHD documentary

[crackerjackbaby]

Totally totally one sided. And very dangerous as a result of that. AIBU to think this?

It's not ALWAYS profoundly debilitating and life limiting. Many of us learn coping mechanisms and do pretty well. I managed to make it work for me rather than against in many ways. However my life has changed in ways that have made it more difficult to do that now, so I medicate. I won't always. When life changes again I'll stop the medicationand I'll cope. However that doesn't mean my experience is the same as everyone else's. Like any other condition, the effects are different for different people (rote learning and memorisation were ideal for me, the last thing I needed was individual treatment) and are hugely influenced by other lifestyle factors. I was definitely not one of the naughty kids, I was never disruptive - quite the opposite - didn't have too much screentime (I'm of the age of three channels on a huge box and no remote control) and I kept my struggles to myself, which doesn't mean they didn't exist and haven't caused trauma of a kind. However I look at those who society has left behind, those whose struggles have been more obvious and I soooo recognise what's going on. Not always - some people are useless, or lazy, or bad or however you choose to categorise them. Some of them have been screaming out silently for help their whole lives and haven't received it. I remember hearing about people having what was broadly called a nervous breakdown - including one of my aunts - and I think a lot of those were probably the heavily masked reaching a point of critical mass and no longer able to hide it. I think at some point that might have been me were it not for the medication - and no-one would have expected it in any way.

Of course people who were 'different' were simply institutionalised not too long ago. Or they became what we saw as the local weirdos, the habitual crinimals, the dregs of society. Women were called 'hysterical' - yep, hormones were certainly responsible for a lot of that but I think a certain amount will have been the ADHD mask slipping under pressure. Now they have a voice instead. Remember it wasn't long ago that people used to whisper the word 'cancer' behind their hands, with looks of shock and horror, and tried to keep it secret. Now we follow people's most intimate moments on their 'cancer journey' thanks to social media.

I don't think there are any more cases of ADHD, I just think we're hearing from them now and we're getting used to listening.

I think schools now are pretty dry places for all kids and staff thanks to Gove but having done Alevels in the 80s as somebody who had ADHD and been through them with my children ( all of us untreated at the time) the disaster was the same. Old exams often tested direct memory and basic repetition however modern tests ask students to solve new problems using what they know more. We were all a car crash.The fact is we didn’t have medication or even diagnosis for girls in the 80s, We do now so women and girls quite rightly want to be diagnosed and have access to treatment. It goes beyond academics, the impact on mental health is awful.

Well said! More pressure to achieve in schools.

My mother tends to have this attitude too - except even she can't explain how she has seen me take strong stimulants including speed, cocaine, now legally prescribed amphetamines but also even caffeine, and sleep like a baby! She doesn't want to believe it's real but has conceded that 'something must be wrong'. Well, yeah...

I worked in a pub for a short while and even though I have an adhd diagnosis I chose not to tell anyone at work.

Inevitably some of my symptoms came to the surface despite my desperate masking and my supervisor was taking the piss out of me and said do you have ADHD or something?
It was meant to be an insult but painfully it was the truth I was trying so hard to push through.
I eventually came clean and said yes I do and she just started telling me it was a learnt behaviour that I could unlearn.

You've explained everything so well. It's exactly how I feel. I even went through quite a period of grieving for the person I could have been, had I been diagnosed and treated, but then, in the 60s no-one had heard of it. Your sons experience is so poignant too, it is wonderful when they can simply sit down and do something!
I've experienced both adult and child sides. It's a hell of a struggle, but you're doing brilliantly, as are so many other parents. Sod the naysayers. We know our children, and simply want what's best for them. Good luck for the future. Your son will fly, I'm sure, just like my daughter did with the right treatment for her

I agree about the parenting in some cases, but I also think that it's quite possible that if the same kid had been well-parented, he wouldn't have been a raving bully but he might well have been like my ADHD-diagnosed DH without medication - not meeting potential, anxious, depressed, drug problem in late teens, can't stick to anything... So yeah, not criminal any more or upsetting anyone outside of his family, but a long way from where he could have been. Maybe some people on this thread would dismiss him as a lazy twat. Medication has saved our marriage, and it has enabled him to do the useful things like exercise, eating sensibly, staying off cannabis and reducing alcohol that also have positive effects. If he could have not been traumatised by school and parental disappointment then maybe he would have been able to work in a job that suited him and have the money to do fulfilling hobbies so possibly have less need for medication, but as it is we have a good compromise considering the low point we were at five years ago.

I also have ADHD, I'm inattentive rather than combined type. Can do a perfectly good job as a specialist editor/journalist unmedicated but have had to do part-time office work for industry/family reasons for the last 13 years (partly my choice because I only wanted to write about my specialist field not in general and it wasn't practical with a child). Cannot bloody cope with one-step-up-from-entry-level general office manager work, and have just resigned - medication improved things but not enough to make me able to do the job without crying half the day. I'm also genuinely not lazy, useless, gormless or whatever people like to call people like me. My parents used to call me Dolly as in Dolly Daydream. School trauma and parental issues here too then, my parents weren't disappointed in me but they didn't have any expectations either, no idea that coping strategies would be helpful or anything, just expected me to do something little and creative if I'm lucky, and have babies. And live off a man. Well as discussed above, I picked the wrong man to live off! So have had to work.

