I'm from Mississippi. I could just leave at that because it explains everything, but

My brother was diagnosed as a kid. She didn't like how he acted on it plus she was getting shit from all sides, so she took him off. I didn't know until college and only because dad started gripping that my brother was acting this way because of that one pill he took when he was 5. I started looking into mental illnesses because I had never heard about it other than in books (this was around 2014 for clarification). Took about another 6 years before I worked up the courage to get tested (think I got lucky). I don't blame family all that much because the reasons why are valid, I really blame our educational system, politicians, and ignoramuses who are all "I don't want my child to learn that." I thought I was going crazy and I was faking it; symptoms started getting worse, got more destructive.

Like a lot of my family, I stopped trusting doctors and medical professionals and handled it myself if I had a problem (had a lot of family die. I hadn't started realizing how bad my experience was until I went to the doctor while out of state on an internship. I've payed thousands since just to get all this crap corrected.

Todaly, family is not as dismissive or clowning once I started explaining to the them what medical professionals are actually supposed to be doing. It's been an uphill battle and I hate how I have to be the one to take charge of it, but due to their location, resources, generations of abuse, etc. it would be way harder for them to look for help.