Good evening,
I'm wondering if anyone else that has been diagnosed with ADHD after 40 has dealt with grief over what you believe could have been of your life?
I have been thinking about ideas I've had but couldn't bring to fruition, classes I've taken and quit because I lost interest, the anxiety struggles and fear. I've worked through a lot but it still hurts to think of what could have been.
Hi. Welcome to a new community designed for us ADDers. Yes, grief and grieving, are part of coming to terms with finding out that ADD has been there all the time, but never recognized. Grief (heartache) still show up as memories come back that remind me of past struggles. A lot of the struggles being in relationships and just trying to fit in or make it thru the day. Be careful as the Why's and What if's can consume you. I was diagnosed at 47 (by accident) 15 years ago. I was lucky in 1 way, that the first Rx I was given, Adderall, worked for me. After a lot of reading on ADD, I realized that it was the source of a tremendous amount of dysfunction (craziness) in my family.
Peace to you.
Yes, it's pretty common for people diagnosed with ADHD as adults to experience grief...not just those of us diagnosed after 40.
I was diagnosed at 45 just a few years ago. The first thing I felt when I was positively identified as having ADHD was that my entire life to that point finally made sense.
First, this made me feel relieved that my struggles were not due to character flaws, because I have strived all my life to be a person of high moral character. Indeed, my character has been a driving force in my countless attempts to try to be a better person. I'm not lazy, I'm not slothful.
I felt grateful to have so much greater self-understanding...which also helped me to understand other people so much better. And that helped me to feel more fulfilled, because from my youth I have endeavored to understand people, with my heart and mind to understand others' hearts and minds, to feel more connected to humanity, to know that I can do more to help others. I'm driven at my core to help others; I find real joy in doing so.
I then also felt vindicated, that the judgement I'd felt from other people was misconstrued...they didn't know the reason for all the failures and missteps that caused me not to perform to expectations. I'm not shirking in my responsibility. Many, many times, I have felt misjudged, due to my shortcomings, my many failures to hit the mark. I felt judged, and found wanting. There's an ancient Greek word for missing the mark...sin. That's how that word entered our modern vocabulary. ... But it was not some moral flaw that was behind my failings. Finally, vindicated!
I felt other, similar positive things, like that I finally had a path forward, I could get help to do better.
...
But then I did also begin to feel grief, to feel that my life could have been so different if I had only known...if someone had known and let me know why I struggled so much.
If you have studied grief, you will know that it has stages. Denial. Anger. Depression. Bargaining. Acceptance.
If only we could start with acceptance, and skip the rest. That's not how we grow, though. Like a muscle that has been pushed to the limit, we will go though feelings of pain and powerlessness, maybe even numbness...but then we find that we are stronger for it.
.....
You now have more understanding about yourself. You now have more understanding about the many of us who have walked a similar path.
And you, too, will come to find out that you are the better for it. It will take time to sink in. Your struggles aren't over, you've reached a new level. But here's where the real work begins, my friend!
Welcome to the tribe!
Hi STEM_Dad,
Thank you for this answer to the post. It means so much to me (that doesn't cover it, hard to put in to words how reading your words touched the my core of being). Shetalksalot, I too felt/feel grief in response to my late life diagnosis (April 2022 at 56 years old). The grief and anger at the grief (I skip denial, it isn't in my way of coping, and head straight to big anger, probably for the Norepinephrine hit to my brain) drove me to really push the Psychiatry department at my HMO (Kaiser Permanente) which has been in trouble for terrible Mental Health Care practices for over a decade! They striked last year and forced change! So I pushed hard, and I won! I got "weekly therapy for Adult ADHD" for a year! And it is renewable after the year, for as long as I need it (which is gonna be as long as possible, it is great!). The hardest. part was finding a therapist, since they farmed it out to a very large company. It took me a while, but I landed a great one, and I do the sessions on Zoom. I wasn't sure if that would be so great, but am pleasantly surprised! It saves me so much time and headache of fitting in weekly appointments and driving to those appointments. I have even gone into a private space at work and had my therapy session! Net result is that I have been more consistent with therapy than ever in my life!
