The context of the question is this: after being shuffled around between specialists for like six months, I finally met with a psychologist who concluded that it's very very likely that I have ADD or ADHD, and now I'm on the wait list for a proper assessment. (I will get an appointment in "less than a year, at least", she told me apologetically. Fucking yay, Swedish psychiatric care). But yeah, I probably do have ADD with or without the H. That was two days ago, and since then my emotions have been all over the place. At first I was elated ("Finally! Validation!"), then I freaked out (for the first time ever I have admitted out loud to someone that my issues affect my ability to be a good parent, which felt fucking horrible), then I was full of optimism (now I can learn how to solve all my problems!) and right now I am filled to the brim with despair (all the shitty things that make me unable to Do Stuff will NEVER GO AWAY, I have to deal with it FOREVER, FUCK) and at the same time a part of my brain rolls its eyes and sighs that this changes exactly nothing about me, this is not news, everything will be back to normal as soon as I quit it with the hysterics. Sooo (cue smooth conversational segue) now I'm super curious about how other people have reacted! And how the wholde diagnosing process went! And how it has affected your life! And stuff!
I'd already had a strong feeling about my diagnoses (bipolar II and, after fighting to see a specialist, ADHD) before I sought diagnosis (especially since I'd been consciously been thinking about them and how to deal with them for years at that point), so finally getting those diagnoses was a a relief and a feeling of, "Fucking FINALLY." (Especially since I had to wait so long to get this sorted - I'm in Finland, so, yeah, I feel you.) I had some major worry about side effects, but so far my medication has treated me well and been a major improvement for my quality of life.
So my reaction is a little different experience because I was diagnosed "In time", meaning in middle school, and I think the brunt of the stress reaction started with my parents. I had like a day or two of panic and denial, because the only other person I knew with ADHD was That One Kid who always talked during class and was in the 'easy' group of classes, who got pulled for special lessons every Thursday, and I was so firmly in denial because "I was a smart kid, I was good, I couldn't have a broken brain thing problem right?". Then I went into quiet sort of numb acceptance? I decided that okay, maybe this was a thing that was real, but I had some self-loathing going on there too, not helped by my dad's adamant denial that ADHD is a thing that is real. Then I started medication. Hoo boy. That was a trip. I didn't even really take ibuprofen before that and my dad's quiet freak outs I wasn't supposed to hear involved scary buzzwords about what stimulants could do to grown men and lots of things about chemicals. Once I actually agreed to take the damn stuff I felt almost over the moon- everything was so much easier! I managed to pay attention all day even in algebra. And I did it easily! It was like bang, switch flipped, welcome to what it's like when your brain agrees to stop chasing all the butterflies and instead focus on just a few. Then I flipped back into angry self-hatred? Because I realized other people lived like that ninety percent of the time without medication helping them along and wow I was like broken wasn't I? I kind of realized that my brain was the problem and I couldn't/wouldn't ever be normal. Then I started seeing a therapist which helped, and at this point I'd consider myself pretty stable and happy with myself! I'm still on the same medication, I lucked out in that the first medication that I tried worked for me, but it took a year for me to calm down and accept that this was who I was. The real uphill battle (Still ongoing) is with my parents/siblings but considering I'm only just now starting college I think we have different issues there. You're probably going to cycle through that roller coaster of emotions for a while longer if you're anything like me though.
I got tested in high school, was given some stimulants (adderall, etc) because they suspected ADHD, but they made me super jittery and gave me heart palpitations, so they slapped on "unspecified learning disorder, could be emotions because YOU KNOW TEENAGE GIRLS, SO EMOTIONAL" and then I was treated for anxiety + depression some years later. But nothing seemed to really help. Fast forward about ten years (I'm 26) and I pushed to get re-tested because I suspect there's something else (ADHD, possible OCD or ASD) and I get the official ADHD diagnoses. It was a relief, honestly. I've been doing so much reading peoples accounts about mental health and was already starting to practice proper self-care so it was just finally nice to have an explanation. But I also had a phase of being angry, at both my parents and the psychologists, for not figuring it out. I know the process isn't perfect but it feels like I struggled for so long and had so much self-loathing about my executive dysfunction that I'm still undoing it. I had it pounded into my head that I was just lazy and not trying hard enough and I was so smart so why couldn't I do basic stuff everyone else did? I remember describing my issues as "no motivation" because I couldn't find other words for my lack of focus, so they thought it was depression, but the antidepressants helped with the depression...not the executive functioning. So yeah. I was sort of pissed because it felt like things could have gotten better way sooner for me, instead of waiting till I'd dropped out of college and lost two jobs and all my self esteem. Plus being a legal adult means I have to do all my medical stuff myself, so getting treatment for ED while I have the ED is...tough.
I like that you seem to have positive experiences with medication, because pretty much all I've heard about ADHD medication is firmly in the position of "it will ruin your life with side effects and it's addictive and also BIG PHARMA" (mostly from one friend who has a lot of feelings about Big Pharma. And who does not in fact have ADHD themself.) so I'm kind of scared to try it. This is very similar to my experience. It seems like an overwhelming majority of occasionally-smart people with brainweird have it pounded into their (our?) heads that they are lazy and just need to stop whining so much. I remember wishing that I had some kind of brain thing to blame my laziness on, because then I would have a valid excuse instead of just failing at life because I suck. (Typing that out, I was filled with an urge to just yell FUCK YOU SCHOOL AND PARENTS AND ALL OF SOCIETY AAAAAAAAA but probably other people in the library would not appreciate it.) Also antidepressants is what really made it obvious to me that I had somethig more than just anxiety/depression going on. Like... ok now I'm happy most of the time, my emotions are stable, I can manage my relationships without anxiety, life is generally cool, and STILL I lose the ability to Do Stuff regularly. Hmmm. Ok I am still in a library, but reading this line totally made me roar my furious roar of frustrated solidarity on the inside. That situation is The Worst.
