I got diagnosed with ADHD last month and in my session with the psychiatrist she said to see how I go on the meds (awaiting an appointment with the titration team) and then see if the autism symptoms are any different if they are we will explore them then. So after my appointment I told my partner and my mum, my partner said “I already told you that you had it, don’t know why you had to go through all that” and my mum said “how can you have a job like yours and have that”
Since those comments both of them have been advising me to keep this to myself and although I’m part of online communities like this one I’m actually feeling really nervous/strange about telling people in person. How can you write online to strangers but not tell friends and family?
My mum says I’ll be judged and my partner says I shouldn’t be advertising it to everyone not everybody needs to know. This is affecting me really badly because it’s part of me and now I don’t know how to tell people like friends or family who are close to me. I have long term health conditions too but they’re okay to tell but my ASD & ADHD isn’t? It just doesn’t make sense!
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Leenie0811
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Why would you tell others ? Your personal business is just that your personal business. There is no reason to put your personal business in the streets. You have no control over who others tell. Even if they say they won't tell anyone. Unless a person has ADHD they have no idea what it is like for those that do. All they know is what they read on the internet and hear from others. Which is rarely accurate. Social media has put it in peoples heads they have to tell everyone everything. The only reason social media does this is drive up their profits
I’m really bad with keeping in contact with people and I’ve lost friends or not as close with people as I once was. I thought maybe if they knew I had been diagnosed and what my situation was they would understand me better. I get what you’re saying about the whole social media thing but even with work I feel uncomfortable saying something in case I am judged. I don’t understand why it was so easy to talk about my lupus etc but this feels so difficult. I think I expected my mum and partner to be more forthcoming but their responses have put me off saying something to others but the guilt of being a bad person gets me down a lot. I hope I’m explaining this right and it makes sense
People that truly care about you are going to keep in touch with you no matter what. It is highly doubtful those that have not kept in touch with you. will change their attitude if they know you had been diagnosed with a impairment. People expect certain things from others. Telling them you have been diagnosed rarely means they will make an exception. Unless they truly care about you.
Physical impairments are easier for people to understand than mental and/or emotional impairments, learning disabilities, etc . You might need to tell your boss. This could open the door for Reasonable Accommodations to help you perform your job better. Your coworkers will still expect you to do your job the way you are suppose to. Some coworkers get angry when they see someone receive Reasonable Accommodations because they just don't get. Unfortunately, there is nothing anyone can do to change that
Thank you so much for the advice, I’m in the middle of getting a promotion so I think I will tell them after the official paperwork has gone through. Even though it shouldn’t affect it I still feel it may be risky. I think now I’ve explained to my mum about how mine is different to my brothers and explained female presentations she’s basically discovered apart from the impulsivity she’s the same as me but doesn’t see the need to go get diagnosed as she doesn’t work due to other health issues. I think my closest cousin will understand as I said I was having assessments but didn’t say what and she was very understanding/checking in on me. I thank you so much for your perspective it’s made me a lot less anxious x
<giant hug from a big old guy who gets it> I was JUST thinking about how few friends I have left. Those who are left are well aware of my ADHD, but none of the other bits. But, the friends from the past who I have no contact with now were my choice because of how they treated me. Some knew of the AD/HD, some not. I know of two who stopped returning calls when I mentioned it, but realistically I saw someone here post about how most people know what they know from the Internet or short news articles.
Aww thank you so much! I actually have a very small circle of people who I trust but even then most of them are family. When it comes to friends I don’t think I actually could say I have a best friend because of having to mask all the time. (I think I spend too long analysing stuff too especially the friends thing) I’ve got people I’m very friendly with but then again I’m scared if they think differently of me when they find out but I don’t want to mask all the time it’s exhausting! Especially working from home and having my own place, I’ve found happiness in me being me in my own space ☺️
It’s great that someone else gets it but also so sad that ADHD is stigmatised like this!
