AIBU to wish more people know that ADHD persists into adulthood?

[Moreattentionlessdeficit]

Also that there was more awareness of the actual symptoms and problems it causes?

While we're at it it would be good to dispel the myths and stereotypes that create a lot of stigma and lack of belief around the condition..

I was diagnosed in my early 40s having spent my whole life believing I was just a bit useless and incapable, which has really affected my self esteem over the years.

Turns out it's an actual difference in my brain, certain areas develop differently causing executive function difficulties. This is thought to be caused by problems with the levels of available dopamine in the brain. So people with ADHD love things which give a dopamine hit, e.g. mobile phones, video games and in some cases high risk behaviours and addiction.

The stereotype of the little boy in class misbehaving and bouncing off the walls is so unhelpful. Girls and women are the most underdiagnosed due to this. ADHD can be classed as several different presentations : primarily inattentive (daydreamer, distracted) primarily hyperactive-impulsive (fidgety, can't sit still, very talkative, but also internal "busy mind") and combined type (some of both sets of symptoms). (Very basic summary).

Things that have been hard for me:

*Anxiety, which comes from having a million thoughts in my head. Thoughts can be worries, ideas, thinking about something I said last week and always a pervading sense that I've forgotten something really important because..

• Working memory problems. It's really, really hard to remember things if I don't write them down or set a lot of reminders. Also some of the million thoughts that pop up can push out that important appointment I'm going to after work.

*Procrastination. I want to do the thing but starting it ("task activation") is so ridiculously hard. I then go to avoiding the bad feeling by doing something else. Maybe something useful, often Facebook doom scrolling. :(

*Time blindness. People with ADHD have a really poor sense of how much time has passed and also difficulty estimating how much time a task will take and if they therefore have time to do it. I feel humiliated when I think of all my years of being late for work no matter how early I got up and not being able to explain it.

*Talking too much, blurting out things I didn't mean to, accidentally interrupting people.

*Impulse buying - how much money I've wasted i don't know.

*Emotional over reaction. I tend to snap easily. Especially if I'm busy and interrupted, partly because of forgetting what I was doing and also ...

*Inability to filter out distractions. Noises, people talking, all those thoughts again.

*Getting stuck on something, commonly known as hyperfocus. This can be anything, I must finish a book even if it's almost 2am, research buying stuff for 4 hours, occasionally tidying out a cupboard, but I might not get everything put away after starting.

I'm sure I've forgotten a lot, but I'm feeling quite strongly about raising awareness of this since starting medication and suddenly feeling almost capable of things for a change. I'm calm, I can start boring or hard tasks more easily and can see them through. Not perfect but better.

This is only true while the medication is in my system, but even during those hours it's a revelation.

I feel like I can be a better parent, partner, employee.

I now have an explanation for many things that have happened in the past. I was constantly told I was capable of better, needed to try harder and I knew myself I understood what to do, it just never seemed to happen the way I wanted.

I'm not "out" at work as having ADHD, but I'm really considering it as I imagine all the other women, men and children wondering why the fuck they keep having the same problems every day.

I came across a description of ADHD by accident, which I think is really common. Or people are diagnosed right after their children - it's common for it to affect several members of a family.

So if some mumsnetters can help with busting some myths and misinformation I'm sure it'll be a bonus.

I've "met" many people on here recently who are in the same situation as me, bumping into them on various ADHD related threads.

Feel free to improve or add to my totally rambling, too long summary/rant.

I have adhd, as well as autism.

I can't afford the adhd meds and the Ritalin worked, but left me feeling very jittery with heart palpitations, so I can't take that.

I'm 50 and on the scrapheap now. No help from the NHS and no access to any benefits. My adhd is so bad I can't even manage to read a book.

Another one here who could have written your post. I mainly find it exhausting.
I've just started looking into it and suspecting I've got ADD but I'm dismayed to read on here to read how hard it is to get diagnosed.
Do you need a psychiatrist or psychologist?
I could pay privately.
What drugs do you start on ?

I am planning on seeing my GP but starting to wonder if our private healthcare would cover it?

Could have actually written this too. Wish there was more awareness too and people didn't just say mean things to me about the way I am.

My doctor suggest get an assessment last year at 51. There's a 2 year waiting list in my area and I'm presuming covid has extended that!

Does anyone know if I get a private assessment can i immediately get prescriptions on nhs? I could scrap together assessment £, but not continual prescriptions.

My job needs focus, etc etc - all those things I can't do without putting in 200% every minute of the day. I'm sick of two steps forward, three steps back!

Bloody hell..... suggested I get ...

Do NOT disclose at work in order to raise awareness. I understand where you're coming from, but this is a terrible idea.

