6 ms·

I think it's particularly common to see that with people who discover their ADHD in adulthood, and there are a lot of us now that awareness has been raised in r

I think it's particularly common to see that with people who discover their ADHD in adulthood, and there are a lot of us now that awareness has been raised in recent years. I went my whole life thinking that I was broken. I had intense anxiety surrounding social interaction, was horribly depressed, got terrible grades through high school, and just generally did not enjoy most of life. I eventually learned how to cope and function normally to an outside observer, but still would go through cycles of intense anxiety and depression that I didn't know how to explain. A few years ago I finally was diagnosed with ADHD and suddenly everything clicked. My anxiety, my depression, my grades, my intense hyperfocus on one thing at a time but also inability to keep consistently focused on one thing for more than a few weeks. All of that suddenly made sense, and there were people in the world who knew exactly how I felt. And the thing is, the anxiety and depression have largely gone away. Now that I know what's going on inside my brain I don't have to beat myself up about it, instead I can learn from and lean on hundreds of thousands of other people who have to cope with the same thing. So yeah, today I will often notice "oh, that's an ADHD thing" at random times in my life. But it's not so much that it's an essential part of my identity as it is that it's enormously comforting to finally have an explanation for all of the weird quirks that I have, and it's a huge relief to have a community of people who experience the same things that I do. When I say "that's my ADHD", it's me reminding myself that I am not broken, just different, and different is okay.