I really feel like I have found my people (in this group) and it is like discovering you have relatives you never knew!
love to all!
I'm glad you ended up getting better care. It bothers me that it's so hard to, even though better interventional care leads to better health outcomes for the rest of your life.
I was with Kaiser for a brief time in the 90s (on the plan from my dad's work) and in the mid-2000s (on a plan from my own work. They have yet to ever impress me, except by the size of their buildings. Their service has never seemed adequate (sigh).
Thank you so much for sharing your heart. I too initially felt such relief and felt I'd gained insight into why I operated the way I did. A few weeks later the grief came. I'm in therapy to walk through many things, grief included but I'm so grateful that I finally have insight into me and that absolutely brings me joy and peace. Grief is there, but I'm working through it.
Oh, my! Your story is SO mine! Yes! I was diagnosed in my late 50’s, early 60’s! Oh how different my life could have been had we only gotten the diagnosis and treatment early!
And now, we research, we can be proud of the self-management tools we developed, the skills we accomplished, the life we lived in spite of the obstacles we faced. We move forward.
I was diagnosed 3 years ago at age 59. It explained so much: I spent years and years trying to fit my round self in a square hole. I managed to have a career in education but sure could have done without all that time quietly shaming myself because I could not do things I did not enjoy—things I had internalized as attributes of success. Yes, I grieve the loss of confidence in myself that I now know was not because of character defects, the squashing of my creativity, the realization I finally had some guidelines for a successful career at the end of it. I am better off knowing myself better. Better late than never. You are lucky to still have so much time ahead of you to find your purpose and path.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience, I really appreciate hearing that what I'm feeling and have experience is not so uncommon.
All love to you. I’m in a similar position. I’m from the UK, we have a history of being very buttoned up, so access to mental health services in some areas are still fairly poor. I’m in that hinterland between diagnosis and titration. I have the delights of: will any medication work? And. Is the diagnosis correct? As others have mentioned, it is fully like grief. And debilitating in itself.
All of those things I tried to complete. All of those people who think I’m aloof, but actually . . .
Every essay I wrote, every conversation. Each comment on social media, each unwon argument’s lost thread.
Taking blame because of a reluctance to argue and defend myself, utter social and professional guilt at failing to get anywhere on time.
I need to flush it all away.
Start anew.
Build from here.
All power to you as you start your new and exciting journey.
I'm learning ADHD is a journey and we'll find our path once we accept our path is different. I'm so encouraged by everyones journey.
You got lost in the system… Adults didn’t realize your needs, BUT now you know and YOU can be the adult that takes care of YOUR needs now. ❤️
All of this 🥰
that’s my exact experience. Dx at 51. “What could have been…”. That sentiment is what got me to finally make neuropsych appt for my teen son.
Yes! I see this in my 27 year old daughter, she's scheduling her ADHD evaluation. I'm so grateful for this, she'll have the tools she needs to tap into the fullness of who she is without shame, guilt or low self esteem! That's the victory!
I got diagnosed at 34, but I can still relate to this. When I started medication especially, I felt grief. I couldn't believe that other people lived with this much calm and focus. That had never been accessible to me.
YES! I am on Adderall (generic, extended release) . I was prescribed 5-15mg, and found 10mg is working the best. My Psychiatrist (for over a decade) kept mentioning that I could/should "take days off the med, for a break" and I wasn't understanding. Why would I go off the med that gives me "so much calm and focus" as you said above. I just couldn't see his point. He finally said that "many people build a tolerance to the effects of stimulants and will need to keep increasing the dose." Great, he is viewing me as a potential addict or abuser of the stimulant medication? He said he is quoting from statistics, but I think he is concerned about a 57 year old on a stimulant, because of effects on blood pressure and the heart. Yes , my resting heart rate is up between 5-10 beats, but it is up from 48-54 bpm. I am in excellent physical fitness, as a former competitive athlete for decades. I reminded him that I am an outlier among the adults in the USA. So I don't take those "med vacations" I just embrace my new found ability to function at a high level, it feels WONDERFUL!