I struggle with this too. Do I tell people about my ADHD diagnosis or not? If they knew what I know about the condition, I think it would be great to tell everyone. I want to go back and tell one of my college professors who shamed me for my behaviors. I want all my work colleagues to understand what extra difficulty I gave doing things they may feel are routine and benign. I wish my best friend wouldn't run from his diagnosis and would embrace it so we could go through the journey together. Ultimately for me though, I've told my family and my boss. If anyone shows an active interest in my well-being, then I've felt okay sharing with them. I both don't want to hide it and also don't want to be affected negatively by some of the stigma surrounding ADHD.
Of course, I recognize how having other conditions including asd and other long term conditions must make all of this even more baffling and difficult to decide what to do. Ultimately though, it's not your parents or your partner's call on what you feel comfortable doing. Maybe your partner isn't sharing his or her feelings fully with you because they are also unsure about how to respond. Autism is a wide spectrum and I understand this well through seeing it in my family. But maybe your partner doesn't understand this and feels afraid of being labelled by others if you open up about your diagnoses. This response just seems like human nature, not a negative or unhealthy relationship, so maybe you could both feel more comfortable talking a bit more about the "why" you kind of want to tell people.
Reconnecting with old friends who you may have lost touch with has been an invaluable benefit for me. Telling some of these friends what's been going on with me has resulted in some being very interested and others basically saying "who cares that you have that, I'm just happy you reached out." So it may be a new deep friendship or it may be an easy social opportunity. There is very little to lose in trying.
I think because my partner is a different ethnicity to me we have different experiences with family with me being white British and he is Far East Asian, he was praised by his mum for “not advertising” mental health struggles last year. Very different to me and how I was brought up, I like your explanation of there’s no shame in trying. I don’t think I’ll speak with those I’ve lost touch with about my diagnosis but maybe a message to say hi I mean it’s worth a shot isn’t it? I’m sorry about your friend, it’s a shame you can’t do this journey together!
I completely understand the challenges you're pointing towards. I'm very fortunate in that regard as my wife (first gen indian American) shares different views than those of her parents when it comes to mental health. Being a white American though myself, I can appreciate how uncommon it can be culturally and even just socially for parents to be understanding and supportive of mental health advocacy across most all ethnicities. I keep telling myself there is more I can choose to do on my own to change that stereotype for the next generations by my own sharing and openness on the topic.
Wishing you the very best in your journey. Glad I could share some useful experiences of my own, and I appreciate you sharing too.
Thank you so much for sharing, my family are a bit hit and miss. Primarily through lack of education because my brothers are accepted and I was deemed the “good” child… basically as inattentive as it gets but too scared to upset people so I just managed to get by! This is why I want to tell people in order to break the stigma but it’s so scary at the same time, totally weird how you can chat on here but calling your grandma seems impossible!
I think you must be my twin sister. My wife is East Asian :-). She doesn't want me to tell people about my various acronyms. She gets flushed and is visibly upset when I do. I should probably be more discreet than I am, but...er....AD/HD....I often intentionally make short posts or they will be novel-length expositions of oversharing :-).
I have chronic health issues too which affect my joints, you wouldn’t believe the discussion that happened when I mentioned mobility aids! Apparently I’ll lose my legs using an aid the odd time on long days out, honestly such an outdated opinion but what can I say we were raised differently. This is where I am thankful of a mum who has chronic health issues, least she understands this part but a shame she can’t tell the difference between mine and my brothers ADHD. You know I might just blurt it out one time to see what happens… if I’m brave enough!
Actually my view is that it's more important that you own the problems that got in the way of friendship than that you disclose ADHD. Here's the thing: imagine a friend has been whatever, hot and cold, late ... not quite reliable ... and the friend tells you I got condition X. The disclosure doesn't really change things ...
So if you do disclose, I say do not use the ADHD as an excuse, don't act as if the disclosure removes the past pain and distance ... Use the disclosure as part of the explanation and your growth ... and make sure you focus on the pain your behavior caused others ... that's what leads friends to forgive us and be understanding and so on ...
People really are ignorant (neutral sense and negative sense) about ADHD. So disclosing it ... doesn't really achieve anything with most people. I wish disclosure did fix things, but in my experience, it doesn't.
That’s really interesting I think about why my friendships etc have broken down it’s mainly due to me not keeping in contact and I feel very bad about this. Maybe looking at why it happens would be better, thank you very much for your comment!
