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The seemingly poor quality of this "study" aside, the whole "ADHD is ackshually a superpower" movement over the last few years is really frustrating for me, esp

The seemingly poor quality of this "study" aside, the whole "ADHD is ackshually a superpower" movement over the last few years is really frustrating for me, especially hearing it from people who "suffer" from it. There's a broad spectrum of symptoms with varying severities for sure, but for me, I can definitely point to it as the number one thing that has adversely affected the quality and trajectory of my life, and I'd do pretty much anything to be rid of it. It's very hard to explain to people who do not deal with it, even the people that are like "oh actually it makes me super special and productive in X scenario." Cool. Good for you. For many people it's completely debilitating. I'm one of the luckier ones that fell into a career that suits my natural tendencies, and have trained myself to overcome disadvantages, but go visit an ADHD support group sometime online. It's truly heartbreaking to hear the stories.

swozey 3y ago
It's absolutely ridiculous to me how much people coming into hn/reddit and going "wow I read these symptoms, I think I must be adhd!" blew up around 2020. For those of us who have been ADHD our entire lives and have been acutely aware of every single thing that ADHD has affected IN our lives. Like losing relationships, partnerships, making people think we don't care about them, disinterest, spiraling into depression because we can't keep things orderly for more than a week, having to write down literally everything lest we immediately forget the next question we need to ask, getting panic attack level anxiety frustrated when we can't find something we've lost 10000 times like our keys but we KNOW we put in the same exact spot because we trained ourselves to do it, getting put down and told we were incredibly smart but didn't apply in school.. I have never, ever, once since I was probably 7-8 wondered if I did or didn't have ADHD. Nor has anyone in my entire life. And it absolutely obvious to me, as someone who has ADHD, who also has ADHD. It's absolutely a spectrum but we can 100% hear ourselves caged inside of someone elses heads. And now, 2024, with 80% of HN now thinking they need stims because at 42 after having 3 kids running around they find it hard to focus, so now I can't get my prescriptions because they're out of stock and I pretty much can't function on weekends now because I have to limit my intake to save extra pills in case I can't get it next month and I have to get tested more frequently because now it's even FURTHER on everyones radar as a narcotic. And I'm aware that some people just literally have no idea what some mental thing is. I have 40+ yo friends who don't know that some feeling they felt 3 days ago was panic attack level anxiety. Well, it's time to learn about your feelings and how to identify and work with them, big boys! Delay fun https://imgur.com/a/BVQkKOV https://imgur.com/a/BVQkKOV ! Edit: I'm not gatekeeping diagnosis at all, get one if you need one and it helps. I'm just explaining what the situation is like from this perspective. It's incredibly troubling to see an illness you have blow up in popularity because there are so many things that can come with that, like the gov cutting it off for us completely, us running out of medication, etc. Although, this is ADHD. If this was cancer and it started growing exponentially i'm sure they'd do more medication creation and research, instead we're treated like coke addicts. edit2: And I should mention, just because I was dx'd as a kid doesn't mean anything in that huge list at the top was evident to me that it was caused by ADHD and not anything else in my life. It took decades of going through the same cycles and loops and seeing the ways my adhd would cause things to be different from others and cause issues. A lot of people think "Wow if I'd gotten dx'd at 8 instead of 38 my life would be amazing." Unfortunately not. I didn't really figure out the interpersonal relationship issues were hugely ADHD until my 30s. ADHD when I was a kid was a "he's super hyper and can't focus" and was supposed to go aaway by "adulthood." No psychiatrist has ever given me a good understanding of ADHD that took all my own research. Turns out it's a lifelong thing. Psychiatrists in the past were awful.
- JohnMakin 3y ago
  Yea the amount of people jumping on that bandwagon with "self diagnosis" has been a little grating for sure, particularly when there are many, many diagnostic tests that can rule ADHD out with very good certainty. Similar experience for me, particularly the relationships one stings a little bit reading about it. I'm obviously not your doctor but I got off of stims years ago and have found a lot of success with bupropion (wellbutrin). It's not narcotic and has shown success in dealing with ADHD symptoms + depression from ADHD.
  - hirvi74 3y ago
