Discrimmination and ADHD

It's one thing I wonder about. Why the hell is it so allowed to discriminate against people with ADHD? I have faced discrimination at every turn and corner. F.ex. I was with a work-training company. Have been with two. They had a shop I repeatedly asked to be brought into. They always said no. Then a guy without ADHD was brought right into the shop I had repeatedly petitioned to be at. I wasn't even allowed to drive their freaking worthless car. I have always been treated like a second-rate human being by such places. And the employment-agency is even worse. They endorse the maltreatment of people with ADHD. We are treated like slaves, but nobody have any sympathy towards us because the general person with ADHD in my experience is a lying moron with stupid values and often criminal tendencies. Was it up to me the whole diagnosis should be scrapped, because it's a manic witch-hunt not a real diagnosis.

are you sure you aren't projecting? Do you trumphet your diagnosis? Maybe it's not the diagnosis itself, but the matter you present it (it's NOT excuse).

i admit i dont get the situation you are describing here.

Do the people who you feel discriminated by know that you have ADHD?

Medication is supposed to make you pretty close to normal. Maybe you need behavior training. You may not have learned the normal socialing skills in spite of the medication. College psych dept. have all these trainees who would be delighted to have someone for their practical experience. With these things, no one needs to know you're adhd. They don't with me.

If you're not medicated, you're hard to be with, less safe (they test add meds on the lowered number of car accidents on and off meds - check it out! don't take my word for it.). Darn it all, unmedicated, there's a lot of self denial and self loathing - add unmedicated = not very good at much - hard to put up with yourself.

And yes, all these other disorders are accepted, but add/adhd - there is an attitude of what's the big deal.

I strongly encourage you to tell no one except your doctor or those closest to you about your adhd. You will be accused of being lazy, using it for an excuse (even if you haven't made any sort of excuse about anything) and that "people just don't want to have to be parents", "you didn't get your *** beat enough as a kid", "it's just a fake disorder to sell pills and turn kids into zombie drug addicts", "you just want an excuse so you don't have to try", "everyone has those symptoms", "its just like doing meth".....

Yadda yadda yadda....everyone is a self-proclaimed adhd expert, parenting expert, child behavior expert, etc....and they all have an opinion, and it is "politically correct" to say adhd is BS.

I advise you to NOT share this diagnosis with many people, so you don't have to listen to this annoying crap, get blamed for things you didn't do, get accused of being a "druggie"....and have people begging you for or trying to steal your pills (these are usually the same people who call you a druggie).

If you have to share it with your employer for some reason, play it off like it is no big deal. Do not tell the other workers. If they find out, that means your boss doesn't know to shut up about your private business, and needs called out on it.

I would almost go so far as to say skip your meds for four or five days so it isn't in your pee for a pre employment physical, but why should you have to? That's not fair. That being said, though, I still might try that. Only problem is, if it DOES show up in your pee and you didn't mention it, there will be drama. Can you get out of it? Sure. You have a script. You're doing nothing wrong. Would it call attention to it? You bet!

Good luck, I'm sorry you are going through this.

