How To Think About ADHD - Is It A Disability Or Superpower?
Social media is infested with endless content of people glorifying the quirks of ADHD and describing neurodivergence symptoms as hidden "superpowers" that could supercharge their lives in the right circumstances.
According to the positive trend around ADHD, being neurodivergent is not a harm but a condition with unique strengths and abilities. All you have to do is minimize the negative symptoms and learn to leverage your "ADHD superpowers" to improve your life significantly.
Do you think that's true?
Should we view ADHD as a disability or a source of unique strengths?
Can ADHD really have a bigger positive impact than a negative impact on the life of the average person?
The debate around these questions has never been more heated. So, let's do a deep dive into the most common ways people see and think about ADHD and how they clash with one another.
What Are ADHD Superpowers?
In the past, ADHD was entirely seen as a mental disorder and disability.
The emphasis was on how the symptoms were predominantly negative and how to manage their harmful influence over your life. However, times are changing.
According to newly forming views, neurodivergent people face unique challenges but are also equipped with unique strengths or even "superpowers" that give them advantages that neurotypical people don't have.
For the sake of simplicity and having some fun, we will call the people who believe in this theory the following nickname - camp Sunhines & Rainbows.
They believe the condition is not only manageable in the vast majority of cases, but it also comes with unique strengths - resilience, creativity, critical thinking, risk-taking, spontaneity, empathy, self-awareness, and many more positive perks. ADHD has its ups and downs, but you should focus on the strengths and opportunities it provides.
No group is a monolith with homogeneous views, and the Sunshine & Rainbows camp is no exception.
The most problematic part resides in social media.
It's where people trivialize attention span issues as being just thoughtful and absent-minded. The chaos and endless bouncing from one project to another are painted as the beautiful turmoil of creative souls. The ADHD experience is often presented with cute-looking stereotypes that mask the struggle underneath.
Unfortunately, camp Sunhines & Rainbows is not only the most problematic but also the most popular and vocal. After all, everything in social media has to be simplified, shortened, and exaggerated to make it easily consumable, sensational, and provoking.
As a result, the more content creators strive for engagement, the more they sacrifice attention to detail, depth, and nuance in their portrayal of the condition. This is why their claims often give the feeling of toxic positivity, where the focus on all the wonderful possibilities and abilities of neurodivergence trivializes or romanticizes suffering.
Again, camp Sunhines & Rainbows is not a single entity. There are more realistic and nuanced interpretations.
For example, in Edward M. Hallowell's books Driven to Distraction and ADHD 2.0, cautious optimism is offered by showing the ability for immense potential while not minimizing, trivializing, or erasing the suffering tied to ADHD. It seeks to boost hope and confidence for people who may not have faith in their strength and potential.
Done right, the message can be a necessary motivation boost and positive affirmation for people naturally predisposed to not having confidence in themselves. Thinking of yourself as different removes the stigma and feeling of being fundamentally flawed if you have ADHD. However, the rhetoric around superpowers can get dangerously close to pseudo-science, as I will explain later.
What About The Negative Impact of ADHD?
Let's discuss the other side of the discussion - camp Doom & Gloom.
Their thesis is that ADHD changes brain structure and chemistry in a negative way, which puts you at an inherent disadvantage in most situations. This disadvantage is especially true if you account for the fact that our society is centered around and designed for neurotypicals.
It's not a coincidence that medical professionals label it a mental disorder and disability.
The problems it causes are serious and should be taken that way. Maybe there are some possible benefits or even "superpowers," but the harm is much greater, and the negative symptoms stop you from accessing your full potential.
Camp Doom & Gloom also has internal differences.
The most pessimistic members, broken by life-long struggles, bitter regrets, and missed opportunities, consider ADHD a heavy burden or even a curse.
Many who were recently diagnosed describe how much they hate knowing they've lost years or decades of their life living in the dark, having to tame the chaos themselves, without clarity on what's going on.
