this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2025
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yeah fuck this, my soul crushing depression and ADHD are largely independent of my environment. I get that this is true for some people, but posts like these make me angry.
As someone who also has depression and ADHD. There is nothing wrong with us. It's OK to take medication to survive in an environment that's actively hostile to people like us, but it's also OK to acknowledge that if our society actually valued people we could live the way we need with the community support we need and likely wouldn't need to be medicated any more.
It's like covid, catching covid doesn't mean there's something wrong with you. It means our society isn't structured in a way to prevent people from getting sick (masks, vaccines, etc) and values profits more than people's wellbeing.
Right or wrong doesn't factor for me. I do not make value judgements about my neurochemistry, I just care about how well I am able to exist. I do not believe I'd live a happy life if I was unmedicated, regardless of our society. You are free to believe that about yourself, but I know what my untreated depression feels like—an absolutely crushing nothingness where I starve myself because I'm too apathetic to eat. I know what my untreated ADHD feels like—a bottomless pit of unmotivation and a maddening lack of emotional mindfulness. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong or shameful with having a medical condition that requires medication to treat. People with physical conditions shouldn't be told that they'd be fine if society just accepted them when the consequences of not treating their condition is misery or death. I have a physical condition that affects my neurochemistry to a degree that prevents me from being happy and living. Some people have depression and can deal with it by making concessions or exercising or meditating and I'm happy for them. Therapy helped me a lot with my depression, but the baseline miserable nothingness is still there. Some people have ADHD but have found coping strategies and don't need meds, and I'm happy for them. The D in ADHD is too strong for me to deal with on my own in any conceivable circumstance, and that is fine. There's nothing wrong or shameful about that, it is what it is, like how someone with a congenital issue might need a wheelchair. I am entitled to my own understanding of myself, the shit I've suffered through, and how I deal with it.
I absolutely agree that our society treats neurodiverse people like shit. I agree that we're generally lonely and don't support each other well. Nothing wrong at all with that premise. I categorically disagree with your statement that we "likely wouldn't need to be medicated anymore" if things were to change. I am either not a part of your "we," or you are attempting to invalidate the decades I've spent coming to grips with what I need to survive.
EDIT: I don't like being this hostile, but as I said, I am very fucking touchy about this topic. I've had enough of people assuming they know how my head works.
Honestly, you said literally everything that immediately popped into my head when I saw this (though even more thoroughly and precisely).
As someone who deals with the same, I 100% agree with you. In my mind, whatever I need to survive is the “right” thing. Them throwing a “but” after the “it’s okay to be on meds” minimizes what we need in favor of what they prefer.
It's frustrating because all these folks need to do is just use the word "I" rather than "you" or "we" when talking about their mental state. Like, let me rewrite the comment that made me so mad:
They'd probably go on to say "this is how I feel about it. I don't know if you've considered this, but having this mindset has been hugely helpful for my life" and then I'd say "oh yeah I have thought about it and that just doesn't work for me" and we'd be on our merry way. To me, that is not invalidating or invasive or presumptive or whatever. I might feel a little irritated, but lots of things do that and it's fine. Regardless of whether or not I agree with the axioms this comment is built on top of, I can respect that it is someone opening a small window into their mental state. Like, shit, who the fuck am I to tell this person that they'd need meds if they lived in a better world? I'm just some dunce on the Internet who isn't going to lecture someone on what their lived experience is like.
I just wish that folks would realize that other people have different experiences and requirements for happiness and health, and that not meeting those requirements/having those requirements met is, as I understand it, one of the definitions of trauma. Having to live my life unmedicated was traumatic because my brain does not work in a way that is conducive to happiness. Please don't try to tell me otherwise.
Totally agree. The “there is nothing wrong with us” in particular (and similar sentiments) gets under my skin so bad. I’m happy for them that they are privileged enough to feel that way, but there is absolutely something wrong with me. Is that a value judgment? No. It’s a statement of fact. Just like my physical disabilities constitute something being wrong. It has no bearing on my self-worth, I just feel more able to cope when I acknowledge that there is a problem with me that others don’t face.
Yep. I personally hate debating semantics with people online and have had decent luck in the past by replacing "wrong" with stuff like "it prevents me from being happy" so that people skimming don't latch onto "wrong" out of context and assume it is a value judgement. It appears that didn't work in this thread, however. When I think about it I find the necessity of that replacement to be pretty annoying.
