ADHD

Okay, so I have ADHD.  I don't bring it up often, but it's a thing I have.  When I do bring it up, I expect a couple of different responses.

The most common one is, "Oh, you have ADHD?  I never would have guessed!  You don't seem like that kind of person."  Because people with learning disabilities are all idiots, I guess.  Yeah, you can always tell who has a learning disability and who is normal.  The LD kids are different from normal, not-stupid kids.  They can't read well, if they can read at all, they aren't smart, they talk slow or don't "get" things easily.  So a lot of the time if I mention that I have ADHD, people are surprised.  Because I'm not stupid, or something?  I'm not obviously one of those "special needs" people with a learning disability.  I mean, you know what those people are like, right?  They're just different from regular people.  They're stupid.  That's why they have learning disabilities.

(For the record, this is where I was gonna embed a video clip from Bob's Burgers, but Youtube blocked it because FOX has copyright notices and shit. I am annoyed that FOX hasn't figured out that funny clips on Youtube are a good way to get more people to watch their shows.  And maybe I will eventually find another site to put it up on because fuck you FOX you cancelled Firefly.  But the clip I was gonna post was from Spaghetti Western and Meatballs, where Gene says "I acted like Banjo and took Choo Choo down.  Everybody laughed!" and Louise goes, "Well, one kid.  He has a learning disability."  Because kids with learning disabilities have a crappy sense of humor and laugh at everything, because they are not as smart as the kids without ADHD or whatever.  They just laugh hysterically whenever they see or hear things going on around them.  Because they're stupid, I guess.  All of them.)

No, by the way.  In case you didn't get that.  You can't just immediately go "That person has ADHD!" and "That person is completely normal!"  It does not work that way.  Sometimes the kid who has ADHD or some other learning disability is one of the smartest kids in class.  Sometimes the class clown who's failing everything is just a lazy, stupid, neurotypical kid.  Sometimes people with learning disabilities aren't even kids!  They're grown-ups who just go on with their life, and keep having ADHD or whatever even when they get out of school.  You don't hear about those people very often, do you?

The second most common is, "Oh, right.  Sure.  I guess you went online and found a list of symptoms, right?  I hate that, people always have to convince themselves that they have whatever bullshit disorder they read about online."  I always feel equal parts indignation and smugness when I tell them, "Actually, I was diagnosed.  By a real doctor and everything, when I was in elementary school.  And I see that doctor every couple of years just to check up on the whole ADHD thing, you know, just making sure it's still there."  Yeah, there are a couple of hypochondriacs out there who insist that they have Super Special Snowflake Syndrome because they're just so different and special omfg.  There are also a lot more people with Actually A Thing They Have Disorder, whether it's been diagnosed or not.  So maybe don't assume all the time that the person you meet who says they have something going on is lying.  How about you try asking them about it a bit before you immediately jump in with the accusations, okay?  Because you're gonna have a hard time talking with your foot in your mouth after I tell you that no, I'm not making it up for attention, it's actually something I have to deal with.  And trust me it's a lot less awkward to give a hypochondriac the benefit of the doubt than it is to go off on a rant about how ADHD is not actually a real disorder and people just pretend to have it because they suck at school, only to find out that actually the person you are ranting at was diagnosed years ago and takes daily medication and knows a lot more about the subject than you do.  And who now thinks you're a complete moron.  Congrats.

This one I don't get quite as often, but it still comes up and it's still really, really infuriating.  Usually it shows up in specific situations.  Like I'll be talking to somebody and saying, for example, "The recipe I'm following says I can prepare the blahblah while the thingy is fizzing, but I have to prepare the blahblah before I start the thingy fizzer because of my ADHD, I'll hyperfocus on blahblah and won't hear or smell the fizzing scorch.  I'm not good at multitasking."  And the person I am talking to will be all "Oh, well just pay attention to the food while it's cooking!" and gives me instructions on how to do the thing I'm doing.  Okay, first off, the problem isn't that I don't know how to do it.  The problem is I can't.  I know I can't, I've got a lot of experience failing before I gave up and started doing it this way.  Second, congratulations!  You've just cured ADHD!  "Just pay attention," holy shit, I can't believe nobody thought to tell me this all through school.  What the hell was I doing taking medication and shit when I could have just paid attention to the stuff I couldn't pay attention to?  WOW!  Now that you have that out of the way, why don't you go tell people with lung cancer that they probably shouldn't have smoked so much.  Cured cancer!  Dang, you are on fire!  Way to go, dude, your Nobel prize is in the mail, being shipped with a rabid honey badger.  Enjoy opening the box.

So I guess what I'm basically trying to say here is, I dunno, don't assume people who have a learning disability or whatever are all recognizably learning-disabilitied, or that people with a learning disability are just weird or dumb or "special" all the time and are super-visible about it.  Don't assume that someone who says they have a learning disability is making it up for attention when they say, hey btw I have an eldee.  And don't tell somebody with a learning disability that "Hey if you just act like everybody else does then you will be completely normal!  You are just lazy and you intentionally don't pay attention to stuff going around you because I guess you just don't care."

That's...that's kinda all I got.  I thought I was starting out with a point to make but I guess I just wanted to complain about morons who have been saying dumb shit to me lately.  Uh.....sorry?  I'll try to actually have a point next time I write a blog post.  Hint it may or may not be about Jem and the Holograms.