Overdiagnosis is not a problem, but misdiagnosis may be as people are driven into the private sector by long waits, and sadly, missed diagnoses remain common —Tamsin Ford
Experts are warning that far from being over-diagnosed, people with ADHD are waiting too long for assessment, support and treatment.
Why is there never any nuance in these discussions? We can both believe that under-diagnosis occurs, and that over-diagnosis occurs. 20% of all pupils in the UK are now classified as so disabled that they require specialised assistance. “SEND” assistance for this can range from free taxi services to and from school (which recently reached £1.2 billion), to support payments, to special assistants in school. The number of ECHP students (those with the highest needs) increasing by 71%, from 253,679 in 2018 to 434,354 in 2024. SEND spending is out of control.
So what happened, exactly? The average child disability rate in Europe is 4.6%. How did the UK end up with 20%? Did the UK suffer a catastrophic nuclear event? A war? Famine? None of the above. It is clear that categorisation has become EXTREMELY loose over time on average. This does not mean that there are not children who are struggling to get diagnosed with ADHD. However ADHD and autism are a spectrum disorder. It is not binary. The UK has drawn the line far closer to the normal side of the spectrum than any other nation on Earth. If costs continue to rise at this rate, it risks destabilising the entire health system. Public sentiment will shift, and we risk undermining children getting any diagnosis at all.
IMHO, this requires at least two tactics at the same time. 1) Invest sufficiently into diagnosis resources. Stringing parents and children along for years while they wait in the system can make the issue much worse than it needs to be. 2) Draw the diagnostic line closer to where the rest of Europe does it. This will mean far fewer children are diagnosed with disabilities, but those who genuinely have a disability are treated much faster and actually receive the resources they need.
This thread somehow brought out some of the most misinformed, boomer-brain takes imaginable and comes dangerously close to anti-intellectualism. We can all agree that labels can be reductive and unhelpful, but as someone with a neurological disability, seeing people debate whether a disorder that makes it incredibly hard to enjoy my life is even real or not is fucking horrible.
No shit. Think how many prisoners just had untreated ADHD, so many preventably ruined lives!
Why? Because the sadistic fucks realized they could easily get away with it, to feed on a prey that no one would or could defend, because ADHD does not easily show in brain scans.
We need objective tests, and to not do the test should be a crime that the parents should go to jail for!
parents should go to jail for!
To get my son’s ASD and ADHD diagnosed I’ve spent over $5k, tens of hours of calls, interviews, meetings and sessions) just in diagnosis costs (and about $21k in occupational and psychological support) in order to prove the bleeding obvious to the state in order order to have him placed in a support school.
And that’s whilst supporting his daily needs and working full time (and God knows how much OT).
It’s not an easy road. The costs are prohibitive and I live in a country where neither private health nor the “universal” healthcare covers the cost of specialists and treatments.
It’s no surprise it’s underdiagnosed let alone treated.
And that’s whilst dealing with my other kid suicide attempts and my partners chronic health condition (lots of neurological specialists).
It’s a hard road
The moral panic of overdiagnosis comes from conservatism’s obsession with hypernormalcy. Basically unless your really-really failed to be normal, you’re not allowed to stray from it, and even then, it would be good if you were normal, because they like the virtue of normalcy, and also thinking is hard, and also also change is bad.
Yes this explains modern transphobia a lot. Some admitted, that it has to be “all undone”, because people stopped trying to be normal first and foremost. This also partly explains gatekeeping in fandoms.
I’m seeing a lot of people here being supportive of individuals with disabilities and that’s awesome because ability is a temporary condition. We come into this world disabled and most of us leave it disabled. That being said, when you look at the number of Ivy League students in America who have these disabilities, it is very, very questionable for to say it is not being over diagnosed. Overall they’re probably trying to do a good thing, but there is a huge amount of abuse in this system and that actually leads to disabled people being overlooked and instead pharma companies just pursue a profit. Over diagnosis leads to under diagnosis as unintuitive as that sounds.
All ADHD means is that someone doesnt fit into the corporate america greed driven lifestyle. In my opinion, its not natural to live like that anyways, so I dont know that ADHD is real in the way we think of it now.
We shouldnt be trying to conform every person into the same tiny box, because we are all different.
