autismwarriomum

I was diagnosed with ADHD earlier this year, aged 41. Like @JoePJRobertson, I've never needed to claim benefits because of it. I've worked since leaving school and built a relatively successful career. But I recognise just how lucky I've been. I struggled with concentration throughout school, dropped out of university and spent years without really understanding why I found certain things so difficult. I happened to fall into a career that suited the way my brain worked. I found something I was good at, and opportunities to progress just seemed to open up, year after year. I worked hard, absolutely. But plenty of people work hard. But I still struggle. A lot. There are things I've wanted to do for years that I've never started. Opportunities I've let pass me by. Weekends where I've had a hundred things I genuinely wanted to do, yet somehow achieved none of them. That's the hardest part to explain. Knowing exactly what I want to do, feeling passionate about it, yet struggling enormously to actually get started. It's not a lack of ambition or motivation, but a frustrating inability to turn intention into action. And at work, certain tasks can be a real struggle. I've just been fortunate enough to build a career around my strengths, with a team whose skills complement my own. That doesn't mean my difficulties aren't real. It means I've been fortunate enough to find ways of working around them. Add to this, the world I entered when I started my career some 22 years ago is not the world young people are entering today. Opportunities, living costs, housing, employment security and public services have all changed enormously. My circumstances have helped me succeed despite ADHD. That doesn't mean everyone has those same circumstances, or experiences ADHD in the same way. Since my diagnosis, I've spoken to people who've lost jobs, struggled financially, battled depression or spent decades believing they were lazy, unreliable or simply not trying hard enough. People who desperately want to work and contribute, but whose difficulties genuinely prevent them from doing so. Our individual experiences of ADHD are not the benchmark against which everyone else's disability should be measured. Of course people need educational and workplace support, but those aren't substitutes for financial security when someone's condition substantially affects their ability to work or live independently. And the fact that some of us have managed without benefits tells us absolutely nothing about whether somebody else needs them. It's exactly this I find so deeply troubling about the direction of our politics. We've created a society where the fortunate are encouraged to believe they earned every advantage, while the unfortunate are expected to take personal responsibility for every disadvantage, including those they had no hand in creating. And now we're seeing ADHD and autism dragged into a wider political narrative that increasingly treats people who need support as a cost to be reduced. Rather than asking why so many people have gone through life without the understanding and help they needed, we're being encouraged to question whether they really needed it at all. The purpose of government should be to create opportunity, remove barriers and provide security for those who need it. Not punish people for circumstances beyond their control. I'm pleased that people like Joe and I have been able to build successful careers despite our difficulties. But our good fortune, and it's exactly that - good fortune, doesn't give us the right to pull the ladder up behind us. People aren't a cost to be minimised. They're human beings with potential that deserves to be realised. And as an MP, Joe really ought to understand the difference. #ADHD