I have ADHD. Am I disabled?

Let’s get this out of the way: according to the New Zealand Government, yes, you are. If you’re autistic or have ADHD, the Government believes that you are disabled. Congratulations! Welcome to the club. But what does being disabled actually mean?

Before I was diagnosed ADHD and autistic, I saw my ‘quirks’ as evidence of some innate difference between me and other people. As a kid, I often asked myself if I was an alien that had forgotten coming to Earth. I felt like my instincts were different from other kids, and that if I didn’t try to copy others’ behaviour, I would come across as weird. Over time, I came to believe that all of these ‘quirks’ could be explained by mental illness. By my early 20s, I’d been diagnosed with a whole host of mental health conditions and nothing seemed to quite fit. I started trying to fix myself; I went to therapy, took anti-depressants, focused on ‘self improvement’. Functioning in adult life seemed to be so much harder for me than for the people around me. When nothing worked, I blamed myself. I started to see my ‘quirks’ as faults, as evidence that I was a bad or lazy person. 

These ‘faults’ were ADHD and autism. I only figured this out and sought diagnosis after two of my closest friends were diagnosed themselves. By then I was 26. Now I had to reckon with the idea that I might not be an inherently bad or weird person; that there was a concrete explanation for a lot of my experiences. Why I couldn’t focus, couldn’t handle rejection, felt intense anxiety and impulsivity, and had ‘meltdowns’ that I thought I should’ve grown out of. And so much more. My life had been shaped by these conditions. I know a lot of ADHDers and autistic people (along with others with mental health conditions or sensory/cognitive/intellectual conditions) struggle with the idea of claiming disabled identity. For me, it was obvious. To unlearn all of the blame I had put on myself, my mind and my body, I had to also accept that a lot of my struggle had come from being unsupported, and living in an inaccessible world.

The social model of disability (which is endorsed by the Government but more importantly, endorsed by a lot of disabled people, like myself) recognises that a person is ‘disabled’ by society, rather than by their body or mind alone. Though we may have long-term physical, mental or sensory impairments, it’s the barriers created and ignored by society that prevent us from fully participating in the world. So when we ask ourselves a question like ‘am I disabled?’, the answer isn’t really about what diagnoses we may have. It’s more about what we’re ready to accept about ourselves and our position in the world. 

Being disabled means being part of a huge group of people (17% of Aotearoa, as of Feb 2025) who are often excluded from society by inaccessibility. That could be as literal as a building that a wheelchair user physically can’t get into or an event without an NZSL interpreter that prevents d/Deaf people from attending, or as broad as a 9-5 office job that an ADHDer can’t hold onto because they keep burning out. The building is disabling. The lack of an interpreter is disabling. The 9-5 office job is disabling. The fact that society is not set up to support me, or to offer the flexibility needed to live well without changing myself, is disabling. 

The caveat to all of this is: disability can be dynamic and shift over time. If I’m in a room full of people with ADHD, am I disabled then? Probably far less. Because it’s not the ADHD itself that gives me ‘permission’ to call myself disabled, it’s the impact of accessibility on my life. In certain disabled spaces, I might cease to see myself as disabled in the same way.  

For me, there’s no question. I’m disabled. Putting aside the mixed bag of other conditions I have, I would be disabled even if I ‘only’ had ADHD. If you’re looking for permission to call yourself disabled, here it is. You’re disabled too. Recognising yourself as part of this community doesn’t mean that you’re ‘playing a card’ or claiming that your life is worse than someone else’s. It just means you’re recognising a position that society has put you in, and allowing yourself to find ways to exist as your full self.

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