The author, age 8.
This post is sponsored by Devoted Toastie Natalie.
One popular conception of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder can be summed up as: “I don’t have ADHD — ooh look, a squirrel!” (T-shirt available at Hot Topic once upon a time). But of course it’s far more complex than that. Boys with ADHD will sometimes take on the role of class clown or troublemaker, and that attention can lead to a diagnosis. But ADHD can look quite different in girls and women, and many lack a diagnosis that might lead to beneficial support, treatment, and services. Like many girls with ADHD, I never acted out in attention-getting ways — I was a weird, dreamy, shy child who struggled to make friends from kindergarten on and often meandered through my own fantasy worlds. Teachers scolded me for not staying on task, but I never mouthed off to them or stood up on my desk.
In grade school, the alienness I felt from my difference compounded my need to shrink into the background as much as possible so people wouldn’t see how different I was. When I did speak, things often came out strange or nonsensical. People laughed at things I said in earnest. My thoughts split and rolled away when I tried to pin them down. I didn’t understand how everyone could stand school, with its regimen of sitting and controlled learning. My mind demanded entertainment and stimulus. How did the other kids sit still and study math? How did they maintain the concentration needed for a whole kickball game? It was all so painfully tedious that it made me angry, but I was too shy to throw tantrums or act out. Instead I chewed my nails and scribbled Harry Potter fanfiction when I couldn’t stand to pay attention in school.
Like me, my best friend from childhood had ADHD, but unlike me she was diagnosed and treated at a young age. She told me about it with her signature cheerful humor on the bus in sixth grade. Adderall, she said. It helped her concentrate and took away the bad feelings. To me, the potency of this pill was both appealing and frightening. It didn’t occur to me that I might be a candidate for it. It seemed to good to be true, and I didn’t think I deserved the help – I was just lazy, wasn’t I? That’s what other people said.
I attended high school during the heyday of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and people tended to slot me in as one: I was dreamy and distracted.
With puberty and high school came changes that left me feeling confused. And once I looked like a conventionally attractive teenaged girl instead of a skinny googly-eyed little girl, people began to treat me differently. I was still an excitable person — prone to spacing out, garbling words, speaking in non-sequiturs, and giggling uncontrollably — but my classmates laughed indulgently at these behaviors (“you’re so crazy!”). A certain type of older guy found me fun to tease; I was an adorable ditz, they said, an easy target. People told me my habit of ducking out of conversations and avoiding social events made me seem “mysterious.”
I attended high school during the heyday of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and people tended to slot me in as one: I was dreamy and distracted, with blunt bangs and a fashion sense that could most charitably be described as quirky. “You’re so happy all the time!” someone once said to me. “I wish I was like that.” New, positive attention was a head rush, but it still left me feeling somewhat lonely. I knew I wasn’t what people thought I was, and the shame of that fact kept me from opening up to anyone.
Then there were the internal mysteries, the things I still couldn’t understand about myself. Why, for example, did I experience periodic moments of clarity in school: the ability to see the self-contained beauty of a math equation, a wondrous appreciation of the cell-thin plant slides in science class, a pang of empathy for the struggles of Hester Prynne or Pecola Breedlove? These moments were tantalizing and rare, like a sudden clear frame on a TV cycling through fuzzed-out channels. How could I access these moments of understanding more frequently? By trying harder? I already felt as if I were trying all the time. I sensed a beauty in the world that I hungered for, a potential within myself just out of reach.
All this time, I didn’t have a reason, a word for why I was the way I was. But I did see myself reflected in certain fictional characters. In his novel Hogfather, Terry Pratchett thus described the mind of his character Mr. Teatime: “a truly brilliant mind, but it was brilliant like a fractured mirror, all marvellous facets and rainbows but, ultimately, also something that was broken.”
Sandman’s Delirium, who spoke in a meandering way, peppered with surreal non-sequiturs, especially resonated with me. She understood more than any of the other characters did, and when her brother Dream fell into a dark chasm of man-pain and couldn’t function, she pulled herself together for long enough to help him. “I don’t know how much longer I can be like this,” she said. “It hurts very muchly.” I felt this way almost every day, trying to impose order on the sprawling cacophony of my speeding mind. It hurt very muchly, indeed.
How could I access these moments of understanding more frequently? By trying harder? I already felt as if I were trying all the time.
As a college sophomore, after a breakdown following a late-minute paper disaster, I sat down with my counselor. This tall, calm, Dutch-accented woman provided stability through the year-long hurricane of homework and equally distressed friends. “It’s so hard to control myself and concentrate when I don’t want to,” I told her. “It’s almost like I could have ADHD or something…”
“It’s very possible,” she said.
I didn’t detect any hint of scorn in her voice. That first granting of permission, from an authority figure I trusted, prompted me to begin to take the possibility more seriously.
Doctors can be leery of college students claiming to have ADHD, since the campus demand for illicit prescription stimulants is high. One doctor thought my inattention came from depression; another feared drugs would exacerbate a burgeoning eating disorder. My year-and-a-half-long odyssey through counselors’ and doctors’ offices involved sampling a wide variety of antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds that still failed to produce positive effects. I struggled through tedious paperwork and months of waiting, a particular trial for someone with ADHD.
Cut to me at 21 years old, twitching nervously on a psychiatric specialist’s couch. I’d given her a life recap, played an inane assessment game involving flickering squares, and filled out dozens of speech bubbles related to how I was doing in school and whether I thought I might be a reincarnated god. The reckoning was upon me. My IQ was at a certain level, the therapist explained. My concentration level was low. Extremely low.
I cried when I received my full psychological assessment and an official ADHD diagnosis. Even though it was a relief to have my suspicions confirmed, it also felt damning, in a way. My condition is chemical, and probably here to stay, I realized.
And so began the reconceptualization of my personal history. Finally I had to adjust the vision I’d always had of myself: I wasn’t lazy. I wasn’t making it up. I wasn’t just another college student trying to scam her way into an Adderall script. I had ADHD. I read about my new diagnosis, mentally checking each item off:
Hyperfocus. The short-lived and feverishly intense hobbies I had as a kid: pop-up books, seed beads, knitting, hula hooping. And, ah yes, the hours spent editing Sherlock fan videos instead of studying for my IB exams in high school.
Having trouble sitting still at mealtime and naptime. My dad once made up a little song he would sing to me during dinner: “We’ve got some rules ’round here and I think you’ve forgot ’em / One of those rules is keep the seat on your bottom.”
Poor handwriting, problems with speech development, neglecting details, doodling. The constant frustration of my teachers, the years I spent being unable to focus and stay on task at school.
Lack of commitment, loses interest in relationships. I decided to apologize to my ex for my flightiness; for growing bored instead of patiently tending to our relationship. It wasn’t personal, but I knew it still hurt them.
Depression. Anxiety. Sometimes I almost gave up, lost the will to keep struggling with everyday tasks, resigned myself to failure.
Inattentiveness, difficulty processing information. I always thought that if I just tried a little bit harder, or had more discipline, I could will myself into normalcy. I remember how hard I had tried, all my life. As hard as I could.
At last, I have begun to forgive myself.
