ADHD: a disorder?

Gloria Chan discusses our attitudes towards ADHD…

How would you feel if you suddenly lost all ability to express yourself?

For people living with ADHD, this is a common experience. They can find it extremely difficult to control what is happening around them, and become extremely frustrated as a consequence. When I came to writing this article, it quickly came to my attention that this is an illness that many people know of, but few know exactly what it is or how it affects people. I decided to test this out by asking a few of my friends what they thought the illness was. After banning the internet, I got a variation of answers, from a simple acknowledgement of a “learning disorder” to the more in depth, but slightly unassured, “making people distracted and not able to focus”. Whilst neither of these answers are completely wrong, often ADHD is more common and more complex than many people expect.

A disorder implies that it is something that controls a person entirely, making them victims of their illness…

To define ADHD is incredibly difficult as it affects individuals differently. This means that information is highly important; ADHD and Autism Awareness Month attempts to educate people on just how great these struggles can be. Frequently, it is also linked with other comorbid conditions such as learning and language disabilities, but also anxiety and depression. These daunting labels, much like the classification of a ‘disorder’ itself, are isolating and scary. A disorder implies that it is something that controls a person entirely, making them victims of their illness, unable to fight back, reducing the person into something one-dimensional. This angers me greatly – there is much more to us than these surface descriptions and more to people suffering from ADHD. People living with the illness are not being consumed by it, but want to integrate into society as much as anyone else. They have to work alongside their illness to make things function, learning every step of the way how to cope. In order to be free to become whoever they want, it is important to eliminate such isolating words. To understand ADHD is to not only know about the illness but also to allow a better platform of communication about it.

Before knowing anyone who suffered from this illness, it was easy just to see them as arrogant, stubborn people – but this idea is completely false. The frustration over simple tasks can easily drive the person into a depressed state, and sometimes the inability to do what they want becomes too much. Witnessing these highs and lows in their emotion has made me realize that ADHD is an illness that drains the positivity out of a person very easily; and instead of isolating them because of our lack of knowledge of the difficulties of ADHD, more awareness should be made on how to make the individuals feel more comfortable in their surroundings so they don’t feel alone. Instead of judging them, like I did once before, treat them with patience and kindness, like a normal person rather than someone with a “disorder”, and it truly makes all the difference.

ADHD and Autism awareness month is April 2015. For more info, visit www.autism.org.