I’m an autistic ADHDer, diagnosed with combined type ADHD. I received this diagnosis when I was 14, through my own realisations about myself.
Social media definitely did play a big part in my ADHD diagnosis. I knew I was autistic before discovering the neurodivergency side of social media. As autism and ADHD have a very high co-morbidity rate, I stumbled across and learnt a lot of information about ADHD. I definitely educated myself a lot on ADHD before even considering that I had it myself. Unlike a lot of people, I wouldn’t say that it was social media that persuaded me to seek a diagnosis of ADHD, however it did help me kickstart the education process for myself.
Disclaimer: these are all my personal opinions of the subject, as someone with ADHD. Nothing I say here is totally factual, so please take everything I say with a grain of salt!
There’s been a huge rise in diagnoses of ADHD from TikTok which is an incredible thing for those who have gone their whole life without knowing it, however there are many downsides to the way information and misinformation is being spread. As an ADHDer, I prefer to stay clear of a lot of content about ADHD on tiktok.
I feel as though we’re losing sight of what ADHD actually is. It’s gone from being seen as a stigmatised thing that only boys have to suddenly a quirky thing that is the answer to everyones problems. Whilst I really support and appreciate the destigmatisation of this disorder, it seems to have gone a bit far.
I believe there’s a place for self diagnosis with extensive research when there is no option for professional diagnosis due to waiting times, expense or doctors who don’t know enough about ADHD. However, if you self diagnose purely from seeing a few TikTok videos of people jumping on the #ADHD trend, I believe that that is a cause for concern. Some of the content on TikTok gives the impression that everything from personality traits to symptoms of mental illnesses which need medical attention can now be all put down to ADHD. Whilst these comorbidities can be common in ADHD, the symptoms are not caused by ADHD.
I believe we have reached the goal of destigmatising ADHD, at least we have reduced some of the beliefs we used to have about it, however I believe we’ve gone backwards when it comes to destigmatising other conditions, specifically autism. There are many other conditions and illnesses that have got lost in the social media trend of ADHD, however, as an autistic person, I only feel that it’s right to speak on how it’s affected societies view of autism.
It’s very common to see videos with millions of views titled as signs of ADHD but listed in the videos are signs of autism. Whenever someone who is educated on autism comments stating that the traits listed here are actually criteria diagnostic criteria for autism, you often see a huge amount of backlash from people diagnosed with ADHD or are led to believe they have it from this one video saying that these are a part of ADHD too which communicates to me that ADHD has become something that is socially acceptable to have (which is great) but only some autistic traits are socially acceptable to have as long as they are labelled as ADHD. Overall it leads to many more people not understanding their true selves.
Believe it or not, traits of any neurodivergency are human traits because neurodivergent people are human. Many people have got into the habit of saying ‘I do that too so I must have this disorder/condition’ or alternatively saying ‘well everyone does that, that doesn’t mean we all have the disorder you’re sharing your experience with’. The difference between having a disorder or condition versus not having the disorder or condition is the number of traits you have and how intensely you experience them in your life and this certainly can’t be communicated through a 15-60 second video.
We are starting to confuse TikTok creators with experts. In reality, anyone can set up a camera and post information to TikTok that goes viral and people see it as the more likes it has, the more true it is. From my personal experience as an autistic ADHDer, I believe there is a place on TikTok and all social media for sharing your own experiences to attempt to build a sense of community without claiming it as medical information about your disorder/condition. It is shown that the sense of communities like this online have very positive effects on peoples mental health, urging them to connect with other people who feel the same as them and I certainly don’t want that to stop. I’ve also found many tips to help me with my everyday life with ADHD. That has been very helpful too, but that hasn’t replaced medical advice.
Another point to add here is that TikTok itself as a platform can make you believe that you have ADHD when you have had no symptoms or traits of it before. It’s training our brains to flick through videos so quickly. If the video doesn’t catch your attention within a second or two it’s been made so easy to find something else to watch and then we’re rewarded for losing attention with a video that we enjoy as TikTok is constantly trying to make our for you pages better. And of course it’s not just TikTok that’s doing this. Most things we do these days need to be done quickly or incredibly slowly and both of these extremes can make us believe our brains are different. Most people are overstimulated these days yet we’re being conditioned to just want more and more dopamine, which again can look just like ADHD traits.
People with ADHD can learn a lot from that too. No not all of our problems would be fixed by a less stimulating world or a world that doesn’t rely so heavily on screens as we have chemical imbalances. But taking a walk to give our minds a rest or an ADHD friendly way of meditating can make things feel a little less overwhelming and help keep that attention a little longer. Some say that people with ADHD are more vulnerable to affects of screens and fast-moving things of the like.
Unfortunately, with ADHD TikTok, we are now led to believe that nothing can help us at all whether we have clinically-diagnosable ADHD or just a few traits of ADHD, because we’re all human.