Can you still be friends with someone who dismisses ADHD as an excuse?

[NobodyAsked]

How do you deal with people who don’t ‘believe’ in ADHD or refuse to understand? This weekend a ‘friend’ told me I should make more effort in my life and I felt dysregulated because I couldn’t explain why I feel so exhausted with daily life. I’m not officially diagnosed but I feel like I could have said I have AuADHD but even then she wouldn’t have understood! I find it so stressful.

It depends. I don’t think everyone does it of course, but for example my partner admits he has used his ADHD (plus Tourette’s) as an excuse/crutch many many times in the past for poor behaviour. He’s been diagnosed since childhood but his family was very neglectful so he never had much support growing up and never learned any tools, strategies etc to cope. A couple years ago he started having frequent counselling and it made a difference.

I do admit I take self diagnosis with a grain of salt though. It may well be right, but you also definitely see trends online throughout the years (ADHD being the most recent one).

Self diagnosis, would have me tutting too.

Not diagnosed due to the stress of managing 2x ND children plus I don’t have headspace to do it or £2k. My whole family is ND and so am I. But that’s not what I came here for. Just answer the question or pass by…why say something unhelpful?

I don't know why anyone is commenting about self-diagnosis, unless they don't have ADHD or autism and were diagnosed before the great rush! It takes years nowadays!
Can you still be friends with them - I can only speak about ADHD but I struggle with this as well. I think once you've had a few chats with them about ADHD (and autism) and they're still saying ignorant or hurtful stuff, you are within your right to cut them out and it might do you some good not to be around them.
Interestingly, I have found friends and even one manager who were the most sniffy when talking about ADHD (they had family or friends diagnosed), were often the ones most likely to have undiagnosed cases. They looked at the symptoms of ADHD and just thought "yeah, but we're all like that, aren't we?". They were frequently very harsh on themselves and everyone around them. Often, they had turned to punishing workout regimes, extremely controlled diets, drink etc to cope.

I personally couldn't be friends with someone who dismisses any of my disabilities.

Rather hypocritically though, I always say hell is other neurodivergent people. This is because our needs clash, not because our needs are any less real. I couldn't cope with someone who is always late for example, even though I understand why someone with time blindness may always be late, because I have a very rigid routine. My own lateness sends me spiraling, but at least that is somewhat within my control. When others are late I have no control and my own autonomy is impacted.

I also didn't know much about neurodivergence until my son was diagnosed. I was diagnosed a year later. I wouldn't reasonably expect people who have no experience with it or third hand experience to really understand the mechanics of how they are disabilities.

I think if they are repeatedly dismissive you have every right to cut them off. Having said that, the average person will have extremely limited knowledge around the nuance of hidden disability. It's whether or not you can be arsed to keep educating. No easy solution!

It’s because no one actually knows if they have something unless they have an official diagnosis. There are lots of people who think they have it but probably don’t. Before I was diagnosed I didn’t go around saying I had AuDHD, I said I may have. My 5 year old dd is in the king waiting list at the moment and I don’t say she has it, I say she might and she’s been referred.

A friend who tells you that you need ‘to put in more effort’ doesn’t sound like a supportive friend to me. I’d probably ditch her, if it were me.

"no one actually knows if they have something unless they have an official diagnosis" - I understand what you're saying, that we can never be sure but I think many of us did know before diagnosis. In fact, for so many of us we were the only ones who spotted it. I went through so many counselors, GPs, therapists and psychologists who didn't spot it - mostly because girls and women weren't even understood to have ADHD in the 80s and 90s (at least within NHS practices). Taking into account the huge waiting lists for ADHD and ASD and in some cases, areas in the UK that have paused accepting further referrals, I think it's fair to cut the undiagnosed adults some slack here. If they think they have it, I think we have to understand why they may not yet have a diagnosis. I always wonder at how many AuDHD and ADHDers were able to get it together with all the paperwork, hoop jumping and sustained focus over years to get that final diagnosis. I don't think we need to gatekeep here, we need to support and believe people. My son is also on a waiting list and I know the DSM-5 backwards and diagonally by now - with the 70-80% genetic heritability of ADHD taken into account, it's very likely he's a clear case. Of course, I know a trained psychologist with relevant experience in ADHD would be diagnosing him but with family and friends we speak about the ADHD traits that are there. However, in your case I know AuDHD can be more nuanced, so I would also refrain from assuming this.

I couldn't be friends with someone who was a dick about a disability, whether I had that disability or not.

