A friend recently called my adhd a disease and it got me extremely angry and hurt. They didn’t have bad intentions, I don’t think they think that I need to be “cured” but it probably came from a more ignorant perspective.
But how do you feel about it? How would you handle that situation?
To me calling it a disease implies that my neurodivergence is wrong, that I should seek some sort of cure, which I find stupid and mostly laughable, but I guess hearing it from them hit some nerve and it felt like a personal attack. As if they were saying that as long as I have adhd I am not okay and that my struggles are my fault for not seeking a cure.
Just somehow it instantly made me so hurt and angry and I couldn’t help but feel insulted and small.
ADHD is a disease. You have to go to a doctor to get diagnosed with it. You have to take medicine to be treated for it. It’s studied by medical schools and described in the DSM. It’s genetic and terminal, so the medicine never heals you, unfortunately. It sucks, I know, but it is definitely a disease. No, you can’t “catch” it, but you can’t “catch” Type 1 diabetes either. That is also genetic and terminal.
Terminal in the way life is terminal?
Like many others, honestly, I’m more frustrated with conversations that downplay the impact of ADHD on my life. It has upsides, and in a different world it may not be a deficit, but in this world, it adds barriers and difficulties. It sets me on the back foot compared to my peers. As long as the language were using if lets me talk about the struggles and downsides, without forcing me to pretend that it’s a net neutral or net positive in my life, I’m ok with it.
More accurate than calling it a superpower. I hate that crap.
It’s a disorder, something that makes daily life more difficult. Yes it can be treated, but never cured (thus far).
Parkinson’s is adisease of the mind, and it often garners pity and sympathy. ADHD is treated as an “excuse” for bad behavior, since it’s invisible (save for behavior that is undesirable).
More than anything, how ADHD is seen by the ignorant majority is why it has any stigma at all.
superpower
I had one person try to tell me that because I, like many people with ADHD, tend to be good in a crisis.
Apparently they were not listening to anything I said because that is the only upside. And it’s not a very big upside. Everything else about having ADHD is bad. I’m honestly not sure how you get from “I can’t focus on anything, relax, or regulate my own emotions” to calling ADHD a “superpower.”
It is a horrible disorder that I would not wish on anyone and it has brought me nothing but misery. The only reason I’m happy and well adjusted now is because of medication.
Great way to put. I’d just like to add that for some people at certain ages, treatment can only go so far unless you’re willing to risk a stroke or possibly a heart attack.
Yeah fuck the whole “it’s a superpower” bullshit. It really fucking isn’t, it’s debilitating and it’s hell to deal with to try to function at all.
Honestly, it’s better than when people say I need to “just concentrate more”.
Yeah. All people will take for granted the things that come easily to them.
ADHD is seen as a detriment mostly because it doesn’t easily jive with our capitalist society. More modern understandings of it paint it as a deviation from a norm that loses more and more if its definition as time passes.
Someone has to stay up and watch for tigers, or spend 11 days nonstop searching for a spring.
It would definitely strike me as odd, but I don’t think I’d be too bothered by it. Sometime people talk a bit faster than they think. Is it a disease or a mental illness or a learning disability? To some people the vocabulary can be a bit muddy and I understand that.
If they treat me like I’m sick or disabled over an extended period of time, that would offend me. I never met someone who did that, but I’m not afraid of confrontation. I’d just call them out. That usually weeds out the people willing to change from those unwilling.
Sickness implies that it can be cured; disease implies (through connotation, even if not the denotation) that it’s contagious. In both cases, it’s not that it’s negative that it bothers me - ADHD is negative, on the whole. It’s just the inaccuracy.
Like my depression is not my superpower, neither is my ADHD. It’s just something I have to live with.
I don’t really mind it? Disorder/disease: I kinda feel like you’re splitting hairs.
ADHD is treatable, and I’m glad it is (otherwise I’d not be functional at all), and there are plenty of diseases you also can only treat (versus cure).
I dunno, that’s just not a distinction that’s ever bothered me.
