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No, stupid. Everyone is different. Im still undiagnosed but I concluded -probably because I had good parents- that I have struggles like everyone else. Concluded that I was smart, just not in the regular way sometimes, and that my struggles are unique and my own personal battles. Im not a perfect adult now but no one is, but I am still pretty awesome.
Edit: I concluded its much better to have a positive attitude and the only one I can fix something about is my self
Congratulations, but not everybody is capable of reaching that conclusion on their own. Like you said, having good parents is a huge part of it. Good teachers too. But some conditions, like depression, bipolar and others, include low self-esteem or excessive self-blaming as a symptom, which in many cases totally precludes reaching the same conclusion as you unless a grown-up tells the kid that what’s going on isn’t their fault.
Now, if the grown-ups are actively calling the kid out for behaviors that are the result of an unmanaged condition, the prime example being a kid with ADHD or ADD who has trouble paying attention in class, and especially if they’re assigning negative traits to the kid based on those behaviors, such as telling them that they’re lazy or antisocial, then they’re just making everything a lot worse and that kid is likely to self-blame for years, even after receiving a valid diagnosis.
Well, I did so too, and it worked really well, until now, where I am a dad with a 6 year old son, where suddenly the positive attitude wasn’t enough, where I suddenly realised how much my partner is doing so can have positive attitude, how much I was just ignoring and laughed away, how much I just actively tried to forget subconsciously, or even consciously, how much luck (or hidden support) I needed to get where I am, and how fellow neurodivergent individuals didn’t had it and have major struggles in live now, and how easily I could have ended up like them 🖤 Stay save, positiveness is great, but don’t ignore darkness too much, or it will hit you while you are not prepared, and then it will hit you hard
But at least they don’t have to go to the RFK Jr.
slavetherapy campsAs an absolutely autistic person whose parents didn’t bother to get it diagnosed, I really do disagree. Diagnoses are basically just descriptive labels that can help identify potentially useful treatments, that’s it; they’re not some magical blame receptacle.
I think my greatest issue with this post is it implies that if you DON’T have a diagnosable mental condition, but still struggle, then it must inherently mean that you’re stupid, weak annoying, unloveable etc.
But I also think a child will conclude that they’re stupid … unloveable etc, if that’s how they’re taught to feel, with or without a diagnosis. I had many struggles, but it was the variety of behaviours specific to me, my personality, my flavour of autism, etc. But this is the same for every human being to ever live. A diagnosis might’ve described some of those behaviours, but what would that have changed? I’ll be honest - I’m glad I didn’t get one.
I agree somehwat. If people did not hate unusual or different behaviors and treat others poorly as a result, then kids without a diagnosis would not have a problem. But teachers and parents frequently get super frustrated with ADHD kids, and I have never recovered from how it made me feel as a kid, even decades later.
That’s very true. Maybe their real use is to change other peoples’ perception. But that’s very… sad to need a diagnosis to do.
And I agree with it because you’re only looking at it from a medical perspective. Look at it from the kids perspective. Maybe it didn’t hit you like this, but it DEFINITELY hit me like this.
I had no idea what was going on.
All I knew was that I was different from everyone else. I couldn’t figure out why. No one was talking about it. Anytime I tried to figure out why or ask questions I was met with things that just left me more confused. Things that I’d try to understand but couldn’t. I spent most of my life thinking I was broken because I couldn’t grasp anything that others took for granted. All of that internalized confusion and hatred went back at myself because I didn’t have anything to point to. All I knew was that something was different from everything else but I didn’t know why. In not knowing why, I came up with negative reasons. Partially because my parents were terrible, true, but also just because that’s what I was being told by everyone else in society too. It’s not just what your parents are going to teach you how to feel. It’s also how society treats you and how they’re going to look at you when you’re asking those questions.
Me not having a diagnosis as a child led to decades of confusion and self hatred because I couldn’t find my place in the world. Very little of that had to do with how my parents raised me and how society treats someone who is different. Giving me an answer suddenly closed those questions and allowed me to start enjoying my life instead of analyzing it.
I can sympathise with that experience, I guess I can sort of see why you found it helpful. But aye, it certainly doesn’t reflect my own, at all.
Thanks for the understanding and open response <3
Oh absolutely. Not saying it’s universal. But can definitely be helpful to a lot of us. <3
i understand the frustration, but this post is just trying to upset people
How do you figure?
My rationale for not having my son diagnosed is that we live in the US. I am afraid by having that label he will be rounded up and put in a camp. He is already ADHD and Tourettes diagnosed so I figured that should be enough, no point in adding on Autism when it’s one of RFKs obsessions.
It’s one of the reasons I haven’t considered getting an autism diagnosis. I’m pretty sure I have it, but even talking with the doctor I get my ADHD medication from she agreed that while it can be helpful to “know”, there isn’t much else outside of that.
It’s not like my ADHD where I can get a prescription that helps me manage the symptoms. If I just work on the assumption I have it and use that to process things and know when I’m getting overwhelmed and how to deal with it, and also stop masking all the time, then I get the same benefit that I would from an official diagnosis without opening myself up to more discrimination or fascist targeting.
Between being queer and having ADHD I already have enough things they want to throw me into gas chambers for.
I understand your fears. I live in the US. My son is autistic. My youngest brother is autistic. Both I and my youngest sister have ADHD.
We were all diagnosed as children and my parents could only afford to help the worse off of us (my youngest brother) so that’s where their time, effort, and money went.
I struggled for years. My sister struggled for years. Because there was no support for us.
But I want you to understand that (as someone who suspects they also have Autism), the support for children with autism and ADHD far outweighs what is available for adults, and it might be more beneficial to him to give him support now than to allow him to suffer in some aspects without it.
