6 ms·

ADHD Didn't Break Me–My Parents Did

160 points by asoli 2y ago

hkpack 2y ago
The person blaming his parents because they tried to do their job of, well, parenting a child with ADHD. I’ve read that psychotherapy is much more difficult when there is no-one to blame. So it might help for him, until he will have his own kids with ADHD and fail in a completely opposite way. I would not recommend anyone to blame parents of neurodivergent kids, as it is a very difficult job to do right.
- redundantly 2y ago
  All three of my kids are neurodivergent. If they have suffered from my parenting, they are more than welcome to blame me. Sure, parenting kids with ADHD or Autism or whatever else is hard, but that doesn't make one a Saint and therefore unassailable. If comeuppance is due, it's due.
  - hkpack 2y ago
    I agree, I mean that it is almost impossible not to fail at from the child’s perspective. I blame the structure of society for this. When kid wants to spend time with animals, friends and just be in nature - we can only offer more classes and screens.
    - deleted 2y ago
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    - floydnoel 2y ago
      there are other options, though. most choose not to take the hard path of choosing them
      - fader 2y ago
        Imagine you're a 10 year old in a typical suburb in the US. There might be a pet dog or cat around if you're lucky, but nothing even at the level of a goat or chicken, let alone something wilder. Your nearest friend is two-three miles away. Not walkable at your age for sure. Maybe bikeable, but your parents watch Fox News and know that sex slavers from the city are on constant patrol for juicy morsels like you, so you stay in the house. (Even if your parents have a basic grasp of statistics, your neighbors don't and will call CPS before you make it a block from your door, if a "block" even existed for you.) Genuinely, what would you do in this situation? This is _normal_ for a depressingly huge number of children in the US. There's school and there's the video games in the basement. Adults can drive. There are no other options for kids.
        floydnoel 2y ago
        what you are saying has nothing to do at all with my comment. the parents have a choice, but they choose not to take it (or pretend not to see it).
- sibeliuss 2y ago
  The point is: there isn't a "right" way. That's exactly what the author is trying to say. By failing to recognize the ways in which they were different, they forced a mode upon them and here we are. A whole medicalized generation addicted to stimulants trying to fit in where in past generations you had artists and rebels and seekers and every other kind of misfit that made life interesting and unique and challenging to the status quo.
  - StefanBatory 2y ago
    I don't think you meant it but I don't like how you phrased it. That in the past if you were to have ADHD, you'd be an artist or a rebel and so on, implying that it is something cool. And that nowadays it's just addiction to stimulants. I know of quite few colleagues and friends with ADHD who need stimulants to get anything done at all, even to get out from their bed. Who were treated unsuccessfully for anxiety, depression, when all their symptoms vanished after getting on meds. ADHD not to everyone is something quirky, to some people it can be utterly debilitating and devastating condition.
    - icnexbe7 2y ago
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    - sibeliuss 2y ago
      [flagged]
  - jader201 2y ago
    > in past generations you had artists and rebels and seekers and every other kind of misfit that made life interesting and unique and challenging to the status quo I get what you’re saying, but parents of ADHD children are looking to help them become adults that can function in society and be independent without the struggles that are often accompanied with ADHD: addiction and self-destructive choices. A lot of the types of people that you mention — rebels, seekers, misfits — I feel are generally less happy individuals, and might chose a different path for themselves if they had the right opportunities and tools. Sure they might make life interesting for others, and maybe “interesting” is a word they might describe for their own life. And what often makes them “interesting”, looking from the outside, is that they are addicted and/or self-destructive. But are they ultimately happy, and is it the life they really wanted for themselves? That’s what parents struggle with. If they know their child will be happy with addiction, self-destruction, and being “interesting”, maybe it would be easier to not worry about or try to help them with their struggles with ADHD. But most parents think their children will want a different life, and so they also want that for them.
- fisherjeff 2y ago
  I would not recommend anyone to massively oversimplify and pass judgement on someone else’s life situation
- fzeroracer 2y ago
  From the article: > Instead, they relied on discipline as the only solution: withholding rights, denying privileges, banning books outside the curriculum because they "caused inattention," cutting off the internet, locking TV channels with passwords, and limiting socialization during study time. I'm perfectly inclined here to agree with the author in blaming the parents for putting the child in a borderline abusive environment because they were unable to look outside their own views for the sake of their child.
  - baq 2y ago
    if the author really has ADHD, he's blind to half (or more) the things the parents did and especially to why they did them. not his choice, that's how ADHD works, doesn't make it any easier for anyone. you'd want to read parents' rebuttal, or at least commentary before judging them based on this post.
  - treis 2y ago
    It really depends on how long study time is. That sounds like proper parenting so long as we're talking like an hour or two.
    - ghssds 2y ago
      Are you sure banning books outside the curriculum is proper parenting because what I'm reading is thought control.
      - TeMPOraL 2y ago
        I bet this wasn't denying access to books outside the curriculum because they're bad influence or something - it was merely about making sure they did also read the books assigned to them by the school. It actually looks like following standard productivity advice - eliminating distraction. The kid could go back to reading whatever after the required job was done.
    - graemep 2y ago
      Limiting socialisation for short time to focus is one thing, but a complete ban on reading outside the curriculum is hugely damaging to a child's education and happiness.
- nijuashi 2y ago
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- bluesounddirect 2y ago
  i would recommend two things for adhd . labels diagnosis lables are waste of time . if you are lucky enough to live somewhere where the schools will provide evidence based help amazing. if not and you have the double dose of adhd and dyslexia, do your own research find other people / families with similar issues . it's amazing to watch two kids with adhd realizing they actually like the other kid and they think like me.
  - lsecondario 2y ago
    > diagnosis [...] are waste of time > schools will provide evidence based help In many places you need the former to get the latter.
- deleted 2y ago
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- tremon 2y ago
  The text doesn't read as if he's blaming his parents for anything. It seems to be a pretty neutral acknowledgement of past harms so he can move past them. Any "blame" you're reading into it is purely coming from your own perspective. He's pretty explicit about that: > Yet I forgave: I have other things to attend to if I truly want to get over what happened. I'd say his recovery/therapy is going pretty well. His perspective on the situation seems healthier than yours.
- julianeon 2y ago
  They f you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had, And add some extra just for you. But they were f'd up in their turn, By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern, And half at one another’s throats. Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself. - Philip Larkin, This Be The Verse
- mnky9800n 2y ago
  Blaming the parents doesn’t matter anyways. The author, and the rest of us, are adults and responsible for ourselves. If those problems we bear are a byproduct of our upbringing we still are the ones responsible for dealing with those problems. Sure it’s unfair but you can complain about it or learn to accept those experiences made you who you are.
- notduncansmith 2y ago
  I didn’t read the author as blaming, and I can relate to what they’re saying. It’s hard to speak about a childhood full of abuses that thought they had your best interests at heart. I was locked in my room for days on end (sometimes back-to-back stints for weeks), deprived of privileges/books/music, berated, demeaned, and ultimately gaslit, throughout my childhood, because my parents didn’t really understand ADHD (or that I had it). It created a pretty big mismatch between expectations and reality. As a kid, I resented them a lot for this. As an adult (and parent), I realize what it must have looked like to them and I can empathize without condoning their behavior. My performance is heavily bimodal: my adult ADHD assessment included scores in the 98th percentile and the 8th depending on the task. I also have an extremely wandering mind. Taken together, it seemed to my parents that I was a brilliant child who simply “refused to work hard”. This was not only toxic for my relationship with them, it poisoned my self-image and ability to relate to others for the first two decades of my life. Any resentment I might have over that is ultimately misplaced. They were loving and caring parents who missed the mark in a way that just so happened to fundamentally shape my childhood experience. ADHD wasn’t even understood the way it is now, so the most I could have hoped for in childhood was a prescription. Instead, I now make a point to be a parent who understands my own ADHD and my kid’s (which thankfully is pretty identical to mine). I help them use alarm clocks and timers like I do. I give them tools to understand and empathize with other people. I don’t treat dragging their feet on a task as disrespect or disinterest. I don’t get hurt when they lash out at me during a hard time. I’m not baffled or disgusted when their words reveal their underdeveloped empathy, and I try to accelerate that development. I just cannot agree more that it’s a difficult job to get right. All kids need structure and discipline, but the types and amounts can vary widely, even for the same kid across their stages of development. I’m so thankful for the research that has been done and resources that have been created since I was young; without that I would have been a lot more like my parents, and my kid would have barely had a chance. I also appreciate OP for sharing their experience with us. It’s not fun to do but it’s necessary for understanding to grow.
- bbwbsb 2y ago
  Making excuses for abuse is just as unhealthy as seeing it everywhere. I have been diagnosed both autistic and adhd and I experienced food insecurity despite living in a house with several balconies and a detached garage bigger than my friends' families' houses because my parents thought I would get over it and start going out to eat with them if they didn't bring me any food. I don't think they intended deliberately to harm me - or realize that me not going out to eat with them didn't mean there was enough food - but their authoritarian way of thinking did the harm nonetheless and it's a completely predictable outcome of such a way of thinking; so it's not "I didn't mean it" so much as "I don't want to think differently because I value my attachment to this mode of thinking more than the wellbeing of others; and when I harm them I'll say 'nothing could be done' because changing how I approach the problem isn't on the table". The healthiest thing most autistic/adhd people ever do is moving from 'I am sick' to 'the society I inhabit has an autoimmune disorder'.
- pdpi 2y ago
  It's a very difficult job to do right, but some of the ways you can get it wrong are pretty damn easy to avoid. Like, it should be obvious that you don't double down on strategies that produce no results other than distressing your kid.
- al_borland 2y ago
  I tried therapy for a couple years and it seemed like any time I brought up anything, I was being pushed to blame my dad. I felt like it was going to drive a wedge between us and my opinion of who he is today would be colored by who he was 30-40 years ago due to all this blame. He has changed a lot in those decades and I think his heart is in the right place, even if his actions sometimes call that into question. Keyed off by a YouTube video, I thought there is a good chance I have autism and ADHD. I brought this up to the therapist and it was mostly dismissed, while my dad shouldered the blame. I went and got tested anyway, and it turns out I was right, and stopped seeing the therapist. When I told my dad about my diagnosis he almost instantly started to question if he has the same things, and started opening up about how he feels, that he works hard to hide/mask. The more he’s looked into it, the more he believes this to be true. Looking back at where we had friction when I was a kid, they can pretty much all be explained by his own neurodivergence. Even issues today make significantly more sense. While it is easy to say the parents should have done this or that and we need to have empathy for these kids with “bad” parents. I think we also need to have empathy for these undiagnosed parents who were doing the best they could without any tools, support, or even knowledge of what was going on… as the diagnosis criteria was either non-existent or only recognized extreme cases.
