We’re in the process of getting a diagnosis for my 10 year old. He has scored as having inattentive ADHD in the testing so far. Of course it’s all now so obvious that my late husband was exactly the same. We didn’t even know there was an inattentive type! Unfortunately, he died by suicide a few years back. Depression and anxiety took him over. I’ll never know if diagnosis might have helped.
So sorry you went through such a traumatic loss. Good on you supporting your child. He will be OK with your support, you sound like a lovely mum. Anxiety and depression are horrendous, but please don't beat up on yourself, even though you have questions, we can never go back and 'if only' isn't helpful.
I was diagnosed two years ago at the age of 40. It has been both liberating and heart-breaking.
Firstly to know that I am not a bad person. That my 'defective traits' are not a personality failing, that I have been actually living life on hard mode and that it doesn't need to be this way.
Having ADHD had never once occurred to me, as all of the stereotypes are focused on hyperactive boys, I had never even heard of inattentive type.
I sought help- as I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. After having kids, my usual coping mechanisms were not enough. The juggle and drain of motherhood and the eventual return to work nearly destroyed me. I just couldn't do it. Throw in a global pandemic, lockdowns and a few other stresses and I was drowning, constantly anxious and in a deep depression. Turns out- those were all symptoms of untreated ADHD.
I could not stop crying from relief when the diagnosis was confirmed, I got the psychiatrist to go through every aspect to make sure it was correct, and booked a follow up a few weeks later just to confirm that there was no mistake.
Once I had accepted the diagnosis, I also experienced absolute heart break, with the realisation that for all of those years that I had been considered lazy, dipsy, away with the fairies, incapable of getting my shit together, an absolute failure in living up to my potential- was because I did not get the right support.
As I shared the news with a select few, their dismissive response of "well it can't be so bad if you;ve only just realised you've got it" or "Nah there is no way you've got ADHD, did you scam them to get hold of the study drugs?". Yeah mate- the medication that I can hardly remember to take. Totally.
So generally, I am not open about my diagnosis. I haven't disclosed it at work as I know it will prevent me from being considered for promotion or trusted with important work. I'm still finding the medication that works for me, after a big delay in accessing appointments.
But overall, I am happy that I know. That I can make sense of my experience, and give myself a bit of self-compassion- even if that compassion and understanding is still a bit of a stretch for others,
Posts such as yours are so important for us Emily- thank you. It really means so much to be seen, heard and understood.
Please be kind to yourself, I can never understand why there is such a stigma, Im in my 60s and have my own business (and ADHD) so don't give a shit what people think but those comments must really hurt you.
I was diagnosed last year at 34. The meds are a revelation. My brain just quiets down and I can usually even choose what to focus on. It’s so amazing. The diagnosis process was easy, if costly - except the self assessment tools took me three months to fill out because executive dysfunction is amazing. I had 54 pages of stuff to answer and it was a huge challenge to make brain do the thing, but once I got there it was one 1hr appointment plus two fifteens to mess around with meds. Ritalin was . . . An adventure. Uncontrollable rage. But Dex is a lifesaver. I’m aceing uni now because I can focus!
I got diagnosed and medicated at 66. Discovered that what had been misdiagnosed and treated ineffectively as depression on and off all my life simply went away when I took the medication, immediately and each until dose wore off. Came on the heels of both my adult children being diagnosed. I remember filling in a third-person questionnaire for my son’s assessment, turning to my husband and saying, “I’m not sure whether I’m looking at a picture of our daughter here, or a mirror”. There were some nasty side effects initially and I can only tolerate a kid’s dose but yes, it is worth the expense, which others have detailed, and the bother, even in retirement. It makes simply doing things easier. It makes me want to do them instead of fearing I won’t have time. It makes it possible to make decisions - before, the more arbitrary they were, the harder I found them. I mean, how the hell did anyone ever decide what to have for dinner? It gives creativity a big boost. I thought diagnosis might make me resent my ADHD lifetime, and I can certainly fall into the odd if-only; but it also makes sense of the past, which is satisfying in itself, and it helps me let myself off the hook for struggling and take pride in having won a few of the struggles.
