Let’s celebrate mental health awareness. Let’s remove the stigma around seeking help. Let’s make it easier for people to talk about their struggles without shame.

But let’s also be honest about what’s happening right now. We’ve turned psychiatric diagnosis into a trend. Especially ADHD. And that trend is creating real harm alongside whatever good it’s doing.

It’s almost impossible to scroll LinkedIn without seeing someone announce they have ADHD, usually with a hashtag and a personal story about finally understanding themselves. I don’t doubt their pain. I don’t question that they’re struggling. But I deeply doubt the system that profits from labeling that struggle as a medical disorder requiring lifelong medication management.

Because here’s what’s actually happening underneath the awareness campaigns and the destigmatization efforts: more diagnoses equal more prescriptions, which equal more consultations, which equal more money flowing through a system that has financial incentives to see pathology rather than normal human variation.

And the numbers are impossible to ignore.

The Surge That Should Make Us Pause

In 2022, 11.4% of U.S. children, about 7 million kids, had been diagnosed with ADHD. That’s up 1 million since 2016. We’re talking about a 14% increase in six years for a condition that’s supposedly genetic and stable in the population.

Prescriptions for stimulants in England have risen 18% every year since the pandemic. Not 18% total. 18% per year. That’s exponential growth in medication use for a condition that hasn’t fundamentally changed.

Adults are catching up fast. Telehealth clinics have made “getting diagnosed” easier than ordering a pizza. You fill out a questionnaire online, have a 20-minute video call with someone who may or may not be qualified to make this assessment, and walk away with a prescription. Some of these services advertise diagnosis and treatment in a single session.

Something changed. And it wasn’t the underlying neurobiology of the human population.

What changed was the medicalization of normal human struggles, the lowering of diagnostic thresholds, the financialization of mental health care, and social media’s amplification of self-diagnosis culture. These forces combined to create an environment where having ADHD became almost fashionable, where every focus issue became potential evidence of a disorder, where medication became a socially acceptable productivity hack.

Why the Diagnostic Bar Dropped

The criteria for ADHD haven’t technically changed. But the way those criteria get applied has shifted dramatically.

“Trouble focusing” now gets medicalized before anyone rules out stress, trauma, sleep deprivation, poor nutrition, lack of exercise, understimulation, or plain boredom. These are all legitimate causes of attention problems. They’re also all solvable without psychiatric diagnosis or medication.

A 2021 global review of ADHD research concluded that the condition is “convincingly overdiagnosed and overtreated” in many developed countries. The researchers found that diagnostic rates varied wildly between regions and providers, suggesting the diagnosis has more to do with who’s doing the assessing than what’s actually happening in the person’s brain.

I’ve spent 18 years as a licensed therapist. I’ve done thousands of assessments. I can tell you from direct experience that proper differential diagnosis for ADHD is complex and time-consuming. You need to rule out anxiety disorders, trauma responses, mood disorders, learning disabilities, sleep disorders, substance use, medical conditions, and environmental factors. You need to gather developmental history. You need collateral information from multiple sources. You need to observe patterns over time, not just in a single consultation.

Most of the ADHD diagnoses happening now don’t involve that level of rigor. They involve someone saying they struggle to focus, a clinician running through a symptom checklist, and a prescription getting written. This isn’t good medicine. It’s assembly-line diagnosis designed to maximize throughput.

And here’s what makes this particularly problematic: ADHD symptoms overlap with almost everything else. Depression causes poor concentration. Anxiety causes restlessness and difficulty completing tasks. Trauma causes hypervigilance that looks like hyperactivity. Chronic stress causes executive function problems. Boredom in an unstimulating job causes inattention.

If you assess for ADHD without carefully ruling out these other causes, you’re going to see ADHD everywhere. Which is exactly what’s happening.

The Social Media Self-Diagnosis Machine

Social media has turbocharged this trend in ways that are both understandable and deeply concerning.

Endless symptom lists. “Do you relate?” reels. Personal stories that make struggles feel universal. Content creators building entire brands around ADHD identity. It’s created a culture where people encounter lists of symptoms, recognize themselves in those symptoms, and conclude they have ADHD.