- PotatoPrime 2y ago
  I think it's pretty common to blame your parents for something or other, no matter how you end up no? Of course there will be gaps where they failed you, they're human, expecting YOUR parents to be perfect is just unrealistic expectations. Seeing that failure as something more than just a part of life though is unrealistic. Yes, your parents failed you, in many ways, because they're human, and it would be impossible to not screw something up unless they're omniscient.
avereveard 2y ago
As a neuroatypical I feel this. But also society has to happen, even if I am at the outskirts of it. As a neuroatypical parent of a neuroatypical children, I still have to guide them understanding the structures and expectations of society, and I see often time that she resents me for it, as the autor resent their upbringing. Society just don't care, and blaming parent for trying to impart that lesson is harsh, and while I don't know and I cannot judge author own experiences, I can see the one sidedness narrative that's at play, and wonder how much of this is the narrator own issues in processing a faceted issue, writing for himself a easy way out, and I wonder what parents would write about their experiences. Overall the post address nothing about the thing that still needs to happen to function in the society, only a long unjustified self pity trip where each paragraph ends with an "I was right all along" that doesn't actually feel like it due the onesidedness of the narrative.
- kerkeslager 2y ago
  > As a neuroatypical parent of a neuroatypical children, I still have to guide them understanding the structures and expectations of society, and I see often time that she resents me for it, as the autor resent their upbringing. I think where a lot of parents go wrong is representing things as "because I said so" when in fact, there is a very good reason for what the parent is doing and explaining that reason to the child would both reduce resentment and be more valuable than the discipline being given. And the corollary to that is, if you can't explain to your child why you're doing something they don't like, maybe what you're doing isn't actually good parenting. "Society expects this, society is probably wrong and it isn't fair, but it's not within our immediate capability to change it so we have to find ways to function around society's expectations at the current time" is a hugely valuable lesson to teach kids. Without this explanation, your kid just has to come up with their own explanation for why you're doing what you're doing, and a lot of the time they're just going to conclude that you're wrong or you're just being mean, which unfortunately is sometimes true with some parents (I'm not saying it's true of you). And sometimes, with the explanation, you're still going to be wrong, and you may never figure that out what you did wrong. But at least if you've explained why you did what you did, your child understands that so when they begin the process of realizing their parents aren't perfect they have some reason to empathize for the mistakes you made.
compacct27 2y ago
Biggest fear as a new parent is basically this. What if my ideals estrange my kid? They’re not bad ideals, but the kid might just not be wired for them. Working hard, doing good for others, building skills, all of that. I wonder what this guy’s parents were seeing, what they were going through. From what I’ve seen from parents going through it, it can be really super challenging to handle a hyperactive child while still being, you know, an imperfect person yourself
- kstrauser 2y ago
  The biggest win we had as parents, I think, is always explaining why we had each rule and expectation. We’re not doing this because we don’t want you to have fun. We’re doing this for these specific reasons that benefit you. Now that are kids are older and out of the house, they voluntarily follow pretty close to our teachings, largely because they saw friends do the opposite and experience the bad consequences we foretold. “Huh, Dad was right: staying up too late and sleeping through a work alarm really does make bosses cranky.” They’ve each thanked us for taking the time to teach why things are important instead of just laying down inscrutable laws. I know I hated that as a kid.
kmfrk 2y ago
The "Double Empathy Problem" is a great way to conceptualize this, both to educate neurotypical people, but also to get over shame associated with neurodiversity. It's usually brought up in relation to people on the spectrum: This theory proposes that many of the difficulties autistic individuals face when socializing with non-autistic individuals are due, in part, to a lack of mutual understanding between the two groups, meaning that most autistic people struggle to understand and empathize with non-autistic people, whereas most non-autistic people also struggle to understand and empathize with autistic people. This lack of mutual understanding may stem from bidirectional differences in dispositions (e.g., communication style, social-cognitive characteristics), and experiences between autistic and non- autistic individuals, as opposed to always being an inherent deficit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_empathy_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_empathy_problem https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/professional-practice/double-empathy https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/professional-p...
knodi 2y ago
Parenting is hard, right or wrong are always in far future’s hindsight. I felt the need to blame my dad, until I had my own kids.
- lacedeconstruct 2y ago
  I felt the need to blame my parents, until my life got better and I realized whatever they did had no impact once I decided to take full responsibility
  - tac19 2y ago
    That is a really unsupportable conclusion. As an extreme example just to make the point undeniable, your parents could have poisoned you, ending your life. Or they could have maimed you and left you unable to walk, or to see. And those are just gross examples. Parents have a huge impact in an unknowable number of ways. Yours did on you, too.
- kerkeslager 2y ago
  > Parenting is hard, right or wrong are always in far future’s hindsight. The idea that we can't possibly know what good parenting is until some time in the future, is an absurd abdication of your responsibility as a parent. Parenting is hard and nobody expects you to do it perfectly, but that doesn't mean you get to throw up your hands and pretend like good parenting can't be done. > I felt the need to blame my dad, until I had my own kids. It sounds like your shift in thought process had more to do with a shift in what thoughts made you feel good about yourself, rather than what thoughts are actually true.
baq 2y ago
> what if this wasn't an issue of attention, but one of incompatibility? it's both, but the incompatibility is worse - if you don't attempt to fit in, the 'normal' (actually, quite literally normal) people, which are the majority (hence why they're 'normal') will make you either conform or suffer. probably both. your parents knew that and that's why they enforced the norms so much. > This was never a matter of insufficiently-firing neurons: your natural patterns of thinking and being were systematically suppressed. it's possible your natural patterns of thinking were causing dangerous, potentially life-threatening, situations for you, your classmates or your family, hence why those around you wanted to suppress them.
- cwillu 2y ago
  That's quite an amazingly fucked up claim to make without evidence beyond (presumably) “okay but actually some special needs kids do dangerous things”.
kinakomochidayo 2y ago
I remember Dr Gabor Mate mentioning how ADHD is from childhood traumas and upbringing and it resonates with me. For me, it was a combination of my parents authoritarian parenting, and authoritarian school/environment, where teachers never checked in with me to see how I was doing. Psychedelics was the only thing that helped me, and I haven’t taken prescribed medications in over 10 years since my powerful experience which physically helped me feel love and safety for the first time; things I never experienced at home. More experiences with Ayahuasca over the past several years have helped me fully process most, if not all the traumas I remember (also helped me remember the ones I forgot!) and I’m now in a much better place mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. As a result, I think its fully possible to be neurodivergent without having disorders
- randysalami 2y ago
  My mother suffers from borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder. My father is textbook narcissistic personality disorder. It’s easy to say my childhood wasn’t easy, but in a strange way. Along the way, I developed BPD symptoms impressed on me by my parents, suffered hospitalization multiple times, and ended up going through DBT. I am 24 now and I lucked out far better than my peers. I have a career in software, a loving partner of 6 years (which I definitely traumatized multiple times), and am even in grad school! For me, the biggest issues I face from a societal perspective are not the BPD symptoms, mostly regressed and which usually make me alluring to people, but the ADHD symptoms I developed along with BPD. I’ve read that these are often comorbid and that tracks with what you are saying because a BPD parent and BPD is trauma. Weed and shrooms also helped me get better. Not with the ADHD which definitely gets much worse on weed, but with the BPD symptoms. It made me slow down and let me get in touch with my empathy long repressed. I believe I was 19 when I first smoked and it’s been a journey but trending upward. Fun BPD story: by the time I was 18, I had over 60 sexual partners. I was a dorky guy who played video games over 8 hours a day every day.
  - Rzor 2y ago
    When did you start to notice things were getting 'better'? Was it sudden (because of those psychoactive perhaps), or did it take a while?
robocat 2y ago
This is blaming the parents for society, and the complaints appears to not be specific to ADHD. Parents do their best within the knowledge they have. Blaming your parents for the outcomes of society is childish. Fortunately the author is maturing out of childhood - and discovering as we all do that they are the only person that has the motivation and ability to find their own solutions to their own problems. Society definitely fucks us up, and most people are trying hard to help improve their little corners, but it's a devil's problem. Education systems do unfortunately feel so retardedly broken from the inside as users.
- WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
  >This is blaming the parents for society Pragmatically speaking: I offer that society isn't going to read the article but some parents will. And parents won't change the direction of society but they can parent differently. That's where I see potential value in the article.
  - nijuashi 2y ago
    Yes, this article has the value of having a child’s perspective in form of an adult prose. It’s difficult to sympathize with him as an adult but gives insight on how some children see their parents during their adolescence.
  - robocat 2y ago
    On rereading, I can't see anything actionable for parents. Article says: The whole experience was abusive. [my parents] relied on discipline as the only solution: withholding rights, denying privileges, banning books outside the curriculum because they "caused inattention," cutting off the internet, locking TV channels with passwords, and limiting socialization during study time. We can wish our parents were appropriately liberal, and personally I am fortunate to have been brought up by permissive but not lax parents. but strict ("authoritarian") parents do not change their habits easily. In my experience parents don't know how to teach independence (the key to adulthood). My smartest friends left home at 15, to avoid their loving but overbearing/overcontrolling parents.
lqet 2y ago