Do disclose your diagnosis at work if you need adjustments and aren't getting them just by a limited explanation (e.g. "Please could you send an email confirming this, I deal better with written info")

There is a huge stigma and it will cause some people to see you differently and could lead to you being passed over for promotion, first in line for redundancy etc.

But YY it's very misunderstood. The name doesn't help - it's not actually a disorder of hyeractivity or attention, it's a disorder of the regulatory system. Then again, self regulation deficiency disorder would probably be an even worse name for misunderstandings!

Don't worry, Bertie - I've only told a few people. :) Including my manager, as they're the type to pop in with random requests, which I forget. So I'm busy writing it down each time now, or it gets put in an email.

I'm lucky to be in a fairly secure job, with zero ambition for promotion (and a manager that's known me for 10+ years) so that side of it doesn't bother me much. However I feel the "banter" that I might get would be annoying. As you say some people just wouldn't understand it at all.

None of it is easy to explain. "I fail at things which everyone fails at, but more often.😅 Yeah my memory can be shit. I lose track of time easily"

Explaining that there's a physical reason for struggling with those things isn't easy!

I think my desire for raising awareness is more about hoping more people will find out before they're in their 40s what's causing their difficulties.

Im going for the blood tests I need to start taking adhd medication- am 42, got diagnosed in December. What with Covid and procrastination only just getting around to it.
Inward diagnosed with inattentive add. My issues are obsessed w my phone, distractable !, find it hard to start things, procrastination. Even tho I did ok at school and university i always felt like I wasn’t quite getting something academically
The diagnosis has been a big relief in a way - my DH now understands more why I am the way i am
Im apprehensive about taking medication but also wondering if it will be helpful. I’m trying to start my own business and lose weight and feel almost paralyzed by indecision and a lack of go. I also tend to have a lot of ideas in my head but they don’t go anywhere.

I had my assessment in 2007, at Kings College London. At the Maudsley,
I was diagnosed with ADHD following a full day assessment.. This came about because for my son was suspected of having ADD and where I ticked the majority of the boxes for myself and it became apparent that I had was a classic case..

I was 44 when I was diagnosed and made a lot of sense as to why my life had been so chaotic up until this point.

I am a criminal investigator, working in enforcement and law. This is something that I am very interested in able to hyper focus on...

Now with the assistance of the open University and disabled students assessment I can do my law degree..

I think God it is not a life sentence.

Thank you for posting this.

My DS is adhd and people have asked when he'll grow out of it even DH doesn't quite understand that a lot of the issues we have with DS are due to his adhd and he can't just 'try harder'. DS is very hyperactive but he's not 'naughty' and he's very much a daydreamer.

Ever since his diagnosis, and my obsessive reading and research that followed, I've felt that I have adhd too. He's certainly a mini me. I suffered massively with anxiety as a child. I'm certainly impulsive and I don't quite get how to have conversations (I blurt things out a lot). I vary between hyper efficient and completely shut down.

I don't think I want medication (even though I can see the world of difference it has made to DS), but it would certainly help me understand myself more if I got a diagnosis.

My nephew is also being investigated for adhd and dyslexia, and I highly suspect my exBIL has adhd too.

Can I ask, what are the benefits to getting diagnosed, other than feeling you finally have an explanation for all the ‘issues’ and aren’t just stupid & disorganised?

I get that sometimes it’s medication but is there any other reason?

I suspect I have ADD in some form or other and it has helped my husband and I make peace with my shortcomings a bit, I feel, even without knowing for sure.

We have a son who is just nine and I do wonder about him but then also don’t want to pathologise what might be standard nine-year-old-boy-weirdness!! But I would seek a diagnosis if it helps him through school. It doesn’t help that he is an August baby so although academically fine, socially and emotionally he’s definitely lagging a bit compared to the older classmates and I think he feels different.

I also have an eleven year old who has just started year 7 and she is so like me at that age: scatty, messy, distractable, no sense of how to organise herself, wants to do every activity going, flies of the handle frequently! Actually I think she is great- but I see other kids for whom organisation & planning comes naturally and I think how difficult it is to go through life forgetting & messy... and hope I can offer her more practical ways to cope.

@Thingsdogetbetter

The private psychiatrist will need to get you stabilised on a medication regime before signing you over for your GP to prescribe. I couldn't take the Ritalin due to side effects, so was swapped over onto another drug which I then discovered was £85 a month. I collected the tablets and paid for them, then knew I couldn't afford another script and a follow up appointment, so can't get any treatment at all now. The cost of issuing the private prescription is £15 then the drugs cost on top of that. I've just given up now and try to cope with nothing.

