I have felt really flat since my diagnosis and wonder how people with late diagnosis move forward afterwards? Do you just shelve it and carry on regardless? What did you do?
I've struggled with many aspects of my mental and physical health for years, since childhood. I have always felt my brain functions differently from those around me but had to try and accept that it was simply because I am a very anxious, highly sensitive and melancholic type of person with a seemingly poorer mental health than those around me.
Despite decades of counselling sessions, doctors consultations and seeking help for my various anxieties, ocd, over thinking and general exhaustion from my constantly 'on' brain, nothing ever helped ease things for me. I just had to somehow live with it.
But several years ago my dd started sending me clips from people on SM platforms explaining their ADHD traits and she would say 'This is you mum, this is exactly how you are'. I would start watching them and then looking into it a bit more and further still (until it became obsessional) and for the first time things made sense. I felt there were people out there just like me, people who would understand because their brains functioned just like mine.
So I went to the GP and asked for an assessment. She tried putting me off stating the NHS waiting list was very long and prescribed me yet another antidepressant. I walked away totally deflated but then discovered Right to Choose and so went down that rabbit hole path. Due to a total cock up with my surgery where they firstly 'forgot' to send the referral then sent it to the wrong ADHD company, I ended up waiting almost 3 years for my assessment.
Due to the long wait I had talked myself out of the possibility that I may be neurodiverse all along and just someone with mental health issues which will always consume me. However, I did eventually get an assessment in March this year (at the age of 52). The assessor said she was absolutely confident I have inattentive ADHD and scored very highly during the assessment. I came away from the assessment feeling as though everything suddenly made sense in my life and this was the start of the 'new' me but also a sadness that this was never picked despite decades of struggling and asking for help.
However, that euphoria lasted all of a few days. The medication has not helped me at all because the side effects were just too much for me to handle (I have some chronic health issues which were greatly exacerbated by the meds). I now feel as flat as ever and feel that maybe going through the long wait, the high anticipation and the stress of the assessment was probably not worth this feeling of 'What was the point in all of that stress?' which now constantly lives in my head. Also not helped by the fact that the very few people I have confided in regarding my diagnosis have all had this kind of 'Oh god, not another one' eye-roll response (all neurotypical btw).
I don't really know what on earth I was expecting from a diagnosis tbh, I thought it would be revealed as some kind of missing piece of the puzzle that I have been searching for all my life. I still feel very incomplete though, still have no idea why my brain works a certain way when others around me seem to go through life organised, put together, stoic and mentally capable and stable.
Eight months on and I am back to square one. Still ditzy and scatter-brained, still on turbo mode mentally, emotionally and physically and chasing things in life which I know are not going to bring me joy or the peace I so crave. I can't afford any kind of private adhd counselling or acceptance therapy so I just need to carry on as pre-diagnosis I suppose?
I know that I probably need to find acceptance and be kinder to myself but for me ADHD isn't the funny, crazy and kooky thing all those on SM like to make it out. The way my brain is wired has been a real hindrance to me, throughout my life.
If you are late diagnosed what has the diagnosis done for you? Has it changed anything?