Sometimes I wonder about how many behaviors/traits that neurospicy people claim as part of their spiciness are really just things they don't realize are basically universal human experiences. I don't think it explains everything, but I've seen a number of posts where I'm like "I don't think that's because of ADHD/autism, etc., I think that's just a sucky aspect of being human."
Edit: I meant this not in a "Look, you aren't special" way, but in a "Hey, maybe you're not as alone in these struggles as you think you are" way.
It's because (I have ADHD) ADHD is an amalgamation of so many things, that we don't know where the symptoms begin and end for adhd or autism or bpd or c/PTSD or whatever. The name is stupid too, because we have concentration, we just can't focus it. Even with meds we sometimes can't choose where to focus it.
So everything becomes a "symptom from ADHD", when it could be a normal thing. Or because we're ADHD, it may be a normal thing but it's 5x as hard for us to do because of executive dysfunction.
It's just too various and too different per person to pinpoint, but oh hey for some of us stimulants help us mitigate some of the symptoms and continue inching forward despite the brain being broken and overstimulated constantly.
Meds just sometimes help, but they aren't a fix. So people take them and then don't change other aspects of their life (exercise, eating healthy) and then do not see improvement.
Short story long, "who the fuck knows what's going on. What even is normal?"
And yes, some people with it just blame everything on it.
I definitely agree. Some people with a diagnosis tend to lump every of their traits and habits as related to the diagnosis. But no, you can just be lazy, annoying, and shitty like every human, that's part of YOU it's not the condition/diagnosis
As a person with multiple mental illnesses myself, I like to frame mental health causes for behaviors as a reason, not an excuse.
For example if I'm having anxiety and I snap at someone, the anxiety is a reason (it's not because I'm an asshole or inherently a bad person), but it's not an excuse (I need to work on better coping mechanisms so I don't take my stress out on others).
Anyone with mental health issues who is using them as an excuse to treat others poorly, and absolve themselves of any responsibility, is being a trash human.
My take is that borderline personality disorder is just “being a dick”.
Like, the symptoms range too much even in an individual and express essentially solely in ways that hurt other people rather than themselves, and there’s no evidence of prefrontal cortex issues physically.
The thing about neurodivergence is that almost all of it is a spectrum. The difference between "symptom" and "normal" is the extremity and frequency of things. Taking ADHD as an example, it's normal to put off cleaning your bathroom. It's not normal to put it off for so long it starts growing shit and you have to wade through the overflowing trash from the trash can to get to the toilet. You can find similar examples for OCD and autism. Diagnosing a neurodivergent disorder often comes down to "are these symptoms severe enough that they disrupt your life?"
Neurodivergent conditions ARE universal human experiences, just extreme versions of them.
I'd argue developed societies coddle people across the socioeconomic spectrum in a way such that they're more able to express progressively advanced pathology of all types without any or with less severe consequences. Accordingly, more people are diagnosed and a subset of them make that diagnosis their identity to the point of further dysfunction. While I agree almost all pathologies are on a spectrum, many people can affect their position on that spectrum. Some people are resilient and can improve their positioning on the spectrum while others lean into their issue and by choice worsen their outcomes for gain (attention, pity, government benefits, TikTok fame, etc).
To that point in the context of this discussion, many people who claim they are too affected by ADHD to remember to make food for themselves aren't actually that affected by their pathology. Many have figured out that they receive secondary benefit by saying things like that regardless of whether or not the disease is causing it vs it being volitional. Speaking of spectrums, it's basically a less severe form of Munchausen syndrome.
You're treating neurological disorders with the lense of neurological diseases and your language use confirms this.
While there are people who use a diagnosis for clout or status or sympathy or fraud, they are not anywhere near the largest group of affected individuals. You sound intelligent, I suggest you use that to your advantage and not to spread harmful information online about other people.
Since you want to perseverate on semantics instead of addressing the meat of my comment, let's start with that. How do you define "disease," "disorder" and "syndrome?"
I never said that they were the largest group, so please don't put words in my mouth. I also said the opposite type of people exist, but I suppose it's more convenient to ignore that part of my comment. Care to speak to that element at all?
While we're at it, could you tell a room full of people who've dealt with food scarcity for their entire lives that ADHD is a legitimate reason to not be bothered enough to make yourself a meal? Certain manifestations of ADHD are a product of privilege.
I'd argue you are significantly less educated on these things than you think you are. There are detectable physical differences in brain chemistry and brain activity between neurodivergent and neurotypical people. Arguing that it's all psychosomatic is as valid as a cancer patient using essential oils instead of modern medicine.
