Your ADHD Diagnosis Isn’t Real

“People are strange.” Those simple three words, made famous by The Doors, and the 80’s vampire movie, The Lost Boys, have always reminded me that people really are strange, especially when they’ve convinced themselves and others that your ADHD diagnosis isn’t real. 

And if you’re ADHD isn’t real to them, then chances are they don’t believe that any professional mental health diagnosis is real, no matter what proof there may be.

It’s already a challenge just trying to manage the symptoms of our ADHD on the not-so-great days, but trying to convince someone else that we have a real mental health condition, proof in hand, maybe a challenge we won’t always win.

But I know we keep trying because we’re fighters. We’re survivors. And we know darn well that our ADHD diagnosis is real. 

But why are we so worried about those who can’t accept our diagnosis? Those who refuse to believe we have ADHD. Well, we worry because we are not in control of the situation.

 It’s a power struggle we want to convince those who are not on our side, especially those who we love and care about, that we need their support.  

We worry about anything and everything constantly. It comes with the territory, a symptom of ADHD and we know that. 

But when it becomes a power struggle that causes more harm than good, maybe we need to ask ourselves what are we really fighting for.  Is it really that important that we have to convince everyone in the world that we really do have ADHD and that our symptoms are real and not just some made-up excuse?

We may be determined, but trying to convince someone that doesn’t want to be convinced is  like trying to convince the entire world that aliens are real.  And there is no doubt in my mind that we wouldn’t try. 

And honestly, it does get frustrating when you’re just trying to get through your day. I mean, who needs someone telling you to get over yourself when you’re just trying to manage the symptoms of your ADHD, but nothing is working at the moment, or  that your ADHD is just an excuse? 

But guys hear me out. It doesn’t matter if it’s your next-door neighbor, your boss, your co-worker, your parents, your children, your siblings, or even your spouse. If they don’t believe ADHD is real, there’s a good chance that they never will. 

Mental health awareness is still new to those who don’t understand as well as those of us who have been diagnosed with it. And most mental health diagnoses were practically unheard of until the pandemic arrived. 

Even when I was growing up in the 80s ADHD wasn’t as common of a term as it is today. My brother we didn;t  discover had severe autism until he was in his late 30’s, doctors had simply diagnosed him with having a severe mental handicap when he was a child. 

Unless you have a severe mental or physical health problem, anything less was considered a problem child, especially if the school you went to had anything to say about it. Most parents thought that the school they sent their children to knew what was best and often never questioned their judgment. 

I can’t remember how many times during my childhood I was misdiagnosed by the staff at the school I had attended because the teachers assumed I wasn’t capable of handling a regular classroom because to me most schoolwork was boring and I often found it difficult to focus on it. 

Some teachers often saw my silence as a problem child, especially when I was too scared of the authority figure to answer, which resulted in an innocent me getting swatted with the paddle in the principal’s office because I was too scared to stand up for myself. Maybe things would have been different that day had my teachers known I had ADHD. 

And while my parents didn’t know I had ADHD, they did know that the principal and teacher were wrong, and immediately pulled me out of that school. 

In another particular school, I remember being placed in a disciplinary classroom with my cousin who happened to be there because he couldn’t sit still in his chair and often rebelled because it was the only thing he knew how to do at that time. I was there because I wasn’t interested in learning about most subjects in school, so they thought I was slow.

I also remember the day that my mother found out what the school had done. She and my father pulled me out of that school without question. She knew I was reading and writing college words at 6 years old because they were words she had studied with me at home after school every day, so she knew I wasn’t slow.

People just didn’t talk about diagnoses like ADHD or autism when I was growing up because they didn’t know much about it. They also didn’t know that symptoms like depression are commonly associated with ADHD and other mental health conditions such as Autism. 

And if you did have depression it usually meant being labeled a freak by society or sent straight to the mental hospital aka looney bin and all because you literally cried over spilled milk. 

Not only did doctors not have a better understanding of mental health when I was growing up, but they also didn’t have a pandemic that made them aware of our conditions. 

And, until you’re officially diagnosed with ADHD the only thing you know is that something is off and it has been your entire life. You suspect it might be ADHD but then what happens if you’re right? There’s the worry rearing its ugly head. Authority figures like doctors scare you, and you’re just not sure you can handle that. And there my friends is another symptom that’s often associated with ADHD. 

But then once you decide to take that leap and get a diagnosis, it’s an ahh ha moment, because you realize, this is not so scary after all! You took that risk and it’s an adrenaline rush, your brain feels great, but as for authority figures? Ya, that still scares you. You do, however, start to notice your symptoms more clearly. You even notice those symptoms in others who may or may not be aware they have ADHD. 

It’s like buying a car and seeing your car on the road everywhere you turn, even though you would have never noticed it before. That diagnosis explains so much, yet it also leaves us feeling frustrated because we can’t just tame the ADHD beast at will. 

And we most definitely can't seem to ers convince others our symptoms are real, no matter what we say or do. I mean, you and I both know that we could have the proof in hand, a doctor say it right in front of them, and they still wouldn’t believe you. 

And yes we know that we can’t just make ourselves focus for a long period of time no matter what anyone says, especially when we have to focus on something that we find to be downright boring, But try convincing that to a person who loves the very thing we loathe, of that. 

We’ll also wait until the very last second to procrastinate like we’ve never procrastinated before because it’s in our nature, yet another symptom we know all too well that’s you guessed it, associated with our ADHD, but we can’t convince others of that. 

Nope, life just doesn’t work that way for us, and there’s not a lot we can do or say to convince anyone who doesn’t want to understand that ADHD and its symptoms are real. 

But you know what, we get our best work done when we do procrastinate. We do what works for us. We being to embrace the quirky habits and avoid the boring stuff by following the roads that guide us to our passions, even when it means taking one baby step at a time. 

We know our habits and we know them well. We know that when we start a project, we will probably stop, then start another project before we have even completed the first one. It's a never-ending cycle that frustrates the heck out of us because we insist on everything being perfect, all thanks to our ADHD. Yet it’s never perfect in our minds but we can’t convince our brain of that. So why again are we trying to convince other that don’t want to be convinced that ADHD is real. 

What we experience in life that often sounds fun and exciting at first, usually results in us bailing out of the situation, task or whatever got us there in the first place. We know our brains stand no chance of slowing down and focusing on one thing, so we try different things because we live for variety and excitement. When anything piques our interest we want to dive right into it because why should we wait? 

We have our rude habits of interrupting others during a conversation or all throughout the movie because we get way too excited and can’t wait to tell the world, but at the same time also because we know if we don’t we will forget about it later. Yes, we know we are rude, but when our thoughts move faster than a speeding bullet, we don’t have the super ability to just stop our minds at will from blurting everything out. Heck, most of the time we don’t even realize we’re doing it until it’s too late. 

We like to explore where we know we shouldn’t take chances that are risky and we don’t always follow society’s set of rules and maybe that is what bothers those who don’t believe ADHD is real. So why should we convince them otherwise? 

You have enough battles to fight, why add another battle if it really isn’t necessary? 

If it’s one thing I have learned about having ADHD or any mental health diagnosis, it’s that we are our own tribe. We understand each other, even when the rest of the world doesn’t. It is who we are and whether we want to focus on using our ADHD as an advantage or we want to focus on convincing others who we may never be able to convince is up to us. 

And yes, that will never change the fact that those who just don’t get us, will still think we are lazy, no good, making every excuse in the book because you don’t fit their ideal person. We have better things to do and more important battles to win. then try to convince someone who cannot accept what has been a part of us all along.

More about the Fight Within Her at: https://linktr.ee/TheFightWithinHer