Advocating ADHD in a Misunderstanding World

Asher and Cam stay with the being misunderstood with ADHD theme and take a big step back to look at the larger context of trying to seek understanding and support in a world quick to judge everything ADHD. Cam shares how a recent BCC investigative news story on private ADHD clinics in the UK unleashed a torrent of follow up stories - common fear-based themes that ADHD is overdiagnosed, that the medicines are not beneficial and stories that call into question the very existence of ADHD.

Seeking support personally and professionally is an ever changing obstacle course when people and organizations have such strong opinions about something they know very little about. Everything we’ve known about ADHD has been reinforced by research and advances in neuroimaging - that ADHD is cognitive in nature, that it is a neuro-developmental condition and that it is hereditary, that it impacts the executive function center of the brain and that it can have a dramatic effect on our ability to have agency and fulfillment in our lives.

Asher makes a key distinction between advocating for oneself and advocacy, where the latter is about general education to create greater systemic change and the former is about identifying specific areas of support for a specific situation. Ash also discusses the meaning of a label, and how ADHD is a starting place to create change. He also discusses the misunderstanding gap and compares the ADHD lived experience with his trans lived experience - that as a trans ally he made assumptions about what it is to be trans. No one can know your lived experience like you, so don’t let their strong feelings define your reality.

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