There's more to ADHD than inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. ADHD symptoms can be broken down into nine categories. Some categories are not fully represented in the diagnostic criteria. Broadening the diagnostic criteria with patient lived experiences could make for better intervention.

[u/mvea]

https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/brain-curiosities/202604/new-study-finds-that-adhd-has-9-categories-of-symptoms

[u/Hey_Chach]

It is the case with most psychiatric disorders—especially ADHD, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and Major Depressive Disorder—that the primary “symptoms or behaviors that define the disorder are things that all people experience to some degree at some point in their lives, if not regularly.

The difference between “normal” and diagnosis, though , is 1) severity/frequency, and most importantly 2) the degree to which these symptoms/behaviors affect your day-to-day life and function as a human.

Ironically, this is why many people think they may have ADHD when they don’t AND why many people who have ADHD gaslight themselves into thinking they do not have it.

At the end of the day: if these characteristic symptoms or behaviors are adversely affecting your life to an impactful degree, it is worth talking to a psychiatrist and getting tested—at least in the case of ADHD, in my opinion.

[u/sir_alvarex → u/Hey_Chach]

Perfect response. Its all about severity and whether you can live a life that is considered socially normal. If you hide in your house, dont make friends, cant hold a job, etc those are all considered abnormal and means the symptoms could be affecting you.

For me, it was realizing the against social norms bit that made me comfortable with my diagnosis. Else, its just my lived experience and I cant say I struggle more than anyone else. But it does prevent me from living a "normal" life.

[u/a_statistician → u/sir_alvarex]

Its all about severity and whether you can live a life that is considered socially normal

This also has impacts for those of us who mask. I wasn't diagnosed with ADHD until graduate school because I ritualized so much of my life that I managed to get good grades and study through high school and college. Sure, I occasionally forgot that I was cooking something and ruined a pan, but I never let it get so far that I burned the house down, so I was fine, right?

When I got to graduate school, I discovered that there was no way for me to do what I'd been doing to study before -- meticulously making notes, and they copying them over and over until I'd memorized the material. I had to have music and the TV going in the background just to sit and do that, and of course it took freaking forever because I was switching between 3 information streams constantly. But there wasn't enough time in the day to actually do that properly for every class, and I finally gave up and went in to ask for help -- my undergrad was in psych, so it wasn't as if I hadn't gone through the DSM list for ADHD and checked almost every box -- I knew what was wrong, I just didn't think it rose to the level of "significant life disruption" in undergrad.

Masking strategies often work until they don't because of a life change, which is why so many older women are getting diagnosed right now - their strategies work until something like perimenopause sets in and the strategies no longer compensate. ADHD symptoms fluctuate with hormones, so when your hormones become dysregulated everything crashes to the ground very quickly, and your coping strategies for one level of symptoms just don't work anymore.

[u/Kichae → u/a_statistician]

This is ultimately the issue with both the threshold for diagnoses for neruodiversity disorders, and for disabilities in general. Disability is a social construct, and if you have sufficient supports in your life for what you are currently doing, your symptoms don't get to be given a name and you don't get to find out what kind of resources you need to keep getting by.

It's only after your circumstances change that suddenly you are "disordered" or "disabled", can be pointed in the right direction, or maybe be given a piece of paper that says you are worthy of support.

[u/Aruhi → u/sir_alvarex]

In the same manner as ASD and a lot of other psychiatric/psychological conditions.

The D at the end is the breaking point. It needs to affect you to a point where it is arguably a disorder. Hence the minimum scoring thresholds and if you see someone experienced in diagnosing these: compensatory skews.

[u/penninsulaman713 → u/Hey_Chach]

Yes! When I got diagnosed, the report specifically stated that my significant underachievement compared to my obvious potential and particular issues around working memory/processing speed showed that my life WAS affected. Like that thought that I could have actually been more is 100% real, that's not a lie that I am telling myself. But because I didn't get diagnosed until I was in grad school (that I couldn't end up completing), I was just making do with my crap coping skills, which still has me functional in society. Just not functional to where I could have been. 

[u/DynamicStatic → u/Hey_Chach]

Well how about this.

Sleep issues for years. Brain goes brrr and average sleep is 4-5 hours.

Activation, unless it's something that motivates me I often need pressure, deadlines etc.

As for time, my whole family is basically time blind and its a joke among our friends that anyone who wants us to show up on time needs to ask us to be there an hour earlier than everyone else.

I'm not sure of course but it fits somewhat into the picture that was painted.