What a surprise that within my lifetime, having a short attention span has gone from a personal failing to a condition, to finally conferring the status of a protected class. This should really help equitably distribute jobs like, you know, maintaining nuclear power plants and putting people into space, that previously required concentration and focus that some people just weren't born with. /s
People have difficulty regulating all sorts of things. Personally struggling with addiction or depression or attachment issues or trauma or physical pain or attention span is foundational to the human experience. You'd be wildly abnormal if you didn't have to deal with at least one of these things to get through the day. And sometimes pharmaceutical intervention can help. I just think the wild over diagnosis and medication of what is essentially a personal struggle that's completely normal (what else can we call something that a third of the population has?) encourages the pathologization of normal human functioning at the same time as it creates victim mentality and removes responsibility and agency from individuals. For the express purpose of putting agency in the hands of psychiatric experts. We're all apparently sick except for them.
There’s such a large difference between normal human functioning, which can include struggles, and a condition where those struggles are a problem to the point where they require a psychologist to help.
For example, everyone feels anxious at points but not everyone has anxiety. I’ve been very anxious at times in my life, such around major assignments when I was in school. However these struggles were appropriate given my situation and I was able to get back to my normal life pretty quickly. In contrast, my father was absolutely non-functional for most of my childhood. He literally would not make phone calls because he was so anxious to talk to people. He had no friends, the only people he ever talked to outside of minimal interactions at work were myself, my mother, and his own parents. Medication and therapy turned that around real quick. I’m just a year he was totally normal, had started making friends and going outside of the house to run errands.
There are probably people who are getting therapy and accommodations for ADHD when they don’t need them. But is that really so bad? Why shouldn’t people, even if they don’t have a disorder, get therapy and accommodations to help them succeed?
Overmedication is a different issue, and definitely a real one. But that’s on doctors and drug companies - it doesn’t negate the reality that some people have disorders which need medications, therapy, and accommodations.
I think from personal experience I have a high degree of confidence that ADHD is real. I have a couple friends with ADHD and it is obvious their attention works in a different way - they are sometimes totally engrossed in something, so much so that it’s almost impossible to get them to think about anything else, while other times they are easily distracted. I have other friends who seem normal to me but who say they have benefited from therapy for ADHD, and I don’t see any problem with that. I have observed both of these categories of people taking responsibility for their lives and working to improve themselves, often with the help of therapy but not without their own agency.
I'm looking back on this thread and I really don't see what prompted you to go off on this rant. Which, while not like unhinged or anything, I just don't think is appropriate for the conversation that was taking place, or this audience.
I'm stuck here because what I genuinely want to say is something like "this sounds like a conversation to have with your therapist" which is truly what I believe. But that seems unlikely for obvious reasons, and it's easy to read it as a joke.
Anyway, it's not! This sounds like something you should explore with a focused, knowledgable third party that is invested in taking seriously why you feel so strongly about it. They have paid professionals for that but maybe a friend or a priest or something would work too.
Because I would easily classify as having ADHD, CPTSD and various addictions. I've done years of therapy to make myself not feel like these things are my fault, and I still consider them personal flaws and I don't want to be medicated or treated with kid gloves or stand on anything other than my own ability to hold my own shit together, hard as that sometimes is. I know that's not an acceptable view in AA or psychotherapy, or maybe to the audience here, but if you're asking what prompts me to be defensive about treating such things as handicaps rather than obstacles, there you have it.
Seriously, I hope you don't really believe that you have to do everything on your own. Getting help with things is okay too. It might even help you get to the point where you can hold your own shit together sooner.
> Personally struggling with addiction or depression or attachment issues or trauma or physical pain or attention span is foundational to the human experience
And when they're chronic and severely life impacting, all of those things are disabilities. With medical interventions.
> You'd be wildly abnormal if you didn't have to deal with at least one of these things to get through the day.
You're correct. However the disorders don't describe people that experience them chronically and more severely than the rest of the population.
> I just think the wild over diagnosis and medication of what is essentially a personal struggle that's completely normal
Citation?
>what else can we call something that a third of the population has?
Again, citation? My understanding is that it's much closer to 5%.
> encourages the pathologization of normal human functioning at the same time as it creates victim mentality and removes responsibility and agency from individuals
oh man, I wish it removed any responsibility. Nope. Still gotta make sure my taxes get paid on time or else get thousands of dollars in fees. I know because I've neglected to do so before until the IRS was threatening to garnish my wages. Twice.
> it creates victim mentality
No, it creates an environment that we have a better chance of succeeding in, and helps combat the narrative that we're just failures.
The misunderstanding that these conditions are medical realities is why they have to be protected classes. Clinical addiction, depression and PTSD are also considered disabilities under the ADA depending on context.