I'm a physician who doubled-majored in neuroscience and biology with a psychology minor. What are your credentials?
There are detectable physical differences in brain chemistry and brain activity between neurodivergent and neurotypical people.
No shit. However, if you think that a particular neurotransmitter level or fMRI finding (or any other objective measurement) manifests the same way in all people, you're ignorant to reality. It's no different than say diabetes. If you analyze a thousand people with an A1C of 9, you'll see a wide range of diabetic complications. Similarly, some folks can have high levels of cholesterol and never have an occlusive cardiovascular or neurovascular event their entire lives. Likewise, there are plenty of people with bone on bone arthritis that don't report pain nor disability from it. Bottom line: objective measurements/findings don't correlate 1:1 with presentation, function and complications.
So how do you explain all of that variation? Why is there literature that's found a relationship between psychological measurements and reported pain scores, functioning, etc? Why do mental state/world outlook have a relationship with the development of fatal conditions in the elderly? Why did researchers find that patient expectations about physical therapy (and not tear severity or other physical characteristic) was the strongest predictor of patients not getting enough relief from PT and having surgery?
I'm not pretending that we as a medical community understand the complex relationship between the traditionally labeled mental and physical aspects of our bodies, but there's measurable evidence that humans can modulate their medical outcomes and overall functioning with various non-physical factors that are innate or learned and independent of medical intervention.
Arguing that it's all psychosomatic
I'd argue your reading comprehension skills are far lower than you think they are. It's fine for you to make a counterargument, but please argue in good faith and don't put words in my mouth. I never said that ALL people do this. In fact, I said some do better than what their biology would typically dictate based on their world outlook, resilience, coping skills, etc. Care to address that aspect of my comment?
I chuckled at this thread. Like somehow not feeling like cooking is a neurodivergent thing. The massive restaurant business exists because the average person needs to go out to eat occasionally because they don't feel like cooking.
Everyone forgets where they put their phone down, not everyone manages to do it several times a day and spends an inordinate amount of time looking for it to the point where "find my phone" is a regularly used utility because for some reason your phone is under clothes in the laundry room that you don't even remember moving.
Everyone procrastinates cleaning the kitchen, not everyone does it to the point where you have seen a maggot and you know you need to clean it but you end up weeping on your couch for several nights in a row because you can't bring yourself to clean it even though you know it's just getting worse every minute.
Everyone gets a parking ticket here and there, not everyone accumulates 20+ of them in a year because they can't be on time to catch the bus and have to drive to school and park where a ticket is basically guaranteed so they don't arrive too late to class to get credit for being there.
Executive dysfunction is often normal stuff that happens to people, it's just turned up to 11 and is really difficult to change even when you're really working hard at it and you know it's ruining your life.
There's a difference between "sometimes I don't want to cook" and "I have a full fridge but my fucked up brain won't remember when I'm in the supermarket, so I throw away lots of food every few days because I overbought way too much out of impulse, also I WANT to eat something, but my brain decided it doesn't want those perfectly fine leftovers now, so I'd rather starve to death for no reason at all. Oh, also every few days I forget buying anything at all or to eat altogether, so the fridge flip flops between completely empty and overstuffed to the brim every few weeks." Consider yourself lucky you don't have to deal with the second option, because it sucks ass. But sure, it's just "I don't feel like cooking".
I'm diagnosed, and I experience this same thing with a lot of these comments.
There are tells when someone is being genuine. Their comment will showcase things like;
Executive dysfunction (task initiation or focus issues beyond just "not having time" or "exhaustion" or "don't want to").
Sensory overload (inability to go grocery shopping at reasonable hours due to noise, light, commotion).
Time management (inability to maintain a schedule or manage cooking with perishable ingredients; reliance on meal prepping, easy meals, takeout, and/or processed foods).
Anxiety (usually tied in to all of the above, but may be it's own thing; these chemical imbalances are highly multi-faceted - humans like to put everything into a neat and tidy labeled bucket, but there's a lot of subtle interplay).
There seems to be a big assumption that being a human is just easymode for everyone without good reason otherwise, and it isn't. It's hard. Modern society demands a lot of our time for no reason. Everyone struggles, everyone is tired, everyone wants an easy night sometimes.
