Reasons I Have ADHD, According to a Selection of the Hottest Takes from the Last Thirty-ish Years:
I don’t have ADHD; I’m just lazy.
I don’t have ADHD, I’ve just: spent insufficient time outdoors, watched too much television, played too many video games, eaten too many processed foods, stood too close to the microwave, gotten too many x-rays, wasted too many hours on the internet, or been poisoned by my cellular phone.
I don’t have ADHD, I’m just grotesquely spoiled by the culture of instant gratification that has so generously been granted to me by the people who built the society in which I live, and for which I am insufficiently grateful.
I don’t have ADHD, because ADHD presents exclusively as a little child jumping up and down, knocking paintings off of walls, and refusing to sit still while shouting “I have ADHD!!” at a cartoonish volume. Anything else is just: being annoying, being too much, being weird, speaking too loudly or too quickly or too often, not paying attention out of selfishness or disrespect, being too sensitive, or failing to adequately live up to my potential (whatever the hell that means).
I don’t have ADHD, I’m just not eating enough kale.
I don’t have ADHD, I’m just not motivated enough. I don’t have ADHD, I just don’t care about my future or understand that my actions have consequences. I don’t have ADHD, I’m just irresponsible. I don’t have ADHD, I just need to grow up.
I do have ADHD, but doesn’t everybody have ADHD these days? I do have ADHD, but ADHD isn’t a real problem. I do have ADHD, but ADHD is a fad disease made up to get kids extra time on tests. I do have ADHD, but I could manage it on my own if I really wanted to. I do have ADHD, but doctors are just handing out pills like candy these days, so it shouldn’t be an issue, right? I do have ADHD, but it’s a side effect of some other condition I could treat with vitamins and a positive enough attitude. I do have ADHD, but I don’t have to, like, talk about it.
I do have ADHD, but I shouldn’t let that keep me from being a good, reliable person. I do have ADHD, but it’s no excuse for: being annoying, being too much, being weird, speaking too loudly or too quickly or too often, not paying attention, being too sensitive, or failing to adequately live up to my potential (which means “whatever any given person thinks I should have been capable of”).
I do have ADHD, but it’s a personal failing and my own fault. I do have ADHD, but I’m too smart to struggle. I do have ADHD, but it’s somehow because of the ills of society and also, impossibly, a reflection of my poor character for succumbing to said ills. I do have ADHD, but I wouldn’t if only I’d: spent more time outdoors, watched less television, played fewer video games, eaten fewer processed foods, avoided all microwaves, needed fewer x-rays, spent less time on the internet, or refused to use a cellular phone.
I do have ADHD, and...
...and the truth is that sometimes it’s great, and sometimes it sucks, and when it sucks the pain is so close to the bone that it whites out the parts of me that know how to hurt neatly, in a careful and constructive way. I do have ADHD and talking about it with anything approaching emotional honesty makes me feel so vulnerable and exposed that I can hardly hold the thoughts in my head, that I’ve written this paragraph a dozen times and none of those drafts have looked like what I’ve ended up with (I assume; I can’t actually recall the specific details). I do have ADHD, and I have internalized so much shame around the way my mind works that some days I wonder if I’ll ever know what life is like without it, what it means to walk this earth for even a few minutes feeling wholly proud of who I am. I do have ADHD and I’m tired of carrying around all these half-baked myths and bad ideas. I do have ADHD and maybe it’s time I stop hating myself for it.
I do have ADHD and it has opened some doors and closed some others. I do have ADHD and that’s a neutral fact about who I am, something that doesn’t have to hold so much twisted up guilt and fear and sadness. I do have ADHD and I’m trying to believe that. I do have ADHD and I’m trying.