How often do you hear a version of these statements:
“Well, what do you expect? He’s a narcissist.”
Or: “So sorry I didn’t reply to your text – that’s my ADHD acting up again!”
In my line of work in mental health, I hear things like this a lot. But I also notice this therapy-speak trend in my normal life too.
This noticing was percolating in my brain, unformed, until I found a Substack called GIRLS by Freya India (you should check her out). She wrote an article on this topic, summing up this TikTok-meets-Therapy phenomenon. She writes, “We have lost the sentimental ways we used to describe people. Now you are always late to things not because you are lovably forgetful (…) but because of ADHD.”
She goes on to say that the key pieces of our personality and character have been hacked into symptoms we use to diagnose ourselves and others.
Generous? That is people-pleasing.
Emotional lovers? Anxiously attached.
We are walking trauma bonds with imposter syndrome rather than eccentric and quirky humans. I worry a lot about “boundaries” becoming walls. An inconvenient life is a good life, and picking up that friend from the airport at 5am doesn’t mean you’re enmeshed; it means you are friends.
It might seem odd for a therapist to argue against this self-analysis. And I’m not. I practice root-cause therapy and whole-heartedly believe untangling the past creates a much richer present. I also know that getting a diagnosis can be deeply affirming and necessary for many.
I’m asking that we de-medicalize our language around ourselves.
We are so much more interesting than a collection of symptoms, and we need to be careful when we pathologize a personality. It’s tempting to intellectualize our experiences rather than feeling them, finding solace in a label rather than living in the uncomfortable mystery of who we are…and why. A diagnosis means there is something to correct. If we are always fixing ourselves, we risk dimming our sparkliest parts.
As someone who is very guilty of over-examining every aspect of myself, it feels like a relief. A relief to replace being an impulsive people pleaser with ADHD with just… being kind of weird, chronically disorganized with a love of talking to everybody I see on the street. (Or anywhere, please come say hi!)
What if we own our oddities, love them even, and accept them as the fabric that makes us, us?
There is beauty in the mystery…and in being kinda weird.
Kelly Linehan, RCT-C, is an optimistic, proud Lunenburger, mom, wife and friend.
Beautiful article.