The support he’s already getting already likely won’t cover everything.
I would fight for your son and my son and all the others who could likely be affected by the current regime. Others will too. There’s so many more of us than people think and there’s power in that.
At the end of the day your child and his care is your business. I’m sure you’ve thought this through a million times.
I just wanted to express that there’s a downside to it.
Mom never took me to get tested because she didn’t want me to grow up with “that label” or whatever. Jokes on her cuz I basically had that label for everyone except me and her my entire child and teenage life.
I’ve struggled with addiction, schizophrenia, bipolar type 1, depression quite a bit in my life. We all are soldiers in our own wars. Understanding ones nature typically leads to better outcomes than forcing cookie cutter societal expectations on folks.
Just posted that to [email protected] yesterday too lol granted I took another screenshot because the one I had saved had been artifacted out to fuck
I only found out when getting my own son diagnosed and realizing I ticked every single one of his boxes as well. Explained a lot about my youth. And yeah, feeling like you’re some sort of alien who will never belong is unfortunately part of it.
Yeah, found out I’m Autistic this year. I’m mid 30s and it’s been fucking rough.
How did you figure out ? I wonder what all these stories (late diagnoses) have in common
I’ve had an ADHD diagnosis since childhood and I was actually tested for autism as a child, but I “narrowly missed” the diagnosis. The turning point came through my partner, who was recently diagnosed themselves.
They explained that autism is far more nuanced than I had ever realized. Since they’re a bit more “normal” than I am, it made me take notice. I started looking into “high-functioning autism,” and what I found was undeniable - it was suddenly clear that I was almost certainly autistic. I’m still waiting for an official diagnosis, but to me, it’s now as obvious as a pair of bollocks on a bull.
Thank you for sharing !
For me, it was The Algorithm™ pushing me videos about being autistic. And then I did the online tests on Embrace Autism. And then another few months of study and soul- searching.
Thank you for sharing
Spot-on. I’ve always thought I had a deficiency somewhere. The self-blaming was very tough at times. Nowadays, whatever I am, I know I’m doing my best… I’m just wired a little differently. And life feels wholly different.
In my experience, even with a diagnosis you don’t stop feeling broken.
A diagnosis is just a generalization of the “symptoms”. And the “cures” for the symptoms are almost always drugs and almost never address the actual problems - family, society, etc.
The idea that society is the problem could be true from the point of view of an ND person, but I don’t feel it’s the whole picture. I think there is a more helpful way to frame it.
ND naturally think and act in ways that are different from NT people, and may need different things, just as NT have needs and ways of thinking and acting that are natural to them.
So a better way to understanding the problem might be as miscommunication and lack of understanding. Sometimes the problem is ignorance and lack of empathy. This can happen on both sides.
A diagnosis gave me language and understanding to identify ways I’m different from other people, and helped me understand and communicate these differences.
personal mitigation is a lot easier than changing family/society/&c. i get why people medicate.
Rafiki whacks you on the head with his staff.
Go talk to a therapist!
I do that too!
That really sucks dude. Nobody should feel like that.
It’s not helped me that much either, but it has at least given me a level of understanding, and a route to direct self compassion down. It’s a really slow process, and it’s not linear or steady, but it is something.
True, but it helps.
I’ll probably never stop feeling irrationally guilty at times when my ADHD and/or my anxiety hinders me from getting stuff done, but being able to remind myself and explain to others makes it easier to carry it and not let myself descend into a guilt spiral that hinders me even further and for longer.
It helps once you have the emotional maturity and skills to contextualize your own dysfunctions and divergences as such. Even with a diagnosis on the early side, everything I do wrong or fail to execute on is inherently still, and always will be, my fault.
Sure, emotional maturity is a big part of it as well, but with no knowledge about the causes for your more vexing hurdles and limitations, you can be endlessly mature and STILL not know how to tell laziness or apathy from executive dysfunction 🤷🏻
I never understood willful ignorance, it’s gotta be better to know. And to have the diagnosis, being able to access directed care, have been life changing. I went through all those feelings growing up, knowing I was different, but not having the framework to know it was ADHD and what that meant and not being able to access treatment, it was rough. My kid got diagnosed when he was 9 as soon as it was evident he likely had it as well, he will not go through the same hardships I went through.
I just never considered it, things used to be so much more black and white, to put it bluntly you were normal or retarded basically, so you had so many kids who thought they were just weird/dumb/lazy/unambitious or worse, myself included. I’m so glad things have got so much better though there’s still a long way to go.
Yeah I was high performing, best test taker in our graduating class, highest act score, one of the lowest gpas… I got called lazy a lot. But that never made sense to me because I was incredibly passionate about things and would toil away for weeks on some project, but you couldn’t make me care about homework, you couldn’t make me listen to a lecture, you couldn’t stop me from sleeping in class, and neither could I. It did make me feel very different from my peers.
I’ve known several kids in upper elementary school who have a diagnosis but their parents won’t tell them or get them school accommodations or services. It’s just setting them up for failure.
I was tested for something or things in 3rd grade. My mom never told me what the diagnosis was. I was diagnosed at age 41 and my mom was dead so I never got to ask her.
She was afraid of how it would make her look, I imagine, because her rep was all she was concerned with.
Similar, but my mom didn’t even want to get me tested because even the hint of something different would make her look bad.
Hey, stop calling me out!
I always thought my problems as a child were due to a bad TBI when I was 7. And it certainly didn’t help, but my half century of archetypal ADD induced issues would have been nice to know about at some point in an official/helpful capacity.
I’m in this picture and I developed a personality disorder because of it.