flakeoil 2y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- dpritchett 2y ago
  If ADHD-oriented media and discussions provide neurodivergent adults a means to work through decades of internalized shame and anxiety, why get in the way of that?
- Onawa 2y ago
  Except that isn't how neurodivergence works. Yes, everything that the commenter originally posted are things that happen to normal people as well. The difference is in the intensity and duration of these symptoms. Your comment is overly idealistic about neurodivergent people dealing with their problems. If it was a simple as accepting that our symptoms are normal, don't you think that we would gladly take that as an option? Psychologically, it just isn't a very effective tactic for dealing with our symptoms.
  - lolinder 2y ago
    Yes. Identifying it as just part of being human doesn't explain at all why I, in particular, am regularly incapacitated by these things, and it's the sense of incapacity that causes the shame. You can absolutely rephrase "that's my ADHD" to "that's within the range of normal after all", but having a proper label for a cluster of people who stand out as a clearly distinct normal curve from the rest of the population is helpful.
    - steve_adams_86 2y ago
      I like to frame it as a disability. I fought it for ages and wanted to believe I was normal. This is like trying to climb a tree with one arm. It won’t work. You need to take a step back, look at the problem, and develop systems which accommodate the missing arm. ADHD only works well for us when we involve ourselves in activities which benefit from having one, extremely well-practiced arm. That’s usually our happy place. The world typically asks for all limbs in tact, though. We inevitably hit those walls. If we pretend we won’t hit those walls and we don’t prepare ourselves, life is disproportionately hard. We also need to ensure we accept the disability such that when we do our best to be prepared, but we fail to be, we recognize that it’s a fact of life and we do our best with what we’ve got. I’m not a fan of the super power framing. I’m a fan of looking at it as a disability with positive, optimistic framing. When we get it right, life can work really well for us. We will always be at a disadvantage in some ways, but the skills and experiences we get because of that can be invaluable.
  - nsagent 2y ago
    I most likely would be diagnosed with ADHD if I sought a formal diagnosis (my ex, who I was with for over a decade is a clinical psychologist and said I most likely have ADHD; my brother is diagnosed with it and my mom's ADHD traits make the both of us look tame). The thing is, I just don't buy into the rampant pathologizing that's so prevalent these days. It's really a societal problem, and is being treated as a human failing. I contend that it's society that's expecting humans to behave in a way we haven't needed for most of our evolution. These include: having exacting time standards disconnected from seasons and day/night cycles, having to juggle many more cognitively intense tasks that we need to quickly switch amongst, being exposed to media and technology specifically designed to capture your attention for as long as possible, etc.
- chronotis 2y ago
  As the parent of a teen with ADHD, I find myself comparing my growing-up experiences and anxieties with his. I'm confident that if I were coming of age today, I would probably have been diagnosed with something because I was firmly a couple standard deviations away from the societal mean. Because we didn't have as extensive diagnoses or therapies back in the 80s compared to now, I had my own phase of wondering what was wrong with me. There weren't any peer or adult role models available to me that really related to my experiences. As a result, there were some difficult years in there...but also, I had to find my own resiliency and ways of mapping my worldview to other people. Fast forward 40 years. I am conflicted about which is better: to be left to figure it out on your own, or to have a support system that is (at times) overly biased towards leaning on the diagnosis as the explanation. But I can say with high confidence that at least for the coming-of-age years of my child, I am far more thankful that his experiences are different than mine. "Being a human" is grossly inadequate as a lowest common denominator definition of the needs and experiences of children. Even as broadly discussed as it is, it's still only ~11% of US children and that's still a challenging hill to climb if their peer culture doesn't provide some sort of explanation or incentives for understanding each other.
  - rsanek 2y ago
    11% is cited as the percentage that have been diagnosed, so ostensibly the 'true' percentage is even higher. i feel that if such a huge proportion of people (let's say somewhere between 1 in 5 ~ 1 in 10) have an attribute, we shouldn't be treating it as some exceptional thing that requires special care but rather a normal part of what it means to be a human. it's crazy that there's so much focus on adhd but comparitively little on dyslexia, which by most estimations has similar prevalence but arguably even more child impact. i'm sure there's many more of disadvantages all across the spectrum that we haven't even classified / become aware of.
- steve_adams_86 2y ago
  I was diagnosed with ADHD because I scored in the 10th percentile for some totally normal use cases of the human brain. You know, normal “being human” stuff. Evidently I can’t do normal human stuff. I think getting ADHD isn’t special or interesting at the population level—when you aren’t face to face with it—but it certainly matters to individuals. I wanted to believe I was just being a human, but the reality is that I don’t have a typical human experience. I have a lot of overlap with everyone I know, but most people I meet genuinely can’t understand the experience at all. However, they are often confident that they get it. Meanwhile, they would not qualify as disabled on cognitive assessments. To me that’s the big difference. People with ADHD often carry around legitimate, often hidden disabilities. Usually more than one.
  - rsanek 2y ago
    is tenth percentile for some measures really that bad? hard to say, but i don't think that if double-digit percentages of people have some attribute that it should be labeled a disease or exceptional. i have been diagnosed as having ADHD multiple times, both as a kid as well as an adult. my parents decided not to put me on drugs, and as an adult, i have found behavioral interventions to be the most useful. i have not found perceiving it as a disability to be very helpful.
    - SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
      It's estimated that 11.6% of the US population has diabetes. Is that not a disease?
      - holysmokes 2y ago
        [flagged]
        SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
        [flagged]
      - 2y ago
- gatienboquet 2y ago
  I have ADHD and while you're right that everyone experiences some of these things occasionally, for those with ADHD our emotion regulation system is fundamentally different. As a kid, you build your identity and coping mechanisms through emotional experiences, but when your emotion engine is 'broken' or works differently, you develop differently. The intensity, frequency, and impact of these experiences for someone with ADHD is far beyond what neurotypical people experience. It's not about occasional forgetfulness or distraction - it's about a brain that's structurally and functionally different, affecting every aspect of daily functioning. Getting diagnosed isn't about finding an excuse, it's about finally understanding why basic things others find easy have always been so much harder for you.
