This has been on my mind for a while now. I had a conversation with my former boss a few years ago, and we somehow got to the topic of ADHD. This was around the same time that I started to get interested in the condition, so I was probably the one who started it. But all my boss had to say was that ADHD is not an actual condition but just an excuse for lazy people to justify their bad behavior.
I’ve met several people with ADHD since then. And all of them had no shortage of stories about people either not believing they have it or just flat-out say the condition itself is not real. And several people even had stories about getting bullied, ridiculed or even physically assaulted for their symptoms, for things that are out of their control.
All this got me thinking. Are people just that frustrated when it comes to the symptoms people with ADHD display? Or to a lot of people legitimately believe it’s not an actual condition? And if so, what could the reasons behind that be?
Comments
A good portion of the population believe everyone is the same or they can’t fathom someone being different.
Anything that’s not similar to themselves is this not possible.
You see it often with Trans. People will say things like “i grow out of my tomboy phase, you can too” even though it’s not the same thing at all.
[deleted]
From what I have seen, there is a diagnosed version of ADHD, also known as the real one, and a misinformation version that appears on some social media platforms, which is often used as an excuse by individuals to justify their poor behaviour.
A couple factors.
A big one is that ADHD, functionally, is a persistent state of executive dysfunction. The issue with that is EVERYONE experiences executive dysfunction at times. When you’re stressed, tired, hungry, trying to make a lot of changes in one go, just comparing your younger self to current state, overstimulated, all kinds of things. It makes it VERY easy to dismiss symptoms as just things everyone goes through. Because really, they mostly are. ADHD lies in it being a constant and severe state, not in being unique experiences. The rise of social media content about it really tends to exacerbate that, because much of it is identifiable to everyone so it comes off as “okay I see that sometimes, but I get past it and you should too. This is making excuses.”
There really have been issues with over/mis -diagnosis. Especially in children and young boys specifically.
People think it isn’t real because its symptoms look like laziness and bad personality traits. They confuse a medical condition with personal behaviours. Add ignorance, bad media takes and the fact that ADHD is invisible and they dismiss it. It’s easier to judge than to understand for many people:)
A good deal of the population simply refuses to believe new information beyond a certain age.I’m not sure if it’s an age related problem or if something else is behind it
Lack of cognitive empathy, mostly. They were abused or neglected between the ages of 10ish, and 20-24, and didn’t develop any fucking cognitive empathy.
That’s the empathy that tells you that people you don’t know, are real people, and problems that people that are not you, and that you don’t know, are real problems.
Ill give you the ai summary of my thougts about it being an alternative normal.
ADHD is real, in the sense that it’s a pattern of behaviors and neurological traits—like inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity—that are measurable, persistent, and often impairing in some environments (school, work, relationships). Brain scans show consistent differences in dopamine regulation, prefrontal cortex activity, etc., in people diagnosed with ADHD.
But you’re also not wrong—it’s part of a natural variation in human attention and behavior. The problem isn’t always the traits themselves; it’s that modern society is structured in a way that punishes people who don’t conform to a narrow attention style—like sitting still for 8 hours, processing abstract symbols, or multitasking in a cubicle.
So is ADHD a “disorder”? It depends on context:
In a classroom or office? Often, yes.
In a high-stimulation, fast-response, creative or exploratory environment? Maybe not at all—might even be an asset.
It’s like left-handedness: not bad in itself, but it becomes a “problem” in a world built for right-handed people.
So my General opinion is if you have ADHD, stop trying to medicate yourself to fit into a non ADHD world, and find things where your adhd is advantageous.
I understand that. It’s a real thing, but I also understand that it’s pretty common… We built a world for people that don’t have ADHD and we expect people with ADHD to sit in a cubicle for 8 hours crunching excel sheets…
Screw that, if you have adhd do something where your adhd is useful, like fire fighting, be a cop, or an emt, or a chef…
If the reverse were true and that most people had ADHD starting out and we had built the world for people with ADHD then the opposite would be true…. It would be normal if you had ADHD… And if you didn’t you would have CLAD (convergent linear attention disorder)…
My issue with adhd is how many people treat it, nedicate the crap out of it…
If you have ADHD, there’s nothing wrong with you. You just don’t fit the normal status quo.
