Adult ADHD & Me Part 1: Discovery

Have not blogged here in a while. The last three posts have been products from the past brought to light or shared thoughts from others.

I think I’ve been quiet because there is one topic I’ve so badly wanted to blog about but either needed more time, experience, research information, processing, courage, understanding, etc. And as I type that sentence I realize my topic is what causes me to need all of that before I blog – or do most anything in life.

Let’s just say that – as most all of us are – I’m continually on a self-discovery journey and ever since my last years of undergrad college over 15 years ago I’ve been trying to figure out what is ‘wrong’ with me. At first depression combined with co-dependency, then no it is actually anxiety and that causes the depression, then the therapist that told me to pray for my husband more and I would be cured, then Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (hormonal/chemical imbalance – PMS for 2.5 weeks a month), and then ‘busy mom’ syndrome.

My newest diagnosis came when I stepped out of my personal bounds of respecting the diagnosis of the  doctor I met with telling me I have “busy mom syndrome” – to whom I had been sent by a therapist (who worked with me on the PMDD but also life coaches women with ADHD) to be evaluated by since my health insurance would cover the visit. I returned to my therapist and said I normally respect the diagnosis of doctors but I just couldn’t take this diagnosis that felt like a slap in the face after a 10-15 minute ‘interview’ with only a list of the DSM-V criteria and questions about my present but not my past to be screened for hyperactivity that I already knew I didn’t have. So I went in debt to be evaluated by a psychologist who specializes in testing for and diagnosing and four hours of a battery of testing over two month’s time (because he broke his leg and needed surgery mid-evaluations!). I honestly was not searching until someone told me I had it but I needed real testing words and numbers to help explain somethings about me that couldn’t be explained by other conditions/mental illnesses. The funny part was I was giving a choice at the very end to decide whether or not I thought my brain functioned as a brain with ADHD.

The psychologist said that in every test except for one, and except for the evaluations by two persons close to me, I have a non-hyperactive version of ADHD. The trouble was he was supposed to make his diagnosis based on the results of a certain number of questions from one test and personal evaluations and they were not helpful. He concluded that the reason I did score for ADHD on these is because in the past 39 years of my life (just turned 40 in December!) I have managed to be able to somewhat function and get through life by developing many coping mechanisms and habits to help get around. However, there are ways life would be so much simpler without having to make sure I had all these coping mechanisms in place every morning before getting out of bed. Without any pressure, he said often medication can be helpful and if I wanted to try it he would writing a letter of diagnosis for me to bring to my doctor. Having already discussed medication options with my therapist I was OK to give it a try.

Ironically – I ended up taking this letter back to my PCP who referred me to her ADHD diagnosis doctor who was the one who diagnosed me with “Busy Mom syndrome”. So a few months later I was back in her office with this letter and she was floored. She took it well and I discovered she is a younger doctor who is still learning a lot about the world of ADHD, all the ways to assess it and all the ways it can be manifest in  person – for instance it will be different in a 40 year old woman compared to an 8 year old boy. I’m grateful she took this well without showing offense and I think I’m sort of a new lab rat for her. I started on a low dose of a stimulant medication to treat Inattentive/Non-Hyperactive ADHD. This type of ADHD means I physically may not be all over the place – but my mind on the inside is a computer with several windows and an internet browser with many tabs open, pretty much all the time. Sometimes the windows and tabs are revisited and closed and many times they are not.

This diagnosis explains so many things about my life and I will blog about that next.

I also want to blog about what I observe regarding my PMDD, Depression, and Anxiety diagnoses with a new ADHD diagnosis in the mix.

Additionally I want to discuss what has been difficult now that I am armed with this information about myself – because it isn’t all fun and 100% life improvement now that I know.

So there you go. My ADHD revealed to the world right here on my blog. If you need someone to share your story post it here or connect with me through About.me

Here goes nothing as I hit the submit button!