> Really? I don't think ADHD is a thing in Europe;
ADHD is a thing in humans, not countries or cultures.
It’s honestly still very early days in terms of research and understanding, as for the longest time they thought people grew out of it. You don’t grow out of it, you just get taught by society how to hide it—unless you’re lucky enough to put the piece’s together and get diagnosed.
> I know plenty of people (including) myself that would struggle to focus on things their genuinely want to be focusing on.
ADHD isn’t really an issue with focus. We can spend a day wanting to focus on something, but not. And we can spend a day fully focussing on one thing and forgetting to eat. It’s an executive function disorder. Deploying focus is hard. Switching focus is hard.
Everyone struggles with focus from time to time, especially when the world or life gets stressful.
We’re currently in (hopefully) the tail end of a global pandemic, watching what may be later referred to as WWIII, going through the second major economic downturn in as many decades, and watching some western countries’ democracies under threat.
I know there’s always a lot on in the world, but recent times do seem more stressful than the years before. So it’s reasonable for everyone to have issues with focus, and yep I agree with you that’s not reason enough to suspect ADHD.
> Sometimes, though, I won't wash the dishes because I just don't feel like it.
I just want to point out, as someone with ADHD when I don’t wash the dishes it’s almost never because I don’t feel like it.
Rather, I might be doing one task when I notice the dishes need to be done but doing them at that moment would involve an expensive and painful task switch.
Then when I’ve finished the task, I have a good chance of forgetting the dishes, and might only catch them again in the middle of another task.
I always watch something (often a tech talk from a conference on YouTube), because even with meds dishes a woefully under stimulating.
I wanted to add this context because those with ADHD are often blamed as being lazy, but that not the case. It’s more like you and your mate are going for a run, and you’ve got an invisible 100lb rucksack on and you just can’t keep up. Meds is like someone removing most of the weight from that rucksack.