This cuts both ways. As a person with extremely real AuDHD I actively hide that information from most people because so I don’t have to have this exact fucking conversation with every person I meet. “ADHD huh, you know that’s over diagnosed right?”
Thanks doctor, I’ll make sure I write that information down so I can use it later.
Sometimes it’s even worse, and people get actively hostile about it. “Yeah, I might have a PhD as well if I had an Adderall prescription.”
It’s just not helpful. Let the doctors do their thing. If we catch some false positives then so be it. You worry about you, and let other people worry about themselves.
I was one of those false positives as a kid. It led to me being not just unnecessarily medicated, but near criminally overmedicated. From age 7, I was put on ritalin because I couldn’t focus in class (due to a combination of the fact that I had already learned most of what they were teaching me and some serious undiagnosed PTSD). At the worst, I was put on:
150 mg of Adderall XR
75 mg of Zoloft
600 mg of Welbutrin
some equally ridiculous amount of Stratera
A revolving door of antipsychotics, because my unstable mood had to be caused by bipolar disorder and not, you know, the incredible amount of unnecessary medication I was being force-fed every day
In the end, it turned out that I didn’t have ADD, but actually had PTSD that presented as inattentiveness due to the constant flashbacks I was experiencing. A couple months’ worth of EMDR treatments (which were very much a known technique when I was being medicated) got me to a place where I was able to function enough to hold down a job and take care of myself, but it took me a decade after getting off of those medications for me to be able to recognize that.
My point in all of this is that false positives aren’t harmless, especially when it comes to minors. Yes, that doctor was giving me doses of medication that, today, would be considered criminal, but even being on a quarter of those doses caused significant damage to my long-term ability to function. Not to mention, I was treated as a lab rat the entire time. I was entered into trial runs of various medications against my will, and while some of them (such as clonidine) ended up being valid treatments, a significant part of me feels like the overmedication trend is just another excuse to treat children as science experiments.
Well no, what’s happening to you is also because of the general culture of overmedication. If there were less false positives, people wouldn’t distrust your diagnosis. If anything, I’d argue the current culture hurts the people who have serious issues more than the people who have been given a shoddy diagnosis in order to peddle drugs, but both sides are pretty rough.
If there were less false positives, people wouldn’t distrust your diagnosis
Did you come to this conclusion by talking to diagnosed people? Because even in the decades where it was massively under diagnosed, I don’t think there’s any time period I could point to and say ‘oh yeah, nobody questions autism diagnoses because they’re so rare!’ It just changes what they say: ‘oh, are you sure? That’s so rare, it’s probably something else!’
I have experienced both sides of this over the decades, and as far as I’m concerned I’d rather cast too wide a net than too small of one, because at least that way more people that need support get it. Being told you’re making it up sucks ass no matter which direction it’s coming from.
You hear people say the same thing about fake service dogs, but they only ever wind up harassing anyone with a service dog because they think it’s their responsibility to be a disability cop.
This cuts both ways. As a person with extremely real AuDHD I actively hide that information from most people because so I don’t have to have this exact fucking conversation with every person I meet. “ADHD huh, you know that’s over diagnosed right?”
Thanks doctor, I’ll make sure I write that information down so I can use it later.
Sometimes it’s even worse, and people get actively hostile about it. “Yeah, I might have a PhD as well if I had an Adderall prescription.”
It’s just not helpful. Let the doctors do their thing. If we catch some false positives then so be it. You worry about you, and let other people worry about themselves.
I was one of those false positives as a kid. It led to me being not just unnecessarily medicated, but near criminally overmedicated. From age 7, I was put on ritalin because I couldn’t focus in class (due to a combination of the fact that I had already learned most of what they were teaching me and some serious undiagnosed PTSD). At the worst, I was put on:
In the end, it turned out that I didn’t have ADD, but actually had PTSD that presented as inattentiveness due to the constant flashbacks I was experiencing. A couple months’ worth of EMDR treatments (which were very much a known technique when I was being medicated) got me to a place where I was able to function enough to hold down a job and take care of myself, but it took me a decade after getting off of those medications for me to be able to recognize that.
My point in all of this is that false positives aren’t harmless, especially when it comes to minors. Yes, that doctor was giving me doses of medication that, today, would be considered criminal, but even being on a quarter of those doses caused significant damage to my long-term ability to function. Not to mention, I was treated as a lab rat the entire time. I was entered into trial runs of various medications against my will, and while some of them (such as clonidine) ended up being valid treatments, a significant part of me feels like the overmedication trend is just another excuse to treat children as science experiments.
That’s honestly horrifying, and I’m so sorry you were subject to that. I’m glad you’re doing better today though!
Well no, what’s happening to you is also because of the general culture of overmedication. If there were less false positives, people wouldn’t distrust your diagnosis. If anything, I’d argue the current culture hurts the people who have serious issues more than the people who have been given a shoddy diagnosis in order to peddle drugs, but both sides are pretty rough.
Did you come to this conclusion by talking to diagnosed people? Because even in the decades where it was massively under diagnosed, I don’t think there’s any time period I could point to and say ‘oh yeah, nobody questions autism diagnoses because they’re so rare!’ It just changes what they say: ‘oh, are you sure? That’s so rare, it’s probably something else!’
I have experienced both sides of this over the decades, and as far as I’m concerned I’d rather cast too wide a net than too small of one, because at least that way more people that need support get it. Being told you’re making it up sucks ass no matter which direction it’s coming from.
You hear people say the same thing about fake service dogs, but they only ever wind up harassing anyone with a service dog because they think it’s their responsibility to be a disability cop.