So what if ‘everyone has ADHD’? The more diagnoses, the better – but we need the meds to treat them

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is all over the place. A recent study found that disability payments for parents of children with ADHD and autism are up 40 per cent since before the pandemic – a huge increase. Waiting lists for diagnoses are measured in years.

Now, if you make it through the torturous delay of diagnosis, there is no guarantee you can get medication due to serious shortages and medication rationing. People will find they’re reaching the end of years-long journeys for a diagnosis, only to find they’re right back where they started. I should know – I’m one of them.

I first learnt about ADHD (or ADD as it was then known) the same way I learnt about everything in the early 2000s – through American cartoons. They presented a dystopian Brave New World of overdiagnosis and medicated children. Bobby Hill, Bart Simpson, the entire town of South Park – all had episodes wherein they were incorrectly diagnosed with ADD and heavily medicated, becoming totally zombified. I feel ashamed to look back on it now, but that was the prevailing narrative of ADHD I held onto well into adulthood.

I never had a clue what real ADHD looked like, so the idea that I might have it never even crossed my mind.

That was, until my late twenties, just before the pandemic. I learnt it from the place I now learn everything: Reddit. I stumbled on a comment thread about ADHD. People were using terms like “executive dysfunction” and “hyperfocus”. I read more and more.

It felt like the last 15 minutes of a whodunnit. Things I had thought of as completely disparate parts of my personality were being discussed as part of one unified whole. I was looking at my life in a new light.

I thought about my incessant restless leg syndrome. My poor impulse control.

I thought about my school career. Endless detentions. Misbehaviour. Manic schemes like trying to sell toasties out of an abandoned gym room.

I thought about my time at uni, frantically writing my dissertation in a caffeine-fuelled 24-hour period after agonising over every second I’d spent procrastinating that year.

I felt like I’d found the Rosetta Stone for my own personality. I wanted to get diagnosed as soon as possible, to start exploring options for treatment, medication. So… I did nothing for four years. Why? Because I have ADHD.

Asking someone who thinks they have ADHD to start a process that may take years on a waiting list is like an ironic, Twilight Zone-style punishment. So now, because of my procrastination, I have to contend with what is probably the longest backlog for ADHD diagnosis in NHS history.

I hear a lot that the rise in diagnosis is down to “trendy” false diagnoses, whether that’s supposed to be for a perceived advantage or as an excuse for “laziness”. I don’t think the people making those claims are aware of the stigma and judgement people with ADHD face.

I have trepidatiously mentioned this to two successive managers about a year apart, and both laughed. I don’t think they meant it unkindly, they just honestly thought it was a joke. I pushed the issue and told them I was serious. Both said almost word for word the same thing: You don’t have ADHD. You just need to focus.

Growing awareness of the condition is a huge factor. Acceptance isn’t just gradual, it builds momentum. A tipping point is reached when acceptance outweighs stigma and the dam bursts.

But the lockdown was also a time of deeper introspection. How many parents had an opportunity before to sit down and really go through phonics or maths in a pseudo-classroom setting? How many of these parents already suspected their kids were different or having a hard time, but didn’t realise the impact of that until they had to scrutinise their learning, their behaviour, to that degree and in that kind of setting?

When I first thought I may have ADHD, it stayed in the back of my mind until my son was getting older. He’s hyperactive, very focused on what he’s interested in and resolutely non-respondent to anything he’s not.

In other words, his behaviour is exactly like mine at his age.

A few months before he joined nursery we had a meeting with his teacher. She asked if there was anything we wanted them to be aware of. We gently suggested that he could be neurodiverse – we suspected ADHD and he can have difficulty focusing.

The teacher was sceptical, even dismissive. She told us it was very early to seek a diagnosis (which is true) and that all boys have a lot of energy.

At the end of his first week, two and a half days of school, she asked us to stay behind for a chat.

She asked if we had ever considered whether he might have ADHD. She advised us to speak with our GP. She told us the school was considering getting an additional member of staff to assist with him, and might need the additional funding a diagnosis could bring to do so.

My nursery needed additional support with me, too. My mother came in to help control me every day.

At first, I felt gutted. I could picture him having the exact same school career as me. But she also talked about his sensory needs. About understanding how to work with him. In my previous life as a naughty kid, those phrases just weren’t in our vocabulary.

Because I did well at exams, I never raised any red flags. I existed in this weird paradox where I was in the gifted and talented programmes, but couldn’t tell the time, couldn’t tie my shoelaces, couldn’t stop talking. I felt like there was something wrong with me. I’d ask myself why I couldn’t behave.

I don’t want that for my son. Not because I don’t think children should be disciplined but because, if he is diagnosed with ADHD, I want him to be supported to develop the tools that will help him to manage and regulate his own behaviour. Tools that I had to cobble together from scratch until I found a random Reddit thread on the cusp of my thirties.

Just imagine the sheer number of children over the years who were neurodiverse that could have benefited immeasurably from diagnosis and targeted support. Instead, they were dismissed as naughty.

Think of the cumulative effect of that on a person over time, on society. Anything that we can do to address that is absolutely crucial.