Wow. I have such an opposite take on this. I totally blame the "complications" and failings in my life on the "disorder" itself. I totally wish I had picked up the book: "You mean I'm Not Lazy, Crazy or Stupid" in a psychologist's waiting room before I was in my mid-forties wondering what the hell happened! One way of putting that would be, I wish somebody like you had "labeled" me and my "difference" a couple of decades earlier. As it was, I suffered permanent damage from "Lazy," but it is crystal clear that that label was knee-jerk scapegoating in the tradition of being selected as the "usual suspect" by a quintissentially authoritarian family. They had to have somebody to call "lazy," and that was my Dad and, hence (bad blood!) me. But what our real sin was, was that other great American Tradition: being too smart. My great "what if" in life is, what if the "label" ADHD had been untangled from the weave of recognized "brain differences" maybe not too early on: I'll never know what my response to medication might have been. But early enough for somebody to be understanding why this or that was what I expressed in my path in life: too much sometimes, too little other times, too late always.
Wow. I have such an opposite take on this. I totally blame the "complications" and failings in my life on the "disorder" itself. I totally wish I had picked up the book: "You mean I'm Not Lazy, Crazy or Stupid" in a psychologist's waiting room before I was in my mid-forties wondering what the hell happened! One way of putting that would be, I wish somebody like you had "labeled" me and my "difference" a couple of decades earlier. As it was, I suffered permanent damage from "Lazy," but it is crystal clear that that label was knee-jerk scapegoating in the tradition of being selected as the "usual suspect" by a quintissentially authoritarian family. They had to have somebody to call "lazy," and that was my Dad and, hence (bad blood!) me. But what our real sin was, was that other great American Tradition: being too smart. My great "what if" in life is, what if the "label" ADHD had been untangled from the weave of recognized "brain differences" maybe not too early on: I'll never know what my response to medication might have been. But early enough for somebody to be understanding why this or that was what I expressed in my path in life: too much sometimes, too little other times, too late always.
“bad, lazy, stupid, crazy, dysfunctional, defective, or disordered”
You left out "weirdo." That was one of the most painful. I now wear it as a badge of pride.