A dose of stimulants did not make all my symptoms go away. My executive functioning is still pathetic; I still fidget and doodle sometimes; my room oscillates wildly between pigsty and Life-Changingly-Magically-Tidied-Up. I have to unlearn a lot of habits, and some things will always be a struggle for me.
But in so many ways, life is easier now that I have a diagnosis and treatment. I love the blessing of understanding and using my very capable brain; I worked on this essay for two interrupted hours, which I could never have done before. The bright moments of understanding I once craved are now a regular part of my life.
I wanted to write this for my younger self, and for all girls who keep silent and try to be obedient despite the ruckus in their skulls. Who do their best to keep the chaos from escaping their mouths, from demanding any attention. Who think their forgetfulness and scatterbrained nature mean they are stupid, lazy, ditzy, innately hopeless.
It’s not true. None of it is true. If you think you need it, find a practitioner who will take your concerns seriously and give you an assessment. Find forums for women with ADHD, seek out a community of people who understand. Be an advocate for yourself and your odd but beautiful brain.
ADHD isn’t a superpower in disguise. It’s still hard for me, and for many, to live with. But despite this, many of us are stronger than anyone knows. We might struggle with daily life on an epic scale, and tasks that are “normal” for some might be grueling feats of endurance for us, but I for one have found great strength and motivation – and even pride – when I give myself a break and just keep going anyway. It now seems like the only choice. I think I have felt more than enough shame.
I love this! Thanks for writing it. It makes me want to scream at my father who insists the current culture of “over-diagnosing” kids is ruinous. Having a diagnosis, especially for any kind of “invisible” condition, is so so valuable.
There’s a reason that a popular mass-market book about ADHD is titled “You mean I’m not Lazy, Stupid, or Crazy??”
THANK YOU.
I was crying by the end of this. It connected on such a raw level. Thank you.
Is it just me, or do most “women with ADHD are underdiagnosed” stories sound very white? Not ragging on the author, just putting out a call for any Toasties who are people of color with ADHD to submit their stories before the editorial calendar gets filled up.
(For the record, I’m white but have a child of color in my life who is been evaluated for ADHD and the way she has been treated by her white teachers for showing her inattentive symptoms is APPALLING.)
There’s definately a race issue associated with it ( Caveat for what I am about to say: I am a white lady who reads a lot about race and gender in schools and doctor’s offices because reasons).
First, girls of color and women of color are not “allowed” to be mentally ill, they’re “troublemakers” instead. This means that these women don’t get the help that they need since it’s seen through a lens of racism.
Second, if you are a person of color who has a history of being a “troublemaker” getting a job where you have access to appropriate testing via insurance is probably really hard. Then you have to get the time off. I was in the office for most of the day for psychological testing when I got diagnosed and I’m a white lady with decent insurance.
Basically, shit’s messed up all of which will skew diagnosis rates based on race, sex, and class. I’m sure someone else has direct experience and can speak more authoritatively on this.
I’m Indian and I’ve been diagnosed just a few months ago…my family doesn’t really believe there is such a thing as ADHD, and it is so emotionally draining. I actually live in India, so I’m not a minority, but the conversations around mental illness here is SO awful, and the meds available so limited that it can be incredibly stifling.
Throughout my childhood (usually male shrinks) would refuse to diagnose me with ADHD because I wasn’t hyper but inattentive. I was in tears by the end of this piece – I really, REALLY connected to it
I’m Hispanic, female, and wasn’t diagnosed ADHD until I was 28 years old, married, and had a law license. The difference has been absolutely lifechanging. I absolutely can remember being yelled at by elementary school teachers and how that affected my self-esteem, so it’s always great to have adults who can counteract that effect.
Kids of color with ADHD are absolutely treated like troublemakers: racism amps up the “you’re just lazy”/”you’re just defiant” script about a million times. Teachers tend to read black kids especially as older than they are, so they attribute more responsibility and intentionality to black kids getting distracted, fidgeting, etc.
I’m Chinese, and I was just diagnosed with ADHD plus ODD a few months ago. My family was emotionally abusive though which played a part in my not getting diagnosed outside of home. That is to say, there was a lot of gaslighting about who I was (stupid, lazy, crazy, etc) versus who I should be (pious, graceful, clever, etc).
I think, more so than intelligence, just having that much emotional and psychological pressure to perform ended up disguising my symptoms for as long as it did. As the child of immigrants, you just don’t want to stand out any more than you already do.
I’m Colombian, first generation. My parents sent me to smaller private school for elementary and middle school. When I got older, I started reading through old report cards that all had some varying theme of “wonderful student! has trouble paying attention/staying on task”
I asked my mom why they never followed up with a doctor to see if it was something that needed to be diagnosed and treated. She said that the medication looked really strong and the few children they had seen on it seemed crushed; they were young immigrants and I think their old hippie streak was worried they’d ruin some sort of artistic spirit within me. So they decided instead to keep me in small classrooms with most-understanding teachers and try to help me create schedules (which mostly went to hell in college but that’s another story all together). Whenever a teacher would bring up the concentration issues, they’d just smile and nod and ask if it was affecting my grades, which at that point, it wasn’t. The issue was always dropped,
Culturally, this is something I’ve noticed in Latin communities, we can be bad at admitting when a mental health problem requires medication. I feel so terribly lucky right now that my experience wasn’t as bad as the authors and I managed to cobble together a system that worked for me and that my parents were so set on finding me good schools.
Latina, 27, didn’t get diagnosed until this past January. I don’t present in the way that would get me diagnosed- I did very well through college where learning was structured, but it all fell apart in grad school when I lost that structure and had to schedule and do everything on my own.
ADHD runs very strongly in my father’s family (the Latinx side), but it’s only been diagnosed in the boys of the family. My parents always assumed I was just forgetful and messy.
Thanks for bringing this up. I’m white and my partner’s heritage is part Mexican, part Native American, and part white. We’re both in our twenties and we’ve both gotten diagnoses in the past year. Even though it’s been tricky for both of us, I’ve had a substantially easier time getting treatment than they have. I think one reason for this is that so, so many psychiatrists are older white men with middle- or upper-class backgrounds, and frankly many of them don’t seem to know how to interact respectfully with my non-binary AFAB PoC partner who grew up in a working-class household. My partner has been dismissed, condescended to, and made to feel unwelcome, and I think they’ve been seen as some kind of “problem patient” from the moment they walked in the door for reasons that fall at some intersection of race and gender. Even for adults that can advocate for themselves, there are so many barriers to entry for PoC looking for mental healthcare (never mind the added barriers for non-binary PoC like my partner). I can’t imagine how much more difficult it must be for children.
Thank you so much for bringing this up. Looking back through media coverage in the last few years, I can see that this is a major gap in the conversation. Thank you to everyone who has shared their stories, it’s humbling and saddening to see the additional stigma and prejudice people of color with ADHD face.
I’m white and Chinese, recently diagnosed with ADHD at 31. Asian over-achievement was definitely an element in why it was overlooked in me for so long, but my white side of the family also had a stigma against any mental illness or disabilities and anybody asking for help. I don’t know if that was related to their Catholic heritage, but I do think economic class is a factor as well as race, so it wouldn’t surprise me if WASPy kids were more likely to get help for their issues.
In any case, it’s easier for white people to get help, especially white boys. No big surprise there. My heart goes out for your daughter.
