This will be long, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time.
Has anyone else noticed that there are less avenues of support and resources for adults than there is for kids? For the purposes of this post I’m talking about mainly government sources. I’m aware there are some NGOs that offer help for adults. It seems like government agencies only have a lot of their neurodivergent resources and support for families, particularly children. While this is completely understandable, these children will eventually become adults, and it will be a rude awakening.
There’s still so many misconceptions about neurodivergent people that particularly hurt when a person becomes an adult, and it starts from childhood. Some of the things I’ve heard:“oh they’re kids, they’ll grow out of it” and too many neurotypicals thinking that we’re all invalids that can’t take care of ourselves and need to be institutionalized. Things would definitely improve (job wise and mental health wise) if more groups would stop thinking of these conditions as just something kids go through and expand their support systems to adults as well as children.
Oh definitely. Let’s talk about adhd for a second.
So first of all, everyone assumes the only issues it causes is with work and schooling. Once it affects your daily life, That’s when allies start to eye you weirdly. Sorry, what do you mean that you can’t do laundry right now because of “executive dysfunction”—even kids can do their chores if their parents bug them enough!
Secondly, resources are slim. Books are targeted towards teenagers in school, parents and their unruly kids, parents and their gifted kids…but there sadly isn’t as many books on adult ADHD unless it’s an organization book!
Next, let’s talk about the depression and stress it causes. No one clues into that. Free therapy in my province is targeted towards warped thinking, which is great and all but doesn’t help at all when it comes to adhd. I’m not necessarily depressed because I thought of the bad things that are going to happen–I’m depressed because I can’t physically bring myself to do something productive right now. It’s executive dysfunction, not sadness.
God I feel this, it took showing my mom hours of footage talking about childhood ADHD for her to finally believe I have it and I’m 24 years old! I have no resources that accurately describe my symptoms now as an adult, and so many of the ones discussing childhood symptoms emphasize that by adulthood they go away. No they don’t!!!
I only recently heard ADHD described as an executive dysfunction disorder and not an attention disorder and I was gutted that such a simple distinction has made receiving adequate care so difficult.
It’s been hard learning to deal with the feeling that there’s something fundamentally wrong with me, finally feeling validated that this disorder isn’t just “sometimes focusing on homework is hard” has helped a lot
Oh yeah, it’s definitely more than just attention issues in class. Fun trivia: we have a high comorbidity rate with bipolar disorder. Did you know that? Our emotional dysregulation tends to be so bad that people with ADHD keep getting diagnosed with bipolar. How is that school based? What does that have to do with homework? Nothing! Yet, everyone acts like ADHD is just something that interferes with homework! It’s frustrating.
Yes absolutely! From about 19-22 I was diagnosed bipolar and on mood stabilizers and just thinking “why the hell isn’t it working”. Now I’m finally on Ritalin and it’s helped so much, but I still have difficulty with my executive dysfunction and no one really seems to know what to do about it! /rant
I got diagnosed while at uni but now that I’m graduated and with a job, it’s the place I have the least issues. The “taking care of a home and living a socially acceptable adult life” outside out mon-Fri 8-5 is the hardest part of my life right now. Even with meds and regular psych appointments, I don’t see much progress being made. Ressource are few and far between. Psychologists / psychiatrists seem to be taught about child ADHD, but almost nothing on adult ADHD. /rant
For sure! It’s so frustrating. I didn’t get any assistance as a kid so it wasn’t a shock for me when I became an adult. My niece and nephew though…they’re growing up with a lot of assistance that won’t be there very long. I hope by the time they grow up resources for adults will actually be around.
Its so frustrating finding out about a symptom I’m struggling with, and I try to look it up and its all aimed at kids. Even if its all targeted at kids, those kids will grow up and become adults, and still have the same issues and I don’t understand why.
I think you’re right with the whole grow out of it thing. It fundamentally won’t for any of my ND stuff, I will just get better over time at managing, but its hard to do that when there’s no support. It’s like the phrase “stop making autism your whole personality”, no I cannot do that because fundamentally it affects everything.
TLDR: I agree and I hate how resources are aimed at NTs despite the fact that we are autonomous adults, and even then kids need to feel like you understand and aren’t just talking at them.
I was recently re-diagnosed with ADHD because I wasn’t paying attention the first time I was diagnosed with ADHD (yes really). I thought it was hilarious, but my psychiatrist did not. It’s been six months since then first on the wrong medication and now on the correct medication (Ritalin family made me feel trapped in adrenaline, Adderall family brings me from no dopamine to some dopamine).
I like how I live my life and I like to be who I am. I do not like executive dysfunction at all (hence the medication) and I’ve learned to work around the spotty memory for the most part and no longer find it as annoying as I used to when I forget things because I no longer have the expectation to always remember everything. I like the hyperfocusing and rapid thinking even though these have also caused issues but I feel in my case I’ve enjoyed more benefits from them than problems.
I’ve masked forever. Even though I always knew I wasn’t on the same wavelength as most people I learned how to appear to be, even though often times there’s so much involved with what I’m talking about it can be overwhelming to most people which I’ve learned to temper for certain audiences. With this particular difficulty of mine I have no idea how to get someone who isn’t themselves some form of ND who doesn’t understand what it’s like to live a life interpreting the world in a fundamentally different way than they do to understand those differences, especially since it doesn’t directly and obviously benefit them personally to understand it and takes some effort to understand that they wouldn’t even apply to things that are significantly more basic. This aside from the fact that the most notorious symptoms of ADHD are often agreed upon in my culture as the hallmarks an undesirable person (lazy, inconsiderate, pretentious). I’ve always been proud and refuse to entertain those who don’t respect me, which is probably why I came to find later in life that almost everyone I’ve been close with is also ND.
On that note it’s my opinion at this time that we have a much better chance supporting each other than we do getting those ignorant of and prejudiced against us to understand us enough to help. I don’t think it’s impossible to spread better awareness and understanding, but at the moment I prefer to spend time with and provide mutual aid to those who already understand.