I struggle with falling out of touch with people as well and sort of hoping that everyone struggles with staying in touch (like when they start a family and get incredibly busy for instance!) and will just be happy I reached out finally. One can always just blame 'health issues' no one will question it; for all they know, you had a catastrophic accident or cancer or anything really...there are all kinds of reasons to fall out of touch, life is complicated
Yeah I get that, do you ever struggle writing the first message? I literally sit there worrying they’ve noticed we haven’t been in contact and am scared what they’ll reply. It’s weird because I want people to understand but also I know they don’t due to chronic health issues. When I was diagnosed with lupus my friends thought I was contagious at first, I think this lack of understanding puts me off but also if we don’t have the conversation when will it be normalised? I think for now health issues will be suffice until I’ve thought about it more (and probably procrastinated more haha)
Absolutely I have - but – it’s just a written message not even in person, so you get to say it just the way you want….and if they don’t want to hear from you, they just won’t respond. Or if they respond in anger, then you’ll have more information, a ‘reality check’ and know where you stand with them and have the opportunity to apologize and explain and make it right, and if they don’t accept your apology, well, they’re no longer in your life but you’re no worse off then you are now; in fact at least you have closure. ….I don’t know your situation, but for me, I’d guess they’d just not respond rather than bother to send an angry message. Anyway it can’t hurt to try - the most important is to just get the note written and sent and not procrastinate, life is short😊 I'm going to start by trying to do a few holiday cards this year
Hi Leenie0811- I can only speak to my experiences. I had a negative experience when disclosing my ADHD and my son’s ADD to family snd friends. They basically said they did not believe it to be true or I was ruining our lives with getting diagnosed. I have decided to never talk about it again only to my husband and therapist . There is still a lot of old beliefs and stigma around mental health. They can accept physical but still do not accept mental health as real medical condition that it is.
I’ve been really scared about this which is why I’ve been so nervous to tell people, my mum is slowly getting there but we don’t talk too much about it and I’ve just left my partner after the initial conversation. If he questions things I just say you know why but hopefully when I start meds he will see an improvement. Well I hope!
I'm trying to think if what I'm about to say is really true. It's a great line but not sure it's 100 percent true. But it's 90 percent true. Here we go:
The only people that I found it helpful to disclose ADHD were other people with ADHD. In my case, I have two colleagues who disclosed to me and me to them--separately. And with these guys, we can joke and poke fun of ourselves about how hard it is to arrive places on time, to complete complicated tasks ... and so on ...
But the bonding isn't just "we got ADHD." The bonding is the tone of warmth and gentle self-deprecating humor that we use on our selves. These two colleagues will crack some joke about ADHD to me and then laugh at themselves, but it's a loving laugh. With these people, I can have conversations ... share details about the condition ... Everyone else ... except for maybe a colleague whose son got a late diagnosis ... is really clueless in how to respond to me telling them I have ADHD. Conversations with these two coworkers had a huge effect of helping me not feel ashamed.
People have responded much better to me when I disclosed depression than when I have mentioned ADHD. People can visualize depression and the lack of energy that it brings ... A long-time buddy of mine came to town and called me ... to meet up ... I didn't return the call. He later gave me @#%% about not returning the call.
Well i told him I was depressed during this time, barely getting through my work day. I didn't have energy to respond to social surprises. He got that. Almost immediately. And he got it that when I was depressed, I didn't have to strength to return his call and say, "can't hang cause I'm depressed."
Thank you so much for sharing this, it’s really heartwarming you and your two colleagues ☺️I totally understand about the depression though, I’ve been off with my lupus before and get comments like “you’ve had that for ages now” whereas with depression people get it don’t they? There’s so much more in the media and the “it’s okay not to be okay” stuff. I just hope I can come across someone in my life (other than my brothers) who will be like your little group. That’s actually made my night reading your story ☺️
I don't hide it, but I don't go around advertising it either. People are simply judgemental--that's just life. We haven't got to a place of inclusion with society.