sheepscreek 2y ago
Russel Barkley, in his book “Leading With ADHD,” actually suggested mentioning or “blaming” your ADHD after a mistake as a way to foster empathy for your personal challenges. It’s not intended to be an excuse, but rather a means for the other person, who assumes XYZ is effortless, to comprehend better/gain empathy.
- holysmokes 2y ago
  [flagged]
- sheepscreek 2y ago
  Update: The title of the book should have been “Taking Charge of Adult ADHD.” It’s a great book; my psychiatrist recommended it, and I’m grateful for it. Full of actionable ideas and suggestions.
- oriel 2y ago
  Barkley opened the door for me to the term 'executive dysfunction'. This better describes my symptoms than the blanket ADHD term that is now oversaturated IMO. Its given me much better anchors to reason with the issues that mess up my day(s), and ive made notable progress since the discovery of his work, at a time when I had been plateauing.
throw80521 2y ago
To be honest, I thought exactly like you for years. I still benefit from society choosing to label me with something, and that I do not choose to fight. For a while my diagnoses provided so many explanations to my problems and I could live with new purpose. But a while later, I found it was not enough. I hadn't reached "true happiness" or at least whatever I can call my current state of being. I took a different path, shed all my labels, self-prescribed or otherwise, and am happier than I was before. I still think I am "different" and have quirks, etc. So in practice, not a whole lot different than before. I just don't use the labels to describe these differences that others might use instead. I think this only emphasizes that one approach does not necessarily apply when generalized to all people. In my case it only served as one step towards a greater solution, and hopefully even more effective solutions I can build on top of that later. The same goes for heightened awareness for ADHD. More knowledge can be a blessing (as in your case). At the same time, the population such awareness can serve is shaped like a very complex blob, the form of which nobody truly knows, but I believe some clinicians/promoters see the "blast radius" of promoting awareness as a perfectly round circle overlaid directly onto the population. My experience also made me realize what one can term "ADHD" may change with overarching cultural shifts or personal growth. I think ADHD should be seen closer to a symptom of a constellation of any number of potentially unrelated causes than a "disorder" to be focused on alone. Unfortunately the established terminology seems to have won out there. The way we see health conditions and the words we choose to describe them can have profound effects on our understanding of ourselves.
- wnolens 2y ago
  I was going to reply to the same post with similar. If just having a label to apply alleviates the negative emotion, isn't it a placebo? I think a far far greater number of people experience the exact same problems of focus and distress, and learn to cope effectively in their own deeply personal way. I identify strongly with all the symptoms stated. A label feels useless, or worse - constraining, as it becomes your identity. I still have to drag my ass out of bed, do enough good work everyday next to colleagues who figuratively lap me every day, make a to-do list to remember to buy soap, go without soap for a week, .. etc lol. I call it being me.
holysmokes 2y ago
[flagged]
welshwelsh 2y ago
>my intense hyperfocus on one thing at a time but also inability to keep consistently focused on one thing for more than a few weeks Sounds extremely normal to me. I wonder what I'm missing. For example, suppose a typical person decides to learn a new language. At the beginning, they are very excited and enthusiastic about it. They might buy a textbook, download an app or sign up for language classes, and spend lots of time on it for a couple of days. After a week or two, as the tediousness sets in and the goal seems farther off than they expected, they start to shift their focus to something else. After a month, there's a 50/50 chance they completely forget about language study and stop doing it. Only a very small minority will last more than a year. That's what I'd consider normal. How is ADHD different? Another example: meditation. A new meditation practitioner may try to focus on their breathing, but then find they usually get distracted and start thinking about something else within 10 seconds. I have a feeling that if I were to say "I find it difficult to focus my attention on something for 10 seconds without getting distracted", many would reply "that sounds like ADHD." But this is, in fact, quite normal.
- groby_b 2y ago
  > That's what I'd consider normal. How is ADHD different? ADHD is different in that sustained focus takes a ton more of energy than for non-ADHD folks - if you're high functioning. And is almost impossible if you're not high-functioning. Totally agreed that "can't focus on my breath for 10 seconds today" isn't ADHD. "I have repeatably sub-par executive function" very much is, though. For your language learning example, it's more that somebody can't stay focused on the learning, even if they want to/have to and are aware their focus is sliding away. There's a reason ADHD diagnosis is technically a process that's a bit involved, you're trying to test for both sub-par function, and for the repeatable part. I'd take self-diagnosis with a bit more salt, especially it's of the "I often forget my car keys" kind.
- theshackleford 2y ago
  > I have a feeling that if I were to say "I find it difficult to focus my attention on something for 10 seconds without getting distracted", many would reply "that sounds like ADHD." But this is, in fact, quite normal. That would be quite normal. A determination of ADHD is made based upon the severity of impact. Everyone gets distracted to some extent, but is it significant enough to be destroying your life, Y/N? That's the determining factor.
sebasvisser 2y ago
And then after a while the energy fades..you get distracted again. You get both over stimulated and understimulated and the quest for another thing that gives you the feeling of the world finally clicking into place begins.. And each of these fixes (brain.fm, nootropics, adhd-planner-apps etcetc) give you that feeling just for a little while… That’s why we crave it..and because we (can) have more energy we talk about those (a lot!!). But in the end most of us just go from one fix to another..some of us are just really loud about it..
mulmen 2y ago
How did the diagnosis help you cope? Did you seek some kind of treatment as a result? Did it help you change your behavior? You are describing a lot of what I experience but having someone say "me too" doesn't help me personally with overcoming these challenges.
- lolinder 2y ago
  I am not on meds—my dad is on Adderall but has had some pretty serious side effects so I've been avoiding it for now. Mostly it's changed my attitude towards myself. I'm naturally a strong perfectionist, which doesn't combine well with ADHD. That has historically led to me constantly beating myself up when I do anything wrong, ruminating over conversations for days to figure out what I should have said differently, and generally being anxious and depressed. After receiving the diagnosis, I've been able to separate "me" from "my ADHD", which has helped me stop kicking myself while I'm down, which in turn has actually increased my ability to stay functional because I don't get into anxious/depressed spirals.
  - mulmen 2y ago
    Thanks for the reply. Did you suspect you had ADHD before the diagnosis?

