Episode 35: How To Respond When People Tell You ADHD Isn’t Real

EP. 35: How To Respond When People Tell You ADHD Isn’t Real

Listen to this episode from ADHD for Smart Ass Women with Tracy Otsuka on Spotify. In this episode, Tracy talks about how to respond when a friend, family member, teacher, coworker or boss tells you that there is no such thing as ADHD?

In this episode, Tracy talks about how to respond when a friend, family member, teacher, coworker or boss tells you that there is no such thing as ADHD? 

• Tracy starts out by sharing her thoughts with anyone who is listening to this episode and doesn’t believe in ADHD and tells them why their viewpoint is hurting their relationship with their ADHD friend, family member or colleague. 
• Learn how to tell if a relationship is about connection or power.
• Discover the most helpful thing you can do for someone who has ADHD. 
• Remember to have a little grace and don’t forget what you used to think you knew about ADHD before you really knew anything about ADHD 🙃.

Learn how to respond to comments like:

• There’s no such thing as ADHD
• People with ADHD are stupid, unmotivated and lazy. It’s a character flaw of their own making.
• I read an article that there is no ADHD in France
• ADHD is strictly an American phenomenom
• Big Pharma made up ADHD so it could sell more drugs
• ADHD is new, it’s a product of modern society. Look at how many more kids are now diagnosed with it.
• Everyone has some ADHD
• Everyone has ADHD today
• We are medicating our kids and turning them into addicts

And finally, Tracy shares how she responds when she’s dealing with a real know-it-all who clearly knows nothing about ADHD. She also ends with a discussion on how to figure out who should and shouldn’t be in your life.

Resources:

I especially dislike sharing this first link but here goes:

Do French Kids Have ADHD?

NOTE: This post was updated with a correction on March 16, 2020. The post and its headline had claimed that the prevalence of ADHD in France was lower than that of the U.S. or other developed countries. That inaccurate claim has been removed. Is ADHD a biological-neurological disorder?

Do French Kids Get ADHD? Yes

The only problem with this claim? It’s not true. The article appeared on Psychology Today, that bastion of lowest common denominator, pop psychology content, and it remains one of their most shared articles on social media.

NCBI – WWW Error Blocked Diagnostic

Your access to the NCBI website at www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov has been temporarily blocked due to a possible misuse/abuse situation involving your site. This is not an indication of a security issue such as a virus or attack.

French Kids Don’t Have ADHD? Wrong

Have you heard that “French kids don’t have ADHD?” It’s not true. French Kids do have ADHD-as do children around the globe, at generally the same prevalence rate. When the post first appeared on Psychology Today’ s website, in 2012, I pegged it as more self-promotional nonsense, the kind we see too often around ADHD.

Global Drinking Demographics | Alcohol.org

Despite studies linking moderate alcohol consumption to heart health, picking up a glass of wine isn’t the answer to prolonged life. The health risks associated with alcohol consumption, like liver disease, heavily outweigh the slight benefits – especially since those same heart healthy benefits can be achieved through diet and exercise.

Smoking

Tobacco smoking is one of the world’s largest health problems. It has been a major health problem for many decades. For the entire 20th century it is estimated that around 100 million people died prematurely because of smoking, most of them in rich countries.

Attention Surplus? Re-examining a Disorder (Published 2006)

The recent recommendation that Ritalin and other medications for attention-deficit disorder carry the most serious allowable warning will certainly slow the explosive growth in the use of those drugs. That was the intention of some members of the Food and Drug Administration advisory committee that called for the packaging alert, known as a black-box warning.

Summer Sunderland suggested: Sir Ken Robinson’s Ted Talk on Gillian Lynne who had to move to think. Here’s the excerpt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dewkj80G4as Here’s the full TedTalk: https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity#t-77984

Erin Ez shared this link that gives you a real world snapshot of how your child feels struggling with attention and learning challenges: https://www.understood.org/en/tools/through-your-childs-eyes/player?simq=66dc223a-29e3-4956-ae1e-e7b1beff3584&gradeId=f774ec64-d556-4a06-abae-035bc8683bb6&personalized=true

About Tracy

Host Tracy Otsuka is a lawyer, not a doctor, a life-long student, not a coach. She’s also the creator of Coretography a patent pending system that helps smart, driven women understand their own unique ADHD brain and use it to their advantage.

Tracy will be talking about ADHD. Your super powers, your symptoms, your solutions and work-arounds and how you proudly stand out. Tracy credits ADHD for some of her superpowers and much of her success in life.