Unsure what has gotten into me but, I am three for three…kinda freaking myself out to be honest.

This is a whole other issue that drives me crazy.  Maybe it’s my sensitivity dysmorphia or the chip on my shoulder from years of struggle, not just for myself but for those like me. 

Who are you? What qualifies you to support people with ADHD?  Have you lived it?  These are the questions that swirl in my head when I see the countless advertisements for ADHD support.  Everywhere I look lately, there are advertisements for ADHD support.  The TTC, the GO train, you name it, and it’s there. There is no escape.  When did this happen?  As someone who grew up with this diagnosis and has had to fight the education system, where was this when I needed it most? When I was struggling through elementary school, repeating grades, and barely making it out of high school at 22. 

Who are these people providing support now? I see many individuals calling themselves ADHD coaches. What is this about? How can anyone claim to be a coach for such a subjective diagnosis? What qualifications do they have? Who decided they are experts? Do they truly live this experience, or have they only read a few books by academics, clinicians, and others in the medical field who see only the deficits? These books often base their perspective of what society has deemed normal. As someone who has lived with this diagnosis my entire life, especially during the 1970s, before the era of sixth-place ribbons, when consequences were more severe.  ADHD isn’t something you can fully understand through books; it is incredibly complex and affects every part of our lives and those around us.  

When people ask what it is like to live with ADHD, I struggle to explain.  Sometimes I say, “Read my blog…lol,” but even that doesn’t always do it justice.  Although I think my blog is pretty great, I am biased. I would say it’s like being on a hamster wheel with no way to get off.  It is like my brain is a locked room with the radio, music and people talking all at the same time.  There are multiple tabs open, and I have no idea how to begin completing tasks to close them and sometimes if I step back and make a list or find the intrinsic meaning, I can quiet it for a while, until I can’t.

But I digress. I understand that life is a business. I recognize that ADHD is more visible than ever before. It has become one of the most globally diagnosed disorders. I only ask that people who do not live this experience not make assumptions about what will work for us or our daily struggles. The unfortunate reality is that those you believe are helping may actually be masking because that is what we do. It is part of our exhausting existence and desperate need for acceptance. Our sensitivity dysmorphia does not want to hurt your feelings; we want to make you proud, and we desperately want to fit in. Please listen to our voices and stop making assumptions.