Diagnosed Nov 2020. Except I need a different psychiatrist as the one I saw congratulated me on my masking ability and said meds won’t do a better job than I can do myself. I’ve since spoken to a number of people with ADHD who say otherwise. So that’s on my to do list this year!
That therapist sounds like a fuckwit, tbh. ADHD's long term effects, especially on self esteem, are really misunderstood, and I hope you can find some more supportive health professionals.
I was recently referred to a psychiatrist for an adhd assessment by my gp, at my request. That part was pretty simple and I was surprised to receive a phone call a few weeks later saying that they were taking bookings as soon as February. However, it will cost 1750 to be assessed and set up on meds, and I have decided it is not worthwhile for now. I have suspected i have inattentive adhd for many years and my son is diagnosed adhd so I imagine getting diagnosed would be pretty straightforward but it is so expensive even for a pretty well off family like ours. It must be so prohibitive for people who are already struggling to get by. I am hoping to one day complete an internship to be a psychologist (am completing a masters atm) and I think I will struggle a lot to get through it without meds so I will probably look at getting assessed closer to the time (and saving up in the mean time).
Hi, I did that self-assessment and got a 6. It would never have occurred to me at all if my niece wasn't diagnosed as a child and my sister had an aha moment and suggested I might have too. So yeah. But at nearly 57, how the heck am I going to prove what I was like as a kid (very smart, class clown) and I'm also wondering, if the issue is a lack of dopamine, can a lack of dopamine as an adult for some other cause, do the same thing? I'm confused by it all, it goes around and around in my head.
The shrinks are pretty good at seeing it. If you don’t have your school reports then take along a family member who can talk about what you were like as a child (take both like I did 😎).
I LOVED this post! I was diagnosed with ADHD at age 25 while seeking treatment for seasonal affective disorder after moving north. My brother was diagnosed at age 8. The difference was he had “behavior problems” in school and at home and I didn’t. And I was way more into pleasing adults by being a perfect student than he was. Interestingly I was also diagnosed with mild dyslexia as an adult which was totally missed when I was a kid because I was in the gifted program in school. Anyway, I’m no longer on medication for ADHD but I’ve developed a bunch of coping strategies, systems, and processes that help me on a daily basis. I live by my Google calendar and alarms on my phone. I also create the time and space I need to get going enough to get to the place of hyper-focus, which I now feel like is a superpower. I just have to block off enough time to actually get going. And have an alarm on to stop when I need to do something else, like make food or prepare for bedtime.
I was diagnosed about 18 years ago when I took my youngest son for an assessment for his learning difficulties. The psych (I am in Australia) asked me to fill out a form about myself then assessed me too. His very serious comment, 'The Mother Has ADHD'. My older daughter who is a psychologist had often said I had ADHD but I had never known any different, so didn't really care. I was the disruptive kid, probably more like the boys with ADHD but it wasn't known about then - I was 'naughty' , noisy, disruptive, didn't pay attention, 'we expect better from a girl with your IQ' (How the hell was that helpful?). Got straps at home and school. I am not on medication, I have learned 'work arounds' probably from years of practice. I have kids with ADHD - Id like to reassure people with kids like us, love them lots, help them with their strengths, and support them, they are fun, interesting and will be OK - my own mum (she's in her 90s now so def 'old school') was called to a teacher meeting, She told them, "I am not coming to any meetings, you can do what you like with her, I have had a gut full of her too." And then I had to leave school.
Thank you so much for writing about this and for taking it seriously! It's such an invisible struggle for so many of us. I had the privilege of being able to go private to get my diagnosis, but even though I started searching in the middle of last year it took months to get an appointment and I ended up enduring Auckland's entire four month lockdown with no treatment. It was absolute hell. I finally got officially diagnosed a few weeks ago and I thanked the psychiatrist so profusely, it was such a massive, massive relief to know all the things I spent years struggling with were not my fault. I'm trialling meds at the moment, it's a work in progress but I am absolutely loving getting to know a version of my brain which is capable of being calm. I had no idea such a thing existed.
