Is anybody here familiar with this thing?
I'm talking to a psychiatrist to get assessed for ADHD, but in order to start treatment, if necessary, I'll first have to do this neuropsychological assessment called the WEIS test. It's expensive as shit, more than 2k, but seems to be the only way for me to get any kind of treatment. I can either pay that amount or wait 8-10 months to get it through my health insurance.
I did some digging and apparently it's this assessment of intelligence that can only be applied by qualified professionals. It frankly sounds like I'm about to get my brainpan measured. Have any of you taken this exam? Is it as stupid as it sounds? Has it helped you receive and/or validate a diagnosis?
Honestly it fucking sucks to me, having to jump through all these hoops just to have somebody listen to me and say "you have/don't have ADHD".
It's expensive as shit, more than 2k
What the fuck?!?!
$2k is how much my adult autism diagnosis was going to cost. I just straight up can’t afford it.
Well, 2k BRL, which would be about 300-400 USD, but that's a double-digit percentage of what I earn in a good month lol
That's still very expensive!
Fucking death to paid healthcare
yeah, it was in my dyslexia and dyspraxia diagnosis. they measure something like IQ so that they have a baseline of how you "should" be performing. its not overly long or particularly uncomfortable - it should be done in maybe 2 hours max. he talked to me about my handwriting difficulties and coordination problems, explained to me what dyspraxia even was, and seemed like if anything he was trying to tilt things in favour of me getting diagnosed, saying things like "it doesn't matter if it you can funtion anyway, it matters if it negatively impacts you" or "no one fakes a disability, especially not by accident". its basically just a chat, a literacy test, and rotating some shapes etc.
for example, my spelling and my reading/writing time were like 2% below the national average, but since they were significantly below what my IQ implied they should be, i was declared dyslexic anyway and got accomadations for that. Without an IQ (and the other skills that that test measured) to compare to, i probably would have been declared neurotypical and gotten absolutely screwed over during my exams lol. WAIS makes sure that people who are outside the norm are treated properly despite the fact that their symptoms likely show quite differently.
for me it was free though - it might be worth seeing if your job/university/etc could pay for it? or if it can be put on health insurance? (i'm not in amerikkka, i have no idea how for-profit healthcare works, sorry)
I'm not in the US either (thank goodness) but I'll also have to get it through health insurance. It's not ideal having to wait more than half a year for this assessment (and especially funny-not funny for someone who's likely to have ADHD), but I just can't afford 2k for something like this, I think.
Thanks for sharing your experience with it. The reason why I came here and asked you folks about this test is that it was legit new to me, even though I typically read a lot about this sort of stuff. Whenever I see IQ testing I automatically think it's probably sus at best and nazi shit at worst. I'm glad to know that this one seems to be more inclusive.
Haven't done it but it appears as though this is a test that will guide identifying particular learning and developmental disorders like stuff to do with visual-spatial learning and auditory processing etc.
Sucks that it's expensive but tbh it's not the worst thing.
Honestly with late-diagnosed ADHDers and autistic folks it's my unprofessional opinion that you're very likely to see a... let's call it a lopsided skill tree. However you want to slice it, there's very often a good degree of intelligence or aptitude, especially in particular domains, and this is typically used to compensate for developmental disorders or deficits that exist elsewhere. Of course, some people are just straight-up ADHD or what have you and they don't have any other comorbid developmental disorders too but they're pretty common.
It's hard to say whether or not it's going to be of any particular use to you personally but it may help rule certain things in or out and it doesn't hurt to be thorough.
