Anyone else who got their diagnosis as a shock or as a surprise?

[anothernamechng]

And find it hard to relate to posts like "Such a relief!" or "It all makes sense now!" from people who just got their expectations confirmed.

Please don't tell me how to feel here, it feels like I've been told how to feel and react enough already.

The adhd not a surprise but it took a while to get over the asd one I admit.

Yes, went in for a diagnosis for ADHD and came out with one for bipolar. Not sure how to feel about it.

I’d ‘known’ for I’d say 10 years before I got around to being assessed. When it was confirmed, I felt devastated, faulty, ashamed, broken .. everything bad. Reading the report was painful. I joined some social media pages for living with adult ADHD, but found all of the posts where people were relieved/joyful to get the diagnosis infuriating. I couldn’t understand any happiness about having this awful thing and so left all of those pages/groups promptly. I’m a teacher and support children with SEN everyday…I would N e v e r judge anyone as harshly as I have judged myself. I hope I haven’t upset anyone with what I’ve said. That was my personal truth and I accept others have it differently.

I had no idea that I might have ADHD - I had zero knowledge or experience of it apart from the stereotypical hyper young boy thing.

I have long Covid and my employer paid for a work coach to help support me with my return to work as I still had lots of issues with brain fog and chronic fatigue. My work coach was actually a psychologist who has ADHD. He said at the end of a 2 hour interview with me "has anyone ever suggested you might have ADHD?". Er, no. It was a complete shock. Never even crossed my mind. He sent me some reading material and (big stereotype) it was a real lightbulb moment for me. That was just over a year ago. I've now had a formal diagnosis of combined ADHD (but scoring VERY high on inattentive) and realise that I'm actually pretty much textbook ADHD. I've been going through titration for the last 4 months and it's definitely helping.

The ADHD was a true lightbulb moment for me - I had never considered it as a possibility (whereas I had considered, and dismissed, the idea that I might be autistic) - I am actually a very stereotypical ADHDer, I am certain it would have been picked up at school if I was a kid now (I'm early 40's). It was a relief and I embrace and accept this aspect of myself easily and happily.

However...I also have a diagnosis of autism, which still doesn't feel right to me. All 3 of my dc and my dh are autistic and they are so different to me, I constantly feel like the odd one out - I think this is partly because of the ADHD, but also that I have a PDA profile, which has a number of differences and means that it's much harder to find others who are like me. I am very sociable, for example. I tend to ignore this bit - I will need to face up to it at some point.

I will also say that I found reading about autism and ADHD tended to drag me down and so I have stopped for now. I am just trying to get on with life and not dwell on my diagnoses.

Thanks for all of your replies. I was very young, and I think I just felt a heavy sense of grief, too young to really suspect any specific diagnosis, and then I just felt crushed over the news it was something lifelong, not something temporary, affecting my mental health.

Being diagnosed never gave me relief/peace/confidence like many people describe, I've also never experiencing any feeling of things clicking into place. Ironically I seem to have something in common with many undiagnosed people there - the feeling that an outside presentation mattered more than internal emotions.

Also, being diagnosed when fewer girls/women were, there was a subtle message from adults both before and after diagnosis: "You're not being how we think a girl should be," and it affected my confidence a lot.

Really wish there was a place to discuss more negative or mixed feelings around being diagnosed, as it seems to be controversial.

Just wanted to reply to this post, as thud is me also! Knew since daughter diagnosed with asd at 2 that I had adhd, got diagnosed last September 2023 with it now going for asd diagnosis with pda profile since taking medication for adhd my asd has really shown and I'm struggling as I don't fully relate to adhders and don't fully relate to autistic people , feeling very alone , referral went in last Wednesday and this weekend I've just been extremely tearful. My youngest is also going through asd and adhd diagnosis and I'm just so sad for her. My oldest who was diagnosed at 3, is non verbal and has significant learning disability, so wouldn't understand being autistic. Spoke to my mum at weekend and she basically explained how she would 'teach' /train me with everything I struggled with eye contact/socially etc. I never knew.