We are not alone

 Not in the least.

As many as (quick facts) 46% of us will meet the criteria for a diagnosable mental health condition at some point in our lives, so nearly half of us in the biggest picture overview of global mental health & yet out of those of us with longer lasting or lifelong Severe Mental Health diagnoses 88% say that discrimination against mental illness is widespread.

Us with the longer lasting possibly lifelong diagnoses account for 10.7% of the global population with a 11.9% female & 9.3% male split.

Approximately 10% population has ADHD, 2-3% has Autism.

Between 40-70% of Autists have ADHD & 20-50% of pwADHD have Autism.

Checking in more deeply with the Neurodiverse world of ADHD & Autism the discussion around including the severe mental illnesses cropped up & i admit I fall in the separatist category for the simple reason that one group is aiming to be rid of their symptoms as soon as possible & the other is wanting to find ways to live with & celebrate their traits rather than hide them. I saw the comment that lumping them all in together does both camps a disservice & im with that for the time being. I may be new to the ND conversation but I’m highly knowledgeable on severe mental health conditions & nobody wants to keep them, not ever.

In terms of overlap of the 2 camps I was disappointed that I could not find many statistics except 40% of Autists have severe enough anxiety to call it an additional disorder. I was left wondering if those stats are evasive due to the confusion of so many ND folk having been wrongly diagnosed in the first place only to eventually find that they had ADHD or Autism, both or with one of the others (I know Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, Dyscalculia & Tourette’s also under the ND umbrella) 

I’ve just seen a discussion of OCD being ND but admitting that it’s a mental illness 🤷‍♀️ I still think my criteria is superior - if you want to get rid of it & it’s essentially rooted in healable trauma it’s mental illness & if you want to learn to live with it & expand on its gifts it’s ND.

I know, i know my own personal theory that intrauterine stress/trauma instigates genetic ND adaptation destroys the whole conversation 😂 so if that was absolutely proven to be correct then we are right back with a huge ND umbrella but with healing trauma a top aim for all, which is as it should be.

Beware pwBipolar who have swallowed the hyperbole that the High can be tamed into creativity imao this is dangerous nonsense for the simple fact that both extremes leave you with brain damage, the more extreme the episode the worse the brain damage & the longer time it takes to recover & talking from my own experience, it takes years!