I also suspect that if the psych is going to personally conduct this test with you that they're probably doing that magician's sleight of hand thing where they're directing your attention on one thing in order to get you to ignore the real stuff that's going on elsewhere. I probably shouldn't spoil the intention of the test but, fuck it, I'd say that unmedicated ADHDers are generally going to be expected to perform well at the start of the test and when things change up significantly (e.g. going from visual tests to verbal instructions) but that there's going to be a fairly apparent dip in performance when the subject has either hit the wall (you know the one) or they are unable to compensate in a particular domain that is being tested where there's a weak spot. If the psych is good they're probably going to throw a few curveballs at you like interrupting the task of the test to get you to read an analogue clock or asking you about something that you mentioned in conversation earlier or asking you other questions which will pull your attention away, such as asking you to explain how you performed under exam conditions in school. This will be to assess your ability to refocus on the test and your ability to not get frazzled or to collapse in a barely-functional heap because you can't shift your attention in an even way. This will also be used to assess frustration tolerance etc.
Obviously this is just pure speculation but yeah, that's what I'd be expecting going into this.
It's hard to say whether or not it's going to be of any particular use to you personally but it may help rule certain things in or out and it doesn't hurt to be thorough.
Yeah, I'm sure that it will at least be a box that will be checked. I've never taken any of these actual evaluations, I've only done self-assessment questionnaires online like the RAADS-R (got >140, which lit up some red lights), so I truly don't know what to expect.
I'm not gonna lie: what scares me the most is my test results being "welp, looks like there's nothing wrong here, you're just a bit smarter than average, just carry on and meditate a bit, maybe do some therapy sessions and you're golden". I did therapy for almost a decade (until a year and a half ago) and I still feel like shit.
In fact, I'm really surprised that I have to go through all this just for an assessment. I remember going to a psychiatrist a decade and a half ago, telling him I was feeling anxious, and walking out ten minutes later with a Ritalin prescription, which in retrospect is kinda fucking wild. Things seem to have changed a lot since then.
Sorry, I'm rambling a bit.
so I truly don't know what to expect.
Don't stress too much. Go into it with an open mind, give it a decent shot, don't be afraid to be open about explaining what's going on for you.
For example, I'm terrible with visual-spatial learning tests. If you ask me which image is the mirror of a shape I'm going to struggle like fuck because there's a hole in my brain where my visual-spatial reasoning is supposed to be and I'd be pretty upfront about that, partly because that's how I am and partly because imo it's kinda important to put your cards on the table with these assessments so they can get a handle on whether you happen to make a lucky guess or if you're actually engaging in processing to arrive at the correct conclusion based on logic.
Like when I did my autism assessment, I explained that I'd be able to describe how people form friendships based on what I've observed and that I'd be able to provide a textbook answer but when it comes to the application of this knowledge it's a very different matter for me and I don't really get how it's done. This was me doing a very honest self-assessment and it wasn't an attempt to skew the results, it was just me being like "I could explain the basics to an alien who is visiting us just like how I can explain the basics of how to paint but that doesn't mean imma be able to do a good job of painting a landscape" kinda thing. It's the snapshot of what's going on in your brain which, if you're capable of providing it with some degree of objectivity, can be really useful in a diagnostic process.
I'm not gonna lie: what scares me the most is my test results being "welp, looks like there's nothing wrong here, you're just a bit smarter than average, just carry on and meditate a bit, maybe do some therapy sessions and you're golden". I did therapy for almost a decade (until a year and a half ago) and I still feel like shit.
Yeah, I hear you but a diagnosis isn't the be-all, end-all. It's rare for a person to be falsely diagnosed with autism or ADHD but on the flip side it's not wildly outside of the realms of possibility that you will get a false negative diagnosis. That fact isn't going to replenish your bank balance though and I get that.
I think if you get the chance it's gonna be really worth drilling down into this and articulating it with the psych. Again, going back to my own autism assessment in my additional notes I described that I have very clear indications of being dyslexic, dyspraxic, and dyscalculic (?? Is that even a word?) but I have no intention of seeking out a diagnosis for these things - it was my way of being like "Yeah, I have a really strong case for why I fit all of these things and it has a lot of descriptive power but also I don't care for collecting diagnoses and that is not something that's going to serve me - either I am those things and I'm at the point in life where I just deal with it and compensate as best I can, like I have already been doing, or otherwise I just suck at maths, I'm very clumsy, and my handwriting is garbage" and it's only useful insofar as it's indicative of comorbid developmental disorders that are super common in autism especially so it was worthwhile bringing it up.
