This will be long, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time.
Has anyone else noticed that there are less avenues of support and resources for adults than there is for kids? For the purposes of this post I’m talking about mainly government sources. I’m aware there are some NGOs that offer help for adults. It seems like government agencies only have a lot of their neurodivergent resources and support for families, particularly children. While this is completely understandable, these children will eventually become adults, and it will be a rude awakening.
There’s still so many misconceptions about neurodivergent people that particularly hurt when a person becomes an adult, and it starts from childhood. Some of the things I’ve heard:“oh they’re kids, they’ll grow out of it” and too many neurotypicals thinking that we’re all invalids that can’t take care of ourselves and need to be institutionalized. Things would definitely improve (job wise and mental health wise) if more groups would stop thinking of these conditions as just something kids go through and expand their support systems to adults as well as children.
God I feel this, it took showing my mom hours of footage talking about childhood ADHD for her to finally believe I have it and I’m 24 years old! I have no resources that accurately describe my symptoms now as an adult, and so many of the ones discussing childhood symptoms emphasize that by adulthood they go away. No they don’t!!!
I only recently heard ADHD described as an executive dysfunction disorder and not an attention disorder and I was gutted that such a simple distinction has made receiving adequate care so difficult.
It’s been hard learning to deal with the feeling that there’s something fundamentally wrong with me, finally feeling validated that this disorder isn’t just “sometimes focusing on homework is hard” has helped a lot
Oh yeah, it’s definitely more than just attention issues in class. Fun trivia: we have a high comorbidity rate with bipolar disorder. Did you know that? Our emotional dysregulation tends to be so bad that people with ADHD keep getting diagnosed with bipolar. How is that school based? What does that have to do with homework? Nothing! Yet, everyone acts like ADHD is just something that interferes with homework! It’s frustrating.
Yes absolutely! From about 19-22 I was diagnosed bipolar and on mood stabilizers and just thinking “why the hell isn’t it working”. Now I’m finally on Ritalin and it’s helped so much, but I still have difficulty with my executive dysfunction and no one really seems to know what to do about it! /rant