As a result, you often see rhetoric where they are not "living" with but "suffering from" ADHD. There's an emphasis on venting your struggles, frustrations, and inability to cope, seeking validation, and looking for support from other people going through the same challenging experiences.
A less dejected wing of camp Doom & Gloom acknowledges the harsh reality of having ADHD but doesn't give up hope that they will be able to improve their life and persevere despite all challenges.
According to them, ADHD is a mental health disorder and a disability based on the neurotypical society in which each of us lives. Accepting the seriousness of the condition doesn't mean there is anything wrong with you because you are not responsible for having it.
ADHD may have some benefits, but they are vastly overshadowed by the negatives, especially in severe cases. The picture of "superpowers" and "reaching your full potential" focuses on statistical exceptions that aren't true to most lived experiences with the condition.
Done right, fully accepting reality allows you to have realistic goals and expectations of what you can achieve. It also means the people around you treat the condition more seriously. It's not a quirk or some mild disadvantage but an actual disability that requires special accommodation and support.
However, the more grounded and realistic image of ADHD can always slip into excessive pessimism and nihilism, where discussion of all the negatives can become overwhelming and shut off any hope for progress.
Personal Opinion - Why I Don’t Support The Concept of ADHD Superpowers
What you choose to believe is very subjective and depends on your character, history, and current environment.
Let's say you are someone who gets overwhelmed, highly anxious, and even paralyzed by all the negative statistics and rhetoric around ADHD. Then, having a more optimistic outlook may be preferable. Many people who lack confidence and have low self-worth could benefit from positive encouragement and messages emphasizing their strength and potential.
Still, I believe in the opposite. Being part of Doom & Gloom is a view more aligned with the current science on ADHD and is beneficial not only for you but the way society views ADHD in general. Here is why I prefer being more pessimistic:
The Myth of The Gifted And Creative ADHD Child
One of the most popular examples of ADHD superpowers that people cite again and again is “creativity,” especially divergent thinking.
However, if you look at the actual data, like a meta-analysis done of all available studies on ADHD and creativity, you’d see that there is no statistically strong connection (1,2,3)
To be very nuanced, the method used for measurement really matters when you are evaluating the connection between creativity and ADHD. If you look into the individual studies cited above, measuring creativity in people who display ADHD symptoms shows a mild connection. However, if you measure creativity in people who have a clinical diagnosis of ADHD, the connection disappears.
Furthermore, in one of the meta-analyses, self-reporting in questionnaires did show that people with ADHD claim that they feel themselves to be more creative. This is a valid way for a person to present themselves, but not enough to support a conclusion for a scientific study. It’s not enough because it’s very common in self-reporting studies for people to have an inaccurate perception of their strengths and weaknesses.
Finally, among the smaller studies included in this meta-analysis, there are some conclusions that display a positive connection between ADHD and creativity, but a common problem among them is the group that was examined.
So, looking specifically into college students (correlated with higher intelligence) or people with ADHD who have high intelligence (high IQ correlates with creativity) is problematic because it doesn’t give an accurate and diverse enough picture of the general population.
You can see a similar contrast between popular narratives of ADHD people being highly intelligent and gifted and what the actual data says. Studies show that people with ADHD were represented equally across populations of different IQ levels, and in some meta-analysis conclusions, neurodivergent people were even in the lower bracket for average intelligence.
To be fair, there are obvious problems with measuring IQ in people with ADHD. Inattention, distractibility, and impulsivity make it much harder to stay for more than 10 minutes and do a boring IQ assessment. However, studies don’t show a significant leap in IQ points even when accounting for those impairments (4,5)
Creativity and gifted intelligence are not the reality of the average person with ADHD.
The problem is that many people get a false perception of ADHD and creativity because the media spotlight focuses on the success stories of artists and entrepreneurs. You see them in TexTalks, YouTube podcasts, and news segments, which creates the perception that the outliers are the norm.