This really irks me how it is in the world. I do not tell many people. But you know, if they think it is laziness or whatever. That is there problem in my eyes. They refuse to be educated then or just have not read any material on it. Whatever the case may be. I have told people here and there. I do no think it should be a deep dark secret. If they can't handle it or don't like it. Tough. I have told a few of my classmates. but it was sort of random we stumbled onto it. They just said oh, moved on and things were good it has never been mentioned again. As far as employers go, I won't tell them unless I have to. Although for drug screening, I will not stop taking my meds just for that. I will have note at the ready and will tell the tech administering the pee test. From there the only people who have to know will know. As far as fellow employee's go finding out. Not my issue, nor concern, nor do I care. If they find out, cool for them. I am better equipped now to handle there chiding or chatter. What we endured as children can be almost a double edged sword. Sure it sucked then and probably has pushed nearly all of us to the edge into depression or substance abuse, low self esteem all of it. But for me getting treatment and finding out has really been an eye opener and has allowed me to make slow and small changes for the better. For as I child I was not equipped to handle the situations I was put in then. But now when I look back on it getting picked on for being different(I didn't know I was ADD then,signs were there though) I have realized was not my fault for being different, and definitely not my fault they could not accept me because I was not normal. So now I am trying to rise above and not be dragged down by my childhood past. The way the ADD brain works allows you t look in at one thing in many different angles, so why not look at the your childhood, or incidences from which you have been ridiculed and turn it around into a new light, find the good in that negative and realize that the people who are belittling you are probably feeling threatened by you in some way because you have an ability they do not possess. Take those negative moment's and flip it on its head and turn it around right in there faces, realize to you do not need those people in your life. They are nothing but a drop of sand in the bucket life, you will meet many grains of sand along the way and there will be those that will catch the sun just right and grab your attention as the sun reflects off them so brightly, you cannot help but look.

But above all, use the trait so many of us are well known for and most likely got us to where we are intact, RESILIENCY. That is our 2nd best trait only to the way we are able to think and imagine things in many new possibilities. Show the nay Sayer's they cannot bring you down, they will feel beat down and lost as to why you did not give in, to me that would be the best feeling, is if they could not break you. All of us are different but we all think and share root emotions we all can understand that no one else does, and there are those out there who are not stricken with the condition but who understand and accept it.

It makes me mad, too, that people say it is "fake", but I've just learned over time to not share any information that can be used against me. One of my close friends suffered bipolar depression and had the pharmacy deliver a script to her work, and others saw it, and the next thing you know, she was "crazy", "needed to be in a psych ward", etc etc. As she was an RN, the other demons we worked with took it upon themselves to search constantly for any "crazy" or "unstable" behavior, to seek out any and all minor errors she might make, including, but not limited to, minor spelling errors, forgetting to initial a medication had been given (despite it being obvious due to the computerized pharmacy, that she had signed in and removed the proper medicine at the proper time), to unfounded accusations that she was "on drugs", and "believed in aliens (due to a stupid joke she made taken out of context)". They eventually turned her into the state board of nursing, for being "incompetent" and "dangerous", as well as "mentally unstable"....an investigation ensued, finding NOTHING WRONG WITH HER....and the board of nursing closed it. She had been put on probation from the hospital due to these accusations, and simply found a new job...but she was devastated, and depressed, and felt betrayed for no reason. She urged me to quit, and find something else.
A week after she started her new job, her husband came home, and found her dead on the couch, a magazine in her lap. An autopsy revealed she died of a heart attack. I blame it on the stress she underwent. She was fifty years old, ten years my senior, and she died on my birthday two years ago. She left to mourn her three children, two still in high school. She was an amazing wife, mother, friend, and nurse.

RIP, love.

Joker Girl
That is a terrible thing that happened to your friend. I know people in general can be really judgmental about mental illness, but it is astounding that people in the medical profession would be this bad

Joker Girl, that is terrible and I am very sorry to hear this of your friend, The world is changing, we need to pave the path now for future generations. It is a hard road to pave but we can do it.

If for some reason I had to disclose at work it would be to minimal necessary ppl. For example my last job had a accommodation specialist I would tell her. I would not mention a word to my supervisor. The accommodation specialist wld inform my sup of any approved accommodations.

Wow. That is nice, so her job basically was to be the person you go to with sensitive information, that you would particularly not wanna tell you supervisor?

Exactly. I used the method and didn't have a problem. They cover "reasonable" accommodations. The university I graduated from have a similar set up. They had a disability dept that students work w/. The teachers are never told the diagnoses, just given accommodations to follow.

How did you find out about this person? Is it common in job settings or is it pretty rare?

Our comp had a very detailed website that listed benefits and policies, it was listed there. I'm not sure if its rare. I didn't have a MI until last yr, so I never had think abt accommodations. Although I'll be finding out this yr, I'm trying to return to the workforce.