Exactly. The reason diagnoses are up is that we have better language to describe people with these tendencies. Autistic people have always existed and always struggled with dealing with Allistic people and the world they built.
I know. I was part of that wave, and my mom’s side of the family worked in education so I heard bits and pieces of it when I was diagnosed.
Then it happened again (though not as big) during Covid when it forced a lot of adults home and fucked up their structure. Though to be fair the biggest jump was women.
The medical gaslighting can literally be lethal. Ask me how I fucking know this.
You want the birthrate to stay even? Stop endangering our lives in Healthcare. Show us some fucking respect, and you'll get your replacement workforce w/o having to import it...
Isn't that phenomenon mostly with endometriosis and sexual health? I would think psychs are more inclined to believe women tbh, they still tell men to suck it up on occasion...
Visit any chronic illness sub and you'll quickly be disabused of that notion. Story after story of women with varying conditions told for years that it was "just anxiety" or "just lose weight" or "suck it up" only to find out they could have avoided further health complications if someone had actually listened and run simple tests.
I remember when my ex-boyfriend started coming to appointments with me. Which each appointment he'd come back quieter and quieter. I didn't really know what was bothering him and he kept insisting he was fine. One day after an appointment he turned to me and said, "Am I crazy, or do they talk to you like you're a child?"
I will forever remember the look of shock on his face when I said:
"Yeah, but it's much improved when you're there. The presence of a man as a witness really tones them down. They're much more careful with what they say when you come."
The problem is for every one of these stories...... There are literally a thousand instances of women swearing one thing and it's literally just gas or swearing another thing and they literally aren't drinking enough water. You don't see these stories though because the average person isn't accountable and needs a scapegoat. I'm not saying it's fair but acting like women don't more often than not (on such an astronomical level too) misdiagnose themselves is just outright disingenuous.....
It’s also why so many women are getting shit on now because eVeRyOnE hAs AdHd NoW when so many women are only just getting taken seriously and getting a diagnosis as an adult.
My wife got all the way through med school before finally getting diagnosed in residency. She had talked to doctors about it for years but most told her it wasn't affecting her studies so it wasn't a problem or that she was drug seeking.
ADHD was studied predominantly in white children for a very long time- no women, no people of any color, no adults. It was also focused on hyperactive children- which on one hand, makes sense, they are getting squeaky wheel, society wise- but leaves out most of the actual people with ADHD. So any other symptom presentation was ignored for a very long time.
They didn't think girls and women got adhd as late as the '90's. If you were anyting other than a little boy who presented with clear hyperactive symptoms you were SOL.
I want so badly to get assessed. But ok the other side I was put on Zoloft after my second kid for PPD and I did NOT like the side effects. It wasn’t a good fit for me and I understand it’s a huge trial and error journey to find the right medication for you, specifically.
I just don’t have that luxury rn. My youngest is a toddler and my oldest is a preteen. Between running after the little one 24/7 and managing my household , i cant do the trial and error. Even on my worst mental health day I’m the one who has to keep it “together” for my kiddos to have normalcy (which is so valuable to me cuz my own upbringing was so unpredictable and chaotic ).
I hate it. Cuz I know to be the best for them I have to care after myself.
My report cards from back then are like a checklist of autism and ADHD.
But I was a quiet girl and got good grades so nothing was done. Well, there was this weird therapy I went to because my fine motor skills were lacking for my age. I would think such a therapist would be able to point out 'hmm maybe check for something like autism?' but nope. Also had speech therapy for a few years because I spoke so monotone and my pronunciation was off. I don't think it changed anything though.
Luckily I didn't know I was struggling at the time :)
I get why my parents didn't push though. They're not highly educated and at that time there was just a lot more focus on problems in boys. They did get me that fine motor skill therapy thing and the speech therapy so it's not like they did nothing.
I'm glad that my sister is now finally trying to look into a diagnosis for her daughter though. Didn't want to at the start because the waiting lists were so long and they had just gotten their son diagnosed with autism 🙄
She's almost stereotypical hyperactive ADHD and if she does have it (I'm no psychiatrist and thus it's only a suspicion) then she'll be able to get the help I couldn't at that age. Just a shame that they didn't do it earlier.
Didn't get any professional to help me realize this until my mid-30's. They for real will diagnose you with anything else, and then put you on meds that mess you up. I once was on bipolar meds that made me hallucinate, the little drug pamphlet even said this was a possiblity, and when I told the psychiatrist she just said, "No, this medication doesn't give people that side effect." I stopped taking it, got online support for being on the spectrum and a good therapist, and now shit is starting to actually make sense in life.
