ADHD Awareness Month

Welcome back, GPHS! October is here and we are already done with the first month of school. I hope life has gone smoothly for you this year so far, and that it will continue to go well. We at The Scroll are more than excited to bring you the first issue of the year after being gone for a couple of months! It is officially October, which means it is time for places like Spirit Halloween to open and for coffee shops to bring back pumpkin spice…everything. (I love pumpkin-flavored drinks but there are some…interesting combinations that I have seen already.) And while October does bring Fall, Halloween, and many other Fall specialties, October is also ADHD Awareness Month. Let’s talk about it!

Due to the fact that ADHD can cause the affected individual to struggle with day-to-day life and tasks that other people would deem easy and simple to handle, there is a lot of stigma around the disorder and people affected by it. The National Library of Medicine states that;

“Variables identified to contribute to stigma in ADHD are public’s uncertainty concerning the reliability/validity of an ADHD diagnosis and the related diagnostic assessment, public’s perceived dangerousness of individuals with ADHD, socio-demographical factors as age, gender, and ethnicity of the respondent or the target individual with ADHD, stigmatization of ADHD treatment, for example public’s skepticism toward ADHD medication and disclosure of diagnostic status as well as medication status of the individual with ADHD.”

Or, to put it into simpler wording, variables related to ADHD such as the reliability of an ADHD diagnosis, stereotypes of people diagnosed with the disorder, and other factors such as ethnicity, gender, and age, are factors that contribute to the wide stigma around individuals diagnosed with ADHD. The National Library of Medicine also says that these stigma factors can be underestimated risk factors that can affect treatment, aggravate symptoms, and generally harm the mental well-being of the affected individual. Lastly, the National Library of Medicine states that due to the fact that many people, the general public and health professionals alike, have varying ideas about the disorder, this causes the stigma around individuals diagnosed with ADHD to circulate more and more.

There are also a handful of stereotypes that tend to group people with ADHD into one group, despite the fact that, as previously mentioned, there are different types and classifications of ADHD. Many people have made claims about people diagnosed with ADHD and seem to think that everybody with ADHD has the same exact symptoms every time, or that, if someone with ADHD does not have some sort of medication, then they will not be able to mediate any of their symptoms. All of these stereotypes only further public judgment of the disorder which, in turn, heightens cases of people not going to get treatment, as they are scared of being invalidated for something that should be taken seriously.

You may be asking yourself, “How can I help contribute to ADHD Awareness Month?” Well, there is actually a handful of actions you can take this month to raise awareness of the subject and help others respect it. These can include:

• Do not spread misinformation about ADHD.

• Be aware of symptoms people with ADHD may have and respect them.

• Do not circulate stereotypes/stigmas about ADHD.

• Do not make any insensitive comments on the subject.

As fun as Halloween and the spooky season might be, keeping an open mind about how you can help respect people with ADHD can really make a difference. Informing and correcting people who are spreading misinformation is another big way we can help decrease stereotypes and stigma on the topic, as well. Lastly, remember that everybody's mind works differently, and there is nothing wrong with that.