I always felt different growing up. My brain was always buzzing and I struggled to focus on one thing. As I grew older I was brushed off as ditzy, my tendency to always be late and jump from one thing to the next was playfully made fun of by loved ones.
In the last few months, there has been a dangerous trend in the media of attacking ADHD and the supposed “over-diagnosis” in adults.
Every few weeks a news article will appear online baffled at how everyone suddenly has ADHD nowadays so they’re all faking it. These are usually from middle-aged male columnists who have never had to struggle to be believed about anything in their lives really based purely on their social standing and privilege. They usually spout the same nonsense about how social media is to blame for all this and that Tiktok is making it trendy.
However, if it wasn’t for TikTok I probably wouldn’t have connected the dots on my own condition.
“It's like having a superpower”
I’ve been disabled all my life and I was diagnosed with dyspraxia, another neurodivergent condition, when I was eight. However, there’s so little known and spoken about ADHD that I never would’ve even considered it had I not stumbled across videos I related to on my FYP.
I saw these amazing funny people talking about their daily experiences of feeling paralysed when they have housework to do, not being able to keep to deadlines or bouncing around from thought to thought when telling a story. The more I watched the more I realised this wasn’t just me being a bad person, I probably had ADHD like them.
Having spent most of my life not being believed by doctors, thanks to being a woman with chronic conditions including Lupus, Endometriosis and anxiety, I was already fearful of gaining a formal diagnosis. Seeing the way the condition is treated in the media has made me even less confident in talking about potentially having ADHD with those close to me.
The latest of these damaging offerings is the BBC Panorama special ADHD. In the episode a male journalist visits three private ADHD clinics and claims they diagnose him with ADHD after rushed assessments, he also heavily relies on the fact that the NHS said he didn’t have ADHD.
It truly speaks to the privilege of male patients that “well the NHS said I don’t have it” is being used as proof the clinics are over-diagnosing. Anyone who’s spent years on waiting lists and passed from doctor to the next can tell you this isn’t the gotcha this man thinks it is.
For instance, it took nine years from my mother first reporting signs I had of Lupus to doctors, for me only to receive a diagnosis after I almost died.
I saw five different specialists, tried four different birth controls, countless scans, more a&e trips than I can remember and a total hysterectomy over 13 years before I was diagnosed with endometriosis - during which time I was continuously told there was no endometriosis by the NHS.
It’s widely known that women are taken less seriously than men when seeking medical care. The gender pain gap means that women who go to emergency rooms in the US wait 16 minutes longer than men to receive medication for abdominal pain – and they are only 7% likely to be offered it in the first place.
This is also the case for women with ADHD, in many cases, it’s missed in childhood because the stereotype of ADHD is naughty boys, while girls learn to mask their traits in order to be viewed as good girls.
The ADHD Foundation estimates girls in the UK are three times less likely than boys to be diagnosed and supported with ADHD and on average are diagnosed 9 years later than boys. The charity also estimates that 50 to 75 per cent of the 1 million UK women with ADHD are undiagnosed. This massively affects women’s education, careers and relationships.
But the app being blamed for the uptick in ADHD diagnoses is not only incorrect, but also hugely reductive.
Even in the documentary itself women with ADHD aren’t believed, the show was prompted by a mother who was concerned that a 21-year-old woman had been diagnosed with what they had perceived as too quickly by a private clinic. This casts doubt on the woman as if she isn’t old enough to take control of her own healthcare.
It’s convenient that the reporter disclosed to the NHS when undergoing the assessment that he was making a BBC documentary, meaning he bypassed the up to five-year waiting list and was given an extensive assessment. This compares to the private assessment where he did what many online have accused of “cosplaying” disability.
I know many women who wouldn’t have their diagnosis if it wasn’t for a private clinic, these are bright incredible women who have been able to reclaim their lives and who they are because of a diagnosis.
However I don’t feel ready to join them yet, and until the stigma and shame is taken away I don’t know if I will.