I can agree with much of that. I’ve seen people do this whole song and dance with autism, similar to saying people don’t have ADHD because they’re not annoying enough. Then they find out that autism is likely part of a cluster of mutations that always occur with certain deeply-disabiling genetic disorders, but can also stand alone. Self-diagnosis by people left out in the cold should not be necessary. A good treatment system needs to evolve to fit patients’ needs not the inverse lol
i don’t what’s sadder - missed diagnosis or the this thread.
If ADHD is common enough to be prelevant in 5% of population… Then to me it seems like its not something we should be drugging people for, but instead adjust the lives to it?
I mean we don’t give “righ-handeness” drugs to left-handed people. We give them left-handed scissors.
No thanks, I’d like to be able to think with a clear head, and do something with my life, not be stuck in one of like 6 suitable work places.
10% of women have endometriosis. Would you take away their pain meds? You can make their work life easier (more sick leave) but then it still affects their personal life.
ADHD is so much more than “can’t pay attention in class”. It affects your personal life too. Usually that’s a deciding factor for getting meds.
Well, the real problem is living in a capitalist society that expects everyone to be a good little capitalist and work a 9-5.
The problem isn’t having adhd, its that society expects me to function in a certain way, and the fact that I don’t makes them want to change how I act.
There are other traits I have from trauma that are considered positive by society, so they don’t give a shit, and in fact encourage those behaviors.
My problem isn’t my job, I am completely fine with that, it’s the way I barely function in my personal life, and a lot of that isn’t related to the structure of our society at all. There could be less friction in a few places yes but that wouldn’t completely fix my issues either.
Sorry but no. 9-5 is hell, but even without that life isn’t pretty. A huge one is rejection sensitivity, that pretty much only affects personal life. Can’t really ask people to accommodate for that.
Thank you for explaining adhd to me. I just wasn’t getting the disorder I have until you came along.
I kinda didn’t? I just don’t buy the “capitalist society is built for neurotypical people”. It’s built by psychopaths and most working class people survive in it, not many are thriving. We’ve got a harder time in it but ADHD would still suck in a healthier society.
Endometriosis is not something that shares symptoms which can be caused by kids being chronically under slept AFAIK. U.S. psychiatrists and therapists are completely incompetent and will not check for basic sleep issues and instead just drug kids. I’m all for finding comprehensive treatment for executive dysfunction of all kinds, but I just don’t think methylphenidate and amphetamines etcetera are suitable for as many situations as believed.
Yes, that’s exactly what the article is about.
Overdiagnosis is not a problem, but misdiagnosis may be as people are driven into the private sector by long waits
My friends and partner are super understanding about my ADHD, I’m unmedicated and there is really no big issue. If you have a culture of understanding and tolerance, it doesn’t feel like a disability. I wish for you to experience that one day, it really is quite amazing.
Left-handed scissors is the perfect analogy. But drugs can be left-handed scissors.
It’s really not.
Not every adhd is equally severe nor do they all affect the same parts of people’s lives. I’m happy this works for you but it does not mean it works for everyone.
I have not said that there is only one possibility. Obviously the tools given need to be adjusted to the individual. But the same way I am not allowed to make general statements and dismiss yours, you are not allowed to dismiss mine. If you treat ADHD less like a disease or something bad, I’m sure it will generally improve outcomes, even if the actual severity is different across people.
Yes. Let’s take your personal anecdote and make it policy. People can just fix the environment to be accepted, change the world for the better and stuff like that.
Your ADHD is not the same as another persons.
“Understanding and tolerance” is an individualized “solution” for decaying welfare states that have lost sight of any political solution other than begging their masters for treats that have been in decline since the end of the Cold War.
It’s just speed, just stimulants. Caffeine is an example of legal self-titration. When done properly, the doses are not high and it can really help. IMO meth-heads are a symptom of disproportionate availability of the real thing (only sometimes coca-cola).
Having said that, I am not on board with widespread use in developing brains, much as with caffeine
It’s the left-handedness chart all over again.
I spent most of my life undiagnosed, because it used to be believed that only boys could have ADHD. But I knew, and was formally diagnosed as an adult only at the insistence of my partner.
Like many adults I just got recently diagnosed in my mid 30s.
For me it was that I can’t have adhd because I was good at school and uni. Then I completely fell apart when I entered work.
