[vcxy]

That's interesting. I thought it was obvious that ADHD does exist because it's just a constellation of behaviors that some people indeed do exhibit. I feel like we agree completely on the base facts and somehow have arrived at opposite conclusions.

[nosefurhairdo]

That's more a semantic disagreement than an opposite conclusion, considering you both agree the constellation of behaviors exists.

The degree to which any medical diagnosis exists is on a spectrum. A cancerous tumor obviously exists, high blood pressure exists but is relative, schizophrenia - and psychiatric diagnoses generally - exist but can be more difficult to observe externally.

The behaviors associated with ADHD are so common and relatable to most folks that the diagnosis seems less legitimate. To my knowledge, you cannot scan the brain of someone with ADHD and point out an abnormality associated with the disorder. Yet we give 8 year old boys stimulant medication because they can't sit still in a classroom for hours a day.

Fwiw I have ADHD and take stimulant medication daily. But I also understand folks' resistance to accept ADHD as being as legitimate as other medical diagnoses.

[iamflimflam1]

The behaviors associated with ADHD are so common and relatable to most folks that the diagnosis seems less legitimate.

There’s nothing more annoying when people respond to you with “yeah, well, everyone feels/behaves/think like that”

[DigitalBison]

> To my knowledge, you cannot scan the brain of someone with ADHD and point out an abnormality associated with the disorder. Yet we give 8 year old boys stimulant medication because they can't sit still in a classroom for hours a day.

I'm not well-versed in the risks of stimulants given to children so I'm not commenting on that specifically, but I want to push back on the insinuation (if I understood you correctly) that ADHD or its treatments are any less legitimate because we haven't yet figured out if we can use brain imaging to diagnose and measure treatment efficacy.

It would be great if all medical disorders could be externally measured and quantified objectively, but when they're not, we often rely on evaluating and diagnosing them based on the (often somewhat more subjective) impact of their symptoms. That's not ideal, but it seems better than nothing to me.

Full disclosure: I'm also diagnosed with ADHD and take daily stimulants. Apologies if I came off as combative, I'm relatively new to my ADHD journey and genuinely curious to learn more about the medical/scientific aspects.

[nosefurhairdo]

> ...but I want to push back on the insinuation (if I understood you correctly) that ADHD or its treatments are any less legitimate because we haven't yet figured out if we can use brain imaging to diagnose and measure treatment efficacy.

I was playing devil's advocate to explain why someone might feel that way. My personal opinion is that every adult should have the right to assess for themselves whether they feel stimulants can improve their quality of life. The question of whether ADHD is "real" or legitimate is totally unimportant to me. And I agree with your take: if we can identify symptoms and effectively treat them, that is more important than uncovering some underlying "legitimacy" of the treated condition.

Congratulations on getting diagnosed. ADHD has the highest treatment success rate among psychiatric conditions. Be sure to keep up with all the other healthy habits for improving focus (sleep, exercise, nutrition, hydration, etc.).

[idlewords]

It doesn't follow from the constituent behaviors being real that a concept is real. Take neurasthenia as an example; it was a popular American diagnosis in its day, and I don't think anyone argues that millions of people were faking it. But we draw different lines around these constituent symptoms today, and no longer see it as a coherent condition.

The search term "culturally-bound syndrome" makes for interesting reading in this area.