A doctor diagnosed with ADHD has revealed the biggest thing people misunderstand about the disorder.
Dr Alex George spoke on the ADHD Chatter Podcast about why more awareness about it is vital. And yes, that’s the one who was on Love Island back in 2018.
Short for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, the NHS defines ADHD as a condition affecting people’s behaviour. It can make people seem restless, cause difficulty with concentrating and might make people act on impulse.
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The 33-year-old often uses his platform to talk about mental health, his disorder and his sobriety journey.
And during the podcast he explained how ‘the ADHD picture of a young naughty boy bouncing around’ is ‘so far off’ from what the reality is.
The doctor claims that only about 10 percent of people with the condition ‘have hyperactivity’.
“Most people are combined,” he said, “They have the mixed type.”
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Dr George said that this stereotype of a hyper naughty little kid is ‘such a problematic thing’. He went on to explain how important it is to increase people’s understanding of ADHD.
“Because if people think it’s just about a naughty young boy that’s hyperactive running around the room, for a start you’re going to make them feel like rubbish when they don’t need to,” Dr George said.
“And secondly, there’s a whole bunch of people - particularly women - who are gonna think ‘Oh, well I don’t have it, that’s not what I have because I’m not a boy bouncing around the room’. So that’s why anti-stigma is so important.”
He added that it’s why raising awareness and understand is ‘so important’ because it’s not just about getting people ‘to think positively’.
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“It’s getting people to understand what are we actually talking about here?” he said.
Dr George previously took to Instagram to share his diagnosis with ADHD as he admitted it wasn’t ‘an easy one to write’.
“I have suspected for most of my teenage and adult life that I’m not the same as a lot of the others around me,” he wrote.
“I struggled when others did not and thrived where others found challenge. I have tried to hide and also conform for most of my life. Why? My fear has always been that I don’t want to be labelled and judged.”
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Nowadays, he is very open with it and uses his platform to help others and increase this understanding.
Topics: Mental Health, Health
Jess Battison