If you have been diagnosed with ADHD can I ask you a question?

[sparklins]

For women - as I am one myself.
What would you consider your ''symptoms''?
If you were diagnosed as an adult - what made you seek a diagnosis in the first place?
How does one go about getting a diagnosis?
Does treatment work?

Apologies if this is a sensitive subject or if I used any wrong terminology.
It's something I have been suspecting in myself in a while and I don't really know what to do or where to take this, if my suspicions are reasonable or if I am just jumping off the deep end and I would really appreciate getting some perspective from people that know more on this topic as I do not yet feel confident enough to speak to anyone IRL.

I struggle to focus or concentrate. I find it hard to do nothing - even when I'm being a sofa slug I have to do something with my hands. The above has made life difficult to say the least! I hate sitting at a table once I've finished eating and my brain never shuts up.

I'm currently mid diagnosis for adhd and was diagnosed with asd in 2020. Make a gp appointment and they'll give you a check list that'll take around 10 minutes to complete. If you score highly you'll then be referred to go on the waiting list.

Oh, and pop over the the neurodiverse board, we're a friendly bunch and you don't need a formal diagnosis to chat with us.

As the pp, I find it hard to concentrate, my mind jumps all over the place. And I'm also a fidgeter, can't sit still for long & constantly fiddling with my hands or wiggling my toes. Going "down the rabbit hole" on the internet, or even in conversations, is pretty common e.g. on the phone to my sister today, in 40 minutes we managed to cover at least 5 different unrelated subjects as diverse as health, sport & politics.

I'm easily distracted by things like noises or seeing something out of the corner of my eye. I need to live by process & checklists to get by at work & home.

You can find a basic on line ADHD test easily by Googling, and that will give you a good idea whether it's worth taking it to your GP. In my case, my brother was diagnosed & told me to get checked out as he recognised many of the symptoms in me - he was 50 and I was 60 at the time.

Still waiting for treatment, the lists for titration are long. Brother has none, as the drugs are contraindicated with high BP. However the sheer relief in getting the diagnosis for both of us was massive - realising there was a reason for our behaviours and it wasn't just because we were crap, lazy or useless!

Thank you @Mabelface I didn't realize there was a board on here.
@Allergictoironing thank you for sharing, so it's medication that is supposed to help? I thought perhaps there was some sort of therapy, silly of me. Your last sentence definitely resonates with me - about feeling lazy/useless.

I am awful at so many everyday tasks so many people just get on with and for the life of me I don't know how they do. It's been years of trying to get better at housework to no avail. I am the absolute master procrastinator and also really struggle to focus too alongside a long list of other things.

I was watching a movie the other night and Google’d one of the actors as I wanted to know where he was from. 2 hours later the rabbit hole I found myself exploring had resulted in me becoming an expert on Pablo Escobar and later, hippopotamuses. I never did watch that movie once I googled the actor.

Thats ADHD.

Im also messy, my brain goes ten to the dozen but physically I’m lazy and could well sit on the sofa all day googling stuff. I can’t focus on one topic. I procrastinate. I start stuff and don’t finish it. I drink coffee on an evening to help me sleep. A monster drink would literally send me to sleep. I always feel tired.

Oh and I’m terrible for picking holes in my feet.

For me, my main struggle is with organisation and juggling multiple demands at once. I also struggle when tasks require different skill-sets but need to be done at the same time.
For example, last weekend I helped out at a village fete, and was recruited to help count the takings at the end. The counting, holding numbers in my head, and physically manipulating tiny coins really irritated me and actually hurt my brain. Eventually I had to say that I needed a break and had to get up and walk away.
I'm also very easily distracted by certain noises and find it impossible to do anything else with this noise going on.

What made me finally go and seek a diagnosis was struggles at work. I just wasn't coping with a fairly normal workload and juggling all the things. My decision-making got quite poor, and I was actually getting ill with the thought I was hopeless, lazy and stupid.

I don't take any medications, because I don't really feel I need it. I manage it with lifestyle, and quitting the job I was struggling with. I now work in a related, albeit easier field, and it's fine now.

Diagnosed in April after after taking 40 years to realise adhd is often missed in women and girls and then another year to get my head together enough and be sure enough to ask for a diagnosis, and then another year to the diagnosis itself (just diagnosed in April)

Just spotted one of my symptoms right above - repeating myself about the April diagnosis.