In fact, I'm really surprised that I have to go through all this just for an assessment. I remember going to a psychiatrist a decade and a half ago, telling him I was feeling anxious, and walking out ten minutes later with a Ritalin prescription, which in retrospect is kinda fucking wild. Things seem to have changed a lot since then.
Haha yeah, depending on which country you're in and what era this was it might have been a bit like the wild west of ADHD diagnoses.
On the other hand, I have a comrade who is well into adulthood who just screams ADHD and it took until they were describing their symptoms of RSD blow by blow in their own words where I finally cracked and was like "DidyaeverwonderifyouarentbipolarbutinsteadyouvegotADHD??" because I couldn't hold it back any longer. He got to a psychiatrist and I knew exactly what happened before he told me but the report back was a very quick turnaround time before the psych announced unequivocally "There's no doubt in my mind that you have ADHD" and, who knows, you might be in that category yourself which might explain your Ritalin-in-10-mins-or-your-money-back experience?
Sorry, I'm rambling a bit.
*gestures broadly at my entire comment history, including this comment* lol
You're alright. I get that conflict of wanting to do well but also not wanting to mask your symptoms while not wanting to subconsciously exaggerate the symptoms because you've somehow convinced yourself that this is what it is yet wanting to have the answer to what's going on for you but not wanting to pin all your hopes on a diagnosis if it happens that it doesn't truly fit, and all of that stuff. It's gonna be a bit of a conflicted jumble and you wanna know the worst part about it?
If you have ADHD, you're probably going to be conflicted about it well after you're appropriately medicated, you're responding well to the meds, you notice significant improvements and positive changes, and people around you remark on how you're handling things so much better all of a sudden. Those old thought patterns die a slow, agonising death and there's still some days where I think if someone made a convincing argument to me personally I'd be halfway to doubting that I've got ADHD. It doesn't go away, it just gradually recedes over a long period of time lol.
People who aren't autistic or ADHD or auDHD don't spend much time thinking about this stuff, except if there's something big like full-blown hypochondria going on behind the scenes. It's like being trans - cis people really don't entertain the thought of what it would be like and feel like and look like and what sort of clothes they'd wear and what name they'd pick for themselves and... you get the idea, right? If you're not trans and someone asked you then you might entertain the thought for a little while before being like "Nahhh". But you sure as hell don't spend your time preoccupied with these thoughts.
It's a similar deal for this type of neurodivergence - people don't spend time doing and redoing the RAADS-R multiple times or researching how close to the threshold they are or anything like that. People who aren't neurodivergent generally aren't preoccupied with what the results of this sort of assessment will be either - imagine if you were taking a test to assess how much you are politically liberal. You aren't going to fret or worry and you won't have an urgent need for clarity about the process to try and better understand what the outcome will be. You'd probably shrug your shoulders, nonchalantly waltz into the test and complete the thing half-heartedly without much investment in the whole process. That's the sort of attitude I'd expect the average neurotypical person to approach this assessment with - nonchalance and maybe some idle curiosity at best.
I guess on that note it might be worth dropping the idea that you might be autistic with the psych. I think it would be a good idea to just do the WAIS first and let them get a sense of how your brain works and then in the subsequent appointments maybe bring it up when it's relevant.
Psychs generally don't take kindly to people who seem to be diagnosis-seeking but if you're like "Idk, seems like it would be worth mentioning because I came up high on the RAADS-R when I did it and it might be a confounding variable. I'm not looking for a whole new identity to adopt or for some diagnosis to hide behind as an excuse - either I'm a socially awkward oddball who gets really fixated on subjects and who misses cues or I'm all of those things and I'm autistic but either way it is what it is and a label doesn't change that fact" then they are probably gonna be receptive to it.
