ignorant people saying ADHD doesn't exist..

this is more of a rant, that i wanted you guys to be able to post your opinons about..

i found some people over on the BPD forum saying ADHD isn't real.
do you guys ever stumble upon people like that?
i myself am not diagnosed with adhd
but i know plenty of people who are and really struggle with their mental illness.
it must be so invalidating to hear that its not real!

any thoughts?

Everyone. It's spectacularly rare for me to find someone who takes ADHD seriously and often when I do find people who take it seriously, they have misconceptions about it. Finding those people can frustrate me because they're a big cause why it isn't taken seriously.

I never bring it up with people. If it happens to come up I'll say I have a dopamine deficiency or an executive functioning disorder. I also never bring up stimulant medication because people will even laugh just by mentioning it. I've researched ADHD extensively and part of that is because of all the misconceptions about it. It's such a well-known disorder, but very poorly understand (even by therapists).

Oh well, at the end of the day it doesn't bother me. I'm not an open person and I tend to learn about things from my own studying instead of word of mouth. Truthfully, the general population is aware of a great many things, but uneducated about most of them. I'm not going to be upset about something like that. The choice is either to educate them, or leave them in the dark. I believe in only offering those types of things if the person is seeking them.

Yep. The dumbest thing I've ever heard somebody say about my ADD was "Is that one of those diseases skanky hoes get?" !!!

I stopped telling people about it after that. Only my doctor needs to know.

Strangely enough, my worst ADD/ADHD misconception has come from someone who claims to have ADD himself - my dad. I'm not really sure why he thinks he has ADD other than he bounces his legs sometimes. He has a PhD in aerospace engineering and pretty much expects me to do similarly in academics. I've been plinking my way through college with a good bit of difficulty, and his excuse is "I have ADD too and it didn't stop me". How useless and ignorant is that?!? Pretty much every piece of ADD literature has, in big bold letters, 'it does not affect everyone the same'. Ok, mini-rant over. Another misconception that annoys me is that people equate randomness to ADD, which is not always the case.

I was talking to my psychotherapist, and she told me we know where ADHD is due to in the brain, so you literally can't say it doesn't exist. I have a diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and I have a lot of problems with the mental illness who ever say's it's not a mental illness is ignorant.

It's annoying when someone says a person with ADD/ADHD is lazy.

MHM wrote:It's annoying when someone says a person with ADD/ADHD is lazy.

You know, I don't really know what to think about it. I mean, we are lazy, but we have a chemical predisposition to be lazy. I suppose the issue is people thinking it's a choice. That we could just as easily get up and go get stuff done the same as everyone else. The word lazy is kind of a general word, but has a negative connotation. The real issue is with that word being sh1tty for the situation.

People who get dxed with ADHD (in this country at least) generally don't have "nothing wrong with them".

I don't know enough about ADHD itself to say whether it is real or not, though I have come across at least one person who met a lot of criteria right down to stuff like "falling asleep when attempting to read complex material". They also had other problems like learning difficulties and dyspraxia, which is apparently common.

I do know that other things like dissociation can cause similar symptoms. (I used to think I had it because of that.) I think in some places its overdiagnosed a lot. I once had an online dr tell me "yes its ADHD" based on a short set of questions. It turned out not to be ADHD at all causing the problems but dissociation and complex psychological issues...

katana wrote:I do know that other things like dissociation can cause similar symptoms. (I used to think I had it because of that.) I think in some places its overdiagnosed a lot. I once had an online dr tell me "yes its ADHD" based on a short set of questions. It turned out not to be ADHD at all causing the problems but dissociation and complex psychological issues...

The scientific knowledge about ADHD has increased A LOT recently so I expect the over diagnosis should go down. There are even some places that diagnose it according to things like brain scans instead of questionnaires. Things like that will also help with medicating and treating it. The best end result is a DNA test and brain scan. The brain scanning would still be necessary considering neural plasticity.

Pan wrote:There are even some places that diagnose it according to things like brain scans instead of questionnaires. Things like that will also help with medicating and treating it. The best end result is a DNA test and brain scan. The brain scanning would still be necessary considering neural plasticity.

Man, that would be awesome to just go in somewhere, get your noggin scanned, and come out a half hour later with the proper meds right away instead of spending so much time going to the docs'. Part of the reason I'm hesitant to go get officially checked out is that I fear I'll have to take 7 trips in there and try 3 different solutions over the course of several months before I start seeing any results, if any.