What do you need an ADHD label for?

A question that can come up when you’re talking with someone about your ADHD suspicions or suggesting you might pursue a diagnosis is:

Seven little words can hold such weight. With the particular use of the word ‘label’ the person who’s sharing their ADHD suspicions hears an implication that it is a label and we shouldn’t want it. We shouldn’t be going down this path of investigation or pursuing a diagnosis or even talking about it openly.

When you start to share that you think you might have ADHD it can feel tender, exposing, and what you really need is for your vulnerability to be received with an open mind and heart. Because, chances are, you’re unsure yourself as the idea you could have been neurodivergent all this time – that it could explain so much about you and your life – is blowing your mind somewhat.

So, for someone you’re opening up with to ask, “What do you need a label for?” it feels like they’re shutting you down. Dismissing what feels like a seismic revelation as unnecessary attention-seeking. You’ve doubted yourself most of your life and just as you’re beginning to see a chink of believable light this one question slams shut the door.

I wrote a post here about the fear of being seen as jumping on the bandwagon when you suggest you may have ADHD.

Here’s the thing: we already have labels, many of them in fact.

Labels that others gave to us, that we took on board, that we gave ourselves.

Labels we’ve carried around since childhood that have shaped us, stopped us, gaslit us.

Labels that made us feel not enough and too much at the same time.

Labels such as: intense, faddish, careless, scatterbrained, lazy, erratic, too quiet, too sensitive, disorganised, over-organised, flaky, a daydreamer, a worrier, moody, forgetful, weird, a bit crap…

Here’s the real thing: ADHD is not a label, it’s an explanation. It’s an understanding.

Your ADHD discovery makes sense, probably for the first time in all your decades, of who you are. Why you think the way you do. Why you feel and behave the way you do. It explains what feels difficult and different, as well as what feels easy. It lifts the heavy cloak of confusion, bewilderment and shame that you’ve carried all your life because things never felt quite right, you were never quite right (in others’ eyes at least).

So, what do we need an ADHD label for?

To replace and free us from the many untrue, harmful labels given to us since we were children, with an explanation that our brains aren’t wrong, they’re different, and an understanding that we can work with.

How did you respond when someone asked what you need an ADHD label for? How would you answer now? Share in the comments below.