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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Threads like this are why I won’t tell people I have ADHD. Congrats on your shaming ignorance. You all suck. [/quote]

You should be mad at the people claiming to have ADHD who don’t. [/quote]

This. Not one person on this thread has claimed ADHD isn't real. The question is why/how people who have a demonstrated history with high achievement that can only be accomplished via sustained executive function are suddenly getting ADHD diagnoses.

And it is sudden. Even 10 years ago, this wasn't a thing. Now I know a dozen people diagnosed with ADHD in their 30s and 40s, all with impressive resumes and graduate level educations. Of course people are going to ask questions about that trend. It doesn't make sense. [/quote]

One issue is how you define “high achievement.” Someone can look like they are high achievers from the outside, but you have no idea what’s really going on.[/quote]

What does that even mean?

If some successfully graduates from high school, college, and law school with good grades, passes the bar, and works successfully as a lawyer for a number of years, they have achieved difficult academic and professional accomplishments that require a fairly high level of executive functioning.

ADHD is a chronic, debilitating disorder that disrupts executive functioning via some combination of the symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. ADHD exists on a spectrum with some people struggling more than others, but in order to qualify as ADHD, these symptoms must combine to actually impact the individuals ability to function normally. While all humans may experience these symptoms in some level and combination at some point in their lives, a person with ADHD has them persistently [I]in a way that inhibits normal academic, professional, and social functioning.[/I]

Thus, if you are able to function not only normally but at a high degree of difficulty in your academic, professional, and social life for decades, you do not have ADHD. You may have other issues. You may be burned out at work, dealing with depression, anxiety or other mental health concerns, having a midlife crisis, or simply in the wrong career or relationships. But unless you have struggled to function at school, work, and socially due to ADHD symptoms for your entire life, you don't have ADHD. [/quote]

It’s about the how, not the what. If you’re smart you can procrastinate and mess up until you are so far behind you panic, and then get a huge adrenaline surge, and with that surge you hyperfocus, and stay up all night, and the night after that…then maybe the night after that you let yourself sleep for 3.5 hours, just so you can begin again in the morning

And while you’re hyperfocusing on THAT thing, you’re of course completely unable to do other things, and so now those things get neglected until they’re urgent, which means when you come out of the first urgent thing (and crash for a day or three, because goddamn you’re so tired and strung out), you have to face the fact that something new is urgent and the cycle begins anew.

Meanwhile people keep saying things like, “just start sooner, just focus, you just have to focus,” and you’re like, “how? How? It only works when it’s do-or-die?” But you can’t even explain yourself. Why CAN’T you just sit down and focus? No matter how many times you try, how many systems you attempt, why do they never work?!

Anyway, you can get through school this way, and graduate school, too. You can write briefs and dissertations and books this way. And if you’re smart enough, the work you do can be really good. You can get a LOT done on adrenaline and all-nighters!

But it’s a hard way to move through the world, and it’s path that’s filled with self-recrimination, and I wouldn’t really recommend this as a way of life if you can avoid it. [/quote]

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