Diagnosed two years ago on Sunday! Happy ADHD-versary to me! I was 51 and it was such a relief to know why i was different and couldn’t ‘fit in’ even when people told me how I should be. Welcome to Team ADHD 💪❤️
Some of the comments here are incredible. Thank you Emily for writing about this.
My husband was screened by our GP and a referral was sent off to a private psychiatrist about 9 months ago. He had to do all these tests to go with the referral (ECG; urine and blood test; and his parents and I completed surveys about him too). We were fortunate we already had savings put aside to pay for the psychiatrist appointments but were mortified to find out her waitlist for the initial appointment was 12 months long. My husband got put on a cancellations list in case an earlier slot came up but in the end we decided not to go ahead with the appointment. My husband had learnt a lot about himself in the meantime and had developed pretty good coping strategies for what was probably relatively mild ADHD compared to other stories shared in this comments section. I’m still super proud of him for starting the process and he can always pick it up later.
Just a thought about the decision whether or not to pursue. The coping and functioning benefits are relative, and might or might not be worthwhile for any particular person. But I did not expect to simply feel so much better, minute to minute, regardless of what’s going on or what or how I’m doing in a practical, functional sense.
My son was 20. He did really well in his first year at uni, did a whole lot of theatre papers where part of the assessment was practical. Then he started his more theory based subjects in his second year and crashed and burned. I was part way through a degree in psychology and reading about childhood learning disorders. I had a aha moment and thought "that's his problem". A couple of days later, my daughter who was just finishing a guidance and counselling degree rang me and said she had just spent the day with him and did I know he had a learning disorder? We got him to a GP, who referred him to a psychologist, who then stopped taking adhd patients. 3 months later I paid $750 for an initial consultation and over the next 6 months another $500 or so. It turns out he has inattentive type ADHD and I was the bad mum who just put it all down to him being the baby of 4 kids. (I just felt that, no one said I was). Since then, child 2 of 4 has been in at 29 and got himself diagnosed with the same. It is so much harder as an adult, you have to find some kind of proof of issues in childhood.
I felt like it made ADHD into trend… ADHD would explain so many of my struggles and diagnoses over the years. The online assessment also indicated I was highly likely to have it. However this article really deterred me from seeking a diagnosis. I also spoke to a therapist who was very dismissive of my concerns and said I was just a procrastinator. Sigh.
I didn't see the article as necessarily making ADHD a 'trend' - although it explained that some social media 'influencers' are showing snapshots that could be pathologising 'normal' behaviour, rather than giving the bigger picture. It sounds as though you need to see a different therapist, nobody should be dismissed if they reach for help. As it says in the article, you shouldn't need a diagnosis to get help if you are struggling.
Thank you so much for this Emily. I just completed the screening and scored a 5. I’ve been seeing my GP a bit recently for what I thought were anxiety-related things, but it looks like they could be ADHD related.
I’m 44. My son is 9 and was diagnosed 2 years ago (last year was diagnosed autistic as well). The meds have been amazing for him. My husband and I both think we have ADHD too and our 6 yr old daughter’s school report last year said the word “distracted” many many times so we will get the ball rolling for her diagnosis soon.
I was thinking of going back to uni for a graduate diploma but the thought of that whole struggle has me terrified. I think I should get diagnosed first. But as someone who has a hard time getting things started, will I ever actually do it? I don’t know.
I'm 36 and I started back at uni last year after crashing and burning when I was 20. It's an entirely different experience now that I'm diagnosed and medicated, so much more positive than before as I can actually set a goal and then follow through on the work needed to achieve it.
I am also registered with the uni disability services, which is very useful. I get extra time on exams and can qualify for "limited full time" which means I study part time but Studylink pay me like I'm full time.
If you can get a diagnosis, I really recommend it, but as I said to Em, it took me about 18 months.
We’re in the process of getting a diagnosis for my 10 year old. He has scored as having inattentive ADHD in the testing so far. Of course it’s all now so obvious that my late husband was exactly the same. We didn’t even know there was an inattentive type! Unfortunately, he died by suicide a few years back. Depression and anxiety took him over. I’ll never know if diagnosis might have helped.