Note: Science shows an average across a very large group, so you can have a totally different individual experience. I know ADHD’ers who are naturally very creative because they spontaneously follow ideas on a whim and develop them, always have more than a dozen thoughts circling in their mind, and their curiosity keeps them always learning and increasing their knowledge and experience. You can freely claim your ADHD helps you be creative, but be careful when applying the same label to everyone else.
Having ADHD Is Far From Being Super Human
As it currently stands, data suggests the negative effects of ADHD are much more severe and universal across those with the condition. These effects include harmful instances of impulsivity, short attention span, emotional dysregulation, rejection sensitivity, a higher likelihood of addiction, and depression (6)
Undiagnosed and untreated ADHD can shorten the lifespan of a person by up to 13 years (7).
So, even if claims for milder increases in intelligence and creativity are somehow true across the general population, they are not enough to compensate for the severe disruptions in life quality.
Again, to be charitable, we can play the devil’s advocate. The current scientific data could point toward the deficits of ADHD instead of the unique strengths simply because the focus was on a deficit-centered approach to ADHD research (8)
However, those limited studies have considerably small samples of less than a hundred people, and it’s not clear where you draw the line from personality traits and abilities provided exclusively by ADHD. Finally, a deficit in research on ADHD strengths implies that there is more to be done in this direction, not a conclusion that ADHD superpowers definitely exist.
ADHD Symptoms Are More Likely To Be Negative than Positive
Many "superpowers" are just the positive side of one ADHD symptom. Every coin has two sides, and they choose to focus on the potential positives.
Camp Sunshine & Rainbows frames impulsivity as being proactive and spontaneous, inattention as daydreaming and deep thought, and hyperactivity as being entrepreneurial and risk-taking.
Even if we recognize that ADHD comes with "superpowers," that doesn't mean that they are more powerful or get activated more often than the negative side of your symptoms.
Being spontaneous could sometimes lead to a memorable romantic moment with your partner or an enjoyable night out with your friends.
However, not thinking about the consequences and implications of your decisions is usually a pretty terrible idea. Going above your credit card limit, staying until 4 am to binge a show despite having to wake up early, saying the first thing that comes to mind in a sensitive situation with a friend, or leaving your job to open up a small business without any long-term planning and savings are all examples of that.
I don’t know about you, but so far, ADHD has bitten me in the ass much more than it has been a blessing to my life.
This could be personal bias, but if you’ve ever browsed online spaces for neurodivergent people, you’d see terms like “ADHD tax” for when your symptoms lose you money, cost you relationships, cause unnecessary stress, and set your life behind. I have yet to hear of an equally recognizable positive version of ADHD as a gift.
If you examine your track record of decisions, it is likely you will find more instances of regrettable financial decisions due to impulsivity, obsessive hyper-fixation and addiction, and careless mistakes and procrastination due to executive dysfunction that cost you friends or career opportunities.
This negative track record shouldn’t be surprising because ADHD has been documented time and time again as a mental health disorder where brain circuits and neurotransmitters are not working as intended (9)
Maybe many of us will end up wrong, but for the time being, ADHD is conclusively correlated with more negative experiences than positive ones based on scientific data.
If you want a quick glimpse at the reality of living with ADHD, visit any online forum, like r/ADHD, or Discord servers dedicated to ADHD or neurodivergence in general. The average person there is much more likely to seek emotional support, an opportunity to vent their frustration, pain, and anger, and advice on their issues, rather than posting about their wonderful life due to their unique superpowers.
Society Exacerbates The Negative Aspect of ADHD Symptoms
It doesn't matter if you are secretly Superman, who has amazing powers, if the world you live in is covered from head to toe with kryptonite.
Neurotypical society is very often not compatible with the abilities, talents, and needs of neurodivergent people like those with ADHD.
For example, having the capacity to hyper-focus on creative, engaging, and thought-provoking projects doesn't matter if work environments require you to work on boring and repetitive tasks that are not very enjoyable.
