I think people need to get better at distinguishing between growing visibility of ADHD in their online circles and it becoming "trendy". Nobody irl I know even understands ADHD. People look at me with pity when I tell them. It's not "cool".

It makes me sad bc it's predominantly women, trans and non-binary people, and POC of all genders who are discovering their ADHD themselves in adulthood, bc systematic bias meant it wasn't picked up on earlier by the caregivers around them.

These people then find communities online, and share and learn and connect, sometimes seriously and sometimes with humour, only for this uptick in dialogue to be dismissed as a "trend", and for other ADHDers to gatekeep them bc "that's not what ADHD looks like".

News flash, we don't really know what ADHD "looks like"! The diagnostic criteria describes the presentation of behaviours commonly caused by ADHD, but people's culture, language, gender, class and other life experiences mean ADHD manifests differently for everyone.

That means we especially don't know what ADHD "looks like" for populations historically and currently not represented in mainstream understandings of ADHD. The more we all talk about the various experiences we have, the more others can identify themselves in our stories.

We can't say the rise in ADHD dialogue and diagnosis is a "trend" when we literally KNOW that some populations are under diagnosed. There SHOULD be a rise in visibility and discourse, and bc I don't see ADHD as a special exclusive club, I am welcoming this.

I literally don't care if ADHD becomes trendy. Actually scratch that, if it comes with acceptance, accomodations, and more varied representation of ADHDers, sign me the fuck up.

People seem to be misinterpreting this thread a lot, so to be clear, I am subtweeting this tweet (which I deeply disagree with). The more people talk about ADHD the better imo, and there is nothing to be gained from dismissing those reflecting on whether they have ADHD.