I just had my first ever meeting with a psychiatrist to get diagnosed with ADHD.
Long story short, they said that I clearly exhibit ADHD symptoms.
But they’re not willing to go forward with a diagnosis because, according to them, I seem to be doing alright in my life, so the symptoms are hardly causing me enough problems to be eligible for a diagnosis. (And also because there’s no evidence of me having had such symptoms in childhood.)
And I was just sitting there thinking, do you really think I would be here if I didn’t think the symptoms were causing me problems in life?
Based on what they said, they expected me to have experienced things like getting warnings or being fired from jobs, ruining my relationships with people, and such. And they suggested the usual things, exercise, the Pomodoro method, etc. As if I haven’t tried them already.
My bad for masking so well, I guess.
Anyway, just wanted to vent a bit. I know it’s too common a story. I guess the next thing I need to do is to find a psychiatrist specializing in adult ADHD. Once my (still undiagnosed) ADHD lets me do that.
I recently (a couple of years ago now) reached out to a psychiatrist because I was finding it increasingly difficult to cope. My responsibilities at work continue to expand and become more cerebral, requiring more time in front of the computer.
I made sure and told him of my childhood history of being diagnosed young and having to go to the nurse’s office every day at lunch to get my afternoon pill and how that made me feel isolated and different. But that over time the pills helped me pull up my grades. Having been diagnosed as a child makes this process much easier as an adult.
The weird thing? He didn’t ask for any records or proof of my childhood diagnosis. I really was on Ritalin from the second grade through high school and then Adderall in college. But he didn’t ask for any cooborating evidence of that.
I guess you can take from that what you like. But they just don’t seem to follow up on your childhood history of treatment.
I feel for people who weren’t diagnosed as children and had to suffer with this without any assistance. It seems unfair that those people can’t get help now, just because they weren’t offered it in the past.