What I mean is that I have ADHD, I got diagnosed this summer, but sometimes I feel like I don’t have ADHD in the right way. I struggl with ADHD a lot, and it really affects me, but for some reason I feel like I’m using it as an excuse or faking my symptoms. Even though I know I’m not?
ADHD affects me very negatively and it makes being in college way, way harder for me than other people. But hyperactivity is less of a symptom for me than other ADHDers (but still a thing), so i feel like im faking my condition.
Like, I have an official, medical diagnosis. Nobody thinks I’m playing up or faking my symptoms. So then why the hell do I get like this?
Also I very likely have autism but diagnosis is very expensive so that’s another issue
Sometimes some of us get hyper-critical about ourselves. I don’t know why it happens - maybe it’s a symptom of some condition, or the effect of being neurodivergent in a neurotypical world.
When you get to feeling that way, I encourage you to tell yourself that it doesn’t matter how the symptoms manifest, the simple fact that you are struggling is what legitimizes your condition.
The categorization of conditions is useful to calibrate treatment and support but many people’s conditions do not manifest as all of the textbook symptoms, and neither do their responses to treatment. The professionals should understand this because they work with it day in and day out. The improved descriptions of conditions has allowed advancements in treatment but remember that the ultimate goal of is not to perfectly understand arbitrarily delineated conditions (and invalidate care for those who don’t match them perfectly). The ultimate goal is to reduce actual suffering experienced by individuals. So what matters in terms of “deserving” treatment and support is not the specifics of your condition, but simply whether or not you are struggling (e: whether or not you realize it! if you’re questioning it at all then you probably are!). If you are struggling it doesn’t really matter why you are struggling, all that matters is that you get the help that you need.
I hope this perspective helps next time these thoughts pop up. You deserve to live the best life that is available to you.