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>Otherwise, people won’t get the help they need, and dumbasses will continue to revert to their tropes of “laziness”, “lack of willpower”, “bad parenting”, and “just need to put in more effort”.

This hit me pretty hard. This has been me for the past 4 years. Diagnosed in college and convinced myself ADHD wasn't real, or if it was, I didn't have it. I was just inherently lazy and unfocused and needed to just "man up" and figure it out.

Still haven't gone back to attempt to get diagnosed again. I guess I'm a little scared. Even though I've struggled with inattention (not hyperactivity, though) my whole life there's an entire half of my being that is just screaming saying "it's not a real problem, other people have real problems, this is just something you need to get past already."

> I was just inherently lazy and unfocused and needed to just "man up" and figure it out.

> [snip]

> there's an entire half of my being that is just screaming saying "it's not a real problem, other people have real problems, this is just something you need to get past already."

You're gonna laugh if you read one of the early case studies (about someone who thought similarly) in the book "Driven to Distraction" and come to the realization how typical that feeling & response is for people with ADHD (particularly the "Primarily Inattentive" variant). When I read the case study, my thought was: "Dammit, even my (stereotypical) objections suggest it's an accurate diagnosis!".

I'd really recommend the book--it's not perfect but it covers a lot of helpful ground.

My current explanation-by-way-of-analogy:

Having ADHD-PI is like running a marathon while wearing a pantomime horse suit, yes, running a marathon like that is hard for everyone but what you don't realize is that other people aren't running it while also having a broken leg. (And neither you nor they can tell there's a difference between the two of you because of the pantomime suit--hey, I didn't say this was a good analogy. :D )

>But I think 85% of the issue with my ADHD is the social stigma and people who will never understand nor accept it.

You... sound like you participate in a lot of online discussion groups where the general public talks about ADHD.

I don't think this is healthy, for all the reasons you list. I mean, support groups are useful for some people, and you can have online support groups, but just like in person support groups, you need to filter so that the people who just want to insult you are not participating.

I think this is something that needs to be taught in high school; once you are out of high school? you get to pick your peers. If your peers make you feel bad about who you are, pick new peers.

once you are out of high school? you get to pick your peers. If your peers make you feel bad about who you are, pick new peers.

That's nice in theory, but it is a little like telling black people to only befriend nice white people or women to ignore all the sexist pigs. If essentially the entire world is the problem and there is a relatively small number of people that really get your issues (are really on the same page as you), acting like they just need to be choosier about their friends amounts to victim blaming.

>If the essentially entire world is the problem and there is a relatively small number of people that get your issues

In that case, I totally agree that you have a larger problem.

But my experience of adhd is not like that. My experience is that the only context in which other people give me a hard time about this sort of thing is if I talk about it in certain online communities. If you talk with a therapists or psychiatrist or if you read books by people educated in the field, you generally get useful help from a compassionate person. Heck, I've had good experiences talking with my bosses about this sort of thing. Mostly it's just the faceless internet trolls I've experienced espousing the views we are talking about, and I thing it's very easy (and very unhealthy) to get into a situation where it feels like faceless internet trolls represent how most people think.

My point is that talking about this sort of thing online is quite often super counterproductive.

(as to the larger issue... I can see what you mean about victim blaming... but I also point out that you could replace 'avoid' with 'ostracize' in my original post without really changing the denotation of my words, if you wanted more of a 'fight back' connotation.)

I've spent a lot of years blogging about alternative health approaches, women's issues, etc.

I'm sure you mean well and I hope it benefits the person you are addressing. But my experience is that this is not a good way to help someone.

I was sexually abused as a child. That was hard to recover from. Advice like "Just talk to nice men" was not actionable. If all you have known is abuse, you don't know how to identify nice people. You also don't know how to talk to them in a way that helps.

The above person is complaining about their situation and your response most likely makes them feel blamed for the situation and most likely doesn't help them find a path forward. And this is likely partly because of how they framed it and you are responding to how they framed it. Other people will respond that way as well and it usually just compounds the problem.

This second comment by you contains much better information that may be more helpful to them, such as listing the types of persons that you have found helpful to talk to. That still doesn't straight up solve it, but it is much more potentially useful.

I'm not trying to fight with you or whatever. There are ways to make the points you have made that are helpful and supportive. I don't think your first comment is that sort of thing.

Best.

>There are ways to make the points you have made that are helpful and supportive. I don't think your first comment is that sort of thing.

Re-reading my own comments, I think you are right that my comment wasn't helpful.

It probably would be worth the time for me to figure out how to say this in a more constructive way, because I do see a lot of people, especially my more right-leaning friends who feel deep feelings of persecution from, you know, things people have said on the internet, that would never be said in real life anywhere I or they have been or would go.

Internet communication is hard. It lacks voice tone, body language and other things we rely on in person to convey the full intent. The warm words in our head often sound much colder than we intended.

Best.

> But I think 85% of the issue with my ADHD is the social stigma and people who will never understand nor accept it.

I agree but ADHD is one of the better of psychiatric disorders to have regarding both job prospects and IMO social stigma. You can can join the military and operate a lot of jobs with ADHD medication or a past of ADHD. Bipolar/Schizo/Depression have even a bigger social stigma not to mention they are often automatic disqualifiers.