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.
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.