I see you guys are taking this way too seriously so ok… I’m not invalidating anything, and for that matter I haven’t noticed any such trend in media either.
In fact, I would go as far as to say that attributing “normal” behaviors to ADHD and autism is ultimately what invalidates these conditions.
My initial comment stemmed from me seeing meme after meme about ADHD and being like, wait I’m like that too, maybe I have it. But then as this trend goes on I observed that most of the people I know also have - to some degree - most symptoms mentioned in said memes.
In short I bet if one were to base the description of ADHD on the memes going round, most people could get a positive diagnosis.
My personal opinion is that this has to do with societal expectations when it comes to education and employment as they have developed over the last couple of decades.
We are slowly recognizing that our capitalist way of life with its pursuit of infinitely increasing productivity is not in line with human nature thus we’re “creating” this condition that somehow everyone is suffering from to attribute feelings of inadequacy.
Adhd in particular is a very “everyone can relate, only people with adhd have their lives crippled by it” thing. To some degree this applies to many mental disorders (e.g. everyone has some anxiety).
The need to know why is clearly not a normal thing or I wouldnt have had the frequent experience of people getting mad at me for demanding the why or, which is still utterly confusing to me, for explaining the why when asking someone to do something.
Usually when it’s things that are “socially expected” but don’t make sense to me in that moment. Like being asked to wait with eating food until everyone has some (still don’t really get it, but “it’s a social norm and people will feel bad” is sufficient for adult me since it’s really nbd. As a kid no one even explained that far though, just that it’a a thing you do because you do.).
In general as an adult its been pretty rare since I’ve learned it’s not worth the effort (and whatever if it makes people happy then cool), and if I really don’t wanna do something I consider pointless (like wearing a suit - which I’d first have to buy - to a wedding in 30° heat as someone who is already very uncomfortable in shorts and t shirt in 22°) people are more likely to respect it because they can’t really force me anymore.
I do think the more common one (that still happens a bunch) is when providing the why, or more generally when providing extra information. It seems to me people often assume I’m overly criticizing when I do that. Like “can you add this thing to the sheet I think it’d be helpful when <3 sentences of the context in which I think it’s good to have>” tends to get worse reactions than “can you add this thing to the sheet I think it’d be helpful”.
So same as the food thing, maybe it’s more about wanting far more detailed explanations than about wanting one at all. But to me the less detailed one often doesn’t feel like a real explanation, moreso a justification.
I see you guys are taking this way too seriously so ok… I’m not invalidating anything, and for that matter I haven’t noticed any such trend in media either. In fact, I would go as far as to say that attributing “normal” behaviors to ADHD and autism is ultimately what invalidates these conditions. My initial comment stemmed from me seeing meme after meme about ADHD and being like, wait I’m like that too, maybe I have it. But then as this trend goes on I observed that most of the people I know also have - to some degree - most symptoms mentioned in said memes. In short I bet if one were to base the description of ADHD on the memes going round, most people could get a positive diagnosis. My personal opinion is that this has to do with societal expectations when it comes to education and employment as they have developed over the last couple of decades. We are slowly recognizing that our capitalist way of life with its pursuit of infinitely increasing productivity is not in line with human nature thus we’re “creating” this condition that somehow everyone is suffering from to attribute feelings of inadequacy.
Adhd in particular is a very “everyone can relate, only people with adhd have their lives crippled by it” thing. To some degree this applies to many mental disorders (e.g. everyone has some anxiety).
The need to know why is clearly not a normal thing or I wouldnt have had the frequent experience of people getting mad at me for demanding the why or, which is still utterly confusing to me, for explaining the why when asking someone to do something.
I suppose context is important in the needing to know why. Can you give an example of a time someone got mad?
Usually when it’s things that are “socially expected” but don’t make sense to me in that moment. Like being asked to wait with eating food until everyone has some (still don’t really get it, but “it’s a social norm and people will feel bad” is sufficient for adult me since it’s really nbd. As a kid no one even explained that far though, just that it’a a thing you do because you do.).
In general as an adult its been pretty rare since I’ve learned it’s not worth the effort (and whatever if it makes people happy then cool), and if I really don’t wanna do something I consider pointless (like wearing a suit - which I’d first have to buy - to a wedding in 30° heat as someone who is already very uncomfortable in shorts and t shirt in 22°) people are more likely to respect it because they can’t really force me anymore.
I do think the more common one (that still happens a bunch) is when providing the why, or more generally when providing extra information. It seems to me people often assume I’m overly criticizing when I do that. Like “can you add this thing to the sheet I think it’d be helpful when <3 sentences of the context in which I think it’s good to have>” tends to get worse reactions than “can you add this thing to the sheet I think it’d be helpful”.
So same as the food thing, maybe it’s more about wanting far more detailed explanations than about wanting one at all. But to me the less detailed one often doesn’t feel like a real explanation, moreso a justification.