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@diligentcircle I think we’re very much on the same page (and I sympathise with you having lost a long post – that kind of thing is incredibly frustrating and can really throw me!)

Three quick(ish) comments:

1. Your understanding of the word *disabled* seems to align (mainly) with the medical model (as well as with most dictionary definitions of the word), but under the social model, it is society (and its conventions, infrastructure etc.) that disables people – I tend to prefer the latter framing

(Of course, any society’s conventions, infrastructure etc. will disable some people, perhaps in different situations)

2. Talking of a *deficiency* or *deficit* as a lack of something important doesn’t stop it being a relative term, because importance itself is subjective

I do consider my difficulty focusing (to the extent that I’d like) to be a deficit in relation to an ideal version of me, but that ideal version of me is something I’ve conceived of because other people around me seem to be able to focus much better – if everyone had ADHD, I probably wouldn’t think twice about it

3. Words like *disorder* and *deficit* may be considered to be almost value-neutral – though I think many, if not most, words end up having some sort of positive or negative association conferred upon them by a language community

Even if their value is only very slightly negative, I find it interesting that those terms (indicating lack of something) are used in the DSM (which is in turn positively valued by a lot of medical professionals and others)

The Autistic/ADHD ability to hyperfocus on something of interest, just to give one example, isn’t included (unsurprisingly, because it’s not a problem, and the DSM is all about problems that people have), but we get assigned the label that only deals with the (relatively) problematic part of our neurotype

I hope that makes some sense – as I say, I don’t think we’re talking completely at cross purposes here!