This is how human pattern recognition works. If you show someone a list of vague symptoms like “trouble focusing,” “forgetfulness,” “difficulty with time management,” “emotional dysregulation,” most people will see themselves. These aren’t specific to ADHD. They’re common human experiences, especially in our current environment of information overload, chronic stress, and unrealistic productivity demands.

There’s something deeply soothing about having a name for what hurts. About finding a community of people who share your struggles. About having an explanation that makes sense of why life feels harder for you than it seems to be for others.

But attributing every struggle to a disorder isn’t healing. It’s often the opposite.

When you label yourself as disordered, you shift your locus of control outward. The problem isn’t your circumstances or your choices or your environment. The problem is your brain, which is broken, which means you need medical intervention to function. This framework can be incredibly disempowering even as it feels explanatory.

And the social media version of this usually skips right past the part where you get a thorough professional assessment. You self-diagnose based on TikTok videos, then you find a telehealth service that will confirm your self-diagnosis, then you’re on medication within weeks. No one asked about your sleep. No one assessed for trauma. No one considered whether your inability to focus might be your body’s reasonable response to an unreasonable situation.

→ If this feels familiar, you’re probably the kind of person I write for.
→ If you’re curious how this would look applied to your situation, schedule a chemistry call.

The Diagnosis Economy

ADHD has become an industry. That’s not hyperbole, that’s just accurate description of what’s happened.

There are telehealth clinics built entirely around ADHD diagnosis and treatment. Their business model depends on high volume, which means quick assessments and immediate prescriptions. The incentive structure pushes toward more diagnoses, not fewer.

Pharmaceutical companies make billions from stimulant medications. Adderall, Vyvanse, Ritalin, Concerta, the market for these drugs has exploded. These companies fund awareness campaigns, sponsor research, and market directly to consumers in the U.S. They have every financial reason to expand the definition of who “needs” their products.

Content creators have built entire platforms around ADHD identity. Some of this content is genuinely helpful, providing community and practical strategies. But some of it functions as advertising for diagnosis, creating a pipeline from “I saw this video” to “I got diagnosed” to “I’m on medication” in a matter of weeks.

The loop feeds itself: awareness campaigns increase diagnoses, which increase prescriptions, which create more content about living with ADHD, which increases awareness, which increases diagnoses. At every step, someone is making money.

I’m not suggesting there’s some conspiracy here. I’m saying the incentives are aligned in a way that produces overdiagnosis regardless of anyone’s intentions. When everyone in the system benefits from more diagnoses, you get more diagnoses. This is just basic economics applied to healthcare.

And the people who lose in this system are the ones who get labeled with a disorder they might not have, started on medication they might not need, and told their brain is broken when the real problem might be their job, their relationship, their trauma, or their entirely reasonable response to an unreasonable world.

What Medication Actually Does

Stimulant medications help many people with ADHD. I’m not denying that or dismissing it. For people who actually have ADHD, medication can be transformative. It can mean the difference between constant struggle and functional success.

But these aren’t vitamins. They’re powerful drugs with significant effects and potential risks.

Stimulants alter heart rate, blood pressure, sleep patterns, appetite, and mood. Short-term side effects can include anxiety, insomnia, decreased appetite, irritability, and emotional blunting. Long-term data shows cardiovascular risks increase with years of use. There are concerns about growth suppression in children. There are questions about dependency and tolerance.

Before prescribing any psychiatric medication, a responsible clinician must weigh whether the side effects and risks are more or less harmful than living with the symptoms. This is basic medical ethics. You only intervene pharmacologically when the benefit clearly outweighs the harm.

But that calculation requires actually knowing whether the symptoms are from ADHD or from something else. If your attention problems are caused by untreated trauma, giving you Adderall isn’t treating the root cause. It’s masking symptoms while the underlying problem continues. That’s not good medicine.

And we’ve somehow normalized using stimulants as productivity hacks. Fake prescriptions flood the market. College students use them to study. Professionals use them to work longer hours. The line between treatment and enhancement has blurred to the point where it’s barely visible.