So sorry you went through such a traumatic loss. Good on you supporting your child. He will be OK with your support, you sound like a lovely mum. Anxiety and depression are horrendous, but please don't beat up on yourself, even though you have questions, we can never go back and 'if only' isn't helpful.
I was diagnosed two years ago at the age of 40. It has been both liberating and heart-breaking.
Firstly to know that I am not a bad person. That my 'defective traits' are not a personality failing, that I have been actually living life on hard mode and that it doesn't need to be this way.
Having ADHD had never once occurred to me, as all of the stereotypes are focused on hyperactive boys, I had never even heard of inattentive type.
I sought help- as I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. After having kids, my usual coping mechanisms were not enough. The juggle and drain of motherhood and the eventual return to work nearly destroyed me. I just couldn't do it. Throw in a global pandemic, lockdowns and a few other stresses and I was drowning, constantly anxious and in a deep depression. Turns out- those were all symptoms of untreated ADHD.
I could not stop crying from relief when the diagnosis was confirmed, I got the psychiatrist to go through every aspect to make sure it was correct, and booked a follow up a few weeks later just to confirm that there was no mistake.
Once I had accepted the diagnosis, I also experienced absolute heart break, with the realisation that for all of those years that I had been considered lazy, dipsy, away with the fairies, incapable of getting my shit together, an absolute failure in living up to my potential- was because I did not get the right support.
As I shared the news with a select few, their dismissive response of "well it can't be so bad if you;ve only just realised you've got it" or "Nah there is no way you've got ADHD, did you scam them to get hold of the study drugs?". Yeah mate- the medication that I can hardly remember to take. Totally.
So generally, I am not open about my diagnosis. I haven't disclosed it at work as I know it will prevent me from being considered for promotion or trusted with important work. I'm still finding the medication that works for me, after a big delay in accessing appointments.
But overall, I am happy that I know. That I can make sense of my experience, and give myself a bit of self-compassion- even if that compassion and understanding is still a bit of a stretch for others,
Posts such as yours are so important for us Emily- thank you. It really means so much to be seen, heard and understood.
Please be kind to yourself, I can never understand why there is such a stigma, Im in my 60s and have my own business (and ADHD) so don't give a shit what people think but those comments must really hurt you.
I was diagnosed last year at 34. The meds are a revelation. My brain just quiets down and I can usually even choose what to focus on. It’s so amazing. The diagnosis process was easy, if costly - except the self assessment tools took me three months to fill out because executive dysfunction is amazing. I had 54 pages of stuff to answer and it was a huge challenge to make brain do the thing, but once I got there it was one 1hr appointment plus two fifteens to mess around with meds. Ritalin was . . . An adventure. Uncontrollable rage. But Dex is a lifesaver. I’m aceing uni now because I can focus!
wow! all those pages - I feel overwhelmed imagining that. hear you on the executive functioning.
I got diagnosed and medicated at 66. Discovered that what had been misdiagnosed and treated ineffectively as depression on and off all my life simply went away when I took the medication, immediately and each until dose wore off. Came on the heels of both my adult children being diagnosed. I remember filling in a third-person questionnaire for my son’s assessment, turning to my husband and saying, “I’m not sure whether I’m looking at a picture of our daughter here, or a mirror”. There were some nasty side effects initially and I can only tolerate a kid’s dose but yes, it is worth the expense, which others have detailed, and the bother, even in retirement. It makes simply doing things easier. It makes me want to do them instead of fearing I won’t have time. It makes it possible to make decisions - before, the more arbitrary they were, the harder I found them. I mean, how the hell did anyone ever decide what to have for dinner? It gives creativity a big boost. I thought diagnosis might make me resent my ADHD lifetime, and I can certainly fall into the odd if-only; but it also makes sense of the past, which is satisfying in itself, and it helps me let myself off the hook for struggling and take pride in having won a few of the struggles.
Diagnosed Nov 2020. Except I need a different psychiatrist as the one I saw congratulated me on my masking ability and said meds won’t do a better job than I can do myself. I’ve since spoken to a number of people with ADHD who say otherwise. So that’s on my to do list this year!
