Experiences of ADHD assessment and diagnosis in adulthood

[Zippidydoodah]

I have finally bitten the bullet and requested a private ADHD assessment.

I feel so relieved! I don’t know why. Like I’ve finally admitted to someone that I think this could be why I’m so shit at adulting.

Please share stories of ADHD in adulthood assessments/diagnoses?

Is there anyone out there who was assessed and found not to have it? Were you given strategies/ideas to support whatever difficulties you were having?

Please be kind. Thank you!

ADHD can be way more debilitating than just forgetting a few appointments. Do you even know what you’re talking about?

Wow you literally have no idea about what ADHD is.

It was life changing for me at 30.
I m a single mum with 3 kids and I was constantly in burnout.
The writing on the wall was clest to see from when I was a child.

My issues haven’t been solved (I just try to make life a bit easier) but if OP wants to go for it then that’s fine. I just don’t want to be medicated for it. I think a diagnosis is more beneficial for children and teens for an ehcp. I don’t know if it’s beneficial for adults - maybe it is!

I do because I have friends with kids with ADHD and adult family members with it too.

I’m so happy it is working out for you 💐
Thank you for sharing your experiences!

My s-i-l got diagnosed her in her thirties and she found medication helped. Have you seen thebook understanding ADHD in women & girls by Andrea Bilbow?

As if ADHD can be ‘solved’ by having Direct Debits and alarms on your phone, not sure what previous poster was thinking.

It can be very beneficial for adults. I have ADHD and ASD (diagnosed), and struggle with similar issues to OP. It’s significantly impacted me my entire life (which is one of the criteria for diagnosis). Diagnosis has given a reason, it was a huge relief and I’m now more accepting kinder to myself, which is a huge deal for me with a history of mental health issues and self harm.

I know, if that would solve things then ADHD wouldn’t exist as a condition. Screams of self diagnosis and ‘ADHD’ in social media.

I agree that if alarms and DDs are an adequate solution then you probably don’t have ADHD.

My son is diagnosed and scored very highly. His room is a pigsty. Normally I give him a list of jobs to do and he does them; he’d rather do that than me go in there and try and tidy it as he doesn’t want me to go through his stuff.

This morning he said, “not gonna lie, I think you might have to do it. I can’t.” I totally get that, totally and absolutely.

His room is unsanitary and we need to sort it.

I’ve just been looking at right to choose, and think I might attempt to get a GP appointment (easier said than done) whereas lastnight I was happy to pay the £1200 for private assessment. It would be coming out of savings but is a lower effort method. I just know that in the morning when I have to try and get the appointment, I won’t do it.

Even if I set a phone alarm. 🙄

Oh OP I really feel for you. My DH has just been diagnosed in his late 40s. He had no idea that he could be neurodivergent in spite of our elder son being severely AuDHD (a different situation as DS was born exceptionally prematurely). It was me who started to wonder if DH could have ADHD too. Over the past few years things have got harder and harder and I have to nag him constantly because otherwise nothing would ever get done. He’s lost multiple jobs. His procrastination is off the scale. He hyper-focuses on what interests him, to the detriment of everything else. He’ll start to do tasks and then stop halfway through and have no idea that he hasn’t finished them. Because we are carers for a disabled young adult, to start with we put it down to us both being permanently exhausted. He does now have a diagnosis and will be referred for medication. I hope it can help his brain to be a calmer space.

Please don’t listen to people saying that if you’re an adult you don’t need a diagnosis. Everyone is affected so differently.

I got an ADHD (and Autism) diagnosis via right to choose. First I did the AQ50 questionnaire online and scored highly so contacted my GP (via webchat on AskMyGP) to ask for a referral for an Autism and ADHD assessment. They said the NHS waiting list was over 7 years! They said to find a Right To Choose provider so I did that, which got my wait time down to 8 months.
The only sticky point in my diagnosis was the lack of physical evidence from my childhood as I didn’t really have friends and my mum lost all my school reports. My initial assessor report showed strong current ADHD traits but without childhood reporting would not give a diagnosis. A second assessor talked to me about my childhood in general and helped me recall good examples that my struggles didn’t appear from nowhere in adulthood, and from that was able to get evidence for a diagnosis.
There’s a lot of form filling, and it takes ages to even get as far as finding out if meds will work and which ones, even once diagnosed.
I had a lot of “but I thought that was normal” moments in the process, because everyone in my family is at least “a bit quirky” and I’m the first of us to pursue an actual diagnosis. Most of my family’s quirks are recognised ND traits.

@InMySpareTime thats really helpful, thank you!

I think I might struggle to get evidence from childhood for various reasons. Does it have to be a parent? I’ll see if any of my school reports were hoarded.

It doesn’t have to be a parent, but you do have to be able to show that traits and difficulties were present in childhood, as ADHD is something that’s present from birth. My DH was my informant and I didn’t have school reports, but I have been very impacted from early childhood so was able to show examples and behaviors throughout my childhood. They did say at the start of the assessment that if I didn’t have an informant or physical evidence from childhood it is harder to assess, and that might mean no diagnosis, but I wasn’t borderline and so there was enough for them to diagnose me without.

Do you mind me asking how your DH was your informant? Has he known you since childhood, or is it just through knowledge of your life?

I’ve found some online screening tools. One made me cry! Though I then had to pay for the results so I ditched it and found another one that was free:

.

The informant questionnaire is quite long and has lots of questions about general behaviour as well as the childhood ones. He’s known me for 15 years so could answer lots of these. When I had my assessment interview they asked me the childhood ones, and gave me a score for that, as well as asking about my general childhood an issues. I had quite a tough childhood (which I now know can mainly be attributed to my ADHD and ASD), so I had a lot to go over and therefore had quite a lot of evidence for it being present in childhood. I have a very good long term memory and can remember basically my whole childhood like it’s a video.

It is quite common for women who have ADHD and/or ASD to have had a hard childhood with associated mental health issues so there was lots of questions around that.

Thank you. Sounds intense!

I’m also curious to know (if you don’t mind!) how you feel adhd affected you as a child?

i was a high achiever and strict rule follower at school, but really struggled with friendships. None of the friends I’ve ever had have stuck around, except for a couple who I still see regularly. Nobody wants to stay in touch with me and it’s because I wasn’t very nice, though I never realised it at the time. I’m full of shame about that, too.

I’ve been treated for depression for decades, too.