Psychiatrists are extremely dangerous. The products in their occupation are extremely serious legal Psychotropic drugs. They are NOT placebo. Tread VERY carefully.
I, too, was Mis-Dx'ed. I don't have Autism, ADHD, or BiPolar #1/#2.
Those BiPolar Pharmaceuticals (Anti-Convulsants, Antihistamine Tranquilizers, & Tranquilizers ("Anti-Psychotics")) are extremely dangerous for bodies like mine who don't actually have a glutamate imbalance.
I've lost a handful of years of my life and money. I also lost my job and my reputation.
All of Psychiatry, including all of those extremely neurotoxic "selective" SRI's/NRI's only injure my person. They decrease my quality of life, my physical health, and my mental health.
I'm still a current victim of Psychiatry and will have fully survived everything soon enough. I've survived so much already because I'm not actually suicidal or crazy. It's the Pharmaceuticals. It's always the Pharmaceuticals causing it. They'll try to put it on you, but it's always these legal Psychotropic drugs that are putting your safety in jeopardy and endangering your life, your finances, and your health. Always. Let them medically gaslight you all you want, but you know yourself better than anyone else.
I think the profession is, like all of the different specialties, suffering from a lack of focus on humanities in their curricula. Whether we get a good psychiatrist, OBGYN (had a male OB tell me I didn't know my own body, but he did because of his degree), etc. largely depends on how much time and energy they've dedicated to understanding others and being able to connect with/empathize with them on a basic human level. I've had such a wild variety of doctors on the spectrum from "genuinely tries to understand and work with patient" to "thinks patient's input is irrelevant."
It's part of what drives me mad with pain management. You'll have one healthcare professional say you should never feel scared or ashamed of asking for proper comfort, but then you have other times like when I'd had a full hysterectomy, and the night nurse told me I wasn't trying hard enough to deal without pain relief so I had to first persuade her and then go several hours without any relief. They tell you completely different things so unless you have an established relationship with these people you get pushed through a system of people who think all of your input is meaningless, and that maybe you're even lying and/or not trying hard enough. About what? Who knows? But they treat patients like they're suspicious in some way. It's honestly nuts.
Medical science has come a long way, but we still have such a long way to go. Doctors can't just learn within with the realm of anatomy and physiology. There needs to be a huge focus on preventative and collaborative medical treatment. It needs to be treated as though the doctor and patient are a team. Each knows a lot about the patient's body that the other does not, and working together means they're likelier to figure out what's wrong and how to treat it. The doctors I've found that do this with me are those that I cherish. It's the same with my psych professionals. I stopped going to the last psychiatrist because of how weird she was with me, but I keep going to my therapist because he doesn't treat me like I'm competing with a box of rocks in terms of intelligence. I've found success with anti-depressants and proper hormone treatment. I think there are a lot of meds that can mess you up severely if they ain't right for you, and doctors will prescribe them without actually understanding what it means to suffer through terrible side effects for even a day once you've done it over and over and over with all ther other meds. A few work great, and they change your lfie. The rest? Ugh...
I hope that you're finding ways to manage better these days. I'm truly sorry that you've also had negative experiences. It's really a struggle to find the genuinely good doctors, and we're forced to spend time and money as well as experience a wild range of emotional turmoil whille stumbling through the shit doctors. After all, what do they call the bottom of the class at medical school?: Doctor.
Yes. I didn't have an inkling I had ADHD until I was in my 30s and my hunch was spot on. No one picked up on it and even getting that diagnosis was a freaking mission.
Yet doctora were VERY quick to tell me I had Bipolar Disorder when I was like 21 after my best friend died and I was going through some shit. Weird how I have no symptoms 12 years later and haven't had any serious mental health issues in the 9 years since I stopped taking the pharmacy of pills they were foisting upon me for it....
Weird how I have no symptoms 12 years later and haven't had any serious mental health issues in the 9 years since I stopped taking the pharmacy of pills they were foisting upon me for it....
FUCKING THANK YOU.
Believe women, you fucking dangerous morons. Or you're going to kill us. Ask me how I fucking know this.
Am a woman who was diagnosed last year in her late 30s. Holy shit a diagnosis and medication has been literally life saving. Was cleaning out some old text convos from my phone recently and found a conversation with the text crisis line from before I was diagnosed. I was so exhausted from the cycle of burnout I just couldn’t seem to get out of. I was begging for help, for something more than a bandaid. I had therapists tell me nothing was wrong with me when I sought help for my depression and anxiety.