That therapist sounds like a fuckwit, tbh. ADHD's long term effects, especially on self esteem, are really misunderstood, and I hope you can find some more supportive health professionals.
Masking is about how you look to other people, how you fit. What about how you feel!
I was recently referred to a psychiatrist for an adhd assessment by my gp, at my request. That part was pretty simple and I was surprised to receive a phone call a few weeks later saying that they were taking bookings as soon as February. However, it will cost 1750 to be assessed and set up on meds, and I have decided it is not worthwhile for now. I have suspected i have inattentive adhd for many years and my son is diagnosed adhd so I imagine getting diagnosed would be pretty straightforward but it is so expensive even for a pretty well off family like ours. It must be so prohibitive for people who are already struggling to get by. I am hoping to one day complete an internship to be a psychologist (am completing a masters atm) and I think I will struggle a lot to get through it without meds so I will probably look at getting assessed closer to the time (and saving up in the mean time).
Hi, I did that self-assessment and got a 6. It would never have occurred to me at all if my niece wasn't diagnosed as a child and my sister had an aha moment and suggested I might have too. So yeah. But at nearly 57, how the heck am I going to prove what I was like as a kid (very smart, class clown) and I'm also wondering, if the issue is a lack of dopamine, can a lack of dopamine as an adult for some other cause, do the same thing? I'm confused by it all, it goes around and around in my head.
The shrinks are pretty good at seeing it. If you don’t have your school reports then take along a family member who can talk about what you were like as a child (take both like I did 😎).
Thanks Michelle, good thinking. I've only got one left, pity as the other one I think also had it and it was self evident!
Careful if your parent is in denial! (like my mum, who is a trained disability teacher)
I LOVED this post! I was diagnosed with ADHD at age 25 while seeking treatment for seasonal affective disorder after moving north. My brother was diagnosed at age 8. The difference was he had “behavior problems” in school and at home and I didn’t. And I was way more into pleasing adults by being a perfect student than he was. Interestingly I was also diagnosed with mild dyslexia as an adult which was totally missed when I was a kid because I was in the gifted program in school. Anyway, I’m no longer on medication for ADHD but I’ve developed a bunch of coping strategies, systems, and processes that help me on a daily basis. I live by my Google calendar and alarms on my phone. I also create the time and space I need to get going enough to get to the place of hyper-focus, which I now feel like is a superpower. I just have to block off enough time to actually get going. And have an alarm on to stop when I need to do something else, like make food or prepare for bedtime.
I was diagnosed about 18 years ago when I took my youngest son for an assessment for his learning difficulties. The psych (I am in Australia) asked me to fill out a form about myself then assessed me too. His very serious comment, 'The Mother Has ADHD'. My older daughter who is a psychologist had often said I had ADHD but I had never known any different, so didn't really care. I was the disruptive kid, probably more like the boys with ADHD but it wasn't known about then - I was 'naughty' , noisy, disruptive, didn't pay attention, 'we expect better from a girl with your IQ' (How the hell was that helpful?). Got straps at home and school. I am not on medication, I have learned 'work arounds' probably from years of practice. I have kids with ADHD - Id like to reassure people with kids like us, love them lots, help them with their strengths, and support them, they are fun, interesting and will be OK - my own mum (she's in her 90s now so def 'old school') was called to a teacher meeting, She told them, "I am not coming to any meetings, you can do what you like with her, I have had a gut full of her too." And then I had to leave school.
Thank you so much for writing about this and for taking it seriously! It's such an invisible struggle for so many of us. I had the privilege of being able to go private to get my diagnosis, but even though I started searching in the middle of last year it took months to get an appointment and I ended up enduring Auckland's entire four month lockdown with no treatment. It was absolute hell. I finally got officially diagnosed a few weeks ago and I thanked the psychiatrist so profusely, it was such a massive, massive relief to know all the things I spent years struggling with were not my fault. I'm trialling meds at the moment, it's a work in progress but I am absolutely loving getting to know a version of my brain which is capable of being calm. I had no idea such a thing existed.
