Is it ADHD, or Am I the Asshole?

Unfortunately, you can view just about every ADHD symptom as a red flag for narcissism if you squint a little.

Great art is not about self-expression. It comes from the self, it is shaped by the self, it is often dredged from the deepest recesses of an artist’s soul, but the truth it expresses is shared and universal. This is why it speaks to others, not just the artist…

…great art cannot emerge from narcissism.

(Devon Eriksen, “Why Art Sucks Now”)

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There’s been a surge in hot takes recently claiming that ADHD is overblown, overdiagnosed, or even “not real”. Apparently it’s not awareness around symptoms and the mainstreaming of psychology terms driving the spike in neurodiversity diagnoses, it’s essentially narcissism. It’s seeking to cloak poor character in “disability,” and forcing the world to accommodate your specialness. It’s “taking uppers” instead of taking responsibility.

As much as this hypothesis pulls directly from the grifter playbook of “Society is Uniquely Terrible Now because of [Thing I Don’t Like and Haven’t Bothered to Understand Properly]” … is it possible there’s a point in there somewhere? There’s a definite trend of people blaming extremely poor behaviour on neurodiversity, as well as a controversial link between ADHD and personality disorders and plenty of symptom overlap. If you punch your problems with social cues, lateness, boredom, unmet potential and rejection into a search engine, you’ll probably came up with Very Bad News.

Never Google your symptoms, as the saying goes. It’s always cancer, AIDS, or clinical narcissism.

Cluster Bs & symptom clusters

In my experience, it’s unusual for one to land in the “ADHD” diagnostic category without first doing a pinball bounce-zing-brrrr around the insurance brochure better known as the DSM.

For starters, it’s common (especially for women) to be assigned the twin horrors anxiety (GAD) and depression (MDD) long, long before anybody starts asking questions about the symptoms that don’t fit into those two diagnostic checkboxes. Which makes sense, sadly. For one thing, both diagnoses are as abundant as puddles at a truck stop because *gestures vaguely at everything*. For another … is it any wonder? When you’re undiagnosed in a neurotypical world, how can you not feel edgy chasing your “wasted potential” like a shifting sunbeam? How can you not feel utter despair when (once again) your fist closes on nothing?

Alongside MDD and GAD, there’s a number of more … acrimonious acronyms which can mimic aspects of ADHD, camouflaging and confusing the clinical picture. Other conditions with diagnostic overlap include Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (cPTSD), disorganised attachment, bipolar disorder, and finally, hateable hot-topic du jour Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).

How ADHD and NPD can look alike

Just in case you’ve been living at the bottom of the Mariana Trench and this is your first day on the Internet (good luck out there if so), Narcissistic Personality Disorder roughly includes three main components: (1) believing that you’re special and superior to other people, (2) a pathological lack of empathy, and (3) difficulty maintaining relationships because of (1) and (2).

If we take a quick scan of the diagnostic criteria for ADHD, unfortunately you can view just about every symptom as a red flag for narcissism if you squint a little. For example:

• Displays poor listening skills = only interested in a conversation when it is centred around me, or things interesting to me.

• Irritability, quick to anger, emotional dysregulation = adult baby, demanding obedience/soothing/capitulation.

• Loud and overly talkative = grandiose, inconsiderate, assuming everyone cares what I have to say, taking up all the space.

• Difficulty waiting turns, interrupts or intrudes into conversations/activities = I am more important than you.

• Chronic lateness = my time is more important than yours.

• Lacks ability to complete work or follow instructions = rules for thee, not for me.

• Marked restlessness that is difficult to control, difficulty staying seated = I want to do what I want when I want to do it, how dare you make me do boring things.

• RSD = how dare you not worship me.

• Craving novelty, impulsivity = self-medicating with people, unable to think about how my actions might impact them.

I’ve never met an ADHDer without a full back-catalogue of painful stories where their actions (or lack of action) have caused conflict, damaged relationships, and ultimately resulted in rejection. So we can put a big tick next to “difficulty maintaining close relationships” too.

Finally, it’s undeniable that neurodiverse meltdown bears an unsettling and upsetting similarity to narcissistic rage. This is true whether you’re the person drowning in overwhelm, taking a public shit on your own dignity, or the person on the receiving end, frightened and disturbed by the unpredictable intensity provoked by seemingly nothing at all. As Dr Russell Barkley points out, people are generally willing to put up with a lot because we’re all flawed in some way.¹ They’ll let flakiness slide, at least a few times. You can be lovably scatterbrained, or adorably odd. But people are offended by aggression. Most will not forgive you.

Now, obviously I don’t think ADHD is just NPD masquerading as something more palatable or I’d be writing a very different Substack (and probably making bank, because narcissism hot-takes never fail to fascinate the public).

However, I have my own hot-take answer to the question “am I a narcissist?” If you’re asking, the answer is: well, yes. But actually, no.

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