TheOctonaut,

I’m not autistic (well, probably - I wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD until my thirties because mental health was taboo in Ireland) but am ND and so is my son. It’s hard to know how to thread this line with him. A world that catered for ADHD would be a nice one to live in, it might even set us up for success by giving us the roles we’re good at. But this isn’t that world, and NT people aren’t any more to blame for growing up in a world that has been shaped for millenia by NT people. You can be educated about neurodiversity but they can’t see inside an ADHD brain any more than I can see inside an autistic brain (again… Probably).

Even in a simple, small, and flexible society, there would be downsides to ADHD. Acceptance and patience isn’t going to solve rejection sensitivity. New measures of success aren’t going to solve dopamine deficiency. I assume there are sides of autism that all the love and acceptance in the world won’t make a blessing.

Gifted the head is something like what ADHD people get patronisingly called too when someone looks for a saccharin label. I would dislike it. The newer term sounds far closer to neurodivergent which - and it’s new-ish still for me at my age! - better gives a short and non-judgemental statement - brain different.

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