How social media changed ADHD forever

As ADHD content explodes during the Covid pandemic, countless people seek care for the first time, including many Black women. 

But new telehealth rules also open the door for potential misdiagnosis. 

More on this story:

• ADHD symptoms in women

• How to handle a misdiagnosis

• A day in Danielle’s life

Danielle: Believe it or not, I wasn't on social media during the height of the pandemic. Instagram got boring. No one was going anywhere or doing anything. There was nothing to be mindlessly voyeuristic about. I deleted my accounts and wasn't really on from March 2020 to November 2021, except a few days here and there.

I never joined TikTok because I'm afraid I'll get addicted. The few times I've looked at it, I've ended up scrolling through snowboarding videos for hours. So, no, I wasn't on social media during the pandemic. What'd I miss? The birth of ADHD social media, apparently.

By the time I tuned in, in early 2022, there were millions of posts with the hashtag ADHD. They had more than 11 billion views on TikTok. They filled my entire Instagram discovery page. For women who were on social media during the pandemic, these posts sparked an explosion of interest in ADHD. Terry Matlen, author of "The Queen of Distraction," has been treating women with ADHD since the late 90s. She told me she's never received such a sudden flood of emails from women looking for treatment.

Terry: I think that as women were stuck at home with, a lot of them with young children or older children, and they had to not only figure out how to work from home, helping their kids with school, being, your know, isolated and being expected to be able to take on all of this stuff, and they were just climbing the walls. Women were just climbing the walls, I got a lot of emails, and these gals were really, really frustrated in their self-esteem.

It was, "Why can't I do this? I'm not used to being home all day. I have no structure. I had no outside people telling me, you know, 'This is due now. What are you doing?'" You're gonna, you know, they got overwhelmed. It was really heartbreaking. It's too much. So they reached out for help.

Danielle: Some said they'd learned about ADHD on social media and now they wanted to talk to their doctors about it. They wanted help navigating these conversations.

Terry: They do have access to more information. So, they have an idea of, "OK, I think this is related to my ADHD, but I don't know what to do. I was diagnosed with depression, I think, as ADHD. How do I tell them that it could be ADHD?"

Danielle: Terry took this as a sign of progress. For decades, medical schools failed to educate psychiatrists and other doctors on the ways ADHD shows up in everyday life, especially for women. The lack of education and training led to years of misdiagnosis. She was happy to see that women were now more informed. She also worried about that information. In 2021, she joined TikTok to see if she could help.

Terry: I'm trying to disseminate appropriate, valid information and not, "Oh, I lost my keys, I have ADHD." You know, hello.

Danielle: Terry is one of many health professionals who jumped into the social media conversations. In 2021, The New York Times wrote about this phenomenon. A headline says, "Therapists are on TikTok. How does that make you feel?" A group of researchers in Dublin, Ireland tracked 28 active social media accounts owned by mental health professionals. All of these accounts had at least 100,000 followers. And according to the study, a third of the creators' posts aimed to educate people about mental health concerns.

The value of all this mental health content is up for debate. Whether it contributed to the sudden rise in diagnosis is not. There is no question that TikTok and the pandemic sparked something. Social media made it easier for information to spread to more people. Women started talking to each other, and they started understanding that they weren't the only ones struggling in the ways they were struggling.

B. A. Parker: Every couple of months, I think I'm going to learn how to draw, I buy a sketchbook, and then I'm like, no, there's a yoga mat in my apartment right now that I bought in the pandemic. Did I do yoga? Once.

Danielle: This is my friend Parker.

B. A. Parker: And then I'll have like these impulses. I'll be like, "OK, if I do this, this will exponentially make my life better." And then you're like, "OK, now what?" Like, "Oh, this shelf is going to be the thing that's going to solve all my problems."

Danielle: Oh yeah.

