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Self-diagnosis, especially for mental illness, can quickly turn from a passing symptom to a lifetime label if you’re not careful. In this day and age, it’s not uncommon for the internet to give us answers before a professional gives us clarity.

How would you handle a friend who’s a little too enthusiastic about managing her own illnesses without expert help? One woman recently aired her grievances about her exact situation like this on Reddit. Here’s what happened.

AITA for telling my friend that she needs to stop using “ADHD” as an excuse?

For context, my friend Mia (21F) has been self-diagnosing herself with ADHD for about two years now.

I encouraged her to seek an official diagnosis because I worried labeling herself without one could become a self-fulfilling thing, but she dismissed it and said she was “peer diagnosed” by our friend group.

That’s not exactly how that works…

I am not qualified to diagnose someone, but I am becoming increasingly frustrated because she blames almost every inconvenience on her ADHD, especially around me.

Whenever we hang out she’s usually at least an hour late, but she somehow manages to be on time for other friends.

I get time blindness exists, but if I bring it up, she says “I can’t control it, it’s my ADHD”.

She could at least throw an apology in there.

When we go out to eat, she’s always on her phone instead of engaging with the friend group and says she “can’t concentrate” because of ADHD.

She constantly forgets things like her wallet unless I remind her beforehand, and gets upset afterward because of her “ADHD brain”.

She also frequently interrupts my conversations in the groupchat to say she doesn’t get my rhetorical questions or jokes, then cuts me off with “maybe it’s my ADHD lol” whenever I wanted to explain myself.

This friend sounds positively exhausting.

Whenever we went to a food place that was not her suggestion, she would also become very picky about the food and says she can only eat “safe foods” because of her ADHD (this was not an issue two years ago).

Again, I am not a professional nor have ADHD, so I would not know what it be like.

It sounds like an AH, but sometimes I can’t help but think her ADHD was “targeting” me.

She can’t pick up and shed labels whenever she feels like it.

I have urged her to get diagnosed, but Mia would insist it does not affect her life too much, and besides, she was already “peer diagnosed”, so there was no need for it.

Those didn’t concern me until recently, when Mia was ranting to our friends about being busy all week and having a lot of things on her plate that still needed to be done, but she continued accepting additional favors from her university peers.

Out of worry, I asked her how many hours she had slept this week and how her finals studying was going.

A question that good friends should be able to ask one another.

Mia snapped at me and screamed, “I’m already properly planning things out! Why do you not believe me! I know I have ADHD, stop acting like I can’t do anything!” in front of our whole friend group.

I was taken aback and pointing out she was misconstruing my words, and I was not implying she couldn’t do anything.

The friend group came to her defense with one friend telling me to “forgive Mia, she has ADHD, maybe she just misunderstood”.

That’s a wild response from the friend group.

At that point I also got frustrated and said “Well that’s not an excuse now, is it!” and left.

Now the group says I’m an AH for snapping at her.

I feel bad for losing my temper, but I also feel exhausted by ADHD being used to explain her every action. AITA?

Sounds like she needs to focus on how to fix her behavior- regardless of what’s causing it. Let’s see if the good people of Reddit agreed.

The comments were pretty rightfully baffled by the whole thing.

Including those who were experts on the topic.

One person made a valid point.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman who shuts down her neighbor’s construction project after her property gets damaged.

Though someone else felt the solution was easy.

But one person shared some wisdom from their own experience.

She needs to consult with an expert before exhausting her friends…