alt Hacker NewsClinical autism and clinical ADHD are notoriously difficult to diagnose in adults. In some countries it's even illegal to prescribe stims unless there's a childhood ADHD diagnostic.
Adults have been socialised to mask the more problematic behaviours, and they can also be unaware that what they're doing is masking: they can believe that everyone struggles like that.
Only difficult because the criteria are misaligned. We diagnose school children more consistently, because we subject school children to strict measured criteria (school), and can point to the data (grades/homework) as objective evidence.
Why do we care so much about objective evidence? Because of prohibition. Prescribing stimulants isn't illegal because it is difficult to diagnose ADHD. It's difficult to diagnose ADHD for the very same reason it's illegal to prescribe stimulants: our society values prohibition of drugs over actual healthcare. An ADHD diagnosis implies a compromise of prohibition, so our society has structured the means to that diagnosis accordingly.
Experts in the field estimate a very high incidence of undiagnosed ADHD in adults. During the height of the COVID-19 epidemic, telehealth services were made significantly more available, which lead to a huge spike in adult ADHD diagnoses. Instead of reacting to that by making healthcare more ADHD accessible, our society backslid; lamenting telehealth providers as "pill mills", and generating a medication shortage out of thin air.