I had to go through depression and burn out and bore out and more. Eventually someone said I could have adhd and just been able to deal due to high IQ.
Turns out that’s what it was. I’m really good at learning new stuff. So school and uni. I really suck at repeating the same shit all day. So work. Welp. Helps to know.
Wow, this could have been written by me. I got diagnosed last year in my early 50s after my 4th burnout. I’m currently assessing career options and try to work out what to do next. Unfortunately one has to make money to survive, I’m just trying to find something that won’t break me again. Bonus points if it’s interesting too.
This is where I am too, in my late 30s. Had a really bad year last year reaching burn out and ending up with panic disorder 😵 I wonder if changing to a job that’s more systematic would help, but also the boredom kills me and I need money. I hope you figure it out!
To my understanding it shows up differently in women. What were your symptoms? Also some women get diagnosed with it during perimenopause.
Perimenipause is an absolute nightmare. It makes ADHD much much worse.
Why do we need to have a study on this when we can just listen to grandpa’s opinion, planted in his mind by Fox News?
All of this applies to Autism, as well.
Indeed and I still don’t get my diagnosis because I can loom people in the eyes and am friendly.
(yes, some ‘expert’ actually said that as a paid diagnosis. This is supposed to be first world but hey… Nobody gives a fuck)
My cousin was diagnosed by a brain scan. She signed up to be part of a clinical trial for something else, got kicked out of the trial because her fMRI showed she had ADHD.
So if we can literally scan someone’s brain and diagnose them from a picture instead of all these vague “describe your symptom” guessing… why don’t we?
You can’t get diagnosed with an fmri alone. It’s just one sign, a weak one, so you’d need the professional doing questionnaires anyways. They are way cheaper and faster (in terms of waiting times) than fmris too. Might as well skip it.
An mri would kill me because my diet includes a tablespoon of 2mm iron pellets daily.
Is this for your shotgun arm
Money
It’s also worth noting that ADHD, as a condition, is mostly a Gordian knot of maladaptations. Built up over childhood (and beyond). While there are a lot of commonalities, you need to do a detailed investigation to pick out what bits are a problem to the individual.
If you’re going to go through that process, then you might as well not tie up an MRI machine for no reason.
Drugs can treat the base problem, but don’t work well without the follow-up care to repair the behavioural damage.
It’s quite costly to run an fMRI. Not needed if you can get the same results more or less from a questionnaire.
I prefer objective, unqestionable evidence, since I tend to self-sabotage I guess.
In my professional experience, it can be hard to tell between ADHD symptoms and CPTSD symptoms. The checklist is not a great way to diagnose people. We usually do a lot more assessments, I also use a computerized test to measure reaction time and error commission.
I wish we (therapists) at least had the option to order an MRI or recommend a doctor orders one in difficult cases (I can do the latter but they will just laugh at me).
I wish we (therapists) at least had the option to order an MRI or recommend a doctor orders one in difficult cases (I can do the latter but they will just laugh at me).
God, that’s awful. The most common sense thing to do there is is to use what’s availiable (fMRI) when it is, and if availability is the problem, fill the gaps with questionnaires - those who you’re sure about might not need an fMRI, but others might. Which you, as a person who’s supposed to sign off on the diagnosis, should be able to order.
Aren’t a lot of ADHD (and autism) symptoms trauma responses because of being different , especially the social stuff?
Wait, is there an actual chance to “see” ADHD in an MRI image? I was under the impression that we can’t do that (yet) and the only way to diagnose was through questionnaires, attention testing and such. That’s what I was told by the doctor who ultimately diagnosed me two years ago
Like @[email protected] said, it would need to be an fMRI, which is primarily used in research as far as I know. And while it alone could not tell you definitively “this person has ADHD,” it could help rule out other conditions (like TBI, which can also present similar to ADHD). Ultimately, your doctor is right that a standard MRI cannot diagnose it.
I like to combine the checklist with interviews (like DIVA, Diagnostic Interview for ADHD in Adults) and computerized continuous performance tests, like QBTest. Of course, there is also a lot of observation and sometimes even asking humorous questions, like “Do you have The ChairTM at home?”
The ChairTM
Yes except the chair is the floor 😭
Wait, is there an actual chance to “see” ADHD in an MRI image?