I get what you mean there, I’m not the loudest of people so defo won’t be running around shouting it but maybe just tell those closest to me for now ☺️ Thanks for messaging
It's really up to you whether you choose to tell people or not.
I have chosen to tell people about my ADHD, but I've since come across the following advice: tell people about the traits of ADHD that they might notice in you, without outright mentioning the diagnosis.
For instance, I often have problems with time management. So, if I have a scheduled time to meet with someone, I might mention that "I am often running a little behind schedule", or something like that.
I've gotten good support from people in my current job (about 20% of the people I've told at work have shared either that they also have ADHD, or they think that they do, or they someone they are close to has ADHD).
I wouldn't have dared tell one former boss of mine. He proved to be someone who I could not trust.
Fortunately, I haven't met very many people like him. In my experience, I think that most people *could be* trusted with telling, while only some people would not be deserving of such trust.
That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking about because I’m so clumsy with things and people get annoyed with me I feel like if we sat down and I explained maybe they wouldn’t get so irritated but at the same time it’s that question of now they know it’s part of me will they leave? My brain is always arguing with itself! Maybe I can just say what I have issues with without saying ADHD but if someone else mentions it I can say I have it too?
In the last day or two, I've happened across information I found before, which was basically the same as what you said. You're not required to say that you have ADHD, but you can ask for accommodations in general, like anybody would.
For instance, if you are easily when distracted working in a busy area, where people are coming and going, you might ask to more to a work area with less foot traffic. Express the needs that you have, what would help you to be more effective with your work, without having to mention that it's because of your ADHD.
I have a had coworkers who are much less distractible than me, some of whom seemed not just to be neurotypical, but high functioning neurotypical. Even those people would take advantage of the opportunity to work in a distraction-free environment when they could. That is a reasonable accommodation for anyone.
It wouldn't be feasible if the work itself was to be present in a high traffic place. My early career was working in retail stores. I'm very busy sales days, I still had to be on the sales floor, even though I was easily distracted. Fortunately, I had understanding managers most of the time, and if I needed to take a quick break (like 5 minutes in the quiet of the back room), I could be accommodated. But I could not feasibly ask to work on back from stock when this many sales people were needed on the sales floor as possible. 5 minute cool down, yes. 45 minute reassignment, not at a time like that.
Fortunately for me, those super busy kind of sales days were less common.
I have only just been diagnosed 2 days ago so I don't know how I feel about telling people yet.
One thought I do have though is that there needs to be more awareness around women with ADHD slipping through the net and not getting diagnosed until later in life or not at all.
It is up to the individual whether they want to share it or not but for those who do choose to share then they will be helping to raise awareness.
Aw you’re in the same position as me right now, currently taking it all in and realising it’s actually happened. I still don’t believe it’s real that this kind lady saw me for me and didn’t say I’m not bad enough for bipolar but worse than mild depression. It’s so validating to know what’s happening in your own brain! I don’t want people to struggle like me waiting nearly 30 years before finding out and wondering “why am I so different?” Or “what the hell is wrong with me” all that time spent on beating yourself up If I could stop that for one person I’d be happy!
I can relate fully. I have spent years beating myself up and thinking that I just need to try harder. I also can't believe that somebody took me seriously and finally gave me a diagnosis. I feel really relieved and just knowing what is wrong with me has made me feel a lot better.
I sometimes do, sometimes don't. In my current work world, I do not. It would be viewed in my community as a "mental illness" and I'd lose the confidence of my customers. I actually hesitate to even talk about it with my family, as they only believe it is "real" half the time.
It is easy enough for me to discuss here online, names are masked and few know our "real lives."
I agree that not everyone needs to know. In fact, the older I get, the less I disclose. Too many "boomerangs" that came back between the eyes :-).
I absolutely love this community, full of those who understand and actually provide useful advice. I’m in line for a promotion at the moment so I’m scared to tell my boss/area manager in case they pre judge me for the position. It’s taking ages as it is to process the paperwork but yeah I get what you mean with the work stuff. Family just understand a males presentation of ADHD so I get looked at like I’m some kind of alien haha
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Do I or don’t I? 
People won’t believe that I think I may have adhd?
I realize I wouldn’t want to be around people like me. 
