Overdiagnosis is not a problem, but misdiagnosis may be as people are driven into the private sector by long waits, and sadly, missed diagnoses remain common —Tamsin Ford
Experts are warning that far from being over-diagnosed, people with ADHD are waiting too long for assessment, support and treatment.
Yeah look if we really are seeing diagnoses suddenly rise, and it’s not just “a better telescope”, maybe it is worth considering exploring environmental causes, diagnostic criteria, societal tolerance of certain traits etc. That’s fair.
But idk about the height example. People can’t self-medicate height. For adhd, people absolutely self-medicate caffeine, nicotine, illicit stimulants, grey-market ADHD meds, etc. That alone suggests there’s a real functional problem exerting pressure that needs immediate addressing. Stimulants do not work the same way on people with adhd.
What concerns me about your responses is that “investigating why diagnoses are increasing” is used all the time to cast doubt on ADHD itself. Obviously there’s a substantial body of neurological and clinical evidence that it’s real, and dramatically affects attention regulation and executive function.
So I think people who legitimately believe in it falling for this mainstream theatre, risk letting us all slide down the slippery slope to believing the condition is mainly a societal construct and we should limit access to medication, whilst people top themselves.
Thanks for making an effort to understand what I’m trying to get at here. Honestly, this is like my primary point and I appreciate that you’re recognising it. It can get tiresome to discuss with people that never seem to understand that you have good intentions, thank you for seeing mine.
And I absolutely agree that that’s a big problem. My point is concerning when the same sentence is used in the positive, constructive, sense that this is clearly something we as a society need to look more closely at, because something is very obviously wrong on either an environmental or societal level if a large fraction of the population needs medication in order to function properly.