"ADHD Isn't A Real Disorder"???

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That's what someone i work with said today. I'm diagnosed with Inattentive ADHD along with AS, and i don't think i understand this idea he has that it's not "real." He said something about it just being a group of people who think similarly but not anything medical or a disability. I think i can agree with some of that, because i don't really like the word "disorder" applied to a way of thinking that i don't see anything wrong with.. I don't necessarily see it as a completely bad thing or a defect.. It's a difference. But it certainly can be disabling in many ways, so it definitely is a very real condition. It's similar to how i think of autism. I actually feel a little insulted that someone is acting like something is just another personality trait when i know that it's caused real issues for me.

I've gotten that from somebody I know. We've had a debate. Of course, he wasn't convinced. But is it really worth arguing with ignorant people? They wouldn't give in, anyway. ADHD has been recognized for years, and most people agree that it is real.

In my opinion, for a disorder to be real, one has to struggle with it to an extent that they cannot cope independently without any kind of support. I tutor kids with ADHD and they have real problems. There's really no question that they have a condition.

I used to think the same way as this guy, and there actually are intelligent reasons to be skeptical of an ADHD diagnosis.

There are lots of reasons why a person might have trouble paying attention that don't stem from abnormal development of the frontal lobe and basal ganglia (a key neural signature of ADHD). Lack of interest and motivation, active imagination, boredom, laziness, work too hard or too easy, high energy level (leading to excessive movement), low energy level (leading to difficulties paying attention or moving around in order to stay alert), depression, eating too much sugar, keen senses (making noises and sights more distracting), etc.

ADHD is currently based on symptoms not underlying biology, and school psychologists and doctors often diagnose it and prescribe meds on the basis of an interview of an hour or less. That's not enough time to disentangle all the complex factors that differentiate between ADHD and other disorders (or no disorder at all). Furthermore, school psychologists are under a lot of pressure from the school system to diagnose kids as ADHD and prescribe medication. Some schools de facto force reluctant parents to have their kids medicated by refusing to allow the children to come to school until they're on ADHD meds. It's pretty horrifying. You can see why people who aren't good at making fine distinctions jump from "people without ADHD are often misdiagnosed with it" to "there is no such thing as ADHD."

I changed my mind because, despite being a self-disciplined workaholic with a lot of willpower, I still have problems focusing and organizing myself, and not nearly enough working memory. Despite good routines, a lot of attention, and lists, I often lose and forget things. I'm also very careful to get a good night's sleep and eat as well as one can in a college campus. The fact that all my hard work, self-discipline, and self care leave me little better off than my somewhat lazy friends suggests that I really do have an underlying executive function problem. Yet, to most people, I don't look like I have ADD. Given this, I now have the humility to realize that from the outside, I can't judge whether someone has or doesn't have ADHD. Some people are misdiagnosed as having ADHD, yes, but the only person who can know for sure is the person himself. Does this help you understand where that person might be coming from?

The EEG for people with ADHD is different to the EEG for normal people. Something is definitely going on differently in the brain, and practical experience shows that this is a disability in many situations (it is also a "gift" in some situations - the ADHD deer was the deer in the herd that kept looking up and noticed the crouching lion in the bushes and ran away. The rest of the herd followed the ADHD deer to safety....)

It is perfectly reasonable to be cautious about a diagnosis in a particular case, but rejecting the whole idea of ADHD is more likely to be the result of prejudice and ignorance than reasonable caution. There are also people who say that Asperger's syndrome isn't real...

Actually, it is a real disorder.

These same kinda idiots also say aspergers isn't a real disorder. They're too dumb to acknowledge what they can't physically see. There'll always be these ignorant idiots around. My granny has dyslexia and she says when she was in school the teachers didn't believe in dyslexia and gave her massive amounts of s**t because of her inability to read and right.

It certainly disorders me and I've had a lifetime of trying to overcome it before I even knew I had it. Some people can't imagine anything outside their own experience. I also think that the idea that something from your neurology dictating who you are is frightening to some people so they deny it. It threatens their concept of free will.

Saying something's not a real disorder, or that it's not really a disorder, that could mean that, yes, it's real, and, yes, there are difficulties, but those difficulties aren't intrinsic to the difference. Or it could mean that there's something going wrong, but ADHD doesn't actually get at it.

Psychiatric diagnoses are labels for sets of symptoms. Yeah, the symptoms are real. But that doesn't always mean that there's really some one thing behind that set of symptoms.

It's not a black and white thing whether or not something is a disorder.

With ADHD, I've seen the idea that it's not that something's wrong with the person, it's that society isn't accommodating to people who think that way. Especially in schools. And I think there's some truth to that.

I think a good response to a comment like that (the one the OP talked about) is something like "my struggles with the symptoms of ADHD are certainly real".

Huh? It's definitely real. There's a girl at my sister's brownies group with ADHD, and you can tell it's pretty severe. I knew from the second I saw her that she had ADHD or something similar.
I've got a few traits of it myself, I'm pretty sure of it. But I don't think it's enough to warrant a separate DX though because a lot of aspies have ADHD traits.