WRT to benefits, I have no idea how people with ADHD fill in the bloody forms! I can't get my head round them.

Anyway, we have DS13. We never sent him to school, he spends his days learning, playing instruments, listening to music, exercising, seeing friends. No screen restrictions after he's done everything he needs to do, but I redirect away from Shorts, Reels etc. He pretty much always watches informational videos from experts in things he wants to learn to do. Hopefully going to a UTC next year now he's maxed out the engineering kit practical to have at home 🤣 We are undecided as to whether to have him assessed for ADHD, in an environment that suits him he's no problem to himself or anyone else and he hasn't had 10 years of messaging that he's not good enough.

I visited the local school with work last year, I do know there's no way DS would have been able to concentrate there, stuff on the walls, stuff on the ceiling, open plan so noise from the other 299 kids...

I'll never know if home ed was the right thing to do, in the past few years the peer group has really changed from amiable free spirits to kids who are traumatized by school and have crashed out. If I was starting now I would maybe try and get him in a small, nurturing private school but I think we made the right decision with the knowledge we had.

DH has had the odd moan that DS is capable of being more than a car or bicycle mechanic (these are possibilities among several at the moment) but I think if DH had been allowed to train as a mechanic at 18 he would probably have had a chain of garages after 10 years and be a damn sight more successful than he has been.

I also get cross that intelligence is framed as a dichotomy between being "academic" or not. No recognition that people can be highly intelligent and better suited to practical work.

I don't find medication to be an unmitigated positive, I don't have the same imagination with it. It's worn off now and I did a load of research for a work issue that will have a genuinely positive effect for the local community if it comes off, and I've written this screed. I wouldn't have been able to do that on methylphenidate, but it means I can answer emails, talk to the public sensibly, write up meeting minutes and generally get the bills paid.

The private diagnoses my children have had were rigorous, accepted by CAMHS and followed NICE guidelines, as a number of other posters have pointed out. Next.

But it makes a massive difference to the general public's view of it. Endless social media posts and comments about it being a scam to access benefits for a start, even though ASD and ADHD alone would not qualify. Reality is that most 'people on the street' wont read retraction, explanations, interviews on BBC news done as follow up. The sensational programmes and headlines do huge damage.

Hmm, BBC are on about ASD now…

It's ridiculous. Are they going to say anxiety and depression aren't real next and why take medication for those? Where does it end.

Oh and the editing on these things is always so transparently manipulative. They aren't actually interested in facts or nuance, they just want a dramatic headline and some controversy to get people talking and make money.

The so-called "experts" they drag in for these shows are embarrassing, and even the professionals who actually take part end up having their views twisted or truncated to fit a narrative. It drives me mad that they rely on unscientific gimmicks and lazy tropes just to invalidate real people's lives for entertainment. Honestly it does so much damage by spreading misinformation.

The best part is that the programme's own end credits basically gave the game away and told you what its sixty minutes wouldn't: the boy at its centre went back on his medication, and his schoolwork improved!! Their entire experiment completely disproved their own conclusion, yet they aired their version anyway! Absolutely ridiculous that it made it to air, though at least complaints have already gone off to Ofcom.

With people putting up and shutting up(or quietly sent away/hidden away) like in the “good olden days”?

Exactly, where does it end.

If only these people could have their own kids with adhd/autism; I'd love to view their new documentary!!

Watched it last night after reading so much about it. So many strange things. Like they said diagnoses were spiralling but then, if I remember correctly, quoted the figure for the estimated number of people with ADHD which is massively higher than the number of people actually diagnosed! The way it was given just after saying diagnoses were spiralling made it sound like that was the number of diagnoses if you weren't paying attention - it seemed deliberately misleading! And no pointing out that the percentage increase in diagnoses seems so massive because they were practically zero in adults until recently because it was only thought to exist in children and because so many girls and people from ethnic minorities were left undiagnosed due to their presentation being different.

Then when the presenter himself went on the meds, they didn't show him doing anything he actually struggled doing in real life. He just went to a very pleasant shop and bought something nice (don't think there was even a queue but I can't remember all the details!). If there was nothing he actually struggled with in life to any real degree, that should have come out in the assessment and he shouldn't have been diagnosed - you aren't supposed to get the diagnosis if it isn't causing you substantial difficulty in multiple areas of your life. If he actually did have some significant struggles in line with ADHD he should have tried doing those things on the meds to see if they actually helped. Not just go to a nice, posh shop. It was ridiculous and just highlighted his total lack of understanding of the condition or the assessment process. And you did wonder why the crew had to leave the room when he was doing the assessment. Did they get to see what was said afterwards and challenge any aspect of it.

I did think the experiment with Mason was helpful though as it did seem to show that the meds were incredibly helpful and were medicating something real. The fact that Mason doesn't tolerate them that well and they don't make him feel great is a shame but neither here nor there with the point they were trying to make. Lots of drugs for all sorts of health conditions whether mental, physical or neurological, help but cause unpleasant side effects meaning people or there parents have to weigh up the pros and cons of whether the benefits outweigh the costs.

*their parents