"ADHD isn't real" and boxes...

 "ADHD isn't real, it's just an excuse. It never existed in my day. I do that all the time, I'm just like that and I don't have a problem. You cant blame everything on ADHD or your child hood. "

ADHD is considered a mental disability.

Firstly, Disability exists in the context of the environment. If you had no arms but it was standard in all restaurants for robots to feed you, for cars to drive themselves, self writing pens etc etc then it wouldn't be disabling and you wouldn't be considered disabled.

I can't be bothered listing the symptoms or WHY it's disabling to have ADHD but perhaps if I explain it like this.

  There are physiological and chemical differences to a neurodynamic, adhd brain, than someone who is neurotypical (normal) meaning the brain is physically different. There are parts that are smaller. 

There is a chemical difference. Meaning that,  that that good feeling hormone called dopamine is lower so we're constantly in search for a hit of it just to get by and survive, a bit like an addict. That's why we're distracted so easily, hyperfocus, over stimulated, under stimulated it's all just a big performance of WHEREVER CAN I FIND A DOPAMINE FIX?

If you were or are showing symptoms of ADHD but you were not diagnosed Thats because it has not been considered to be a disability which could be due to either lack of knowledge or your symptoms are not considered disabling in the context of your environment. or finally, it could be down to your own personal struggle with accepting such a possible diagnoses. In which case, you do you but it is not helpful to dismiss or invalidate anothers experience or feelings. If anything, that will only make us shout and scream louder.

I CAN blame a lot of things on my ADHD and I do regularly. Its not an excuse, it's a reason. It's not my fault but it is my responsibility. 

If someone's breaks faltered on a wheel chair and they rolled into the road and caused a crash, you'd say that was an unfortunate accident and it wasn't the disabled persons fault for causing such chaos and carnage but you could argue it was their responsibility to maintain their wheelchair and check the breaks before going anywhere. 

It's the same for anyone with adhd.

Taking care of our mental health is so much more important now because of the environment we live in which may be less strenuous than it used to be in some respects but there is so much more pressure on us in other ways. 

The amount of stress this is causing us does disable many of us sometimes and we all lie on a spectrum of that.

 What makes ADHD a disability is that this stress in one way or another disables us MOST of the time.

Essentially ADHD is a dopamine deficiency that effects our tolerance to stress and what we perceive stress is can be as simple as the stupid beeping that goes off on my washing machine when it's finished, to drawers that don't shut to everyone walking out of a cinema all at once, to something a lot more normal like a speeding ticket.  But let's just say the society we live in today is one big fun ball of STRESS to a person with ASD or ADHD. Lots and lots of things like washing machines to have melt downs over... The joys!

We can't change society but we can change our environment to a degree and we can work on ourselves.

The unfortunate truth is that if you had an awful temper that was impacting others very negatively, it would be your responsibility to do the necessary work on yourself to lessen the impact. Or if you were just very negative and it made those around you miserable or messy and untidy or just plain selfish etc etc etc 

The list of imperfections within all of us that effect others negatively could go on and on. None of us ARE perfect.

The reason why we all need labels and we all need to go in an ADHD box or even an LGBTQ box or a black box or a white box is because we're a tribal species and when we're rejected for our differences that don't conform to the society we live in, we are ostricised and made to feel less than. The boxes help us to find our tribe members and say " ahhh you're like me, let's bond over all the ways society rejects us"

Its not a way for us seperate ourselves from society but a sanctuary to feel embraced and welcomed.

Some of us may be surrounded by people but feel lonely because we hide our differences and are afraid to express them from fear of societal rejection. So we live inauthenticaly to conform even at the expense of our own happiness.

The people who who have ventured off into finding these boxes to put themselves in are the ones brave enough to say "I'm different and I'm ok with that" "I'm different and I'm curious enough to explore it"

Which in the grand scheme of things is total madness that anyone has to find a box anyway as we're ALL different.

The majority have an inability to love and accept these differences so much that that the minority have to seek sanctuary in a bloody box.

So, coming to an end then, perhaps the solution to this (as is the solution to all things in life) is to accept and love our differences and imperfections and in doing so we will love and accept others too and then the boxes wouldn't be necessary.

I don't want the boxes to be there either but the very people who complain about them are quite often the people who struggle to accept the differences in themselves and in others. They don't reject the boxes themselves but their own differences that could go in the boxes.

I'll stop talking about boxes now.