I love that you know what works for you and you're embracing that with confidence!
The short answer is, no, he is not viewing you as a potential addict or abuser. Our brains fight changes from medication to get back to what it thinks is normal. And those breaks from the medicine helps reduce the cumulative countermeasures our brain performs.
To explain those med vacations a little more. Our brains want to be at their regular balance and fight against the medications to get back to it. For example, our brain cells pull neurotransmitter receptors into our cells to decrease signalling when we are stimulated. To get those receptors to come back out, we need a break from medication. Even by the afternoon this is highly noticeable and your Adderall XR is actually designed to manage that fact. Adderall XR is half instant release and half is released about 4 hours later. Since the first half hasn't gone away yet, that increases your blood concentration much higher than it was in the morning. Yet, that only maintains therapeutic levels and doesn't really increase it. Reasons is, by the afternoon our brains have switched off some of the receptors and we need a higher blood concentration of the medication to reach a therapeutic dose. Being off meds overnight allows those receptors to reset. By taking longer breaks, it allows more of our brain to normalize and therefor make the medication stay as effective as in the past. All that is true, but it is actually much more complicated with more countermeasures that need to reset.
If I knew 15 years ago what I know now about these meds, things would be much different for me. Your 10mg XR gives you 5mg in the morning. And that is your therapeutic effect. I take 60mg IR in the morning and it doesn't get me out of bed. I get up an hour or 2 later and take 20 more. And still a little sluggish. I never get fully out of the brain fog any more. Adderall also affects other systems in your body such as your endocrine system. Not likely to be an issue at your dosage. But just 30mg XR it started to affect mine. And now mine is a mess. My brain no longer regulates related neurotransmitters and relies on the meds to do it. So stopping is not an option unless I quit work, which is not an option. No psychiatrists have the tools to help me transition to other meds that I think might work while handling the deficit left by reducing adderall, so I am left researching and figuring out that part on my own. Meanwhile the rest of my life is ruined. Not a likely scenario for you, but you can see how things can escalate.
Forgot to mention in my old post. Some therapists believe the med vacations are a waste of time. And I am in the boat too. Unless on a low dose and you don't have issues being reasonably functional while off it. Usually med vacations aren't long enough to do much. I used to take weekends off. Which left me extra tired and useless on the weekends. Then, Monday was actually less therapeutic than if I took the meds over the weekend. Granted I was started on too high of a dose to begin with so that was a factor. I've taken 3 week paid time off and sat at home crashed out to make the meds better. Which I was on a little lower dose at first at the end of the time off, but went back up in dosage in less time than I took off. After my first 1.5 years on Adderall, I got laid off. Took 6 months off the meds to feel like my premediated self again. But, when I stared back on them, I still had a lot of tolerance compared to first trying them. And the negative side effects and dosage rapidly accumulated to their previous levels in a few weeks. Which is why I am in the camp that med vacations or days off are counter productive except for certain people who have not build much tolerance and don't have Adderall crash on their days off.
You have been stable for a long time so I don't see a reason for a break that may just be more negative than helpful. If you want to protect your brain from Adderall tolerance, ask to take memantine. 10mg twice a day. It is a mediocre Alzheimer's drug, but it is good for preventing tolerance from Adderall and can even reduce tolerance for some people. Much of the tolerance of Adderall comes from the excitotoxicity of the NMDA/glutamatergic pathways. Which it is specifically designed to protect. And also does so to a number of other pathways in the brain. If your therapist gives you crap, search on reddit.com for people stating they were prescribed it exactly for the reasons I mentioned and that it worked. And tell them amphetamine is literally named after the AMPA receptors in the brain. Which works with and required to trigger the NMDA receptors. So not a stretch to make that connection form AMPhetamine to AMPA receptors to NMDA receptors. And it is well documented about excitotoxicity of NMDA receptors causing cell damage, releasing excess glutamate, which triggers apoptotic cell death in other cells. Glutamate being a modulator of other neurotransmitters like dopamine and norepinephrine, easy to see tolerance being part of the result to cellular damage and downregulation. Which is also associated with Alzheimer's and other cognitive decline, so it is well studied. And further more, actual studies on amphetamine being excitotoxic to the mentioned pathways and a large factor in tolerance building stated by the researchers themselves.
