Something that pisses me off to no end is the commonly accepted idea that confidence is a momentary emotion you can conjure in yourself like a joyful laugh at a memory. Sure, for people who have had a life that structurally empowered them and rewarded them for having the brain they did maybe it is…

For someone with ADHD who has been told they aren’t enough and are also too much their whole life and never had the diagnosis? You can’t just make that go away with telling them they have ADHD and giving them a hug. Lasting damage has been done to that child and they may never recover their confidence in adulthood the way other people do.

I wish we would stop treating confidence like it is child’s play, it isn’t. If you undermine a child’s confidence you have hurt that child at a more permanent level than almost any other way you can non-physically hurt them.

Especially for someone who is very sensitive about what other people think of them, which a lot of ADHD people tend to be (a lot of us rely on it to motivate us to get things done!), you can’t just think better about yourself. Your confidence is like an instinct that has been learned through the summation and culmination of your experiences. If those experiences are people shitting on you for things you can’t help, you won’t be a confident person, period. That is how that works and I wish people would stop pretending it is all just wishy washy perspective taking that can be undone by simply thinking harder. Maybe for a very narrow range of people in a much larger subset this is possible, but beyond that? No

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.

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.

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.

Yeah, found out I’m Autistic this year. I’m mid 30s and it’s been fucking rough.

Yeah 45+ years of that…

In the case of my autism I was fortunate enough to not reflect it back on myself in most cases and instead was just frequently frustrated with how shockingly fickle, arbitrary, flighty, shortsighted, and ethically inconsistent other people seemed to be.

My mom did her best to turn it inward by always telling me I was “too judgemental” but she had already raised me with enough confidence and privledge by that point that instead of crushing my spirit it just made standing up for myself extra frustrating.

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.

deleted by creator

But at least they don’t have to go to the RFK Jr. slave therapy camps

When my nephew was little, he was wild. Like had to have that backpack with a leash or else if you look away for a second he was 20 yards away wild. Then he started going to school and got kicked out of a couple schools for hitting other kids because they would change the rules of the game halfway through. We heard that they got him tested but never admitted to us that he had autism, even when we all pretty much knew. I don’t think they finally said it to any of us until he was like in high school and has been home schooled for the last 10 or so years.

I don’t know if they’ve ever told him about it or not. Looking back it’s all clear, but back then he was just a hyper little shit who didn’t listen. Knowing would’ve made watching him a lot easier

Other than getting access to medication, I’ve personally never quite understood what difference a diagnosis makes. Having an ADHD diagnosis is an explanation, not excuse. My dishes will remain undone independent of whether it’s due to laziness or executive dysfunction. What matters is what is, not why it is.

TBH people don’t really “have” these things. People exhibit “symptoms” that are described as these things. For me it’s the difference between “having a disorder” (helpless, exploitable) and “having a natural reaction to a dysfunctional society” (aware, empowered).

Yeah, I feel this so hard. I only got diagnosed with ADHD in my mid 20s and now just starting the process of getting assessed for Autism.

It’s been a rough childhood with my family taking the route of learning through negative reinforcement, which did not feel consistent and sometimes the punishment was sometimes spaced far enough in time from when I did a bad thing that I didn’t know what I was being punished for sometimes. It also didn’t help that I got bullied a lot in school if I’m just not left alone, sometimes even initiated by staff too (not the teachers).

I’ve only found my childhood psychologist report recently that I was recommended to get tested for a condition that has long since been rolled into the autism spectrum.

The funny thing is my family didn’t want me to “catch” autism so I never got assessed.

Now I get to maybe be diagnosed AND work on the issues I have from what I used to think was all my fault, that I was lazy, etc etc.

Good fun! /s

Wait, I’m supposed to think I’m not those things if I know about my condition?