I often miss something in an OP's post and then read again and have to come back and comment again as I'd missed a key detail

as a child, I was always losing pe kit, letters home, homework, missing the back side of any papers or tests (still do this) losing everything, forgetting my wallet with my holiday money when going away, forgetting cafe or pocket money on days out, forgetting dinner money

As an adult I've got better with money and budgeting over the years but used to be terrible and in trouble with debt collectors. I struggled to stay in a job, would either be fired for my inattentiveness or resign as I couldn't bear it. I went self employed and that has suited me much better and worked well the last 16 years or so

I made a chicken curry once and forgot to put the chicken in it. I leave the oven on. I often chop up and then forget garnishes. I've made a cup of tea with 40 teabags by pouring the boiling kettle water directly into the teabag caddy. I've got the coffee jar muddled with my daughters squash and poured cold tap water into the coffee jar. I tried to open my door with my gas card instead of key once, and once with a folded tenner - a million silly inattentive things!

Random papers and notes and clutter everywhere. Attempts to tidy up only hide things from myself and then I forget they exist and sometimes buy a duplicate, like cd's, books, clothes, etc

I am better at this now (since realising I need to heavily externally regulate myself with various apps on my phone and 2 calendars) too but I missed so many appointments and world book days and all that gumph in the past

I was insanely physically active - walking 2 miles to school and back while everyone else got the bus. I was on our athletics team, did dance and netball and then would walk the 2 miles home as well and go and climb trees or practice gymnastics. I'm a bit less active now but much prefer and have better mental health the more active I am

I would bite my nails and pick skin and constantly tap my foot/bounce my knee (still true)

all of these are basically inattentiveness, poor executive function and hyperactivity, including just the small things like nail and skin picking and knee/foot bouncing. Oh and racing thoughts at times.

done it again - sorry!

I was diagnosed by psychiatry uk under the nhs right to choose path

a few other places also do this kind of thing

my adult DD got diagnosed first and thats what made me realise. Medication has absolutely changed her life and I'm on a waiting list to give it a go, should start in august -ish with the titration process.

oh two more things - my daughter gets really bad rejection sensitivity dysphoria but I don't

my only emotional dysregulation is with anger, most often at injustice or being misunderstood. I never take it out on anyone with will ruminate and have sleepless nights.

so it's medication that is supposed to help? I thought perhaps there was some sort of therapy,

The thing is, ADHD is mostly how you are born - it's genetic and runs in families. Yes there are some environmental things that can make things better or worse, and I found the ADDitude website very helpful for suggestions on coping mechanisms as well as general information (self test on there too). But you can't "cure" ADHD, and the only thing that treatments like talking therapy can do is teach you some basic coping mechanisms.

Exactly this. I have recently been diagnosed and it makes everything make so much sense growing up!! My eldest has adhd and it was actually his CAMHS nurse who suggested I should get tested because she thought it was glaringly obvious. That was about 15 years ago!

And reading all your comments - wow! so many resonate! I used to pick my lips and spots until they were bloodied jellied mush - especially when under stress. I really resonate with the work thing - never fired and currently employed but REALLY struggle to concentrate, and I struggle massively with mood swings when overwhelmed. And I talk too much!!

Im also messy, my brain goes ten to the dozen but physically I’m lazy and could well sit on the sofa all day googling stuff.

I can relate to every word of this @AllHailKingLouis

Oftentimes I can sit there (I WFH) and mentally run through a list of things that I need to do, all the work tasks, house tasks, the random sock Ddog brought downstairs ecetera but will open my laptop and fall down a rabbit hole of something else entirely and get absolutely nothing done.
I often get overwhelmed with work even though my job is fairly easy but I really need to break everything down into little tasks and even then I really struggle if I have to add an additional thing to the list as I didn't account for something and it can make me stop the project until I can find it in me to pick it up again.

I struggle so much with having a messy house yet 10 years down the line still can't manage to have it clean even though I really want to.
Another thing I have realized I am doing is masking a lot, during social interactions, trying to project I am much more put together and organised than I really am.
I'm a tiny bit better at keeping dates/events and other things on my calendar but as a child I was horrendous at remembering or even paying enough attention to know we had homework/ bring xyz in and so on.

Following as I’ve asked my GP for an assessment after procrastinating (!!) for years
Getting to the end of a task feels like wading through mud. I really struggle with instructions and technology. For instance we have mobile devices at work that now and then need an update. I dread this even though logically it’s pretty simple. The email explains how to. No matter, I want to cry when I see the email. I have to focus HARD even to understand it a little bit

Yes I would often find there was homework and I had somehow missed it
I often seem to miss things
At uni I would have no notes or something stupid like one word and a load of doodles or I’d be asleep.

I have a terrible memory. thought I had dementia which prompted my first doctors visit which eventually lead to diagnosis.

I get absolutely obsessed with things. I've spent 46 hours this week (thanks phone for reminding me) researching nappies... for gods sake! I don't need to research this.. absolutely no need. I wish I had half the focus on the things I actually do need to do , such as my job!!!

Ultimately, I think it was my life not really giving me room to hyper focus through challenges anymore.