Thank you so much for writing this. I think I really needed to read it today. I hope I find the self-acceptance and forgiveness you have.
This is SO important, thank you thank you thank you thank you.
This is timely. Thank you for writing this.
My experience is eerily similar to yours. When I was a kid it didn’t even occur to the adults in my life that anything could be wrong. I was very smart. I had a college reading level in second grade. I also turned in every assignment late, was always daydreaming, and would often walk away mid-conversation without realizing it. The common phrase was “needs to apply herself more”.
So I grew up thinking I was just inherently lazy and subconsciously trying to sabotage myself and I didn’t know how to stop. It wasn’t until I got demoted and almost fired at age 26 for not being able to meet deadlines that it occurred to me to ask my therapist why I acted this way.
I get so mad at people who suggest that ADHD isn’t real or that medication is unnecessary because that is literally the only thing keeping me employed and able to remember to pay my bills.
I was unofficially diagnosed at an early age– teachers, school counselors, and at least one psychiatrist raised a lot of concerns– but I was getting by on the strength of my test-taking abilities and besides, adhd medication is for those bad kids who cause trouble in class and don’t get 99s on the state assessment test. So instead I spent years without any real idea of what all the adults thought was going on with me, just that it was bad enough that I had special daily meetings with teachers and counselors, who tried to impose a system of planner notebooks and stickers and checkmarks that I never really understood. When I eventually fucked up my schoolwork bad enough to get into a doctor’s office, I finally heard “ADHD” stated as a clear diagnosis, and a lot of stuff started to make sense.
The test scores and being “smart” are definitely part of dismissing mental health issues too – my best friend and my younger sister both struggled with what would eventually be diagnosed as depression but not until college / late high school. Because they were “smart” high achieving students, it was assumed they could cope on their own and figure it out or whatever and they just were not given the help they needed for so long.
This happened to me so hard. I’d had a strong suspicion that I had ADHD and depression for a few years before anyone would listen. Nobody in my life felt they needed to take it seriously until my last year of high school/first year of college, when my grades started tanking. Until then, my seeing a therapist was too much of an inconvenience to bother looking into.
You are me and I am you, down to almost getting fired at 26. I had toyed with seeing someone about an ADHD diagnosis in college, but thought that after school I could get it under control. I couldn’t. I job hopped anytime symptoms started becoming a problem. I can only imagine the messes inherited by those that replace me. I’ve been seeing a therapist and on medication since late December. The only reason I have a job is because of Adderall. (My bills only get paid because I have auto-pay set up on aaaaaaaaaall of them.)
I once went to an ADD/ADHD support group and basically every single person there said autopay is how their bills get paid.
I wish I could auto-pay my rent. (Some places do allow this, I know, but my situation does not.)
I set it up so that my bank sends out an actual paper check on my behalf every month, do all banks do that?
Unless of course your landlord is the shady bastard I used to rent from, who only accepted money orders.
I pay my roommate, who writes the check. So it’s a matter of remembering to visit the ATM a few days before the end of the month (I don’t even have checks, everything is my debit card or cash). I’d set an alert on my phone, but if it reminds me at a time I’m not physically near an ATM it’s pointless!
Some banks have an app for paying an individual. Mine uses something called Popmoney (Pop is for Pay Other People).
The common phrase was “needs to apply herself more”.
Story of my fucking life.
I am not diagnosed as ADHD; I’m pretty sure I have it, but at the moment my super good anti-anxiety/anti-depression cocktail is doing good things for the more pressing issues like “debilitating agoraphobia” and “panic attacks that change my vision” and depression and I have a therapist who is really, really great.
But my brother and I are very similar people and he was diagnosed at age 8. He was that classic, active, friendly, goofy, “talks too much in class” kid. His backpack was messy, his handwriting was all over the place, and he was classic ADHD.
I was introverted, quiet, shy, anxious, emotional, and …. had a messy desk, messy backpack, couldn’t manage to write down homework assignments/bring them home/do them/bring them to school/turn them in. I was spacey.
What happened? I was tested and was told I had to apply myself more. But my brother got therapy and meds and help and extended time on tests.
My youngest brother was the kind of kid who hit the ground running and didn’t stop moving until he (eventually) passed out every night. He was also a big behavior problem. He was diagnosed when he was six.
Meanwhile I was messy and talked too much and fidgeted a lot and couldn’t focus in class, and when in high school I suggested that I might have ADHD too, my mom told me I wanted an excuse not to do my homework.
Sigh.
I’m not that great of a functioning adult WITH my medication. I am so much worse without.
Also, I joke that “she has such great potential, if she’d only apply herself” on a certain number of report cards should be basis enough for an ADHD diagnosis.
Before I devour this article, accompanying photo is me; seriously, total doppelgänger. (And not diagnosed until my late 40’s with ADD and an accompanying mild to moderate anxiety disorder; so sad for all those lost years…)
Like others have said, thank you so much for writing this! I relate to so much of it. I was diagnosed with ADD (but not ADHD) as a sophomore in college but never sought treatment for it. Part of me thought it couldn’t be true and if then if it was true I should just try harder. I was and still am afraid that asking to be treated would be taken as drug seeking. I think this has given me the push I need to look into it (10+ years later) so thank you!
It was really hard not to burst into tears of recognition reading this.
I have never been diagnosed — or even tested for ADHD but all of these things line up for me.
The day-dreaminess, my so-called “randomness” that has always been amusing to friends. Only being able to focus on tasks or things that interest me. Bouts of severe anxiety and depression. It makes me want to scream and cry.
Currently my bedroom has a literal mountain of laundry. It’s been there for months. I can’t ever seem to piece together the timing to get it done. It’s like it doesn’t make sense to me — how people organize and complete tasks. So instead, I am lazy. I am messy. I am disorganized. But I am really none of those things — I just need help to figure it all out.
I am glad that this is becoming a conversation. Thank you for talking about this because it really can help change peoples lives.
I haven’t been diagnosed either (I’ve been trying for MONTHS now, why is it so difficult to schedule an appointment?) but I feel you on the tasks. For me, some of getting stuff done comes down to I know I feel like doing routine tasks like washing the dishes/laundering the sheets/cleaning the bathroom will take LITERALLY FOREVER, but I know from past experience that it’s not as bad as I think it will be and I just have to do it, and some of it is because the task is so boring or unpleasant that I can’t stand it, but I’ve found that distracting myself with podcasts or music will make me much more willing to get it done.
I dunno if any of this will help you, but I wish you all the best.
Thanks! I need to try to get into podcasts cause I think that will go a long way towards helping me chip away at all the things I need to do around the house.
It’s so frustrating and downright exhausting to try and get appointments & advocate for yourself. I hope you can get all of the appointments and things sorted out soon. 🙂
I struggle a lot with completing simple tasks and chores that seem tedious – binging on Netflix or podcasts and tackling housework go hand in hand for me! It’s ironic because I get way more done when I am addicted to a show.
Does anyone else who struggles with attention find that they HAVE to watch every episode/season of a show they get into, or is that just an obsessive thing?
“Does anyone else who struggles with attention find that they HAVE to watch every episode/season of a show they get into,”
That can be a thing, if you’re sitting on the ADHD/Asperger’s-ish edge.