This should concern us. Not because medication is inherently bad, but because we’re using powerful drugs to solve problems that might not be medical problems at all. We’re medicating away the symptoms of environments and lifestyles that are making people sick instead of changing those environments and lifestyles.

When It’s Not Actually ADHD

If I were a kid in 2025, I’d probably be labeled ADHD. I was restless, struggled with traditional schooling, had trouble sitting still, was emotionally intense, got bored easily. Every single symptom on the checklist.

But I wasn’t ADHD. I was dealing with a complex family situation, some developmental trauma, and a temperament that didn’t fit well with conventional expectations. The symptoms were real. The cause wasn’t a neurological disorder.

I learned to manage my attention through understanding what drove the symptoms. Through addressing the underlying causes. Through developing strategies that worked with my nervous system rather than trying to chemically override it. Through changing my environment to better fit who I am rather than trying to change who I am to fit the environment.

This is what gets lost in the current diagnostic frenzy. Attention-deficit traits aren’t automatically a disorder. Just like being sad doesn’t always mean depression. Just like being anxious doesn’t always mean an anxiety disorder.

Sometimes poor focus is trauma. Your nervous system is in hypervigilance mode, constantly scanning for threats, which makes sustained attention on neutral tasks nearly impossible. That’s not ADHD. That’s a trauma response. And the treatment is trauma work, not stimulants.

Sometimes poor focus is environmental. You’re in a job that bores you to tears, or you’re in constant meetings that could have been emails, or you’re dealing with an organization that rewards appearing busy over doing meaningful work. Your attention problems are your brain’s reasonable protest against an unreasonable situation. That’s not ADHD. That’s a mismatch between you and your environment.

Sometimes poor focus is a circadian rhythm disorder. You’re a night owl trying to function on a 9-to-5 schedule. Your brain isn’t disordered, it’s just forced to perform at times when it’s not optimized for performance. That’s not ADHD. That’s chronobiology.

Sometimes poor focus is temperament. You’re naturally inclined toward breadth rather than depth, toward variety rather than sustained attention, toward movement rather than stillness. In a different cultural context or a different type of work, this wouldn’t be pathological. It would just be how you’re built. That’s not ADHD. That’s human variation.

A proper assessment distinguishes between these possibilities. It doesn’t just check off symptoms and assign a diagnosis. It asks deeper questions about causation, about context, about what else might be happening.

Most current ADHD diagnoses don’t involve that level of inquiry. Which means a lot of people are getting diagnosed and medicated for something they don’t actually have.

The Cost of Medicalization

By labeling everything as a medical condition, we strip away what makes us unique. We pathologize normal variation. We turn struggles into symptoms and symptoms into disorders.

This matters more than it might seem. When you’re told you have a disorder, it changes how you understand yourself. You’re no longer someone who struggles with focus sometimes. You’re someone with ADHD. That label becomes part of your identity. It shapes how you interpret your experiences and what you believe is possible for you.

For some people, this is genuinely helpful. The label explains things that were confusing. It provides a framework for understanding and a path toward support.

But for others, it’s limiting. It suggests their struggles are permanent and neurological rather than contextual and changeable. It implies they need medical intervention to function rather than environmental changes or skill development. It medicalizes what might be normal responses to abnormal circumstances.

Being human in 2025 is genuinely hard. We’re dealing with information overload, constant connectivity, unrealistic productivity demands, social isolation, economic precarity, political chaos, and environmental crisis. Most people are stressed, overwhelmed, and struggling to focus. That’s not pathology. That’s a reasonable response to challenging conditions.

When we take those reasonable responses and label them as disorders, when we prescribe medication to help people adapt to unsustainable circumstances, we’re treating the symptoms while ignoring the causes. We’re making it easier for individuals to cope with broken systems rather than fixing the systems.

This is politically useful for those who benefit from the status quo. If your workers can’t focus, give them Adderall rather than examining whether your workplace culture is burning people out. If your students can’t sit still, medicate them rather than questioning whether your educational model is developmentally appropriate. If your citizens are anxious and inattentive, diagnose them rather than addressing the systemic issues creating widespread distress.