B. A. Parker: Learned a lot, man.

Danielle: I wanted her to tell me her story because of how well it illustrates how many women came to their ADHD diagnosis through the explosive combination of the pandemic and social media, as well as the ups and downs of that process. So, Parker, can you introduce yourself?

B. A. Parker: Sure. My name is B.A. Parker, I'm a radio host and an Aquarius with ADHD from a magical land called Baltimore.

Danielle: How did you figure out that you have ADHD?

B. A. Parker: I mean, I hate to say TikTok, but it was TikTok. There were certain things that TikTok figured out before I did. And then my 4u page started getting more and more ADHD focused. And I feel like they knew something I didn't, and it was less hot mountaineer men. And whatever the hell I was watching at the time, like Canadians, and like in like K-dramas, and then it became like "Are you a millennial with ADHD?" And I was like, "Am I?"

Danielle: She is. Me too. This is "Climbing the Walls," a podcast where I try to figure out why so many women are being diagnosed with ADHD. I'm Danielle Elliot.

It was around 2020. My friend Parker was going through what she described to me as a mini breakdown. She couldn't focus on work. She'd be up all night procrastinating and then at 10 o'clock decide to whip up a batch of salmon croquettes. Her own daily behavior didn't make any sense to Parker, but she was tuned into social media, and TikTok seemed to recognize exactly what was going on with her.

B. A. Parker: You know, you're doom-scrolling, and then someone's like, "Hey, are cabinets bad for you? Do you, when a cabinet closes, do you like a baby with no object permanence, forget that something exists?" I was like, wait, I do. "Do you come into a room and forget what you're in there for?" I was, like, I do. "Do you push things off to the very last minute to do them?" I was like, my whole life. And it was like a lot of things like that, and I was like, wait, do I have ADHD? I mean, I'm not sure.

Danielle: This was something that, up until then, Parker had not really considered. Parker had simply thought of herself as quirky. Though the medical community was slow to recognize ADHD in adult women, social media discussions among the women themselves go back almost as far as social media itself. Terry Matlen says she hosted AOL chat rooms about it in the 90s. Women connected in Facebook groups. Instagram launched in 2010. Snapchat in 2011.

At first, they were personal feeds, and later, people were using them to distribute information. But when TikTok launched in 2016, things started to ramp up. Popular accounts like Black Girl Lost Keys were openly discussing ADHD. By the height of the pandemic, the app's powerful, albeit mysterious algorithm was connecting thousands of women with ADHD-related content at a previously unheard-of rate. These were some of the same women who emailed Terry Matlen looking for guidance. Parker ran the idea by her own personal expert.

B. A. Parker: Thank goodness I was also like going through therapy during the pandemic. And so, I talked to my therapist about it. And my therapist was like, "Well, I mean, they're a test. You can take a test, and you know, we can figure this out."

Danielle: TikTok wasn't done. Soon after her conversation with her therapist, the all-seeing algorithm sent Parker a video in which someone takes an ADHD test. Parker asked her therapist again.

B. A. Parker: I was like, do I, should I take this thing? And they're like, "You can. I mean, you got paid for it. Like, it's your money."

Danielle: I happen to know there's a free screener available online from the World Health Organization, the same screener my therapist suggested I use. I mentioned this to Parker.

B. A. Parker: No, wait, Danielle, no. I paid like $120 bucks.

Danielle: No, Parker, no.

B. A. Parker: I paid, I paid like a c-note for this task. Danielle, you should have started with that. No, I gave these people legit money from my bank.

Danielle: Parker scrolled through her Gmail history to find the name of the organization that issued her test.

B. A. Parker: Hold on. Hold on, hold on, cuz I think the results are still in here!

Danielle: Really?

B. A. Parker: ADHD. Let's see what happens when you click in ADHD. ADHD online. Hold on. ADHD online diagnosis and treatment. ADHD Online LLC. This was November 20th, 2020.

Danielle: As far as ADHD online was concerned, the results were conclusive.

