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Is ADHD over diagnosed?
(lemm.ee)
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this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2023
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I mentioned my adhd diagnosis in a post earlier today so you may be the same inquirer. Regardless here's a little bit more of my story.
I was born in 1986 and not diagnosed with ADHD until 2021 (I was 35). I didn't do anything about about my diagnosis until 2023 when my career started going off the rails. I sometimes fantasize about what my career would have been like if I'd been diagnosed (and acted on the diagnosis) 15 years ago when I started to suspect something was up.
For me it mostly manifests as struggles to initiate tasks unless they're interesting or urgent.
Is it over diagnosed? Maybe. Our brains evolved to hunt, collect berries, and work collaboratively with our clan. If we struggle do so TPS reports so that shareholders know how their incomprehensible riches are being used, is it fair to call that a mental disorder?
Is paying money to the pharma-man so we can be a better money machine for your bosses shareholders kinda fucked up? Yes.
But will it also help me better support the things I value? My family? My community? My interests? Yes.
I think if you want to know if ADHD is over diagnosed you need a scholarly resource, not an internet forum.
The other thing that makes it tough is that we don't really have a good grasp of what it is. At least, last i checked.
Like, are we just pathologizing people on this or the other side of a fuzzy threshold of executive function? Or is there a population that really is physiologically/genetically different? Either way, is there something wrong with society where people within a previously normal range of executive function are now unable to keep up?
Well its like they said, for 200,000+ years humanity was out foraging berries and hunting gigantic beasts to survive out in the wild and now were expected to sit still and focus while being trapped in a gray cubicle with florescent lighting and a fake plant on a desk doing who knows what boring task 8 hours a day every day 5 days a week 50 weeks a year for 50 years. Out in the wilderness itd be useful to be the one in your tribe that finds new food sources and needs to be physically active and alert often later at night. But in a gray cubicle in some soulless office building? not so much
Oh my gosh, similar to my story and you’re exactly right. Yeah I could totally be happier running around the forest all day but that’s not feasible when I’ve got kids getting off the school bus who need encouragement to do the things and who need to be fed more than the handful of berries that are likely smashed in my pockets because I was more interested in collecting several cool rocks. Now the kids are crying because it’s stone soup again for dinner. It’s just a damn mess.