> John Taylor Gatto's Dumbing Us Down perfectly captured this when he noticed that schools, another place where authority figures hang out, ruthlessly disciplined any child who tried to assert individuality. There has been an interesting result recently, which was discussed here [0]. In an online game where participants had to forage for resources, people with attention deficits scored higher, because they preferred exploration to exploitation. I commented back then that ADHD may be understood as introducing chaos into life to avoid being trapped in local optima. Having ADHD is then of course a major disadvantage in environments where there is only one global optimum. Examples include highly regulated and deterministic academic environments (school, undergraduate studies) or corporate environments. But in human history, environments with a single global optimum have been the exception, not the rule. People with ADHD - and their parents and teachers - should therefore embrace their individuality as a kind of reservoir talent in the human gene pool. We need these individuals in the future. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39508573 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39508573
- BowBun 2y ago
  I enjoy this take. As someone who feels like they align with a lot of symptoms associated with ADHD, I thrive in startup environments and would rather be unemployed than work in a corporate environment. That checks out! And there's no harm to it, there are plenty of opportunities for people of all kinds. I think the danger is expecting that any environment fits everyone. We're too many and too diverse for that to be true.
- __rito__ 2y ago
  There are already some research hinting that ADHD in human population helped human civilization progress. [0][1] [0]: https://www.healthline.com/health/adhd/evolution https://www.healthline.com/health/adhd/evolution [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/feb/21/adhd-may-have-been-an-evolutionary-advantage-research-suggests https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/feb/21/adhd-may-hav...
  - swayvil 2y ago
    All the great inventions, great art, great ideas. ADHD. Nobody else has the focus. In ancient times the Raja Yogis (basically wizards) preferred to recruit from those with ADHD. They called them "habitually one-pointed".
helge9210 2y ago
(Disclaimer: not discussing the author here. These are the thoughts based on personal experiences, resurfaced as the result of reading the post) Planning for the past (what if my parents would do things differently?) is a sign of depression (not clinical advice). Blaming the parents is not productive and doesn't lead to solutions to the problems at hand. For me, taking responsibility on deciding what needs to be done, how to get better at doing what needs to be done and how to get better at getting better, shifted the focus significantly.
- kerkeslager 2y ago
  Blaming yourself for things that aren't your fault is also a sign of depression, not productive, and doesn't lead to solutions to the problem at hand. I think we probably agree that blame just isn't the ideal way to approach problems and the end goal would be to not include blame in the thought process at all. But for someone who is blaming themselves for everything, placing blame appropriately can be a step toward rebuilding some self-esteem.
  - baq 2y ago
    don't confuse blaming with introspection. you have to accept you're responsible for yourself to do that properly first, though.
    - kerkeslager 2y ago
      Blame is certainly going to be part of the introspective process if you've ever experienced any trauma caused by anyone else.
itronitron 2y ago
The author focuses on their experience as a teen with ADHD, but having been a parent of three teenagers, and having been a teenager myself, I think that the educational system is generally asking something of teenagers that they (the teenagers) can't yet provide. But that is minor compared to how badly some classes are taught. Every time I've helped one of my children with a class in which they were genuinely struggling I realized that the instructor was not capable of teaching the material (usually because they assumed the students already knew what they were talking about).
lsecondario 2y ago
As a parent of kids with ADHD I've come to believe that it is disabling in two ways: an actual deficit in attention that makes it more difficult to complete tasks AND an incompatibility with an inflexible society. I see both of these in my kids' experience at school: The true deficit can be seen in inability to complete schoolwork on time. Sure, homework is artificial, but I have no doubt the same difficulties would apply to - say - planting and harvesting crops on a schedule The societal incompatibility is seen in relatively benign "behavior issues" like difficulty sitting still. The idea that children should sit at attention for hours seems bizarre unless you accept that school is training an obedient factory/cubical workforce.
- notacoward 2y ago
  Came here to say basically the same thing. It is possible both that ADHD itself negatively impacts some people and that other people's (especially parents') reactions to ADHD negatively impact some people. They're not incompatible beliefs at all. Same for autism, and also personality disorders like BPD. Putting all of the blame on either side seems overly simplistic and unhelpful. Identifying which issues stem from which causes seems much more likely to yield solutions (or at least coping mechanisms).
- aorist 2y ago
  > I have no doubt the same difficulties would apply to - say - planting and harvesting crops on a schedule Not necessarily. Before the Industrial Revolution artisans were paid by the piece and peasants harvested between the crop being ripe and it being damaged by the weather. <https://dhayton.haverford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Thompson_1967.pdf https://dhayton.haverford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Tho...> Both of those have immediate rather than delayed (artificial?) consequences, which might have been easier to handle. When factories tried paying peasants by the hour, they would work as much as they felt like (e.g. not showing up at all on "Saint" Monday) until they were taught time-discipline.
deleted 2y ago
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tfigueroa 2y ago
What you have here is essentially a tragedy. I totally sympathize with the author as someone who is (probably) neurodivergent but had accommodating parents. Being given space to better understand myself and my value was integral to my success and in being ok being different. But as a dad to a neurodivergent kid, I impose structure - sometimes to discomfort, never intentionally to pain - because structure is imposed upon us all. I mean, if I could stop time, that would fix most of the issues with my kid’s ADHD. Same if I could make less the impositions of having to do chores, or to eat, sleep, bathe. But there is no easy escape from those things. So, I impose, despite not wanting to, because the imposition is coming anyway.
- jappgar 2y ago
  Yes I think this is the correct take. "It shouldn't be this way!" But it is. As others have said in comments, ADHD actually may be an optimization in certain environments, but do those environments actually exist in 2024? Even if they exist Are they preferable, overall, to the typical alternative? There may be jobs that are better suited to someone with ADHD, but do they pay a living wage? Are they precarious? Are they dangerous? Maybe those jobs "should" pay more. But, as a parent, your job is to prepare your kids for reality, not sell them a fantasy.
  - dublinben 2y ago
    There's no shortage of careers with fast-paced work environments requiring creative problem solving that would be well-suited to a person with ADHD. Anything creative or artistic, healthcare, tech, sales, skilled trades, restaurants, etc. If the "reality" you are trying to prepare your child for is becoming an accountant/banker/lawyer/bureaucrat, then you will probably all be disappointed.
    - nradov 2y ago
      Most people with a formal ADHD diagnosis are likely to require some medication in order to make it through the training for a career in healthcare. There is typically a lot of study and rote memorization required. Even a relatively simple job like phlebotomist requires an ability to focus and consistently follow fixed procedures without getting distracted.
cjbgkagh 2y ago
If ADHD is genetic, which I believe it is, then the odds are the parents have their own problems as well - and these problems can manifest in a wide variety of dysfunctions. My parents are awful people but having lived through ADHD and chronic fatigue I no longer blame them for who they are. Knowing that they would have been going through something similar when they were my age I understand how tough it must have been for them. The internet is what saved me from becoming a full time asshole, without the internet my parents just had gaslighting from doctors. The amount of pain and suffering that you don’t know isn’t normal because everyone is telling you it is, is enough to make anyone an asshole no matter how much they fight it, it’s not a choice.
lvl155 2y ago
Raising kids is hard. And it’s an evolving task. How we were raised is not the right way to raise kids now. Parents sometimes try to relive or remake their childhood. You can pour so much time and energy into parenting and not get it right. It’s disheartening but sometimes it may come down to luck of the environment and just the kid. I frankly no longer think parenting matters all that much beyond simple basics such as providing food and shelter (ie economic resources).
o11c 2y ago
I must disagree with this very strongly; this attitude of "the problem isn't me, the problem is other people" is exceedingly harmful. You cannot blame others for their (alleged) inflexibility when you yourself are incapable of flexibility. Consider: you fly to the UK and try to drive on the right side of the road like you always have. Do you have the right to blame everyone for driving toward you? Or should you adapt and drive on the left side of the road for once? Yes, the rule is arbitrary, but that doesn't make it valueless.
- Viliam1234 2y ago
  > Yes, the rule is arbitrary, but that doesn't make it valueless. We need to distinguish between the rules that make sense (everyone driving on the same side of the road) and those that don't (everyone writing using the same hand). Often the existence of the former is used as an excuse for the latter.
  - o11c 2y ago
    The problem is that very often people can't distinguish ... or perhaps, refuse to acknowledge the importance of the particular rules they are personally inclined to reject.
- WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
  > "the problem isn't me, the problem is other people" is exceedingly harmful. I can still work with it though. I recognize that I can't fix their flaws and the power I have is to adapt. Recognizing flaws in others was gateway thinking for me. It lead to me seeking and finding flaw-groups that I'm a member of. That led to me seeking reasonable causes for mass flaws. And that led me to a small group of causes. They center around individual capacity (everyone is doing ~the best they can) and reactions to feelings of helplessness (the other end of a bad behavior chain). FF to now. I'm considering a unified flaw that seems to hobble every group eventually. No one anywhere wants to clean their own house Thank you and I hope you enjoyed this tour.
- 93po 2y ago
  People who can't walk would struggle a lot in a world where society didn't make accommodations for them to enter buildings, use restrooms, etc. The problem is that society is decently good at accommodating the very visible and tangible, but terrible at accommodating anything they don't understand. ADHD is hard to understand for most people and therefore they have no interesting in flexibility in the way they do for things they do understand. Going through the treadmill of school followed by a career that all require strict schedules, punctuality, meetings, note-taking, difficult conversations, social norms, and hard focus-heavy work is really difficult for people with untreated ADHD. It's all extremely hard for me, and it's doubly hard because if I don't do this I will literally be homeless and starve and have no healthcare, and there's not a single employer or coworker that has ever given two shits about how hard this may be for me, and in fact some of them have actively punished me for vulnerability around this
deleted 2y ago
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pugets 2y ago
My experience with my ADHD diagnosis and the 25 years of Adderall that followed have left me jaded at the state of psychiatry. The focus of my attention does indeed change at a rate which is faster than average. If something can distract me from a task, then it usually does, at least for a few moments. But why is this classified as a deficiency and a disorder? In other words, why is directed attention considered the normal human experience? To me, it seems obvious. My attention is considered deficient because we have constructed a society in which we expect children as young as 8 (that was the age I was diagnosed) to focus in a classroom on highly abstract topics (history, language, math, etc.) for hours at a time without issue. If a child can’t meet that expectation, then they will be medicated until they do. But if we lived in a different society, especially one set in pre-modern times, then my kind of attention might not be considered a disorder. It could even be advantageous. How many early humans suffered a premature death because their hyper-focus on gathering berries left them oblivious to the rustling of leaves?
- oytis 2y ago
