> I see a lot of people with ADHD (on- and offline) who tend to make it an essential part of their identity
Honest question: why is this an issue? If someone makes it part of their identity its because they feel its important for others to know, and that can be for a variety of reasons.
Is there a reason we shouldn't make it part of our identity, if we so choose?
Boy, the unsubstantiated claims in this thread are really ramping up. Who's the 'they' in this case? You saw a person gatekeeping something one time so now it's some kind of problem to discuss real symptoms that impact people's lives in a very tangible way?
Because attaching to an unstable spectrum of symptoms and making it an essential cornerstone of an "I" is a terrible idea, no matter who you are. The "I" is just as formless, slippery, and unstable.
Secondly, when we do attach, we now have a shield we can use to abdicate responsibility for, well, the duties of being a human in a society. I've had to remind people who have thrown their hands up to exclaim, "I have ADHD!" that hey there buddy, so do I, but I still have to live my life right here in the same society/job/relationship they do.
Where diagnoses like ADHD are useful is as frameworks to understanding your own symptoms, but there's no reason to pull them in as part of you, and I've seen a great deal of harm done in our generation by people insisting on playing out their identity fantasies.
Honest question: why is this an issue? If someone makes it part of their identity its because they feel its important for others to know, and that can be for a variety of reasons.
Is there a reason we shouldn't make it part of our identity, if we so choose?