B. A. Parker: Oh yeah, girl, you got ADHD. You have ADHD inattentive.

Danielle: Parker looked into what exactly inattentive ADHD entailed, and what she learned tracked with her own life experience, especially when she read about the ways people with ADHD are able to hyperfocus.

B. A. Parker: I've been a book and film nerd since I was like five, and I can tell you who won the Oscar since 1973. And I remember when the Golden Globe nominations would come out, I would tell, I would put up the Christmas tree, and I would tell my mom who got nominated that day.

My mom couldn't give a flying kitty about who was nominated for a Golden Globe, but I cared because I was 12 years old, and what was I gonna do? And I mean, fortunate enough that I was able to use that and, you know, went to film school and became a film professor. But like, it all stemmed from like a hyperfixation as a child. I was like, "Oh, OK. Well, that makes sense."

Danielle: She took the test in November 2020. Parker sought out a psychiatrist who understood ADHD and could prescribe medications. That's when things got complicated. Her therapist gave her a list of names, but even with her existing health insurance coverage, the cost would be steep.

B. A. Parker: Then I saw how much those psychiatrists cost. So, then I called a couple of them and they were like... I heard some money that was not in my price range, and I was like, "I guess I'm just gonna be out here mentally ill."

Danielle: A little over a year later, in 2022, Parker was thinking about leaving her job. That meant she was going to lose her health insurance. As everyone with ADHD knows, external motivation helps us do things. Knowing she might soon be without healthcare coverage drove Parker to finally address her ADHD. She found a psychiatrist, but he was located in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. Like me, Parker begrudgingly went ahead and booked a telehealth appointment. It was hardly her ideal situation.

B. A. Parker: And then having to talk to him, and then I was just like, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how to adult this. Like, this is just a weird, like, it was very like solo, it's a very solitary journey. So, I was just trying to navigate this as best as I could, but also like forget about it because I also had to work. And so, like, I think I had my interview with this guy at like 7:30 at night. Cause I was like, I got, I gotta work all day. And cause I'm working at home, it was like Oh, I forgot to eat. And then I was, like, oh, I have to fix a meal after this whole day? And now I have to talk to this guy and now I'm stressed out about this meeting.

Danielle: I felt the same way when I talked to a psychiatrist for the first time, also in early 2022. Neither of us knew at the time that this was really odd for a few reasons. I mean, it felt odd because it was odd, but it was also strange because until the pandemic, this wasn't allowed. There were strict rules around prescribing stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin. They could not be prescribed via telehealth.

I'm not sure I would have gotten very far in the process if I'd had to wait for an in-person appointment. I haven't had an annual physical in years because I never get around to scheduling them. So, even though the appointments could be awkward, telehealth made it easier. This is another reason for the rise in diagnoses. In the simplest terms, getting diagnosed got easier.

That, of course, led to questions about our diagnosis, and we'll get back to those, I promise. But first, I want you to hear about Parker's bizarre video call and what happened after. Remember, it was early 2022, and she was working from home, waiting for her 7:30 appointment with the King of Prussia guy.

B. A. Parker: I remember, it was something that TikTok had told me, "Oh, when you have an appointment in the middle of the day, do you just forget everything that you have to do because you're very focused on that appointment?" And I'm like, "Yes. Oh no." So, there's all of these things.

So, I had this appointment with this guy. So, I was already stressed out about that. I had to make sure that my Ring camera was on because I didn't want to look, I was like, how do I not look shady? Like how do I look like a normal person? I had all of this in my head.

Danielle: Parker was worried that the doctor might suspect her of trying to get her hands on prescription meds.

B. A. Parker: I didn't want it to look like it was drug-seeking behavior. There's something so weird about telehealth and talking to someone to be like, "Hey, I have this problem and I can only get help through you. What can we do about that?"

