My ADHD Diagnosis Experience

Having ADHD as an adult is a very interesting thing. I am a 37-year-old company owner and mother of 3. I am a wife, a musician, a friend, a daughter, and I love to discuss politics.

And I have ADHD.

I was diagnosed twice, first at age 21 and then again at age 30. Both times the clinician asked me a series of questions out of what I now know was the DSM-V (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). This interview lasted about 20 minutes.

Then came this phrase, “Yes, you have ADHD. The medication I recommend for this disorder is…” And that was that.

Looking back, I’m pretty frustrated that neither of these medical professionals (one was a family doctor and the other was a psychiatrist) took the time to explain ADHD to me. There was no conversation about symptoms, impairments, therapies, or interventions.

I didn’t even get a pamphlet.

Because of this, I lived for so long thinking that ADHD was simply an inability to pay attention. I took medication, and yet I was still frustrated with my life.

Why? Because I was still dealing with all of these issues:

Inability to prioritize and plan
Inability to use my time wisely
Inability to remain cool, calm, and collected when I was frustrated
Inability to start an overwhelming project
Inability to finish an overwhelming project
Inability to remember to do the stuff I really wanted to do
Inability to switch out of work mode and into mom mode
Inability to be consistent in the things I wanted to accomplish in life
Inability to keep a goal in mind for any length of time
Extreme frustration when I was interrupted
Inability to do something that I thought is pointless (like scrub the floors every week when I knew they were just going to get dirty again)
Inability to deal with the constant noise that my kids made
Inability to wait for my husband to finish his sentences before I spoke

When I finally learned through education and research that each one of these obnoxious behaviors was a symptom or impairment from my ADHD, my mind was blown!

So I put together a resource for you, it’s the 10 Things I Wish My Doc Had Told Me When I Was Diagnosed with ADHD. If you’ve been diagnosed with ADHD, I sincerely hope that you already know this information. But if your diagnosis experience was anything like mine, I’m going to guess that you don’t.

Grab your free resource here: 10 Things I Wish My Doc Had Told Me When I Was Diagnosed.

This is why I am so passionate about helping adults with ADHD. If we live our lives thinking that ADHD is a basic inability to pay attention, we will remain in a constant state of frustration at all of the other symptoms and impairments from the disorder!

My ADHD Diagnosis Experience

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