I'm still working with me Dr to get the dosing right. I look forward to a calm mind....what even is that, lol
Same here, Mkkl.
I'm 38 and was diagnosed 7 months ago.
The first time I took my medication I was astounded. I had no idea my head could be so quiet. My 1,000-,piece monkey marching band shut up! All the chirping, whooping, and general clamor of all those thoughts and ideas calmed and became polite... I remember looking at my husband and saying, "Wow! It's so quiet!"
@Shetalksalot -- I'm in 38. There was--and still is, though less often--thoughts of how things might have been different. I definitely get lost in my thoughts whenever I think about how lost I was in my twenties.
Here is what I started and contunued doing to help with the initial onslaught of grief:
- Learning as much about ADHD as I can using resources from reputable sites.
- Watching a lot of How to ADHD episodes on YouTube.
- Talking with family and friends has been good and okay. This is all highly dependent on the person. Everyone has been polite, but I feel skepticism. And yes, I understand that could be me projecting... 🤣
- Counseling
- Leaning into my out of the box thinking!
I have good days, bad days... But also a kind of peace in knowing.
Find what works for you, and I'm confident you'll find some peace too.
❤️❤️❤️. I love that you’re learning more about you, embracing all of who you are walking in confidence on this journey. That’s absolutely amazing!
Absolutely..... and I don't think the grieving process follows a direct line of those 5 stages - in my experience, we waffle back and forth for sometimes many years with grief. I'm 73, and just doing all the reading I've done, I know this is my main issue with comorbidities to deal with as well. The ache I feel at times when I realize I passed on my own dysfunction to my sons is SO painful. I always used to just think I was quirky and "fun" and wild and crazy... I couldn't allow myself to recognize the pain I was causing others in my life, and there is great relief - as others have said - of finally being told that I'm not a "character flaw" - that there is a biological issue here that I have had no real conscious control over. I'm so grateful for this insight.... and yet there is that "if only I had known." My current favorite book is "Still Distracted After All These Years" (a play on the song "Still Crazy After All These Years" by Simon and Garfunkel) by Dr. Kathleen Nadeau - the subtitle is "Help and Support for Older Adults with ADHD". Here's a quote from the book that I hold onto when I'm prone to beat myself up about my past: "Remember, many positive traits associated with your ADHD may bring value to your life and to your relationships - such traits as being creative, being a risk-taker, being able to hyper=focus, being lively, being fun, and living in the moment." Because of my health issues, it's unlikely I will be able to use stimulants, so I'm going to have to go the non-stimulant route - currently I'm on a very lose dose of Clonidine which seems to help a bit. You are lucky to be able to do the search for a stimulant medication that may work. Nadeau (and others) offer many suggestions for managing ADHD aside from medication, thankfully. May you find some relief from your grief in this community here.... the support of others dealing with ADHD can be life-affirming.
You are exactly right that the stages of grief don't follow a specific order. That's because people are not simple and straightforward, we are complex and ever-changing. Our lives are ever changing, our circumstances are ever changing, our bodies and minds are ever changing.
It's possible to go back and forth between stages, round and round, and through multiple stages at the same time. (And the stages don't have clean lines between them. You can pass into or out of one suddenly, or pass in and out gradually.)
(Some researchers have also made other models, besides the classic Five Stages of Grief model. But again, they are not linear, because people are complex.)
I had to decide that I will allow my heart to heal in its time and in the meantime I keep going and walking in the journey of self acceptance and discovery. Thank you so much for reminding me we're all different and will grieve differently and for different amounts of time.