I mean, ultimately you're going into this to try and understand yourself better and to arrive at the truth about who you are/what condition(s) you have, so if you approach it from that perspective with a healthy degree of skepticism and openness and honesty then you're gonna be totally fine.
You're in limbo right now and, in a sense, you have been for a long time. But you're still the same person that you were yesterday and you'll still be the same person the day after the psych provides you with their expert opinion (a terribly undialectical thing for a Marxist to say, but you get what I'm driving at here). You've got this.
Goddamn, I don't even know what to say. This is an absolute load-bearing post for me now, I'm saving it to reread multiple times, and you are a legend. Thank you so much for your kind and wise advice.
I think if you get the chance it's gonna be really worth drilling down into this and articulating it with the psych.
Agreed, definitely agreed. I once brought up ASD during a session with my former therapist, in that kind of joking but not joking kind of way, like "sometimes I think I'm on the spectrum, ha-ha". She agreed with me on that, but disagreed even a bit brusquely when I brought up how I identified with ADHD symptoms and behaviors. I felt like she was aggressively against an ADHD diagnosis, and made it seem like she expected someone with ADHD to just get up and leave in the middle of a session, or to altogether forget it, or some other cartoonishly oblivious Mr. Magoo-ass behavior.
I don't know what her experience tells her, but I now look back and disagree with her assessment. Maybe she became skeptical due to that ADHD diagnosis wild west you mentioned in your comment, but I still remember that her reaction made me feel very deeply invalidated, like some kind of terminally online kid (which I'm absolutely not, trust me). I'll talk about ASD with whoever my new therapist/psychiatrist might be, but I'll take it slow - I don't want to get stonewalled again.
you might be in that category yourself which might explain your Ritalin-in-10-mins-or-your-money-back experience?
Lol I don't think so. This was a psychiatrist referred by my health insurance, and the closest cultural reference that I can think of would be of a doctor who worked out of a dingy office in a strip mall in the US. Real Saul Goodman vibes. The whole thing simply felt off. Literally the only thing I said was that I was anxious, and he gave me Ritalin, without asking any further questions or even telling me what it was gonna do to my brain, lmao
It's like being trans - cis people really don't entertain the thought of what it would be like and feel like and look like and what sort of clothes they'd wear and what name they'd pick for themselves and... you get the idea, right?
I do, yeah. I had never thought of it this way, and it absolutely makes sense. I would have fun with the idea for a few moments, and that's the whole extent of it.
Funny story, a friend shared one of these silly personality quizzes in our group chat a couple weeks ago. It was just some stupid classic Buzzfeed-style slop, and we started chatting about personality and IQ tests and whatnot. I went all "you call that a knoife?" and sent them the RAADS-R, lol, and they all treated it like a funny little thing, we talked a bit about it and that was it. None of them ever mentioned it again, but it had been on my mind before that moment (I had done it some time before) and it has been on my mind since then (I did it again later, with results similarly very well within ASD numbers).
I read about it, I did other tests, and I think about this stuff all the time. Like I said, my former therapist pushed me away from even thinking about ADHD three years ago, which led me towards eventually reading up on bipolar II and thinking that was what was happening to me. I just wanted answers. Surely this can't be as good as it gets, etc.
I no longer believe that I'm bipolar. I'm still on lithium, but now I'm not even sure that it's doing anything for me aside from making me feel tired and also making it very difficult to take a shit regularly. I thought my impulsivity was hypomania. I no longer believe that either. I thought long stints of getting fuckall done were depression cycles. Once again, I don't think that's the case anymore. These things are slightly muted by the lithium, but still there.
I mean, ultimately you're going into this to try and understand yourself better and to arrive at the truth about who you are/what condition(s) you have, so if you approach it from that perspective with a healthy degree of skepticism and openness and honesty then you're gonna be totally fine.