/personal experience
I find I have to limit my viewing pretty severely because of that. I’m like a GoT/NEVER person, because I just had a suspicion.
Of course, I then discovered The White Queen and found out that the Stark/Lannister feud was actually semi-based on what happened between the Yorks and Lancasters.
Good thing TWQ was only one season long. *sigh*
Great piece! I had a very similar childhood to you, it sounds like. I can definitely relate. I was on ritalin from about age 8 to age 20. I weaned myself off in college, after it became difficult to fill my prescriptions from my Texas doc in Indiana, because Ritalin is a controlled substance. I went off it for several years, and I found that my study/sitting still skills didn’t suffer, but at that time, I was grappling with depression more than I was struggling with ADHD. Indeed, depression has hung around, and my ADHD symptoms are less of an issue. It really helps to not be in school anymore!
Has anybody else had this issue, where you seem to trade one mental health condition (and associated medication) for another?
Sort of the opposite– when was in college they jacked my ritalin dose wayyyy up– like, tripled it– because I was struggling and my doc was kind of a deadbeat who was like “My next opening for a 15-minute checkup appointment is in six months, but in the meantime, have a shitload of pills.” And it turns out that a sudden massive infusion of stimulants + the existing anxiety disorder that seems to come with ADHD = the kind of hypervigilance where you stay up for three days straight muttering to yourself about how you can’t sit down because the only thing holding off your imminent death is your continuous pacing between the living room and kitchen.
Gah. That sounds horrifying.
Oh my god, I’m so sorry that happened to you. D: It seems like doctors sometimes don’t warn you as much as they should about the side-effects stimulants can have it you’re already dealing with anxiety. This is only sort of relevant, but when I first started taking ADHD medication I had to learn about the crash-filled adjustment period some people have through some desperate, panicky googling, when it really seems like someone should have told me to look out for that.
I know right? I think it’s a side effect of the fact that every psychiatrist I’ve ever had has been constantly overbooked and rushing through my appointments. And when I try and find a new one my insurance provider is always like “lol, yeah right”
I’ve heard a lot of complaints about psychiatrists rushing and seeming sort of thoughtless; it seems like good (attentive, compassionate, thoughtful) psychiatric care is really startlingly hard to come by. I’ve had some luck by asking my therapist for her recommendations, and she’s been able to recommend some people who take my insurance, but even then there are still waits for appointments and the trouble of finding someone who’s taking new patients, AND it’s probably even harder to find care in places that are more suburban or rural than the big-ish city where I live. (They also don’t make it super easy for people who might already be having some problems with executive function, right? What a fun adventure all the way around.)
For sure. On the one end of the spectrum, you have doctors who seem to never want to give out the medication, even when you probably need it. And on the other end, you have doctors who seem way too lax about it and don’t really warn you about all the risks medication can pose. It’s hard to find someone in the middle.
I swear before Jeebus – why don’t the docs *tell* you about these kinds of things??
There’s all this handwringing about abuse-abuse-abuse — how about some counseling beforehand WRT how meds can potentially really wreck / substantially impede parts of your functioning?
I mean, aren’t they supposed to be the experts …?
*sigh*
This is beautiful, thank you!
This was lovely, thank you!
Thank you. I cried too. My story too.
I was diagnosed at age 34. It enabled me to go back to school and do it right this time. Now I’m a therapist. I’ve noticed one very similar trait in my ADHD clients — anxiety. It makes sense – we know we’re going to fuck up at some point – probably sooner rather than later — so we’re constantly waiting for negative consequences that inevitably come to us just for existing. I am printing this to give to my clients if that’s ok.
While trying to get an appointment to get diagnosed with ADHD (still working on it…) I accidentally ended up with an appointment to a licensed councilor. She told me that my anxiety was probably mostly (if not completely) caused by the ADHD because I know I can’t trust my brain. Constant vigilance! Ugh.
Do you ever have those moments of absolute clarity when reading something?
She told me that my anxiety was probably mostly (if not completely) caused by the ADHD because I know I can’t trust my brain.
Click.
My old therapist said something very similar! It was so long ago but she said my anxiety and ADD were definitely entwined.
I have a lot of social anxiety that for me comes from my mind just going totally blank when I try to interact – I think it’s because I just can’t pay attention long enough. But it’s a feed back loop – I’m awkward cuz I can’t concentrate and then I get anxious about how awkward I’m coming off. It’s a struggle!
My mind goes blank too! Most of my friends are the type who can carry on a conversation all on their own because I can never think of anything to say to people in that moment. For me it feels more like I know I can’t pay attention to what people are saying and think of my own stuff at the same time, so I’ve trained myself to prioritize understanding what the other person is saying and responding appropriately (like, mimic the other person’s energy level and, to some extent, opinions, because I…can’t think and listen at the same time).
Oh man, I think you just gave me an epiphany – when I don’t agree with someone I tend to get so so frustrated, sometimes to the point of a mini-panic attack because I just can’t formulate a response. And it makes me feel so dumb – like why can’t I explain to this man why feminism/affirmative action/etc matters. I’ve never linked that to having ADD but now that you say it makes so much sense. I’m not an idiot, it’s just ADD!
Well also, sometimes it’s just truly difficult to explain to that man why feminism/affirmative action/etc. matters.
But yeah, ADD makes things worse.
Very true.
Oh god oh god, this is me! This is a thing I do!
I keep thinking I’m all done having revelations about what things in my life are probably informed by my ADHD, and then I read shit like this. Thank you for sharing!
This sounds really familiar. When I first started medication for ADHD, I was astonished by the feeling of not being terrified of dropping some vital thing I was supposed to remember. It’s like it was only the temporary lifting of some anxiety that made me realize how heavily it had been weighing in the first place, and I think it was just because I could finally hold on to all the things I was thinking at once.
Your description of that terror turned “send a message to my PCP asking about neuropsychological testing for brainweird” from “thing to do this week” to “do tonight”.
It seems surreal to me that other people don’t feel that way literally all the time? I thought other people were just better at hiding it.
ugh this is making me have so many feels about how my sexist mom totally agreed my brothers had learning disabilities, including older having ADHD and meds for it, but I was just stupid and lazy and useless. Feels about my mother are the worst.
If you think this sounds like you, please do go talk to someone about it. You deserve to feel better. Even on the lowest available dose of the medication I’m on, my brain just feels so much more peaceful and less panicked. I didn’t even realize how much of my energy that terror consumed until I started getting a regular break from it. I’m also so much less exhausted all the time now that I’m not carrying that tension around all day, every day.
Re: mom feels, I empathize so much. :< My siblings didn’t have any comparable problems, but I definitely did grow up as the frivolous/lazy/impractical member of the family, no matter how hard I tried to ‘apply myself’ to everything from math class to basic household organizational tasks. The impact of societal misogyny on mental health issues is a killer.
I’m 31 and just beginning to look into treatment for ADHD. My brother and father have it (it’s hereditary), but I didn’t present like my brother, so every one thought that I wasn’t applying myself. But your comment about “math class” really spoke to me because I was/am terrible at math and most likely have dyscalculia– which I just read is really common among those with ADHD.
But like everyone else here, I believed that the constant state of terror and need to put on a public face to look like I had my sh*t together was something that everyone did that I was just incapable of.
