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Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › What ADHD actually is
The grief is for a life that did not happen: the course you left, the marriage that wore out, the years of being told you were not trying. Left unspoken it tends to attach itself to the treatment, and people stop the thing that is helping them. Say it to somebody who will not rush you towards looking on the bright side, and let both things be true at once, that this is a loss and that being diagnosed now is worth having.
He is fretful when misfortune touches him (Quran 70:20). The raw reaction to loss is described there in ordinary terms, as something human rather than something to be ashamed of.
المعارج
إِذَا مَسَّهُ ٱلشَّرُّ جَزُوعࣰ ا
he is fretful when misfortune touches him
Qur’an 70:20read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A national survey documented public reluctance to be close to children carrying a mental health label, evidence of a real social cost attached to these diagnoses. Some of the anger after a late diagnosis is about that world and not only about the missed years. The survey measured attitudes rather than what people feel after being diagnosed.
Martin JK, Pescosolido BA, Olafsdottir S, McLeod JD. (2007). The construction of fear: Americans' preferences for social distance from children and adolescents with mental health problems.. Journal of health and social behavior doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Grief that gets named can be mourned, and grief that does not tends to come out as giving up on the help.
If the anger or low mood settles in for weeks and starts affecting sleep, work or how you see your future, treat it as depression that needs its own attention.
ADHD is not only about focus. Physical health tends to drift down the list, and appointments, sleep, food and movement are exactly the sort of thing this condition makes hard to keep up with.
If you have not been assessed because of money, waiting lists or simply getting to appointments, that is a barrier and not a lack of seriousness on your part.
More people being recognised is not the same as more people having it. What has changed over recent decades is awareness, not the number of minds built this way.