I recently diagnosed myself with ADHD after two years of depression, health issues and the end of my relationship. I can now see my ADHD symptoms. The symptoms or behavior has been with me my entire life. I've always steuggled.
I hope to get a professional diagnosis but I get the impression the diagnosis is just to get a prescription.
I'm confused and hurt and don't know how to move forward .
As an adult, getting a diagnosis is important for medication if that is something desired. It also can be validating just on a personal level to finally have an "answer" for why you do things the way you do. It's completely normal to be confused and hurt - you are grieving what "could have been" and that's totally okay. Moving forward - learn what you can, be willing to try things, tweak them, and try again. If you can work with professionals who are not only trained but also HAVE ADHD. Therapists, coaches, peer support. You are not alone!
Thank you for your words. I wonder if my symptoms are to blame or me. I think I have to take responsibility and I cannot ask people to forgive me. I feel terrible I hurt people.
So there are a few things to unpack there. First - when you take responsibility for something, that's exactly when it's okay to ask for forgiveness. Second - hurting people sucks. Big time. Especially those we love. However, our executive function defecits are a not an excuse, but they ARE an explanation. We don't tell people in wheelchairs that the fact that they can't walk is an excuse. They just should try harder. We don't take it personally when a deaf person can't hear us - that's not an excuse, it's a reason. It doesn't mean we can't work on skills to improve - but we need to have compassion for ourselves.
Think of it this way:Your symptoms are too blame for your struggles. However, it is on you to take responsibility for yourself and your actions.
If you were driving then lost control of the car and got into an accident, you would of course take responsibility for the accident. But the car had a mechanical failure that led to the accident, you are responsible for the car and the resulting accident, but the blame for the accident goes to the conditions that led to it...not any moral failing within you.
Taking responsibility might indeed require making apologies. (If someone has moved on, then maybe an apology would do more harm than good, so use your best judgement on this.
ADHD isn't an excuse. But as with all things in life there is cause and effect, ADHD can be a cause of issues and struggles, the reason why they happen. It does not mean that it's the reason why you can't move forward and achieve success over those struggles...and succeeding against the odds can make those successes even sweeter.
As one ADHD podcaster is known for saying, living with ADHD is "Life on Hard Mode". ~(Brendan Mahan, ADHD Essentials podcast) Just because things are harder for us, that doesn't mean that they are impossible for us.
Welcome to the community Onestepmore !
I got my diagnosis at 45. Once I did get diagnosed, it helped make all my struggles in life finally make sense, and I stopped beating myself up all the time about my shortcomings.
Getting an ADHD diagnosis can be for more reasons than to get medication, but that is the one reason why a diagnosis would be required.
It helps give some direction for other treatment and accommodation. If you were to get counseling/therapy, the ADHD diagnosis can help the therapist know where to start with treatment.
There are also ADHD coaches, who teach how to manage some of the difficulties that ADHD brings to your life.
Knowing your own symptoms and tendencies can help you to make adjustments to your life, or ask for accommodations at work.
Each of us has our own unique set & severity of symptoms, so your needs are individualized to you.
Thank you. You have been very helpful moving forward. I hope I can find a professional to talk to so I can understand myself better.
hey . Great you have come here to share . I can’t advise much as I’m fighting own battles in a big way , diagnosed at 47, now 50, and as confused sad and grieving as ever . For me , I don’t know any other way than what I’ve tried for last 50 years . And it doesn’t work or hasn’t , most of time .
Listen to others on here as some great solid advice 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
I just self diagnosed myself at 57. No need for a doctor’s agreement because I don’t plan on taking any meds. I’m grieving too…I see wasted decades in bad relationships because it took so long for to connect dots and, as a result, it’s not likely I’ll have another parter. I’m also not so sure I want one due to the impact of ADHD on them and the unlikelihood of finding a partner (most likely male) who is willing to learn, adapt some, and work with me on it. For example, when I’m not perfect and I don’t handle something ideally, to just hug each other instead of have yet another argument. So, yeah, grief. I say all this (as many with ADHD would) to express my empathy and deep understanding of your state right now. You’re definitely not alone.
hey you,
what u are feeling is very common among those os us who are late in life newly diagnosed( or informally dx self). that flood of mixed emotions n information is intense! ❤️
Welcome to your tribe Onestepmore.
I totally understand being confused and hurt and not knowing where to go from here.
I'm a relatively new member of the ADHD tribe having found out that I am ADHD in the spring of 2022.
I would respectfully suggest finding what support and information you can here at Health Unlocked in the ADHD section, checking out videos from people on YouTube, there is a online magazine from home one can receive emails called *ADDitude* for free or one can sign up for monthly mailings that are low cost I believe.
There are other reasons to get an official diagnosis then just getting medication.
I personally am not interested in taking medication unless my insurance starts magically paying for non-stimulant medication which right now they're not willing to do unless I have an official ADHD diagnosis and still jump through flaming hoops backwards 🙄.
Accommodations at work and school, people who don't accept self-diagnosis as valid which it totally is will accept a professional diagnosis and stop being pains in the neck, possible disability financial support, possible housing support or support animal.
Those are some things I can think of off the top of my head that might be significantly easier to get with official diagnosis.
If you're on Facebook there are a bunch of groups for neurodivergent people, ADHD people, etc.
