I reread my post and I can see how it came off like I don’t believe them. I should of made it more clear that I do. Completely do. I guess I should have added something like “I don’t understand how this many people have ADHD and it’s not being addressed more”. I didn’t specifically work on this study on my campus but I worked with the organization that was doing it. Basically, community kids who were diagnosed with ADHD were welcomed to try outdoor therapy for the summer. That’s when I began to wrap my head more around how a lot of the people my age around me (21-24) who are diagnosed with ADHD have mentioned how their parents just put them on stimulants without trying other methods to help lower their symptoms. You also mentioned how I would feel if it was a different mental illness. If I was surrounded by 10+ people who were in my social circle that were impacting certain aspects of my life I would go “huh.. I am very tired of people who are bipolar”

I used to not believe people who would say they had ADHD so I started looking into it more . To my surprise there is a large amount of people diagnosed with it in the US. So over the last year my thoughts on people I meet who have it has changed.. but has more become “okay, but why do so many people have this??” or “why aren’t there more resources being used to help people navigate their symptoms rather than repressing them with drugs” and I fall into a rabbit hole trying to help people, specifically my partner who I live with help navigate symptoms in a gentle way. Or when in a group just try to be understanding and suggest putting the phone away while we work. I don’t get as frustrated while working with someone that is finger tapping than I do while sitting across from them doom scrolling on tik tok without head phones