Self diagnosed? Definitely
Actually, properly diagnosed? Probably underdiagnosed actually. Friend of mine had to go through a lot of pricey hoops just to get tested in a reputable place.
It's definitely under diagnosed. 5% of the world population is thought to have ADHD. I know plenty of people around me that show serious signs of it and they have no idea. Granted I'm not a psychiatrist, but I live with an ADHD person and the similarities are striking.
This feels like the correct answer.
The amount of people I go on a date with and tell them I'm ADHD and they follow with, "me too" when they are obviously not, is crushing. I'm glad my learning disability is fun to cosplay for you. The juxtaposition of people I meet in wild and tell them I'm ADHD and they are like, "Oh what's that like?" as they're looking for the lost keys in their left hand or leg stemming, feels... curious.
If I could snap my fingers and not have ADHD I'd do it. People think ADHD is just being scatterbrained and hyperactive and think its at best quirky and at worst annoying but a lot of the hallmarks of ADHD cause a lot of suffering just existing in society. eg. executive dysfunction/impulsivity, emotion dysregulation (seemingly feels like your emotions are harder to control which is part of the rejection sensitivity), difficulty building and maintaining relationships, difficulty holding jobs, being unable to quiet your thoughts late at night (80% of us have insomnia/delayed sleep patterns to one extent or another) and being very prone to boredom that can often feel almost physically painful. And of course, society treats you as if your personality is shit because what people see is someone forgetting things, making bad snap decisions and generally being annoying. So a lot of us dont think highly of ourselves because thats often how we are conditioned. To think we are lazy, uncaring, annoying and thoughtless/impulsive.
god that sucks to hear.
I'm alarmed at the amount of people I met, mostly women, who are like upset when I tell them I'm not autistic. It's like they want me to be or something. They insisted I needed to get tested to be sure.
Like what is with these people wanting this to be common and wanting to get people join in like its a club? It's a genetic trait. You either have it or you don't I thought.
It also doesn't help that many folks use Adderall and other ADHD meds recreationally.
Probably over diagnosed by people self-diagnosing. Probably significantly under diagnosed officially/clinically.
And the above is true for a LOT of conditions, not just ADHD.
My daughter has a learning disability. Dyslexia and some weird kind of error with certain fine motor skills. The diagnosis from everyone? ADHD-put her on drugs. What drugs would you like? If one drugs doesn’t fix her, we’ll try two drugs.
Thank god my wife and I resisted. Nobody could explain what was going on and how drugs would fix it. I ain’t gonna lie, her elementary school days were rough. But now, straight A college student in her junior year.
I’m sure there are people looking for it, but my experience was default diagnosis by doctors and schools pushing adhd onto kids where it wasn’t appropriate.
cough cough OCD cough cough
Being acquaintances for a while with someone with OCD was enough to tell me that the vast majority of people with “OCD” do not have OCD.
I've noticed this too. Even people telling me i have OCD because i sort certain things in certain ways. (i do NOT have OCD. I just can't stand some things if they are not in my order.) But people are very quick to diagnose other's. wich is okay imo as long as there is reason to believe so, so that you can go to the doctor and check wether that's true. Problem is people don't know that they don't understand the illness/disability/etc. à la dunning krüger effect.
I don't have numbers but my personal experiences tends to show me what it's over diagnosed, at least in California. Got many people around me that are diagnosed, with meds, and they take it as part of their identity, bringing it up all the time.
My kid talked to a therapist a few times for some minor anger issues, and he's already talking about getting him diagnosed for ADHD. He's the top student in his class, can focus for hours building anything he wants, is outgoing, and gets along with all his friends. He just has a few emotional outbursts at home, which don't affect his functionality or happiness. I don't understand the point of a diagnosis. It feels like a label would just follow him around and box him in, so we decided not to pursue.
My kid talked to a therapist a few times for some minor anger issues, and he's already talking about getting him diagnosed for ADHD. He's the top student in his class, can focus for hours building anything he wants, is outgoing, and gets along with all his friends. He just has a few emotional outbursts at home, which don't affect his functionality or happiness.
So...your child is exhibiting symptoms of being high-functioning ADHD, according to their therapist?...
I don't understand the point of a diagnosis. It feels like a label would just follow him around and box him in, so we decided not to pursue.
The point of a diagnosis is to allow them to get help with things that are challenging for people with ADHD. It's not something that is going to do them any harm or cause them to be discriminated against, contrary, if it is a correct diagnosis, it can be of great help. I did but get an official diagnosis until I was in my 30s and had a very similar experience in childhood, with my parents but moving forward with diagnosis. Not having access to resources when I was younger caused measurable harm and issues that I could have otherwise avoided.
Please, diagnose your kid even if you think he doesn't have ADHD
He's the top student in his class oh no. He's gifted? Get ready for potential burn out in teen years or college years. These problems can change over time, and its impossible to predict how these conditions will play out, but I'd like to warn a parent your kid might need special attention / support considerations apart from a neurotypical child.