Danielle: I think the anxiety around all of this, the way the appointment feels, is a reason a lot of women never seek a diagnosis. Unfortunately, in Parker's case, that anxiety was well-placed, considering what happened when she tried to tell the doctor about her ADHD.

B. A. Parker: I was like, "I have ADHD. and like I'm just trying to like figure out ways to handle this effectively." I mean he's like, "Are you sure you don't have bipolar disorder?" I was like, "Oh, I'm sure. I'm like, I am very sure that I do not have bipolar disorder. Like I'm not manic. I don't like epic highs and epic lows. It's just like I freeze, and I can't do anything."

Danielle: Parker went into the call hoping to get help with her ADHD. Instead, in less than 30 minutes, he'd suggested she was bipolar. I've heard many women report a misdiagnosis of anxiety or depression. Being misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder seems like another level. Parker steered the conversation back to ADHD, and the doctor prescribed her the appropriate medication. Here's where it gets weird. The next time she looked at TikTok, it was as if the app had updated the dossier it was keeping on her.

B. A. Parker: I don't know what happened, but it's like the algorithm heard the conversation and figured out like, you're a Black woman with ADHD. So, I started getting more of those TikToks. So, like a lot of those women were being told they had bipolar disorder. And they were like, "No, no, no, this is just ADHD. This is just ADHD."

Danielle: We like to talk about the algorithm, like it's some omniscient, even clairvoyant supermind, probably because none of us know how it works, but it's not. It's more like some complex combination of statistics, probability, and Soylent-fueled software engineering. The important point here is that it worked.

The algorithm started directing Parker to more and more accounts by Black women, specific and useful accounts like ADHD while Black, which she now follows. I didn't get these recommendations. The algorithm seems to know I'm white. But in 2022, Parker's feed spoke directly to her experience. These accounts offered helpful ways to manage her ADHD and encouragement.

B. A. Parker: This is one of the things where it's like, you have to like, they're like, oh, well, Black women have to be hypervigilant because like we can't, because you have, the perceptions that the world have about us, to get defensive, to not be good at your job, to not being on point, is immediately a defect and already a ding against your character amongst what other dings happen just because of the dual sides of oppression as being Black and a woman.

So, to have ADHD on top of that, and like, "Oh, well, why did you not meet this deadline? Why can't you answer these questions right now?" All of these things, you kind of have to overcompensate. I know that growing up, like aside from like having ADHD, I also had like a social anxiety disorder.

I was really shy and scared to talk to people, and being thrust into New York City at like 21, having to like dysfunction and put yourself out there is a really scary thing. And having all these things while being Black, it's like an added layer of neuroses. But like having women that I started getting on my 4u page to be like. Yeah, I also, I think that…

Danielle: Parker interrupted herself as she was saying this. She said that in one post, a woman cited a statistic about other Black women with ADHD.

B. A. Parker: I forgot what the statistic was, but the number of Black women in their 30s during the pandemic, learning that they were, they had ADHD, and learning that they've had it their whole lives. And because you were functioning and because no one is looking into Black girls, because they're doing fine, there's a lack of interest in, you know, as long as they're keeping the status quo, they'll be fine.

Danielle: In these posts, she heard women describing why young Black girls are rarely diagnosed with ADHD. Or at least, they were rarely diagnosed. Data published in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that the largest increase in diagnosis from 2000 to 2010 happened among Black girls. But that statistic is tricky. It might have been the biggest increase because they were the most overlooked group kids, and there was some ketchup happening. It doesn't mean there was enough diagnosis, and many young Black girls are still undiagnosed.

Another study conducted by the Mayo Clinic and released in 2021 concluded that Asian, Black, and Hispanic children are significantly less likely to be diagnosed with ADHD compared with white children, and that many Black and Hispanic children go undiagnosed because of the ways their behavior is misinterpreted. This may be changing.

