The lighter side of ADHD
Why the hell does this keep happening? I still hear horror stories of how people struggle for half of their lives and nobody stops to think "this isn't normal, we should see a doctor" and it just infuriates me.
Please, if it is negatively effecting your life or you get into arguments about it and it's effecting your social or home life, see a doctor.
My pediatrician told my parents that I definitely had ADHD, needed to be properly tested to confirm, and to get some medication to straighten things out.
I vaguely remember my mother saying that she didn't think it was right to medicate away childhood exuberance, and that I just wasn't challenged at school.
Fast forward 30 some years, and I get diagnosed and some medicine. My passionate love for a million different things hasn't been diminished, but now I can actually make progress on hobbies, and sometimes finish projects.
I feel as creative as I've always felt, just able to direct it more coherently so that it's actually productive.
I built shelves and put all the tools away afterwards. In the tool bag even, which is now back in the garage, and not just tucked away in a room I wasn't using.
I would have loved to get my diagnosis and start taking meds before I dropped out of college twice. Would have saved a lot of pain and money.
I got diagnosed at 29.
My life has gotten so much fuckin better since it's amazing.
I also dropped out of college twice. First physics then composition (music). I got diagnosed at 38, started medication and went back to composition. Will graduate at 41.
Well, I got diagnosed with depression, started using wellbutrin, which turned out to help with ADHD. Later I was diagnosed with ADHD and currently hoping to switch medicine because I still have serious problems with deadlines. I do two weeks worth of work during the last 48 hours without any sleep. 🤦♂️
I didn't get diagnosed until just last year, and I'm in my early 40s. While this new knowledge has certainly had a significant impact on my life, I can't help but wonder how different my life would have been had I been diagnosed in the 3rd grade when I came home and point blank asked my Mom if I had ADHD... spoiler: she told me no.
Almost the same age as you and I'm fairly confident I'm undiagnosed and have been since about 3rd grade as well.
My mom had such a diagnosis suggested to her multiple times but felt the stigma of a diagnosis and a medication to treat it was worse than just doing nothing. In her mind, I'd get diagnosed, given a label that would prevent me from ever getting a job or having a normal life, and drugs I'd take for the rest of my life that would make me act like I'd received a lobotomy.
It's me in this clown makeup and I don't like it.
College was really hard for me. A big bundle of distractions at a vulnerable age in my life. I about failed out twice out of STEM degrees. I finally found a Liberal Arts degree that I could get a BA in.
Then a few years later, I had married somewhat. I went back and completed by STEM degree, somehow.
Now I'm back at it again 20+ years later, working on my Masters in IT. It takes all of my ADHD coping skills. Making lists. Exercise. Counseling. Supporting friends and family.
It's possible, but it's hard.
It's possible! Sure! If you know you have it in the first place...mental disability deniers all around me...😒
Is lazy a synonym for adhd?
Yeah...if you're from the southern US and "don't believe in mental disabilities"...😒
More of a misdiagnosis.