France is incredibly backwards about mental healthcare. The state massively underfunds care and research and getting diagnosed with anything more specific than "depression" in the public sector is straight-up impossible.

There's also a huge social stigma associated with taking medication for mental disorders and that taking pills means you're a druggie and that medication changes who you are.

People think everything can be corrected with discipline, and that mentality is just extremely harmful for people with ADHD who are driven to think their suffering is their own fault. This is also bc psychanalysts have a strong grip on the public sector for some fucking reason.

I'm not kidding, there's so many horror stories of pharmacies refusing to deliver the only ADHD medication authorized because "it's drugs" and shame the patient out loud.

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I'm using ADHD as an example bc it's what I'm most read up on but that happens in general for most mental conditions. I'm not exaggerating, most medical professionals think ADHD doesn't exist in adults and that it's just a lack of discipline. There's even some that flat out think it's not a thing at all

Oh yeah there's also a "condition" that's unique to France, it's called High Intellectual Potential (HPI) and it basically a "medical" diagnosis for being a "gifted kid". And no medication needed!

It's being pushed mostly in the private sector by psychanalysts lobbies but has absolutely no scientific basis or consensus about it, and the tests for it is just... An IQ test. You just have to score over 130 and that's it I'm not even kidding

It's basically an elaborate scam for rich parents to get a "positive" diagnosis for their kids instead of having them diagnosed with those icky mental illnesses such as ASD or ADHD. And as a result they get terribly inadequate treatment which is basically some self-help bullshit.

@Siph we have that in Germany, I was diagnosed with it

@noiob that's interesting, afaik it being defined as a medical diagnosis is virutally unheard of at least in anglophone countries

@noiob the theory around it really originates in France though so it probably spread to Germany by virtue of being a neighboring country

@Siph I really gotta read my medical files lol. I'm pretty pissed they had me hang out with all these psychologists and none of them suggested that I might have ADD