For the longest time I thought my only problem was anxiety. I saw a therapist a couple years ago for it, but she wasn’t able to help me at all. I think the fact that her suggestions failed (turns out meditation and mindfulness are not helpful when obsessively trying to remember the things I need to get done is my main coping mechanism) was what started my realization that I had something else going on here.
I’m so glad you realized something else was going on. I also really hate when people throw around meditation and mindfulness like they’re some sort of cure-alls, especially for people who have both ADHD and anxiety. I believe they can be super effective for some people, but they can’t fix everything for everyone. I’m finally coming around to a place where I might want to try meditating, but that’s only in addition to therapy and medication. Doing it without those supports just seems tortuous, like trying to treat a broken arm by practicing the monkey bars.
There’s a lot of evidence that mindfulness can help ADHD people, and there’s at least one book on the topic aimed at us, but nobody who’s done the research is saying it will replace the medications for most people.
Vaguely unrelated, but when we were kids my sister did break her arm and once it was in a cast, monkey bars and climbing frames suddenly became her favourite thing because she could hook her arm up on them and clamber up.
But yeah, in my experience, it’s definitely a good metaphor for trying to treat ADHD-caused depression and anxiety without properly tackling the ADHD first, imo.
I can’t even imagine life without that constant terror. Thank you for letting me know that it’s possible.
To a great extent it is! I hope it happens for you soon.
(I should add that medication didn’t make the only difference/I’m still unlearning coping mechanisms and starting to learn better organization strategies/I still forget things sometimes/I write a lot of things down. But for me, medication and therapy are making the difference between all those steps feeling breathtakingly overwhelming and them feeling manageable enough to be worth attempting.)
You know that dream where you’re back in high school and it turns out that today is the big test and you haven’t studied at all? Yeah, that’s happened to me in real life more times than I can count. No wonder I have anxiety problems.
I’m sobbing in response to this, and also to various points above (such as succeeding in structured college but falling apart in grad school). But, I have been tested for ADHD (only two years ago! While already having struggled in grad school for a while!) and found to be just fine, no attention problems.
I know this isn’t what this comment section is for, but can anyone relate to this? What do you do if you have so many of these symptoms (e.g. we had a “no gymnastics at the dinner table” rule when I was a kid) but lack the common cause?
I would suggest getting tested again by someone else. Different practitioners use different testing criteria. And if it still doesn’t turn out to be ADHD, persist in asking for help figuring out what is actually going on. There’s a lot of things that can look like ADHD, like thyroid issues or bipolar or Asperger’s.
I can relate to it, for sure. I’ve been told I don’t have ADD, and I don’t have thyroid problems, and I’m not on the autistic spectrum, and I’m not bipolar… I have depression and anxiety, and to explain my life, apparently have had since about age five. Or maybe two. And I’m just tired, at this point, of trying to find an answer, much less get any help. I don’t have the energy for it.
Of course we’re anxious… I defy anybody to get through ten, twenty, thirty years of fucking up, apparently at random, without picking up a dandy set of secondary anxiety and depression…
Diagnosed at age 34 with ADHD. IQ in the 97th percentile; auditory processsing, working memory, and sequencing in the sixteenth percentile. Verbal ability (written word) broke the test. Everyone in my life always assumed I couldn’t possibly have trouble concentrating, since I read avidly and frequently cannot be pulled *out* of my book… :/
If you’re hyperverbal, the “oh, there’s nothing wrong with YOU” is so, so much worse.
Especially – as several other sufferers of color have indicated above – you have family from a culture of the “not only can there not be anything wrong with you because we have to dump all these household tasks on you because you’re a GIRL, but on top of that we’re ALREADY going to be judged negatively in this culture so there CAN’T be anything wrong with you because that’s going to ruin your chances.
Now CONCENTRATE!!”
‘kay.
Oh geez… this was so my problem too. I was creative, imaginative, a “pleasure to have in class”, always 4 or 5 grade levels above in reading, so people just assumed I wasn’t “applying myself” in general or in math (never mind that experts now know that dyscalculia often comes hand in hand with ADHD)…
I remember in middle school when I would do poorly in English and my parents would get so frustrated because they knew I was always reading, but when they asked me why I wouldn’t turn in homework, I gave the common ADHD response of “I don’t know”… because I really didn’t understand why I didn’t turn it in.
I had a conversation with a roommate the other day, where I pointed out that while the stimulants are contraindicated for anxiety, me and most people I know with ADHD are far FAR more anxious off our medications. Being able to focus and remember tasks from minute-to-minute makes us so much less anxious! WHO’D HAVE THOUGHT. 😀
I diagnosed myself with ADHD as a 30-something grad student, after decades of wondering why I couldn’t just do the thing. One thing I’ve been trying to remember is that as challenging as ADHD is for my life (especially my dissertation, grad school is about the worst setup for someone with attention issues) it also contributes to a bunch of qualities that are cool about me. I’m an inveterate generalist, I learn new skills and information easily because new! shiny! draws my attention, I have a million ideas and some of them are even good ones. I was talking to a therapist about this and saying that it bummed me out that I don’t even have the compensations of ADHD like being creative, and she was like, wait, didn’t you just describe an art sewing project you were doing?
I’ve also gotten more serious about managing my environment in a way that supports my attention needs, and I’m thinking seriously about switching careers to something that will help me focus rather than making it harder. So much of the impact of our attention issues is related to how they interact with our environment (same as for any other disability.)
As someone still feeling my way around the edges of realizing I probably have some form of ADD/ADHD, thank you for writing this!
That feeling about Adderall especially. I remember reading an article about Ritalin/Adderall abuse by college, while *I* was in college, and felt a pang of longing for the abiilty to take a pill and focus on a paper for 2+ hours! Gosh, if I ever took drugs I guess I’d be tempted to take those drugs, I thought.
Cue my realization several years later, that I might just have ADD. *headdesk*
Does anyone have a handy list of links for ways to help with day to day life stuff with ADHD that is more than just med suggestions? I’m becoming more convinced I’m ADHD with everything I read about it, including this – dreamy, non focused, smuggled books under my desk everyday because i got so incredibly bored in class, need to have a fidget in order to remotely focus during meetings, zone out during conversations even while I’m sitting there looking in the person’s eyes…At this point, I don’t think the hassle of going to the doctor and fighting for a diagnoses would be helpful for me, but I’d love to know what I can do to better structure my environment.
A friend gave me a copy of “You Mean I’m not Lazy, Stupid, or Crazy?” a book all about discovering you had ADD/ADHD as an adult. And while they talk about talking to a professional, and I haven’t gotten into the meat of the book yet, it’s all about how you live your life.
It’s been very helpful to me so far.
Edward Fallowell’s books Driven to Distraction and Dealing with (/Delivered from?) Distraction. Lots of life strategies & tips, in addition to a sensible breakdown of the current medication options. Also ADDitude magazine / website has some helfpul stuff, though it’s very ad(vertisement)-heavy.
-Buy a really cool pen, like one with pretty gel ink, and use it to take notes. You’re not just taking notes, though– you’re practicing calligraphy. Challenge yourself to write down the things you hear in meetings in your most beautiful handwriting.