As medicine advances, most diseases or conditions will be diagnosed more often. With the extreme increase in technology in the past 50+ years I wouldn't say that cancer is being over diagnosed just because we can find it better. While mental health science is arguably far behind traditional medicine, I wouldn't say that ADHD as a whole is over diagnosed. Is it probable that there are some bad doctors that will simply hand wave kids away with an ADHD diagnosis? Sure but those cases are far less common than you might think. As someone with ADHD I have seen the sentiment that it is over diagnosed arise in my life as people claiming that what I suffer from isn't real and I need to pay attention better, or that I'm just "abusing the Adderall to get ahead in life." So no I don't think it is over diagnosed and people around the world need to have a better understanding of how mental illness truly affects the people that suffer.
I've always been fascinated how ADHD is the disorder that gets singled out for over diagnosis but not ASD.
AFAIK there's not much in the way of pharma treatments for ASD so public policy couldn't care less about it.
There's money to be made in demonizing ADHD.
One of the main reasons for adults to get evaluated/diagnosed is to access treatment options. It’s easy to see why an increase in this treatment options would see a corresponding increase in people seeking (and getting) a diagnosis.
This is not to excuse the horrible money grabbing that happens in the pharmaceutical industry, mind you.
You're just abusing adderal to get on par with NTs
The scientific, peer-reviewed answer is that it is significantly under-diagnosed in adults as well as in those AFAB of all ages. Most sources say up to 80% of adults with ADHD are undiagnosed and/or untreated.
May I have this source? Being genuine here, I don't doubt this but I may use it to show people and maybe put a bug in their ear to get diagnosed.
I found these citations in a paper on the first page of Google. I apologize but I have not verified them.
Fayyad J, De Graaf R, Kessler R, et al. Cross-national prevalence and correlates of adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Br J Psychiatry. 2007;190(5):402–409.
Retz W, Retz-Junginger P, Thome J, et al. Pharmacological treatment of adult ADHD in Europe. World J Biol Psychiatry. 2011;12(suppl 1):89–94.
Newcorn JH, Weiss M, Stein MA. The complexity of ADHD: diagnosis and treatment of the adult patient with comorbidities. CNS Spectr. 2007;12(suppl 12):1–14. quiz 15–16.
what is ASAB in this context?
A typo. It should be AFAB, assigned female at birth.
Assigned snake at birth, it's a yuan-ti thing
All Snakes are Bastards
I agree with you.
I think argueing if adhd might be over or under diagnosed makes adulds feel even more ashamed.
I also don't like blaming self diagnosis. Women having a hard time finding professionell help, cause they never fit into stereotypical adhd behaivor. They seen as overreacting and emotional.
What does ASAB mean?
It was a typo that has been corrected to AFAB. The edit may not have federated to your instance yet.
Don't know. I'm on a 2-5 year waiting list to find out 😵💫
Dang, that’s a long wait time. I hope you get some answers soon.
Cheers. Me too
Username coming through here
Say more please!
Mental health issues since I was 14. Diagnosed with schizophrenia and depression in my 20s. Been on so many medications which don't work. Now in my 40s my wife see's a self diagnostic for ADHD and says "you have every single one of these traits, perhaps you should mention it to your shrink" Ask my shrink who says of course we can refer you but the NHS has a waiting list of 2-5 years for an adult referral unless I go private. I've been waiting for a year and a half so far.
For adults, it's under-diagnosed. Because some of the most common prescriptions for it are stimulants like Adderall, there is a fear that adults are trying to scam the doctor. Additionally, and imo even more infuriatingly, doctors are apprehensive about diagnosing an adult because "you made it this far in life without needing help. You can't be ADHD/autistic/neurodivergent." Fuck that mentality. I'm ADHD and autistic and I don't need a doctor to validate me when they can't even agree amongst themselves half the time.
I mentioned my adhd diagnosis in a post earlier today so you may be the same inquirer. Regardless here's a little bit more of my story.
I was born in 1986 and not diagnosed with ADHD until 2021 (I was 35). I didn't do anything about about my diagnosis until 2023 when my career started going off the rails. I sometimes fantasize about what my career would have been like if I'd been diagnosed (and acted on the diagnosis) 15 years ago when I started to suspect something was up.
For me it mostly manifests as struggles to initiate tasks unless they're interesting or urgent.
Is it over diagnosed? Maybe. Our brains evolved to hunt, collect berries, and work collaboratively with our clan. If we struggle do so TPS reports so that shareholders know how their incomprehensible riches are being used, is it fair to call that a mental disorder?
Is paying money to the pharma-man so we can be a better money machine for your bosses shareholders kinda fucked up? Yes.
But will it also help me better support the things I value? My family? My community? My interests? Yes.
I think if you want to know if ADHD is over diagnosed you need a scholarly resource, not an internet forum.
The other thing that makes it tough is that we don't really have a good grasp of what it is. At least, last i checked.
Like, are we just pathologizing people on this or the other side of a fuzzy threshold of executive function? Or is there a population that really is physiologically/genetically different? Either way, is there something wrong with society where people within a previously normal range of executive function are now unable to keep up?
