This excerpt from Alysa Auriemma’s first-person account of dealing with ADHD / OCD comes from The Mary Sue. Every group and individual faces different obstacles in coming to terms with having a diagnosable learning disability or mental disorder. We hope that sharing this account reinforces the idea that there should be no stigma attached to needing help. If you’re in the greater Cleveland area and believe you might have ADHD, OCD or another diagnosable disorder, we hope you’ll reach out.
Broadly recently published an article about how many women with ADHD or other mental disorders aren’t taken seriously because they’re women. They think they’re dumb, or just crazy, whereas boys with ADHD get taken more seriously (or, worse, just excused as being “hyperactive boys”):
In 2013, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found that 6.4 million children between the ages of 4 and 17 had received an ADHD diagnosis at some point in their lives, up 16 percent since 2007. This is, understandably, terrifying, and has colored the coverage of ADHD in the media, where the current line is that kids (read: boys) are being over-diagnosed and over-medicated. Early clinical studies in the 1970s focused on hyperactive white boys, which shaped the diagnostic criteria we still use today, making it very difficult for girls—let alone women—to get diagnosed if they don’t behave like hyperactive white boys.
The author also goes on to say, rightfully so, that ADHD appears differently in girls than it does in boys: “think less running around a classroom throwing Cheez-Its and more having a nervous breakdown because you lost your passport somewhere in your laundry basket, which is really just a trash bag at the bottom of your closet.”
I can relate to this because for so many years, until I got a proper diagnosis and started to figure myself out, I thought I was crazy, stupid, or just plain “not good enough.” I have ADHD (inattentive type), Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and depressive disorder (mild depression). This is what it feels like to live in my brain.
Until I was diagnosed with ADHD at eleven, I thought I was an idiot, because I couldn’t concentrate and I went in and out of detention for not doing my homework. I wasn’t diagnosed with the rest of my disorders until, literally, a week ago. I’m 31. I’ve been dealing with this crap for 31 years.