ADD and ADHD testing for adult females

[Youngatheart00]

Sorry, I wasn’t sure whether to put this in general health or mental health. Apologies if it is in the wrong place.

I won’t go into heaps of detail but I suspect I may be on the spectrum for ADD of ADHD, if A spectrum is such a thing (rather than yes or no)

The last year of wfh has amplified it. I seem to operate mostly in a worn out fog with brief moments (maybe an hour or so a day) when I’m totally ‘in the zone’ (as I call it) and my productivity and brain power goes into hyperdrive. This can be when presenting to an audience on zoom or working on an important email.

I get so stressed I can’t find the zone a lot of the time and I’m worried that in some meetings I can’t even get my words out as when people ask me questions I struggle to process them and respond quickly without having time to think.

I know senior leadership might start to wonder why I’m so super impressive some of the time (largely when it matters!) and a liability at others.

After a period of being ‘in the zone’ I generally keep a euphoric feeling for a while and take that productivity into scrubbing the bathroom, for eg. But at other times all I can do is lie in bed. It’s like I have to recharge my brain and body

Is there something wrong with me or is this normal?? Does this sound like ADD or ADHD and something that could be treated / managed?

Not to be recommended but dd was reading that if you take cocaine if you have ADHD all it does is makes you think like a non ADHD person.

I think that’d definitely be true about speed. Not sure about coke.

@winched I haven't read all of your post (typical, much?) but wanted to react to the bit about multiple areas. The more I think about it, the more obvious it becomes how it has affected multiple areas:

Family - they put up with me because they love me, but I have always been terrible at keeping in touch

Friends - I actually don't have any who are just mine, only couple friends who were originally my husband's

Risky/addictive behaviour - if I had not developed a strong faith which outlawed certain behaviours, I could easily have become a problem gambler and taken all kinds of sexual risks

Work - I feel as though just scrape by.... not that other people see that.... but they also don't see the huge mental effort it takes me to do as much as I do. Given my intelligence and academic ability, I could/should have done much more.

Hobbies - I have so many that I cycle round, or pick up and drop, I never get really good at anything

Household - the reason the bills get paid is because I hyperfocus for a while, and then put everything on direct debit and autorenew

I've lost my train of thought now. I'm off to make a cup of tea.

@ThatOtherPoster

I think that’d definitely be true about speed. Not sure about coke.

Some of the stimulant meds are basically speed, aren't they?

@PuzzledObserver no worries, you can tell I'm on my meds bc I wouldn't have been able to concentrate on that long enough either 🤣.

But it sounds like you definitely have at least two areas in your life where this is having an impact, which is enough!

I will come back at some point and properly interact with you guys but I'm in the midst of trying to catch up on things I've left too long! Irony but I wanted to chip in a bit about food and adhd meds, tbh it's the biggest only real difference I've noticed since I started taking it (concerta) and it's pretty miraculous if I'm honest, not so much from a dramatic I've lost 10 stone point of view, (I've lost around 1.5 stone and could do with losing the same again ideally) but mentally I've just stopped thinking about food constantly (and I really do mean constantly) and I feel like a normal person! It's very liberating! Other than this I'm not sure I notice any difference atm so I'm not sure if I need stronger dose/different type as I (maybe foolishly) thought I'd suddenly become better at doing housework, organisation etc etc but so far not really but I've only been taking it for 4 or 5 months ish so early days I guess? Anyway I will come back later probably if I remember lol

I can think of many areas of life it has effected: work, relationships, home life, finances, health etc.

Going to ponder.

Can only get phone appointments these days with doctors and no choice over who so it doesn't feel like a good time to try and sort this. I had a complete antidepressant switch which was all done on my say so with only phonecalls with a pharmacist. I'm good at knowing my needs but not convinced that was really good medical practice tbh.

The gp is only there to refer you.
Once they say they will refer you they warn you it will take years but for dd it looks like it will be about 4 months from gp’s phone call to the date of her final assessment assessment.
I am a few weeks behind because I kept losing the form.

Yes but I'm wanting to use the right to choose service highlighted by someone on this thread. It literally costs the go nothing so I'm hoping they won't be obstructive

What’s the difference if you end up with an ADHD assessment

It appears the difference is speed and the fact it's already a remote service so geared up to be able to keep operating throughout covid. If I understood your question right?

Oh and when I looked into it they are experts at dx adults and women which I doubt your average nhs psychiatrist is tbh.

@winched -- I am the "before" person in your brilliant post!

How do I get Psych UK to assess me without the £800 price tag? I can't work out how to do it.

You print off the referral forms etc and go to your gp and have them refer you I believe.

Placemarking. Thanks for the info/input.

Thanks -- I done the letter and the assessment thing. I'm scared of taking them to my GP because I think he'll think, "Oh here she goes again with her hypochondria!" I'm also really scared that I'm just wasting everyone's time and money!

The more I read the more I am convinced I have ADHD. IT would be life changing to know there’s a reason for it. I think most people see me as a disorganised and lazy space cadet.

I think the main question is if you were like this as a child as well as an adult.
For me it explains my childhood.
I watched the Jessica McCabe video about her childhood and it was like she was talking about mine, with out the abusive ADHD parent and family.
The things I wanted to do I wasn’t allowed to do and the things I was allowed/supposed to do I had no interest in so ultimately I didn’t do anything except struggle with the stuff I had to do (like homework and schoolwork).
Leaving school was like being let out of prison but then I swapped one prison for another as I had to work.
Met and married dh in my teens because he had a car and earned enough for me to potentially stay at home.

