Left In the Cold: ADHD and the Mental Health Discussion
The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a 25% increase in anxiety and depression across the globe with the worst affected being women and young adults, the World Health Organization reported in March. The pandemic was a major setback for many people of diverse cultures and genders, especially those with mental health issues or in the poor and working class. People were stuck inside for months on end with their life in an endless loop of staying home and only leaving for work or groceries with nowhere else to go or unwind.
However, one thing to come from the pandemic is the discussion of mental health and more eyes thankfully being put on the topic. More awareness and advocacy were generated with more people being diagnosed for mental health issues such as depression and anxiety. Even pre-pandemic, mental health had become more a prominent topic for discussion as adults young and old sought to challenge stigmas around treating these issues. Still, one condition that doesn’t seem to be discussed nearly as much as it should be is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD.
ADHD is a common medical disorder that usually gets developed in someone’s childhood and lasts long into adulthood. Symptoms can range from not paying attention to becoming very easily distracted, or continually active and excited. ADHD can be extremely debilitating if untreated. It has been associated with a higher likelihood of reduced quality of life, increased risk of substance use issues, unemployment or underemployment, accidental injuries, suicide, and premature death, among other issues.
It’s easy for ADHA to be lumped in or misdiagnosed with another condition since the symptoms of the disorder are not necessarily unique to just that specific disorder. One could experience restlessness and assume that they are experiencing anxiety instead of ADHD. Or someone could experience burnout, another common ADHD symptom, and have it confused with depression. These symptoms can impact anybody from parents, to children to college students.
Students
Balancing studies, work, a social life, and a stable home life is incredibly difficult to do for a young adult. Doing all of that with ADHD makes an arduous task even more daunting. Having to do major tasks with a disorder that can cause the person to become easily distracted and more likely to burn out quickly is a mountain of a task for them to tackle. School is an especially is hard task for people diagnosed with ADHD, as doing schoolwork can require a lot more concentration and effort as opposed to an average student, or just trying to fit in can be harder.
Two students with ADHD were interviewed for this article and stated that they do agree there is a stigma surrounding mental health, especially ADHD, in all levels of schooling. Dante, from Old Bridge, NJ, is a 24-year-old man and Sid, from Dunellen, NJ, is a 22-year-old non-binary person. Dante and Sid both agreed that schools do not really want to deal with a student struggling with their disorder and would rather put kids in special education rooms rather than deal with it themselves. Whether it is because schools feel ill-equipped, or just not interested in tackling it, is a mystery with the two of them. Dante and Sid say that at the very least, faculty should acknowledge the issue and ask the student how they can help, either by allowing more time on assignments, after school tutoring, or whatever would work best for an individual student.
One suggestion Sid gives is to get rid of the “Gifted” or “Talented” label that students in special education and who experience a range of mental disorders receive in school. They feel like it is something that can be rather harmful and make a student feel too different from others, even if it seems nice in theory.
Dante said that while schools can do better, he is not exactly sure what the solution is. “I feel as though elementary school to high schools can do better in this field, however, I am unsure how colleges could implement changes like this.” And for Sid, they were more positive when talking about the school that they attend but said there were still challenges. “I wish accommodations were easier to get, since ADHD is so under diagnosed and also asking people with ADHD to get a bunch of letters and do a bunch of paperwork to get accommodations is a bit ridiculous,” they said.
Parents
While dealing with ADHD is incredibly difficult as a young adult, it is just as hard for parents and their children. A report on current public attitudes toward the disorder said that mothers of boys with ADHD are more likely to be affected than others as a result of their child’s diagnosis, which leads to a potential increase of the mothers experiencing bouts of depression and/or anxiety which can have a big part in how they deal with their children. Meanwhile, for people who have siblings with ADHD, they have reported that they tend to have a greater need for help and attention from their parents, which can result in rejection by the sibling who does not have ADHD. In addition to students, one section that gets affected quite a bit are parents. ADHD is not a deadly disease or anything of the sort, but it can be debilitating. Going through everyday life and forgetting tasks easily can really affect someone’s mental state and doing that as a parent would be detrimental to your spouse or child who are relying on you.
Pearl from Florida is a 32-year-old mother who has a writing job on the side and was interviewed for this article to highlight how she gets through days parenting with ADHD. She posts her own stories online that she writes after putting their child to bed as they find it hard to go to sleep at night. “My day usually starts with bringing my child to work. Then I go to my day job for about seven hours a day typically, then I get home to be with my family. At the end of the night, I still feel like there is so much more I have to do so I end up not sleeping until close to 1:00 in the morning, if not later. I go around a lot trying to just to keep up with everyone else at work and help my husband out, but it ends up leaving me so exhausted sometimes.”
