Ok, so the other day I got into a little spat with the ADHD Foundation on social media. Don’t get me wrong the organisation is an amazing charity that does good work to educate, support and raise awareness for ADHD, but prominently it’s aimed at children. That’s not a reflection of the ADHD Foundation, because it seems to be a cultural thing; that ADHD is a condition that only affects children and their parents. Apparently, adults with ADHD have an easier time?? Yeah right!
Anyway, I’m sure you’re eager to hear about my little spat. They posted an article on a social media site about their upcoming conference event for ADHD. It looked pretty great! However, I soon spotted something that got my back up a bit. There were event days for four groups of people: medical professionals, educator children, and parents and adults.
“We’re not allowed to have ADHD ourselves?”
ADHD Girl
So if you are an adult with ADHD, you must be a parent of someone with ADHD? What the heck!! I have an issue with this for one of two reasons. The first being that not every adult with ADHD has or wants biological children (I’m in that group) and two, adults with ADHD need a completely different type of support to parents of children with ADHD. I get the condition is hereditary, but does that mean the minute we have children, we’re not allowed to have ADHD ourselves?
I raised my concerns in what I thought was a constructive way. My exact comment was ‘Why are adults with ADHD always lumped in with parents? We need a different type of support!’ I then added a few raised hand emojis for added effect. I wasn’t deliberately trying to cause any uproar, I was voicing my frustration and genuinely looking for a good response.
“The bottom line is there is just not enough supports out there for adults with ADHD, because it’s still generally seen as a child’s condition.”
ADHD Girl
Well the ADHD Foundation was kind enough to respond to my comments by basically stating they are doing their best with the little funding they have and there are other support groups out there for adults with ADHD (I’m yet to find any!). Let’s forget about the fact that they stated, ‘lump in’ was not ‘accurate’ or ‘kind’ (apparently). I’m a big girl and can take a little bit of criticism (with ADHD you either toughen up or spend your life in tears), but it still did nothing to quell my frustrations.
I understood where they were coming from and want to state for the record that I bear them no ill will, the work they have done is pretty great and I would thorough recommend them as a great source of information. However, the bottom line is there is just not enough support out there for adults with ADHD, because it is still generally seen as a child’s condition.
“Some man troll told me that ADHD doesn’t exist and I’m just f***** up!”
ADHD Girl
So where does the troll come into it? I’m getting to that part now. Some rather obnoxious man AKA ‘man troll’ decided it would be a good idea to also reply to my original comment on the ADHD Foundation Social Media to try and tell me that ADHD doesn’t exist, and the bottom line is I’m just F***** up!! I laughed at him, because why wouldn’t I? A man who spends his time trolling the comments of organisations that support conditions he doesn’t believe exist. Says a lot about his life goals!
My suspicions about his character were further confirmed when I had a sneaky nosey on his profile to read the bio ‘Don’t give a T*** about anything anymore’ which basically sums it all up rather nicely. In fact, add the word anyone into that bio and it’s probably pretty accurate. Now I could choose to name and shame this individual, but instead I choose to just laugh and move on.
“The sad thing is that society’s fauliure to recognise that adults have ADHD contributes the misconception that it doesn’t exisit”
ADHD Girl
There are always going to be people who are more interested in tearing other people down than learning about their situation. That’s just a sad fact of life! I can either let those people get to me or just pity their fixed mindset mentality.
However, the sad thing is what this man said about ADHD not existing and adults just being screw ups (a more polite term) is just being further elevated by societies failure to recognise that adults have ADHD too. It doesn’t disappear the moment we turn 18. Perhaps we learn better coping strategies, but we still struggle every day. It’s a shame that to the rest of the world we are just seen as fully functioning adults who have nothing wrong with them.
