The lighter side of ADHD
If you submit, they'll reject it, because you clearly don't have crippling ADHD that's preventing you from functioning normally. Your submitted 20-page form is proof.
If you don't submit, they'll reject it, because you must submit it to be considered.
What a great example of a catch-22
I don't mean to sound insensitive, as I totally support UBI and universal healthcare and removing corporate profit motives from anything related to individual, collective, or environmental well-being.
But this ADHD persecution complex can sometimes get out of hand. Could Katie really not ask a family member or close friend for help with this?
Again, not trying to downplay the bureaucratic nonsense or unfairness here. I'm just saying this paints the task as impossible when maybe it's not.
EDIT: Thanks everyone for your replies. My partner struggles with ADHD and navigating medical bureaucracy, so I understand somewhat but I'm always learning.
It's the level of hoops an ADHD person needs to jump through to get any treatment, let alone adequate treatment. Forms, calling for appointments, more forms, tracking stuff, nagging your doctor to full prescriptions, and so on. Every step of which is another wall to climb for an ADHD person.
Everything about the process to get both diagnosed and treated involves tasks that are not compatible with the ADHD brain.
Or stuff that is really difficult to get. Part of the diagnostic process for my psychiatrist needs me to arrange a 30 minute interview with a family member (which only works if you have a family member who is willing to do so, believes that ADHD isn't just a personal failing, or has the time to arrange such a thing), or reports from primary school, which most people aren't likely to keep around when they're an adult in university.
If you don't have either of those, no diagnosis for you, and you're out several hundred dollars for nothing.
My father straight up lied to the psychiatrist and ruined my chances forever. I wanted my mother to go, but she was busy.
Good luck getting diagnosed in Serbia, and then it's only a liability, since people will believe you are making up reasons, and faking it.
As someone with a family who absolutely doesn't give a single shit about the difficulty of living with ADHD and just tells me to "get over it and stop being so lazy"... yes, they most likely didn't have anyone willing to lend a hand and help them in the way they needed help because regular people don't tend to think of the things we struggle with as being challenging enough to warrant needing assistance with.
Having a supportive community is a privilege that so many take for granted.
That's a very good point and I should have considered it. Appreciated.
As someone with ADHD, finding the energy to ask someone for help can be just as difficult as sucking it up and just filling out the form. That's the problem with ADHD: your brain physically stops your body from getting up and doing the things it needs to do.
Personally I need to be high as fuck on stimulants to accomplish anything, which sucks ass cause I really hate how they make me feel. But I can't accomplish shit unless I'm absolutely tweaking off my ass on Adderall like a fucking meth addict.
I’ve been diagnosed with adhd. I’ve had multiple doctors completely ignore it. Just nothing. It’s still untreated. This is mental health is America.
Yeah, my partner has it too and says the exact same thing. Sorry bud :( Keep telling people, more folks need to know that's how it is.
You pretty much have to go out of your way to a place that specializes in it to actually be taken seriously
You're assuming they have someone supportive in their life.
I think reinforced digital isolation is a big part of the problem. This is something that could be solved by calling the service phone number or asking at the library or a help group, a doctor's office etc... It might be extra hoops to jump through but there's not any physical or communication barrier completely blocking her. Instead she clicks a button and gets a form and automatically feels completely helpless.
A 20 page form should take like ~30-45 minutes with help, it's not a huge ask and doesn't require as strong of a support network as some people in this thread are claiming. She's got a phone and can read and talk, the only thing that could lower this hurdle further is support information being stapled to the front of the form.
Now it's a different issue once the bureaucracy requires multiple followups, workday visits, transportation for evaluation, etc...
Went through diag with husband last year. The paperwork they got me to fill out out was pretty basic, but detailed, and if he had the familial network to recognise and support his condition, he wouldn't have gotten diagnosed in his 40's.
Could Katie really not ask a family member or close friend for help with this?
If she gets to it or even knows about it.
No, seriously, that's a real problem with mental dysfunctional disorders. There are lot's of institutions/help groups (at least here) that are happy to help. But you don't know what you should know.
And people with ADHD will procrastinate getting help even though they may want it. A person who is finally getting seen will often say something like "I've been meaning to do this for years". ADHD just be like that.
Also time blindness. A simple "wow, this is a lot all at once. I'll get to this when I can devote time to focus on it" turns into "I meant to do this a year ago!" real quick.
Had to go off meds cause couldn't get them. Went back to the same place later thinking it was a couple months. It was 2 years.
They have specific people available to help you with these types of forms in cases like this if you don't family available to help. Social workers, psychiatrists, counselors, other mental health professionals, all of this falls under their jurisdiction. Hell if nothing else just sit down with a good friend to help you.
Bold of you to assume I've got that kind of support structure and the ability to explain to other people what I need
I have pretty bad ADHD. I just prefer not to share it. People tend to try to hold it against you. I mask heavily for work in the corporate management role I somehow still hold. Also weed. Lots of weed… and coffee. All the coffee.
Please really do watch out with the weed. Especially for people with ADHD it's an insanely slippery slope. I know empty words are hard to get motivated over and it might seem like the only way you can function for now, but I had to go through all that; It's gonna get to a point where you consistently break the rules you set for yourself so you can be perpetually high while the effect subsides more and more and then all you have left is to quit cold turkey.
I sympathize. Weed is bad for focusing, but good for helping me sleep when the Shame thoughts come. And at its peak I was drinking around 1000mg of caffeine via coffee a day and I still was barely functional. It took me at least three years to find a company that would take my insurance and also do the testing. Now that I have my brain drugs I don't think I can go back. And it's giving me mental space to work through the old traumas, which means less weed to sleep and less often. My goal is to not be reliant on cannabis or antidepressants, hopefully by the end of 2026. But I definitely need the medicine now so that I have the mental capacity to do the therapy work
Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives
I wish more people understood this.
I applied for an ADHD specific health care place. 1.5 year waiting list. Then They sent me a link to a multi page in take form described as asking for my full history that had to be done at one sitting, had to be accurate, and it would determine if they would take me or not. You couldn't look at any page without filling in the current one.
So I emailed them asking what the questions were because I might have to collect information or think about it in advance. I didn't get a response. Emailed again, nothing. Called, very difficult to explain my question to them.
Eventually I got an email that nobody had the list of questions so they couldn't tell me.
Gave up.
"you can get these bionic legs to replace the ones that were amputated but you have to run up the 10,000 step path without assistance first. Also, you're being timed and if it's not fast enough, you won't get them. We won't tell you what time you have to make."
Unfortunately, the requirements for the program are ridiculously severe. It's super hard to get allowed, especially when you're under 50 or only have mental health issues. We really just need UBI so people aren't required to struggle to work to get by.
Imagine how much better the economy would be if people weren't forced to prop up absolutely shitty companies they don't believe in just to pay their bills. Like, we might actually have improving products and experiences instead of a constantly diminishing race to the bottom.
"ChatGPT fill in this questionnaire so I'll get approved. Consider it will be looked at by another LLM like you."
I signed up for an ADHD evaluation and it took me a year to return the forms. I'm pretty sure the interview/test was just a formality at that point.
They gave you disability support for adhd alone?
No, that's what was necessary to get me on medication (which helped a ton).
As long as you didn't have to do the torture room with the clicker and image/tones, consider it a win
Similar thing but specifically for executive disfunction.
I can hyper focus on forms but everything else is dysfunctional.
Honestly that just sounds like a trap.
This is something they should have been able to do with a verbal interview for just this reason