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Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Shame and stigma
This is a real effect rather than you imagining things, which is worth saying, since most people in this position have been told they are oversensitive. It also means that improving quietly earns you no credit for a while, because nobody is watching for the times you did remember. Telling one person what you are working on gives them a reason to notice the other side of it.
Do not spy on one another or speak ill of people behind their backs (Quran 49:12). Watching someone in order to catch them out is named there as a wrong, and being on the receiving end of it is a real weight.
الحجرات
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ ٱجۡتَنِبُواْ كَثِيرࣰ ا مِّنَ ٱلظَّنِّ إِنَّ بَعۡضَ ٱلظَّنِّ إِثۡمࣱۖ وَلَا تَجَسَّسُواْ وَلَا يَغۡتَب بَّعۡضُكُم بَعۡضًاۚ أَيُحِبُّ أَحَدُكُمۡ أَن يَأۡكُلَ لَحۡمَ أَخِيهِ مَيۡتࣰ ا فَكَرِهۡتُمُوهُۚ وَٱتَّقُواْ ٱللَّهَۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ تَوَّابࣱ رَّحِيمࣱ
Believers, avoid making too many assumptions- some assumptions are sinful- and do not spy on one another or speak ill of people behind their backs: would any of you like to eat the flesh of your dead brother? No, you would hate it. So be mindful of God: God is ever relenting, most merciful
Qur’an 49:12read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
The brief ten item measure of internalised stigma covers perceived devaluation and discrimination, and the validation work found higher scores go with more depression and with lower self esteem, empowerment and sense of recovery. The feeling of being watched and found wanting is measurable, in other words. That work is cross sectional, so it links these things without showing which came first.
Boyd JE, Otilingam PG, Deforge BR. (2014). Brief version of the Internalized Stigma of Mental Illness (ISMI) scale: psychometric properties and relationship to depression, self esteem, recovery orientation, empowerment, and perceived devaluation and discrimination.. Psychiatric rehabilitation journal doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
People find what they are looking for, so a reputation keeps proving itself.
ADHD now sits with the neurodevelopmental conditions in the diagnostic manual rather than under disorders that begin in childhood. That move carries a claim worth hearing: this is about how a brain is built, and it does not stop at eighteen.
Before you explain anything about ADHD to someone, ask what they already think it is. What they tell you decides what your explanation can land on.
Talking a lot is on the diagnostic list. It sits with the impulsive symptoms, which makes it part of the condition rather than proof that you are self absorbed.