TikTok told me that my ADHD was a superpower. And I believed it — but only for about five minutes.
Scrolling on the app after I was first diagnosed, I was desperate to find ‘my people’ — the ones who would make me feel seen.
My feed was suddenly inundated with people who were just like me: chaotic, creative, chatty, and, crucially, late for everything.
But then, on countless podcasts and social media posts, I saw other neurodivergent people encouraging their fellow ADHDers to view their condition not as something to hold them back, but as a ‘superpower.‘
It’s a phrase Paris Hilton, who also has ADHD, recently used during an interview with People magazine.
The heiress said: ‘My mind is constantly racing. But I see it as a superpower because it’s fuelled so much of my creativity, my imagination, my ability to think outside the box.’
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When I was first diagnosed I wanted to buy into the ‘superpower’ narrative. Understanding my true self and unlocking the answers to questions I’d chased after for so long was liberating, but afterwards came a heavy realisation: I’d spent more than 20 years not understanding my own brain. I mourned that loss of time.
Essentially, the problem is that the ‘superpower’ version of ADHD doesn’t exist for me. I don’t feel very empowered when I spend my whole weekend moping around, so depressed and lacking in dopamine that I don’t have the energy to do anything.
I wanted to believe that I could sugarcoat this diagnosis. I could let the grief destroy me, or I could take another spin on it.
Pretty quickly, though, I realised that it simply wasn’t going to work for me.
Looking at ADHD in this way is toxic positivity at its finest, trying to force us to perennially see the ‘good’ in the condition while ignoring the difficulties that come with it.
It plays into the idea that, for people living with ADHD to be palatable, we exclusively need to play into our strengths – and ignore how debilitating living in a world designed by and for neurotypical people is.
That’s why I believe that now is the time for us to stop perpetuating this rhetoric – because not only does it misrepresent ADHD as something that can and should predominantly be used to our advantage, but it also suggests that we can almost ‘girl boss’ our way out of the ableism that still oppresses neurodivergent people every single day.
For as long as I can remember, I have perpetually run late; I’m so clumsy that I trip over my own feet; I leave virtually every task until the last possible minute, and I’ve always struggled with my mental health.
As a teenager, I was convinced I was hard-wired to process information differently, and I experienced emotions on a deeper spectrum.
Doctors thought I had anxiety and depression, and I was prescribed SSRIs and beta blockers, and then recommended meditation. Nothing worked, because none of it addressed what was actually going on.
Finally, in November 2021, aged 23 – after an assessment with a psychiatrist – I got a diagnosis of combined ADHD. There are three types of ADHD: inattentive, hyperactive, and combined, which means that I display elements of both hyperactivity and inattentiveness.
Hearing those words come out of the psychiatrist’s mouth was a complete relief, as though years of struggle had been validated in one fell swoop.
I wasn’t broken – my brain was just a little bit different.
I completely see why someone – neurodivergent or otherwise – would try to focus on the many positives that living with ADHD can bring.
It’s not a one-size-fits-all experience, but I personally know that I’m constantly overflowing with ideas, I can jump into action in a crisis, I’m highly creative, and I’m incredibly passionate (so much so that I can end up hyperfixated on my special interests for hours).
But when I’m crying on my bedroom floor because my room’s a mess, I’ve forgotten to pay a bill, or my mind has been racing so much that sleep has been replaced by insomnia, these positives don’t come to me.
And in these low moments, I certainly don’t feel as though I have a superpower.
All I can feel is frustration. It’s dark, and it can be lonely.
This mentality glosses over the reality that living with it can be genuinely debilitating. It suggests we can turn our struggles into assets if we just try hard enough.
When we think about superheroes and special ‘powers,’ we might conjure up images of benevolent saviours in capes. In one way or another, they’re usually there to save the world.
I don’t see how I’m supposed to fit that trope.
The reality is that ADHD still holds so much stigma and misunderstanding – and likening it to a ‘superpower’ completely downplays the reality that the estimated 3 million Brits living with it face every single day.
Have ADHD diagnoses increased in the last few years?
In 2023, a study from UCL found that the number of people being diagnosed with ADHD has increased over the last 20 years, but this doesn’t mean that ‘everyone’ has it now.
Between 2000 and 2018, there was a twenty-fold increase in ADHD diagnoses, rising to an almost fifty-fold increase in prescriptions issued to men aged 18-29.
Largely owing to medical misogyny that favours research into symptoms in men and boys, women are still largely going undetected: the ADHD Foundation estimates that between 50 and 70% of the 1,000,000 women in the UK living with ADHD are undiagnosed.
There might’ve been an increase in people seeking help for ADHD in recent years, but that doesn’t mean that the condition is becoming more common.
It still only impacts between 2% and 6% of the world’s population.
Against that backdrop, we’re perpetually inundated with misleading headlines about our community: that ADHD is being ‘overdiagnosed’ now.
In 2023, the BBC sent a reporter out to private ADHD clinics to see if he could obtain a diagnosis, despite not having the condition.
In the aftermath, charity ADHD UK polled 2,203 people living with the condition and found that 90% believed that ADHD stigma increased in the aftermath of its airing, while 88% were concerned that it wasn’t fair in its representation.
So, the best thing that we as a community can do for ourselves is to leave behind this ‘superhero’ narrative.
I wouldn’t change my diagnosis for the world; understanding who I am and how my brain works has forever changed my life. But ADHD doesn’t need a motivational spin; it just needs understanding.
To suggest that it’s not a completely disabling condition that so many continue to misjudge is, for me, a complete falsehood.
Society owes us more than that.
This article was originally published on October 6, 2025 and has been updated.
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