  Disability is in general relative to the expextations of a particular society. There are people who can't tell a minor and a major third apart - they won't make a career in music probably, but it's not considered a disability or disorder.
- tgv 2y ago
  ADHD for academic performance is not a problem, but it can be disruptive in a classroom. Until fairly recently, it wasn't medicated. Can't follow along? You'll just have to do lower levels. If you're medicated out of expectation, that's on your parents. > How many early humans ... That's a highly speculative argument for returning to the stone age?
- methyl 2y ago
  > But why is this classified as a deficiency and a disorder I think it’s because it’s outside of your control. Ideally you would be able to choose which impulses you want to respond to, and with ADHD that’s extremely hard.
- loloquwowndueo 2y ago
agieocean 2y ago
Really feel for the author. My parents intentionally threw up obstacles to my learning because they assumed they knew what was best for me even as they actively rejected people trying to help me. As a result I fell years behind where I should have been and had to catch up quick though it was easy to do so when I was no longer under their control.
WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
I'm not a fan of single-reason causes but in this case I suspect the harms are explained in this one quote. Instead, they [parents] relied on discipline as the only solution: All of my sons had behavioral issues (less than me tho). ADHD was a common factor. What did I do? Maybe I punished them(singular). Maybe I took them out of school for a day we spent together. One solution will be a wrong solution most of the time. Kids are continually a new person and continually need new approaches. Since society has moved from muti-generation families to just ≤2 parents, it falls on those ≤2 parents to perform the roles of many different adults. We can't ever stop rethinking our methods.
jancsika 2y ago
> Worse, it left me with a debilitating emotional and intellectual dependency on their approval. I'm not a therapist, but maybe one can back me up: The "thing" driving this emotion is essentially hard-coded in the author at this point, from early childhood. More central than rationally spelunking into the nature of what they currently consider "breakage," the author would be better off acknowledging and accepting (i.e., sitting with) the feeling when it arises as part of their own rich emotional life. This, ironically, will dissipate the negative impact of the feeling over time. (But this doesn't count as "fixing" one's emotional "breakage" any more than accepting that humans have belly buttons makes belly buttons disappear.) Am I close here? Edit: get rid of unnecessary and false dichotomy
- WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
  > The "thing" driving this emotion is essentially hard-coded in the author at this point, from early childhood. I'll respond to this indirectly. I eventually learned that healing isn't restoration. We improve our being by layering better thinking over scarred ground. The bad layers never go away. However, we can draw on better layers to improve our behavior. With enough layers we hope to stop perpetuating our parent's flaws.
spudlyo 2y ago
I retired from the industry a bit over a year ago, which led to some tension between my wife and I; these kinds of drastic lifestyle changes can be hard on a couple. We ended up seeing a couples therapist who, among other observations, strongly believed I suffered undiagnosed ADHD. So, in my mid 50s, having already in my own mind succeeded at life, I saw a specialist for an official diagnosis. After filling out several detailed surveys and discussing my life's history for several hours it was official--the therapist said that she had rarely been more certain of a positive ADHD diagnosis. I'm still not sure how I feel about it. Over the years I've developed a narrative that explains away my utter failure as a student, the huge highs and lows of my professional career, my distrust and lack of respect for authority of any kind, and my pride in my achievements as an autodidact. I am a non-conformist I'd tell myself, a rebel, an independent thinker, yes a frequent fuck-up, but also a drug user, a risk taker, and someone who sees the "small stuff" as beneath them. Now the narrative is becoming: "I have a neurochemical condition that affects attention, impulse control, and executive function which causes me to seek novelty, and drives a need for stimulation and engagement." Honestly, I like that narrative a lot less. I suppose it's somewhat of a comfort knowing that there is a fairly common condition that goes a long way towards explaining my life, but it does seem to take the personal choice out of it.
- jmholla 2y ago
  You are not just your ADHD. It sounds to me you just have a name for the weight you've been unknowingly fighting your whole life. I don't think any of that other stuff is true, either. Your life with ADHD gave you a perspective others don't get which likely informed and encouraged those assessments, but that doesn't make them wrong. Lot's of people live great live swith untreated ADHD. And it looks like you have to, you just didn't know that's what you were doing.
- cromulent 2y ago
  Lots of similarities here. Getting diagnosed rocked my world, because I finally understood that other people experienced the world differently. > the therapist said that she had rarely been more certain of a positive ADHD diagnosis > my utter failure as a student, the huge highs and lows of my professional career, my distrust and lack of respect for authority of any kind, and my pride in my achievements as an autodidact Oh yeah. I'm with you. People's experiences inside their head are amazingly different, but society treats them the same. Some have inner monologues, some don't. Some have aphantasia. Some have prosopagnosia. Some are left handed, which was once considered evil ("left" is "sinister" in Latin, from another autodidact). We used to label people as one of: normal, genius, retarded. We are becoming more nuanced now and exploring "neurodivergence". The label you have been given is ADHD. One day it will be much more nuanced. Embrace it. It's not negative, it's society recognizing you and me and our type.
tolerance 2y ago
As self-proclaimed Neurodivergency Truther™, I support the general thesis of dear Ahmed's essay (and look forward to more of his work). I also invite him to consider his own parent's past and whether he can find any evidence of "forced assimilation" in their lives. I have a hunch.
- WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
  > I also invite him to consider his own parent's past and whether he can find any evidence of "forced assimilation" in their lives. I have a hunch. Well yeah. Every time I followed the thread of a bad behavior, I found feelings of helplessness at the other end. Following the behavior-threads of the people who hurt me, you know what I found. Knowing that helped shift the dynamic (between me and abuser) from animosity to shared support. In some cases, anyway.
lemonberry 2y ago
My grandmother was an elementary school teacher for 50 years. She told me that when the kids started getting rowdy she would stop class and play the piano and sing a song for a bit. I always thought that was amazing.
- 93po 2y ago
  your grandmother is/was amazing
tonymet 2y ago
I've many friends and family members over-diagnosed with mental illness in preteens, plied with legal meth (Ritalin and Adderall), psychotropics & anti-psychotics. They are now adult basket cases. There is a confirmation bias especially in tech, since many high-achievers are also taking these drugs. I want to warn people that you are only seeing the winners not the victims. For every successful Adderall addict you know, there are dozens of lives that have been ruined by parents and quacks.
- WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
  > For every successful Adderall addict you know, there are dozens of lives that have been ruined by parents and quacks. Counterpoint: Adderall changed my life. It makes the difference between my self-improvement effort anchoring into the ground - or uselessly bouncing away. Over ~20 years Adderall has been key to me becoming a better person. Different stims similarly improve the lives of two of my sons.
  - tonymet 2y ago
    it's not a counterpoint. there are a good number like you. There are also 20 million who take Adderall and the vast majority are not successful.
    - WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
      > There are also 20 million who take Adderall and the vast majority are not successful. These are two bold claims. What are some independent sources for each of them? They certainly run counter to decades of my own experience. Presently: For every person I know on ADHD meds, I know more who are unable to get them. The vast majority of Dr's are too afraid of the DEA to prescribe them. It's difficult to recognize a health crisis when all exterior signs point to the opposite.
      - tonymet 2y ago
        That sounds preposterous. If doctor's are afraid, how are they selling so much Adderall?
void-pointer 2y ago
I feel like I’m going mad. Is ADHD a debilitating condition that can be consistently and independently diagnosed, with verifiable symptoms and clear criteria as to who _has_ ADHD and, more importantly, who _hasn’t_? or is it a loosely defined group of behaviours that all people experience at different severities at some point in their lives, which have all been grouped into a nebulous so-called disorder (although many neurodivergent people now don’t like it being called that) so that doctors can quickly and efficiently work through the ever-growing mountain of patients who struggle with concentration in a world that is constantly and systematically trying to distract them? I don’t want to insult people and I don’t want to be rude. But the more I read about ADHD, the more it feels like a meaningless diagnosis to absolve people of the responsibility to work on their concentration, and absolve them of blame if they can’t.
- cromulent 2y ago
  This is a good point, and why so many ADHD people feel guilty or unsure about their diagnosis. Doesn't everyone feel like this? Adrian Chiles' "inner chimp" and other columns [1] helped me understand it. Also, when I laughed off my psychologists' questions ("oh, everyone would answer these questions the same way, this is silly"). Oh no they don't, she said. There will be a grey area for sure. But for people who have it, it is real, and it is different to how other people experience the world. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/sep/30/my-treatment-for-add-changed-my-life-so-why-cant-i-stop-worrying-about-it https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/sep/30/my-treatment...
  - nijuashi 2y ago
    It’s just that ADHD was not recognized until recently. We as a society is not well informed about this. But it’s important for us to feel the need to address this problem. I think the best analogy is myopia. Until glasses were invented, people with poor eyesight were very limited in what they can do. People with glasses were stigmatized (remember “four-eyes”?). We didn’t know what caused it. Then things became normalized and lens making techniques became so advanced and ubiquitous that it no longer became such a big deal to see people with glasses. Then things like contact lenses and surgical procedures that came along which can correct it, making the person with myopia indistinguishable from one without. We are now starting to reach a stage where people can prevent the condition from developing because we have a better understanding of the disorder (although there are a lot of snake oils out there). ADHD is like myopia, which limits the range of things that people are capable of. We have imperfect tools like adderall which has a lot of unwanted side effects. My hope is that technologies like AI personal assistants geared toward helping people with ADHD will act as a way to augment these deficiencies, much in the way glasses have. We as a civilization simply did not reach that stage.
wonder_er 2y ago
Even as I read _just_ the title of this post, I felt certain the author and I would strongly agree on some key things. I'm less interested in things that can be found in the DSM-V than it seems most of my english-speaking peers are, but things that can be called "adhd" make me always wonder what childhood emotional neglect and emotional abuse that person experienced. for instance, 'spankings', if ever a part of one's experience, is also known as 'adults hitting children' or 'assault of child by adult'. It can extinguish parts of one self that would otherwise be accessible. A little while ago I read an excellent book about punishment. [0] Might be helpful/instrumental to others in the same way it was interesting to me. (I have more first-hand experience than I wish I'd had with evangelicals of the exact flavor described in the book. Was raised by some of them.) [0]: [Spare the Child: The Religious Roots of Punishment and the Psychological Impact of Physical Abuse](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1335495 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1335495)