I think it's really hard when someone dismisses something they've never experienced themselves. You don't have to convince everyone to understand what you're going through, but the people who care about you should at least be willing to listen. Whether it's ADHD or something else, feeling constantly exhausted and overwhelmed is real, and you deserve compassion rather than judgement. I hope you're able to surround yourself with people who make you feel heard rather than having to defend yourself all the time.

I think its really hard when people dismiss these things out of ignorance. It makes those who experience ND feel marginilised and unrecognised for the challenges that they face. The difficulty for neurotypicals is that the characteristics of ADHD and autism (and other ND's but I know less about them because like NT's they haven't affected me enough to do the full on research into them) are regular human traits that everyone has. The difference is in the intensity and impactful way they affect different areas of your life. Yes everyone has experienced being forgetful and having brain fog, difficulty concentrating or listening and can have emotional swings and insomnia. Lots of people have restless legs and migraine and all sorts. And experiencing all of those symptoms can be hard - but look at those symptoms just mentioned collectively and you could be describing peri/menopause. They don't automatically speak to having ADHD or autism and yet so many women talk about how hard it is to live with those symptoms at times but they are dismissed as 'an excuse'. The thing is having ADHD and autism is experiencing human traits that make life challenging since birth and with a consistency, frequency and intensity that daily life is impacted across multiple areas and makes for a different experience in the world to NT. ND are scientifically to experience interoception and enteroception differently with more or less intensity than a NT. This means ND feel with a totally different level of physical and emotional experience and awareness. In addition it is known that ADHD'ers for example with experience on average twenty thousand more (or times more I can't remember the exact statistic presented recently) criticisms than a NT typical child so their self esteem is lower. Additionally, until 2017 it was not deemed possible to be both autistic AND ADHD so if you didn't present with solely traits of autistism or purely ADHD you were likely not to be given a diagnosis on assessment let alone a referral for assessment. AuDHD is unique in itself. It is not having Autism AND ADHD in the sense of having two separate conditions, it creates a unique experience by the way they interplay with each other, which one is dominating and a constant push/pull or Order and Anarchy effect. If you aren't ND you are unlikely to reserach everything there is to know about ADHD or Tourettes or Autism or OCD etc because it doesn't affect them. Thus their knowledge is likely to be based on what they hear from other people, or in the media because at the end of the day, people are inheritently mostly interested in themselves. People like to talk about themselves really. If it doesn't affect them, they aren't really going to be all that interested. Its when it totally impacts your own life to the point it is costing you in nearly every area to your detriment and those around that you pay attention to what ADHD or Autism as you search to explain why you've always felt like an imposter, always been bad with money, always fiddled compulsely, always been a bit all or nothing or unable to change tasks or focus on what you need to or unable to move and get yourself going despite all the shoulds and desire to. Its looking to explain why you've always felt different, always been desperate for order or for yourself to make sense to yourself. Why you've lost so many things, bought things in multiples, clung onto routines. Why you've been so sensitive to rejection or abandonment or criticism or so reactive in your emotions or so impulsive, hopeless at some things and so brilliant at others. Why you forget people, have object blindness, can't keep a calender or lose all sense of time or can't cope with changes of plans or processing too much information or refusing to read any instructions. It's an accumulation of so much so many challenges that lead to feeling lonely anddifferent and a negative sense of self that affects your mental health and leads to anything from depression, anxiety, self harmd suicide. ND's are five times more likely to commit suicide than neurotypicals. Five times. We invest in the research into the condition and the time it takes to find out and to seek a diagnosis and spend the serious amount of money needed if necessary even if that means going into debt to try to find answers and help. We persist in finding an answer because it affects us to that extent. No one goes to those lengths just to excuse some scatty moment or because they are a bit lazy or just to find an excuse. We go to those lengths to try and survive and try to learn to cope better via understanding and education and therapeutic or community support. We look for a tribe that gets us. I'm a classic example of a late diagnosed person. I battled for years with anxiety, depression, PTSD, migraine, restless legs, autoimmune conditions and FND. It took two spell as in patient, suicide attempts and self harming (never plan, always impulsive out of a sheer desire to make my busy brain stop torturing me) until a therapist finally saw 'ME' and asked me if I'd had an ADHD assessment. I was so so offended only knowing about ADHD as many did (as a typical kid born in the 70's) as something that applied to diruptive noisy and aggressive naughty boys. I responded with shock and retaliated saying "I've never been badly behaved, I've been a prefect, a head girl, I'm the person people turn to for help in a crisis, I have always done well at school, I have a degree, I'm seen as reliable and responsible" etc etc. And then of course I heard