Thinking more about what I wrote, I think part of what you can accomplish with a comment is trying inspire him to shift his perspective from looking at an abstract concept (ADHD) to something that's undeniably real (you, your experiences, your struggles).

Saying something isn't real is meaningless, unless we take the next step of looking at what is real, and trying to understand it in a different way. If he isn't willing to do that, then his opinion is worthless.

Comes from the idea that all disability must be severe and obvious. The public mind hasn't yet understood that disability can be subtle; that "disorders" aren't necessarily obvious; that ADHD itself can be an impairment without being "diagnosable to the naked eye", so to speak.

I think it also comes from the way we've been treating ADHD. They just randomly give people stimulants, and then don't teach them how to organize or how to inhibit their impulses. I don't like that; education should be a HUGE part of ADHD treatment. All the stuff they're calling "bad behavior"? Yeah, well, while you had unmedicated ADHD, you mightn't have been able to control it; but now they've become habits, and habits have to be curbed--and that means reliable rules and dependable discipline at home and at school. (It's worse if you're an adult, because you have to impose that discipline on yourself--really, ADHD kids are lucky.)

But they suffer under this fallacy that ADHD, just because it superficially looks like bad behavior, must be identical to bad behavior. It's not like that, though, because ADHD kids can't prevent their disorganization and impulsivity without maximal effort--if they can prevent it at all. You can't call it bad behavior if a person doesn't know how to do things that are required of him; and the logical response isn't just to punish and hope it goes away, but to set up some supportive external structure and teach him how to do those things that he doesn't know how to do yet.

Well, I personally believe that this denial of ADHD or AS is caused by several factors:

1. A cynical view of medicine in general.
2 . Misunderstanding the symptoms of the conditions, for example, someone might think that you have to be shy to have aspergers or you have to be extraverted to have ADHD.
3. Misunderstanding the severity of the symptoms. For example, people may believe that Aspies and our deficits in social interaction is simple awkwardness found in every person (even though it can be quite debilitating). In ADHD/ADD, people might think it's behaviour that is observed in children bored in class when in actual fact these symptoms don't magically disappear when class is over.
4 . The fact that they are " popular conditions" create the sense that they are a fad.
5. Thinking that "Big Pharma" are trying to control us all (related to first point).
6. Cyncical view of todays world and new methods of teaching and parenting
7. The whole "They don't LOOK disabled, so they CAN'T be disabled" crap.

I think I've left out a few, but you get the idea. It's denial.

I think a good response to a comment like that (the one the OP talked about) is something like "my struggles with the symptoms of ADHD are certainly real".

::clap:: Next time I hear a comment like that, that's exactly what I'll say.

This might seem controversial to some of you, but I don't think there's much scientific validity to our current definitions of "ADHD," or "AS," or "NVLD," or probably most other conditions in the DSM. Most of these labels will probably be replaced by something else within a generation. People keep getting stuck on this issue, because they confuse the label with the actual thing that's being described. Even one of my parents (an INTP professor, so requires absolute clarity of concepts) was in denial about my brother's Asperger's and my own issues for a long time, because he saw the conceptual problems with the label, but couldn't "grok" the reality we were living with.

Bottom line, there are people with real neurological issues with executive function, social skills, and sensory processing, and while just working harder or being in a better environment can ameliorate the symptoms a bit, they WON'T make them go away. Whatever label we get, or don't get, we still have the same struggles. People don't understand that if they tell me I don't really have ADD, they're not just making a comment on the sad state of psychological practice, they're saying that they know me better than I know myself. What could be more condescending and insulting than that?

Joe Blow may think he knows everything, but the ADA and the doctors certainly believe it is a disorder. I know it is because I have suffered a great deal from it. I don't care if a person on the street doesn't believe in it. How about I don't believe in cancer- does that make it go away? If a million or so (diagnosed) ADHD-ers suddenly stopped taking their meds I bet those guys would believe it then!

My struggles are real too. My parents tried very hard to get me diagnosed in the 70s and never did. Doctor after doctor missed it. They used all kinds of cognitive tests and found out that I'm plenty smart but couldn't explain my inability to focus on school work and occasional impusivity when stressed. I'm more of an unfocused low-energy kind of girl with ADHD. If I'd been hyper they'd probably have given me Ritalin which was about all they had at the time

In my 40s I started taking Concerta for it. I got diagnosed as my kids were getting diagnosed with AS, PDD-NOS and ADHD all around. Talking to the doctor about their symptoms made it clear I had it too and that it answered many questions about lifelong struggles.

I'd never give up my Concerta. I feel just the same but I'm able to focus and keep things together. My kids and family say they see a HUGE change. My mom calls from time to time to see if I'm still taking my meds. She isn't so much checking up on me but enjoying hearing that we've found a solution after so many years and that I'm so happy.

Yes, I had a teacher five years ago who said that ADD/ADHD diagnoses were just sort of a fad and that the medication for it was "a fraud to cheat yuppies." This was a health teacher She wasn't too bright. Mrs. Godbold. What a crazy.
and I agree with everything MindBlind said. All of you guys actually, I just like the "numbered list" format