I appreciate you sharing your heart and your experience. I feel seen and supported and I'm so grateful to finally have a community of people that "get it". Thank you.
I hadn't really thought of the grief until recently when I had a medication adjustment for my neuropathy and had very noticeable mood changes.
When I was diagnosed at 54, I was so relieved and elated that it wasn't my fault, I wasn't stupid or crazy after all! I did think about all the "what ifs" but pushed them aside in favor of the possibilities a diagnosis brought.
Now almost 67, I've come to see that the knowledge of having ADHD gives ME relief, but not so much the others affected in my life. They tend to see it as an excuse to get away with being lazy and unmindful. So the grief is more present-day, in that the knowledge hasn't really made my life more manageable. I'm less inclined to want to try and squeeze my square peg self into the round holes that society and family demand from me. They still don't really get it, and think I just do it on purpose to annoy them. Really? Who in their right mind would make trouble for themselves intentionally?
So yes, grief is part of the process. Anger came close behind, and acceptance I have most times. Welcome to the fray, it is a safe space here that's warm and informative.
Thank you for sharing your experience. I appreciate your vulnerability in this beautiful, safe, space.
It wasn’t until the 1990s that ADHD was recognized as often extending beyond childhood. In the late 1990s doctors began to more widely accept that girls also have ADHD.
We’re all part of a big wave of people receiving a diagnosis later in life. Mine was at 40.
I believe it’s under diagnosed and more studies and public education is sure to come. It’s a great time to get diagnosed because there’s so much more education and support available than ever before.
I agree.
I was diagnosed at 38. I'm 39 now. I spent quite a while wondering where I'd be if I had only been diagnosed sooner. I'm a mother to 4, but I bombed out of college in my senior year. I have so many dreams and projects that never got finished. My life is a cluttered mess and I'm so far behind my peers. I am a mother and a wife, so I've done that. Two of them have adhd and one is too young to know. Learning about myself and the way my brain works is helping me help my children. I still can't tell my own mother because she'd tell me that I'm fine and there's nothing different about me except that I was smart but lazy when it came to school. It's funny that she doesn't even realize that many of the ways she has always described me as "a difficult child" are symptoms of textbook adhd in girls. She described everything, up to and including my serious issues with executive dysfunction. When I told her that what she was describing was executive dysfunction, she said that she didn't like that and that it made it sound like there was something wrong with me. So, yes, I struggled quite a bit with she I would be with an earlier intervention. All I can do is move forward.
You’re finding ways to make it work all while learning about yourself and raising a family. You’re doing the best you can and that’s enough. Our parents often didn’t have the tools they needed and didn’t always know what tools we needed or even that they needed tools. The beauty is what you said, we move forward. You’re doing just that and I applaud you for that. ❤️
I was diagnosed at age 71 and about a third of a year later I have (mostly) moved beyond the grief for what I might have accomplished. I was never angry since when I was in school in the 1950s and 1960s the very concept of ADHD was just being recognized. I look back to one or two close calls where I might have been diagnosed.
The school system referred me to a psychiatrist to look at the gap between potential and performance - I was passing with mediocre to average grades. Unfortunately the doctor probed and focused on possible traumas and issues in my family - divorced mother caring for my sister and I - which just reinforces the false narrative we build that our performance issues are moral and character failures.
Over the school years I built my impressively opaque mask to hide the inner me from everyone. I was my harshest critic and was certain that nobody would like me either if they saw through the shield.
From time to time over the years those who cared and felt my potential didn't match my behavior would look for ways to find some mysterious problem. One employer paid personally to send me to his own physician to see if there was a medical cause. This was in the late 70s where the world knew predominately hyperactive boys but not yet about predominately inattentive adults, so again a miss.
Having all these near misses was particularly poignant once I knew that my life was shaped by unrecognized ADHD. What I know to my depths, however, is that I can't go back in time and relive it. The grief has to become the same quiet sadness not often thought of, the way that lost loved ones are buried in our hearts but not forgotten.