-Get a big-ass whiteboard and prop it up in whatever location you look at most often.
-If you want to get some kind of fidgety item, like silly putty, most people won’t have a problem with it. Explain that you listen better when you’re doing something with your hands, and that you’re looking for a quiet alternative to clicking your pen or something.
-Can you listen to headphones at working? Music with a good tempo/ no lyrics helps me a lot.
-I am always asking my coworkers to email me about anything they need even if they told me about it in person, because if I can’t go back to it in writing, it might as well have never happened.
Seconded to the getting things in writing. I live and die by email documentation.
I’ve also found that in my workplace and in my home life, (your mileage DEFINITELY may vary on this) being up-front about my struggles and working with my bosses/co-workers/husband on strategies has been enormously helpful. MrChouffe used to get super annoyed with me asking how I could help around the house until he started understanding how my ADHD affects chores. I’ve asked my bosses to help me out by emailing rather than (or in addition to) calling me about projects, and they’re starting to understand that since prioritizing can be a challenge for me (I treat everything as #1 priority, until the next thing comes in), having their input on first-things-first can really ease the day-to-day.
omg that last one!
I have one coworker who keeps calling me over to her desk with long winded explanations of what she needs from me & I’m just like “email me the info” & she’s just like yeah, I’ll follow up with an email. No, stop talking right now & type it all out because I only heard the first three words you said & those are already fading because I was thinking of something else when you called me over. We have this conversation every week.
WHY IS THIS SO HARD FOR PEOPLE TO GET. I work at a reception desk that has 24-hours-a-day coverage. Each of us writes up a shift report of anything notable that has happened, and anything our coworkers need to know. One of my coworkers would always, when I came to relieve her, start rattling off things verbally! And we were switching over during the busiest time of day! That’s what the shift report is for. Put it there.
My mother does that.
And never understands why I practically want to kill myself when she does, because talking is stimulating for HER (and of course, everyone should have the same reactions she does to everything, because if they don’t, they’re just being unreasonable).
That’s also extremely helpful given the fact that she wants to relocate (she says, as she keeps changing her mind).
Le sigh.
You’d think the people without ADHD would be the ones who could remember the conversation.
I have at times (grad-school dissertation writing) found that Schoenberg’s 12-tone piano pieces helped me with concentrating. They happen to have just the right level of “interestingness” to catch my brain when it wanders off, but are not the sort of thing that I then get absorbed into. I think the atonal nature was a big part of that; with tonal music it becomes part of my “flow” and it’s easy to just flow off into something distractiony.
For me, it’s Bach fugues. I figured this out in college, ten years before I was diagnosed with ADHD. Scarlatti’s another good one: Baroque music in general seems to help, but Bach & Scarlatti are at the top of the list.
If you’re interested in talking to other people dealing with the same issues, there’s a great Toastie ADD/ADHD discussion group on Slack. There’s a Slack group called justADDtoast; you can get access to it by emailing justADDtoast[at]gmail[dot]com. There’s also a #justADDtoast channel on the more general toastieslack group. 🙂
I picked up Additude (additudemag.com) at my neurologist’s office last year, and really appreciated the practical advice for adults with ADHD that it has. There are separate sections on the website for work, relationships, health/sleep, AND ADHD in women.
The things that help me:
1) Exercise. I’m sorry, I know recommending exercise is the worst, but I am a massively more functional human in both mood and attention if I exercise every day. See also why I’m a mess this week.
2) Meditation. Also the worst thing to recommend, also so useful.
3) Take seriously whatever helps you work. I have a weirdo brain that likes rap music for writing. I also find that albums are way better for keeping track of time than mixes. I also take lots of breaks so I can be more likely to focus, and try to find something fidgety to work on during meetings so I don’t look at my phone quite so much.
4) Make systems for things that are hard. Keys always go here, I do inbox zero as much as I can, that kind of thing. Don’t abandon systems if they’re not working right away. Remember you need to build the habit of automaticity so it doesn’t take attention to make it happen. The first month of the habit is going to be a lot harder than any other month.
The hardest thing for me is lateness. It’s so hard not to be late. I wish it could just be nbd.
The fact that going to the doctor is a huge hassle for you is SO classic for ADD.
Seconding the exercise! A family member has ADHD, and exercise is a critical part of her management. Not just any exercise will do, though–for her it has to be intense, sustained aerobic workouts. ymmv of course.
Riding my bicycle is the best thing ever. I’m actually cranky that my current commute is so short.
Fourthing exercise! When I was 13 my mom signed both of us up for a gym. We went three times a week. Christmas rolled around, and we had a very busy week where we didn’t go to the gym at all. I started having trouble falling asleep (felt too restless, couldn’t get comfortable) and even once I did fall asleep, I often woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t fall back to sleep. These were all things I’d had trouble with for most of my life, but I realized that I hadn’t had them recently! After that I became very committed to getting regular exercise. (It also makes it easier to sit for longer periods of time.)
I knit literally all the time. Through class, in the car, before bed. It helps a lot for some reason
Knitting is THE BEST and is the only reason I got through university at all. I knitted socks (small and portable) and it helped my anxiety a lot as well as providing a fidgeting outlet. I’m a visual-kinesthetic learner so having my hands moving is the only way I can retain anything I hear.
Hah! So many knitters have ADHD. It’s productive fidgeting!
Okay, first of all: It is literally never too late for a diagnosis and medication to be helpful. I’ve read about a woman in her 80’s who started taking the medications and reported with joy that it was easier to pay attention to her great-grandchildren. All the organizational stuff and coping mechanisms work so much better when you are also taking the medication.
That said: my fave book on the subject is ADD Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life.
Thank you so much for this. I might have to send it to some people in my life.
GREAT piece!
I want to say, though: we need to be careful about thinking of ADHD-Hyperactive type as “boy ADHD” and ADHD-Inattentive as “girl ADHD”. I thought I couldn’t have ADHD because I wasn’t a rowdy yelling boy or a quiet, dreamy girl. Spoiler: I totally do.
Lots of people of both sexes have the Combined type! Guys definitely get the Inattentive type too, and women can have the Hyperactive type. And there are plenty of ways to be hyperactive/impulsive without running around the classroom.
I feel like I’m seeing a new stereotype being created, and I’m worried that more people with ADHD will get the wrong diagnosis because they don’t fit into what people believe that someone with ADHD and of their gender would be like. Inattentive-type ADHD does need more attention (ha), but it’s not “girl” ADHD.
(Pure Inattentive type may not even be ADHD. Many people with ADHD-Inattentive have a few hyperactive/impulsive symptoms too, but not enough to make a Combined diagnosis. But some don’t have any hyperactive/impulsive symptoms at all, and that may be important. There are some scientists [notably Russell Barkley] who believe that people who only have inattentive symptoms, with no hyperactive/impulsive symptoms, could be considered as having a different disorder altogether.)
Thanks for weighing in on this! I’m not sure if this would be within your experience, but have you seen any research (or even anecdata) about how girls with Hyperactive-type ADHD end up being shaped by gendered social expectations? I’ve heard a lot of conversation about how Inattentive-type ADHD in particular might be underdiagnosed in girls because it aligns with stereotype-based expectations many people already have about girls and women. Is Hyperactive-type ADHD in girls diagnosed any more consistently? Are there any other trends we know about in how girls with Hyperactive-type ADHD cope with social expectations that they sit still, behave calmly, or respond attentively to other people’s feelings?