In theory, people with ADHD would be excellent entrepreneurs, but in reality, not many have the privilege, wealth, financial cushioning, and connections to get there. In a world that praises discipline, consistency, habits, and routines, people with ADHD are clearly in opposition to norms around productivity and success because they crave variety, novelty, and excitement.
Even worse, the world is very often actively hostile - designed to exacerbate negative symptoms of ADHD because it's beneficial and profitable.
For example, social media is especially destructive toward people with ADHD. It turns curiosities into potential addictions, worsens and reduces an already short and hard-to-regulate attention span, turns procrastination into intense action paralysis, and weaponizes impulsivity toward poor financial decisions and purchases.
The Negative Symptoms Undermine Superpower Potential
Raise your hand if you've gotten into a conflict with a friend because you said something insensitive and rude in the heat of the moment. Tap with your foot if you can be very successful in a hobby or a career but switch it to something else due to intense boredom.
How about losing a career opportunity because you made a careless mistake in the review or didn't meet a deadline? What about the times you almost got fired for struggling to keep up with the pace of others and needing additional accommodation?
Let's not get started on how many projects and goals you didn't manage to finish because of lost motivation, procrastination, and burnout.
In theory, people with ADHD have vast potential for success. In reality, executive dysfunction and brain chemistry disruptions often prevent that potential from turning into action.
Maybe you are a highly creative artist with many ideas swirling in your mind, but you can't make yourself start, can't stop yourself from abandoning projects halfway through, and keep switching from one interest to another.
Perhaps you are an entrepreneur with brilliant out-of-the-box thinking, but emotional dysregulation makes the constant stress overwhelming, and you don't have the patience and willpower to stick through for the years necessary for the eventual business breakthrough.
ADHD superpowers sound promising on paper, but they often collapse in reality.
Having An Optimal Lifestyle And Healthy Habits Is Very Hard With ADHD
In many cases, it's implicitly or explicitly suggested that there is a formula for optimal living that can get ADHD symptoms in control, allowing you to thrive while taking advantage of your superpowers.
That’s technically true.
Theoretically, you can be very successful if you are sleeping well, exercising with both cardio and strength training, eating enough to meet your macro requirements, meditating, doing regular ice baths and sauna, and resting enough while having a fulfilling and challenging career, support networks to love you and keep you accountable, and a therapist, or a coach.
As you can probably tell, there are a lot of conditions to fully get your ADHD in control. However, those are conditions that are not accessible to many people.
Eating optimally, getting meds, hiring a coach, and going to therapy consistently are not affordable for many people. Furthermore, many people don’t have the time or energy to rest properly, sleep enough, meditate, or exercise regularly.
The problem with camp Sunshines & Rainbows is that they steer dangerously close to dismissing the struggles of people with ADHD, even if this is not the intention.
The advice can often seem like you are thrown a bunch of habits you need to develop and maintain, and once you have the to-do list covered, you are ready to thrive with your unique strengths and superpowers. In reality, the life of the average person with ADHD is chaotic, very complicated, and full of unpredictable and unexpected challenges and problems that constantly arise.
We should all strive to be healthy to live longer, enjoy life more, and reduce the severity of ADHD symptoms. However, by emphasizing the massive strengths and superpowers of ADHD, the presentation on how to handle the negative aspects can become far too simplistic, reductive, and detached from reality.
Unfortunately, living optimally with ADHD is unrealistic and inaccessible for many people. Claiming otherwise can risk diminishing their immense struggle and effort to remain healthy and cope with the symptoms.
Being Realistic Doesn't Mean You Need to Be Hopeless
Having ADHD is more likely to be a disadvantage. It's classified as a disorder and disability for a reason. However, that doesn't mean you should view yourself as flawed, broken, or cursed in any way.