Pearl stated that she isn’t the only one that’s trying to live with ADHD within her inner circle. She said that someone she’s familiar with at her work isn’t taking very well to dealing with an ADHD diagnosed child at home. “Obviously, this isn’t a deadly disease or anything, but it’s something that is hard for some people to wrap their heads around. I have a co-worker who has said before that the biggest issue for her is figuring out how to help her son. They try at home to help them study, but they find themselves getting so easily frustrated at her son struggling. She doesn’t get it. And I don’t know if she’ll ever understand that kid.” Pearl said that one thing that leads to parents having frustrations like this is that they will are ill-equipped to tackle the disorder with them expecting it to just be something simple like helping with schoolwork or helping them remember tasks. She suggests that more health facilities should offer advice to parents and that medication for ADHD should be more readily available and inexpensive.
Section 3: Medical Care
A big problem when it comes to getting people to talk about ADHD as a disorder and eliminating the stigma around it is getting it noticed by institutions and medical and behavioral care facilities. In 2016 the National Survey of Children’s Health released a study revealing that 6.1 million children between the ages of 2 and 17 were diagnosed with one of ADHD or ADD with adult ADHD being represented at 2.6%. A 2021 survey done by ADDitude Magazine, a magazine dedicated to ADD and ADHD, revealed that 26.5% of people have been diagnosed in 2020 for ADHD. Nearly 22% of adult survey respondents said they began taking ADHD medication for the first time during the pandemic. However, 15% of adults said they have increased their dosage and 11% have switched to a new medication in the last year.
However, getting a diagnosis is not easy. If anything, it has become much harder simply due to demand to be tested for ADHD or the inability to get tested for ADHD. An article put out by the Moscow-Pullman Daily News (link) stated that in the past year there has been a big increase in people wishing to get tested for ADHD with other health clinics in the area having had a waiting list that goes about a year long just to get a referral to get tested for ADHD. Other clinics in the area have had to push back adding people to waiting lists if the waiting time reached three months for them to be heard back from them.
Outside of the United States, it has been just as hard to get diagnosed for ADHD or even get a referral to get diagnosed for it. The National Health Service (NHS) of England was criticized by people looking to get evaluated for ADHD because the system to diagnose adults for ADHD has had wait times that have gone up to five years. It was then revealed by the BBC (link) that the average wait time to get tested for ADHD is 140 days. One family in England had to wait eighteen months just to be assessed for ADHD. There is a major issue with how medical and behavioral institutions treat and take care of people just wanting to get diagnosed. The system is broken in a lot of ways and people are going to be hurting mentally the longer that the system stays the same.
Rutgers University and their behavioral care facilities (CAPS, the ADHD clinic of Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology, and the Office of Disability Services) were contacted for this article for insight as to how they deal with ADHD diagnoses, but they did not comment in time.
Conclusion: What’s next?
One of the last things that Sid said before ending the interview was that the hardest thing about ADHD was how mentally taxing it was on the person. They said, “most of the time it’s really difficult for me to get my thoughts in order well enough to write or do schoolwork. Everything is just kind of fuzzy and I just end up staring at a blank page for a while. […] My ADHD also makes me emotionally volatile and sensitive to rejection, so conflict can often just be the end of a friendship for me, even if I don’t want it to.”
ADHD is a legitimate disorder that deserves to be given the proper care and attention from those that are supposed to take care of those who need help. It’s great that more people are paying attention to mental health, but we shouldn’t leave out other people who might feel left out in the cold. If someone is looking like they’re in mental distress and seem tense, fidgety, or upset, see what’s happening with them. Ask if they’re okay. Sometimes people with this disorder just need to know that people sympathize with them and that they’re not “stupid” or “special”. But at the same time, don’t stress them out. Be a friend, not a parent. Let them know you are there for them, but do not constantly hawk over them and belittle them if they are not doing okay. Listen to what they have to say and what is bothering them. Listen to their thoughts, their opinions, have a conversation with them, invite them in and see if they want to talk.
And for institutions and schools, they must do the same. Students and workers need more understanding from their tutors and bosses. If they’re struggling, ask if they need extra help or perhaps more time on what they’re working on. They want to get things done just as much as anyone else, but they need the support to be able to get through it. Being taken out of class and put into smaller classrooms can be helpful but it shouldn’t be the only option. But at the same time, every option here has a bit of a risk. Dante and Sid said that faculty in schools should at the very least reach out to ADHD students to see how they can help them get the material better. But at the same time, that can also be a double-edged sword. Some students might end up feeling isolated and alone in a scenario like that. Being given special treatment for a disorder is understandable, but it should be managed delicately. Anything should be up to the student or the parents of that student at the very least. But more than anything else, the biggest thing to do to help anyone with ADHD (parent, student, child, etc.) is to simply just listen to them. Because it can go a long way to finding out what they need.
