Here’s my take which no one asked for:
Key things beforehand:
- ADHD is both overdiagnosed and undiagnosed
- Underdiagnosis is dogshit, people who need treatment should 100% get it. I hope that those who feel that they have ADHD get a diagnosis and treatment, because we all know the horrible impact of it.
- ADHD medication in theraputic doses can also calm down neurotypical brains. I see a lot of crap online about “if you take ADHD medication and don’t have it, it will make you hyper lol” which is just not true. The effects of ADHD medication do not help with the diagnosis of ADHD. If anything, it will make the person taking the medication **feel **like they are performing better (though studies seem to suggest that this is ultimately because of the increased domamine, and that NT brains actually perform worse).
Unwanted Thoughts: In the effort to break stigma, ADHD has been continuously launched into the spotlight in the past 5 years, namely in social media. The issue is, accuracy over social media is extremely low. For example, in a review of 100 ADHD related TikTok videos, researcher Anthony Yeung found that 52 percent were highly relatable, and misleading. This content has millions and millions of views.
It is not gatekeepy to say that social media is largely misrepresenting ADHD. Myself and the people reading this know the detrimental impact of ADHD on our lives, and so when there’s so much misinformation out there about the condition we struggle daily with, it makes me honestly rage.
5 ways you know you have ADHD
- Picking skin for hours
- You forget your keys every so often
- You like listening to the same song over and over.
- You have issues sleeping at normal times
- You walk past a tree and pick off a leaf
I shit you not, the above is what I gathered from a few videos currently at the top for the tag ADHD. So what we have now is the most watered down impacts of ADHD like picking up a damn leaf being compared to something that has been massively destructive in our lives. Follow the train a little bit further, and you find videos talking through questionnaires like the DIVA along with what they are testing for.
The issue I have is, all of this absolute garbage honestly, in my view, only hurts us. ADHD has become the ultra-relatable, “oh I think I have that” condition which makes opening up about it to people so damn pointless, if not damaging. When I say ADHD to people, the image they have in their head isn’t a DSM-5 definition within the context of having significant impacts in two or more areas of life, but rather a 30 seconds caricature.
I think when people use the phrase gatekeeping, they are missing what is being gatekept. It’s not that the person wants people suffering with ADHD symptoms to not reach out for professional support, or that they feel that they want to put the breaks on people getting diagnosed now that they are in the new shiny exclusive club. I feel like it’s more that they are trying to protect what ADHD actually is, as when there’s images of it being painted online which are vastly different to the experiance that people with ADHD have, it waters down public perspection of the condition and only furthers the sigma attached to the diagnosis.
It’s honestly heartbreakingly embarrasing to look through popular ADHD content online unless from good sources, as I cannot help but think that it’s this content that is shaping the views and perspection of NT people about ADHD.
TL; DR, if I tell someone that I have ADHD, I don’t want them thinking that it means that I can’t walk past a tree without picking off a fucking leaf. It’s embarrasing. Also, I think social media is causing more people to think they have ADHD, which is because of the image of ADHD presented. I think that this image of ADHD that is being presented, which is more fun, quirky and relatable only serves to hurt us.
Super happy you found some value in it <3