I’m keen to know the benefits. I’m on a waiting list and need to decide if I want to / can afford to go private. I met all the GP’s criteria.

I manage to function but I live in a pigsty - all the half done jobs and clutter- and talk too much, which I feel discredits me and, along with my scattiness, invites disrespect. I feel like a failure, like I’m wasting my potential, often due to chronic procrastination. I have lost friends over my timekeeping and also cancelling on people because I sometimes feel paralysed or overwhelmed at times when it comes to going out. (The way to mitigate this is to meet after work when I’ve already left the house). This might be depression but it might be ADD.

I’m worried about disclosure. Not for work but other things.

Do you have to tell the DVLA? I read that you did.

I’m not sure how life will change with a diagnosis? I’ve seen videos of people extolling the virtues of Ritalin but I don’t know. Maybe I just want to be able to tell my boss to fuck off when she uses my lack of focus against me. (And tbh, she wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t pointed it out because the standard is not high but my self criticism is what catches me out!)

There is also a risk that your medical history is used against you, should you ever have a crime committed against you. (Definitely happens for learning difficulties, mental health problems. Presumably would be mitigated as I am educated to master’s and in a respected job, but I do also have a history of depression).

PS to clarify - I’m not trying to be arrogant or glib when I say I’m less likely to be discredited because I have a master’s and a good job.

There are lots of stats and studies about how you are less likely to get justice or be believed if you have learning difficulties or mental health problems. It’s pretty awful. It’s how John Worboys got away with so much.

It’s how John Worboys got away with so much.

Could you explain?

@3rdNamechange

Another one here who could have written your post. I mainly find it exhausting. I've just started looking into it and suspecting I've got ADD but I'm dismayed to read on here to read how hard it is to get diagnosed. Do you need a psychiatrist or psychologist? I could pay privately. What drugs do you start on ?

I can recommend psychiatry uk ehondid an online diagnosis for £350. By far the cheapest option. Medication/nurse titraton service another £200 apx but I decided not to continue with meds.

I wanted the diagnosis mainly for employment protection.

I suspect that I'm not neurotypical, probably towards dyspraxia, but OP's summary is very me. There are a lot of neurodiverse people in my family which has emerged since I've reached adulthood.

I did well at school because it was interesting and stimulating. I didn't like the actual writing it down much. If I'm in to something, I'm in to it. Fortunately I got into revision and pretty file cards, and recording French onto cassete. The advice to stop after 45 mins and take regular breaks has always bamboozled me; why break your flow never to be seen again.

I need to move a lot. Lockdown was awful for me by June when all my steam fizzled out and my body siezed up.

Teaching was great for me with enough focus and a series of imminent goals in continual succession and a degree of creativity. I disliked schools that took away that creativity and wanted standardised department planning. It was the admin/ data that drove me away. It took a while to adjust and find a way to organise myself in the early years.

I can drown in time. The more I have, the harder it is to plan, so many possibilities... then I pick up my phone. Pre-smart phone, I would do it with books.

DS2 is so similar to me. He exists in his own imagination. At 7 if I send him to his room to do anything like put on socks, within seconds on entering, he's in his own world playing with the nearest object totally absorbed in his own sound effects. Not having siblings close in age/ interests I thought I created a world to fill isolation, but DS2 has a close age gap and a lot of overlap with DS1 who he interracts well with, it is a personality thing.

I've never felt much good at being grown-up, even though I've been one for over half my life.

The reason why neurodiverse people are struggling now is because society is becoming increasingly complex and socially difficult to navigate. You could sort of fly under the radar years ago, but now, it's far more difficult. Employment, in particular, is harder to manage.

It is worth getting assessed, but it costs money or you're put on a long waiting list - that's if you can persuade a disinterested and poorly informed GP to take you seriously and get a referral.

YANBU! Just diagnosed at 38 after exactly this “ having spent my whole life believing I was just a bit useless and incapable, which has really affected my self esteem over the years.”
Not sure how much I have missed out on by not knowing but it is seriously life changing!

I think many people can identify with the description and it probably helps many of us make sense of our school experiences. The medication route would be worrying for me, you reach a certain stage in your life where you accept yourself and would be reluctant to medicate to change behaviour .I know that's a simplistic view but I really do believe that self acceptance is key to well being. I am quite upset by the tendency for people to try and pigeon hole everyone .

@Griselda1

People don't medicate their adhd to change their behaviour, it's designed to help them focus so they can get their lives in order, study, work etc. I can't medicate and I fully accept myself, but I can't read a book which is very distressing for me.

YADNU. It's a life-long obstacle. Difficult, demoralising and bloody exhausting.