That’s a really good point, and something that deserves to elaborated on in a longer piece. ADHD has so many manifestations and I don’t want to perpetuate another shitty gender dichotomy.
For what it’s worth, I do have combined type Hyperactive/Inattentive ADHD. I feel gendered conditioning (girls should be quiet and unobtrusive, etc) made me try to stifle my hyperactive symptoms in school. I was most definitely a bouncy little fireball when social anxiety didn’t keep me in check.
Pure inattentive type is mostly called ADD. I have ADHD because, as the neuropsychologist said, “[eviloverlibrarian] never stays still.”
They’re the same diagnosis now, at least according to the DSM, in part because the treatment is the same.
No, ADD used to be the name for the usual Inattentive type, which is now called ADHD-Inattentive type or ADHD-PI (for Predominantly Inattentive).
People like Russell Barkley think that there’s a difference between Predominantly Inattentive (having mainly inattentive symptoms and a few hyperactive symptoms, but not enough to get the ADHD-Combined diagnosis) and pure inattentive dreamy spacyness. They haven’t come up with a good research name for this yet though, except the horribly bad “Sluggish Cognitive Tempo” that no one likes. I feel gross even typing that into a search bar…
I haven’t read up on it enough, but it makes sense, I think? I’ve wondered about the difference in Inattentive people before (often while trying to figure out where I fit in) – some people really are verrrry dreamy and slow to engage, while others are more fidgety and have more typical ADHD problems despite being mostly inattentive and not visibly hyperactive. It makes sense that there’s a difference between being subclinical Combined type vs not having any of those hyperactive/impulsive traits at all. Different brain functions involved, maybe different neurotransmitters, etc.
Sluggish cognitive tempo is not the most flattering name, but I’d be willing to claim it, especially if it involves some executive dysfunction. I transition slowly, process slowly, often need to have a good night’s sleep in order to really ‘get’ something. The last one I know because it drove my first manager (fast food) crazy that I could mess up the same simple thing all day but come in the next day and do it right; why couldn’t I just do it right after five or ten tries like everyone else?! Dude, I don’t know, but we both see the same thing happening, and it’s not like I enjoy getting things wrong. It was actually really helpful to me to have that insight when I was 16, though never quite as clearly and directly demonstrated since then.
Every day I am glad that I live in the age of the internet; asynchronous text-based communication is basically what allows me to have multiple friends and actually be a friend to people. Plus, online/automatic bill pay.
I am one criteria short of being officially combined-type, but most of my friends (and myself) would agree I’m hyperactive to some degree.
But an exboyfriend of mine was definitely the “inattentive only” type. He wasn’t stupid by any stretch, but it takes him a looooong tiiiiime to really grasp new information. I remember once saying that I could almost see on his face that he was mentally looking at the library shelves in his head and figuring out where that info would go. Once it was there it was there forever, and given enough time he could do the same kind of thinking as anyone else.
But arguments with him were horrible, because when I got angry I’d talk faster than I usually do (which is too fast already) and his response to any kind of overwhelm would be to slow down even more, so we’d both end up resenting the shit out of each other.
ah beautiful! I suspect that my 10-year-old niece has ADHD and I will tuck this away. your writing is wonderful.
Thanks for writing this, I’m just in the middle of trying to get my 7 year old daughter checked for ADHD, and I’ve come up against almost everyone saying, no it can’t be. She does well at school, but then comes home and is an emotional wreck, I suspect from holding it all together at school. Her teacher just says she’s sort of disorganized and day dreamy, definitely not a problem kid. I feel like everyone thinks I’m attention seeking for getting her checked, but I just feel it’s so unfair to make her keep struggling if there’s a way I can help her. Your essay reassures me that I’m doing the right thing.
Thank you so much for looking into it for her. I’m 24 and just got diagnosed this year, and both of my parents have expressed regret that they didn’t get me checked when they wondered about my attention when I was a child. It absolutely isn’t their fault, and I’m super glad I figured it out as early as I did, but I do wonder what my earlier life would have been like if I had looked into this a little sooner.
Also (sorry, this is an unsolicited opinion from a stranger), I feel like as a parent you’re totally within your rights to worry about why your little one is so upset after school. Even if the answer doesn’t turn out to be ADHD, I’m sure you’re doing the right thing by looking into what might be bothering her and trying to fix it instead of ignoring her distress. At the very least, you’re teaching her that she matters and you care about how she feels.
Thanks for keeping the seat on your bottom to contribute this valuable and just generally terrific piece.
Gosh I’m going to miss The Toast. Thank you for creating a place for this conversation. <3 another once-dreamy-kid turned full grown lady with an ADD diagnosis thanks to reading things like this.
Like several other commenters, this article and the responses to it made me cry. I was spacy, dreamy, undisciplined, the teacher-breaking underachiever. Like at least one other commenter, I skated by on good test scores (listened in class, despite reading, drawing, staring at the wall) and rarely could make myself do homework. Was diagnosed with ADHD at 15, but stopped both Ritalin and Adderall shortly after starting them because they made me feel awful. I rejected the diagnosis (I was never hyperactive!), but I’m questioning this now. I saw my identity as Failure, which lead to excruciating cycles of hope, loss of focus, self-reproach, guilt and avoidance, which simply fed more failure. It really, really sucked, pretty much until my mid 20s.
I’m 32 now, and have slowly managed to recognize my own patterns, drag myself up to a gloriously, unremarkably average level of discipline, and have realized that I don’t have to be perfect or steadily attentive to succeed. My apartment is frequently messy, and I probably spend 60% of my work time totally distracted or unfocused, but when I’m on, I’m ON, and it all adds up to something satisfactory enough for three promotions in as many years. I think I can credit the same aspects that cause me difficulty with both wicked problem solving powers and an ability to assimilate large amounts of disparate information to find patterns and solutions.
So, whether you medicate or not, don’t despair! You don’t have to be a steady, focused, perfectly disciplined person to be a success, or to be respected. Or loved, while we’re at it. I wish I had known this at 15.
Also, on the MPDG thing… that’s ringing true in an uncomfortable way that needs thinking about.
Oh my goodness. The essay made me think, but THIS made me cry. I also spend approximately 60% of my workday unfocused. When I can focus, I crank out an enormous amount of 100% accurate work in an astonishingly short amount of time. The work that I complete while focused has gained me three promotions in the past five years along with a ton of thank-you cards and praise from leadership, yet I’ve spent most of my adult life berating myself for my general lack of focus and feeling extremely lazy and undisciplined. I live in constant fear that someone will somehow realize that I could probably do twice as much work if I could stay focused more of the time.
Four separate attempts at four different colleges have resulted in my getting an associate’s degree. It hurts because I know that I’m really smart and learn new concepts quickly, but I have such a crazy hard time structuring study time or putting sustained effort into projects. I only earned the associate’s degree because the program had a ton of hands-on classes that kept me interested and constantly engaged in learning. If I’d had to do any independent study or consistently spend more than a few hours outside of class working on course material, I’d probably have sunk that one too.