My thoughts are focused forward, on making my life better going forward and seizing the potential so long denied for my happiness, my relationships and my volunteer and hobby activities.
You are so blessed and an inspiration. I’m embracing seizing the potential I’ve been so long denied. Thank you for sharing your story. ❤️
So much yes!!! Diagnosed at 39, a few months ago, might have made some better choices throughout my life that's for sure, had I known
You did the best you could with what you had. Now you’re free to explore what works because you know what you’re working with. I just love we have an opportunity for new beginnings. ❤️
oh god yes. I was already gender diverse and then being concurrently diagnosed as neurodiverse and adhd at 46 was a real bombshell.
I remember saying “wasn’t I weird enough?”
I think the biggest grief for me re the ADHD was the impact on my personal relationships, finances and the missed struggles with education. Although I somehow achieved three degrees I never got the grades I could have. The hyper focus challenges on perceived problems in relationships didn’t win me new brownie points. The inability to let things go ? The poor impulse control around spending ? Sigh.
I feel like the grief and the relief co exist for me.
The grief and relief coexist. Yes, I resonate with that. You’re not weird, you’re uniquely you. ❤️🥰
Another thing to consider is that only more recently have they learned much more about ADHD, which is one reason we see more diagnosed with it. So it may not have been that easy to get the proper help before.
When I was in elementary school, 50% of my report cards stated "Does not pay attention in class" and not a single person thought, "Attention issue, deficit in attention, Attention Deficit Disorder"? People didn't know as much back then, My brother and I went to therapy for a while and they still didn't realize we were both ADHD, my brother additionally Bi-polar. I had my coping mechanisms and what not so when I was finally diagnosed at age 32, nobody believed I was. The only reason I got diagnosed was because I figured it out for myself first. Then went to a psychiatrist to see if I was right.
Consider yourself lucky that you now can understand much of your struggles. Many people still struggle and still don't know. And now you can get the help to manage things better. But, don't think that if you were diagnosed at an earlier age that things would have automatically been completely different. People with ADHD also get bored with classes, even on meds. People who don't have ADHD struggle, get depressed, have anxiety, don't perform like that wanted to. You have to understand that a diagnosis and therapy is just the beginning. It doesn't turn people into superman. Everything is still a lot of work etc. Just that now you have more tools to deal with it. Talk to your therapist and look into topics like motivation and performance to see tools that even people without ADHD need to reach their goals and see things through.
I was almost done with my fourth college degree when I got diagnosed. Took me 3 times longer for everything I had to do, but I managed. Right now, I struggle much more than I did back then even with meds. I can't even consider taking a single class right now, nevertheless work toward a degree.
I agree, I wasn’t even considered for an ADHD diagnosis. I was a good student that got good grades in the beginning and then just faded to black by second semester. Same deal “she needs to pay attention”, “she daydreams a lot”, “if she just applied herself more she’d have more momentum throughout the school year”. My professional career as a lobbyist caused one Dr to tell me “there’s no way you have ADHD you’re too smart”. It was the most ignorant and offensive comment I’d heard to that point. Im just grateful I finally found a Dr that heard me, took me seriously and understood ADHD. This journey is more than a notion. ❤️
I heard the term twice exceptional which really resonated for me, I was a gifted child apparently. I had a reading age of 14 at 6, and as I was the oldest my parents didn’t realise this and when the school approached them about putting me in programs they didn’t. The result of this intelligence was I learnt to mask. I learnt to slip through but took on the message that I just wasn’t ever as good as I could have been, I wasn’t enough. No one, ever thoughtADHD. Now, I was the first diagnosed in my family. My sister is now doing the same thing. Her children, one is diagnosed now, my other sister has two siblings who have just been diagnosed as neurodivergent and ADHD.