I’m not saying there’s a conspiracy to medicate the population into compliance. I’m saying the incentives push in that direction regardless of anyone’s intentions. It’s easier and more profitable to diagnose and medicate individuals than to change oppressive systems.

→ If this feels familiar, you’re probably the kind of person I write for.
→ If you’re curious how this would look applied to your situation, schedule a chemistry call.

What to Do Before Medication

I’m not saying you don’t have ADHD. For many people, the diagnosis is accurate and the medication is genuinely helpful. I’ve seen lives transformed by proper treatment. I’ve seen people finally able to function in ways they couldn’t before.

But I am saying that before you accept a diagnosis and start medication, you owe it to yourself to be thorough.

Get a comprehensive assessment from someone who has no financial incentive to diagnose you. Not a 20-minute telehealth consultation. Not a single appointment where someone runs through a checklist. An actual assessment that includes developmental history, trauma screening, sleep evaluation, medical workup, and differential diagnosis.

Rule out other causes. Address your sleep. Deal with your stress. Process your trauma if you have it. Change your environment if it’s not working for you. Try behavioral interventions and organizational strategies. Give these things real time and effort, not just a week of trying and giving up.

Get second and third opinions. ADHD is complex enough that reasonable clinicians can disagree. If one person diagnoses you quickly and easily, see someone else who might be more thorough. If three different qualified clinicians all reach the same conclusion, that’s more reliable than a single assessment.

Research medication thoroughly if you decide to try it. Understand what it does, what the side effects are, what the long-term data shows. Understand that starting medication is easier than stopping it. Some people find that once they’ve been on stimulants for a while, their brain has adapted in ways that make coming off difficult.

Consider the alternatives seriously. There are many ways to manage attention and executive function challenges that don’t involve medication. Coaching, therapy, environmental modifications, schedule optimization, exercise, meditation, dietary changes. These take more effort than taking a pill, but they build capacity rather than masking symptoms.

If you do try medication, monitor it carefully. Pay attention to side effects. Notice whether it’s actually helping with the things that matter or just making you feel more productive while you grind yourself down. Be honest about whether the benefits outweigh the costs.

And most importantly, don’t let the diagnosis become your entire identity. You’re a person with strengths and struggles, not a collection of symptoms. The label might be useful, but it’s not who you are.

The Balance We Need

This isn’t an anti-medication argument. Psychiatric medication saves lives. I’ve seen it. I’ve had clients who couldn’t function without their medication and who transformed when they found the right treatment.

This is an anti-overdiagnosis argument. It’s a plea for more careful assessment, more thoughtful treatment, and more skepticism about the systems profiting from turning normal human struggles into medical conditions.

We can acknowledge that ADHD is real and that some people genuinely need medication while also acknowledging that the current diagnostic trends are concerning. We can support making mental health care more accessible while also questioning whether what we’re providing is actually good mental health care.

We can remove stigma around seeking help while also maintaining appropriate skepticism about quick diagnoses and easy prescriptions. We can create space for neurodivergent identities while also recognizing that not every form of struggle represents a disorder requiring medical treatment.

The current trajectory isn’t sustainable. We’re creating a generation that believes they’re fundamentally broken and need pharmaceutical intervention to function. That’s not destigmatization. That’s a different kind of harm dressed up as progress.

Real mental health awareness would include awareness of overdiagnosis. Real destigmatization would make it just as acceptable to say “I don’t actually have a disorder, I was just in a bad situation” as it is to say “I have ADHD and I’m on medication.”

Real care would prioritize thorough assessment over quick diagnosis. Real treatment would exhaust non-pharmaceutical options before prescribing powerful drugs. Real support would address the systemic issues making people sick rather than just helping them cope with sickness.

We’re not there yet. But we could be if enough people started asking harder questions about what’s really happening behind the awareness campaigns and the destigmatization efforts and the flood of diagnoses.

Before you accept that label and start that medication, just pause. Think. Research. Get multiple opinions. Try other approaches. Be honest about whether this is actually the answer or just the easiest answer in a system designed to provide easy answers to complex problems.