Only fMRI, which is different, and even more expensive. It’s basically the same as asking you a bunch of questions but then seeing which parts light up. Brain can’t lie.
Do you know if there any studies on whether the effects of the medicine used for ADHD could have similar positive effects on people with CPTSD?
Great question! To my knowledge, they are just starting to look into it, but with PTSD specifically, not CPTSD. There is this case study (n=1) and this pilot study (n=32) that show promise. They are recruiting people for more testing.
Preliminary evidence shows that it does help - and it makes sense. If cognitive deficits from PTSD are a result of an impaired executive function, then stimulants would help with those particular symptoms, much like in ADHD.
Here’s the thing though - the US healthcare system still doesn’t even have CPTSD as a diagnosis, so there is not too much research happening on the topic here. Considering how ADHD (especially in women) is also very understudied, there are so many variables we just don’t know or understand.
If you are interested in novel treatments of PTSD, I also recommend looking into blue light therapy. There is some promising results showing a reduction in symptom severity within 6 weeks of daily 30-min blue light exposure in the morning. Here is a systematic review that looks at 4 studies.
Ya, it could be better. Maybe a compromise would be to go with EEG machines which are less costly and can probably still differentiate fairly well (maybe).
I would be down with that as long as it’s a viable way to diagnose (I don’t know enough off the top of my head about it).
Basically anything other than self-report and the clinician’s opinion would be nice.
Isn’t it strange how we discovered a lot more stars after inventing telescopes?
Obviously there was an unrelated increase in stars born at that exact time.
I have an ADHD diagnosis, and I do think this is 60% just being better at diagnosing it, but I do also believe ADHD is sort of on the rise.
There is an incredible book called Scattered Minds by Gabor Maté, which is the significant book on ADHD in the same way that The Body Keeps the Score is for trauma, which delves into the potential ADHD causes beyond it being hereditary.
Of course modern dopamine-consumerist culture is part of the problem, but it largely makes ADHD symptoms obvious, and various unmet attention needs in early childhood are significantly more linked to developing ADHD, not to fault the parent or other caregiver who may not have the availability or ability to provide that attention due to modern societal demands. It’s been some years since I read it but I really remember one part clearly; it’s basically impossible to test nature Vs nurture in separated-at-birth twins because the act of separating twins at birth spikes the likelihood of having ADHD so much.
But honestly I think the largest contributor to increased ADHD cases is not that we’re better at diagnosing it, it’s that modern society increasingly warrants its diagnoses. 12000 years ago ADHD traits weren’t a disorder, as much as having different physical strength or height to your peers isn’t. Modern capitalist society demands an efficiency of its workforce and ADHD is an inherently inefficient trait, and therefore suddenly warrants treatment.
Don’t get me wrong, medication is incredible, and has turned days I’ve barely been able to get out of bed into productive days, but that’s still valuing being productive.
I’ve always liked the left-handedness analogy, but I am definitely stealing the stars one as well. It’s very pithy.
This is actually the most apt analogy for the whole “sudden increase in diagnosis” bullshit line that anti-vaxxers and anti-science people continually vomit out.
A culture where people believe ignoring your mental health issues makes you more strong, more independent, more of a role model… They think people have been fine for generations, and all of a sudden “fine” people are now being diagnosed with all kinds of problems.
I can understand their logic when I first understand their mistakes.
I’m in no way an anti-vaxxer or anti-science (I’m a researcher myself). I still think it can be justified to look closely at the large increase in, and volume of, various mental disorders. First of all: There’s no doubt that a lot more people are being diagnosed due to better diagnosis tools.
However, a major difference between psychological and somatic illness is that the divide between sick and healthy is (typically) a lot sharper in the latter case. Either you have an injury or infection, or you don’t, and we can measure that. In the case of e.g. depression or ADHD, there’s a much wider gray zone from e.g. “healthy person having a bad day” to “clinically depressed”.
The point I’m getting at is this: When a certain percentage of the population is diagnosed with a disorder, you have to ask whether we’ve started diagnosing ordinary human existence as a disease. Alternatively, you have to start looking at a systematic level for why an enormous portion of the population has a certain disorder. Where that limit should be is an open question, but I would argue that when something like 10-20 % of the population has a specific disorder, we’re no longer just looking at individual cases of disease but rather at (a) the possibility that the criteria for diagnosis are two wide, so we’re catching “healthy” people with it, or (b) we have a society-level problem (e.g. an epidemic).
