When the amount of time management, task tracking, studying guide I found helpful have ADHD labeled on them… I started to connect past experiences together.

It got to the point where I just need an answer and get this question out of my system.

Got myself evaluated, and the rest is history.

Reading adhd memes and realizing it was just me

I didn’t really, I had a poor understanding of it before, and was diagnosed when I was seeking help for depression

From YouTube and friends that have it I definitely suspected I did in my 20s. It wasn’t until my early/mid 30s though I got evaluated for it due to issues I was starting to have getting things done at work (forgetting things that needed completed, missing details, zoning out on calls more often). I think I masked it well previously because my work was varied and challenging but a new role had me doing more mundane things that required experience and attention to details but weren’t difficult for me or overly stimulating.

I… can’t remember…?

…

DAMMIT

When you’re young masking is a lot easier. Pair that with the ability to drink pots of coffee nonstop throughout the day to self medicate and the time to exercise for at least an hour every day and you can get by pretty effectively. At some point though you get old and busy enough that A: it’s not possible to physically drink enough coffee to self medicate anymore and B: you don’t always have 1-2h a day to devote to exercise. At that point it becomes apparent that you should probably be on medication if you want to remain high functioning.

Attention, memory, constantly walk away and forget everything that was said, I can watch the same movie a few times before I remember it. I’m overall a space cadet in the brain. Did it happen yesterday? A few days ago? Two weeks ago? Who knows?

Why I don’t go get tested? I like flying planes and the FAA doesn’t believe ADHD is safe. Well, it’s fine if you can properly manage it. It’s pretty easy to take notes and follow the checklists.

Two children diagnosed using my school reports as background. All the signs.

While getting an adult diagnosis here is expensive and difficult, it’s probably inevitable.

I’ll get 'round to it soon…

I was in the denialist camp. Not understanding what it was, I thought it was “a social media epidemic” and not a real thing.

My nephew (roughly my age, for context) told me he thought he had it, which I dismissed, also that it’s genetic (knowing my mom and sister it did make a bit more sense…) then almost immediately came across a comment in Reddit of someone who had ADHD and wrote an experience that resonated SO MUCH with me. At that point I was mega suspicious.

I met my partner a couple of months after that, and another couple of months later, he moved into a house with a landlady… with ADHD. She’s actually an ADHD coach now. Whenever her and I got together we essentially were mirrors of each other, forgetting things, misplacing things, dissociating, hyperfocusing, fidgeting…

I got diagnosed a year after that.

I was in therapy already for other reasons, and they suggested ADD. Only acted upon- and medicated after I fully crashed though.

Realized that something was wrong with me as I couldn’t study or do things that I need to do, still don’t have my diagnosis tho

My boyfriend of a decade and a half told me he had been suspecting I had it for awhile. He had been suspecting it for years. Just never said anything because we were managing pretty well and he didn’t want to throw a bomb into my life unless it was necessary.

When he told me, I was in the middle of having a mental breakdown over my inability to focus at work. He told me he felt I deserved to know because he hated how hard I was on myself and he wanted me to understand that I couldn’t help it.

It changed a lot for me when he said it. In a way it felt like something clicked into place, sort of. I have since spent a little over a year learning about ADHD and understanding what my symptoms are and where I am similar or different to the listed symptoms.

I have tried to get a referral twice. First time the doctor I saw refused to give me one and instead acted very inappropriately with me. The other time I got my referral from another doctor, who was more professional and then I just kinda stopped the process from there. I tried to find a psychiatrist, but it was very overwhelming and the system was very disorganized and confusing to use so I couldn’t. I also found out that apparently this whe thing is extremely sensitive to me and the few times I managed to find phone numbers to call, I would start crying uncontrollably and being unable to call anyone because I was so embarrassed about my emotional outbursts.

I decided I would look into it later when I was in a better place mentally, but everytime I have even tried to take a step into getting diagnosed since then, I become very emotional. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s very embarrassing. I am also extremely terrified of being humiliated. I dont have the best experiences seeking help for mental health stuff so I’m very scared of going through something like that again. And to put myself in a situation where someone is literally there to question my life experiences and determine if they are valid or not. That just fucks with me in ways I can’t describe, so while I would really love to be officially diagnosed, I am just too scared of the emotional toll the process would take on me. My boyfriend feels the same way. It was one of the reasons he didn’t tell me about his suspicions at first.

So for now I’m living my life with the knowledge that I probably have some form of ADHD and I try to be a bit more forgiving of myself when I mess up and I try to embrace the parts pf me I tried to erase my whole life. In that sense, it has helped me a lot. Even if it isn’t ADHD, it does help to keep in mind that I have always done my best and that my best just isn’t as good as most people’s average.

My kid got diagnosed, and then it became impossible to deny that I had it too

Basically all the memes hit very close to home, all the ADHD lived experience posts, all the physical symptoms lists, all the childhood signs for inattentive ADHD. Everything fit. Delayed sleep schedule? My best sleep hours are 2:30-11:30 am. Always hated waking up for school, always chose to work either at night or late afternoon. Very sensitive to rejection. Was drinking a monster every day on my way to work and yawning all day anyway. Could always sleep, no matter when or where, when the pandemic started and I was home and not working for the first 6 weeks and I slept 16 + hours a day, every day, for the entire 6 weeks, but never felt any more rested. I’d pass out during moving and shows if I was the slightest bit disinterested. Did cocaine once as a dumb 20-something, had the most relaxing evening ever, I thought we’d been given dud stuff. Time is functionally meaningless to me when evaluating the length tasks take.

It was just endless, every time I heard of a new ADHD symptom it hit HARD, especially the ones describing childhood for ADHD girls. I’m also pretty damn sure I’m autistic so, there’s also that.

I was listening to a podcast about it. I was especially tuned into it because my new stepson was diagnosed long ago, and I thought it should help me understand what I was getting into. I really enjoyed the speaker, so I bought his book for more info.

In the book, I learned all about “inattentive type” which I had never heard of before. As he described the characteristics of inattentive, I was trying to figure out how that was any different from normal, and then it hit me:

I actually have no idea how a normal brain works.