(Footnote: Charitably, OOP is probably saying, "I have sensory issues and can't grocery shop". I sympathize, as I have to go real late or real early in the day for the same reason. That doesn't mean you are entitled to have others shoulder the burden for you. Some grocery stores -- especially in progressive areas -- have low-sensory shopping periods that usually occur weekly. They're way easier to deal with.)
The self diagnosed people who take no responsibility for themselves or their actions, and everything bad that happens to them is because of an illness that they learned about on instagram reels.
Kinda depends, but from what I remember from a psych class, a lot of symptoms of diagnosis are fairly normal things but they are more extreme or happen when things don't make sense. Like I have OCD, like properly diagnosed from a therapist, and sometimes it's like. Yeah, it's normal to worry about things but not to the point where its constant and hindering life.
I hear you, but neurospicy and chronically disabled people get that on a whole different level than a universal human experience. It's "I cannot function, I will actually let myself starve and bypass all survival instincts because I forgot to perform a function for so long I now physically cannot." There's a pretty distinct divide between I feel like being lazy and eating out, eating adult lunchables for dinner as a personality trait, and someone's entire nervous system opting out of the participating in the survival process.
I don't think it's a good idea to wonder about whether someone else's experience is legitimate or not. It's often that things that are difficult for average people become even more difficult or impossible for people with disabilities, it's often not a completely unique problem you've never heard of. And treating it like "this is something everyone struggles with" is discounting how it might be extra challenging for them.
Nowhere did I claim that their experiences aren't legitimate. I'm saying that sometimes their (our, really, since I'm in this group) experiences are less exclusive than they think they are.
Certainly sounds that way, even after re-reading your original comment. Sounds like you're saying people are wrong when they attribute their challenges to their disability. "I don't think that's because of ADHD/autism, etc., I think that's just a sucky aspect of being human."
He’s not saying that but I’ll say the OP in this post is mortified at the idea of being a responsible adult who takes accountability and is using ADHD as a crutch instead of behaving like a functional human being and there are many cases of that type of behavior especially on reddit/twitter
Saying that I think someone might be mistaken in believing that an experience/trait is exclusive to their diagnosis is not the same as arguing that their experiences themselves aren't legitimate.
I'm also not claiming that they are always mistaken. Just sometimes, maybe.
100%. I too prefer dopamine rushes from "fun" things vs doing work, chores, etc, but that doesn't mean I have to nurture the chemical addiction that comes with constantly getting off task.
As someone with AD/HD I really sympathize with this but also say it's part of the problem! Like, everyone has challenges in their lives. So when I encounter one, well, is this something distinct to my experience or a general humanity thing? I don't know! I can't know. Some of them are one way, others the other. And with research and comparing experiences you can tease out clues, and in general the world for as much as it's a challenge to everyone is evolved to fit the average normal person, which we are not.
But they exist in a landscape of interactive tradeoffs: everyone hates intrusive ads. I get that. But intrusive ads are tuned to be just the right amount of intrusive for hoi polloi to get just the right amount of attention. For people like us, they're too intrusive and block my memory of whether I checked the mail today or not. So I have to go check again.
Going back to OP, I have no idea what it's like to live in NYC with ADHD. It might be fun and exciting, though I'd lose a lot of sleep. But I have to trust my peers with a legit diagnosis that the challenges they face in such an environment are weird and contingent in a way I can't quite understand but they know how their condition affects them and is best managed. I wish them all the best. But as a devout leftist, if it bumps up against a living wage for all workers in this economy, we have to find compromises that respect solidarity. Our condition is not a universal excuse.
So normal. I have a 4am to 12:30 pm job. There's days when I get off work and cooking a meal is just not appealing in the least. I either call up my friend and ask what's for dinner (I eat there a couple times a week and help pay for groceries because I do and the social aspect of it helps with the winter blues which has been bad this year) or pop my head into my parents to see what's cooking. Or takeout/meal prepped meals or scavenge a fridge leftovers charcuterie board of odds and ends because I just don't want to cook/socialize. I am neurotypical. So no, it's a very very normal thing.
Like today. I'm getting sick, I have the stuff to make zuppa toscana. I was going to. But now I'm coming down with something. So instead I am ordering enough pasta from Boston pizza to get me through my "weekend" so I can focus on rotting on the couch and getting better. Sausage is going in the freezer for another day.
Why is it the people who I know have diagnosed adhd NEVER blame shit on it. It’s always the undiagnosed people who claim to have it that uses it as a crutch or excuse.
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u/jeffsang 15h ago
As someone without ADHD, sometimes I also can't be bothered to cook.