I know of areas with ADHD-rates around 20 %. For a somatic illness, we would never let that kind of infection rate pass without taking a closer look at what’s going on at the societal level.
The point I’m getting at is this: When a certain percentage of the population is diagnosed with a disorder, you have to ask whether we’ve started diagnosing ordinary human existence as a disease.
Its pretty mich a known fact that autism and ADHD were a somewhat beneficial trait in our hunting and gathering era. Hypervigilance makes you really good at spotting prey or predators and unsatisfied curiosity pretty mich forces innovation over a long enough time. The side effects that make life aliving hell in modern society weren’t nearly as detrimental back then. People lived in more communal small tribes and being a bit weird didn’t mean you get cast out and left to die alone.
Over time it became less and less useful. When the industrial revolution came along and everyone was supposed to let go of their individuality to instead work 12+ hour shifts pretty much only the negatives prevailed.
So yes, we are diagnosing a normal part of human existence as a disorder because in today’s society it is one. Mind you, its not diagnosed as an illness, something with a cause and potentially a treatment, its specifically diagnosed as a disorder, something that disrupts normal physical or mental function. It doesn’t really matter which genetic marker is the reason for your specific case of serotonin deficite that leads to the inability to concentrate and keeps your brain on 120% to compensate. The symptoms and their treatment are the same either way.
I mean, wouldn’t something like tuberculosis have an infection (not necessarily symptomatic) rate of 20% globally?
You cannot equate ADHD and spectrum mental conditions with disease. For one they are not a disease, you cannot catch them and you cannot give them to other people. They are the way people’s brains work. People are just born that way, same way people are born gay or trans, smart or dumb, handsome or ugly. You can’t have an outbreak of ADHD or autism the same way you have an outbreak of the flu or covid.
People have been searching for environmental factors for autism, ADHD, depression, and all kinds of mental conditions for years. Other than crackpot anti-vaxxers and people like RFK Jr who try to throw life saving vaccines and common medications like Tylenol under the bus with literally no literature whatsoever to back it up, there has been no links discovered. Genetics and fetal gestation is weird and people just get born different sometimes. We as a society need to accept that and stop thinking these are diseases that need to be “fixed”.
You cannot equate ADHD and spectrum mental conditions with disease.
I agree, the only way I meant to compare them is that we diagnose and treat both with medication.
We as a society need to accept that and stop thinking these are diseases that need to be “fixed”.
I also agree 100 % with this, and it’s part of what I’m trying to get at with my “option a”. As of today, there are regions where over 20 % of the population are diagnosed with, and treated for, ADHD. At that point, I’m asking the question if we’re creating a problem by treating something that appears to be within the spectrum of how “normal people just are” as a problem that needs to be fixed. My point is exactly what you’re saying here: If a large fraction of the population has this “problem” that needs to be “fixed”, haven’t we just gotten to a point where we have a too narrow definition of what is “normal” and “healthy” human behaviour? Shouldn’t we in that case rather be looking at how we can structure our society in such a way that a larger span of the population is capable of functioning in it without medication, rather that trying to force everyone to conform to the same, ever narrowing, mould?
The minority will never be adequately provisioned for without access to intervention. In theory, that can instead be legal or political. Many schools or workplaces put in provisions for ADHD, mostly because of laws. Society does have a “problem” that needs to be “fixed”. The “mould” problem is a deliberate authoritarian tool, beyond the scope of this discussion.
But you need to understand that this is access to medication, nobody is forcing this down our throats. If people want it, it exists, and it helps reduce scary mental health (we’re talking suicide), ableist restriction of access to interventions is super dangerous.
I honestly have the impression that we agree on pretty much all points here but that we’re talking past each other. I agree to pretty much everything you’re saying, and I’m all for helping as many people as possible live as good lives as possible.