The CDC releases data on ADHD diagnosis among kids every year. The latest numbers show that 12% of Black and white children in the U.S. have been diagnosed with ADHD, compared to 10% of Native American and Hispanic kids, 6% of Pacific Islander kids, and 4% of Asian American kids. These numbers indicate more equity in diagnosis, and that's good news for kids. It doesn't mean much for adults, like Parker.

It's harder to find data on adult diagnosis. But research indicates that Black and Latino women show symptoms of ADHD at the same rates as white women, but are far less likely to be diagnosed, and even then, less likely to receive treatment.

I never think algorithms are helpful, but in this case, I'm actually like the algorithm's figuring it out and getting the information, not only getting information to you, but getting you information from the people who could be more helpful.

B. A. Parker: Shout out to TikTok for being my advocate. Ha ha ha. Who would have thought? Because I think I'm on the side of TikTok that's like, "I mean, doctors are helpful, but also like be able to ask for a second opinion because they have their own biases." And like, so I have to be mindful of that.

Danielle: All's Well That Ends Well, right? Parker got her second opinion and found her people. But what about that King of Prussia doctor who tried to convince her that she didn't have ADHD? What was up with that? I looked into this issue of Black women being misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder. I found that it's not only a problem for Black women with ADHD. Doctors also fail to accurately diagnose Black women who actually have bipolar disorder. Often, according to what I read, emotional swings are dismissed as being those of angry Black women.

For Parker, having the diagnosis of ADHD gives her a way to contend with this classic racial bias and others, like in meetings, if she's quiet and someone thinks she's not a team player, she can now tell them.

B. A. Parker: "No, I have ADHD." I didn't have that before. Now that I have the language for it, it's been really helpful, especially in meetings, because my mind will wander. There's, wait, OK, I'll show you this, because this is...

Danielle: She pulled out her phone and seemed to be scrolling through her photos.

B. A. Parker: I mean, I swear I am paying attention during work, but I used to do this during work.

Danielle: She handed me her phone to show me a photo. It was a spiral notebook. On the page, names of movies filled every line, top to bottom.

B. A. Parker: Like during meetings, like in-person meetings, I will list the whole actress' filmography in a notebook.

Danielle: Whose filmography is this?

B. A. Parker: I believe that's Jeff Bridges. But that's what I would do during a meeting. I got reprimanded for that. They were like, "We need you to focus during these meetings."

Danielle: But she was focusing. Writing out these filmographies made it easier to focus. And now it's easier to explain this.

B. A. Parker: But yeah, I, just being able to explain some of that and having other Black women on my timeline who had similar experiences and also being aware of either why we were ignored or why we we're focused in on and why in workspaces these things happen and how ADHD sits differently inside of Black women. Like those kind of things were super helpful. And I was like, "Oh, OK, this explains this.".

And the nice thing is because of that, like I have other Black female friends, and then they're like, wait, I have ADHD. I found out I have ADHD too during the pandemic. And it's kind of, it's nice to be able to have that.

Danielle: I lied when I said I was off social media for 2021. I had a couple of relapses here and there. Once in April, I reactivated my Instagram account, and a post caught my eye. It was a drawing of a woman in jeans and a sweatshirt. Across the top, it read, "Women and ADHD." Across the bottom of the page, it said, "Start a free assessment today." I looked at where the post was from, only then did I realize it was an ad.

The account belonged to a company called Done. It seemed weird to me. An ADHD company? What even is an ADHD company, and why is it posting on social media? I didn't remember that from before the pandemic. Done and ADHD Online LLC are two of maybe a dozen ADHD focused companies that appeared on social during the pandemic. This is not a coincidence. It actually happened because of the pandemic.

Remember when I said diagnosis got easier? Early in the pandemic, states eased strict regulations around how doctors can diagnose and prescribe stimulant medications. For the first time, doctors could prescribe via telehealth. With the hassle removed, the roadblock eased. Thousands of women who might have previously been deterred by the steps were now able to handle the process before they had a chance to get distracted.

