Comment by thewebguyd

> Me as well, which is a really "fun" time when my specific blend of neurodivergence also causes me to immediately resent said authority and external structure and view it as removing my agency.

I was never very bad at that, but it can happen in ADHD because you lose interest in everything you're "supposed" to do and get stuck on random other things like commenting here. Especially if the "supposed" tasks are hard or give you anxiety.

So I was quite surprised when going on Intuniv made that basically disappear.

My advice is that there are interventions for things like this, but they're never the obvious ones and you'll be surprised what might work. And it's worth trying meds.

It's a lot harder to change the shape of the hole. But I do agree that there is too much emphasis on the pathology of it. I think therapy needs a major rebranding and it shouldn't be seen as something that we do to "fix" "broken" people.

It should just be about more deeply understanding ourselves as individuals, and understanding the world around us (particularly other people), so that we may navigate it better.

I saw a video of a comedian (a woman) doing crowd work, and kind of playfully bullying someone (a man), asking them about their therapy. I thought it was funny, but a lot of the comments were along the lines of "that's not cool, how dare you."

But that audience member was at a comedy club, where comics do that kind of thing. Going to therapy isn't about collectively making sure the world babysits and coddles everyones needs. It's about giving you the tools to handle what you can't change.

> view it as removing my agency.

I completely understand you. I hate rigid structure, and tend to rebel in subtle (and not so subtle) ways. However, I cannot function without it. It's like electronics relying on electricity. Too little current, things do not work. Too much current, things explode.

> A lot of these "symptoms" are only disorders because we've built such rigid, uncompromising systems for interacting with and participating in society.

Absolutely. What makes things worse that the pathologies are definitionally tautological. You have a disorder because you exhibit certain behaviors. But you behave in such ways because you have a disorder. That logic has never truly been stratifying to me. I also feel like many pathologies are highly contextual.

I honestly believe Dr. Tomas Szasz was right about some things (and wrong about plenty). I do agree with him that clinical psychology/psychiatry often serve as enforcers of social expectations. It's never the systems that are broken, it's always us that are broken.

> Instead, we work really hard to force a square peg into the round hole.

The worst part is no matter how hard the peg is rammed, it never truly fits.