“Stiles was incorrectly diagnosed with ADHD” An Ableist Anti’s Essay
Scott fans are fine, but the Scott McCall/Tyler Posey defense squad couldn’t be more ableist and disgusting if they tried https://capricornsicle.tumblr.com/post/635432659187810304/stiles-does-not-have-adhd-an-essay-by-someone#notes
“Stiles does not have ADHD”
“Stiles was incorrectly diagnosed with ADHD”
“it’s very possible for people to be misdiagnosed with ADHD, especially when they are white male children who show the stereotypical symptoms of not doing well in school, acting out, and being hyperactive”
“all of the reasons Stiles could be diagnosed with ADHD) can be explained by other factors in his life”
“many children could be diagnosed with ADHD if they pursued a diagnosis”
“Stiles doesn’t seem to have any strategies to help him behave. He doesn’t express much care about his grades, and neither does his only responsible adult. He warms the bench for most of the lacrosse games, so he doesn’t care much about lacrosse-related consequences for his actions. The adults in his life don’t like his unwanted behaviors, but they also don’t do anything to change them”
“Stiles doesn’t pay attention, does whatever he wants with his time, struggles to sit still and be quiet, and doesn’t do well in school because he doesn’t have a reason to”
“Remember that Claudia died when Stiles was around 10 or 11. That’s the age when boys are at one of their most obnoxious, rowdy, hyperactive, and uncontrollable stages”
“If Stilinski never stepped up and enforced boundaries and rules, which is easy for single parents dealing with tragedy and trauma, that’d explain a lot of his son’s behavior”
“Everyone knows a kid whose adults clearly never imposed routine, rules, or boundaries on them, and so the kid is wild and uncontrollable, and that’s Stiles”
“We never see Stilinski doing much more than occasionally reprimanding Stiles for something that’s way out of line, Stilinski never bugs him about his performance in school, or staying on task, or bedtimes, or rules, or, a lot of the time, the law, so it’s no wonder Stiles has little self-discipline and can’t stay on task or sit still”
“a child’s behavior and self-discipline is controlled by their responsible adults. Everyone has to enforce reasonable rules or boundaries, or they’re going to raise an equally wild and uncontrollable adult”
“Stiles isn’t afraid of consequences. I’d go as far as to say he doesn’t care. He does experience pressure from his classmates to act a certain way and win the favor of more popular kids, but not to an extent that he would have almost no symptoms over the course of the show that can’t be explained by other reasons”
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As a neuroatypical POC with ADHD myself, I’m absolutely disgusted by the alarming amount of ableism, ignorance, lack of empathy, bigotry, and canon erasure in this post.
No one who was diagnosed with ADHD would ever obsessively demonize/hate on a canonical neuroatypical character with ADHD or try to strip him of all his neurodiversity just to invalidate his traumas and prove that neurotypical bully Scott McCall (AKA their personal favorite) is “superior”.
Ableist Scott/Posey Stans like @capricornsicle @liliaeth @princeescaluswords @nyxelestia will swear up and down that Stiles Stilinski being a canonical neurodiverse character has nothing to do with the way they obsessively hate on Stiles and try to paint Stiles as an abuser, a rapist, and a violent, dangerous, immoral, unstable, inhuman freak~monster that only Scott can love, but they will ALWAYS remind us that Scott McCall is totes a “Latino hero lead brown boy protagonist” when we criticize Scott’s canonical abusive actions and behavior – accusing anyone who doesn’t worship the ground their toxic fav Scott/Posey walk on of racism on a daily basis
@mostly-vo1d, tagging you since you likely have a few words on it too.
Let me preface everything what I’m about to say by phrasing who I am and why I know what I’m talking about. Also it is 10 am and I woke up like 5 minutes before I read this and decided to write this whole ass essay about why Stiles has ADHD and why the sheriff isn’t necessarily a bad parent. (Because boy, we need to have a talk about bad parenting.)
I am a 29 year old caucasian trans man who was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 12 and diagnosed with CPTSD just this year. My mother was diagnosed with ADHD at a late age and recognized the symptoms in me. She was the one who persued a diagnosis for me, even though every doctor at the time told her I couldn’t have it because I was too quiet and calm. She was finally proven right by a psychiatrist. And here we are.
Stiles has ADHD. Yes it is a diagnosis based on exclusion but there’s one big exception that’s taken into account. Namely, if a parent has ADHD. Now I still want to write an essay as to why I think the sheriff has it too but that’s an essay for another day. But I think the sheriff has it too, he’s just one of the adults who learned to handle his symptoms. (They are out there, people who never outgrew their symptoms but learned to manage them.)
So why do I think Stiles has ADHD?
- He’s showing classic signs of hyperactivity, twitching, twirling pencils, talking out of turn , is loud, impulsive to a point where he can be a danger to himself and others, etc.
- He has an inability to focus on most things around him unless it is about a special interest or hyperfixation. We see this when he stays up all night to learn about werewolves, when he stays up all night to study the patterns of deer in Beacon hillls. Now I don’t know a single neurotypical person who would do that. Most people when faced with a deer running into your car at night, would move on from the incident.
That sounds crazy, but that’s exactly what happens in NT brains. Humans are hard-wired to move on from traumatic events and to put them behind them in the most efficient way possible so that they can continue to contribute to their community.
They wouldn’t search police databases all night or Google. That’s not an efficient way to deal with that, far more efficient is mentioning it over tea the next day with Karen and talking it out. (As confirmed by my NT straight friend who went through traumatic experiences herself and shared with me how she handled them.)
