@NomeDaBarbarian, who describes himself as an accidental ADHD Advocate and a Queer Redneck, tweeted this insightful thread about how ADHD, as described, isn’t as experienced. Meaning that the way the symptoms are describe is just a lit of behaviors that piss off parents and teachers. I never thought of it this way, but he’s absolutely right. This is super unfair to people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Here’s the thread with tons of examples of this:
Source: @NomeDaBarbarian
(via: Premium Internet Curation)
The bit about adult’s having coping mechanisms is so true! I did one of those online self-assessments for ADHD and one of the questions was “Do you have difficulty sitting through meetings?” My answer is “No, because I’m a grown-ass adult and have self control, but it causes me physical pain to stay still for that long”
I just want to make it clear for anyone reading this: “it causes me physical pain” counts as “difficulty”. It’s ok to count that as a yes.
Also true of autism, specifically in regard to emotional regulation. We’re not unemotional, we’re holding it all in because if any gets out, it ALL gets out.
And we don’t have trouble describing or communicating the emotions we feel; you do, because you use “happy” or “sad” or “angry” to describe a million different shades of a hundred different emotions that are all the same to your smooth neurotypical brain.
Thank you for writing this. I have always been annoyed at how ADHD flags are often just normal kid behaviour (especially since recess time keeps being cut) . . . and people who actually have ADHD get ignored if they’re well-behaved. I didn’t know I had it until I studied psychology as part of my teaching career and realized that other people didn’t have to spend real mental effort to, say, follow a conversation without their brain tuning out and wandering off to think of something else while someone was still talking to them. Other people didn’t take hours to fall asleep because their brain wouldn’t shut off. Etc. I think symptoms in girls especially are often ignored.