ADHD Awareness Month: is it ADHD or trauma?
It’s the first of October and I’ve already heard people
saying that they’ve been SWAMPED with news pieces, articles, social media
content and stories about ADHD, and the usual responses…but as someone who works
with clients carrying various kinds of trauma, grief and emotional dysregulation
I am often asked “is this trauma or neurodivergence?”
(Whilst you're here, I've written about Trauma / grounding exercises for those living with C/PTSD, and about how to overcome Trauma Bonding in previous articles; click the links to read those pieces too)
With one camp pushing for more awareness, better access to assessment and diagnosis, and overwhelmed services struggling to meet public need or provide consistent medication for ADHD and similar neurodivergence, and with their counterparts claiming it’s “just the latest trendy label” or insisting that nobody has ADHD, and it’s just the manifestation of childhood trauma, I thought I’d offer my own views…
First and foremost: “just” childhood trauma?! What a ridiculous (and dismissive) perspective!
Secondly – why on earth would anyone who has lived with an undiagnosed neurodivergency not have also gained some trauma from those experiences?
Thirdly – and this is the one I find myself coming back to most regularly – “seeking a label” is a very patronising perspective on another person seeking answers to life long questions, and anyone claiming that “everyone’s self diagnosed these days” is ignoring the bigger picture - in a very deliberate way.
Self diagnosis is being used as a term to minimise, or erase, the very real lived experiences of tens of thousands (if not millions) of people (especially women, and especially women of colour, and those in perimenopause or menopause) who have had decades of being ignored, shamed, called lazy, dismissed, patronised, bullied and belittled.
To those who “don’t believe in self diagnosis” I’d like to ask what you think the process of formal diagnosis actually looks like?
Because, unless Psychiatrists and qualified consultants (who are as rare as hens teeth, especially in the NHS) are roaming the streets, actively seeking strangers to diagnose with any kind of neurodivergence - apropos of nothing - how do you expect anyone to meet any professionals for that assessment?
Any person is only ever going to be diagnosed if they have already identified that there is something to diagnose, no?
When you factor in that this process of diagnosis can and does quite literally take years, with people on waiting lists that seem only to be growing, for access to a service that is entirely overwhelmed, understaffed and over budget, you then must accept that no GP or medical professional is going to put someone on that waiting list unless they’ve got strong evidence that there is a need for assessment…for which the person in question must have (let’s say it together) identified that there is something to diagnose themselves. AKA self diagnosed.
Self-diagnosis is merely step one in being formally diagnosed – and it’s a very valid and important step at that!
It’s the place people find themselves when they’ve been searching for answers that make sense – when they’ve found information, friends, family members, people on the internet, who have shared their own lived experiences, and found themselves thinking “oh that sounds very familiar!”.
I’ve seen headlines blaming TikTok for the “increase in neurodivergent women” – as if the shiny little palm sized box of dopamine being so incredibly addictive, and the enormous community of like-minded people with shared life experiences isn’t, in and of itself, a symptom of neurodivergence, rather than the cause!
I can’t tell you how many clients, friends, acquaintances I have spoken with who have similar stories: “I kept seeing videos and it felt like they were talking about me!” – or (perhaps ‘and’!) “I was doing the paperwork to have my child assessed, and kept thinking ‘isn’t that just everyone?’ and then realised it was possibly genetic, and they inherited those traits from me…”
Circling back to the ‘just childhood trauma’ (ugh) perspective: can anyone really believe that living most of your life with an undiagnosed neurodivergence, being blamed for the overwhelming challenges it brings, the shame and rejection, the unkindness and constant berating, the lifetime of being told and believing that you’re failing at everything and that it’s because you’re just not trying hard enough, when all you feel like you do is TRY, wouldn’t cause trauma?
Because it absolutely does.
Suggesting that it’s either trauma or ADHD / autism / neurodivergence that went undiagnosed is ignorant. Plain and simple. Very few people seeking diagnosis in adulthood has either / or – they have both.
Which makes finding the right solutions, treatment and access to healing incredibly challenging!
Let’s look at some of the information that compares ADHD and Trauma:
To be clear, the image above is a huge simplification, and the
reality for each person’s own lived experiences is of course far more complex – but you
can see that there are very apparent overlaps between the two diagnoses.
This is where access to not only those assessments and diagnosis matters so much, but the support and awareness that people need and deserve after their diagnosis.
Those same people who found themselves reflected in content on platforms like TikTok have also found a community where they belong. Have found the language to explain their challenges to the people closest to them, and seek their support, rather than judgement. They’ve found access to tools and materials that help them to manage their difficulties better, to find confidence in their boundaries, and release some of the shame that they’ve spent so long internalising.
They have realised that they are an ordinary zebra, not a strange horse – and that’s an incredibly powerful feeling.
As we move through October, and you continue to see people sharing their stories about ADHD, being diagnosed later in life, being diagnosed in women when every assessment criteria was built around hyperactive little boys, the difficulties of even reaching assessment, never mind accessing support beyond that point, please don’t let the negative headlines and dismissive voices of hateful talking heads get in the way of your understanding.
Because you have people in your life living this battle. You have people around you – friends, family, colleagues (both adults and children) who are watching their peers and wondering why they make everything look so easy when it feels so hard to them, questioning where they were the day the rules were explained to the rest of the world, and how to just stop feeling like a failure all the time – and your lack of awareness or dismissal of the challenges they try to seek your supoprt for could add to their trauma.
If you find yourself questioning if you have something like ADHD or autism, or any other neurodivergent traits, and are struggling with the grief and trauma that may bring, I can’t offer you a formal diagnosis – but I can help you to find the tools, behaviours, changes, boundaries and access to support that help you to thrive in your every day life, and to move through and overcome any trauma or pain that you carry.
You can contact me through this website, email on amandaburbidge-counselling@outlook.com, or call me on 07849 037095 – you can also message or call via WhatsApp on the same number, and I offer video sessions for those who are still unable to meet in person.
I can help – you don’t have to struggle alone, and our work together is completely confidential.