flakeoil 2y ago

[flagged]

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
dpritchett 2y ago
If ADHD-oriented media and discussions provide neurodivergent adults a means to work through decades of internalized shame and anxiety, why get in the way of that?
Onawa 2y ago
Except that isn't how neurodivergence works. Yes, everything that the commenter originally posted are things that happen to normal people as well. The difference is in the intensity and duration of these symptoms. Your comment is overly idealistic about neurodivergent people dealing with their problems. If it was a simple as accepting that our symptoms are normal, don't you think that we would gladly take that as an option? Psychologically, it just isn't a very effective tactic for dealing with our symptoms.
- lolinder 2y ago
  Yes. Identifying it as just part of being human doesn't explain at all why I, in particular, am regularly incapacitated by these things, and it's the sense of incapacity that causes the shame. You can absolutely rephrase "that's my ADHD" to "that's within the range of normal after all", but having a proper label for a cluster of people who stand out as a clearly distinct normal curve from the rest of the population is helpful.
  - steve_adams_86 2y ago
    I like to frame it as a disability. I fought it for ages and wanted to believe I was normal. This is like trying to climb a tree with one arm. It won’t work. You need to take a step back, look at the problem, and develop systems which accommodate the missing arm. ADHD only works well for us when we involve ourselves in activities which benefit from having one, extremely well-practiced arm. That’s usually our happy place. The world typically asks for all limbs in tact, though. We inevitably hit those walls. If we pretend we won’t hit those walls and we don’t prepare ourselves, life is disproportionately hard. We also need to ensure we accept the disability such that when we do our best to be prepared, but we fail to be, we recognize that it’s a fact of life and we do our best with what we’ve got. I’m not a fan of the super power framing. I’m a fan of looking at it as a disability with positive, optimistic framing. When we get it right, life can work really well for us. We will always be at a disadvantage in some ways, but the skills and experiences we get because of that can be invaluable.
- nsagent 2y ago
  I most likely would be diagnosed with ADHD if I sought a formal diagnosis (my ex, who I was with for over a decade is a clinical psychologist and said I most likely have ADHD; my brother is diagnosed with it and my mom's ADHD traits make the both of us look tame). The thing is, I just don't buy into the rampant pathologizing that's so prevalent these days. It's really a societal problem, and is being treated as a human failing. I contend that it's society that's expecting humans to behave in a way we haven't needed for most of our evolution. These include: having exacting time standards disconnected from seasons and day/night cycles, having to juggle many more cognitively intense tasks that we need to quickly switch amongst, being exposed to media and technology specifically designed to capture your attention for as long as possible, etc.
chronotis 2y ago
As the parent of a teen with ADHD, I find myself comparing my growing-up experiences and anxieties with his. I'm confident that if I were coming of age today, I would probably have been diagnosed with something because I was firmly a couple standard deviations away from the societal mean. Because we didn't have as extensive diagnoses or therapies back in the 80s compared to now, I had my own phase of wondering what was wrong with me. There weren't any peer or adult role models available to me that really related to my experiences. As a result, there were some difficult years in there...but also, I had to find my own resiliency and ways of mapping my worldview to other people. Fast forward 40 years. I am conflicted about which is better: to be left to figure it out on your own, or to have a support system that is (at times) overly biased towards leaning on the diagnosis as the explanation. But I can say with high confidence that at least for the coming-of-age years of my child, I am far more thankful that his experiences are different than mine. "Being a human" is grossly inadequate as a lowest common denominator definition of the needs and experiences of children. Even as broadly discussed as it is, it's still only ~11% of US children and that's still a challenging hill to climb if their peer culture doesn't provide some sort of explanation or incentives for understanding each other.
- rsanek 2y ago
  11% is cited as the percentage that have been diagnosed, so ostensibly the 'true' percentage is even higher. i feel that if such a huge proportion of people (let's say somewhere between 1 in 5 ~ 1 in 10) have an attribute, we shouldn't be treating it as some exceptional thing that requires special care but rather a normal part of what it means to be a human. it's crazy that there's so much focus on adhd but comparitively little on dyslexia, which by most estimations has similar prevalence but arguably even more child impact. i'm sure there's many more of disadvantages all across the spectrum that we haven't even classified / become aware of.
steve_adams_86 2y ago
I was diagnosed with ADHD because I scored in the 10th percentile for some totally normal use cases of the human brain. You know, normal “being human” stuff. Evidently I can’t do normal human stuff. I think getting ADHD isn’t special or interesting at the population level—when you aren’t face to face with it—but it certainly matters to individuals. I wanted to believe I was just being a human, but the reality is that I don’t have a typical human experience. I have a lot of overlap with everyone I know, but most people I meet genuinely can’t understand the experience at all. However, they are often confident that they get it. Meanwhile, they would not qualify as disabled on cognitive assessments. To me that’s the big difference. People with ADHD often carry around legitimate, often hidden disabilities. Usually more than one.
- rsanek 2y ago
  is tenth percentile for some measures really that bad? hard to say, but i don't think that if double-digit percentages of people have some attribute that it should be labeled a disease or exceptional. i have been diagnosed as having ADHD multiple times, both as a kid as well as an adult. my parents decided not to put me on drugs, and as an adult, i have found behavioral interventions to be the most useful. i have not found perceiving it as a disability to be very helpful.
  - SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
    It's estimated that 11.6% of the US population has diabetes. Is that not a disease?
    - holysmokes 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
        [flagged]
    - 2y ago
gatienboquet 2y ago
I have ADHD and while you're right that everyone experiences some of these things occasionally, for those with ADHD our emotion regulation system is fundamentally different. As a kid, you build your identity and coping mechanisms through emotional experiences, but when your emotion engine is 'broken' or works differently, you develop differently. The intensity, frequency, and impact of these experiences for someone with ADHD is far beyond what neurotypical people experience. It's not about occasional forgetfulness or distraction - it's about a brain that's structurally and functionally different, affecting every aspect of daily functioning. Getting diagnosed isn't about finding an excuse, it's about finally understanding why basic things others find easy have always been so much harder for you.

