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!

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