When people say to me, “yeah, but everyone does that” or “everyone deals with that, it is normal” when discussing my ADHD or ASD
I respond with;
“Everyone goes to the bathroom, what, once? Twice a day, right? … well, if you were going to the bathroom 60 times a day we can agree something is wrong and you should probably see a doctor about that, right? Good, I am glad we can agree on that.”
I always use the pregnancy analogy. Maybe you have morning sickness sometimes and crave certain foods, but that doesn’t mean you are pregnant. You either have a baby in you or you don’t.
Edit: crave, not crazy
Oh my god I use this SAME EXACT analogy
Like we all zone out, we all forget something or draw a blank, we all have to write stuff down, we all sometimes get super interested or excited about a topic, it’s called being a person
However for you it’s not creating a scenario where those are impeding your lives regularly and j say regularly because I’m sure someone has lost a job or something over forgetting something even tho our example person normally has good memory
Idk I kinda lost my train of thought near the end
I compare it to PTSD. You can have post-traumatic stress after a car crash. It does not mean it's a disorder unless it has been causing difficulties for an extender period of time
It's not as good of an analogy as the ones other have provided, but it works for me!
Technically true (best kind), it is a spectrum, so yeah most people will have some form of. Because of that, a bit of understanding and empathy would be appropriate, not the usual ignorance and condescending this meme so nicely points out.
Edit: thanks everyone, you all gave me a lot to learn and think about, I really appreciate it.
I agree with the sentiment, but something being a spectrum, does not mean that everyone has >0 of it. It just means that people that DO have it arent all affected the same way.
Schizophrenia is also a spectrum but you wouldnt say everyone is a little schizophrenic, because they simply arent at all.
Yeah, it's a spectrum but the spectrum doesn't extend down to zero. You have to meet the diagnostic criteria, which is the floor for the spectrum.
I think a lot people hear about the spectrum and associate it in their minds with the gender spectrum. "Everyone is on the gender spectrum, so everyone is on the autism spectrum". Makes a kind of intuitive sense, I can see why you'd think that.
But the autism or neurodivergent spectra are more akin to the "male gender spectrum" or the "female gender spectrum". Yeah, everyone in those spectra are in a spectrum, but not everyone is included in those spectra.
This isn’t what a spectrum is. People who say “everyone has a little autism/adhd” are just wrong. Imagine somebody saying “everybody is a little pregnant” because people sometimes get nauseous in the morning and crave certain foods. It doesn’t work, you are either pregnant or not pregnant, and either adhd/autistic or not
That's actually very false, and it is important for people to learn about their mental well-being.
On the spectrum of mental health where the perfectly healthy are on the very left, and the perfectly unhealthy are on the very right. The majority of people lie somewhere in the middle.
Mental disorders are not binary, like being pregnant or not being pregnant. There is a sliding scale. How much that disorder affects certain aspects of your life is how we measure the severity of that disorder.
Nobody is perfectly healthy, but that doesn’t mean everybody has the specific medical condition of autism or adhd.
Yeah, none of that has anything to do with the neurodivergent spectrum. Also, it isn't a scale from minor to major. It's an informal extension of the autism spectrum to include the other neurodivergent conditions, since there tends to be a lot of comorbidity across ASD, ADHD, ASPD, NPD, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, etc. But, to be included in the spectrum, you have to have a neurodivergent condition. If you don't, that would make you neurotypical and that would put you in a different spectrum.
Edit: being neurotypical doesn't mean you should get help for your mental health. Everyone should, we're animals who made society and we're not equipped to handle all of... this gestures everywhere
That's not an accurate analogy.
Autism is like a blueprint for how the brain is wired. You wouldn't say that all X86 microprocessors are a little bit ARM and most CPU's are somewhere in the middle.
ADHD involves physiological differences in the prefrontal cortex that impact how dopamine signaling operates, among other things, which leads to the psychological symptoms. Saying "everyone is a little ADHD" is incredibly inaccurate and it's frequently used as a form of ablism. It's not a spectrum in that way. It's like saying "everyone is a bit schizophrenic" to someone who feels compelled to do things by perceived "demons" in their brain.
Yes, some mental illnesses are common to all humans, like MDD but some, like ADHD and ASD result from physiological differences when compared to neurotypical brains.
All "abnormal psychology" has differing physiological differences when compared to a "neurotypical" brain. Those definitions are super shakey though. Neurotypical, as you say, is a super fuzzy definition and has really changed drastically in modern history.
And there are a shitload of people "a little bit schizophrenic". You wouldn't be able to tell though because the intensity, frequency, or persistence is not severe enough to affect thier life in an overwhelming manor. They have jobs, relationships, and can function in society.
Some people are a little bit "whatever" with different mental disorders. Believing mental health issues are binary, either they have a "disorder" or are healthy is no longer part of modern abnormal phycology. They are now thought of as spectrums where people can fall onto that spectrum in very very different severities. That is why people use the word spectrum.
Well... Therapists aren't psychiatrists, so it's a little less concerning than if a psychiatrist said it.
Theres a big difference between someone who gets distracted once in a while, and someone who cannot reliably function without treatment.
