To be diagnosed with a "real" ADHD things like depression, and all the other kinds of disorders need to be excluded. Only when all the avenues have been exhaust

To be diagnosed with a "real" ADHD things like depression, and all the other kinds of disorders need to be excluded. Only when all the avenues have been exhausted, and especially with family history of similar affection, should such diagnosis be made. The research - surprisingly consistent over the last 5 decades - points out that "true" ADHD exists in 5% population. In US the rate of children diagnosis is 15%, so here you might be right. ADHD is not just one thing, but most likely a set of many conditions. There is trauma/underdeveloped prefrontal cortex, there is dopamine deficiency, problems with magnesium processing, and other things too. Essentially, what we call a "true" ADHD is just doctors saying: "We don't know, we can't treat the root cause, it's not psychological, stimulants are the best we can offer at this moment". Finally, two points regarding your arguments: - Just because in your case attention deficit was due to a treatable problem, doesn't mean other people are the same. - There's an unpopular opinion, and an uneducated opinion. I think you might be slightly confused on which is which.