Does anyone think they DONT have ADHD?

[Frenchtoastie]

I keep seeing posts on instagram with various reasons why someone has ADHD and then hundreds of comments below reporting these people also have all of these symptoms.
Just wondering if anyone reads these and doesn’t relate to them? To me they are just part of being human, but maybe I am completely wrong and I have ADHD🤣

the posts generally include statement along these lines…

• I find it hard to get going or impossible to stop
• I can put off a tiny task for weeks but worry about it for hours but when I finally complete it it takes 5 minutes
• I can distracted and start cleaning after the shower and suddenly I’ve cleaned the whole house whilst wearing my towel
• Having a chair covered in clothes
• having multiple drinks on the go in the house
• needing a calender because if not I would forget appointments

I do three of those things and I definitely don’t have ADHD. Calendars are a completely normal way to keep track of life. Clothes on chair is normal
id it’s not hygienic to put worn clothes back in a drawer as it encourages moths, and I don’t wash all my clothes after every wear, to help the environment and keep bills down, as we are told to do.

I work in an related area and some people have very severe symptoms that impact so much on their lives and are really debilitating. Others have self-diagnosed or flimsy diagnosis and don’t appear to have many difficulties, either academically or in being organised, but still get related benefits. Some have trauma and neglect, not ADHD. I don’t get to know them deeply so maybe I’m wrong but you get an intuition about it after a while.

You shouldn’t have to struggle on, look into the medication - ADHD is treatable.

I have all of them plus others. Never had a formal diagnosis, so, like you , I see this as normal. However, all 3 of my children have had adult diagnoses of this. One is on medication and says it has improved his life immensely.

Privately or on the NHS?

It’s very easy to get anything you want when you pay for it. I refused private diagnosis for my daughter as a result and waited for NHS.

To have adhd you need to have had the symptoms since childhood I believe.

Also as other posters have said, that symptom list isn’t a list of adhd symptoms in the same way being sad sometimes isnt a sign of depression and that being anxious occasionally isn’t a sign of generalised anxiety disorder.

Incredible achievement for him ❤️🥰

I can relate to some ADHD symptoms/tendencies, but ONLY since having children. The amount of responsibility and constant time pressure make things difficult. Other posters have mentioned this too. So maybe for some adults, those tendencies can be situational rather than innate.

My DC is diagnosed with ADHD but most if not all of his traits can be explained by smart phone use. Unpopular opinion I know. He is undoubtedly autistic ( also has that diagnosis) but I disagree with his and most of his friends ADHD diagnoses. It was made very clear at the time of his diagnosis that the most important thing for him was support from the family and I didn't feel comfortable challenging the diagnosis but it's become a trend to attribute impatience, impulsivity and quirks to ADHD now.

The upside to this trend is that discrimination against neurodivergence is not tolerated which is wonderful for many DC including mine.

I've been diagnosed with it and find medication incredibly helpful but must confess to some ongoing scepticism.

The diagnostic process isn't just about identifying traits; it is about identifying whether those traits have had a significant lifelong impact on your ability to function in different aspects of your life.

The trouble is that what counts as 'functioning' is incredibly subjective. I also think that the way the job market is structured, increasing living costs, changing expectations of parenthood and the pressure to appear perfect social media have all played a role in creating a really demanding and narrow definition of 'functioning' that a lot of people are going to struggle to meet, leaving them to feel like failures a lot of the time and to naturally question whether there is something wrong with them.

Any human trait, including the clusters of traits we now think of as types of neurodivergence, is going to be distributed unevenly across the population. Whether those traits get labelled as a problem or not partly depends on how severe they are and partly depends on the environment a person is operating in: what is expected of them by others and what they expect of themselves.

I have always struggled with what others seem to see as the basics of life: personal care like regular washing and tooth-brushing (let alone sorting hair and makeup); basic conformity to essential aspects of school and work (being on time, meeting deadlines, following procedures); maintaining a half decent living space; managing money; remembering to eat any meals (let alone to cook and to have 5 fruit and veg a day). I've always been good at some stuff like processing lots of written information quickly and writing long reports, and solving certain types of problem when adrenaline is flowing, and that has helped me to keep my head above water to some extent. But now I have a stressful job and a marriage to nurture and an unwell relative to care for and a wonderful child who I want to raise well, and so what counted as 'just about functioning well enough' for me 15 years ago when I had few life responsibilities doesn't count as 'well enough' for me now. If I were to put pressure on myself to have a picture perfect home at all times, to excel in my job without making a single mistake, or to live up to my own ideas about a perfect mum and perfect wife, I would feel even more like being at the bottom of a huge dark hole of failure.

I don't think it's any wonder that life transitions like motherhood or caring responsibilities or more seniority at work make a lot of people question whether they might have ADHD because objectively the demands have increased.

I also think that ADHD offers a compassionate way for a person to view themselves as opposed to the brutal alternatives of seeing yourself as lazy, inadequate, incompetent and generally a bit shit. It's no wonder people would prefer the ADHD option.

I'm not saying ADHD isn't real - just that social context matters. And I reckon that most people would be more productive on stimulants!

And to address your actual question (sorry for the tangent!), I know almost no one who thinks they have ADHD out of a wide circle of colleagues and friends and acquaintances, which isn't in any way scientific but just provides a counter-narrative to the idea that this is somehow taken up everywhere.

