this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2025
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Peeing is also normal behavior. But it's not normal if you have to pee every 30 minutes.
What's with this new trend of invalidating ADHD and autism symptoms simply because you don't experience it to a degree that impacts your quality of life?
ADHD and autism don't have one specific symptom. It's a thousand little things that drive you insane from having to conform to neurotypical behavior.
Let patients share their experiences without normalizing and invalidating their condition.
It's always 'everyone has ADHD these days' just like how people day 'everyone is LGBTQ these days. It's never 'underserved and underdiagnosed ADHD patients are finally getting recognition these days'.
Boys are 16x more likely to get an ADHD diagnosis than girls. The vast majority of backlash against ADHD patients on social media are against women and PoC who are finally speaking out against the medical neglect. Women traditionally present different symptoms because girls are punished more heavily for exhibiting ADHD behaviors than boys are. Same goes for autism.
Remember that a lack of diagnosis does not indicate the lack of ADHD and autism. Modern medicine is rife with systemic inequality. Undiagnosed ADHD and autism patients are frequently penalized and not rewarding for concealing their symptoms. The more effort they put into concealing them, the more heavily criticized they are for 'faking' it.
I see you guys are taking this way too seriously so ok... I'm not invalidating anything, and for that matter I haven't noticed any such trend in media either. In fact, I would go as far as to say that attributing "normal" behaviors to ADHD and autism is ultimately what invalidates these conditions. My initial comment stemmed from me seeing meme after meme about ADHD and being like, wait I'm like that too, maybe I have it. But then as this trend goes on I observed that most of the people I know also have - to some degree - most symptoms mentioned in said memes. In short I bet if one were to base the description of ADHD on the memes going round, most people could get a positive diagnosis. My personal opinion is that this has to do with societal expectations when it comes to education and employment as they have developed over the last couple of decades. We are slowly recognizing that our capitalist way of life with its pursuit of infinitely increasing productivity is not in line with human nature thus we're "creating" this condition that somehow everyone is suffering from to attribute feelings of inadequacy.
Adhd in particular is a very "everyone can relate, only people with adhd have their lives crippled by it" thing. To some degree this applies to many mental disorders (e.g. everyone has some anxiety).
The need to know why is clearly not a normal thing or I wouldnt have had the frequent experience of people getting mad at me for demanding the why or, which is still utterly confusing to me, for explaining the why when asking someone to do something.
I suppose context is important in the needing to know why. Can you give an example of a time someone got mad?
Usually when it's things that are "socially expected" but don't make sense to me in that moment. Like being asked to wait with eating food until everyone has some (still don't really get it, but "it's a social norm and people will feel bad" is sufficient for adult me since it's really nbd. As a kid no one even explained that far though, just that it'a a thing you do because you do.).
In general as an adult its been pretty rare since I've learned it's not worth the effort (and whatever if it makes people happy then cool), and if I really don't wanna do something I consider pointless (like wearing a suit - which I'd first have to buy - to a wedding in 30° heat as someone who is already very uncomfortable in shorts and t shirt in 22°) people are more likely to respect it because they can't really force me anymore.
I do think the more common one (that still happens a bunch) is when providing the why, or more generally when providing extra information. It seems to me people often assume I'm overly criticizing when I do that. Like "can you add this thing to the sheet I think it'd be helpful when <3 sentences of the context in which I think it's good to have>" tends to get worse reactions than "can you add this thing to the sheet I think it'd be helpful".
So same as the food thing, maybe it's more about wanting far more detailed explanations than about wanting one at all. But to me the less detailed one often doesn't feel like a real explanation, moreso a justification.
Glad I now have friends that are entirely in agreement that waiting is pointless.
I would highly disagree it signifying you as anything special, it's a random ass social norm that serves no real purpose. But yes as I've said I'm well aware how it makes some ppl feel so I wait when eating with anyone I don't know well. And sure it's not hard now, which is the part where I mentioned this kind of thing mostly happened when I was a kid.
Honestly that reaction is just proving my point lol
The other day we went to the gym with a friend and afterwards he said let's go eat at the food court. We each got stuff from different restaurants and he got his first, so he went to get a table while I was waiting for my food. As soon as he sat down he started eating so 3 minutes later when I got there he'd finished half his meal. I didn't appreciate that because the whole point was to have a chill chat whereas now he was done and I felt like I had to rush because I was wasting his time with my tardiness.
Then they can accept that I won't do whatever thing they want me to do, because I don't exist to serve them?
ok that's actually a good explaintion
No it isn't. And it isn't true
Who the hell are you, the arbiter of what is and isn't serious?
Yes. I am the author of the post and I decide how serious it is. Who the fuck are you, the friend with the cleft asshole?
Lol no, you don't get to decide how other people are allowed to feel about your opinions. Also wtf is a cleft asshole??
It's a reference I didn't think you'd get but maybe someone else wasting their time reading this whole conversation unfolding under this silly little meme might enjoy.
To use your logic, you don't get to decide how I interpret the responses to my comment. So if you don't like what I said you can give me your little downvote and kindly fuck off unless you have some meaningful retort about my actual opinion on ADHD & autism diagnoses.
That's correct. So if you felt like others were taking your words too seriously, then say that. Without the reflection at yourself, in the English language you're telling others how they should be feeling rather than saying how you feel. I hope a grammar misunderstanding is all that really was.
And for the record, I do regret coming on so strong. I've been stressed today and this is not the first time in the past 24 hours I've realized too late that I could have been more diplomatic. So, sorry about that.
Can't be worried about that shit man, life goes on :D
I guess I take it for granted - while it may not be so obvious to others - that when I say something, that's just like, my opinion, man...
So with these 2 quotes I end my big lebowski reference streak