A more somber and realistic view of the condition allows you to adjust your goals and expectations. You should still seek to improve your life, learn how to better navigate around your symptoms, and create systems to cope with them, but falling short on those goals doesn't hurt as much anymore.
Conversely, a highly positive view of ADHD creates a lot of pressure to perform well. If the condition has many great strengths, unique skills, and superpowers, then it seems only natural to thrive in life. If you fall short of these standards, you are bound to feel miserable and lonely because other neurodivergent people can seemingly take advantage of those strengths, but you can’t.
Not meeting your goals and reaching your dreams hurts the most precisely when you undermine how severe ADHD is and focus mostly on your strengths and unique superpowers. If ADHD offers you so many advantages and you still struggle, then it's much more painful because you have no excuse. Superman isn't supposed to have challenges.
Knowing that many people struggle daily with ADHD, and it is a permanent challenge, can be oddly comforting. Whenever you abandon a goal, face immense challenges, and see yourself on the verge of giving up, it's comforting to know that you are not alone in those adverse experiences.
It's normal to feel as though you have to give 300% of yourself every single day just to cope with your day-to-day responsibilities because this is most likely how the average person with ADHD feels.
If you seek validation and comfort, you can still get that with a more realistic view of ADHD. People will offer you validation and respect when they see you trying, slowly progressing, and meeting your goals at your own pace despite the immense challenges posed by ADHD.
The Social Danger of Glorifying ADHD
We live in a hyper-individualistic society, and most people, by default, assume you ought to prioritize yourself above all else. Even if you focus on yourself as the biggest priority, you shouldn't entirely ignore the impact your rhetoric about ADHD could have on the views of other people.
At best, Camp Sunshines & Rainbows can lead to the implicit trivializations of the ADHD struggle. At worst, it can explicitly undermine the seriousness of the condition. The impact of having such a belief and spreading it to others doesn't end with you because it begins to shape society's overall perception of ADHD.
The more serious and severe ADHD is perceived to be, the more urgency and obligation there is to offer accessible diagnosis, clinical treatment, therapeutic tools, and support networks. This is crucial for people with the condition who are already struggling to earn the needed support and empathy from neurotypical folk who are skeptical of its existence or severity, to begin with.
How can you effectively advocate that people with ADHD need medication to function normally while simultaneously saying it's inherent to the condition to have "superpowers" that can make you ultra-successful?
Ask the average person if they’d support disability assistance and regulation for people with ADHD if the condition had as many positives as negatives, and they are likely to either look at you with great confusion or spit in your face for making ludicrous claims.
We need the public to know that ADHD is more than the rosy and romanticized view of daydreaming, zoning out, blurting out quirky conversation responses, and hyper-focusing on creative and meaningful projects.
If distrust and lack of empathy are the norm when viewing ADHD, emphasizing the immense positives it holds can be highly destructive and counter-productive because it risks tearing down how seriously ADHD is taken.
Perhaps the belief in superpowers is motivating and inspiring for neurodivergent people who need a confidence boost. Still, there are ways to find confidence in your potential without running the risk of your condition not being taken seriously by others. You can be equally confident if you know you are doing your best despite setbacks and adversity.
Key Takeaways
I personally think that romanticizing the suffering and glorifying the symptoms of ADHD is not a healthy way to perceive the condition.
Although a positive view of ADHD can offer a confidence boost for some people, believing in ADHD superpowers is ultimately detached from the lived experiences of most people with the condition and isn't supported by the current scientific literature.
ADHD can sometimes be a gift, but most of the time it is not.
Buying into the "superpowers" narrative runs dangerously close to the problematic culture of toxic positivity. This can erode the seriousness and severity of the problems caused by ADHD for the sake of offering short-term relief.
Accepting ADHD as a serious mental health disorder and a disability doesn't mean you need to waive the white flag and give up. You still have a duty toward yourself and others to lead a better life, but this quest for social, career, and personal growth should be done with realistic expectations and goals that accurately account for your ADHD.
