Late Diagnosis

[Vegan23]

Hello guys,

I am new to the forum.

I am a 28 year old women. I am getting assessed for ADHD this October.

Is anyone else getting assessed soon or did get assessed recently?

Any advice?

Nadine.

[Gettingittogether]

Yes, just scroll down. Someone arrives on the forum every week--usually multiple times during the week--reporting on a new diagnosis.

[Mamamichl]

I was assessed about 2 years ago.

[Vegan23 in reply to Mamamichl]

How did it go? I have to go private because it isn't available on the NHS where I live.

[Mamamichl in reply to Vegan23]

It’s quite interesting. Reminded me of counseling appointments but they asked some questions about emotions, childhood experiences and other behaviors I may have had. It was a lot of talking about myself and my childhood, then they said what they think I had. Ptsd and adhd were new, but I had anxiety for a while. They did say they were on the fence for autism too, but my coping mechanisms for adhd and adhd may just make me hyper vigilant and sensitive.

I requested testing from my psychiatrist because I kept getting written up and losing my education jobs and being denied teacher certification due to social issues that I felt I couldn’t control. When being in a meeting with a supervisor, I’m constantly crying and being judged because of my rejection sensitivity Disphoria. I blurt out off the wall things then dig myself deeper until I find a way to stop… then knowing I did something I know I shouldn’t have done keeps me up all night and makes the behavior worse due to lack of sleep.

For my daughter, it was more of a questionnaire for several people around her.

It’s like 3 two hour sessions of counseling of discussing these things. Just be honest and straight forward.

[STEM_Dad]

I was assessed and diagnosed with ADHD three years ago.

My top advice is to get a journal or notebook, and start journaling.

• Write about your struggles with ADHD traits.

• Write about examples of how ADHD has affected you throughout your life, both recently, and in your youth.

If you have any documentation from your youth, such as report cards, look them over for comments like: "Doesn't pay attention", "Interrupts/Talks out of turn", "Needs to apply themselves more", "Needs to focus", "Won't stay in their seat", "Daydreaming".

[Vegan23 in reply to STEM_Dad]

I really appreciate this response, thank you so much 💖💖💖💖

[AuntieSquirrel23]

I was diagnosed at the age of 36 and to the comment about looking back on report cards; OMG. It all came flooding back and everything just made so much perfect sense. “ talks too much; never sits still; needs to pay closer, attention”. Year after year, my report cardss would have handwritten comments like these from my teachers. Not until the age of 36 did I realize that you usually have a comorbidity with ADHD and it hit me at once that I had what was called then, math anxiety, which is now dyscalculia. I struggled my entire life with standard math, basic math. but oddly enough, I could do geometry because they were shapes something to match my different brain

I spent a lifetime of masking and sharing comments from time to time such as, “do you ever hear what comes out of your mouth, do you ever think before you speak”. After receiving the diagnosis of big weight was lifted, and at the same time, one of the things that we do best, is hyper focused, help me down rabbit hole of the rabbit hole, and it still does this day 15 years later, and become an obsessive researcher, so that I need to know everything about it, but it also makes me understand myself, and others like me so much better and It didn’t give me a license to fuck off and mess around but it did bring things into clarity and I learned all about the why

The Why was so important for me because I thought I was broken. Trust me, you are not broken you are highly gifted and you are simply different from the majority of people that’s why they call us divergent I have strengths tbat nobody I know does and I now celebrate this and love these gifts but the struggle doesn’t end, but it does get easieras you get to know yourself better. Be mind and patient and gentle and for Gods sake laugh at yourself because some of the traits that accompany ADHD are absolutely ridiculous and downright silly! But that is YOU and trust me, you’ll have meltdown and you’ll have isolation and you’ll have depressive episodes and you’ll get frustrated and you’ll have overload and you’ll have so many of the things that you’ll read about that are absolutely spot on true but he won’t be laughing during those times, but please find the humor in everything and find a peace tbat it was chosen for you and makes you who you are, and that my friend, is absolutely beautiful

[Vegan23 in reply to AuntieSquirrel23]

So relatable 💖

[BlooBasset]

Yep, I was the same age as you a year ago (28) when I was diagnosed. It changed my life. From the ages of 18-28 I had a bit of an, err, "failure to launch" you could call it where I stayed at my parent's house with no job or education for 10 years and did nothing except drive my mom to her medical appointments. While I'm certainly not fully recovered yet ever since I got diagnosed and started taking medication a year ago I've started going to college full-time and making (mostly) straight A's. For assessment recommendations I would just say try to find a medication that works for you. One of the two main stimulants (methylphenidate or amphetamine) tends to work for most people with ADHD, I tried methylphenidate at first and while it worked somewhat well I switched to amphetamine later and it worked even better. I also find meditation apps helpful there's one called Healthy Minds Program that's free and is as good as some of the paid options play.google.com/store/apps/...

[AuntieSquirrel23 in reply to BlooBasset]

How do you quiet the channel flipping in your brain enough to meditate? And OMG - I re-read my post and the unthinkable spelling Nd grammatical errors!! It was through dictation and now I will be obsessing on that for the rest of my life…so there’s that. Your executive function is just sitting in the corner and not participating in life whatsoever. Have you tried body doubling? It helps me tremendously! Finding a willing party to double can be a challenge

[Vegan23 in reply to BlooBasset]

Thank you so much for your detail. Reading everyone's responses has been emotional 💖

[BlooBasset in reply to Vegan23]

You're welcome, good luck with your assessment! 👍

[BlooBasset]

It's okay if your mind wanders a lot when you start to meditate, just try to bring your mind back to the meditation when it does wander and think of it as training your brain to focus better. I read somewhere that when you meditate you should do the opposite of whatever your natural tendency is for being overly focused on things. Like for example, if you tend to be overly wrapped up in your own thoughts instead of focusing on what's happening around you then you should do an open eye meditation that focuses on the outside world to help you connect more with the present moment. As an example of this, I tend to sit on my porch and meditate on all the different sounds and things going on in my neighborhood, like birds fluttering around, leaves dancing through the wind, that sort of thing. Whereas if you tend to be more overly focused on the outside world, like constantly wrapped up in things that are happening around you and not really attending to your own thoughts, feelings, and the way they make your body feel then you should do a more inward-focused meditation with your eyes closed so you can learn to be more aware of your thoughts and feelings in order to better control them. So for that you would do a meditation like focusing on your breath and the sensations in each part of your body and how they feel when you experience certain emotions so you can be more aware of when you're getting into a certain emotional state and maybe do something to stop it and be more in control. There's a lot more than those two as well, there's also stuff like walking meditations and meditations where you repeat a mantra to yourself that some of the meditation apps can teach you to do so I would mess around with different types of meditation until you find something that works for you. I have tried body doubling and it definitely helps, I have my brother help me with it sometimes, I learned about it in a book called ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life that has just about every technique you can imagine for helping control ADHD

[Vegan23 in reply to BlooBasset]

Well said, thank you 💖.

[Dogsandcoffee]

Hi There! I am also late getting diagnosed. I am 48, so much later than you! Lol! My PCP doc believes I have ADHD and has started me on meds. But I am getting officially assessed later in September by an ADHD specialist. This is a whole new world for me.

I hope your assessment goes well!

[Vegan23 in reply to Dogsandcoffee]

We will get there 😊💖💖. I have to go private because the assessment isn't available on the NHS where I live. Fingers crossed for us both 💖🤞