a lot of the advocacy surrounding adhd recently still frames many of its common attributes as intrinsic shortcomings rather than what they really are, which is simply personality traits that are inconvenient to capitalism that have been pathologised into a disorder.

not to minimise the vigorous suffering having adhd can cause living in this society but like, it's not disordered or developmentally inappropriate (or even atypical) to only be able to do things you like doing.

some will bring up that adhd-ers struggle to do the things they *want* to do as evidence of its pathology, but i contend that many of us have simply not had a chance to learn to grow into ourselves because we live in a society hostile to most aspects of our way of doing things.

those of us w/ adhd have spent a large portion of our lives just trying to survive in systems (schools, capitalist work) inflexible to diverse approaches & neurotypes. we've been disallowed rest & free time, social & emotional development, self-exploration.

i've met few adult adhd'ers who aren't actively traumatised by their upbringings, or still being ongoingly traumatised by trying to work 9-5s. part of our survival is adapting to these hostile systems but the fact that we need to adapt isn' tevidence of a pathology.

i'm cynical about psychiatry cuz i've racked up enough diagnoses to recognise the politicised nature of pathologising neurodiversity. & while i know for many diagnoses = recognition & hope, for me it lets the machine off the hook & pushes adhd'ers to assimilate into that machine.

i also want to encourage ppl away from using brain wiring & other bioessentialist language to discuss neurodiversity. i understand born-this-way rhetoric can feel liberatory but reifying western science as a tool for validation reinforces harmful -isms & isn't politically useful.

speaking of validation - yes, let's recognise that some are more disabled by their disorders than others; but also, society arbitrarily sets the "norm" that disabled ppl are defined against. in a 12-hr standard workday (vs 8), there might suddenly be more ppl w/ adhd, ya feel me?

not everybody can do everything, & not everybody *should* be able to do everything. the norm society sets isn't natural or based in reality. it's based on extracting profit from ppl. imagine if there was "not-a-gymnast" disorder or "can't-run-a-mile-in-7-min-disorder."