    > there are many, many diagnostic tests that can rule ADHD out with very good certainty What data do you have to support this? Based on some of the research I read coupled with anecdotal experiences I have witnessed in others, ADHD is not that difficult to fake. I do not think a majority of people with ADHD are faking anything either. I just don't think the diagnostic process is as robust as people want to believe. Before anyone gets up in arms, I have ADHD too. However, I imagine these test to be something like a diagnostic test to determine if an animal is a fish or not. Does the creature live in water? Does the creature have fins? Etc.. So, if a creature checks all the boxes, then is it a fish? What if I analyze a dolphin? Dolphins have fins, dolphins live in water, etc.. My point is that we cannot prove one has ADHD beyond a reasonable doubt. No biomarkers, no scans, or anything of the like. Thus, how can we claim the diagnostic tests are accurate when we can't even definitively find what they are supposed to diagnose? It seems to me that science has the "tail," but still can't find the "donkey" to pin it on. Now do understand, I do not doubt that ADHD exists. ADHD has damn near ruined my life. However, I do question the accuracy of our understanding of it. We know stimulants help a select group of people, perhaps somewhat more than others, but even then, our understand of why stimulants are effective are still merely hypothetical. Stimulants are also not effective for everyone with ADHD. I am glad we are willing to help people prior to having all the answers for it's been beneficial to my life. I understand our condition has faced a lot of stigma, and research has tried it's best to combat the stigma and false perceptions, but I feel like the trust in research can sometimes swing too far in the opposite direction. There are plenty of unknowns, and I truly think we have long, long way to go.
aidenn0 3y ago
It's very hard for me to express how much I agree with this comment. I made it to where I am today in spite of my ADHD (and in large part due to an extremely high IQ). There are dozens of things that, had they gone just very slightly differently, I'd be a college dropout, or unemployed, or extremely underemployed. I literally got my first job out of college (several months after graduating) because the interviewer forgot to ask me my GPA!
- vharuck 3y ago
  I keep reminding myself that, despite not being as successful as I had once hoped and been told I could be, I'm doing fine: graduated college (after 8 years), got a desk job, got married, and have a kid. I also like to remind myself that, in the old days, people like me didn't "just deal with it." People like me lived awful lives, often as addicts. Thank goodness I'm only on a drug that lets me maintain a job and relationships. >I literally got my first job out of college (several months after graduating) because the interviewer forgot to ask me my GPA! Lucky! I applied for a government job in a state that used exams. So my crappy GPA could be overlooked by good test-taking skills.
  - aidenn0 3y ago
    > Lucky! I applied for a government job in a state that used exams. So my crappy GPA could be overlooked by good test-taking skills. I had the exact opposite experience; I was told by the test-administrator that such a high test-score combined with such a low GPA was almost certainly going to be seen by his superiors as a sign that I had cheated on the test.
Frummy 3y ago
You don’t see the point of drawing attention to that in ancient natural settings so called disorders were beneficient, and perhaps that improvements can be made to todays unnatural society?
- JohnMakin 3y ago
  This study doesn't demonstrate that. I personally fail to see how someone with a critical lack of executive function can have an easier time surviving in the wild, dangerous, ancient world, compared to now. Or extreme inattentiveness, where not noticing a snake on the ground or a lion in the bushes likely means the end of you. But sure it's an interesting idea to think about.
  - Frummy 3y ago
    It demonstrates perhaps that individual exploration is good for eventual tribes. Finding greener pastures is good, no? It’s not like you’re in it all alone, it’s a community with different strengths that cover for eachother. Different classes for a good RPG team, everyone knows that
  - Jensson 3y ago
    Cats have ADHD, dogs can learn to focus and sit still. Do you think cats would survive better if they were more like dogs? I don't think so, they are good at different things. But human society has had much more use for dogs than cats, people who can focus and follow orders reliably are just much more easy to scale.
  - aidenn0 3y ago
    In the modern setting, people with ADHD are far more likely to have sex with strangers, so perhaps a similar effect contributed to past evolutionary success.
  - Aerroon 3y ago
    I thought inattentiveness in ADHD manifested itself as being easily distracted, therefore not paying attention to the human that they should be listening to (which makes the other human upset). Ie they would perhaps be more likely to notice the snake or lion, because they're paying more attention to the environment.
spelunker 3y ago
I am also fortunate to be in a career where ADHD isn't debilitating (software development), but it was hell to my personal life, and then to my marriage. I'm glad I _finally_ sought out treatment for it. It was also eye-opening to see how "the other side" operates, once on meds. Wow, suddenly I have motivation to actually follow through on things! Not every little thing distracts me now, including when I drive! Anyway, not a superpower - for me in any case.
- jnovek 3y ago
  Software Engineering is a really forgiving field for those of us with ADHD and I feel lucky that it’s my chosen profession but I’m certain that it still has a much higher stress impact for us than it does for our neurotypical colleagues.