160 points by asoli 2y ago

The person blaming his parents because they tried to do their job of, well, parenting a child with ADHD. I’ve read that psychotherapy is much more difficult when there is no-one to blame. So it might help for him, until he will have his own kids with ADHD and fail in a completely opposite way. I would not recommend anyone to blame parents of neurodivergent kids, as it is a very difficult job to do right.

redundantly 2y ago
All three of my kids are neurodivergent. If they have suffered from my parenting, they are more than welcome to blame me. Sure, parenting kids with ADHD or Autism or whatever else is hard, but that doesn't make one a Saint and therefore unassailable. If comeuppance is due, it's due.
- hkpack 2y ago
  I agree, I mean that it is almost impossible not to fail at from the child’s perspective. I blame the structure of society for this. When kid wants to spend time with animals, friends and just be in nature - we can only offer more classes and screens.
  - deleted 2y ago
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  - floydnoel 2y ago
    there are other options, though. most choose not to take the hard path of choosing them
    - fader 2y ago
      Imagine you're a 10 year old in a typical suburb in the US. There might be a pet dog or cat around if you're lucky, but nothing even at the level of a goat or chicken, let alone something wilder. Your nearest friend is two-three miles away. Not walkable at your age for sure. Maybe bikeable, but your parents watch Fox News and know that sex slavers from the city are on constant patrol for juicy morsels like you, so you stay in the house. (Even if your parents have a basic grasp of statistics, your neighbors don't and will call CPS before you make it a block from your door, if a "block" even existed for you.) Genuinely, what would you do in this situation? This is _normal_ for a depressingly huge number of children in the US. There's school and there's the video games in the basement. Adults can drive. There are no other options for kids.
      - floydnoel 2y ago
        what you are saying has nothing to do at all with my comment. the parents have a choice, but they choose not to take it (or pretend not to see it).
sibeliuss 2y ago
The point is: there isn't a "right" way. That's exactly what the author is trying to say. By failing to recognize the ways in which they were different, they forced a mode upon them and here we are. A whole medicalized generation addicted to stimulants trying to fit in where in past generations you had artists and rebels and seekers and every other kind of misfit that made life interesting and unique and challenging to the status quo.
- StefanBatory 2y ago
  I don't think you meant it but I don't like how you phrased it. That in the past if you were to have ADHD, you'd be an artist or a rebel and so on, implying that it is something cool. And that nowadays it's just addiction to stimulants. I know of quite few colleagues and friends with ADHD who need stimulants to get anything done at all, even to get out from their bed. Who were treated unsuccessfully for anxiety, depression, when all their symptoms vanished after getting on meds. ADHD not to everyone is something quirky, to some people it can be utterly debilitating and devastating condition.
  - icnexbe7 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - sibeliuss 2y ago
    [flagged]
- jader201 2y ago
  > in past generations you had artists and rebels and seekers and every other kind of misfit that made life interesting and unique and challenging to the status quo I get what you’re saying, but parents of ADHD children are looking to help them become adults that can function in society and be independent without the struggles that are often accompanied with ADHD: addiction and self-destructive choices. A lot of the types of people that you mention — rebels, seekers, misfits — I feel are generally less happy individuals, and might chose a different path for themselves if they had the right opportunities and tools. Sure they might make life interesting for others, and maybe “interesting” is a word they might describe for their own life. And what often makes them “interesting”, looking from the outside, is that they are addicted and/or self-destructive. But are they ultimately happy, and is it the life they really wanted for themselves? That’s what parents struggle with. If they know their child will be happy with addiction, self-destruction, and being “interesting”, maybe it would be easier to not worry about or try to help them with their struggles with ADHD. But most parents think their children will want a different life, and so they also want that for them.
fisherjeff 2y ago
I would not recommend anyone to massively oversimplify and pass judgement on someone else’s life situation
fzeroracer 2y ago
From the article: > Instead, they relied on discipline as the only solution: withholding rights, denying privileges, banning books outside the curriculum because they "caused inattention," cutting off the internet, locking TV channels with passwords, and limiting socialization during study time. I'm perfectly inclined here to agree with the author in blaming the parents for putting the child in a borderline abusive environment because they were unable to look outside their own views for the sake of their child.
- baq 2y ago
  if the author really has ADHD, he's blind to half (or more) the things the parents did and especially to why they did them. not his choice, that's how ADHD works, doesn't make it any easier for anyone. you'd want to read parents' rebuttal, or at least commentary before judging them based on this post.
- treis 2y ago
  It really depends on how long study time is. That sounds like proper parenting so long as we're talking like an hour or two.
  - ghssds 2y ago
    Are you sure banning books outside the curriculum is proper parenting because what I'm reading is thought control.
    - TeMPOraL 2y ago
      I bet this wasn't denying access to books outside the curriculum because they're bad influence or something - it was merely about making sure they did also read the books assigned to them by the school. It actually looks like following standard productivity advice - eliminating distraction. The kid could go back to reading whatever after the required job was done.
  - graemep 2y ago
    Limiting socialisation for short time to focus is one thing, but a complete ban on reading outside the curriculum is hugely damaging to a child's education and happiness.
nijuashi 2y ago
[flagged]
bluesounddirect 2y ago
i would recommend two things for adhd . labels diagnosis lables are waste of time . if you are lucky enough to live somewhere where the schools will provide evidence based help amazing. if not and you have the double dose of adhd and dyslexia, do your own research find other people / families with similar issues . it's amazing to watch two kids with adhd realizing they actually like the other kid and they think like me.
- lsecondario 2y ago
  > diagnosis [...] are waste of time > schools will provide evidence based help In many places you need the former to get the latter.
deleted 2y ago
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tremon 2y ago
The text doesn't read as if he's blaming his parents for anything. It seems to be a pretty neutral acknowledgement of past harms so he can move past them. Any "blame" you're reading into it is purely coming from your own perspective. He's pretty explicit about that: > Yet I forgave: I have other things to attend to if I truly want to get over what happened. I'd say his recovery/therapy is going pretty well. His perspective on the situation seems healthier than yours.
julianeon 2y ago
They f you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had, And add some extra just for you. But they were f'd up in their turn, By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern, And half at one another’s throats. Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself. - Philip Larkin, This Be The Verse
mnky9800n 2y ago
Blaming the parents doesn’t matter anyways. The author, and the rest of us, are adults and responsible for ourselves. If those problems we bear are a byproduct of our upbringing we still are the ones responsible for dealing with those problems. Sure it’s unfair but you can complain about it or learn to accept those experiences made you who you are.
notduncansmith 2y ago
I didn’t read the author as blaming, and I can relate to what they’re saying. It’s hard to speak about a childhood full of abuses that thought they had your best interests at heart. I was locked in my room for days on end (sometimes back-to-back stints for weeks), deprived of privileges/books/music, berated, demeaned, and ultimately gaslit, throughout my childhood, because my parents didn’t really understand ADHD (or that I had it). It created a pretty big mismatch between expectations and reality. As a kid, I resented them a lot for this. As an adult (and parent), I realize what it must have looked like to them and I can empathize without condoning their behavior. My performance is heavily bimodal: my adult ADHD assessment included scores in the 98th percentile and the 8th depending on the task. I also have an extremely wandering mind. Taken together, it seemed to my parents that I was a brilliant child who simply “refused to work hard”. This was not only toxic for my relationship with them, it poisoned my self-image and ability to relate to others for the first two decades of my life. Any resentment I might have over that is ultimately misplaced. They were loving and caring parents who missed the mark in a way that just so happened to fundamentally shape my childhood experience. ADHD wasn’t even understood the way it is now, so the most I could have hoped for in childhood was a prescription. Instead, I now make a point to be a parent who understands my own ADHD and my kid’s (which thankfully is pretty identical to mine). I help them use alarm clocks and timers like I do. I give them tools to understand and empathize with other people. I don’t treat dragging their feet on a task as disrespect or disinterest. I don’t get hurt when they lash out at me during a hard time. I’m not baffled or disgusted when their words reveal their underdeveloped empathy, and I try to accelerate that development. I just cannot agree more that it’s a difficult job to get right. All kids need structure and discipline, but the types and amounts can vary widely, even for the same kid across their stages of development. I’m so thankful for the research that has been done and resources that have been created since I was young; without that I would have been a lot more like my parents, and my kid would have barely had a chance. I also appreciate OP for sharing their experience with us. It’s not fun to do but it’s necessary for understanding to grow.
bbwbsb 2y ago
Making excuses for abuse is just as unhealthy as seeing it everywhere. I have been diagnosed both autistic and adhd and I experienced food insecurity despite living in a house with several balconies and a detached garage bigger than my friends' families' houses because my parents thought I would get over it and start going out to eat with them if they didn't bring me any food. I don't think they intended deliberately to harm me - or realize that me not going out to eat with them didn't mean there was enough food - but their authoritarian way of thinking did the harm nonetheless and it's a completely predictable outcome of such a way of thinking; so it's not "I didn't mean it" so much as "I don't want to think differently because I value my attachment to this mode of thinking more than the wellbeing of others; and when I harm them I'll say 'nothing could be done' because changing how I approach the problem isn't on the table". The healthiest thing most autistic/adhd people ever do is moving from 'I am sick' to 'the society I inhabit has an autoimmune disorder'.
pdpi 2y ago
It's a very difficult job to do right, but some of the ways you can get it wrong are pretty damn easy to avoid. Like, it should be obvious that you don't double down on strategies that produce no results other than distressing your kid.
al_borland 2y ago
I tried therapy for a couple years and it seemed like any time I brought up anything, I was being pushed to blame my dad. I felt like it was going to drive a wedge between us and my opinion of who he is today would be colored by who he was 30-40 years ago due to all this blame. He has changed a lot in those decades and I think his heart is in the right place, even if his actions sometimes call that into question. Keyed off by a YouTube video, I thought there is a good chance I have autism and ADHD. I brought this up to the therapist and it was mostly dismissed, while my dad shouldered the blame. I went and got tested anyway, and it turns out I was right, and stopped seeing the therapist. When I told my dad about my diagnosis he almost instantly started to question if he has the same things, and started opening up about how he feels, that he works hard to hide/mask. The more he’s looked into it, the more he believes this to be true. Looking back at where we had friction when I was a kid, they can pretty much all be explained by his own neurodivergence. Even issues today make significantly more sense. While it is easy to say the parents should have done this or that and we need to have empathy for these kids with “bad” parents. I think we also need to have empathy for these undiagnosed parents who were doing the best they could without any tools, support, or even knowledge of what was going on… as the diagnosis criteria was either non-existent or only recognized extreme cases.
PotatoPrime 2y ago
I think it's pretty common to blame your parents for something or other, no matter how you end up no? Of course there will be gaps where they failed you, they're human, expecting YOUR parents to be perfect is just unrealistic expectations. Seeing that failure as something more than just a part of life though is unrealistic. Yes, your parents failed you, in many ways, because they're human, and it would be impossible to not screw something up unless they're omniscient.

