Gemma Spake

Everybody could have the label of having an anxiety disorder.

But nobody is then focusing on why that is because the world is becoming more uncertain because of financial pressures, because of unstable housing, emotional unpredictability.

Everybody has ADHD and everybody could have the label, but then we're not investigating the fact that, wait a second, maybe the real question is,

Why does modern life ask people to stare at screens for 12 hours a day?

Why does modern life ask people to switch tasks constantly?

Why does it ask us to process endless notifications and manage impossible admin and maintain sustained focus under artificial conditions?

I could go on.

Of course, that is going to have an impact on human attention.

I think that everybody would be slightly mentally fragmented under those conditions, but people with ADHD, so much more so.

And what's interesting is that

they are asking to, you know, be given a label, take medication, change all these things.

And nobody's thinking like, wait, why do our systems not support these people?

Why does it all come back to here is a diagnosis.

Here is the thing that is wrong with you and not the things that are wrong with how our society has been set up to support you.

I listened to this amazing podcast the other day that essentially talked about how modern society is pushing more people into a space where their behavior and their mood is of concern and

because of how little our current systems actually match what we need as humans or how our brains are designed.

And so, again, no wonder more people see themselves in the symptoms of ADHD or in the symptoms of mood disorders or anxiety or depression when our physical, social, financial, emotional environment is so disrupted.

I think the real issue I have with this discussion of like, why does everybody have a diagnosis these days is like, because why wouldn't you relate to these symptoms?

And why wouldn't you relate to these depictions of these conditions and sometimes these disorders when, yes, a social media is depicting them as so simplified, but also when life is so

awful at times people that it is actually pushing people into a state that does mimic symptoms of very real conditions and disorders obviously like this isn't all about environment at all but i think it really does go to show that like the individual blame that we place on people or that this discussion would like to place on people is not fair like it is not fair to be like to assume that everybody's trying to get attention or putting it on or whatever like