Isn't it ironic...

My thoughts on why labelling ADHD & Autism as a trend, is completely ironic.

Firstly, let’s define ‘trend’. According to vocabulary.com:

“A trend is what's hip or popular at a certain point in time.”

In other words, what’s in fashion. A bandwagon, ‘a la mode’.

You could say sock wearing with sliders is a trend, or wearing loafers without socks, or worse still, wearing white socks with dark trousers.

Please tell me that this also makes you feel a little bit unwell?

It’s something about the bare ankle, what that feels like to have a bare sweaty foot trapped in : /

I digress, but my point is these things are all trends. Things that come and go and are not really of huge importance.

When it comes to ADHD & Autism, if you are to believe the news articles, masses of people are following the ‘trend’ of self diagnosing themselves, from watching videos of others talking about their experiences on tik-tok.

Shock horror, that they find this an easier way to relate to, than the outdated medical model and definitions of these differences.

If you identify as neurodivergent in any of it’s many forms, I’d hazard a guess that this winds you up as much as it does me. For SO many reasons.

But the biggest irony of them all?

Is that whilst I cannot speak for everyone, when it comes to the ADHD and Autistic friends that I have and know, well they wouldn’t follow a trend even if you paid them.

They are not driven by what is popular, even if they have spent years masking, in many respects they are not afraid to stand out, to be different, to challenge the status quo.

To turnover the stones where others have not thought to look, or that others couldn’t risk lifting for fear of what might be found.

They are the creative thinkers, the problem solvers, the innovative business creators.

I appreciate that this may sound like I think neurodivergents are elitist in some way. I truly believe we are all equal no matter our neurotype or intellectual capacity. But I make these points to highlight where ADHD & Autistic strengths very often lie and it is definately not in trend following.

And at times when the world seems to be going in ONE direction, they are often the ones that ask the thought provoking questions. They DO NOT accept a statement, information, a way of life nor a trend, just because everyone else does.

To give you a some what trivial example, if I may, is that in my early teens I discovered alternative music. I would listen to Jo Whiley and Steve Lemac at the time, on Radio 1 in the evenings and John Peel, back in the ealy 90’s who would play the weirdest music you could find. And I loved it.

They took me to new found lands yet undiscovered by the masses, bizarre cacophonies of unsigned bands. Music that I could guarantee was not being listened to by the kids I went to school with. It was where I first discovered Radiohead and all their, at the time, wirey messiness. It was all mine. Ok it wasn’t and there were probably many others having the same experience. But you get the idea.

If at any point, music that I was into became mainstream? It kind of ruined it for me. They feel like they almost make up part of my identity and I do not / cannot share that with everyone. It may sound silly but that is how strongly I feel about a trend. I don’t want any part of it.

I want to be part of things that I choose to love and value, because I love and value them. I do not want to part of something that everyone is running to in their droves, just because it’s seen as ‘the new best thing’.

The clothes that I wear, how I choose to decorate and furnish my home, how I run my business, EVERYTHING has some kind of meaning behind it, it is not driven by what is fashionable at the time, it’s about finding things I love, the things that speak to me.

None of this comes from a place of ego, it is almost an inherant need, a natural state. These don’t in the moment feel like deliberate choices they just are part of who I am.

So here in lies the challenge.

I am a late discovered Autistic ADHD woman.

What the media and certain people would call a ‘trend’. It sticks in my throat.

It feels insulting.

I know that from the medias persective, it’s about headlines and selling stories and writing what people want to hear or at least will stir things up. I also know that from an indiviuals perspective, it is often ignorance.

Like many of us that have gone before, they just don’t know enough about it yet.

But it doesn’t make it any less irritating.

And if finding out that I am Autistic and ADHD hadn’t been such a life explaining and life changing moment in my perimenopause experience and as I see it, such an important topic for others to know more about, I would have abandoned this so called ‘trend’ in search of new found territories.

But I won’t and I can’t.

Because you see, we are motivated by passion and meaning.

And being part of the wave that is raising awareness of what Autism and ADHD feels like particularly for women and girls and explains why so many of us have such a rough ride when our hormones change?

My passion and meaning for that is far stronger than a wrongly fitting ‘trend’ badge.

I know. You know.

There’s no trend here.

I would love to hear your thought’s on the matter and perhaps how you manage your frustration at the term ‘trend’. x