avereveard 2y ago

As a neuroatypical I feel this. But also society has to happen, even if I am at the outskirts of it. As a neuroatypical parent of a neuroatypical children, I still have to guide them understanding the structures and expectations of society, and I see often time that she resents me for it, as the autor resent their upbringing. Society just don't care, and blaming parent for trying to impart that lesson is harsh, and while I don't know and I cannot judge author own experiences, I can see the one sidedness narrative that's at play, and wonder how much of this is the narrator own issues in processing a faceted issue, writing for himself a easy way out, and I wonder what parents would write about their experiences. Overall the post address nothing about the thing that still needs to happen to function in the society, only a long unjustified self pity trip where each paragraph ends with an "I was right all along" that doesn't actually feel like it due the onesidedness of the narrative.

kerkeslager 2y ago
> As a neuroatypical parent of a neuroatypical children, I still have to guide them understanding the structures and expectations of society, and I see often time that she resents me for it, as the autor resent their upbringing. I think where a lot of parents go wrong is representing things as "because I said so" when in fact, there is a very good reason for what the parent is doing and explaining that reason to the child would both reduce resentment and be more valuable than the discipline being given. And the corollary to that is, if you can't explain to your child why you're doing something they don't like, maybe what you're doing isn't actually good parenting. "Society expects this, society is probably wrong and it isn't fair, but it's not within our immediate capability to change it so we have to find ways to function around society's expectations at the current time" is a hugely valuable lesson to teach kids. Without this explanation, your kid just has to come up with their own explanation for why you're doing what you're doing, and a lot of the time they're just going to conclude that you're wrong or you're just being mean, which unfortunately is sometimes true with some parents (I'm not saying it's true of you). And sometimes, with the explanation, you're still going to be wrong, and you may never figure that out what you did wrong. But at least if you've explained why you did what you did, your child understands that so when they begin the process of realizing their parents aren't perfect they have some reason to empathize for the mistakes you made.

compacct27 2y ago

Biggest fear as a new parent is basically this. What if my ideals estrange my kid? They’re not bad ideals, but the kid might just not be wired for them. Working hard, doing good for others, building skills, all of that. I wonder what this guy’s parents were seeing, what they were going through. From what I’ve seen from parents going through it, it can be really super challenging to handle a hyperactive child while still being, you know, an imperfect person yourself

kstrauser 2y ago
The biggest win we had as parents, I think, is always explaining why we had each rule and expectation. We’re not doing this because we don’t want you to have fun. We’re doing this for these specific reasons that benefit you. Now that are kids are older and out of the house, they voluntarily follow pretty close to our teachings, largely because they saw friends do the opposite and experience the bad consequences we foretold. “Huh, Dad was right: staying up too late and sleeping through a work alarm really does make bosses cranky.” They’ve each thanked us for taking the time to teach why things are important instead of just laying down inscrutable laws. I know I hated that as a kid.

kmfrk 2y ago

The "Double Empathy Problem" is a great way to conceptualize this, both to educate neurotypical people, but also to get over shame associated with neurodiversity. It's usually brought up in relation to people on the spectrum: This theory proposes that many of the difficulties autistic individuals face when socializing with non-autistic individuals are due, in part, to a lack of mutual understanding between the two groups, meaning that most autistic people struggle to understand and empathize with non-autistic people, whereas most non-autistic people also struggle to understand and empathize with autistic people. This lack of mutual understanding may stem from bidirectional differences in dispositions (e.g., communication style, social-cognitive characteristics), and experiences between autistic and non- autistic individuals, as opposed to always being an inherent deficit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_empathy_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_empathy_problem https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/professional-practice/double-empathy https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/professional-p...

knodi 2y ago

Parenting is hard, right or wrong are always in far future’s hindsight. I felt the need to blame my dad, until I had my own kids.

lacedeconstruct 2y ago
I felt the need to blame my parents, until my life got better and I realized whatever they did had no impact once I decided to take full responsibility
- tac19 2y ago
  That is a really unsupportable conclusion. As an extreme example just to make the point undeniable, your parents could have poisoned you, ending your life. Or they could have maimed you and left you unable to walk, or to see. And those are just gross examples. Parents have a huge impact in an unknowable number of ways. Yours did on you, too.
kerkeslager 2y ago
> Parenting is hard, right or wrong are always in far future’s hindsight. The idea that we can't possibly know what good parenting is until some time in the future, is an absurd abdication of your responsibility as a parent. Parenting is hard and nobody expects you to do it perfectly, but that doesn't mean you get to throw up your hands and pretend like good parenting can't be done. > I felt the need to blame my dad, until I had my own kids. It sounds like your shift in thought process had more to do with a shift in what thoughts made you feel good about yourself, rather than what thoughts are actually true.

baq 2y ago

> what if this wasn't an issue of attention, but one of incompatibility? it's both, but the incompatibility is worse - if you don't attempt to fit in, the 'normal' (actually, quite literally normal) people, which are the majority (hence why they're 'normal') will make you either conform or suffer. probably both. your parents knew that and that's why they enforced the norms so much. > This was never a matter of insufficiently-firing neurons: your natural patterns of thinking and being were systematically suppressed. it's possible your natural patterns of thinking were causing dangerous, potentially life-threatening, situations for you, your classmates or your family, hence why those around you wanted to suppress them.

cwillu 2y ago
That's quite an amazingly fucked up claim to make without evidence beyond (presumably) “okay but actually some special needs kids do dangerous things”.

kinakomochidayo 2y ago

I remember Dr Gabor Mate mentioning how ADHD is from childhood traumas and upbringing and it resonates with me. For me, it was a combination of my parents authoritarian parenting, and authoritarian school/environment, where teachers never checked in with me to see how I was doing. Psychedelics was the only thing that helped me, and I haven’t taken prescribed medications in over 10 years since my powerful experience which physically helped me feel love and safety for the first time; things I never experienced at home. More experiences with Ayahuasca over the past several years have helped me fully process most, if not all the traumas I remember (also helped me remember the ones I forgot!) and I’m now in a much better place mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. As a result, I think its fully possible to be neurodivergent without having disorders

randysalami 2y ago
My mother suffers from borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder. My father is textbook narcissistic personality disorder. It’s easy to say my childhood wasn’t easy, but in a strange way. Along the way, I developed BPD symptoms impressed on me by my parents, suffered hospitalization multiple times, and ended up going through DBT. I am 24 now and I lucked out far better than my peers. I have a career in software, a loving partner of 6 years (which I definitely traumatized multiple times), and am even in grad school! For me, the biggest issues I face from a societal perspective are not the BPD symptoms, mostly regressed and which usually make me alluring to people, but the ADHD symptoms I developed along with BPD. I’ve read that these are often comorbid and that tracks with what you are saying because a BPD parent and BPD is trauma. Weed and shrooms also helped me get better. Not with the ADHD which definitely gets much worse on weed, but with the BPD symptoms. It made me slow down and let me get in touch with my empathy long repressed. I believe I was 19 when I first smoked and it’s been a journey but trending upward. Fun BPD story: by the time I was 18, I had over 60 sexual partners. I was a dorky guy who played video games over 8 hours a day every day.
- Rzor 2y ago
  When did you start to notice things were getting 'better'? Was it sudden (because of those psychoactive perhaps), or did it take a while?

robocat 2y ago

This is blaming the parents for society, and the complaints appears to not be specific to ADHD. Parents do their best within the knowledge they have. Blaming your parents for the outcomes of society is childish. Fortunately the author is maturing out of childhood - and discovering as we all do that they are the only person that has the motivation and ability to find their own solutions to their own problems. Society definitely fucks us up, and most people are trying hard to help improve their little corners, but it's a devil's problem. Education systems do unfortunately feel so retardedly broken from the inside as users.

WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
>This is blaming the parents for society Pragmatically speaking: I offer that society isn't going to read the article but some parents will. And parents won't change the direction of society but they can parent differently. That's where I see potential value in the article.
- nijuashi 2y ago
  Yes, this article has the value of having a child’s perspective in form of an adult prose. It’s difficult to sympathize with him as an adult but gives insight on how some children see their parents during their adolescence.
- robocat 2y ago
  On rereading, I can't see anything actionable for parents. Article says: The whole experience was abusive. [my parents] relied on discipline as the only solution: withholding rights, denying privileges, banning books outside the curriculum because they "caused inattention," cutting off the internet, locking TV channels with passwords, and limiting socialization during study time. We can wish our parents were appropriately liberal, and personally I am fortunate to have been brought up by permissive but not lax parents. but strict ("authoritarian") parents do not change their habits easily. In my experience parents don't know how to teach independence (the key to adulthood). My smartest friends left home at 15, to avoid their loving but overbearing/overcontrolling parents.

lqet 2y ago

> John Taylor Gatto's Dumbing Us Down perfectly captured this when he noticed that schools, another place where authority figures hang out, ruthlessly disciplined any child who tried to assert individuality. There has been an interesting result recently, which was discussed here [0]. In an online game where participants had to forage for resources, people with attention deficits scored higher, because they preferred exploration to exploitation. I commented back then that ADHD may be understood as introducing chaos into life to avoid being trapped in local optima. Having ADHD is then of course a major disadvantage in environments where there is only one global optimum. Examples include highly regulated and deterministic academic environments (school, undergraduate studies) or corporate environments. But in human history, environments with a single global optimum have been the exception, not the rule. People with ADHD - and their parents and teachers - should therefore embrace their individuality as a kind of reservoir talent in the human gene pool. We need these individuals in the future. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39508573 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39508573

BowBun 2y ago
I enjoy this take. As someone who feels like they align with a lot of symptoms associated with ADHD, I thrive in startup environments and would rather be unemployed than work in a corporate environment. That checks out! And there's no harm to it, there are plenty of opportunities for people of all kinds. I think the danger is expecting that any environment fits everyone. We're too many and too diverse for that to be true.
__rito__ 2y ago
There are already some research hinting that ADHD in human population helped human civilization progress. [0][1] [0]: https://www.healthline.com/health/adhd/evolution https://www.healthline.com/health/adhd/evolution [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/feb/21/adhd-may-have-been-an-evolutionary-advantage-research-suggests https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/feb/21/adhd-may-hav...
- swayvil 2y ago
  All the great inventions, great art, great ideas. ADHD. Nobody else has the focus. In ancient times the Raja Yogis (basically wizards) preferred to recruit from those with ADHD. They called them "habitually one-pointed".

helge9210 2y ago

(Disclaimer: not discussing the author here. These are the thoughts based on personal experiences, resurfaced as the result of reading the post) Planning for the past (what if my parents would do things differently?) is a sign of depression (not clinical advice). Blaming the parents is not productive and doesn't lead to solutions to the problems at hand. For me, taking responsibility on deciding what needs to be done, how to get better at doing what needs to be done and how to get better at getting better, shifted the focus significantly.

kerkeslager 2y ago
Blaming yourself for things that aren't your fault is also a sign of depression, not productive, and doesn't lead to solutions to the problem at hand. I think we probably agree that blame just isn't the ideal way to approach problems and the end goal would be to not include blame in the thought process at all. But for someone who is blaming themselves for everything, placing blame appropriately can be a step toward rebuilding some self-esteem.
- baq 2y ago
  don't confuse blaming with introspection. you have to accept you're responsible for yourself to do that properly first, though.
  - kerkeslager 2y ago
    Blame is certainly going to be part of the introspective process if you've ever experienced any trauma caused by anyone else.

itronitron 2y ago

The author focuses on their experience as a teen with ADHD, but having been a parent of three teenagers, and having been a teenager myself, I think that the educational system is generally asking something of teenagers that they (the teenagers) can't yet provide. But that is minor compared to how badly some classes are taught. Every time I've helped one of my children with a class in which they were genuinely struggling I realized that the instructor was not capable of teaching the material (usually because they assumed the students already knew what they were talking about).

lsecondario 2y ago

As a parent of kids with ADHD I've come to believe that it is disabling in two ways: an actual deficit in attention that makes it more difficult to complete tasks AND an incompatibility with an inflexible society. I see both of these in my kids' experience at school: The true deficit can be seen in inability to complete schoolwork on time. Sure, homework is artificial, but I have no doubt the same difficulties would apply to - say - planting and harvesting crops on a schedule The societal incompatibility is seen in relatively benign "behavior issues" like difficulty sitting still. The idea that children should sit at attention for hours seems bizarre unless you accept that school is training an obedient factory/cubical workforce.

notacoward 2y ago
Came here to say basically the same thing. It is possible both that ADHD itself negatively impacts some people and that other people's (especially parents') reactions to ADHD negatively impact some people. They're not incompatible beliefs at all. Same for autism, and also personality disorders like BPD. Putting all of the blame on either side seems overly simplistic and unhelpful. Identifying which issues stem from which causes seems much more likely to yield solutions (or at least coping mechanisms).
aorist 2y ago
> I have no doubt the same difficulties would apply to - say - planting and harvesting crops on a schedule Not necessarily. Before the Industrial Revolution artisans were paid by the piece and peasants harvested between the crop being ripe and it being damaged by the weather. <https://dhayton.haverford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Thompson_1967.pdf https://dhayton.haverford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Tho...> Both of those have immediate rather than delayed (artificial?) consequences, which might have been easier to handle. When factories tried paying peasants by the hour, they would work as much as they felt like (e.g. not showing up at all on "Saint" Monday) until they were taught time-discipline.

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tfigueroa 2y ago

What you have here is essentially a tragedy. I totally sympathize with the author as someone who is (probably) neurodivergent but had accommodating parents. Being given space to better understand myself and my value was integral to my success and in being ok being different. But as a dad to a neurodivergent kid, I impose structure - sometimes to discomfort, never intentionally to pain - because structure is imposed upon us all. I mean, if I could stop time, that would fix most of the issues with my kid’s ADHD. Same if I could make less the impositions of having to do chores, or to eat, sleep, bathe. But there is no easy escape from those things. So, I impose, despite not wanting to, because the imposition is coming anyway.

jappgar 2y ago
Yes I think this is the correct take. "It shouldn't be this way!" But it is. As others have said in comments, ADHD actually may be an optimization in certain environments, but do those environments actually exist in 2024? Even if they exist Are they preferable, overall, to the typical alternative? There may be jobs that are better suited to someone with ADHD, but do they pay a living wage? Are they precarious? Are they dangerous? Maybe those jobs "should" pay more. But, as a parent, your job is to prepare your kids for reality, not sell them a fantasy.
- dublinben 2y ago
  There's no shortage of careers with fast-paced work environments requiring creative problem solving that would be well-suited to a person with ADHD. Anything creative or artistic, healthcare, tech, sales, skilled trades, restaurants, etc. If the "reality" you are trying to prepare your child for is becoming an accountant/banker/lawyer/bureaucrat, then you will probably all be disappointed.
  - nradov 2y ago
    Most people with a formal ADHD diagnosis are likely to require some medication in order to make it through the training for a career in healthcare. There is typically a lot of study and rote memorization required. Even a relatively simple job like phlebotomist requires an ability to focus and consistently follow fixed procedures without getting distracted.

cjbgkagh 2y ago

If ADHD is genetic, which I believe it is, then the odds are the parents have their own problems as well - and these problems can manifest in a wide variety of dysfunctions. My parents are awful people but having lived through ADHD and chronic fatigue I no longer blame them for who they are. Knowing that they would have been going through something similar when they were my age I understand how tough it must have been for them. The internet is what saved me from becoming a full time asshole, without the internet my parents just had gaslighting from doctors. The amount of pain and suffering that you don’t know isn’t normal because everyone is telling you it is, is enough to make anyone an asshole no matter how much they fight it, it’s not a choice.

lvl155 2y ago

Raising kids is hard. And it’s an evolving task. How we were raised is not the right way to raise kids now. Parents sometimes try to relive or remake their childhood. You can pour so much time and energy into parenting and not get it right. It’s disheartening but sometimes it may come down to luck of the environment and just the kid. I frankly no longer think parenting matters all that much beyond simple basics such as providing food and shelter (ie economic resources).

o11c 2y ago

I must disagree with this very strongly; this attitude of "the problem isn't me, the problem is other people" is exceedingly harmful. You cannot blame others for their (alleged) inflexibility when you yourself are incapable of flexibility. Consider: you fly to the UK and try to drive on the right side of the road like you always have. Do you have the right to blame everyone for driving toward you? Or should you adapt and drive on the left side of the road for once? Yes, the rule is arbitrary, but that doesn't make it valueless.

Viliam1234 2y ago
> Yes, the rule is arbitrary, but that doesn't make it valueless. We need to distinguish between the rules that make sense (everyone driving on the same side of the road) and those that don't (everyone writing using the same hand). Often the existence of the former is used as an excuse for the latter.
- o11c 2y ago
  The problem is that very often people can't distinguish ... or perhaps, refuse to acknowledge the importance of the particular rules they are personally inclined to reject.
WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
> "the problem isn't me, the problem is other people" is exceedingly harmful. I can still work with it though. I recognize that I can't fix their flaws and the power I have is to adapt. Recognizing flaws in others was gateway thinking for me. It lead to me seeking and finding flaw-groups that I'm a member of. That led to me seeking reasonable causes for mass flaws. And that led me to a small group of causes. They center around individual capacity (everyone is doing ~the best they can) and reactions to feelings of helplessness (the other end of a bad behavior chain). FF to now. I'm considering a unified flaw that seems to hobble every group eventually. No one anywhere wants to clean their own house Thank you and I hope you enjoyed this tour.
93po 2y ago
People who can't walk would struggle a lot in a world where society didn't make accommodations for them to enter buildings, use restrooms, etc. The problem is that society is decently good at accommodating the very visible and tangible, but terrible at accommodating anything they don't understand. ADHD is hard to understand for most people and therefore they have no interesting in flexibility in the way they do for things they do understand. Going through the treadmill of school followed by a career that all require strict schedules, punctuality, meetings, note-taking, difficult conversations, social norms, and hard focus-heavy work is really difficult for people with untreated ADHD. It's all extremely hard for me, and it's doubly hard because if I don't do this I will literally be homeless and starve and have no healthcare, and there's not a single employer or coworker that has ever given two shits about how hard this may be for me, and in fact some of them have actively punished me for vulnerability around this

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pugets 2y ago

My experience with my ADHD diagnosis and the 25 years of Adderall that followed have left me jaded at the state of psychiatry. The focus of my attention does indeed change at a rate which is faster than average. If something can distract me from a task, then it usually does, at least for a few moments. But why is this classified as a deficiency and a disorder? In other words, why is directed attention considered the normal human experience? To me, it seems obvious. My attention is considered deficient because we have constructed a society in which we expect children as young as 8 (that was the age I was diagnosed) to focus in a classroom on highly abstract topics (history, language, math, etc.) for hours at a time without issue. If a child can’t meet that expectation, then they will be medicated until they do. But if we lived in a different society, especially one set in pre-modern times, then my kind of attention might not be considered a disorder. It could even be advantageous. How many early humans suffered a premature death because their hyper-focus on gathering berries left them oblivious to the rustling of leaves?

oytis 2y ago
Disability is in general relative to the expextations of a particular society. There are people who can't tell a minor and a major third apart - they won't make a career in music probably, but it's not considered a disability or disorder.
tgv 2y ago
ADHD for academic performance is not a problem, but it can be disruptive in a classroom. Until fairly recently, it wasn't medicated. Can't follow along? You'll just have to do lower levels. If you're medicated out of expectation, that's on your parents. > How many early humans ... That's a highly speculative argument for returning to the stone age?
methyl 2y ago
> But why is this classified as a deficiency and a disorder I think it’s because it’s outside of your control. Ideally you would be able to choose which impulses you want to respond to, and with ADHD that’s extremely hard.
loloquwowndueo 2y ago

agieocean 2y ago

Really feel for the author. My parents intentionally threw up obstacles to my learning because they assumed they knew what was best for me even as they actively rejected people trying to help me. As a result I fell years behind where I should have been and had to catch up quick though it was easy to do so when I was no longer under their control.

