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Neurodivergence @beehaw.org
SharkEatingBreakfast @beehaw.org

When & why is it not wise to seek out help?

This is not a post trying to alarm you, but it is something that reality may throw at you that will hit hard.

I had vaguely brought up the possibility of neurodivergence to a psych, and they told me: "Okay so you probably are, but I'm not going to diagnose you because it'll make it more difficult for you to get care / to be medically taken seriously."

Was recently talking online to a friend who was diagnosed at 14, and both their parent & their psych agreed not to add it to my medical records because it could "ruin [their] life."

I have been seeking out help with my issues all my life, and have one current diagnosis (ADHD-PI) that is so severe that I nearly destroyed my life several times when I was off meds. I am not "seeking" an autism diagnosis, but I'd love to have helpful resources.

Let me be clear: doctors already dismiss my ADHD diagnosis or straight-up let me know that "you probably don't have ADHD" in so many words. I have yet to be taken seriously regarding it, and it has harmed me immensely and put me off from seeking therapy or support for it.

Autism? Holy shit, forget it. Not a single medical professional I've seen wants to even touch that.

This feels like fucking "Nightmare Mode". Mask until you die. Ultimate stigma.

Why is it near impossible to find help with adult ADHD / autism / other neurodivergent diagnosis? What the fuck is going on? And, more importantly, what can we do about this?

5 comments

  • You absolutely should seek help when you feel like something is off. I feel like the recognition of ADHD is very location and provider dependent and it might be you live in a place where it’s harder to have that diagnosis taken seriously. There might still be some relaxed guidelines from COVID that allows telehealth doctors to diagnose and treat ADHD so that might be another option. It really sucks to not have supportive doctors and I’m sorry you’re going through that. As long as you have the diagnosis, your insurance should still pay for meds/counseling/treatment, so there’s that.

    Also, there can be a lot of overlap between ADHD and autism, so for practical purposes there might not be much use in getting an official diagnosis for autism. Doctors view a diagnosis as a first step towards treatment and if a new diagnosis wouldn’t change the treatment plan, they might not deem it as very valuable. Which might make you feel like you’re not being listened to or that your issues aren’t getting addressed or recognized. Please don’t let this prevent you from seeking therapy. Therapy is pretty open-ended and if you find a good therapist, they can gear it to your actual issues you’re facing no matter the official diagnosis. It sounds like you could use more people who have your back.

  • If you already have an ADHD diagnosis, there probably is no point seeking an autism diagnosis. Being that there's no medical treatment, and what disability protections there are would be covered by the ADHD diagnosis, I suspect you'd be best off trying coping techniques on your own. Which is mercifully quite easy to do.

    The biggest game-changer for me was considering that I might actually have sensory sensitivities. I always assumed I didn't have many, if any, but it turns out a huge chunk of my day-to-day anxiety was due to light and sound overstimulation.

  • I ended up with like half an autism diagnosis a bit over ten years ago. (Basically, I saw someone for other reasons and they said "Um... I'm pretty sure you're autistic, you should go talk to these people for a proper diagnosis" and I never did.) Occasionally the idea resurfaces (and is again at the moment, to some degree, because I'm having problems at work that are surely neurodivergence related) and I end up dropping it. Mostly, as far as I can tell, as an adult who is able to live independently, maintain employment, and isn't going to return to education, there really aren't many/any resources out there, so it feels a bit pointless. Some people do get a lot of benefit from the confirmation/certainty that comes with a diagnosis, so you may feel a diagnosis is worthwhile for you, even if it doesn't get you access to any concrete resources. I can't decide if I'm one of those people or not, to be honest.

    Now, there are concrete downsides to diagnosis--some countries will use an autism diagnosis as grounds to deny a visa; in the US it's not an unrealistic worry that it'll make accessing medical transition harder if you're trans; I have a friend who has come down on the side of "no official diagnosis" for fear it could jeopardise his access to ADHD meds in the future. (I picked up an ADHD diagnosis a couple years ago -- I'd been taking meds for anxiety and switch psychiatrists and they were like "Umm... I'm not saying your not anxious, but you're actually describing ADHD". I suspect my brain lies in the autism/ADHD uncanny valley. I mention this as a lead in to say that I don't share my friend's fear, but it's also not an unrealistic fear.)