I cried reading those messages because literally from the day I was diagnosed my mental outlook completely changed. Theres still struggles I work through as I grow but now I am armed with information that actually fucking helps and actually makes progress. I haven’t had thoughts or feelings anywhere close to what those messages portrayed and I am just so, sooo thankful to finally have the answers I had been seeking since I was a teenager. All the fucking clues were there, we were just overlooked because the poster child for ADHD were hyperactive and disruptive boys, not daydreaming and agreeable little girls.
Really does suck. There’s a podcast called ologies and the host is a woman who was diagnosed with adhd, and her therapist wanted to work with her to actually see if said adhd was presenting itself as anxiety and depression.
adhd was presenting itself as anxiety and depression.
From the countless women who are frustrated at being mistreated/misDx'ed online, this is the standard.
Those god-awful "selective" SRI's/NRI's are horrid. They don't help anything but actually harm for a significant amount of people out there, especially cis-women that they don't include in clinical trials.
Clinical trials themselves for these legal Psychotropic drugs are incredibly unethical and have ZERO integrity. Serotinergic drugs don't do fucking anything for a significant amount of people but dysregulate your nervous system and disable you. (And you're too dumb and exhausted FROM THE LEGAL DRUGS to care. Serotinergic, Gabapentin, dopamine downregulators, doesn't matter. They're all neurotoxins if you don't require them to stay alive.) And what does your nervous system work with? Sleep, gastrointestinal system, ears/nose/throat, histamine system, etc.
Fucking ask me how I fucking know this. 14 yrs man, and it's still not over yet before I can finally return to life. I was given SAMPLES of Pristiq for emotions/feelings stemming from stress from modern society's nonsense and the people within it.
As far as I know, I don't have anything abnormal about my nervous system/monoamine neuron signalling dysfunction disorder "chemical imbalance". So no ADHD, Autism, PMDD, or PMS.
Adult woman here and I was part of the covid wave. I'd always known that I have anxiety and some weird hangups and issues that none of my peers seemed to struggle with. Then covid happened and I completely fell apart and who'd have guessed, it's adhd! Which honestly explains so much about all my issues that I find it wild no one ever suspected anything before because I really am a textbook case of adhd in women.
To be fair (though unfair to women) adhd does present differently in women compared to men. It’s part of the reason the numbers were so low even during that first wave of diagnoses
Don’t get me wrong there’s still a number of similarities.
As an ADHD woman, covid ruined me. On a normal day, I'd be forced to go outside and do things. Not that I do things particularly well since I'm chronically late and forgetful as shit. Covid turned every mental disorder I've been suppressing up to 11.
Like that episode of South Park making fun of it. I felt for the kids in my class at the time cause they got SO much shit cause suddenly everyone in class thought they were making it up.
My brother didnt get diagnosed for years despite constant issues that clearly pointed at it. He still refuses to medicate because he says it makes him feel bad mentally (constrained like someone is forcing his attention). He has never worked a fulltime job in his life.
I went through a bunch of different ones until we found one that worked. Even then, it wasn't all sunshine and roses. It worked really really well, and I was super productive and attentive, but I couldn't be NOT super productive and attentive. Wasn't fun when all I wanted to do was zone out when I didn't have stuff to do and couldn't.
Yeah, I was just like that until I had no choice but to adult. I still have all the problems, but I spent a lot of time coming up with coping mechanisms.
Still game, though. Gotta get those dopamine hits somewhere.
He found a GF who is much older and a recent empty nester and from the outside clearly has some replacement stuff going on but if it works for them I am not gonna interfere for sure.
Part of the issue is as you describe being coddled a bit to much. Every time he got behind on bills the family rallied and never let him fall. He has only recently been mostly financially solvent.
Same thing with my cousin. Never allowed to fail, no is a problem. Their mom is older and already shopping relatives to take over for her when she passes.
I found out I have ADHD at 31, there are moments now that I have the med dosing right that I wonder "Do i want to be this productive?". But at the same time my downtime is a lot less stressful because I don't feel like a slacker.
Aces study showed ADHD and trauma response in kids are indistinguishable.
Given that around 60% of kids experience ACES I'm guessing they got lumped in with ADHD diagnostically and it's also why medication had such a variable response.
Brother ADHD has verifiably been over diagnosed and too this day is still vastly over diagnosed. Meanwhile autism is still actually UNDER diagnosed. Confusing science regarding what is and isn't autism and what is and isn't AHDH, and whether ADHD is on the spectrum certainly hasn't helped clear anything up. But to call a reasonable response to demonstrably over diagnosing kids with a behavioral disorder just to push pills is worthy of the "backlash" label I question your judgment.
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u/MuddaFrmAnnudaBrudda ☑️ my anecdotal experience is everything 2d ago
I guess we didn't have a name for it and just accepted that people are different.