  - spelunker 3y ago
    Agreed. I still hit all kinds of issues, and recently struggled to fill a "lead" role on a project because I couldn't keep track of everything. That was part of my motivation to finally do something about it.
  - hirvi74 3y ago
    > Software Engineering is a really forgiving field for those of us with ADHD We have wildly different experiences then. It's almost made me reconsider my life choices. I love programming, but it does not love me apparently. All the meetings, tickets, remember to do this, do that, focus on X and not Y, etc..
    - aidenn0 3y ago
      If I worked in a factory, I would not have reached 40 with all of my limbs, so at least there's that...
      - hirvi74 3y ago
        What point are you trying to convey? You were built for software engineering solely because you can't be maimed by software?
FrustratedMonky 3y ago
"broad spectrum of symptoms with varying severities" Think this is the key. Maybe 'mild' can have some advantages, while 'severe' does not. And also, environment. If you have 'mild'-'middle' symptoms, but also lucked into a school-career like software or something, maybe it seems like 'super power'. But for those people, this is luck that symptoms and environment/situation matched up.
jnovek 3y ago
“For many people it's completely debilitating.” Anecdote: I have ADHD (diagnosed) and I think I can safely say that it is the single highest source of stress in my life. Interest-oriented motivation is incompatible with employers’ needs for predictability. I’ve lost entire workdays because of completely irrelevant side-quests. I find working on a contract basis is much more compatible with my ADHD experience than being a FTE because I can at avoid charging for days when my brain goes completely off the rails. This is with medication and years of psycho and occupational therapy. This is with regular exercise (which definitely helps). I think I am managing the disorder with the best tools I can reasonably get my hands on right now and the best it ever gets for me is controlled chaos. I do love the rush of learning something new that folks with the disorder tend to get but, man, at this point I would happily ditch that occasional good experience in exchange for behaviors that look like a functioning adult in his 40s.
- JohnMakin 3y ago
  > I find working on a contract basis is much more compatible with my ADHD experience than being a FTE because I can at avoid charging for days when my brain goes completely off the rails. True for me as well but hard for most to find a situation (or employer/client) that can be this lenient. For me, I have certain issues that are literally impossible to explain. Why am I a half hour late? Because I had to go back inside the house to grab something different I forgot 4 separate times, and on the third time, I lost the item I went back for originally, and had to spend 15 minutes looking for that. Oh, my car keys ended up in the refrigerator for some reason. Why not? There have been periods where this has been every waking moment of my life if I don't concentrate as hard as I can. "Why don't you just set aside a spot for things." Wow, geez, I never thought of that, thanks. I'm cured.
  - flir 3y ago
    I cultivated a "mad professor" reputation. It's easier to get away with in our industry than most. It was only much later I found out why I was doing that, of course.
- Flott 3y ago
mathgradthrow 3y ago
People have been self diagnosing longer than intersectionalism was a thing, but nowadays the need to find some nonzero oppression coordinate for yourself in order to be allowed to have opinions about society has really accelerated the practice.
squigz 3y ago
The same "it's a superpower!" sentiment is relatively common in the autistic community too and I loathe it...
- wustep 3y ago
  IMO — it generally seems net positive for many folks to have positive sentiment towards a diagnosis and neurological profile they can’t change, especially when it’s such a large part of their internalized identity. There are definitely cons to this, but I think “it’s a superpower, especially when directed correctly, with some downsides and quirks” is probably a better mentality than “it’s a debilitating condition that I can’t do anything about,” which can lead to negative self-fulfilling outcomes. (personally I think something in the middle of my adhd — something like: “this has radically shaped my life in ways both positive and negative, and figuring out how to shape my life around it rather than treat it as a depressing diagnosis seems good for me.”)
Sakos 3y ago
Until it was finally diagnosed in my 30s, my entire life had been a complete disaster. After starting treatment, I was finally able to start a career in programming, something that had been impossible for me despite trying repeatedly in the 15 years prior in any field at all (including programming). ADHD is the worst thing that's ever happened to me.
JohnMakin 3y ago
I would like to add one more comment/clarification to my parent post. The reason “ADHD is a superpower” is very offensive to me is not solely because I find it debilitating, but because it also downplays/minimizes classifications of “disability” in a way I consider very harmful. It’s already been extraordinarily difficult to get doctors or employers to even recognize adhd, let alone that it can be disabling. I don’t find the “it’s a superpower” conversation productive, quite the opposite, and at worst it feels patronizing and narcissistic.