a podcast on ADHD by chance which I of course listened to because it had come up and suddenly that was it I was researching and researching and the penny dropped. She was right. No doubt about it and I was assessed and I came out with a diagnosis over severe combined ADHD. And so I began the meds journey and putting in place tools and investing in educating myself via webinars and therapy and forums on learning how to manage myself better. However, this was not the end of the story. Life continued and continues to be challenging and I've experienced some trying and difficult events since. All the while with continued long term therapy and regular meetings with a psychiatrist over another four years. As a result they know me on 'good form' and they know me when I'm finding life tough. As they came to know me they felt that there were aspects of my nature that weren't explained by ADHD or trauma alone and they believed they knew why. Eventually after they feltthe time was right they suggested I have an autism assessment or consider it. Again, I knew nothing much about it I'm sorry to say. I associated autism with people having difficulty speaking, having a flat tone of voice, being 'difficult, likely being nerdy/geeky, unable to be social or make eye contact, had repetitive behaviours and collected things that I didn't find interesting like stuffed animals or train sets and went plane or train spotting and had explosive meltdowns. Most of my experience of meeting autistic people had until then been the computer guys in the basement at work who barely spoke to anyone. Yep, I'm ashamed that that was me and what I knew. I'd never taken any time to find out more about it really. So I was kind of shocked when the suggestion was made again. I questioned how I could not know I was autistic, surely I'd have known by now? I questioned how as a someone who has such a strong interest in mental health and psychology and has done a lot of voluntary work in the MH sector I could not know. And then of course as with ADHD I did my research and again, I began to see what my MH team were seeing and why. I could relate to so much of it. And then I also began to listen to the various talks and podcasts on AuDHD and for the first time in my life I knew without hesitation, straight away that it 100 percent described me. I cried and for the very first time when listening to a talk by a global expert in the field, I felt understood and as if the speaker was talking to me directly. I booked my autism assessment with that same person. I wasn't invested in the outcome, I needed to know if I was gaslighting myself in seeing myself so perfectly described. But if was going to get a diagnosis I has to know I'd be confident in believing the outcome. I had to know the person doing it had enough expertise to be able to separate trauma and anxiety/depression and ADHD from Autism so that I wouldn't tell myself that I'd gone somewhere where "everyone gets a diagnosis, its' how they make money." and feel like, the person described by that awful GP in the Daily Mail this week - "a middle class white woman looking for excuses." I have already reeled from the negative attitudes and scepticism of people towards ADHD and wasn't sure I could face potentially experiencing more of it if I did turn out to be autistic. It turned out that I was indeed autistic and AuDHD. And that diagnosis came with a long talk as to what that meant and the unique qualities and challenges that came with that combination. I sobbed and sobbed feeling seen and understood. And yet I've told no one other than my psychiatrist. The need to know was for me. It wasn't to seek accommodations or PIP or special treatment or to have allowances made or to make excuses for where I fall short. It was so I could answer some questions for myself and understand how and why my sensory sensitivity and neurological malfunctions and delayed emotional process and desperate need for routine and so many other things are what they are. ND has nearly cost me my life and it has cost me friendships and my self esteem and my confidence and impacted my finances and my sense of belonging. When people dismiss it it is hurtful but I try to remember that this comes from a place of ignorance and I too was ignorant and uninformed at one point. So I try to be more forgiving and I don't discuss it with people if I don't think they want to hear about it or understand it or suspect that they might say something invalidating that will hurt my feelings and make me feel less than and othered. I guess you have to decide if you are prepared to invest your time and life with people that aren't ever going to really get you and if you like them enough and enjoy their company enough for that not to matter. You will decide that some seem to like you and accept you for who you are irrespective of whether you are a bit 'different' (as everyone is at the end of the day) and you'll know they are people you want to keep in your tribe of people you invest your time with and there will be some people you decided at the end of the day are costing you more than they are bringing to your life and you will know to let go. Best of luck. Jeepers this was long!!!!

Thanks for your response. I read every word. I also write very long emails and have to generally edit myself!! This is it, it’s so insulting that people don’t bother to see what the cost is to the person - of course we don’t want to be different for the sake of it! Nobody wants to feel like the odd one out and having to make excuses as to why they’re not socialising for example. An NHS mental health nurse said I couldn’t be ND as I didn’t get into trouble at school! I couldn’t even answer most of the questions as none of them made sense to me. She told me that if I hadn’t got any problems then what was the point of having a label! I’m not looking for a label, I want to understand my life and my family’s life! A psych I wrote to said I sounded autistic for sure. I’d just like to know for sure. I’m sick of having to defend myself.