You’re a screw where everybody else is a nail. Still perfectly useful oftentimes better.
It never used to exist as we was just naughty disruptive children back in day. When I was in school 25 yr ago I had a special teacher and sat outside for most my lessons. I wasn’t a bad kid just can’t sit still. As a 40 yr old man I still struggle to sit still and focus on many things.
I do work have a great manual skilled job that I can be left to do this works the best way.
Because everyone can develop adhd. Especially nowadays with fast entertainment and social media, everyone has it. People who dont show signs of adhd are usually people that are really disciplined.
Some people might actually have it bad, but I think it’s mostly people who don’t actually have a problem.
The test for it is a multiple choice quiz that could apply to literally anyone.
Most people can’t focus on boring work or school for long periods of time, especially these days.
The treatment is an addictive stimulant drug that you have to take every day forever and it only lasts a few hours.
You couldn’t create a better more marketable drug or mental illness. It’s ideal because you can prescribe drugs to kids or adults and they have to take it for life.
It’s the opioid epidemic part 2 IMHO.
Besides your former boss, can you think of others who don’t believe ADHD doesn’t exist? Preferably someone that isn’t putting on a show for say TikTok, or Podcasts.
I don’t know. Same with migraines. They think it’s just headaches.
Or they don’t believe good looking people can have depression or pain.
Yeah I get the same thing with autism, especially because I’m “high functioning” which mostly means I have a LOT of little routines and systems and coping mechanisms and rules and mechanical habits (ask how their day is before diving into work issue, look at the eyes sometimes, always say their baby is pretty)…that all means I “function” just fine and most ppl don’t see how much I struggle/work.
its as simple as this:
its hard to conceptualize the idea that someone has “full control” over themselves but cant sit still or cant hold their attention – its especially hard for people who’ve never had this issue and cant on any level relate.
I am 48 F I have ADD/HD I’ve been struggling since I a young child. These people that claim to be ADD are usually claiming to be many things they also try to blame the pandemic for ptsd from got from not socializing when they never leave the house in real life anyway. They ride on that wave of crocs,BLM,LGBTQ,tiktok and probably live at parents.
People just like to blame laziness because that’s a choice with an easy answer.
I’ve been married to someone for 20 years with ADHD. It’s not a choice, because he would 100% prefer not to have to cope with it. Nobody is as harsh a critic of him as him. If you know someone with ADHD, actually know them, you know they’re not faking it.
I do believe that ADHD exists, but I think a big reason people dismiss it is that you hardly heard about it 20 years ago, and now it seems half the population has it.
People self diagnosing and using it as an excuse for bad behaviour like always being late to meet friends and saying “oh sorry ADHD” when they’ve never even seen a doctor about it makes people think the whole thing is bullshit.
In the case of many of my friends from college, claiming to have ADHD was an expedient and extremely easy way to obtain a prescription for stimulants that were used in a way that (in retrospect) I think it would be fair to characterize as recreational. Test accommodations were a nice secondary benefit.
Logically, the existence of the malingering group doesn’t disprove the existence of a group with a real illness. But personal experience is a powerful shaper of worldviews; basically, there are a lot of people who don’t believe ADHD exists because there are a lot of people who have personally faked ADHD.
I’ve seen less about not believing it exists at all and more about it being overly diagnosed, which I tend to agree with. There’s simply no doubt of it’s existence though and the suffering it CAN bring to SOME who have it. As with most syndromes, the affect it has can be mild through constantly live altering.
as you get older, you will start to notice that average intelligence is unsettlingly low. it answers questions like yours.
Anecdotally, everyone I know who has a diagnosis of anything remotely neurodivergent has made it a core of their personality. “I have to to do this, I’m ND” BUT I’m glad that it’s recognized, and I’m glad that they have resources. A lot of those resources are getting getting wiped out (or will be soon) by the feebs that have taken over government.