So, it is your fault.
So, it is your fault. A later-diagnosis ADHD story
Stop fidgeting! It’s not my fault.
Stop interrupting! It’s not my fault.
Stop daydreaming! It’s not my fault.
You have ADHD.
Oh, it is my fault.
Hello. I’m knocking on 40 and I’ve just been diagnosed with ADHD. You know the ‘one’, ‘fidgeting, not listening, ignoring people, messy, sloppy, inaccurate and easily bored, one’. The ‘one’ everyone has nowadays. I will warn you in advance this could sound like a self-piteous, self-centered rant but really it’s not. It’s a petition for early intervention.
The impact of how we treat young people with ADHD is significant, especially if they don’t understand why they are different. William Dodson (1) estimates that children with ADHD have 20,000 MORE criticisms by the age of 10 in comparison to neurotypical children. As you can imagine the knock on effect of this leads to failure avoidance, crushed self esteem and avoiding situations where they may be criticised or punished. This fact alone should change the way you see the importance of an early diagnosis. Scaffolding their understanding around what it means to have ADHD and how it changes who they grow into. To be constantly and consistently told who you are and the way you act is annoying, unhelpful, annoying, distracting, annoying, annoying, annoying will lead you to forming your own self fulfilling prophecy.
If your report reads you don’t commit, when you do or if it reads you're distracting when you don’t mean to be or you have so much potential, but you’re not willing to try, when you do, you will simply stop trying. We are breaking our neurodiverse children with words.
Who am I? I've worked with children and young people on and off since I was 15. I have supported a theatre troupe of children with additional needs. I've worked in early years teaching younglings through play. I’ve been a PA, I’ve been a TA, a support worker and as part of an assessment team for neurodivergent young people. I’ve spent so long working with the mirror, but never looked in it. When I suggested to my family I may consider seeking a diagnosis for ADHD the general consensus was ‘well obviously’. Well no one told me.
I can only tell this story through the fractured lens of my own experience. Every person with ADHD is different and experiences ADHD in their own way. I have combined ADHD meaning I am a mix of inattentive and hyperactive, though my hyperactive appears mainly to be within my own head. My head is like throwing a super bouncy ball into a china shop and the ball never stops bouncing. It's chaos and noise and movement, but in it all, there is a little beauty in the shatter patterns, the cascade of tinkles and the timpani of falling crockery; if you’ve got the ears to hear it.
As early intervention changes the way young people can see their world, arms them with the skills it takes to navigate society in a way that utilises their skills instead of highlights their barriers, I feel a diagnosis as an adult, does the opposite. It's a mourning of a life lost, not lived. It’s a difficult thing to describe, the sorrow you feel for the loss of a version of you that never was. It’s like a whole life of failed experiments now makes sense. Haven’t managed to keep hold of friends? Normal. Can’t stay in a job too long? Normal. Struggle to focus on just about anything? Normal. But normal doesn’t mean it isn’t hard. Adults with ADHD are 5 times more likely to attempt to commit suicide (2). Men are 4 times more likely to commit suicide than women. You do the maths. 1 in 4 women with ADHD will try to end their lives and men are more likely to succeed. Early intervention becomes early prevention. Teaching a generation of people that their impatience is a power, their distractibility is curiosity and their daydreaming can become problem solving.
Looking back through the days and decades of my life is like skipping through the scenes of a Richard Curtis romantic comedy where the bumbling central protagonist leaps from scene to scene, tripping, stumbling and guffawing his way through the script.
But the comedy is gone.
No one sticks around for the grand finale.
And it all could have been different if other people understood.
Teaching children with ADHD social skills and friendship maintenance from a young age can help prevent a lifetime of isolation.
Turns out I may also have a 1 in 2 chance of being Autistic as well. 50% (3). I wouldn’t gamble a wage on that, but I’m a winner half the time. Double prizes. Misinformation, self diagnosis and lack of understanding has caused ADHD to be presented as ‘a quirky thing, almost entertainment’ (4) undermining the importance of early diagnosis and diluting the very serious condition. Even now, a confused and mistaken peer is quoting ADHD as a ‘fashionable illness’ and ‘they aren’t ill at all, they just want a label’ to the house of lords (5). This only goes to illustrate that education is required not just for mainstream settings struggling with neurodivergent young people, not just for parents thinking it's a phase, but for everyone that has been gifted with a voice and uses that voice to downplay the challenges of ADHD.
So it actually then begs the question…Is it my fault? My initial thoughts laid the blame fully at my own door; that without this condition my life would have been different, easier, and far less isolated. Times change and people learn, and 30 years ago ADHD wasn’t as well understood. Rather than looking at the 400% rise in diagnosis in two years (6) and saying ‘well isn’t this trendy’ we should look and say we let those 400% down. Suicides, life challenges, peer bonds and the day to day knowledge of how to manage the condition could have been different for those 400%. 400% less lonely, confused and misunderstood people. 400% potential less sadness in the world.
So maybe no, it isn’t my fault. Maybe it's yours. Maybe it's all of ours. With earlier intervention, wider understanding and greater compassion we can give the next 400% a fighting chance. We can give the next generation of neurodivergent young people the tools to understand themselves and the ability to use the skills they have to their betterment, and in a wider picture, for the betterment of all.
(2) https://www.berkshirehealthcare.nhs.uk/media/109514702/suicide-in-adhd-adhd-bekrshire-healthcare.pdf
(3) https://www.thetransmitter.org/spectrum/decoding-overlap-autism-adhd/
(4) https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/adhd-presented-quirky-thing-its-almost-become-entertainment
(6) https://theweek.com/news/society/961553/the-rise-of-adhd
Written by
Bob Hillum (Recruitment Coordinator SENse Learing)