This policy shift definitely contributed to the rise in diagnoses. It also sparked questions around overdiagnosis. I told you I'd come back to this. Once these strict telehealth policies changed, people took advantage. Not individuals, as far as I know, but entrepreneurs.

People created ADHD companies and started advertising services on social media. Companies like the ones that sent ads to me and Parker. The algorithm sent these ads to millions of women who, like Parker, took the assessments. The companies contracted psychiatrists and hired them. It looked like an ad hoc improvement in the healthcare system. And it was, mostly.

Then, in 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice received complaints about one of these new companies, a company called Cerebral. The complaints claimed Cerebral was pressuring clinicians to prescribe Adderall and Ritalin to increase patient retention. The investigation was settled in 2024, with Cerebral agreeing to pay millions of dollars for quote, engaging in practices that encouraged the unauthorized distribution of controlled substances from 2019 to 2022.

As of June 2024, the telemedicine company Done is also under investigation. The founder and CEO, and the clinical president, were arrested on allegations that they instructed Done prescribers to prescribe Adderall and other stimulants even if the Done member didn't qualify. The Justice Department alleges that the executives prioritized profits over customer health, leading to addiction, abuse, and overdoses.

There's no way to know how many people were misdiagnosed through these telehealth companies or to determine the accuracy rate of diagnosis during the pandemic. I get that, but I believe the women seeking a diagnosis were genuinely seeking help.

All these conversations that sprung up online about ADHD during the pandemic, they helped normalize such conversations in the real world as well. Not only were more women talking to their doctors and therapists about ADHD, they were also discussing it openly with each other, their communities, and their families.

B. A. Parker: Wait, have you talked to your family about your ADHD?

Danielle: Parker is a podcast host herself. Inevitably, she turned the interview on me.

I was gonna ask you that.

B. A. Parker: Oh, sorry.

Danielle: No, no, no. You're good. Yeah, so I've talked to my mom about it. I was trying to not tell anyone, and of course I shared cause I just overshare everything.

B. A. Parker: A hundred percent.

Danielle: No matter how much I'm like "I'm not gonna tell. I'm on the phone and then I'm telling," and I talked to my mom, and she's like "That can't be possible. You did so well in school."

B. A. Parker: That's the same thing.

Danielle: And she was like, "Maybe you have it, but my generation didn't have this."

B. A. Parker: Let me tell you.

Danielle: Yeah, tell me about it.

B. A. Parker: I, not to put my mom's business on, but I love my mom. But also, I was like, I had to have a conversation after I had the call with the psychiatrist. I was, like, "OK, here's the thing. I have ADHD. I'm gonna go on medication. It's OK. Plenty of people have this." And I think she thought it was just like, "Oh my God." But even now, to be like, to be fair, like you do know, for lack of a better term, I am mentally ill. Like, you know.

Like, she's like, "No, you're not. Those other, like no." I mean, I'm in like the DOS, like I'm on the list. But having to be like, OK. And then it'd be like "Hey, you know it's hereditary."

Danielle: As Parker learned more about ADHD and how it showed up in daily life, she started to see her mom in a sort of new way.

B. A. Parker: She came to visit after my diagnosis, she would leave a room and just leave a cabinet door open. And I was like, this woman, I love her. Like this is, this is me. I'm like, I was you know, "You don't think like your impulse to like buy a purse you don't need to get like that kick?"

Danielle: This is so familiar. I had the same reaction with my mom. Different details, same story.

B. A. Parker: She's making more and more sense to me. Like all of these like hyperfixations that pop up, it's going to do these things. And I was like, OK, the things that I think, I don't know, when I was a kid, may have frustrated me a little bit, I'm like, why am I going to a wedding planner's conference? I was, like, she was really into wedding planning for a while there. And I almost like, or just got really into calligraphy.

