The Glass ADHD Ceiling
Why ADHD awareness feels stuck and how to refocus our efforts
My first blog post! Ah!!!!
October is ADHD Awareness Month, and every October I do a reflection. But my 2025 reflection was different. You can listen to it here: ADHD Awareness Month Reflections. I also wanted to put my verbal reflections down on paper/screen and expand on them, especially now that 2025 is over and I’m sitting with this strange mix of disillusionment and hope for the ADHD world and its people.
So… here goes.
I said it in the episode, but I genuinely feel like we’ve hit a peak. A glass ceiling. I am incredibly proud of how far we’ve come with ADHD awareness in science. There is so much good, rigorous, genuinely exciting research being done, things I never thought would be explored or considered relevant to ADHD.
We’re looking at the gut microbiome and how it might impact or be linked to ADHD. We’re finally looking properly at women with ADHD and how our menstrual cycles affect symptoms. We’ve come so damn far. And all of this research is actively improving treatments, medications, and therapies, not just for us now, but for the next generation of ADHDers.
But socially? I don’t feel proud at all.
I feel like we’ve hit a pretty crappy peak with ADHD awareness. Most people now know that ADHD is real, that it exists, but that’s kind of where it stops. We’re left with that baseline awareness plus a flood of shocking takes and wildly uninformed “information” swirling around online, which is where most people get their information. People aren’t reading scientific studies. They’re scrolling. And the information they’re consuming is often just… crap.
I often catch myself thinking: maybe this is it. Maybe this is as far as it goes. People “know” ADHD exists, but only through the internet, and it never moves beyond that. I think that’s a really sad place to be. And I don’t want it to stay like that.
It feels like we’re not advancing alongside the science. The science is moving forward at speed, but socially we’re stuck at the awareness stage, just sitting there, doing nothing, getting comfortable, and honestly being a bit lazy. On top of that, ADHD is increasingly being treated and talked about as something other than what it actually is: a neurodevelopmental condition and an example of neurodiversity.
Instead, it’s being conceptualised as a neurosis, a disability, a political identity. This is especially obvious in how we talk about neurodiversity. We’re no longer treating it as a scientific concept. Neurodiversity was meant to describe natural variation in how human brains develop and function. Now it’s being tangled up with things that simply aren’t relevant to it, like sexuality and politics.
There’s even a term that’s had a resurgence lately: neuroqueer. The definitions floating around are long, abstract, and honestly confusing. It can be a verb, an adjective, or an identity. It talks about challenging neuronormativity and heteronormativity and blending neurodivergence with queer identity, but it becomes a lot of word salad very quickly.
It’s hard to pin down because it’s so much something and yet nothing at the same time. And I feel like that faux complexity doesn’t help anyone. It complicates things and diverts attention away from the reality of ADHD, ADHD awareness, and actual advocacy.
Yes, there are studies suggesting some overlap between neurodivergence and the LGBTQ+ community, particularly in autism, where people may experience a sense of internal disconnect. That research is interesting. But attaching sexuality and gender to neurodiversity as a concept ends up co-opting it and changing important definitions.
That leads to confusion, misinformation, and distraction from the core issue. It also becomes dangerous, because it gives ammunition to people who are already skeptical, hostile, or outright dismissive. We really don’t need to give those people more fodder.
ADHD is not linked to sexuality or gender expression. Not because those topics are taboo, they’re not, but because they’re simply not relevant here.
ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition. You are born with it. It presents as patterns of inattention, hyperactivity, and/or impulsivity that interfere with daily functioning. It affects school, work, emotional regulation, task management, routines, and the ability to follow instructions. It is not a sexuality. It is not a sociopolitical identity.
Parents of ADHD kids want practical information. They want to know what ADHD actually is. How to help their child. What treatments or medications might help. How to manage comorbidities like anxiety. They do not need abstract sociological concepts layered on top of an already complex condition.
When everything becomes “neurodiverse,” nothing is. Neurodiversity refers to specific neurotypes, ADHD, autism, dyslexia, dyscalculia, Tourette’s, dyspraxia. These are neurodevelopmental conditions that affect how the brain functions from birth.
Mental illnesses and personality disorders already have their own classifications for a reason. Language matters. It exists to reduce stigma and increase clarity, not to blur everything into one vague, meaningless category.
We’ve fought too hard for ADHD to be taken seriously to now let it dissolve into social-media discourse and hot takes. Labelling everything as ADHD while doing absolutely nothing to meet the real needs of the ADHD community is not progress.
We need to move with the science. We need to talk about how ADHD presents differently in women. About hormones. The menstrual cycle, gut health, diagnostic access, medication stigma, cost barriers etc. These are the conversations that actually matter!
ADHD is not abstract. It’s not a philosophical dinner-party talking point. It’s a lifelong condition affecting millions of people, every single day, from birth to death.
We need to refocus. Go back to the original purpose of neurodiversity. Ask ourselves what the goal actually was. When we do that, ADHD awareness becomes clearer, and far more meaningful.
Oh, and some more things/thoughts…
I really feel like we’ve now made it cool to “identify” as ADHD. And yes, I’m using that word deliberately.
Self-diagnosis is becoming more and more common, and I don’t think it’s helpful or healthy. Even though my whole ethos is about loving my ADHD and acknowledging that it’s a huge part of my life, I find treating it as an identity label deeply bizarre, and honestly, a bit offensive.
It is not an identity. I don’t identify as ADHD. I was diagnosed with it. It’s a neurodevelopmental condition I was born with and will die with. I cannot opt in or out of it. I can’t stop “identifying” as ADHD, I just am. I don’t choose it.
Seeing people treat ADHD like an aesthetic or an identity they can claim feels gross…
And I think self-diagnosis actively degrades the credibility of ADHD in the public eye. It feeds straight into the “everyone’s a bit ADHD” narrative, which is untrue. ADHD isn’t more common now; it’s just better researched, better understood, and finally being taken seriously by the scientific world.
I want us to go back to talking about access, the stuff that bloody matters. Not this self-indulgent, navel-gazing bullshit.
So let’s go into 2026 with that energy!