Well its like they said, for 200,000+ years humanity was out foraging berries and hunting gigantic beasts to survive out in the wild and now were expected to sit still and focus while being trapped in a gray cubicle with florescent lighting and a fake plant on a desk doing who knows what boring task 8 hours a day every day 5 days a week 50 weeks a year for 50 years. Out in the wilderness itd be useful to be the one in your tribe that finds new food sources and needs to be physically active and alert often later at night. But in a gray cubicle in some soulless office building? not so much
Oh my gosh, similar to my story and you’re exactly right. Yeah I could totally be happier running around the forest all day but that’s not feasible when I’ve got kids getting off the school bus who need encouragement to do the things and who need to be fed more than the handful of berries that are likely smashed in my pockets because I was more interested in collecting several cool rocks. Now the kids are crying because it’s stone soup again for dinner. It’s just a damn mess.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to be diagnosed with ADHD?
I was diagnosed when I was 32. In order to be diagnosed, I had to go through a series of screening tests that measured intelligence, executive function, behavioral assessments, interviews with family that knew me when I was a kid, "testimony" from my therapist and other tests meant to rule out alternative explanations. eg. sleep deprivation, health issues, depression, anxiety etc. And it was expensive. Thousands of dollars and many hours. Its essentially designed to mentally tax you until the ADHD is detectable through any masking that you do.
I was diagnosed as a kid and was on ritalin and later adderal but stopped taking all that stuff after elementary school. I'm 36 now and I wonder if it'd be a major pain to get on meds again as an adult or if my previous diagnosis would still be good enough.
Fwiw, sounds pretty similar to me. Depends on your doc, probably... but I have a good relationship with my Dr. and my ability to discuss my previous diagnosis as well as meds and what worked etc. Was enough for me.
Definitely not in women - the opposite is true.
Yes, and no. This is an unanswerable question.
Negligence, ineptitude, and mistakes happen in every field and medicine, education, and parenting are no different.
There is pain in being diagnosed correctly just as much as there is incorrectly. The question we should be asking instead for both sides of the aisle is how do we best deliver knowledge, support, and care in the correct format to those who need it?
Probably under diagnosed with people who actually have it.
Over diagnosed, probably. Over medicated, most definitely.
You're wrong on both counts. You shouldn't speak on matters you know nothing about.
Thinking about disgnosis reminds me of some of my experiences on LSD.
Several times I had these relevatory moments where the ephemeral nature of the universe and its gradual slipping into entropy over time became intimately tangible. When this would happen, I'd usually find it terrifying. I'd feel like the world was falling apart around me, because it literally always is.
But in these moments, I was so focused on seeing that entropy in a way that felt new that it would take some time to realize it had always been this way. It seemed like the end of the world, but the reality was that it was just a normal day and I was examining aspects of my world that I didn't normally and making connections. That's all.
Some of those connections were silly psychedelic-fueled nonsense, with whatever meaning that might lie beneath lost in some cryptic and half-undestood internal symbolism, while others were perhaps a bit more useful, but none of them were new.
To me, though, these revelations felt apocalyptic in the moment, and of dire urgency. It felt as though the realization itself presented a dire threat, as if it itself was entropy, but in reality the only thing that had changed was my awareness.
Diagnosis, to me, is a similar beast. We're attempting to peel back the falsely self-protective veil of ignorance about our own internal workings, and we see these things as though they were new and should somehow define us. The reality is, though, that we're just learning how to classify and examine what was already there. We're not describing something different from what we might have assumed otherwise, we're looking at the guts of what's made us who we are.
For some people making those connections may lead to things that can help improve their lives. For others it can be a way to divorce a person from themselves. We're taking the huge variety of human experience and trying to pigeonhole it just based on people that share various sets of common characteristics that some of them have found difficult to cope with or to make work with the expectations of their social context. If we're focused on mental health only in terms of disfunction, that's all we're going to see when we start classifying it.
It can be both overdiagnosed and underdiagnosed! Both these things can be true at once:
- Some people who would benefit from ADHD treatment do not receive it.
- Some people receive ADHD treatment who would be better off without it.
One contributing factor is that people are treated differently in the contexts where ADHD is likely to come up (e.g. in schools) due to things like race, gender, and family income.
A black boy and a white girl having the same "brain stuff" going on are likely to be treated differently by teachers and parents — not only due to overt sexism and racism, not only hormonal and developmental differences, but also different cultural experiences with medicine (and medical mistreatment), different parental fears, etc.
Not overdiagnosed. Broadly defined.
Seems like too many people fall under the criteria, but that's how psychologists defined it.
Most definitely but also poorly defined which leads to the former
Definitely. A lot of kids that used to be called "very lively" back when I was in school are diagnosed with ADHD or similar conditions nowadays even if there's nothing wrong with them.
We also used to call PTSD "shell shock" even though you don't have to go to war to be affected. Science and medicine change and improve over time.
No, it's not. I think it may be over self diagnosed, but that's the nature of self diagnosis of anything.
It's not over diagnosed in terms of formal diagnosis though, and is probably the opposite, because that's the nature of formal diagnosis