ND brains, and particularly ADHD brains have trouble doing that, they keep fixating on what happened to them and keep coming back to it and are constantly looking for answer or explanation. They hyperfixate in order to process what happened.
Stiles has a history of doing this, from trying to frame Derek for murder to unmasking Theo. We know it’s been bugging him so much to the point where he’s not doing his schoolwork because this other thing is taking up all his time. Even in the situation all the characters are in, Stiles (and the sheriff is some cases) are the only ones doing this. Clearly this isn’t meant to be framed as normal and it’s not.
One could argue that Scott isn’t smart enough to put 2 and 2 together, and they would be absolutely right but because that boy isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but Danny, and Lydia in particular are. But even when she’s in the know, even when she’s part of the team, Lydia never has moments of hyperfixation to solve the problem to the point where her life suffers over it.
This has also happened before, as referenced in 1x05 where the sheriff has a parent/teacher conference with Finstock and the latter mentions that Stiles put the history of circumcision on his economics test.
The sheriff isn’t even surprised by this and just sighs. Clearly, Stiles has done this before. “I define it as you getting straight As with no behavioral issues.”
Now, I don’t know the history of circumsicion. I never looked it up. But I also don’t know any NT kid who would look it up only to act out and write it on an economics test. Teenagers don’t do that for funsies. They might write an entire paragraph on why they think the test sucks or the teacher is stupid but I don’t know a single NT teenager who would write the history of circumsicion on their eco test. Unless that was an hyperfixation at some point in their lives and they couldn’t concentrate on their test anymore.
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Now let me have a talk about Noah Stilinski and his parenting choices. Are they good? Not always, he has a history of alcoholism and we know that the boundaries he tries to set for Stiles aren’t always reinforced. I think this has two reasons.
1. Noah has a fear of losing his last family member (Stiles) and therefore doesn’t enforce punishments but tries a more gentle approach with Stiles. I think this also has to do with Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria a condition that is known to affect those with trauma and ADHD. And Noah has had a very traumatic life and possibly, also ADHD.
2. Noah was a victim of domestic violence and child abuse and as a result he’s trying to break the cycle. We know that Elias Stilinski was abusive, specifically towards his wife, but that he wasn’t afraid to turn his attention to Noah either.
Taken from the wiki: Elias was both verbally and physically abusive to his wife, something that angered and bothered Noah so much that, on at least one occasion, he got in between Elias and his mother, which led him to be pushed through a glass coffee table. As a result, Noah has a deep scar on his collarbone that has tiny bits of glass still stuck in it in the present day.
So no, Noah isn’t always the most consistent parent or one that rules with an iron fist. But considering the circumstances the man comes from, he’s trying to do his best while dealing with his own traumas. And for all you can say about his lack of enforcement when it comes to Stiles, he has never raised a hand to his son.
Although I will say that sometimes Noah is borderline verbally or emotionally abusive to Stiles. Something that he likely does unconsciously and as a result of his own traumas, but that doesn’t excuse the behavior.
What Noah consistently tries to do however, is steer Stiles in the right direction with a gentle hand. He consistently asks about his grades, makes sure Stiles goes to school, tries to talk to his son when he notices Stiles isn’t doing well and needs help. He checks up on Stiles frequently, is very protective of him (to a point where it’s no longer a good thing at times), and genuinely seems to care.
“We never see Stilinski doing much more than occasionally reprimanding Stiles for something that’s way out of line, Stilinski never bugs him about his performance in school, or staying on task, or bedtimes, or rules, or, a lot of the time, the law, so it’s no wonder Stiles has little self-discipline and can’t stay on task or sit still”
Now I don’t know where this person got this from, but that is not the parent I am seeing in the show. Especially in the early seasons I see him doing the exact opposite.
The sheriff is shown on multiple occasions to tell Stiles, go to school, am I gonna run into surprises at the PT meeting tonight, go to bed, what are you doing here? etc.
Yes, Stiles isn’t listening, probably because:
a. Noah doesn’t seem to enforce the rules or if he does, it’s not shown.
b. He likely doesn’t register that what he’s doing and just impulsively keeps doing what he’s doing.
c. Stiles has a deepfounded belief that he needs to be the adult and take care of his father.
Their whole parent/child relationship is skewed by several factors.
1. Noah is traumatized by everything he went through as a child and by the loss of his wife. He doesn’t want to lose another family member, particularly his son, and likely feels he’s failing as a parent.
2. Stiles is traumatized by the loss of his mother and doesn’t want to lose another parent. He clearly feels like he has to be the one to take care of his father.
When you bring all of these together you get an incredibly complicated situation where the characters are trying to do the best they can. But to conclusively say that Stiles’s behaviors stem from a lack of parenting is both unfounded and rather baffling, considering that we don’t know when he was diagnosed. It might even have been before claudia’s death. In which case, a lack of parenting would no longer hold up.
And for that matter, the reason why Stiles shows all these symptoms might not be because he’s acting out and knows he won’t get punished for it. But rather, he has ADHD and his father isn’t beating the symptoms out of him but recognizes Stiles has special needs which Noah tries to accommodate.
@purplepints
Fun Fact! I am currently writing an essay about if Teenwolf puts Stigma on ADHD with the Way Stiles is protrayed, in the analysis i fist had to prove, that stile does indeed have
ADHD
like that wasn't obvious.
That man in pear reviewed.