Is it common to have a really bad memory of events and people? I have an amazing memory for things I found fascinating at the time and got really into but a shocking lack of memory of everyday life. I also feel like my experience of living when I was young was more like was happening very fast around me and I was sort of struggling to keep up and didn't really have much agency in it all. Some things that happened to me I remember as if I was an object in the memory rather than really exercising agency and having put myself in that situation. Hard to explain.

I'm really independent and I find it hard to relate to these memories as if well who the hell was that allowing that stuff to happen to me as if I had no control in it. It seems like it was quite late in life that I really started actually exerting some control over my life rather than being like a pinball in the pinball machine.

@TheHoneyBadger I think I know what you mean about the lack of agency thing, but maybe not.

I have a friend with ADHD, although he has lived a far more... precarious? life than me, and we both describe it as the demons taking over. It was him who coined the term and I think part of that could be to do with his addictions and risk taking, whereas for me I've never really had addictions (other than caffeine and nicotine and sex ) but I had this very very reckless streak.

Sometimes I look back on the times I was at my most reckless and honestly wonder if I was being controlled by somebody? But I think it was probably my emotions? Sometimes I'd be quick to act without thinking and sometimes I'd think and just not care. But always, always in hindsight I wonder why I did it.

Pre-16, so much unprotected sex with people I should never have been involved with. Staying out all night, sleeping in fields, getting in cars with handsome strangers (and friends) and driving (dangerously) from Scotland to Newcastle for a buzz.

Pregnant at 17. Married an abusive man within 3 months of knowing him, didn't last a year. Ended relationships with good men for no logical reason. Quitting secure, well paid, professional jobs after pinging awake with a business idea.

You get the picture.

I do feel like this has got better with age... or at least changed. My more recent recklessness is now much more relative to my stage of life... instead of sleeping in a field I'm painting my bathroom fuchsia pink, you know?

And I want to say the meds have really helped with this.

A few weeks ago I had this really annoying restless feeling and I wanted to DO SOMETHING and I've recently taken up running / getting fit. I had £600 worth of clothes from SweatyBetty in my basket and I can't even explain how close I was to checking out. It almost felt like a compulsion, like I was being controlled by something. The promise of a huge dopamine rush, maybe? It was impulsive but also reckless because I knew fine well I really, really couldn't afford it. But I didn't. I pulled it back and closed the tab and bought a £25 jacket from h&m, which was the only thing I actually needed. And I was quite proud of myself.

I am amazed I have made it to the age I have. I think myself and anyone around me thought I wouldn’t make it till 30.
I find it is when I am out of control I feel the most calm and in control.

Thank you for sharing - I can relate to a lot of that. There was a lot of drugs and alcohol in my youth so that no doubt doesn't help my memory but it was how I coped with people and social situations that I felt out of my depth in. I lived a pretty chaotic life and I can remember I really related to the train voice saying, 'mind the gap' and felt like I should have it tattooed on me or something because my life was here, there and everywhere and so was my head and my emotions I guess.

Nothing happened in a straight line or the order or timing that was normal. I went to uni at 21, I did one year at one place, then transferred to somewhere else for the second year then had a year out overseas decided and acted on very quickly after a compulsion that made it the only option and then came back and finished.

I'm amazed I finished. I'm also amazed I went because I only finished one A'level after repeated quitting, changing courses, moving out of home as a teen, getting pregnant and generally being chaotic and mad. I blagged my way into uni by talking passionately about stuff I'd read and been fascinated by on the phone with a head of department and then got into a really good university for my second year by similar means.

The job I'm in now is the longest I've ever kept a job and that is less than three years so far and mostly because it's incredibly part time. The longest relationship I've ever been in was 2 years and I've impulsively walked away from amazing men. I dread to think how many times I've moved.

I can pull amazing things out of the bag when I can set my mind to it but sustaining them is a whole other kettle of fish.

I sometimes feel like I've been stuck in adolescence my whole life. I've been on and off antidepressants and other pscyh drugs at times since I was 18.

The longest thing in my life is my son who is 14 - I say that he has, 'taught me to stay', but it has been really hard at times and I haven't always given him as stable a reality as I would have wished with moves overseas and lots of change at points but I have really loved him and done my best.

Wondering if I'm sharing too much on a public forum.

Wondering if I'm sharing too much on a public forum.

Well, I for one appreciate your honesty and vulnerability. Plus, you know we don’t know who you are?

I seem to have managed more stability than you, e.g. went to university at the ‘right’ age, completed my course (even though I realised about 6 months in that I hated my subject), have never been sacked from a job (although I’ve been made redundant twice).

But I recognise the feeling of having blagged your way into something because it seemed like a great idea at the time, and then thinking, heck, what do I do with this now?

I think I’m still stuck in adolescence. Never had children, so didn’t have to grow up in some ways. Now I’m looking forward to my retirement giving me a second chance at adolescence, but with more money!

I've only ever actually been fired once and that was from a bar job at 18 when I got wasted on New Years Eve because of customers buying me shots (and me accepting them obviously).

It's me who has left jobs because I couldn't cope or found them unbearable. A fair amount of sick leave also with depression ostensibly but basically becoming totally overwhelmed and coming apart at the seams.

Retirement with money sounds nice but I try not to think about it because I'm not exactly well prepared.

I quite liked this.