This is inevitable because there's no physiological test for ADHD; the only diagnostic criteria are how you behave and how you describe your experience. If you couldn't get treated with a convincing lie, you also couldn't get treated if you needed it.
Actually some of the modern computerized continuous performance tests are getting pretty good (a friend of mine in Germany had to undergo one prior to a diagnosis).
Its insanely easy in the US too. I abused it early in my career (have talked about it in previous posts). "Doctor" offices all over NYC and SF have 5 minute appointment blocks where you utter "I can't concentrate at work or school", and by the time you walk to Walgreens, your RX is filled. Its even easier now with the websites that do it.
As someone with ADHD (but not in a major city), it's been hard for me.
Every psychiatrist won't prescribe them unless I'm seeing a therapist that they personally know. The pharmacies often can't fill the prescription, and insurance requires significant pestering to pay for it.
> Its even easier now with the websites that do it.
Wait, as someone who super-duper probably has ADHD but is nearing 40 without having ever gotten a diagnosis or meds, despite getting partway there a couple times, because [list of reasons in other posts here complaining about how hard it is to navigate the ADHD medication dance when you have ADHD]... they've got what now? Is there like an ADHD version of the easy, fake-but-gets-the-job-done online medical screenings for medical weed cards? Because if so I'm doing that today (um, haha, maybe).
“Its even easier now with the websites that do it.”
Ha. I just tried this and was told I didn’t score high enough on their assessment, mainly due to not having issues as a child in school.
For some reason, saying “school was easy for me because I was two to three levels ahead of the rest of the kids and I never had to do any real work” wasn’t a reasonable excuse.
Also, I talked about concentration issues at work but then was asked if I make careless mistakes. I explained it’s not really possible to make mistakes due to the nature of the job. This also meant that I don’t have ADHD, I guess.
Doctors avoid the "I can't concentrate" metric these days and care far more about your upbringing and the effects in your daily life beyond study/work.
I also believe that those that abused drugs to advance in their careers need help as well, just not ADHD meds, and so the stigma can be reduced both ways.
"I can't concentrate" is a very shitty metric in the first place. I can concentrate perfectly well, probably even better than most people, thank you. What I can't control is when and what I concentrate on.
If I was diagnosing someone, hearing "I can't concentrate" with no additional qualifiers would be a significant yellow flag for me.
> I mean, he says "I can forget things, I fidget, I will on occasion zone out of long meetings" but that's true of every human being to some extent.
I feel like the difference is whether you can decide "I need to pay attention to this meeting even though it's boring" and then are able to actually do it.
With ADHD it's more like "oh crap! oh crap! I did it again.. I'm not paying attention to this meeting. I'm going to do it now. But man I suck for falling into not paying attention again. How could I prevent this in the future? Oh I can improve sleep by getting a sleep mask. grabs phone to order sleep mask on amazon"
Meanwhile the meeting has ended and your co-worker you eat lunch with asks "are you coming?" and you lookup to say "huh" with a dazed look.
You should believe the patient unless they threaten your trust in the system. Then you should attack the patient's knowledge of themselves and their medical situation casually, and imply that this stupidity indicates something sinister about their character.
> When I was 14, I witnessed the aftermath of my sisters being knocked down by a car. Ailis survived, Claire - who was 11 - died. Almost 17 years to the day, my dad died unexpectedly. I was a different person after those events. The reason I am sharing this is because I was told the effect of such trauma can sometimes manifest itself into symptoms similar to ADHD.
> A friend of mine - who had been privately diagnosed with the condition - had once suggested to me that I might have it too.