I have all those " symptoms' . I do not have adhd. I have being a human

My concern is that my friend with ADHD , since her diagnosis and beginning medication has also become rather surprisingly tactless, she was also very well considered and kind and I wonder if, with a new diagnosis she feels it's ok to say what she likes, how she feels without consequence to how it impacts on others.

Unpopular opinion - most people diagnosed with ADHD do not have it. They are just not suited to the narrow lifestyle/education style that has developed in recent times. It's a social contagion caused by people looking to explain why they cannot live as we are expected to live today.

The thing is as well, most of us will experience some therapeutic benefit from ADHD meds. Most of us will experience better focus, motivation etc on stimulants. Possibly why I am seeing a rise in adult ADHD dx in corporate spheres. However for bona-fide, “disorder” level ADHD, meds bring what can be devastating symptoms down to a baseline of normative function. There is a myth that responding to meds “means you have ADHD” but this is simply not true.

Yes but that still doesn't make it work.

If your context as a child included parents who set up routines and set spaces for your things, or an adult with a supportive partner, a cleaner, manageable demands, you might be functioning well.

If you are in a chaotic family or have unstable housing as an adult (with all the admin and logistical burdens of that) you might not.

Not to mention the impact of addictive screens on focus.

It's almost a diagnosis of the 'person in their past and present situation' that's presented as a diagnosis of the person.

Interesting you should post this. I had someone asked me if I was looking to get a diagnosis of ADHD/Austism for my daughter - she’s 5. This person was not a teacher or a health professional - concerns have never been raised by them.
Do I think she had a few ‘traits’? By all the posts I see like you talk about OP then yes I do! So do I! Do I think she or I need a diagnosis of something, no I don’t!
She’s scatty yes
She has a tantrum sometimes when she doesn’t get her own way
She has friends and plays with others but can be shy and a play on her own sometimes
She doesn’t always listen
But she’s 5!!!!! Sure this is usual developmental and a bit naughty child behaviour!??

Exactly. We’d all get more done in life if we took daily amphetamines. They give it to armies to keep them fighting past the point of burnout.

I think many ppl have adhd traits but it’s because of phone/internet addiction

they can’t concentrate or finish tasks etc because their mind just wants them to look at the phone

It’s not even diagnosable til age 7 for this exact reason. Most kids with traits at that age will grow out of them.

You are so very, very right on this. Say it again and louder for the hard of thinking.

At 55 I have realised I do have it and can literally list dozens and dozens of incidents from my life where it's made things difficult and hampered my achievement. But young people acting like it's a physical disease and makes them unable to do things is ridiculous. As you say, it's part of being human, it's not a crippling illness.

Ex was diagnosed with adhd 5 years ago. He has spent his entire life hyper focusing on new careers, hobbies, relationships, until he loses interest and then burns it all to the ground. He has no friends as his constant interrupting and monologuing is incredibly draining and people tend to back away from him. He lives in filth and chaos for most of the time apart from occasional bursts of energy when he will deep clean then watch it all fall back into disarray. He is constantly late and cannot wrap his head around the fact that you don't start getting ready for a 15 minute journey 12 minutes before you have to be there. He is an absolute whirlwind of chaos and disorganisation and anyone that gets too close to him gets dragged into the misery.

Obviously his case is extreme and in true male fashion he has sought no treatment or solutions and instead tries to find a women to swoop in and sort his life out for him. My experience of adhd is that it is a crippling condition that seriously impacts a person's happiness and wellbeing, not a general scattiness or forgetfulness.

I'm convinced I have it because almost all of the things almost any person says or does completely baffle me to the extent that I suspect I may be a different species. However, I keep spectacularly failing all the tests including the ones specifically designed for women, so presumably I don't. I am lazy, untidy, stubborn, a champion procrastinator, and a serial taker of unacceptable risks, but I am also very capable of sustained focus and consistently reasonable forethought if sufficiently motivated. (I don't interrupt people, though; that would be rude.) I suspect that some people self-diagnosing may be confusing what they typically WILL NOT or DO NOT do with what others literally CANNOT do, or at least cannot without a great deal of effort and assistance.

I think there’s some truth in this. I also think there’s a lot demanded of us, we’re overwhelmed and lack energy to do it all. So we procrastinate and then suddenly focus when we have a deadline because we still have standards.
plus we can’t deny we’re sll on our phones too much and that’s going to have an impact on us. Especially if we’re consuming short form videos.

It’s interesting other people say this. I have an internal monologue (well more a debate with lots of different counter arguments). I started mounjaro and it stopped, I had silence in my head. First day it freaked me out, then it felt peaceful.

Anyone else had this? Didn’t stop for my ADHD diagnosed sibling who currently isn’t medicated.

I have a teenager with severe ADHD (sl obvious during his autism assessment at 5 that the paediatrician arranged tests to start immediately but said she wasnt allows rro diagnose it till 6 under local NHS rules). Some of these videos online are ridiculous and show how little people under ADHD. I have seen videos such as "if you sleep this way you have ADHD". Then a video of someone sleeping on their side. Or other ridiculous things such as if you lose focus doing a task you may bave ADHD, if your child runs around a lot they may have ADHD (most young kids are active). ADHD is can be a debilitating condition and medication is a life changer. Dc1 cannot.focus, do basic tasks, follow any instruction, manage school or even eat unless medicated). That is ADHD. ADHD medication will do nothing for someone who is misdiagnosed with it and "influences" making videos of people doing normal things and stating you may have ADHD if you do this is not helpful and needs clamped down on.