What I’m trying to say is basically that problematising the large volume of (and increase in) psychological diagnoses can be valid, and doesn’t have to be founded in trying to downplay those diagnoses. To take a very concrete example: Kids that are disposed to growing very short or tall can be offered growth (blocking) hormones, such that they grow to a “more normal” height. Today, very few kids are offered, or take, these hormones. Now, let’s say some area suddenly saw a rapid increase where 20 % of kids needed growth hormones to grow to “ordinary” height. I would say that we need to figure out what has happened: Is there something about the environment that has caused stunted growth to become ver common? Has the window for what is “normal” gotten narrower?
Of course, in this example, it’s very was to compare to historical records of human height. The same isn’t true for mental disorders. That doesn’t mean the same discussion isn’t worth having- at its core, this is a discussion about how we can make society as good as possible for as many as possible. That also involves discussing what should be treated as a disorder that disproportionately makes people’s life objectively worse, and what is within the “normal” range that we should rather build society around accepting.
To try to explain the increase of stars in the universe without it’s correlation with vaccine rates is just disingenuous. \s
Everyone knows that if the nebula takes paracetamol during pregnancy it increases the chance of K-type star creation.
The nebula: “Cut me sing some slack, i had an astronomical headache”
I will just add one thing perhaps in contrast to this. But inasmuch as I’m offering an analysis of how people think about this, please don’t infer that I agree with them
With some things, ADHD being one, I think the grumbling we hear is not really that there can’t be all these new cases suddenly. It’s that we’re pathologizing something that’s a normal part of being a kid.
Again, I’m not saying ADHD is like that, just that “no one had this when I was a kid” isn’t the most on-point way to characterize people’s incredulity about ADHD. They think we’re over diagnosing it because we want to turn something into a problem, and turn boys into girls, and yadda yadda.
It’s a bit of that too. And also “our attention spans have been stolen”. It’s a mixed aetiology.
According to the administration at a school I’m familiar with, at least 50% of the 5th grade class has ADHD.
So, not having ADHD is the disorder.
Their source is they made it up. Getting diagnosed is a pain and there is no way 50% of any sizable population has gone through that process, let alone received a diagnosis.
I wish this was made up. It is not.
Of children ages 12-17,
- 14.3% have been diagnosed with ADHD.
- Including 17.9% of all boys. (Source)
This data is national, but as you can imagine, there are some schools with fewer diagnoses, and some like the one I mentioned where it’s the norm.
Is it a wealthy area? That often skews things…
50%?
The national stats are ~1:10 people have it. 50% is a huge anomaly. Something isn’t right.
Yes, what isn’t right is that it’s an upper class private middle school full of wealthy parents with access to psychiatrists who are financially motivated to provide a fashionable diagnosis.
It’s also a way to get extra time (accommodations) on standardized tests (time and a half or even double time) which further widens the success gap between rich and poor students.
It’s also a way to get extra time (accommodations) on standardized tests (time and a half or even double time) which further widens the success gap between rich and poor students.
A prescription for Ritalin /Adderall would probably help too
I know a 5 year old that the teachers at her private school complained that they were spending to much time talking to other children instead of doing school work so the teachers recommended that she be put on medication.
Now apparently she just has horrible night terrors that has her rip at her skin each night but she’s much more calm now… Anyways the teacher ended up hitting her and the 5 year old got expelled for being a nuisance anyways.
This…doesn’t make much sense. Teacher struck the child and the child got expelled? Where do the night terrors come in? This sounds very little like ADHD.
The night terrors came after starting the medication.
But also yeah, some real bullshit with the school and the teacher. The only thing on record was that she was obstinent and difficult to deal with. Due to multiple issues with apparently that she was expelled. But afterwards her friends came forward to ask if it was about her being hit that she wasnt in class anymore.
Its honestly bad all around.
ADHD meds absolutely can cause bad dreams in kids, I don’t know about bad enough to “tear at skin”, that’s outside my knowledge area. We had to get a different script for a family member because of scary dreams and racing heart, difficulty sleeping, even after adjusting dosage. It was doing more harm than good. After the med swap it got way, way better.
Yeah, the parents were warned about the night terrors and supposedly hanging outside the room to be there to cuddle her as soon as she starts screaming is enough to subside them and get her back to bed but jeeze that is a horrible symptom to be ok with or even struggle through. Flailing and scratching, if it leaves marks I would call that instastop bad.
I am on the side of med swap but they supposedly like the results of the medication otherwise which I feel is not worth it.
