When I read stuff on add/adhd in kids, I look back and a lot of that stuff never happened. Anyone else?

It seems that I should have been isolated, slow on speech, and unable to complete tasks without immediate results. I loved those picture puzzles that had hundreds or thousands of pieces and kept at it. I did get a speech disorder (stuttering) during 8th through 10th grade but that was determined to be stress from home-life. I can get a job on my own, cook my own meals, and LIVE on my own. I am also a master at multitasking except when reading where the house could be on fire and I wouldn't know until my chair was burning.

Does anybody else feel that their disability, any kind, is exaggerated?

In a way, I have several disabilities that, stereotypically, would be much different than the 'popular' conception of these disorders. I have a very mild form of autism, and my brother is mildly-moderately autistic, but we both can speak and do things and usually react normally to stimuli. I have ADHD, and all it does to me is make my mind wander. The fact that you are good at multitaksing symobolizes that your adult brain has adapted to make up for whatever effects that ADD has on you. The main thing is that people with "disorders" learn to live with them functionally and have a good life. Sometimes I get frustrated because the media portrays only the most severe forms of conditions, and often ignores the higher-functioning, less severe cases for the sake of being dramatic and extreme. Sure, some of the stereotypes are true for the severest forms of many conditions, but most people arent so horribly severe, and the media ignores 'us' because its just not exciting enough for them to air it and get the results they want in feedback. I also have Tourette's syndrome--and tell me about it--how they overplay it on youtube and make it look like people with TS are obnoxious. Yes, I have the severe form where you curse, but its nothing like the 'tourette's guy' video. God, I hate it when people think I cant' do anything. I have to use a wheelchair sometimes to get around becasue my leg tics are so severe, but here's the thing: I live with it. The same goes for the rest of all these disabilities--it might be as bad as it can get, but everybody has to adapt, regardless of how severe or misunderstood their condition is.

it is coming out more and more lately that ADD\AD-HD has been heavily over diagnosed, so there is a good possibility that an old diagnoses for it was inaccurate.