Agreed. Back to the thing with my friends and the RAADS-R, one of them was actually trying to kind of dissuade me, even reassure me that it's nothing, it's just a test, it doesn't mean I'm autistic. The thing is, he was talking to me as if I had just posted a picture of an MRI showing a lump in my brain or something, like "surely it's nothing to worry about". I told him that this is not going to change who I am. If I'm truly autistic, then it's just another way to understand myself. It's not a disease, it's a door that might lead into a path of healing and reconciliation with an estranged part of who I am.
Once again, thank you enormously for your words. I'm not exaggerating when I say that your comment really made a difference to me. Much love, comrade!
If I'm truly autistic, then it's just another way to understand myself. It's not a disease, it's a door that might lead into a path of healing and reconciliation with an estranged part of who I am.
This is beautiful. ❤️
Goddamn, I don't even know what to say. This is an absolute load-bearing post for me now, I'm saving it to reread multiple times, and you are a legend. Thank you so much for your kind and wise advice.
That's very kind of you to say.
So much of this comes from hard-learned lessons that I've had to fumble my way through personally at some point, so if I can help make it a bit easier for someone else then it makes it all worthwhile.
That Ritalin story is wild. I just can't wrap my head around how a doctor would be like that at all.
With regards to therapists and talking about ASD, take it at your own pace but also don't put too much stock in what they say or how they react - most people really aren't up to speed on ASD at all, professionals included, so if you get some skepticism or disbelief just keep in mind that they might have a really stereotyped understanding of ASD. Also if you are auDHD it really can feel like its own separate thing a lot of the time because of how the two conditions interact and compensate and stuff.
The bipolar diagnosis stuff is also super common for late self-identifying neurodivergent folks. If you make it through to adulthood as an undiagnosed ADHDers or autistic person but you haven't gotten a diagnosis of a mood disorder, you're basically a unicorn imo.
Once again, thank you enormously for your words. I'm not exaggerating when I say that your comment really made a difference to me. Much love, comrade!
Much love to you too, comrade. I'm just glad to help.
·6 months agoIt's like being trans - cis people really don't entertain the thought of what it would be like and feel like and look like and what sort of clothes they'd wear and what name they'd pick for themselves and... you get the idea, right? If you're not trans and someone asked you then you might entertain the thought for a little while before being like "Nahhh". But you sure as hell don't spend your time preoccupied with these thoughts.
Why must your comments be so good, yet hurt so much.
Gut churning realization when I was going over your list thinking "I haven't thought about clothes" but no, i have actually thought about clothes.
Hi, it's Edward
Hi! Glad to see you're still hanging out with us here ☺️
Why must your comments be so good, yet hurt so much.
I really do wish it were easier.
You know, there's this Chinese phrase that I like, 不破不立 (bù pò bù lì), which literally means "no destruction, no construction" but a more aphoristic translation would be "without destruction there cannot be creation". It feels very Taoist to me but I'm not sure of its origin.
In western culture we are pretty obsessed with building up and building towards and building on, very often to the exclusion of getting rid of the things that weigh us down and hold us back. Anything that we let go of is almost always framed in terms of loss and in it being somehow detrimental to us, which conceals the fact that the act of letting go can often be liberating. But I don't think it must be seen from this perspective; in time, the old must necessarily make way for the new and so the passing of old beliefs, of the old ways of relating to ourselves and to the world, is also representative of our opportunity for change, growth, and ultimately for hope.
I'm not telling you that you shouldn't feel what you're feeling, far from it. But I do wonder if that pain you're feeling might also have the seeds of hope growing within it too.
In any case I hope you're doing okay 💜
Oh I already
for whatever reason I thought I hadn't.
I come back to it again.
In any case I hope you're doing okay 💜
I have an appointment tomorrow for a referral to the gender clinic or whatever it translates as.
I sincerely appreciate you letting me know how things have been going for you. I'm so happy that you took this step, I know that it's going to be worth it; you deserve a fulfilling life where you are comfortable to be who you are. I'm excited for you for where this journey will take you.