Oh gosh, how silly of them. The real problem, afaik, is the possibility to built up a tolerance, where the regular dosage stops working as well or at all. That's why it's important to take days off of it. For some people with ADHD, it's counterproductive to take more than their regular dosage anyway - the stimulant affect instead turns into a soporific. (This happened to me when I was trying to find out the right dosage. Over a certain dose, it just makes me increasingly sleepy!) Addiction runs in my family, but I've never had a problem with just not taking it if it's a day off or if I'm sick and it'd be a waste of a pill or something. Other potential problems are things like needing to watch your blood pressure (since it's a stimulant and can raise it - afaik this is mostly a problem if you have other stuff that already makes you at risk for having high blood pressure), remembering to take it with food (or risk pretty unpleasant stomach aches), remembering to eat since it's an appetite suppressant, and remembering to monitor your breathing every so often since it has a weird effect of making you breathe more shallowly. It's not a medical emergency kind of thing, just something that will make you feel both wired but sleepy. Getting a bit of exercise on the days I take it usually keeps this at bay. tbh the worst actual side effect I've had is dry mouth, and you can get gels and mouthwashes to mitigate that quite a bit.
Also as far as I know there are non-stimulant meds now. They've found out a lot of new things about it in recent years which is why ADHD is now the blanket diagnosis. I have "inattentive type" and I hyperfocus without really being hyperactive. So, there is some hope for medication working for me once I actually get over my phone call problem and contact the doctor... For what I understand, adhd meds are easier to work with because you don't have to build them up in your system like ssris. So you can figure out pretty quickly if something works for you or not. I realize my post sounded a bit depressing, but my life in general is much better than it used to be. I just need to get to the damn doctor. (I had the 'fortune' of having to go on state insurance right after getting diagnosed because I turned 26 and sorting that process out was amazingly draining. so now I have to find a new doctor, psychiatrist, the works. It's slow going.) I think a lot of brain stuff is misunderstood but executive dysfunction is one of those things where people who don't have it have an incredibly hard time wrapping their heads around it. They can just do stuff do why can't you?? My mother even works with kids with learning disabilities, adhd and autism and she still made me miserable because she took it personally that I wasn't perfect, essentially. My advice is to be kind to yourself. It's a process. Some days you won't be able to manage things and that's ok. You can sometimes find tricks that work. I focus better with music in the background, especially video game music, because it's designed to keep you focused.
Ok typing this makes me anxious as fuck because what is social protocol??????? Am I being too weird now????????? OMG But I wanted to say that I kind of calmed down after reading all your replies, not really because of a specific thing but because it sort of gave me a frame of reference, like, the things that I am experiencing right now are actual things that humans experience. Look!, I can tell myself, other people go though this process and come out as human beings who can express themselves about stuff! Maybe I will too! :D
Late to the party, not much new information, but I wanna throw in my 2 cents, The first suspicion of add/adhd in me came when i was 15, from a friend with adhd, who self-proclaimed couldn't make friends with non-adhd people. i told mom, maybe i have this? and she was like, no, you dont. but i still had focusing problems in school. it was downright impossible for me to pay attention, or learn, and it was always just, youre slacking off, you need to pay more attention, blah blah blah blah. fast forward to about a year-ish back, and me talking to seebs bout diagnosises. he mentions, hey, you kinda sound adhd (among some other stuff), so i tell my shrink. she also recs a psych to accompany the therapy, but executive functioning and social interaction troubles mean that i got there, well, 4 months ago. i give him the rundown, and hes like, did they ever try medication? and i was like, nope. and he was like, yknow what, try this one. gives me a prescription, i pick it up the next day. ever since that it's fucking magic. i can actually focus on stuff. those days when i can get my brain to be creative and do and explore my mindscape are much more often now. it's really nice. i kinda lucked out with my meds, too, the first we tried work. i'm on 25mg of methylphenidate atm, spread across the day in 5 hour batches of 10/10/5, and i've got my alarms set so i take them, because otherwise i plain forget (see: weekends. i take like, 5mg each on saturday and sunday because i just forget taking them) the feeling i had when i got the stuff was, a mixture between "omg this is awesome my brain is working", "fucking finally", and "i fucking told you so". also, i can put an official term to it and no one can say anything about it. that kinda helps.
So this isn't exactly relevant to the thread, but for the past week I've been acutely aware of everything I feel or do that fits the ADHD diagnosis, and obviously now that I'm looking for it I can see it in a lot of my standard or routine behaviors/reactions... to the point where I, today, caught myself thinking: "wow, it's almost like I have ADHD all the time!". Why are you so surprised by that, self.
Oh my god, this. I felt this for a long while. Like, I got my diagnosis knowing almost nothing about ADHD and did a bunch of research and like obsessively compared my stuff to the diagnosis and was constantly shocked when it added up. Like, part of me figured that I was not always doing the thing everywhere all the time? Like it was a mindset and not a braintype. *Shrugs* Brainweird: It's a thing always, apparently.
