I have a debilitating condition — it’s not a ‘superpower’

Scrolling on TikTok after I was first diagnosed with ADHD, I was desperately searching for a community to connect with. And while I deeply resonated with others, particularly women, who were sharing their lifelong struggles, I quickly came across one trope that left a sour taste.

On countless podcasts and social media posts, I saw other neurodivergent people encouraging their fellow ADHDers to view their condition not as something to hold them back, but as a ‘superpower.’

For a fleeting moment, I truly wanted to believe that I could be capable of channelling this mentality. Understanding my true self and unlocking the answers to questions I’d chased after for so long was truly liberating, but afterwards came a heavy realisation: I’d spent more than 20 years not understanding my own brain. I mourned that loss of time.

And so, I truly wanted to believe that if I could sugarcoat this diagnosis in some way, shape or form, that could only be transformative. I could let the subsequent grief destroy me, or I could take another spin on it.

Pretty quickly, though, I realised that it simply wasn’t going to work for me.

As someone with ADHD, I believe this term is toxic positivity at its finest, trying to force us to perennially see the ‘good’ in the condition while ignoring the difficulties that come with it. 

It plays into the idea that, for people living with ADHD to be palatable, we exclusively need to play into our strengths – and ignore how debilitating living in a world designed by and for neurotypical people is. 

That’s why I believe that now is the time for us to stop perpetuating this rhetoric – because not only does it misrepresent ADHD as something that can and should predominantly be used to our advantage, but it also suggests that we can almost ‘girl boss’ our way out of the ableism that still oppresses neurodivergent people every single day.

For as long as I can remember, I have perpetually run late (which was so common that my friends had developed a term for it: ‘Ellie time’); I’m so clumsy that I trip over my own feet; I leave virtually every task until the last possible minute, and I’ve always struggled with my mental health.

I vividly recall telling my mum at 15 that if a doctor were to look at my brain, the scan would light up in bright, colourful hues. This is because I was convinced that I was hard-wired to process information differently and always felt that I experienced emotions on a deeper spectrum than the average person. 

Doctors thought I had anxiety and depression, and I was prescribed SSRIs, beta blockers, and recommended meditation and talking therapy. Nothing worked. 

Finally, in November 2021, aged 23 – after an assessment with a psychiatrist – I got a diagnosis of combined ADHD. There are three types of ADHD: inattentive, hyperactive, and combined, which means that I display elements of both hyperactivity and inattentiveness.

I have trouble focusing, but my mind can also be incredibly frenzied. I can be pretty disorganised at the best of times, but there’s equally a lot of energy passing through me: my leg is always jittering up and down, and I’m often fidgeting.

Hearing those words come out of his mouth was a complete relief, as though years of struggle had been validated in one fell swoop. It taught me that I wasn’t broken – my brain was just a little bit different. 

Shortly after my diagnosis, I started to find solace in engaging with the neurodivergent community online.

While much of what I encountered made me feel safe in the knowledge that it wasn’t just me who felt like a square peg in a round hole, I quickly came across a piece of terminology that didn’t quite sit right with me: the idea that ADHD is a ‘superpower.’

Don’t get me wrong: I completely see why someone – neurodivergent or otherwise – would try to focus on the many positives that living with ADHD can bring. 

Whether they’re just living with one form of neurodiversity or other conditions that fit under the umbrella, too – like autism, dyslexia, or dyspraxia – every individual experience of ADHD is absolutely unique. 

It’s not a one-size-fits-all experience, but I personally know that I’m constantly overflowing with ideas, I can jump into action in a crisis, I’m highly creative, and I’m incredibly passionate. So much so that I can end up hyperfixated on my special interests for hours. 

I know everything about my favourite bands, and I’m able to recall with remarkable accuracy the exact year a film, album, or book I enjoyed came out. It’s just like having a ‘mind palace’ or an archive inside my brain, stacked full of everything I’ve ever been enamoured with – even if that was 14 years ago, when I was a teenager on the school bus listening to my iPod. 

But when I’m crying on my bedroom floor because my room’s a mess and I physically can’t tidy it up; I’ve forgotten to pay a bill and I’ve subsequently been charged, or my mind has been racing so much that sleep has been replaced by insomnia, these positives don’t always come to me. And in these low moments, I certainly don’t feel as though I have a superpower. 

All I can feel is frustration. It’s dark, and it can be lonely. 

When we think about superheroes and special ‘powers,’ we might conjure up images of benevolent saviours in capes. It’s not really my kind of thing, so the best analogy I can conjure up is Batman declaring, ‘I am vengeance, I am the night.’ But in one way or another, they’re usually there to save the world.

I don’t see how I’m supposed to fit that trope. The reality is that ADHD still holds so much stigma and misunderstanding – and likening it to a ‘superpower’ completely downplays the reality that the estimated 3 million Brits living with it face every single day. 

In 2024, one study from pharmaceutical company Takeda found that 96% of people with ADHD said they were hesitant to tell their workplace about their diagnosis. 

Almost three quarters attributed this towards fear of judgment, while around half worried that it could be used against them. 

Against that backdrop, we’re perpetually inundated with misleading headlines about our community: that ADHD is being ‘overdiagnosed’ now. In 2023, the BBC went as far as to send a reporter out to private ADHD clinics to see if he could obtain a diagnosis, despite not having the condition. 

In the aftermath, charity ADHD UK polled 2,203 people living with the condition and found that 90% believed that ADHD stigma increased in the aftermath of its airing, while 88% were concerned that it wasn’t fair in its representation. 

And so, this ADHD Awareness Month, the best thing that we as a community can do for ourselves is to leave behind this ‘superhero’ narrative. I wouldn’t change my diagnosis for the world; understanding who I am and how my brain works has forever changed my life.

But to suggest that it’s not a completely disabling, debilitating condition that so many continue to misjudge is, for me, a complete falsehood. Society owes us more than that. 

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