Adolescents who display ADHD-like difficulties but remain undiagnosed occupy adiagnostic borderland in which medical, social, and institutional expectationscollide. In the Swedish context, where rates of diagnosed ADHD have risensharply, this constitutes an understudied and increasingly marginalized group.Drawing on Mead’s concepts of the I and the Me, the study explores how tenSwedish adolescents negotiated their emerging selves while positioned between“normality” and diagnosis. Based on in-depth qualitative interviews and anabductive analytical strategy, the analysis shows that parents, teachers, peers,and digital media frequently activated medicalized interpretations of the adolescents’ behaviors. Participants moved between spontaneous expressions of the Iand socially regulated Mes, often experiencing tension when their actionsdiverged from institutional, familial, or peer expectations. A recurring patternwas a form of double stigma: first, adolescents were judged for behavioraldeviations that were not recognized as legitimate symptoms; second, whenthey received extra support or accommodations in school, these measureswere sometimes viewed by peers as unfair due to the absence of a formaldiagnosis. Some participants resisted stereotyped images of ADHD, whereasothers saw diagnosis as a potential source of recognition, explanation, orlegitimacy. Overall, the findings illustrate how medical discourse structures thevery terrain on which the self emerges for adolescents positioned outside formaldiagnostic boundaries. They also speak to a central concern within clinicalpsychiatry and diagnostic research on ADHD: as diagnostic frameworks increasingly govern how deviance, normality, and support needs are defined, those whodo not neatly align with established categories risk having their experiencesmisread, marginalized, or left without adequate recognition and support.Further research is needed to examine the prevalence of these dynamics aswell as to deepen qualitative understanding of adolescents who inhabit thisdiagnostic gray zone.