I'll be 60 in May. I was diagnosed a few weeks ago and now am once again trying to get medication for a psychiatric need. I have been in therapy off and on since I was 18. I have chronic depression, generalized anxiety, and C-PTSD. I have been on and off this merry-go-round a lot. Hopefully I can complete the hoop jumping and get started on medication.
I don't really feel like I'm grieving. I've been through a lot, but I've learned so much about myself through these journeys. I've been able to have a good career despite these issues, am married and happy in that, and we raised an amazing son (also recently diagnosed at 30).
What I do want, though, is to feel better some time in the near future. When I was diagnosed with C-PTSD I was having screaming nightmares that woke both myself and my husband up. Once I was diagnosed I got medication that made that so much better - honestly life-changing. Hoping for something similar here. Even though my life hasn't always been easy, I don't regret any of it and don't know what I'd changed. If I'm grieving anything it's how much better I might have felt sooner with the diagnosis and the right medication.
Thank you so much for your transparency and sharing your experience. I too just want to feel better from here, that’s all I can ask for. ❤️
I’m glad you asked. I have my own story, but Rick Green puts it best on YouTube. youtu.be/K2RKNVpnK2o
Thank you for your comment. I am new to this group and should probably just read and not comment yet. That seems to be part of my neurodivergent dilemma. I was diagnosed at 70. It opened up a whole new world of understanding and learning for me. A while ago I sat down and wrote out all of the ways my ADHD had manifested itself since childhood. The result surprised me by its vastness. I always knew that my mind did not work the same way as did most peoples, I just did not understand what was going on, so I would mentally beat myself up because of it. I can now attempt to take a more positive approach. I've resisted to urge to grieve though. I am clearly sad about missed opportunities, as well as bad experiences with jobs and relationships. However, if I am honest with myself I also have to admit that my "unusual" way of thinking and behaving has also, at times, been a benefit in things such as thinking outside the box. Sure, I wish that I could have the chance for a do over, but life is not like that. I will be happy if I can do the next (few) years of my life utilizing what I have learned.
Thank you for sharing your story. That takes courage in itself. I was diagnosed when I was 44.
I feel this way too
I'm not crying, you're crying!
Actually, I am crying a bit. My experience mirrors that of so many commenters. I just booked an appointment to talk to a psychologist about this very issue. I was diagnosed 2 years ago, at age 51. Things have skyrocketed for me but I do have major grief, mourning, regret for all those years I missed. I'm also having some issues because for the first time in my professional life I'm engaged and focused, but I never learned the logistical skills (time management, organization, etc.). It's very frustrating and starts to trigger old avoidance behaviors. (Like searching the web for support communities.)
Thanks to everyone for sharing. It's nice to not feel alone. ❤️
Hi Shetalksalot. Absolutely, I think about what could have been, with the right support, with ANY support, and I'm still looking for help to deal with the anger.
Wow. I could have written your post. I’m 50, female, diagnosed 2 days ago, started Adderall yesterday. I have been trying to get my concerns validated for 7 years and finally someone listened. I have a graduate degree and a pretty solid career, and was told I had too excellent an academic record to have ADHD. I was told by 1 psychiatrist & a psychologist, after paying $1500 outside of insurance for testing, that my concerns of feeling chronically overwhelmed and anxious and disorganized were from undertreated depression.
This week as a last ditch attempt before scheduling a video appointment with someone nationally known (an expert in women with ADHD), I saw a new psychiatrist. At the end of the 1 hour appointment—-“no, you don’t need additional testing. Everything you’ve told me and observing you today is sufficient. I’m confident making the diagnosis.” I was stunned.
I was expecting him to ask for additional information, interview my husband, my 80 year old mom, etc (hilarious imagining my mom trying to remember)——NOPE. I guess it was clear as day.
I’m waiting for the anger and grief to hit me. I am just disappointed I had to suffer another 6 years without treatment since my last evaluation. It took me 6 years to muster the courage to try again. I was very scatterbrained and nervous this week explaining my symptoms because I was sure I would get blown off again.
Sending everyone support—grateful to have found this board
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