alt Hacker News> A diagnosis of ADHD or autism in adulthood often leads to incredible relief and grief in processing all the moments of being blamed and shamed for what was assumed to be a lack of effort, laziness and/or defiance.
This is definitely a factor for me when I tried to get diagnosed (which failed lol), because my parents whom caused my trauma would obviously refuse to blame themselves for my emotionally stunted development
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I find this fascinating. "Relief and grief", but one way or another, you were always in trouble or being blamed for being "you".
The thing we call ADHD is just one phenotype amongst thousands. Every behaviour has a cause, and anyone out there who has been through a childhood with traumatic experiences and feelings of guilt and inadequacy need to understand that they don't need to be told that they have the currently-fashionable condition in order to forgive themselves.
This sounds flippant, but I don't mean it to be: What if I said that this happened because you had Mercury in Taurus? The point is here that nothing is your fault. Conversely, everything is; this mirrors the free-will vs predestination paradox.
I was diagnosed as an adult a little over a decade ago. I am still waiting on that "relief" part to come. Most days, I wish I never went through the diagnostic process in the first place.
I simply wrote to the psychiatrist a note that whatever my parents say, they'll make themselves look good, and therefore will paint a rosy childhood for me. I guess it also helped that my then partner was there and told her of how my parents told a "funny story" that made his parents gasp in horror.
Not sure if you noticed the play. You don't have ADHD or autism, you just suffered from trauma.
Government doesn't like that "too many" people want to get support, so looks like they reach for academics.
Same crap they did with cannabis and others when it was impacting certain interests.
Exact same thing happened to me, and yet it was never cracked open. I am pretty much the only person that knows the truth, that I don't have this constellation of diagnoses but that they were a coverup for the abuse foisted upon me by my own family.
Sadly it is still (and probably will be) too easy to deflect responsibility and have everyone believe their side. They will probably pass on with nobody realizing what they've done to me. It took me long enough for me to realize my own situation, was how severe it was. I hope more people wake up to the fact that people like me are out there.
The false diagnosis is a perfect distraction for you to continue to blame yourself for all your faults while they get away with everything, for decades. That lost time will never come back.