My experience of a late ADHD diagnosis

More often than not, you’ll hear about the relief that people feel having received an ADHD diagnosis. They’ll say it was like they had found the missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle. For me, that was not the case. It did not feel as though everything suddenly clicked into place and I could finally breathe. The emotions I felt were sadness, anger and confusion.

What if…

In life, there is always the question of “What if?”. It’s a common human trait to wonder if different decisions were made, big or small, how life would currently be. My “What if” question is “What if I had been diagnosed at a younger age?”. Imagine if the “traits” and “symptoms” were picked up on and I was able to receive support for them. My main question being – “would it have meant that I didn’t loose multiple years of my life due to mental illness?”. I’m happy with my life now, and I wouldn’t want to change it, but, I will always grieve what could have been. At the end of the day, I had plans for my life, memories to be made, laughter to be shared, and alongside many other things, they were lost.

Why get diagnosed?

When the concept of ADHD was first mentioned to me, my immediate response was “what is the benefit in being diagnosed?”. I’ve had many diagnoses, some queried, others not and I have never found any benefit in them. They would dehumanize me down to a few letters on a piece of paper, it made my brain seem as though it was something that needed fixing and mainly, they’d just leave me confused.

After asking my therapist this question, they explained why they thought a diagnosis would be beneficial to me through listing some of the “symptoms” he saw in me. The key thing that stood out to me was the mention of OCD tendencies. I explained in my blog post prior about these “routines and rituals” being queried as OCD when in actual fact, they’re a part of my ADHD. That then got me thinking whether it could help ease the confusion I have around my brain.

Prior to my ADHD diagnosis, it felt as though I was juggling multiple struggles, trying to find a beneficial coping strategy for each one that wouldn’t interfere with another. I felt utterly broken. I questioned if I did have ADHD, whether it would make it easier knowing that all my struggles seemed to stem from one root place. Nevertheless I was still hesitant. I knew that if I went ahead with the assessment and I didn’t have ADHD, I’d be even more confused and feel even more broken. However, I knew that if I did have ADHD, I’d still feel the same way – just for different reasons.

Assessment time

After much deliberation, I did decide to go ahead with the assessment. It wasn’t an easy decision. I weighed up the pros and cons in my head over and over but I eventually thought, whatever the result may be, it could help give me some clarity. I recognize the current situation in the UK of lack of support and resources for neurodivergence assessments, resulting in an exceptionally long waitlist. Therefore I know my privilege in my diagnosis being done privately and taking a very short amount of time. The assessment itself lasted around 2 hours. My mum was on the Zoom meeting so that the psychiatrist could talk to her too in order to get an idea of what I was like during my childhood. Overall I found the session quite difficult, it was very mentally draining for me. I also didn’t expect to receive my diagnosis during that session, so that really surprised me!

Like I said, I knew that receiving a positive ADHD diagnosis was always going to bring up a plethora of negative emotions. However, I don’t think I realized how deeply I’d feel them. That month following, I really struggled. I felt so much hurt, resentment and anger towards the world. I felt sorry for the younger me, thinking about how alone and out of place she felt. It took a really long time to be able to see the benefit in it.

Medication

I’m going to talk more about the topic of meditation in the next blog post, but my experience with ADHD medication wasn’t a good one and I question whether that could’ve been due to the fact that I didn’t give myself time to truly process it and come to terms with it. I was so tired of feeling so many negative feelings I jumped at the thought of something making me feel better. I have since come off of medication and spent time coming to terms with it. I am trying to accept what the past could’ve been whilst knowing that it’s not what the present it – and that’s okay.

It’s okay to feel your feelings

The reason I say all of this is so that anyone with a diagnosis, whether it’s official or queried, doesn’t feel alone in the negative emotions. I felt so much shame for being angry about it. It made no sense as to why I was hurting, I should’ve been grateful. I hope you know it’s okay to feel that way. It’s okay to be hurt by the world and angry about what could’ve been. However, what’s important is that you know how to keep moving forward. As days go by, I find more acceptance and benefit in my diagnosis and I’m able to recognize the reasoning behind some of my behaviors and emotions.

Read more on ADHD from MindMate