Autism, ADHD, anxiety: Can a diagnosis make you better?

Around the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, I began to notice something happening in my social circle.

- Ellen Barry

A close friend, then in her early 50s, got a diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). She described it as a profound relief, releasing her from years of self-blame — about missed deadlines and lost receipts, as well as things that were deeper and more complicated, such as her sensitivity to injustice.

Something similar happened to a colleague, a cousin in his 30s and an increasing number of people I met covering mental health. It was not always ADHD. For some, the revelation was a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. After years of inarticulate unease in social situations, they felt freed by the framework of neurodivergence and embraced by the community that came along with it.

Since then, I have heard accounts from people who received midlife diagnoses of binge-eating disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and anxiety. Nearly all of them said the diagnosis provided relief. Sometimes, it led to an effective treatment. But sometimes, simply identifying the problem — putting a name to it - seemed to help.

Lately, it seems as if people never stop talking about the rising rates of chronic diseases, among them autism, ADHD, depression, anxiety and PTSD.

Much of what people are seeing is a change in diagnostic practices, as they apply medical labels to milder versions of disease.

There are many reasons for this. The shame that once accompanied many conditions has lifted. Screening for mental health problems is now common in schools. Social media gives people the tools to diagnose themselves. And clinicians, in a time of mental health crisis, see an opportunity to treat illnesses early.

A few years ago, critics began to say this trend had overshot and was beginning to do real harm. Some say that enlargement of the tent has come at a cost to the most severely ill people, who have lost the attention of the medical establishment.