Sorry it has taken me so long to get back to this comment. I hadn't forgotten about it. I just had a rough patch (when my account went dark) which I've been dragging myself out of in fits and starts. My recent comments have been me working hard to lift myself up enough to express some thoughts and contribute a bit before sliding back down again. It's a bummer but it is what it is and at least I'm trending upwards at the moment. It's been really nice to have yourself and another couple of people on here appreciating my existence recently, it's truly meant a lot to me.
Yeah I did it. It was basically a bunch of IQ test style puzzles. I thought it was pretty fun. It maxes out at like 138 or something so it isn't really about determining your IQ, it's more about trying to isolate different skills to see if there are any weird differentials. For example a neuropsych diagnosed me as being on the autistic spectrum due to various stories from my childhood and also because my visual processing speed was far far below the other categories it measured.
I took the test because I thought I had ADHD btw. Couldn't focus in school, it was like my attention just ran away without noticing and I daydreamed for a bit before snapping back and wondering wtf happened. Then the report came back and I went to go for the exit interview expecting to get my sweet sweet adderall scrip and then the neuropsych was like "Surprise you have autism" and I was like wtf lmao
If you don't mind me asking, did that have a substantial impact on how you felt afterwards? I'm asking because I suppose that what I hope to get from this test (when I eventually-god-knows-when do it) is some kind of change or potential thereof, you know? Something of substance, some kind of way out that I haven't tried over and over again before.
I know you didn't ask me about this but I think having a conceptual framework to understand that the struggles you have faced through your development and into your adulthood is generally pretty empowering because it's kinda like "Oh, I'm not failing - I'm just fundamentally at odds with the world/society".
It's super common to go through a period of grief for lost time, lost opportunities, and anger or frustration or disappointment in how all the people around you let you down by not figuring out all of the now patently-obvious signs of neurodivergence so yeah, if you get a diagnosis then you might want to brace for a bit of a grieving process.
In regards to potential for change there's a lot of stuff that can be done with regards to unmasking, which I kinda object to the absolutist framing of, or being much more conscious and selective in when you mask and how much you choose to mask. There's also a lot you can do about seeking small accomodations, especially in a social context - for example, if you meet me irl and I think you're worthy of being a friend or if I'm going to be working alongside you then I'm going to drop the fact that I'm autistic when it's relevant pretty early on these days because it's just a sort of heads-up to say "I'm going to miss social cues, I'm kinda odd, and I'll work a lot better with direct communication". It's not necessarily using excuses but if someone is saying something cryptic then I'm just gonna say something like "I am wayyy too autistic to understand what you're getting at here" (which is admittedly a problematic way of framing it but idk, I'm not about to drop some crash course monologue on what a spectrum disorder actually is in medical parlance so I'm just working with what I've got y'know?) before seeking clarification. It's a bit self-deprecating but it's also a way of giving people a better understanding of how I go about communicating and what my needs are, with the hope that I'll be able to train them in more direct communication with me over time.
With other accomodations there's stuff around embracing a need for security and stability, and actively cultivating that as a form of self-care. There's managing your "sensory diet" better so that you can avoid and mitigate noxious sensory stimuli while putting in conscious effort to seek out positive sensory stimuli, including allowing yourself to stim more freely or spending time (re)discovering your stims and actively cultivating habits to bring them into your daily life. That sort of thing.
Then there's probably a fair bit of personal work to do in regards to internalised ableism as well. Living as a neurodivergent adult that is late self-identifying, you don't go through that experience without picking up a fair share of internalised ableism.
There's other stuff that comes with being appropriately medicated for ADHD that I could go into but that's probably getting ahead of things a bit.
Ultimately there's a lot of small changes and accomodations that you can start working towards right now if you are so inclined - the worst thing that can happen is you shed a little internalised ableism, you become more connected to your sensory experience and you engage with it in a more positive and supportive way for yourself, and you make life just a bit nicer for yourself - it's hard to imagine these things could ever be negative outcomes for anyone, neurodivergent or not, diagnosed or not.