sheepscreek 2y ago

Russel Barkley, in his book “Leading With ADHD,” actually suggested mentioning or “blaming” your ADHD after a mistake as a way to foster empathy for your personal challenges. It’s not intended to be an excuse, but rather a means for the other person, who assumes XYZ is effortless, to comprehend better/gain empathy.

holysmokes 2y ago
[flagged]
sheepscreek 2y ago
Update: The title of the book should have been “Taking Charge of Adult ADHD.” It’s a great book; my psychiatrist recommended it, and I’m grateful for it. Full of actionable ideas and suggestions.
oriel 2y ago
Barkley opened the door for me to the term 'executive dysfunction'. This better describes my symptoms than the blanket ADHD term that is now oversaturated IMO. Its given me much better anchors to reason with the issues that mess up my day(s), and ive made notable progress since the discovery of his work, at a time when I had been plateauing.

throw80521 2y ago

To be honest, I thought exactly like you for years. I still benefit from society choosing to label me with something, and that I do not choose to fight. For a while my diagnoses provided so many explanations to my problems and I could live with new purpose. But a while later, I found it was not enough. I hadn't reached "true happiness" or at least whatever I can call my current state of being. I took a different path, shed all my labels, self-prescribed or otherwise, and am happier than I was before. I still think I am "different" and have quirks, etc. So in practice, not a whole lot different than before. I just don't use the labels to describe these differences that others might use instead. I think this only emphasizes that one approach does not necessarily apply when generalized to all people. In my case it only served as one step towards a greater solution, and hopefully even more effective solutions I can build on top of that later. The same goes for heightened awareness for ADHD. More knowledge can be a blessing (as in your case). At the same time, the population such awareness can serve is shaped like a very complex blob, the form of which nobody truly knows, but I believe some clinicians/promoters see the "blast radius" of promoting awareness as a perfectly round circle overlaid directly onto the population. My experience also made me realize what one can term "ADHD" may change with overarching cultural shifts or personal growth. I think ADHD should be seen closer to a symptom of a constellation of any number of potentially unrelated causes than a "disorder" to be focused on alone. Unfortunately the established terminology seems to have won out there. The way we see health conditions and the words we choose to describe them can have profound effects on our understanding of ourselves.

