This is no way disregards the difficulty of living with an actually severe case of ADHD but is not what most of these people are dealing with.
EDIT: many seem to have misunderstood what I mean by this. I’m not saying these people are only claiming to have ADHD to use it as an excuse. What I mean, is that they may very well do have, and they’re using it as an excuse. Mostly to themselves.
My point wasn’t that they’re faking it. What I’m saying is that a large number of people with an actual diagnosis are still treating it as an excuse. It’s an explanation for why things are as they are. It’s not a permission to throw in the towel and stop trying to do the best they can do. It’s a very small number of people with ADHD that actually have so severe case of it that they genuinely can’t even take care of themselves.
Peer support is important but that’s not what I’m often reading in the comments of these ADHD memes I see posted here. It’s people telling other people that it’s out of their control because that’s what they’re telling themselves too. ADHD might make things more difficult to them but the main reason they’re not getting anything done is not ADHD but cynicism and lack of self-discipline.
“My point wasn’t that they’re faking it. What I’m saying is that a large number of people with an actual diagnosis are still treating it as an excuse.”
Annnnnd that’s when I stopped reading. Next time you make a post, kind of think it through? Because honestly that sounds like baiting.
OP have you considered that the state you’re seeing them in is them trying their best?
Best isn’t static right, like when I run some sometimes my best is wheezing and throwing up through 5 km in 50 minutes because I’m hungover and sleep deprived, sometimes it’s getting shoes on and stepping outside before deciding to quit, and sometimes it’s nailing a pb on a 15 km run and only cutting it short because I have responsibilities and shit.
You just don’t know what’s going on in someone’s life. I am diagnoses adhd and have been undergoing treatment for 15 years. Mostly I seem like a kinda lazy spinster with too many hobbies and an untidy yard; sometimes I’m a whirl of activity and achievement; and other times I spend 3 weeks paralysed on the couch, absolutely wracked with guilt and self loathing, pleading for my brain to just give me enough of anything to feed myself for the first time in 3 days while my head pounds from dehydration and I want to peal my skin off for how dirty and uncomfortable it is.
Every moment is me trying my best. I can’t imagine not extending the courtesy of that belief to everyone else.
Not everyone is trying their best. People without ADHD have varying levels of self-discipline. So do people with it. This isn’t some kind of blanket critizism towards everyone with ADHD.
What do you think self discipline is? Like what does it mean for someone to have more or less of it? How could you tell?
I ask because to me it’s executive function. which had a physiological basis and varies based on physiological state. So someone without a well functioning executive function system’s best would look kinda arse to someone who had a functional one.
Lack of self-discipline is not doing what you know needs to be done and giving yourself excuses as to why this isn’t your fault but solely due to external reasons. It’s not taking personal responsibility and instead blaming the world for your issues. I can never afford a home because of capitalism. I can’t work out because of bad knees. I can’t get a girlfriend because I’m ugly.
If a person with no job or friends spends all their time inside smoking weed, playing video games, jerking off and then justifying this complete lack of function by telling themselves a story about how their mind is broken and there’s nothing they can do about it then I’d claim that more often than not there other reasons for that than just them having ADHD. I know because I’m that person.
At no point have I said ADHD doesn’t play a role in it but it’s always a combination of several factors of which some they have more control over than others.