swozey 3y ago

It's absolutely ridiculous to me how much people coming into hn/reddit and going "wow I read these symptoms, I think I must be adhd!" blew up around 2020. For those of us who have been ADHD our entire lives and have been acutely aware of every single thing that ADHD has affected IN our lives. Like losing relationships, partnerships, making people think we don't care about them, disinterest, spiraling into depression because we can't keep things orderly for more than a week, having to write down literally everything lest we immediately forget the next question we need to ask, getting panic attack level anxiety frustrated when we can't find something we've lost 10000 times like our keys but we KNOW we put in the same exact spot because we trained ourselves to do it, getting put down and told we were incredibly smart but didn't apply in school.. I have never, ever, once since I was probably 7-8 wondered if I did or didn't have ADHD. Nor has anyone in my entire life. And it absolutely obvious to me, as someone who has ADHD, who also has ADHD. It's absolutely a spectrum but we can 100% hear ourselves caged inside of someone elses heads. And now, 2024, with 80% of HN now thinking they need stims because at 42 after having 3 kids running around they find it hard to focus, so now I can't get my prescriptions because they're out of stock and I pretty much can't function on weekends now because I have to limit my intake to save extra pills in case I can't get it next month and I have to get tested more frequently because now it's even FURTHER on everyones radar as a narcotic. And I'm aware that some people just literally have no idea what some mental thing is. I have 40+ yo friends who don't know that some feeling they felt 3 days ago was panic attack level anxiety. Well, it's time to learn about your feelings and how to identify and work with them, big boys! Delay fun https://imgur.com/a/BVQkKOV https://imgur.com/a/BVQkKOV ! Edit: I'm not gatekeeping diagnosis at all, get one if you need one and it helps. I'm just explaining what the situation is like from this perspective. It's incredibly troubling to see an illness you have blow up in popularity because there are so many things that can come with that, like the gov cutting it off for us completely, us running out of medication, etc. Although, this is ADHD. If this was cancer and it started growing exponentially i'm sure they'd do more medication creation and research, instead we're treated like coke addicts. edit2: And I should mention, just because I was dx'd as a kid doesn't mean anything in that huge list at the top was evident to me that it was caused by ADHD and not anything else in my life. It took decades of going through the same cycles and loops and seeing the ways my adhd would cause things to be different from others and cause issues. A lot of people think "Wow if I'd gotten dx'd at 8 instead of 38 my life would be amazing." Unfortunately not. I didn't really figure out the interpersonal relationship issues were hugely ADHD until my 30s. ADHD when I was a kid was a "he's super hyper and can't focus" and was supposed to go aaway by "adulthood." No psychiatrist has ever given me a good understanding of ADHD that took all my own research. Turns out it's a lifelong thing. Psychiatrists in the past were awful.

JohnMakin 3y ago
Yea the amount of people jumping on that bandwagon with "self diagnosis" has been a little grating for sure, particularly when there are many, many diagnostic tests that can rule ADHD out with very good certainty. Similar experience for me, particularly the relationships one stings a little bit reading about it. I'm obviously not your doctor but I got off of stims years ago and have found a lot of success with bupropion (wellbutrin). It's not narcotic and has shown success in dealing with ADHD symptoms + depression from ADHD.
- hirvi74 3y ago
  > there are many, many diagnostic tests that can rule ADHD out with very good certainty What data do you have to support this? Based on some of the research I read coupled with anecdotal experiences I have witnessed in others, ADHD is not that difficult to fake. I do not think a majority of people with ADHD are faking anything either. I just don't think the diagnostic process is as robust as people want to believe. Before anyone gets up in arms, I have ADHD too. However, I imagine these test to be something like a diagnostic test to determine if an animal is a fish or not. Does the creature live in water? Does the creature have fins? Etc.. So, if a creature checks all the boxes, then is it a fish? What if I analyze a dolphin? Dolphins have fins, dolphins live in water, etc.. My point is that we cannot prove one has ADHD beyond a reasonable doubt. No biomarkers, no scans, or anything of the like. Thus, how can we claim the diagnostic tests are accurate when we can't even definitively find what they are supposed to diagnose? It seems to me that science has the "tail," but still can't find the "donkey" to pin it on. Now do understand, I do not doubt that ADHD exists. ADHD has damn near ruined my life. However, I do question the accuracy of our understanding of it. We know stimulants help a select group of people, perhaps somewhat more than others, but even then, our understand of why stimulants are effective are still merely hypothetical. Stimulants are also not effective for everyone with ADHD. I am glad we are willing to help people prior to having all the answers for it's been beneficial to my life. I understand our condition has faced a lot of stigma, and research has tried it's best to combat the stigma and false perceptions, but I feel like the trust in research can sometimes swing too far in the opposite direction. There are plenty of unknowns, and I truly think we have long, long way to go.