My lifelong get-by of shutting the world out and spending several hours/days/weeks immersing myself in a task in order to complete it ... that fell apart once I had children and then returned to work. Turns out I couldn't pull all nighters with both a toddler and a work project.

Some person on some part of the internet said, "it's not that I can't pay attention to anything, it's that I can't stop paying attention to everything". That was a clear description of my concentration issues right there.

The more traits I looked up, the more I saw myself. Spacing out during conversation, emotional reactivity, time blindness, serious lack of organization (unless I make a ton of mental effort to be organized ... and even then me at my best looks like my organized pals at mediocre).

Finally pushed for an assessment when my depression and anxiety lapsed big time in 2020 despite having been on SSRIs for two years and being discharged from CBT the previous spring. Everything was cancelled and I still couldn't get a single thing done.

None of the traits I went over with a psychologist and psychiatrist were brand new either. I could give several examples of how my behavior lined up with the diagnostic criteria even from childhood.

Had my alignment with the list been more recent, I would have looked at overstimulation (too much phone, too much tech) and, these days, perimenopause.

One of the worst 'symptoms' for me is an internal motor that won't let me be. If it get hyperfocuaed on a task I will go and go and go until I consider it done or until I literally collapse. Sometimes I even push past that point. I often make myself ill doing this. It causes me great distress because it's so all or nothing and u can't find a happy medium. Housework is the worst thing for me. Good enough is never good enough and I end up working myself into the ground trying to clean even though I have a partner. 2 (adhd) kids and a v challenging full time job.

I also find it impossible to be still or just 'be'. Again, I get ill and stay ill for a long time because I don't give myself a chance to recover.

I am also frequently late or, conversely, very very early because I'm trying to counter it. I have v bad object permanence issues, so if I can't see something I forget it exists.

Freshly diagnosed here (autism, adhd and pda) at the age of 46.

one of the things that has stood out for me since I started researching is something my boss said (I work for a Company that specialises in autism/adhd screening, which is how I found out). She said ‘hyperactivity’ doesn’t just mean physically hyperactive - for example - my inner voice only shuts up when I’m asleep (well, if I’m not dreaming) and my thoughts are always racing at a million miles an hour - mental hyperactivity!!

A lifetime of bafflement and being called feckless, vague and unreliable despite efforts to the cont. ended decisively by reading about inattentive and adhd in girls/women a couple of years ago.
Another vote for ADDitudemag.com, it’s really helped figure stuff out as an adult adhd’er.
and also for crying when I see any given set of technical instruction - they just fill me with rage and despair on sight, I never understood why and now I do! I especially hate phone shops - arrggg

I was diagnosed a year ago and told it was “late onset” and “trauma induced”. I didn’t actually ask a lot of questions, I was just mildly surprised. And I was given medication which has transformed my ability to concentrate. I was a bit of a scholar as a child and young person but lost my ability to focus following a major trauma. I cannot tell you how difficult it has been to focus at work, it was exhausting, and I also spent a great deal of energy trying to hide my struggle.

Now I just sit down and work. Revelation!

Sought a diagnosis, like many, after daughter recognised her ADHD. Went off to doctor and doggedly chased a referral to Psychiatry UK. Meds work well, but are a bugger to balance out dosage with hormonal swings, especially during menopause. It helps me to have med holidays (ideally both medication and Mediterranean, but you can’t have it all). Symptoms range from totally chaotic and self-destructive behaviour from teenage years onwards, irregular patterns of achievement in education (my school reports were brutal), tendency to switch jobs and relationships regularly, lousy attention to detail, fatigue, whole range of comorbid conditions, including hypermobility. On the upside, I’m very good at knitting and a gazillion other hobbies, have impressive reflexes, a thirst for knowledge, some days have a (hard to describe) kind of synchronised mental and physical energy that makes the air seem to crackle around me. I’m unpredictable, impulsive and determined, which I like, but spend a lot of my time wondering where the hell my thoughts and ideas are coming from because they don’t seem to belong to me. On a more challenging day, the inside of my head feels like it’s playing a really pointless game of mole-bashing in a strobe-lit disco.

Been thinking about this through dinner and realised I still missed a few things

Hyperfocus or complete inability to focus, I wish I had a middle ground

very easily overwhelmed and/or overstimulated, lights and noise seem to do it the most. I cannot bear overhead lights, have to have lamps

can be almost impossible to start a task sometimes, but if I can just get started, if I'm lucky hyperfocus will kick in and it will get done. I do my best to regulate this with mini pomodoro - telling myself I'll just do the thing for 5 minutes or 2 minutes or 30 seconds - whatever it takes just to get my brain to agree to START

The above inertia can sometimes last months if really overwhelmed/burned out and I can't make myself start. This was mistaken for depression, it wasn't.