ADHD Acceptance Month – ADHD Political Issue

ADHD Butterfly Source

There are some horrifying statistics in regards to ADHD – 25-35% of prison populations are ADHD people with it unmanaged. There are even more alarming trends when you begin to pick that apart.

The School-to-Prison Pipeline

I have written about this before in regards to me. I have been allowed leniency in my younger life when I was a “troubled youth” – you can read that here.

When I was young teachers hated me – I was disruptive, too loud, fidgety, “a smart ass”. I was told off repeatedly for helping others rather than working on my own work (my first ever school report mentioned this). I spent a lot of my education outside the classroom – secluded.

I ditched school one day when I was 14 and got caught shoplifting on the same day (goaded by peer pressure – I stopped being friends with my “friends” after this). I was given extreme leniency by the police, and also by the dean of the school I attended – who knew my family.

I know through research and studying criminology at university that had I been an ethnic minority, none of this would have happened. I would have ended up in front of a youth magistrate, probably sentenced to a youth justice facility. One of the most insidious things would have begun happening – I would have been fast tracked into a life where I ended up in prison – doomed to criminality due to not being understood.

You can read about this here in the UK, but the effect is worldwide.

This awful phenomenon is known as the school-to-prison pipeline and has been well documented in many countries. It happens in New Zealand too. Children like me, mostly ethnic minorities – especially Black ADHDers, who are not understood wind up being treated extremely poorly by schools – this behaviour often means that police get involved – and soon enough they are set up for a life time of incarceration – a totally inhumane practice where we fail often the most vulnerable members of our society and cause more isolation, harm, and trauma.

The Compounding Factor of False Confessions

When you are constantly being traumatised as a kid, you often feel your life is pointless and that self-sacrifice to stop others from being harmed is the right thing to do – this can lead to you taking the blame for someone else. This statistic has been measured now in science multiple times – false confessions in untreated and uneducated ADHD people are a huge problem:

There was a high rate of reported false confessions (33.4%); the reason for the majority (62.2%) being to “cover up for somebody else.” CD, ADHD, psychological distress and psychiatric symptoms, and compliance were all significant predictors of false confession.

The Risk of Making False Confessions: The Role of Developmental Disorders, Conduct Disorder, Psychiatric Symptoms, and Compliance

Just over a third of ADHD people currently serving time in this Scottish study had falsely confessed to crimes, and the majority of them did it to cover for someone else.

If I was questioned a lot by someone in an authority position before I knew I had ADHD like these people – I would try and please them if I felt like I was making no progress. I would just tell them what I thought they wanted to hear – this finding does not surprise me in the least.

There’s a lot of injustice in our ‘justice’ systems.

Daily blog challenge

October is here usually known as ‘ADHD Awareness Month’ – but IMO we ADHDers deserve more than that – we deserve acceptance. We need to be listened to, we need realistic accommodations, and help. We need to start moving toward ADHD Pride Month. People should be able to feel proud of being ADHDers, because the alternative is shame.

For 31 days I will be writing every day on being an ADHDer using this list of prompts:

• Day 1: Introduction
• Day 2: What I love about being an ADHDer is…
• Day 3: My Identification/Discovery Story
• Day 4: Reactions to Identification
• Day 5: Hobby Graveyard
• Day 6: Supports and Appreciation
• Day 7: The ADHDer Community
• Day 8: Favourite ADHDer Blogs/Comics
• Day 9: Favourite ADHD Owned Business
• Day 10: Sensory Seeking/Aversion
• Day 11: Fidgets and Stims
• Day 12: Favourite ADHD Charity
• Day 13: Family
• Day 14: Order from Chaos
• Day 15: Everyone Should Know
• Day 16: Work/School
• Day 17: ADHD People I Admire
• Day 18: Someday…
• Day 19: I Love it When…
• Day 20: Communication Style
• Day 21: One thing other people don’t understand…
• Day 22: Dispel a myth
• Day 23: Can’t Live without…
• Day 24: ADHD Political Issue
• Day 25: Symbols
• Day 26: Favourite ADHD Book
• Day 27: Identity Language
• Day 28: Dealing with Boredom
• Day 29: Favourite Memes
• Day 30: Hyperfocus
• Day 31: Acceptance Means…