I hope that you can find the support, commiseration and support that you deserve.
You can reach out to me with a private message anytime if you like. Anything you say privately will be kept discreetly private.
🧡🕊️🎻
FYI - regarding ADHD meds without an ADHD diagnosis, I'm currently on bupropion (generic of Wellbutrin).• It actually works about as well for my Inattentive ADHD symptoms as atomoxetine (generic Strattera) did, and also eases my anxiety.
It's actually an non-SSRI antidepressant, but it has also been found to be effective as a smoking cessation medication and for treating ADHD. (I think it's only classed as an antidepressant in the US. In the UK and elsewhere, it's only prescribed as a smoking cessation treatment.)
So, if you have a diagnosis of depression, it might be an option.
Thank you for your feedback and suggestion which I appreciate.
Wellbutrin was one of the antidepressants we tried for me and after only one week I had to stop taking it because of horrendous nightmares like horror movie level nightmares unbelievable.
This was back in 1998 and I don't think they had known at that point in time that it helped with smoking. I went from smoking a pack a day to three cigarettes a day without thinking about it or trying and then after the week even though I went off the wellbutrons because of the nightmares I was able to stop smoking for about a year.
I wish I had been able to stay off completely but it must have helped my health somewhat to not smoke for a year.
In the US it's prescribed both as an antidepressant and a smoking cessation aid sometimes for both reasons to one person and sometimes just one or the other depending on the person's needs.
I'm glad to hear that you found something that's helpful for you because we all deserve to have diminished problematic symptoms 😉
It's unfortunate that you had such bad side effects from it. Wellbutrin does carry some scary warnings...they are relatively rare, but they can be extreme like you experienced. I'm lucky that I've had minimal side effects from Strattera (it can make me nauseous) and only mild side effects from Wellbutrin (sleepiness the first couple of days, and very mild but persistent headache the first couple of months... And I now realize after 3 months that the headache is gone).• Because of the warnings, I was prepared to switch back to Strattera at any time.
ADHD is caused by a deficiency in dopamine and/or norepinephrine (or a deficiency in how certain parts of the brain can process those neurotransmitters.
Nicotine is a stimulant, and acts similarly to stimulant medications like methylphenidate (Ritalin, Concerta, and others), or amphetamine type (Adderall, Vyvanse, and others). Basically, nicotine can actually "treat" the dopamine needs of the brain.
The problems with nicotine are that it's highly addictive, works too fast, and wears off too quickly.
It has been reported in the news that some researchers are trying to replicate the way that nicotine stimulates dopamine release, but in a controlled way and in a non-addictive form. If they are successful, there could be a new, potentially more effective ADHD stimulant to choose from...one which we already know that a lot of people would be likely to respond to.
Thank you.I'm glad that the headache is gone.
All that info about nicotine explains why it was so bleeding difficult to get off tobacco and nicotine replacement aids 😬🙄🤦🏻♀️
Hi everyone who is following this thread, I'm a 73 year old male living in US with inattentive ADHD and I started taking ADHD meds when I was 50 (Ritalin then Adderall). I also take wellbutrin, so I'm familiar with some of the difficulties people may have in starting this medication. For me, the Wellbutrin was very helpful with smoothing out my emotional response to my ADHD behaviors, But again for me, I found that it was only marginally useful in reducing the underlying neuro-chemical cause of my ADHD behaviors. I found that for me taking Ritalin, then Adderall, were essential in allowing me to modify/reduce my actual ADHD behaviors. For example, being rather analytically minded, I found that without Adderall, I felt an overwhelming compulsion to refocus my attention every 1-2 seconds, but with Adderall, the compulsive feeling became merely an awareness that I was feeling like I could shift my attention and the time for this awareness to arise stretched out to about 4 seconds. This difference allowed me the opportunity to try to modify my behaviors, such as really hearing and engaging in conversations, such as really finishing a task and finishing it well before a deadline, such as shifting from avoidance/procrastination to just simply starting an assignment. Please notice that I said could shift and allowed me to try cause I still had to do these things and that didn't always happen. So again for me, the physician prescribed ADHD medications have been essential for helping me try to change my life.
That's excellent! I'm so pleased to hear that you've had good benefits from medication in your life.
I'm not an anti-medication person by any stretch of the imagination.
I personally can't take or won't even think about trying to take Wellbutrin again after what I went through and I'm also terrified of taking a stimulant and having my depakote stopped working and going back to what it was like with unstable bipolar four.
I do take other meds for which I am grateful.
"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
Pausing allows us to pay attention to our present moment experience, and in pausing gives us the space to choose our response, rather than just reacting to our circumstances.
As you said, being able to interject a "Pause" between the trigger and one's response is so critically important, but often so difficult. Many of our automatic responses to trigger events came about to protect us in some way, especially when we were young. Responses to protect us from harm, to protect us from separation, to protect us from guilt or from shame, to protect us from feeling vulnerable. However, as we get older, certain responses are no longer appropriate or useful, and in fact may be keeping us trapped cause we don't know any other way. Inserting that Pause between trigger and response may allow us to take a different path. Thanks for your nice reply reminding me about Pausing.
You're welcome I was actually quoting a quote that usually attributed to Victor Frankel although he probably didn't say it originally but rather this other dude his name I can't remember right now
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