I think the reason so many people are diagnosed with ADHD is related to how our society looks like.
I wouldn’t even consider it an illness or defect. Our brains are just wired differently.
In the past, this would have been beneficial for the survival of your tribe. But if you live in a modern city and work in an office, it makes you unable to deal with the challenges you normally face.
Even just 30 years ago, the pressure to work efficiently and the hustle culture were much less pronounced than today.
Whenever I am out in nature hiking, hunting or kayaking, I don’t have any issues motivating myself and don’t feel like anything is wrong with me.
But in daily life, I barely function without meds.
I see this rhetoric a lot and I really dislike it and find it actively harmful to people with ADHD.
ADHD, at least mine, would absolutely still be a mental illness outside of modern society. My doesn’t care if I’m remembering where I put down my phone or where I put down my sandwich, I still misplace them either way. At work being without my medication makes it difficult to keep track of my responsibilities. At home it makes it difficult to keep track of doing laundry, washing dishes, cleaning the house. You don’t suddenly lose all responsibilities and idle tasks without a modern society, your responsibilities and tasks just become different. And my ADHD couldn’t give two shits what those responsibilities and idle tasks are, I’m going to struggle with them either way without medication.
Dismissing ADHD as not a mental illness but a symptom of modern society is not only incorrect at it’s most basic level, it also implies that people like me could be “normal” IF “x, y, or z” conditions were met. That idea is just blatantly untrue and just perpetuates the dismissive and uncompromising stance that many people take towards individuals with ADHD.
You should listen to the album Cave World by Viagra Boys (if you haven’t already). Don’t let the bands name fool you, it pretty much hits on everything in your comment but to the tune of Swedish post punk
I think the reason so many people are diagnosed with ADHD is related to how our society looks like.
I wouldn’t even consider it an illness or defect. Our brains are just wired differently.
In the past, this would have been beneficial for the survival of your tribe. But if you live in a modern city and work in an office, it makes you unable to deal with the challenges you normally face.
Even just 30 years ago, the pressure to work efficiently and the hustle culture were much less pronounced than today.
Whenever I am out in nature hiking, hunting or kayaking, I don’t have any issues motivating myself and don’t feel like anything is wrong with me.
But in daily life, I barely function without meds.
I see this rhetoric a lot and I really dislike it and find it actively harmful to people with ADHD.
ADHD, at least mine, would absolutely still be a mental illness outside of modern society. My doesn’t care if I’m remembering where I put down my phone or where I put down my sandwich, I still misplace them either way. At work being without my medication makes it difficult to keep track of my responsibilities. At home it makes it difficult to keep track of doing laundry, washing dishes, cleaning the house. You don’t suddenly lose all responsibilities and idle tasks without a modern society, your responsibilities and tasks just become different. And my ADHD couldn’t give two shits what those responsibilities and idle tasks are, I’m going to struggle with them either way without medication.
Dismissing ADHD as not a mental illness but a symptom of modern society is not only incorrect at it’s most basic level, it also implies that people like me could be “normal” IF “x, y, or z” conditions were met. That idea is just blatantly untrue and just perpetuates the dismissive and uncompromising stance that many people take towards individuals with ADHD.
You should listen to the album Cave World by Viagra Boys (if you haven’t already). Don’t let the bands name fool you, it pretty much hits on everything in your comment but to the tune of Swedish post punk