aidenn0 3y ago

It's very hard for me to express how much I agree with this comment. I made it to where I am today in spite of my ADHD (and in large part due to an extremely high IQ). There are dozens of things that, had they gone just very slightly differently, I'd be a college dropout, or unemployed, or extremely underemployed. I literally got my first job out of college (several months after graduating) because the interviewer forgot to ask me my GPA!

vharuck 3y ago
I keep reminding myself that, despite not being as successful as I had once hoped and been told I could be, I'm doing fine: graduated college (after 8 years), got a desk job, got married, and have a kid. I also like to remind myself that, in the old days, people like me didn't "just deal with it." People like me lived awful lives, often as addicts. Thank goodness I'm only on a drug that lets me maintain a job and relationships. >I literally got my first job out of college (several months after graduating) because the interviewer forgot to ask me my GPA! Lucky! I applied for a government job in a state that used exams. So my crappy GPA could be overlooked by good test-taking skills.
- aidenn0 3y ago
  > Lucky! I applied for a government job in a state that used exams. So my crappy GPA could be overlooked by good test-taking skills. I had the exact opposite experience; I was told by the test-administrator that such a high test-score combined with such a low GPA was almost certainly going to be seen by his superiors as a sign that I had cheated on the test.

Frummy 3y ago

You don’t see the point of drawing attention to that in ancient natural settings so called disorders were beneficient, and perhaps that improvements can be made to todays unnatural society?

JohnMakin 3y ago
This study doesn't demonstrate that. I personally fail to see how someone with a critical lack of executive function can have an easier time surviving in the wild, dangerous, ancient world, compared to now. Or extreme inattentiveness, where not noticing a snake on the ground or a lion in the bushes likely means the end of you. But sure it's an interesting idea to think about.
- Frummy 3y ago
  It demonstrates perhaps that individual exploration is good for eventual tribes. Finding greener pastures is good, no? It’s not like you’re in it all alone, it’s a community with different strengths that cover for eachother. Different classes for a good RPG team, everyone knows that
- Jensson 3y ago
  Cats have ADHD, dogs can learn to focus and sit still. Do you think cats would survive better if they were more like dogs? I don't think so, they are good at different things. But human society has had much more use for dogs than cats, people who can focus and follow orders reliably are just much more easy to scale.
- aidenn0 3y ago
  In the modern setting, people with ADHD are far more likely to have sex with strangers, so perhaps a similar effect contributed to past evolutionary success.
- Aerroon 3y ago
  I thought inattentiveness in ADHD manifested itself as being easily distracted, therefore not paying attention to the human that they should be listening to (which makes the other human upset). Ie they would perhaps be more likely to notice the snake or lion, because they're paying more attention to the environment.

spelunker 3y ago

I am also fortunate to be in a career where ADHD isn't debilitating (software development), but it was hell to my personal life, and then to my marriage. I'm glad I _finally_ sought out treatment for it. It was also eye-opening to see how "the other side" operates, once on meds. Wow, suddenly I have motivation to actually follow through on things! Not every little thing distracts me now, including when I drive! Anyway, not a superpower - for me in any case.

jnovek 3y ago
Software Engineering is a really forgiving field for those of us with ADHD and I feel lucky that it’s my chosen profession but I’m certain that it still has a much higher stress impact for us than it does for our neurotypical colleagues.
- spelunker 3y ago
  Agreed. I still hit all kinds of issues, and recently struggled to fill a "lead" role on a project because I couldn't keep track of everything. That was part of my motivation to finally do something about it.
- hirvi74 3y ago
  > Software Engineering is a really forgiving field for those of us with ADHD We have wildly different experiences then. It's almost made me reconsider my life choices. I love programming, but it does not love me apparently. All the meetings, tickets, remember to do this, do that, focus on X and not Y, etc..
  - aidenn0 3y ago
    If I worked in a factory, I would not have reached 40 with all of my limbs, so at least there's that...
    - hirvi74 3y ago
      What point are you trying to convey? You were built for software engineering solely because you can't be maimed by software?