Diagnosed two years ago on Sunday! Happy ADHD-versary to me! I was 51 and it was such a relief to know why i was different and couldn’t ‘fit in’ even when people told me how I should be. Welcome to Team ADHD 💪❤️
Some of the comments here are incredible. Thank you Emily for writing about this.
My husband was screened by our GP and a referral was sent off to a private psychiatrist about 9 months ago. He had to do all these tests to go with the referral (ECG; urine and blood test; and his parents and I completed surveys about him too). We were fortunate we already had savings put aside to pay for the psychiatrist appointments but were mortified to find out her waitlist for the initial appointment was 12 months long. My husband got put on a cancellations list in case an earlier slot came up but in the end we decided not to go ahead with the appointment. My husband had learnt a lot about himself in the meantime and had developed pretty good coping strategies for what was probably relatively mild ADHD compared to other stories shared in this comments section. I’m still super proud of him for starting the process and he can always pick it up later.
Just a thought about the decision whether or not to pursue. The coping and functioning benefits are relative, and might or might not be worthwhile for any particular person. But I did not expect to simply feel so much better, minute to minute, regardless of what’s going on or what or how I’m doing in a practical, functional sense.
My son was 20. He did really well in his first year at uni, did a whole lot of theatre papers where part of the assessment was practical. Then he started his more theory based subjects in his second year and crashed and burned. I was part way through a degree in psychology and reading about childhood learning disorders. I had a aha moment and thought "that's his problem". A couple of days later, my daughter who was just finishing a guidance and counselling degree rang me and said she had just spent the day with him and did I know he had a learning disorder? We got him to a GP, who referred him to a psychologist, who then stopped taking adhd patients. 3 months later I paid $750 for an initial consultation and over the next 6 months another $500 or so. It turns out he has inattentive type ADHD and I was the bad mum who just put it all down to him being the baby of 4 kids. (I just felt that, no one said I was). Since then, child 2 of 4 has been in at 29 and got himself diagnosed with the same. It is so much harder as an adult, you have to find some kind of proof of issues in childhood.
I’m really interested to know how others felt about The Spin-off article on ADHD and social media: https://thespinoff.co.nz/irl/17-09-2021/normal-feelings-or-adhd-asd-or-ptsd-social-media-is-here-to-diagnose-you
I felt like it made ADHD into trend… ADHD would explain so many of my struggles and diagnoses over the years. The online assessment also indicated I was highly likely to have it. However this article really deterred me from seeking a diagnosis. I also spoke to a therapist who was very dismissive of my concerns and said I was just a procrastinator. Sigh.
I didn't see the article as necessarily making ADHD a 'trend' - although it explained that some social media 'influencers' are showing snapshots that could be pathologising 'normal' behaviour, rather than giving the bigger picture. It sounds as though you need to see a different therapist, nobody should be dismissed if they reach for help. As it says in the article, you shouldn't need a diagnosis to get help if you are struggling.
Thank you so much for this Emily. I just completed the screening and scored a 5. I’ve been seeing my GP a bit recently for what I thought were anxiety-related things, but it looks like they could be ADHD related.
I’m 44. My son is 9 and was diagnosed 2 years ago (last year was diagnosed autistic as well). The meds have been amazing for him. My husband and I both think we have ADHD too and our 6 yr old daughter’s school report last year said the word “distracted” many many times so we will get the ball rolling for her diagnosis soon.
I was thinking of going back to uni for a graduate diploma but the thought of that whole struggle has me terrified. I think I should get diagnosed first. But as someone who has a hard time getting things started, will I ever actually do it? I don’t know.
I'm 36 and I started back at uni last year after crashing and burning when I was 20. It's an entirely different experience now that I'm diagnosed and medicated, so much more positive than before as I can actually set a goal and then follow through on the work needed to achieve it.
I am also registered with the uni disability services, which is very useful. I get extra time on exams and can qualify for "limited full time" which means I study part time but Studylink pay me like I'm full time.
If you can get a diagnosis, I really recommend it, but as I said to Em, it took me about 18 months.