I know you didn't ask me about this but I think having a conceptual framework to understand that the struggles you have faced through your development and into your adulthood is generally pretty empowering because it's kinda like "Oh, I'm not failing - I'm just fundamentally at odds with the world/society".
Yeah, and I absolutely struggle with this a lot. There's always a voice in my head saying "no, this is all bullshit, you're just like everybody else except you're weak and pathetic." I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who's most likely ND who thinks this way to some extent. In fact I'm absolutely certain. It's a nasty thing to think, but we're surrounded by nastiness a lot of the time and it rubs off. It's the internalized ableism you mention, or at least a facet of it.
Edit: also, especially with ADHD, I think it's very likely that if I ever have an official diagnosis, people are still going to say that it's a fake condition made to sell medicine, and that all I need is to find something that I love to do and to get a productivity app or a planner or some shit, because "I forget things all the time too, it's normal." I don't even think people say this necessarily out of disrespect, some of them legitimately want to help but don't understand that I've tried all this stuff and none of it works for more than a couple days at best.
There's always a voice in my head saying "no, this is all bullshit, you're just like everybody else except you're weak and pathetic."
Yeah I got diagnosed with ADHD recently and I think the diagnostic helped but I still get that voice sometimes...
I don't even think people say this necessarily out of disrespect, some of them legitimately want to help but don't understand that I've tried all this stuff and none of it works for more than a couple days at best.
This is exactly my experience (the couple days thing). So far meds really help me to be able to stick to these kinds of things
Welcome to the club!
You might find it interesting to look into the concept that Dr William Dodson, one of the two biggest names in ADHD globally (edit: as in legitimate recognised specialists, not hucksters), has to say about ADHD & motivation.
He argues that ADHDers have a nervous system that responds completely differently to how a typical person does, and that ADHDers have an "interest-based nervous system" which is useful for understanding how to manage motivation and habit-formation and stuff like that in ADHDers.
Here's a blog post on this which is pretty succinct but you can also find Dr Dodson talking about it in podcasts and interviews if you want a deeper dive.
because "I forget things all the time too, it's normal." I don't even think people say this necessarily out of disrespect, some of them legitimately want to help but don't understand that I've tried all this stuff and none of it works for more than a couple days at best.
Yeah, usually people are well-meaning but that well-meaning advice often falls completely flat unfortunately.
Society has a long way to go with its background radiation of ableism - people get still get treated poorly and looked down upon because of something like dyslexia. A lot of it comes down to less-visible disabilities (not going to go on a rant about so-called "invisible" disabilities rn...) because people assume that a person who looks "normal" has a brain that works the way a typical one would and so if you really struggle with reading or spelling then you're just lazy or you're not applying yourself.
Depending on who I am talking with, sometimes I will go at this very directly if I think it's worth it. This requires a good relationship with the other person and doing it kinda leans on their goodwill but if someone just isn't getting it, especially if they're saying something dismissive or providing unhelpful advice, I will derail the conversation and start talking about a condition I know they have - asthma, migraines, a particular phobia. That sort of thing. I'll inquire about it and then I'll give them a similar sort of dismissive "Oh everyone gets headaches sometimes" response and I'll tell them that I just take some paracetamol, stretch my neck, have a snack and a glass of water, and maybe take a little nap and 95% of the time it fixes the problem. Y'know, basically turning the tables on them except not in a malicious way.
Obviously you need to be delicate about it and you really have to make sure that you're not being vindictive at all if you choose to do something like this because it's a bit dicey.
But ultimately with this you want to create an opportunity for them to really connect with your experience through a deep, experiential empathy and sometimes you can do it this way. This isn't something I do very often because it requires a lot of tact and it's a pretty big investment of energy to navigate it so I typically don't do it unless it's someone I'm close to.
Once it clicks for them, that "I forget things all the time" is wildly different to "I am so forgetful that I used to wonder if I had OCD because I will return to a door two, three, sometimes even more times to check that I have locked it because I can be so forgetful that I get distracted while I'm literally checking to see if I locked the door then I'll walk off only to stop dead in my tracks and ask myself if I actually checked that the door was locked just now because I genuinely can't remember what I was doing 5 seconds ago" then usually it can be the starting point for much deeper mutual understanding.
