I’m not going to derail something that was supposed to be funny, but I’m really worried about that venn diagram post going around with “Do I have ADHD/autism?” “If you have to google it, the answer is probably already yes!” This is fine for the “Am I gay?” circle, because the answer is found entirely within yourself, you already know exactly what being gay means, and the signs don’t really overlap with the opposite. If you think you might like the same gender, well, you probably aren’t straight.
But it’s different for neurological/mental conditions. Any individual symptom, or even group of symptoms, could overlap with other conditions or even be part of the range of typical experience. And the consequences of failing to do your research could be misdiagnosis and not receiving treatment that will actually be helpful to you. To illustrate, let’s make up an example person: Edwina.
Edwina is quiet and a bit spacey. Her teachers often remark that Edwina appears to be staring off into space instead of paying attention. Edwina often feels like her brain is foggy and absent when she’s trying to do work— she just can’t focus! She also isn’t always good at keeping track of time and tends to have a bad memory.
Edwina sees some information about inattentive-type ADHD and ADHD presentation in girls. She thinks— whoa, that’s me! spacey, bad with time, forgetful, and can’t focus on work! maybe this is the answer and I could finally get some help with this! Now in Scenario 1, Edwina doesn’t do any further research, because “If you have to google it, the answer is probably already yes!”, right? So she goes to the doctor and asks to get tested for ADHD.
In Scenario 2, Edwina starts googling. She learns about overstimulation and understimulation with regards to focus in ADHD, and realizes that doesn’t really apply to her. She also learns about the “bad with time” thing— in ADHD it’s more about losing track of time while hyperfixating on something, but Edwina’s “bad with time” is more about missing chunks of her day. She starts thinking about this— is this really not normal? No one remembers every part of their day, right? So she googles “missing gaps in memory” and learns about dissociative disorders. A lot of these symptoms match up with her experience, and explain her problems better than ADHD would. So she goes to the doctor and asks to get tested for the range of dissociative disorders (and maybe ADHD also, just to be sure.)
In Scenario 1, Edwina believes that her main problems are not being able to pay attention in class and not being able to focus on her work, so that’s what she talks about in her clinical interview. The doctor asks follow-up questions about the lack of focus and Edwina’s dissociative symptoms just never come up, and she doesn’t think to bring them up because she doesn’t realize what is and isn’t normal. The possibility of a dissociative disorder doesn’t even occur to the doctor. So Edwina is given the self-report questionnaires for ADHD. Maybe her symptoms fit into these questions well enough that she checks “yes” on the boxes, the doctor figures it checks out, and she’s incorrectly diagnosed with ADHD and put on medication that doesn’t help and even makes things worse. Maybe she doesn’t meet clinical standards for ADHD— A good doctor will sit her down and try to figure out what to test for next and try to get to the bottom of these symptoms, but other doctors would just tell her she’s “normal” and send her home.
In Scenario 2, Edwina discusses her dissociative symptoms in her clinical interview, and is given the self-report questionnaires for dissociative disorders. She is correctly diagnosed with whichever dissociative disorder she has and is referred to trauma therapy.
Incorrect diagnosis happens all the time, especially when doctors aren’t even testing for the condition you actually have. A friend of mine was misdiagnosed with anxiety her entire childhood and put on meds that didn’t help. No one thought to test her for ADHD until she was halfway through college, and she was finally able to get proper treatment. Another friend had a dissociative disorder misdiagnosed as depression. It’s really important to do your research before your doctor’s appointment, to make sure you know which of your experiences are out of the ordinary and are worth mentioning, and so that you can advocate for yourself and ask for be tested for the conditions you are most likely to have.
TL;DR: Do your research when it comes to neurological/mental conditions. It could be the difference between getting proper treatment or not.
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