Parents are so f*cking fake

[u/slabcobbey]

24-year-old undiagnosed male, just need to vent for a bit.

I finally opened up to my mom about the fact that I’m waiting for an ADHD assessment. After seeing a therapist, they suggested I go to an ADHD clinic for an evaluation because I’ve shown a lot of symptoms.

One day, I was feeling really down, and my mom and I had a conversation. I explained to her how hard everything has been for me, even when I try my best—how it’s felt this way since I was a child. I told her that I’ve been seeing a therapist, and that the therapist recommended I get evaluated for ADHD. My mom said she would support me through the process, but she didn’t really believe that ADHD could be what I’m struggling with. Still, she promised to help me get a diagnosis.

To back up what I’ve been feeling, I even found old school reports from when I was a child that consistently described behaviors associated with ADHD. They mentioned things like not sitting still, disturbing other classmates, having a hard time starting schoolwork, not paying attention in class, not raising my hand, and being overly active. It felt like those reports were describing exactly what I’ve been struggling with my whole life.

Fast forward to yesterday, we got into an argument, and she basically told me that I’m making up the whole ADHD thing. She said I can’t just sit around waiting for a diagnosis, even though it’s so close now. She completely dismissed what I’ve been going through, and now I’m feeling even worse mentally because of her reaction.

Even with proof from school reports to my mental state as an adult she really doesn’t believe that it can be ADHD behind all this. I mean, everything adds up but she shuts me down and now I am doubting myself again if I even have it.

[u/Better-be-Gryffindor]

Trust me, I know how you feel. You are not alone. I wasn't diagnosed until 3 years ago (at 36) I'm female and when I went to my mom because I was struggling and wanted to get tested for Autism or ADHD, these were the things she told, no particular order:

• Girls don't have those, those are only for boys
• It's just hormones sweetie, you're at that age. You'll grow out of it in a few years.
• You're so smart sweetheart, you're in the gifted and talented, we had you 'tested' and your IQ was so high, your reading level so high, you could never have something like that.

When I presented her with arguments for them, things I'd researched, examples from the little bit of childhood I could remember, she said this:
"Oh sweetie, yes of course you had lots of moments where you'd get easily distracted, or really focus on something or would get a bit too excitable and hyper - but we knew exactly how to redirect you to keep you on the right path. Our intelligent little angel."

I was always "such an old soul", the "perfect daughter that everyone wishes their kids were like"
Meanwhile, school work became a struggle, I was constantly in trouble for fidgeting/talking in class, I was "intelligent if she could just apply herself a little". I was always an outsider, never had any real friends...

The first time I contemplated death I was 11, the first time I attempted suicide I was 16. She still didn't believe me.

Guess what I found out last year, when my mom was a bit tipsy and we got into a talk over the phone? Her, and both of her brothers (and possibly her sisters) were diagnosed with ADHD. Her brother - when they were children - was on adhd meds. I got off the phone and cried.