Writer's Block: Life With ADHD

[cuddlefish]

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ADHD exists. I've been diagnosed with it, and I believe that was correct.

When I was 15, ADHD brought me to the first contact I had with people who gleefully insulted me in an attempt to prove themselves right. ADHD is not real, it's just laziness/stupidity/lifestyle/some other bullshit, and thanks to big, evil drug companies I have imagined an ailment that frankly fucking ruined my life for a decade or so. I was 15 and innocent---this argument came off as a sincere and dire threat to my person.

I'm choosing my words and sentences very carefully because I am so explosively angry about this, even a decade later, that even I cannot believe it. I could say a lot more, specifically a lot more about the sort of lazy, unrepentantly thoughtless toad that insists that any mental illness is not real, but instead I'll just finish up here. ADHD is a mental illness, and mental illness has a stigma. "Life with ADHD" for me is life with a(nother) stigma, and there are lots and lots of people who make me feel like shit for something I can't help. Including myself.

I want my friendslist to listen, but I wish that many more people would understand that judgements of mental illness are only to be made with honest understanding and caring, the kind that comes with training and personal experience. Anything less is inexcusable and devastating, and if that's your game, you need to shut the fuck up.

Certainly the casual judgment is enough to make me climb the walls and sit on the ceiling, clutching my pills and baring my teeth. >:EEEE I'll stop being scary now guyz, I promise

Comments

[xephyris.livejournal.com]

Any illness is scary, and the stigma associated with carrying one is terrifying. I can't tell you to ignore it, because I know it is impossible to ignore. But there are people out there who understand this, and you know that that one toad is not representative of everyone. Because if it were, I'd go jump off a building, myself. So try not to be so angry!

[moumusu.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know...actually, I fully intend to donate to some sort of charitable organization in the name of mental health, so while I have a lot of outrage, I'm doing something with it and...that's okay, right? And I uhhh...don't mean to point my clattering and foaming at my poor flist, which is full of good understanding people :(

[runan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, being diagnosed with ADHD was kind of a double edged sword for me. On the one hand, my parents and teachers couldn't yell at me for being lazy/unmotivated/easily distracted/uncaring any more. It was nice to know there was a REASON behind all the years of unhappiness. On the other hand, *knowing* about a problem and *fixing* it are two different things, and I can't just magically transform into a better student/different person overnight. And then of course there are the knowing looks you get from people when you tell them you have ADHD...

[moumusu.livejournal.com]

For a lot of mental illnesses the initial diagnosis is a relief, and then it gets harder.

Sometimes I think every single treatment for ADHD is going in the wrong direction by trying to help us do better in school. Why should it be so freakish that I don't like year after year of joyless drudgery in an old, ugly building for people I fear and hate? Aren't people who really really care about doing all the busywork a little strange? Maybe I'm fine the way I am, and it's education's fault for being such a sorry mess.