When you think about ADHD – what springs to mind? For many people a white boy bouncing off the walls in a classroom is what they think of. We don’t often think of the chatty girl in the corner, or the one who spends her life seemingly daydreaming or can’t find the words she wants to say. Like with Autism, girls are more likely to be misdiagnosed with anxiety or depressive disorders than as neurodivergent.
I’ve had many a conversation over the years with professionals and parents who don’t think a diagnosis is necessary because they don’t want a child ‘labelled’.
Put yourself in the child’s position: What happens when you don’t understand why you are being rejected by your peers because you are ‘too much’ or can’t remember birthdays or do those lovely friendship maintainance things? What happens when you spin into anxiety because you can’t remember to pack the things you need for school and the teachers spend a lot of time telling you off? How do you comprehend the deep physical pain you feel when trapped in a boring classroom listening to an uninteresting teacher? How do you understand that sometimes you can do a lot of work, but other times you cannot muster any energy to pick up a pen? How do you feel when you get told off for the zillionth time for being late, or making too much noise, or zoning out…
What if you label yourself as stupid or lazy, instead of neurodivergent?
ADHD is more than just school – we know now it is lifelong, and not episodic. The idea that people will ‘just grow out of it’ has been shown not to be the case for the majority of people. Things may become easier for some people when they have the right coping strategies, or perhaps they have learnt to mask away their symptoms, but this does not mean they are ‘fixed’.
ADHDers can sometimes get themselves through school because they have the supports, but fall apart at university, or when they start relationships or have the extra pressures of having a family. The coping strategies and behavioural modifications that have worked so well in the past don’t work as well as they did and they can fall apart. Getting them to the end of school is not the end-goal. We need to start taking it a little more seriously – did you know, for example, that people with untreated or undiagnosed ADHD on average live 10 years less? We have a higher risk of:
- teen pregnancy & STIs
- intimate partner violence
- disordered eating
- substance abuse
- suicide attempts and self injury
- depression and anxiety, including post-partum depression and anxiety
- PMDD and PPD
- relationship & friendship problems
- accidental death (such as car accidents)
- diabetes and heart problems.
It is believed that around 5% of the population has ADHD and as Ari Tuckman famously says, ADHD rarely travels alone. It can be really serious for people without the right diagnosis and support. I meet many adults in my counselling practice who have struggled for many years when all along the underlying cause was ADHD. If you need some help please reach out.
Aylssa Temple 