FrustratedMonky 3y ago

"broad spectrum of symptoms with varying severities" Think this is the key. Maybe 'mild' can have some advantages, while 'severe' does not. And also, environment. If you have 'mild'-'middle' symptoms, but also lucked into a school-career like software or something, maybe it seems like 'super power'. But for those people, this is luck that symptoms and environment/situation matched up.

jnovek 3y ago

“For many people it's completely debilitating.” Anecdote: I have ADHD (diagnosed) and I think I can safely say that it is the single highest source of stress in my life. Interest-oriented motivation is incompatible with employers’ needs for predictability. I’ve lost entire workdays because of completely irrelevant side-quests. I find working on a contract basis is much more compatible with my ADHD experience than being a FTE because I can at avoid charging for days when my brain goes completely off the rails. This is with medication and years of psycho and occupational therapy. This is with regular exercise (which definitely helps). I think I am managing the disorder with the best tools I can reasonably get my hands on right now and the best it ever gets for me is controlled chaos. I do love the rush of learning something new that folks with the disorder tend to get but, man, at this point I would happily ditch that occasional good experience in exchange for behaviors that look like a functioning adult in his 40s.

JohnMakin 3y ago
> I find working on a contract basis is much more compatible with my ADHD experience than being a FTE because I can at avoid charging for days when my brain goes completely off the rails. True for me as well but hard for most to find a situation (or employer/client) that can be this lenient. For me, I have certain issues that are literally impossible to explain. Why am I a half hour late? Because I had to go back inside the house to grab something different I forgot 4 separate times, and on the third time, I lost the item I went back for originally, and had to spend 15 minutes looking for that. Oh, my car keys ended up in the refrigerator for some reason. Why not? There have been periods where this has been every waking moment of my life if I don't concentrate as hard as I can. "Why don't you just set aside a spot for things." Wow, geez, I never thought of that, thanks. I'm cured.
- flir 3y ago
  I cultivated a "mad professor" reputation. It's easier to get away with in our industry than most. It was only much later I found out why I was doing that, of course.
Flott 3y ago

mathgradthrow 3y ago

People have been self diagnosing longer than intersectionalism was a thing, but nowadays the need to find some nonzero oppression coordinate for yourself in order to be allowed to have opinions about society has really accelerated the practice.

squigz 3y ago

The same "it's a superpower!" sentiment is relatively common in the autistic community too and I loathe it...

wustep 3y ago
IMO — it generally seems net positive for many folks to have positive sentiment towards a diagnosis and neurological profile they can’t change, especially when it’s such a large part of their internalized identity. There are definitely cons to this, but I think “it’s a superpower, especially when directed correctly, with some downsides and quirks” is probably a better mentality than “it’s a debilitating condition that I can’t do anything about,” which can lead to negative self-fulfilling outcomes. (personally I think something in the middle of my adhd — something like: “this has radically shaped my life in ways both positive and negative, and figuring out how to shape my life around it rather than treat it as a depressing diagnosis seems good for me.”)

Sakos 3y ago

Until it was finally diagnosed in my 30s, my entire life had been a complete disaster. After starting treatment, I was finally able to start a career in programming, something that had been impossible for me despite trying repeatedly in the 15 years prior in any field at all (including programming). ADHD is the worst thing that's ever happened to me.

JohnMakin 3y ago

I would like to add one more comment/clarification to my parent post. The reason “ADHD is a superpower” is very offensive to me is not solely because I find it debilitating, but because it also downplays/minimizes classifications of “disability” in a way I consider very harmful. It’s already been extraordinarily difficult to get doctors or employers to even recognize adhd, let alone that it can be disabling. I don’t find the “it’s a superpower” conversation productive, quite the opposite, and at worst it feels patronizing and narcissistic.