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Glad to know that because of this one totally believable piece of anecdata, ADHD doesn’t fucking exist.
Because it is not a disorder if our lives were not a prison, but here we are. Even the rejection issues wouldn’t be there if we were not beaten half to death for being a healthy kid told to sit for 8 hours. Maybe the anxiety and depression all come from that.
Go deny science somewhere else
That wasnt stated. You are not responding to me but your own internal issues with other conversations
Vanity diagnosis.
At what point does it just become a personality trait, like introversion vs extroversion?
When it causes active problems with life. It’s also worth noting that it’s a brain chemistry change. Where on the sliding scale you pick is, ultimately, a little arbitrary.
I personally suspect modern life isn’t helping. The pressures on children are quite different now. I suspect many children who wouldn’t develop symptomatic ADHD in earlier years now do.
When it stops having negative outcomes on peoples’ lives.
Do we ever stop and think that the negative consequences are from our newly constructed hyper engagement focused society?
And maybe we are blaming the individuals for failing to live up to an impossible standard of productivity at the behest of our abusers?It’s the other way around. ADHD gives people an evolutionary advantage in crisis situations. Surviving through war, famine, and all the worst situations that humanity has survived through.
ADHD isn’t incompatible with modern life because it got too hard. It’s incompatible with modern life because it got too easy.
Hmm. Yeah, we as a society want people who can at tedium repeat a basic task and then not interact with the world much more than that or what is sold to them.
So I wouldn’t say easy as much as easy as it is very difficult for those with it but simplified. And the toys we have created to play with to distract them/us from how basic our life is are incredibly dangerously good at mimicking progress.
That’s such a pessimistic way of looking at it. All the efforts of humanity up until this point have gone towards sparing us from the horrors of what used to be the human condition. Generations and generations of toil and sacrifice so we could be bored at work instead of dying from the plague.
I struggle with ADHD because I am one of the luckiest human beings born so far.
Meh, just cause someone tried to do something nice for us doesnt mean the outcome actually was. We can keep adjusting and trying find what actually is good for people as a whole instead of free of effort.
I don’t know but I don’t think its bad to have the opinion of the recipient as well, and its not like every day was a horror for them anymore than it is for ours. It ebbs and flows but if we made a wrong turn we can do our part to correct it.
To a horrifying degree, work does define the human experience. Removing it isn’t lucky but a part of who we are being removed and I the name of a nameless idea’s of perfection. And I think its realism not pessimism to recognize that.
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I don’t understand why you are being hostile…
Nowhere did they say that ADHD is a made-up condition. What I got from the comment was that a lot of the difficulties with ADHD are due to societal expectations and norms rather than inherent to ADHD itself. Which I’m not saying I agree with or disagree with (it’s probably a mixture of both).
I get being upset at people denying ADHD, especially if it’s something you suffer from and have had negative experiences in your life, but that’s just not what is happening here. I was recently diagnosed with BPD by my psychiatrist and that is to my understanding one of the more unpleasant things to deal with, but projecting the frustration of dealing with a tough mental health condition outwards is not really healthy.
In my experience the majority of people on Lemmy and specifically this community are pretty understanding and I think deserve the benefit of the doubt.
I didn’t read that comment so uncharitably. I think they’re saying that society is unkind to people with ADHD.
Yeah we don’t exactly have an equal world. Or one that even allows for much deviation without heavy punishment as basically seen by… Well above comment.
Sounds rough. Don’t take it out on me.
Serious question: how would we be able to detect if we’ve over diagnosed a mental disorder such as ADHD? What would evidence for that look like?
From the linked research article:
‘Over-diagnosis’ is observed when the prevalence of diagnoses made in clinical services, referred to as administrative prevalence (based on healthcare databases or insurance claims) exceeds prevalence estimates based on accurate assessments in representative population-based samples. Over-diagnosis may occur when diagnostic criteria are not applied with sufficient rigour, leading to false-positive cases. Over-diagnosis may also happen when people inappropriately self-diagnose. Notably, for individuals with milder or subclinical symptoms, a diagnosis can sometimes do more harm than good, creating stigma or leading to low-benefit treatments with significant side-effects.
So is Admin Prevalence > Prevalence Estimates where the estimates are made based on representative population-based samples?