WarOnPrivacy 2y ago

I'm not a fan of single-reason causes but in this case I suspect the harms are explained in this one quote. Instead, they [parents] relied on discipline as the only solution: All of my sons had behavioral issues (less than me tho). ADHD was a common factor. What did I do? Maybe I punished them(singular). Maybe I took them out of school for a day we spent together. One solution will be a wrong solution most of the time. Kids are continually a new person and continually need new approaches. Since society has moved from muti-generation families to just ≤2 parents, it falls on those ≤2 parents to perform the roles of many different adults. We can't ever stop rethinking our methods.

jancsika 2y ago

> Worse, it left me with a debilitating emotional and intellectual dependency on their approval. I'm not a therapist, but maybe one can back me up: The "thing" driving this emotion is essentially hard-coded in the author at this point, from early childhood. More central than rationally spelunking into the nature of what they currently consider "breakage," the author would be better off acknowledging and accepting (i.e., sitting with) the feeling when it arises as part of their own rich emotional life. This, ironically, will dissipate the negative impact of the feeling over time. (But this doesn't count as "fixing" one's emotional "breakage" any more than accepting that humans have belly buttons makes belly buttons disappear.) Am I close here? Edit: get rid of unnecessary and false dichotomy

WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
> The "thing" driving this emotion is essentially hard-coded in the author at this point, from early childhood. I'll respond to this indirectly. I eventually learned that healing isn't restoration. We improve our being by layering better thinking over scarred ground. The bad layers never go away. However, we can draw on better layers to improve our behavior. With enough layers we hope to stop perpetuating our parent's flaws.

spudlyo 2y ago

I retired from the industry a bit over a year ago, which led to some tension between my wife and I; these kinds of drastic lifestyle changes can be hard on a couple. We ended up seeing a couples therapist who, among other observations, strongly believed I suffered undiagnosed ADHD. So, in my mid 50s, having already in my own mind succeeded at life, I saw a specialist for an official diagnosis. After filling out several detailed surveys and discussing my life's history for several hours it was official--the therapist said that she had rarely been more certain of a positive ADHD diagnosis. I'm still not sure how I feel about it. Over the years I've developed a narrative that explains away my utter failure as a student, the huge highs and lows of my professional career, my distrust and lack of respect for authority of any kind, and my pride in my achievements as an autodidact. I am a non-conformist I'd tell myself, a rebel, an independent thinker, yes a frequent fuck-up, but also a drug user, a risk taker, and someone who sees the "small stuff" as beneath them. Now the narrative is becoming: "I have a neurochemical condition that affects attention, impulse control, and executive function which causes me to seek novelty, and drives a need for stimulation and engagement." Honestly, I like that narrative a lot less. I suppose it's somewhat of a comfort knowing that there is a fairly common condition that goes a long way towards explaining my life, but it does seem to take the personal choice out of it.

jmholla 2y ago
You are not just your ADHD. It sounds to me you just have a name for the weight you've been unknowingly fighting your whole life. I don't think any of that other stuff is true, either. Your life with ADHD gave you a perspective others don't get which likely informed and encouraged those assessments, but that doesn't make them wrong. Lot's of people live great live swith untreated ADHD. And it looks like you have to, you just didn't know that's what you were doing.
cromulent 2y ago
Lots of similarities here. Getting diagnosed rocked my world, because I finally understood that other people experienced the world differently. > the therapist said that she had rarely been more certain of a positive ADHD diagnosis > my utter failure as a student, the huge highs and lows of my professional career, my distrust and lack of respect for authority of any kind, and my pride in my achievements as an autodidact Oh yeah. I'm with you. People's experiences inside their head are amazingly different, but society treats them the same. Some have inner monologues, some don't. Some have aphantasia. Some have prosopagnosia. Some are left handed, which was once considered evil ("left" is "sinister" in Latin, from another autodidact). We used to label people as one of: normal, genius, retarded. We are becoming more nuanced now and exploring "neurodivergence". The label you have been given is ADHD. One day it will be much more nuanced. Embrace it. It's not negative, it's society recognizing you and me and our type.

tolerance 2y ago

As self-proclaimed Neurodivergency Truther™, I support the general thesis of dear Ahmed's essay (and look forward to more of his work). I also invite him to consider his own parent's past and whether he can find any evidence of "forced assimilation" in their lives. I have a hunch.

WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
> I also invite him to consider his own parent's past and whether he can find any evidence of "forced assimilation" in their lives. I have a hunch. Well yeah. Every time I followed the thread of a bad behavior, I found feelings of helplessness at the other end. Following the behavior-threads of the people who hurt me, you know what I found. Knowing that helped shift the dynamic (between me and abuser) from animosity to shared support. In some cases, anyway.

lemonberry 2y ago

My grandmother was an elementary school teacher for 50 years. She told me that when the kids started getting rowdy she would stop class and play the piano and sing a song for a bit. I always thought that was amazing.

93po 2y ago
your grandmother is/was amazing

tonymet 2y ago

I've many friends and family members over-diagnosed with mental illness in preteens, plied with legal meth (Ritalin and Adderall), psychotropics & anti-psychotics. They are now adult basket cases. There is a confirmation bias especially in tech, since many high-achievers are also taking these drugs. I want to warn people that you are only seeing the winners not the victims. For every successful Adderall addict you know, there are dozens of lives that have been ruined by parents and quacks.

WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
> For every successful Adderall addict you know, there are dozens of lives that have been ruined by parents and quacks. Counterpoint: Adderall changed my life. It makes the difference between my self-improvement effort anchoring into the ground - or uselessly bouncing away. Over ~20 years Adderall has been key to me becoming a better person. Different stims similarly improve the lives of two of my sons.
- tonymet 2y ago
  it's not a counterpoint. there are a good number like you. There are also 20 million who take Adderall and the vast majority are not successful.
  - WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
    > There are also 20 million who take Adderall and the vast majority are not successful. These are two bold claims. What are some independent sources for each of them? They certainly run counter to decades of my own experience. Presently: For every person I know on ADHD meds, I know more who are unable to get them. The vast majority of Dr's are too afraid of the DEA to prescribe them. It's difficult to recognize a health crisis when all exterior signs point to the opposite.
    - tonymet 2y ago
      That sounds preposterous. If doctor's are afraid, how are they selling so much Adderall?

void-pointer 2y ago

I feel like I’m going mad. Is ADHD a debilitating condition that can be consistently and independently diagnosed, with verifiable symptoms and clear criteria as to who _has_ ADHD and, more importantly, who _hasn’t_? or is it a loosely defined group of behaviours that all people experience at different severities at some point in their lives, which have all been grouped into a nebulous so-called disorder (although many neurodivergent people now don’t like it being called that) so that doctors can quickly and efficiently work through the ever-growing mountain of patients who struggle with concentration in a world that is constantly and systematically trying to distract them? I don’t want to insult people and I don’t want to be rude. But the more I read about ADHD, the more it feels like a meaningless diagnosis to absolve people of the responsibility to work on their concentration, and absolve them of blame if they can’t.

cromulent 2y ago
This is a good point, and why so many ADHD people feel guilty or unsure about their diagnosis. Doesn't everyone feel like this? Adrian Chiles' "inner chimp" and other columns [1] helped me understand it. Also, when I laughed off my psychologists' questions ("oh, everyone would answer these questions the same way, this is silly"). Oh no they don't, she said. There will be a grey area for sure. But for people who have it, it is real, and it is different to how other people experience the world. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/sep/30/my-treatment-for-add-changed-my-life-so-why-cant-i-stop-worrying-about-it https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/sep/30/my-treatment...
- nijuashi 2y ago
  It’s just that ADHD was not recognized until recently. We as a society is not well informed about this. But it’s important for us to feel the need to address this problem. I think the best analogy is myopia. Until glasses were invented, people with poor eyesight were very limited in what they can do. People with glasses were stigmatized (remember “four-eyes”?). We didn’t know what caused it. Then things became normalized and lens making techniques became so advanced and ubiquitous that it no longer became such a big deal to see people with glasses. Then things like contact lenses and surgical procedures that came along which can correct it, making the person with myopia indistinguishable from one without. We are now starting to reach a stage where people can prevent the condition from developing because we have a better understanding of the disorder (although there are a lot of snake oils out there). ADHD is like myopia, which limits the range of things that people are capable of. We have imperfect tools like adderall which has a lot of unwanted side effects. My hope is that technologies like AI personal assistants geared toward helping people with ADHD will act as a way to augment these deficiencies, much in the way glasses have. We as a civilization simply did not reach that stage.

wonder_er 2y ago

Even as I read _just_ the title of this post, I felt certain the author and I would strongly agree on some key things. I'm less interested in things that can be found in the DSM-V than it seems most of my english-speaking peers are, but things that can be called "adhd" make me always wonder what childhood emotional neglect and emotional abuse that person experienced. for instance, 'spankings', if ever a part of one's experience, is also known as 'adults hitting children' or 'assault of child by adult'. It can extinguish parts of one self that would otherwise be accessible. A little while ago I read an excellent book about punishment. [0] Might be helpful/instrumental to others in the same way it was interesting to me. (I have more first-hand experience than I wish I'd had with evangelicals of the exact flavor described in the book. Was raised by some of them.) [0]: [Spare the Child: The Religious Roots of Punishment and the Psychological Impact of Physical Abuse](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1335495 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1335495)