Comment by kdkdkdkxin
2 years ago
> At least not too long ago when I was young enough to be in that crowd - ADHD was the king of "cool" disorders. Everyone wanted to have ADHD. If you were "normal" - that was "uncool". It was like - what's wrong with you? Why don't you have some debilitating problem like everyone else?
Speaking as someone who definitely, definitely has rather severe hyperactive type ADHD complete with anxiety comorbidity and tactile defensiveness that presents sufficiently severely to look like mild ARFID and was diagnosed over a decade ago in early adulthood:
How, just -how-, could anyone want this disorder? It's miserable, it's embarrassing to constantly blurt things out and to immediately regret it and yet not be able to change the behavior, it fucked up my educational experience (I wasn't diagnosed until AFTER that happened), every day is a struggle with it, and because of the stigma it has, I can't even communicate to people effectively what it means that I have it!
So who cares? I care! It hurts ME when people self diagnose or claim to have my disorder when they don't. It's a struggle every. Single. Day. And thanks to people apparently deciding it's cool to pretend to have, a lot of people don't even believe my disorder exists
Endlessly frustrating.
> How, just -how-, could anyone want this disorder?
Because they don't understand just how debilitating it is and how much trauma it causes a person. It's absolutely shit, especially for those of us who find out later in our lives like both of us apparently. Aside from the normal issues that go with it, now I'm also plagued by the thought of how things could have gone had literally anyone picked up on it when I was a kid.
I don't think it's about being cool, at least not completely, I legitimately think some folks want at least some struggle in their lives. Something to fight against, something to give them...purpose? I'm honestly not sure, but I know if they did have it they'd do everything they could to get rid of it.
Don't look back with regret, frustration and anger. Look back and be proud at what you have achieved undiagnosed and what you could achieve going forwards with a diagnosis.