Anyone here got adult ADHD?

[Pegs11]

At age 43 I have just been diagnosed with ADHD (combined type), which I’ve had since a child but it has gone undiagnosed and untreated until now, because I always masked and internalised it.

I never even really knew what ADHD was, I thought it was just being hyperactive and impulsive. Now I know there is so much more to it… and it explains everything about how I experience life and the world around me.

I haven’t started the meds yet (hopefully next week) but I am keen to see how they might help. I particularly struggle with emotional dysregulation and rejection sensitivity dysphoria. I’ve heard that the meds can help with this sometimes, but not always.

This feels like such a huge revelation… I never was able to understand, or explain to people, why I have always felt like my brain worked differently compared to others. For example, why things that seemed so easy to other people felt overwhelming to me. It is all beginning to make sense now.

I am starting to realise how fundamentally this condition has impacted on my life up until now and I’m pretty horrified.

I could really do with connecting with other people, especially women, who have experienced this… If any of you are out there and are willing to share your experiences and maybe answer some questions for me (I have so many!) please reply!

My lovely friend went through her GP and asked for "right to choose" - quicker route than waiting for NHS appointments. She's incredibly happy now and I'm so chuffed for her. I went private. I'm impulsive and took a loan to get mine, but I don't regret it!

I also went privately.

I started off with my NHS GP but she wouldn't refer me because "all they'll do is give you amphetamines and we don't really advise that" (seriously!!!).

I then spoke to my employer's HR dept and they agreed to pay for me to be assessed privately (my suspected ADHD was actually picked up by a psychologist paid by my employer who was helping me with cognitive issues caused by long Covid). After I received my diagnosis, I paid the remaining private costs myself (so titration, meds and ongoing annual reviews with a private psychiatrist) because my work health insurance wouldn't cover me as they'd changed their policy mid-way through my assessment and it meant I hadn't gone down the new 'approved pathway' so I wasn't covered by the insurer. Big sigh.

Hi, your comment really resonated withe me! I'm at the early stage of just suspecting I may have adult ADHD from watching YouTube videos, looking at websites & attending groups like Frazzled. I'm also facin disbelief from others, and it's really frustrating, because it would make so much sense to me if I did have the condition! Like yourself I'm facing the 'wall of grief', thinking about all the things I've messed up in my life because I got overwhelmed, or procrastinated & missed deadlines, or annoyed other people with my behaviour without meaning to... Tomorrow, I'm being assessed for some counselling & I'll mention my suspicions, so we'll see where this leads...

I fit all the ADHD criteria now, but I can't think of any symptoms from childhood. Does this mean I wouldn't get diagnosed? I don't want to go through all the stress of assessment if it's reliant on childhood evidence. I was perfectly organised and on top of things as a child. Wish I was still that person!!!!

Per the NHS "As ADHD is a developmental disorder, it's believed it cannot develop in adults without it first appearing during childhood."

If you didn't have any symptoms in childhood, it's quite possible that it is something other than ADHD.

Yes I know. I'm just desperate for something which might help with my chronic chaotic disorganisation and inability to make decisions. My therapist thinks I have ADHD so I will ask her about lack of childhood evidence.

As a child, your parents would have been organising your life and making decisions for you.

Right, exactly. Were you perfectly organised and on top of everything, or was that not expected of you?

My childhood symptoms which I didn't really recognise as being symptoms of anything until I went through diagnosis:

Always messy room
Played with toys/had "babyish" interests longer than other children
Socially struggled - was never "popular" (was picked on/excluded by others at school, people would laugh at me because I always missed social cues others would get).
Looking at childhood photos I was always a scruffball! My ponytail was constantly half fallen out, my skirt would be tucked into my knickers, my outfits were clearly self-chosen (and hilarious!)
I fidgeted. I used to rub edges of material - still do. I sucked my thumb to an unusually high age - actually, still do.
I used to love reading and would always have at least 2-3 books on the go at any one time (still do this)
Would take a long time to do school work sometimes, to the point teachers would comment or tell me off or very occasionally I would have to complete the work while the class did something more fun. Or if I look back at examples of school work, there are things like a page with a title and a very elaborate underline and a border but about half a sentence written. Or a page where I had clearly intended to draw a large and elaborate picture but instead there is a tiny and very detailed bit of the page filled in, and the rest of it is unfinished.

In fact, unfinished projects strewn all over my room everywhere.

Anxious, a worrier, emotional, would worry about all kinds of implausible things.

If I ever got into trouble at school (extremely rare!) it was for talking to my neighbour or staring out of the window when I was supposed to be working.

We were meant to do things like rote-learn times tables, but I found it easier to work them out manually each time. The only ones I could do without working out are those with a trick like 5x, 2x, 10x or 9x.

I didn't have any school reports for my diagnosis but I found one a year later and it is all stuff like "Bertie is very capable but could apply herself more".

My grades in y10 mocks and my grades in my actual GCSEs were pretty much the same. That was the most staggering to me. My predicted grades were higher but because I was an age where the external support was starting to come away, I obviously didn't manage without it. I am just devastated nobody picked up on this at the time - not that it would have been much use with the state of ADHD understanding then. But still!

For me I had quite a sudden collapse of organisation. At GCSE I was on top of everything, by A Level I was anorexic and depressed and organisation had gone out the window. My ED therapist said I had a 'close relationship with chaos'. 25 years on and that's still the case!

It's surprising what comes out in the assessment. I answered the questions about being hyperactive as a child as a no. I got asked what my childhood nickname was, and told them it was "Skippy" - then remembered why - I used to jump up and down incessantly at the bus stop. That was just one example...

I can think of symptoms from childhood but missing quite a few.

I believe this is because I avoided anything that gave me too much stress, and made me not cope. Just as I did until I was around 40 and decided to "make something of myself".

Ever since then my symptoms have become increasingly more difficult to manage - and I'm of the firm belief that's because I'm actually trying to live my life, rather than do the bare minimum and spend lots of time "recuperating".

So it could be your childhood was like that in some respects.

OMG.... a close relationship with chaos fits me perfectly!!!

Diagnosed at 60 I look back on my life and some of it makes sense. Despite being top of the class in school and even university I have never fulfilled my potential. The longest I have stuck at a job was 4 years and that is because it was a very creative role which was very interesting to me. Everything else has been boring to me.

Is the known you in childhood a standard thing in an assessment?

I don't know anyone who knew me well in childhood.

Apparently they ask to speak to parents/see school reports. All my mum can think of is that I responded really badly to school holidays as I hated the lack of fixed routine. Also that I spent hours on end running in circles around the garden. Not sure that counts for much!

Well my dad's dead and my mum has advanced dementia. I'm way past 50, have no reports or anything, so that feels like it'll be a stumbling block.

Harrow Health say they give you a different form because a lot of people struggle with the people knowing you in childhood thing.

I changed my mind and am going with them because they could be quicker.