I'm 40 and never thought I had ADHD. When I was a kid my teachers wanted my shitbag mother to get me tested but she never would because "I'd be drugged up and not the real me" bitch, the undrugged me is a fucking disaster. I didn't realize I had ADHD until about a year ago, and only because I identified so much with ADHD memes and started looking into it. The real reason she wouldn't get me tested was because she didn't want a "weird kid" and I've suffered my whole life because of it, not knowing or understanding that there was a reason behind my problems. I thought I was just a shitty, broken person.

I personally think that it isn't so much people that are increasingly expressing ADHD traits, it's the world that's more and more unforgiving of those traits. Everything is monitored and optimized and the volume of info we're supposed to process every day is massive. We're not built for this world and it shows. If we fail to fit the mold that produces the most value for stock holders we are deemed defective. We're not. We're just human.

Great article! Honestly I believe one of the aspects of the collapse we are undergoing is an attempted reduction of neurodivergence in humanity. The same process that is causing a loss of biodiversity and the loss of diversity in human languages in general I think is also violently selecting against neurodiversity in humans.

Of course you can't quite stop all the neurodiverse kids being born yet (genetics is trying to get us there as fast as possible though!), but you can make their life living hell and force them to mask so much they become lost in layers of masking and trauma.

The thing is, ADHD is unintentionally one of the most political disabilities as it smashes the cornerstone of expressed willpower being the basis for judgement in most societies and leaves systems of selection rudderless without the sharp distinctions expressed willpower falsely hallucinates and accentuates. Further one of the major way social safety nets and the shared collective wealth of societies have been hollowed out is by offloading immense amounts of Executive Function requirements to people navigating systems and then aggressively pretending Executive Function isn't a limited, exhaustible capacity.

People have had their basic understanding of focus lobotomized by tech narratives (the concept of "attention span" abstracted from context is meaningless for one) and we now collectively pretend it isn't an act of labor to focus and use Executive Function. This forces ADHD squarely into a broader discussion of collapse and enshittification.

It might seem like it, especially for late diagnoses, but I don't think the ratio of individuals with ADHD is increasing.

They are getting hit with an information overload unlike anything previous generations have had to deal with. And, what was possible to cope with earlier in life, now in mid-life, results in a choice of either a mental breakdown from exhaustion, or medication that helps deal with the symptoms.

There are some technological and cultural trends that exasperates the issue, especially short form social media, which I think governments have failed at protecting the younger generation from. It's not like it's an easy thing to fix. Try banning sugar from the sugar addicted children who's sense of identify and self worth is made out of sugar. Not to mention capitalistic forces salivating over how dirt cheap and easy it is to manipulate them en mass.

I have been diagnosed as an adult. I suffer from imposter syndrome.

"Maybe I don't have ADHD?"

Paradoxically this is normal for someone with ADHD.

But really, how do I even know at this point? I've been taking Vyvanse for years.

I don't even know if I'm more productive because my life has changed dramatically since getting my diagnosis.

Shit's fakked.

Awareness, I didnt even know I could possibly have it til a friend told me I reminded him of his friend with adhd, I just assumed since I got good grades til college (having to learn to study and force myself all of a sudden was rough) I didn't have it, since ppl that had it did bad in school (tv had taught me)

Because people are addicted to stimulants. I say this as having been diagnosed by multiple doctors. I 110% have adhd. My mom, my brother and all the other family members that take a stimulant do not. Especially my brother. He just likes to go fast