Yusuke Hirai

I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was around 19. The catalyst for this was when my sister, who is 6 years younger, was diagnosed with a developmental disability. I was a senior high school student at the time, and wanted to understand my sister’s struggles and disability and to improve the relationships within my family, so I investigated developmental disabilities. However, I realized that that many of the points also applied to my struggles and difficulties fitting in. My room, in which I was reading the books about ADHD, was like a pigsty. With this, I thought that I would first face my own difficulties and problems. I wanted to go on to use these experiences to help my family. In this way, I went to the hospital and received a diagnosis. From the time when I became able to tidy my room, after my own fashion, I got involved with research into support, and built up a career as a support worker. I have now launched my own business supporting children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, predominantly in Setagaya Ward, Tokyo.

In my day-to-day life, it is important for me not to get caught up with diagnostic labels or characteristics: I value building relationships with those around me so that I can live as my authentic self. The reason why I started to think in this way goes back to the period in which my younger sister was diagnosed and the characteristics of her condition became apparent. At that time, she had stopped going to school, and felt hopeless thinking that the root cause of why things were not going well for her was a brain dysfunction which could not be cured. She often hit her own head furiously, crying as she said “I want to fix this bad head. I want to swap it for another one.” Seeing this, I thought that just knowing a diagnosis or its particular characteristics was probably not enough to change how hard it was to live with. Nevertheless, for me, being able to use my diagnosis and the characteristics of my disability to interpret my struggles and problems did help me when it came to sorting through my feelings. However, for me, with my disability, saying “How shall I live from now on? How shall I face the difficulties and problems that I have?” was unrelated to the diagnosis itself.

For a while, then, I thought about whether there was a way for me to make the most of the characteristics of my ADHD in my life. For example, my disability is characterized by inattentiveness. According to my own analysis, a tendency to become easily distracted can be seen as having a wealth of ideas when it has a positive impact, while it may be seen as an inability to follow set procedures if it has a negative impact. Therefore, I concluded that in order to get the most out of my characteristic inattentiveness, I was probably suited to jobs which valued plans and ideas, while it would be difficult for me to produce good results in tasks such as data input. However, when I actually worked in various roles, I could not find a job consisting solely of “being distracted.” Moreover, in order to make the most of my strengths, I needed self-awareness of my weaknesses and strategies for dealing with them, and I had to ask people for help and support in concrete ways. The fact that I was facing may different things did not change. On top of this, even if those around me replied to my assertion that I wanted to make the most of the characteristics of my ADHD by saying “OK! You have ADHD, right? You’re free to come up with your own ideas!”, or even if they created this kind of place for me, I was not really able to display my abilities unless I was inherently interested in the topic. From such experiences, I became less conscious of making use of or dealing with the characteristics of my disability.

From that time onwards, I began to start by thinking whether or not I wanted to do something, whether it seemed to be something I would like and could do. As I tackled it, if these characteristics worked in a positive direction, they did not bother me, and if they caused difficulties or problems, I came to think hard about three questions: “Can I tweak my strategy?”, “Can I ask others for help?”, and “Can I change the environment?” I also believe that these are good ways of thinking when relating to other people. When I try to understand the other person, I make a point of avoiding focusing solely on any disability they may have, or its particular characteristics. If we can respect, understand, and support one another, irrespective of any disability, we will surely be able to think of developmental disabilities as just one of many diverse ways of being. I am trying to put this into practice in my own way, beginning with my immediate surroundings. I hope that the number of people in the world who feel this way will increase, and that society will change, albeit little by little.