Is ADHD a real disorder?

for me i'm into accountability for sure, but fear and shame, they don't work super good for me. when i feel that way, i avoid whatever is making me feel ashamed. like, one of the things my ex would say to me is "you keep leaving the cupboard doors open". it's true. i did, i kept leaving the cupboard doors open. i denied it, though, i always denied it... i hear someone telling me something i'm doing wrong, but i don't know how to do it _right_. so i kept leaving the cupboard doors open and they kept getting frustrated with me. every time that happened, she had negative feelings about me, i had negative feelings about me, and nothing happened to change the situation.

well, we broke up eventually. to my mind, it _wasn't_ because we didn't communicate effectively. our inability to communicate effectively sure as hell made that breakup difficult, though.

Yeah, it's interesting that this thread is talking about ADHD and relationships, because that's something I've been thinking about a lot lately. My wife and I are both non-neurotypical. I am ADHD. She would probably have several diagnoses, but has only spent limited time with mental health professionals many decades ago so I don't really know the total extent. ADHD is definitely among them though. We have a lot of conflict in our relationship. It's very emotionally unhealthy and we would probably be better off not being together, but the process of divorce is so daunting. I have an extreme aversion to big life events like that, and just "go along to get along" because the process of change feels like my brain would get ripped out of my skull.

Anyway, lately, as I've been pondering my own ADHD, it's become more apparent to me that many of her actions that I have interpreted as irresponsibility or callousness could also be attributable to disability. It's difficult, because disability or not, I still feel disrespected.

At the same time, I've been having difficulty with a work colleague recently because she has occasionally taken personal offense at behaviors of mine (forgetfulness, disorganization, misunderstandings) that are linked to ADHD. I suspect that this colleague is non-neurotypical as well.

As David Berman asked, "Why can't monsters get along with other monsters?"

see to me this is where i start looking at things from a "neurodivergent" framework. i do have challenges that neurotypical people don't, but really, the example i gave... why should that example be specific to neurodivergent people? i'm not sure my having ADHD is even relevant to what happened in that situation. it's just about appreciating that people are different, that what may be easy for one person is hard for another, that blaming and shaming someone for having difficulty doing something that might be easy for another person doesn't _help_, doesn't lead to good outcomes.

it's easy for me to look at that situation from another perspective. like, i expect things to be in a certain place, and if i have a partner who puts things in a _different_ place, i get upset. i could say "that's not where that belongs!" or, maybe they don't have a rigid and precise sense of where things _belong_ like i do. maybe they can't remember. i mean, it's ok for them to not be able to remember something like that, right? people can only do what they can do. it's not _really_ a question of "you did it wrong, stop doing it wrong" but finding a way to take this unhealthy pattern and make it healthy. and that's not going to be done entirely through negative feedback!

it blows my mind that being praised is literally a _fetish_ for so many people. it's, like, seen as _demimonde_ somehow to have a deep hunger for praise and validation. that's fucking _wild_. my girlfriend and i, who are both highly neurodivergent, we praise each other _all the time_, sincerely. when one of us does something that's hard, that's praiseworthy. you did the dishes! good job! you set a boundary! good job! even things that people might not normally be praiseworthy. my girlfriend comes to me in crisis, she's in a bad way, she hasn't taken care of herself, she feels so much guilt and shame about doing these things and not telling me, the first thing i tell her is what a good job she's done, that she's taking care of herself, that i'm proud of her. that's just not the life experience i grew up with!

as to david berman's question... i thought of myself as a monster for a long time. it was kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy... if i saw myself as a monster, i felt i had to act like one. i'm not a monster. i don't have to act like one. that's a big part of the answer, for me. when i care about myself, when i believe i'm worth caring about, i behave in ways that don't just benefit me, but often benefit the people around me. that's what i've found.