ADHD: it’s an acronym that I type frequently. It’s an acronym that I write with a pen or pencil frequently. If you have ADHD, you probably do too.
You may have noticed that it is a particularly unpleasant combination of letters; both to type, and to write. Perhaps it’s the other letter intervening between repeated “D”. ADD for example, is far easier to type, or write.
A dedicated ADHD key would make my life so much easier.
Of course, I am aware that there is likely to be a number of ways that I can assign a keyboard shortcut to that letter combination. Likely, also, it would take less time to do this than it would to write this post – just routine housekeeping. But ADHD means I’ll never do that. Ever. My brain simply will not go there.
The issue, however, is not the acronym. It is what that acronym stands for. I will not repeat the many and oh so very obvious reasons why the label Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is nonsense. Everyone with ADHD already knows all about that.
Medical folks have some history with misnomers – take the common cold, for example. A disease that makes you hot, and isn’t confined to cold seasons.
Naming things, any thing, is very challenging. So, one can have some sympathy for someone who gets a name a bit wrong. However, ADHD is so obviously, wildly wrong. So wrong, in fact, that its name alone actually promotes misunderstandings and prejudice about the condition. It’s akin to Orca being called Killer Whale.
One can only hope that one of the topics up for discussion at next March’s 10th World Congress on ADHD in Prague, is the very name of the condition itself.
Yes, changing the name and the acronym will result in everyone having to run “find and replace” in an enormous number of documents.
But, this may well be a routine housekeeping task that people with ADHD will be very willing to do.
That may be a price worth paying.