Explains but does not excuse

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/adhd-can-explain-doesnt-excuse-how-take-personal-leanne-maskell/

Edit: Sorry. I did not think this was conflating Autism and ADHD, I figured since autism and ADHD are common comorbidities and some of the people here are not diagnosed they may not be aware of ADHD as well. I haven't found an ADHD forum yet. Also, I am not entirely how this is all about pulling yourself up from your bootstraps. The way i saw it was you are responsible for your actions. Your ADHD and autism do not define who you are. Who you are is what you do. ADHD may make you more impulsive, have a worse memory and lots of other things but it is your responsibility to seek out help in the areas that you need it. This doesn't mean you have to do everything yourself it means self-awareness knowing your strengths and weaknesses and finding ways to manage your weaknesses you can't rely on other people all the time to put up with you. If your actions hurt other people you can't blame your neurodivergence, it gives an explanation for why it happens but is up to you make amends, and try to prevent it from happening again. I don't know if this is directly relevant to Autism, but it was an interesting perspective. That was the point of the article not about ADHD or Autism but the perspective on neurodivergence. I didn't view this as just masking, it was more of you know you have ADHD, so you need to put in place measures that work with your brain to prevent harmful actions from occurring. If they do occur then it is still your fault. You shouldn't blame yourself for being neurodivergent you should view it as here is where I struggle, what measures can I put in place to make it easier for me. A growth mindset essentially just means you learn from your mistakes. Our brains aren't fixed, they are capable of change. This is called neuroplasticity. We may always have autism or adhd but that does not define who we are. What defines who we are is our actions.  Just because something happened in the past does not mean we are always doomed to repeat our mistakes, but we have got to be willing to put the work in. That's unfair, neurotypical people don't have to put up with this, but life's unfair, we can't control that we were given autism or adhd what we can control is how we respond to it.

I will leave you with this quote from Doctor Who. "The universe shows it's true face when it asks for help. We show ours by how we respond."

Parents
  • I know a lot of people conflate ADHD with autism. But can we avoid that here? If you're trying to make a point about autism by posting this could you frame it in terms of autism? I for one don't know enough about ADHD to comment on a random link about it.

Reply
  • I know a lot of people conflate ADHD with autism. But can we avoid that here? If you're trying to make a point about autism by posting this could you frame it in terms of autism? I for one don't know enough about ADHD to comment on a random link about it.

Children
  • ASD/ADHD is a very common comorbidity, you can bet that the majority of users have at least a passing familiarity with that.

    BTW, that article is terrible. It is: "pull yourself up from your own bootstraps, you can just choose not to have ADHD. If you cannot, pay me for some coaching!" Normies have an horrible outlook towards ND people

  • Hi Peter.

     I don’t think this article conflates autistic and ADHD experiences, after all there is huge overlap in experiences within this community. So therefore we should not avoid discussion, as ADHD experiences are incredibly relevant for many of our members.

    This article just describes how increased self awareness of your neurotype (in this case ADHD) can help can help people take responsibility for their actions and understand why they experience life differently.

    Many of us autistics are actually AuDHD (autistic and ADHD)!

    Not me specifically, I am just autistic! But I am just giving you an insight into the overlap.