wnolens 2y ago
I was going to reply to the same post with similar. If just having a label to apply alleviates the negative emotion, isn't it a placebo? I think a far far greater number of people experience the exact same problems of focus and distress, and learn to cope effectively in their own deeply personal way. I identify strongly with all the symptoms stated. A label feels useless, or worse - constraining, as it becomes your identity. I still have to drag my ass out of bed, do enough good work everyday next to colleagues who figuratively lap me every day, make a to-do list to remember to buy soap, go without soap for a week, .. etc lol. I call it being me.

holysmokes 2y ago

[flagged]

welshwelsh 2y ago

>my intense hyperfocus on one thing at a time but also inability to keep consistently focused on one thing for more than a few weeks Sounds extremely normal to me. I wonder what I'm missing. For example, suppose a typical person decides to learn a new language. At the beginning, they are very excited and enthusiastic about it. They might buy a textbook, download an app or sign up for language classes, and spend lots of time on it for a couple of days. After a week or two, as the tediousness sets in and the goal seems farther off than they expected, they start to shift their focus to something else. After a month, there's a 50/50 chance they completely forget about language study and stop doing it. Only a very small minority will last more than a year. That's what I'd consider normal. How is ADHD different? Another example: meditation. A new meditation practitioner may try to focus on their breathing, but then find they usually get distracted and start thinking about something else within 10 seconds. I have a feeling that if I were to say "I find it difficult to focus my attention on something for 10 seconds without getting distracted", many would reply "that sounds like ADHD." But this is, in fact, quite normal.

groby_b 2y ago
> That's what I'd consider normal. How is ADHD different? ADHD is different in that sustained focus takes a ton more of energy than for non-ADHD folks - if you're high functioning. And is almost impossible if you're not high-functioning. Totally agreed that "can't focus on my breath for 10 seconds today" isn't ADHD. "I have repeatably sub-par executive function" very much is, though. For your language learning example, it's more that somebody can't stay focused on the learning, even if they want to/have to and are aware their focus is sliding away. There's a reason ADHD diagnosis is technically a process that's a bit involved, you're trying to test for both sub-par function, and for the repeatable part. I'd take self-diagnosis with a bit more salt, especially it's of the "I often forget my car keys" kind.
theshackleford 2y ago
> I have a feeling that if I were to say "I find it difficult to focus my attention on something for 10 seconds without getting distracted", many would reply "that sounds like ADHD." But this is, in fact, quite normal. That would be quite normal. A determination of ADHD is made based upon the severity of impact. Everyone gets distracted to some extent, but is it significant enough to be destroying your life, Y/N? That's the determining factor.

sebasvisser 2y ago

And then after a while the energy fades..you get distracted again. You get both over stimulated and understimulated and the quest for another thing that gives you the feeling of the world finally clicking into place begins.. And each of these fixes (brain.fm, nootropics, adhd-planner-apps etcetc) give you that feeling just for a little while… That’s why we crave it..and because we (can) have more energy we talk about those (a lot!!). But in the end most of us just go from one fix to another..some of us are just really loud about it..

mulmen 2y ago

How did the diagnosis help you cope? Did you seek some kind of treatment as a result? Did it help you change your behavior? You are describing a lot of what I experience but having someone say "me too" doesn't help me personally with overcoming these challenges.

lolinder 2y ago
I am not on meds—my dad is on Adderall but has had some pretty serious side effects so I've been avoiding it for now. Mostly it's changed my attitude towards myself. I'm naturally a strong perfectionist, which doesn't combine well with ADHD. That has historically led to me constantly beating myself up when I do anything wrong, ruminating over conversations for days to figure out what I should have said differently, and generally being anxious and depressed. After receiving the diagnosis, I've been able to separate "me" from "my ADHD", which has helped me stop kicking myself while I'm down, which in turn has actually increased my ability to stay functional because I don't get into anxious/depressed spirals.
- mulmen 2y ago
  Thanks for the reply. Did you suspect you had ADHD before the diagnosis?