It's frustrating and tiring for me to see how hard it is for people to understand their own privilege. Like, it took me waaaay too long to see my own privilege, and seeing it required a very patient person to lay out parallel life situations where something went well for me and terribly for them. At this point, I don't begrudge people for struggling to understand the multiplicity of human existence (because who the fuck does), but it does drive me bugfuck nuts when that lack of comprehension leads to people saying that living a life like my pre-medicated hellscape is better than the relative stability I have now. Ign
All that besides, thanks for your comments. They've been quite validating and reading them has helped me to feel a bit better about all of this. Hopefully I'll be able to stop perseverating on this thread and get back to my life.
I try to give leeway when someone isn’t aware of their privilege, it’s really hard to confront. That is until I try to explain my experience and I just get a complete lack of any attempt at understanding.
I’m glad my comments have helped! It was mostly the responses to your comment that got me fired up and involved, so it means a lot to see that I managed to make a little difference. You’ve also been pretty validating and understanding. It’s very refreshing to have someone who understands to vent with. I wish you all the best!
yeah fuck this, another example of someone being mad at a meme that clearly wasnt aimed at them. Comments like these make me angry.
Like, it kinda is aimed at people like me though? I've talked with my therapist about how fucked up the state of the world is over the decade or so I've been working with them. I had a psychiatrist try to increase my antidepressant dosage when I was struggling through some really terrible EMDR therapy (dealing with childhood trauma caused by how shitty our society is) because they thought it would make my life more bearable, which is exactly the meme. I pushed back on that because I knew what was causing that specific misery and I was solving it with therapy, not psychiatry. I don't engage with my psychiatrists like they're therapists, but I have otherwise been in this picture. Psychiatrists treat problems with pills, and sometimes they try to fix things that aren't best addressed with medication.
I've also spent my life being told that I was stupid, weak, incompetent, or lazy because no matter what else is going on with my life, I have baseline physiological issues that prevent my brain from functioning. I am far from alone in this. I would have had a better life if my condition had been treated as soon as it was noticed. The stigma surrounding psychiatric medicine meant that I wasn't and I suffered as a result. This post perpetuates the stigma that caused my suffering so I do not like it and will say something about it.
Yeah, you're right. This is aimed directly at you and definitely nobody else who doesn't have the problems you have. My bad.
Didn’t comprehend a single word they said, huh? Why don’t we just keep vilifying psychiatric medication to make ourselves feel better about the state of the world at the expense of those less fortunate than ourselves. I’m sure it’ll work.
How does that work? Environment is everything
I don't think your sick, I don't think I am either... I think we're hunters in a society of farmers
Spoken like someone without a single shred of empathy. Try asking and listening more rather than telling other people what their problem is.
It's unempathic to tell people they're being judged by unfair standards?
I don't know what you read, but it isn't what I wrote
No.
Do not assume you understand my mental state. You can be a "hunter in a society of farmers." I'll just continue being a person with an imbalanced neurochemistry that I use medication to balance. I just want be able to get out of bed on a Saturday and do things I love.
My life has been filled with enough invalidation and unsolicited "advice" about my mental health, so I'm a little fucking touchy about this shit sometimes.
because both ADHD and MDD are illnesses with physical and genetic factors.
ADHD is only considered an illness because it makes it more difficult to be forced into compliance. There is nothing inherently wrong with being neurodivergent, if society was structured better it wouldn't be considered strange.
Think about it this way, if society was structured exclusively for ND people, then being NT would be considered an illness. But we happen to live in the exact opposite scenario.
You clearly don’t have severe ADHD. It is absolutely a debilitating disability that would ruin my life without medication. The problem here isn’t whether it’s wrong or not, it’s that your radical acceptance lacks any understanding whatsoever. It sweeps our struggles under the rug so you can virtue signal about how poorly society treats us. It’s BOTH a debilitating disorder and stigmatized. There IS something wrong with our brains that needs medical treatment.
Okay yes I agree we can debate the social concept of “illness” and how it implies something “negative” while things like ADHD and deafness might be better seen as diversity of the human condition.
But that doesn’t remove that there are biomedical factors underlying these states. So it is not purely psychosocial ie. there are physical reasons for the difference.
Blatantly false. If someone has a broken leg, do you say "environment is everything, I don't think your sick, you don't need medical help"?
I agree, but if the shitty staircase you fell down and broke your leg on isn’t repaired, you’re gonna fall down and break your leg again.
See, the issue is you're assuming it was a staircase that's the cause and not, say, oesteoporosis.