Danielle: Parker thinks her mother has undiagnosed ADHD. We're no doctors, but I think mine does, too. It's a thing. Honestly, I think this is yet another reason diagnoses rose among women during the pandemic. As more women recognize their own ADHD, they started to notice it in their moms. My mom didn't seek a diagnosis, neither did Parker's, but many women did.

I have two friends whose moms were recently diagnosed in their 60s. Sari Solden told me about a client who was diagnosed at 83. Regardless, conversations on TikTok, and yes, for-profit companies offering screeners on TikTok, helped Parker and thousands of women begin to consider ADHD during the pandemic. The pandemic opened more doors to these conversations, and TikTok helped them spread.

But ultimately, it's the conversations themselves, the normalizing of talking about ADHD, that helped women from all different communities access information that they took to their doctors or to their therapists and said, "'Please help me consider if I have ADHD.'" These conversations are still happening. I hear them everywhere: on the train, in bars, at birthday parties. I always wonder if this is some sort of Brooklyn phenomenon.

I remember Parker once telling me she's sort of the cool cousin in the big city. I ask if that role has come into play in terms of ADHD. Does she bring it up when she's back in Baltimore? Though her mother didn't bite, Parker has become a role model for others in her family. Not just because she's a self-determined, professional woman with an impressive career, but because she is open about her ADHD.

B. A. Parker: Someone mentioned that someone else in our family had, was like a young person ADHD. I was like "That's great. So do I, like it's OK." and I think to be the adult to be like "Yeah, I also have ADHD. The little kid, the kid's fine. They got superhuman strength, they got great, they have a spicy brain. We should be so lucky to have a spicy brain. They'll be fine."

Danielle: They will all be fine, perhaps more than fine, because they're years ahead of either of us in knowing they have ADHD. They're years ahead of the many women diagnosed during the pandemic. Many with the help of something they saw on TikTok. Parker doesn't know it, but this advice she gave her family member, I think it explains one other element of this massive rise in diagnosis. Listen closely.

B. A. Parker: The little kid, the kid's fine. They got superhuman strength.

Danielle: Superhuman strength. Before I was diagnosed, I don't remember hearing anyone describe ADHD as a strength. Maybe that's because I wasn't paying attention. Regardless, I didn't know where that rhetoric started, but it gained a ton of popularity during the pandemic. When I first considered that I might have ADHD, I read about the common aspect of the condition called hyperfocus. Some people consider that to be a strength.

By 2023, though, public perception of ADHD on a whole seem to have shifted. People were calling it a superpower. And I'm pretty certain that this new way of looking at ADHD contributed to the rise in diagnosis during the last few years. In many people's eyes, it went from an affliction, a source of shame, to a desirable attribute. Again, I can't say who started this, but after a little digging, I can point to one man who has taken it upon himself to rebrand ADHD.

Ned: Once they see it through my eyes, they embrace it.

Danielle: In the next episode, I'm going to try to see it through his eyes and to try to understand how that might've impacted the rise in diagnosis.

Ned: My line is, I don't treat disabilities, I help people unwrap their gifts. And that's the truth. But that shift in emphasis makes all the difference in the world.

Danielle: That's next time on "Climbing the Walls."

"Climbing the Walls" was written and reported by me, Danielle Elliot. It was edited by Neil Drumming. Sound design by Cody Nelson. Briana Berry was our production director. Ash Beecher was our supervising producer. And Diana White was our associate producer. Fact-checking by Mary Mathis. Research by Karen Watanabe. Our music was composed by Kwame Brant Pierce, with additional music provided by Blue Dot Sessions, and our mixing was done by Justin D. Wright.

The series was brought to you by Understood.org, a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia.

From Understood.org, our executive directors are Laura Key, Scott Cocchiere, and Seth Melnick. A very special thanks to Rae Jacobson, Julie Zeitz, Jordan Davidson, Sarah Greenberg, and Kathleen Nadeau. If you want to help Understood continue this work, consider making a donation at Understood.org/give.