"you're just weak and pathetic"
It me.
This is a big one that deserves to be unpacked with someone who is skilled in this stuff, especially a therapist who specialises in working with neurodivergent clients or who is neurodivergent themselves.
But a lot of work can be done by recognising how much effort you put into things and how strong you are to have managed living life on hard-mode for so long and that sort of thing.
There's stuff in there about internalised ableism with regards to "taking the easy option" and "using excuses" too - neurodivergent people and people with disability get a lot of messages about how they need to do things the hard way all the time. This is especially toxic for ADHDers and I could go on about this forever but to try and be brief about it, ADHDers have a very short battery life with regards to stuff like attention and focus and remembering things (i.e. executive function). Yes, you absolutely can devote a good chunk of brain power towards remembering when to leave the house on time and you'll probably do well at this mostly if you really do apply yourself. But, unironically, at what cost?
If you're blasting through all of your brain power by whiteknuckling through your day, you're going to suffer from a serious amount of executive dysfunction and, in the longer term, you risk burnout or deepening/prolonging it when it happens.
And for what? To prove to someone who doesn't get it that you can remember to do things without writing them down or setting alarms? Or to prove this to the unhelpful voice in your head?
Almost anyone can walk to their job, if we remove practical concerns for argument's sake. But just because that's something that is possible doesn't mean that it's practical, let alone sustainable or beneficial. Thing is, though, an allistic person doesn't use transport to get to their job and then berate themselves for being a weak, pathetic little baby who always takes the easy option - they just do what they need to do without entertaining these thoughts at all.
I'm rambling again but I guess what I've been working on in myself is shifting the framing from being about "the easy option" or "a cop-out" and towards what it is that I need and what enables me to live a life that suits me better. I've done a lot of prior work on breaking down the conceptual distinction we have between so-called "accessibility" devices and design (which is usually just code for "disabled-person thing") because when you really sit down and consider it, what is a remote control but an accessibility device? What is a lamp but an accessibility device? What is a car? Or a knife? and so on. Learning about the curb cut effect and identifying it in design choices has also been useful and an extension of this same sort of personal work. I think doing this has been helpful for me as a foundation for undoing my own internalised ableism.
I don't know. My struggles remain my struggles. The diagnosis did give me more leeway to go easy on myself and avoid spiraling when my real abilities were so far from how I felt they should be. Autistic stuff isn't really managed with medication like ADHD is so it really depends on the outcome for you too.
Yeah, all I can do is hope things look up in the future. Thanks for sharing, hope you take your struggles and
kick them in the asslearn a lot from facing them.
I feel you, all I can afford right now are symptoms.
But yes, it's an IQ test. Are you comfortable asking for a second opinion on getting diagnosed? None of my diagnosed ADHD friends had to take that but they were tested around 4-10 years ago so maybe that's changed.
I'm comfortable, definitely, but now I'm not sure what other options I'll have. I've had terrible experiences with psychiatrists and I have a feeling that it'll feel ridiculous if I, a young man in his 30s, visit a psychiatrist to describe ADHD symptoms. No matter how legitimate my concerns are, it'll surely sound like drug-seeking behavior, trying to score some Ritalin or something. Maybe I'm just overthinking, I seem to do that a lot.
Edit: to be clear, this point about talking to a psychiatrist about medication is very specific to my circumstances, how my insurance provider deals with doctors and how doctors in turn deal with patients. It's a mass production line where you go in, talk for 10-15 minutes and maybe get proper attention. It's just a very strange process all in all, no human connection, just a disorder-medicine pipeline with barely any personal connection.
That seems wild to me. Kaiser did a test where I had to do a repetitive boring task and I assume they checked if I started fucking up cause I was going bored. This feels like an even weirder more arcane test.