Thank you and everyone here for sharing your experiences. It’s very comforting to feel like I’m neither alone nor lazy. I’ll be rethinking my self-talk and internal self-image, and I hope some of you all do so too. We can all be okay with ourselves! <3
Thank you for sharing your story! Like so many others here, I wasn’t diagnosed with ADD until my mid twenties. I’ve spent the majority of my life hearing “you’re so smart, why aren’t you actually accomplishing anything?” which, as it turns out, isn’t the most helpful refrain to internalize.
ADD would be referred to now at ADHD-PI, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, predominantly inattentive. Just a change in the diagnostic manual and terminology. (Might be helpful when you start looking into it!)
So I’m really starting to think this is me. I always brushed off the suggestion before because I was thrown by that “hyperactive” which, lol, no. I excel at sitting quietly for hours, just not if I’m supposed to be listening to someone. The more I read articles like this, it really fits. And it seems like it’s a major cause of my depression/anxiety. But then every time I think that I also just think I’m really just shitty & looking for a way to excuse my laziness.
So I guess, I’d really like to know HOW does like an actual adult get a diagnosis on this? Who do I talk to? How much will it cost me? Because I don’t know & I can’t find a straight answer, but I’m drowning in articles saying this is a thing that could help me. I just can’t figure out where to start. I’m getting the impression that I just have to talk to literally every doctor that exist in my city & each one will give me a clue for a scavenger hunt & then put together an elaborate puzzle that will reveal a series of runes that must be translated from a dead language & maybe I’m just getting it confused with a movie I once saw, but it wasn’t very good so I don’t remember the ending?
Hey! I just got diagnosed with ADHD less than a week ago, so the process is really fresh in my mind (or at least the process of how I did it). I’d be happy to talk to you about how I went about it and any specifics you might want to know. If you’re in the Seattle area, I can also tell you the clinics I went to.
I’d love to hear more & I am in Seattle!
While I’ll describe exactly what I did, in hindsight this was not the best plan. I would skip to what I ended up doing in the end, but I wouldn’t have gotten there with all the tomfoolery at the beginning, if that makes sense. So I’m telling the whole story, ANYWAY:
At first I went to UW, initially to a primary care doctor for a referral, and she sent me to their Psych Department. DON’T DO THAT. A) they are rarely taking patients, and when they finally got around to looking at the referral, UW Psych let me know they don’t look at ADD. Maybe I could have known this with more research, but I am very bad at that sort of thing.
It took 2 and a half months for UW Psych to tell me this, so in May, they gave me a list of other places that treat ADD, which I then called one by one. Some were good, some not so good. The list of places they pointed me to was:
Community Psychiatric Center:
Pros: Treats ADD, lots of sites, very quick on returning calls
Cons: They are currently (at least 2 weeks ago) only taking patients with Medicare/Medicaid, which may or may not work for you.
The Emily Program:
Cons: This place doesn’t treat ADD, only eating disorders. However you may find it when looking for ADD places? UW certainly seemed to think they treated ADHD. Long story short: No, they do not, and that was one awkward phone call.
Hallowell Todaro Center (this is where I ended up going):
Pros: Treats ADHD in adults, currently taking patients, quick turnaround on phone calls, in total it was about one week from first contacting them to seeing them for an appointment, don’t need a referral
Cons: They don’t contract with insurance. Basically they hand you the invoice and then you file a claim, but I’m not sure how well that is going to work for me yet. Out of pocket, the costs are $250.00 for an intake visit, and $300.00 for a visit to get prescribed medication (no idea if it’s normal to split the visits like this).
I don’t know too much about medication yet as I haven’t yet started taking stimulants.
Sorry if that was too long, but I hope some of it is helpful!
this is amazingly helpful! Thank you so much!
I’m in Seattle and would also like to hear more, if you don’t mind! I was technically diagnosed around seven years ago, but a psychiatrist I saw a few years back contested the diagnosis and took me off stimulants. I’m not sure I want to be back on the same meds, but I think he was absolutely wrong about my not having ADHD, and I’ve been meaning to look into other options for screening/people to see/other potential resources.
I wrote a long story in a reply to Jessargh above, which goes over the details of what I did.
Even if it was contested later on, it’ll probably help that you do have a previous ADHD diagnosis. A lot of the doctors/health people I talked to asked me about that (for the record, I did not have a previous diagnosis to this one).
So, it can be really frustrating for sure. How I did it was I went to my GP, and then I saw a counselor and she found a specialist in my area who did a 2 hour assessment. But uh… it’s kind of complicated. I think a therapist can diagnose you normally. And then see about meds.
maybe start here?
http://directory.additudemag.com/
thanks!
The process can be confusing! Until someone weighs in with a better answer, here’s what I found when I was looking into this. My understanding is that you can get a diagnosis from a psychologist (who would need to refer you to a psychiatrist if you wanted to treat it with medication) or a psychiatrist (who could prescribe you medication if you agreed on that as a course of treatment). Some primary care doctors in some places are willing to make a diagnosis and/or prescribe medication, but some won’t or can’t. If you have a primary care doctor or a therapist you like, a good first step might be to tell them you think you might have ADHD and ask whether they can refer you to someone who can evaluate you. In some cases, this involves neuropsychological testing, which gives you detailed results but can be pretty expensive even with insurance. Some healthcare practitioners can work with you on treatment (therapy and/or medication) without full neuropsych testing, instead using screener tests and consultations with you about your life and your history. In that case, you’ll get less detailed information about how your brain works, but the process is faster and less cost-prohibitive. In either case, if you are diagnosed with ADHD, you aren’t obligated to treat it in any particular way, and there’s no reason why you can’t use a combination of techniques. (Some people, for instance, choose never to use medication. Other people might use a combination of meds and therapy, or meds and meditation.)
My process hasn’t involved any runes in dead languages yet, but maybe if I’d found those the whole thing could have gone faster (if I could focus long enough to translate them).
I think I keep hitting that wall when I hear neuropsychological testing & if I had that kinda money I don’t think I’d have any problems
That’s totally fair. My diagnosis actually came through a combination of screeners and consultations with my therapist and my primary-care, and now my primary-care prescribes my medication. I haven’t had neuropsych testing (although I’d like to in the future if it becomes more financially feasible). I think this only worked because my primary-care had experience treating ADHD, though; some primary-care providers aren’t able (or willing?) to treat it.
I was diagnosed by a neurologist, but hell, ima counselor and I can do it in Ohio. I would suggest googling you county and state with mental health. It should give you the community providers. They are usually nonprofit, take insurance and Medicaid and have a sliding scale payment. The psychiatrist will meet with you then hopefully will prescribe something.
For me, it literally was a scavenger hunt!
Since I was never disruptive or hyperactive seeming as a child, ADHD was never on my (or anyone else’s radar) until I was in my late 20’s. By then, I had seen more than a dozen therapists/doctors over the course of a decade, trying to figure out what on earth was leading me to consistently struggle with seemingly simple day to day activities like sleep, laundry, keeping a job, etc…
One pointed out I might not be exhibiting depression due to a depressive disorder, but as a consequence of something else chronic. Another helped me figure out that my uncontrolled hyperfocus was unusual. Another pointed out that my sleep had been abnormal (and likely a source of trouble) since adolescence.
After all this time, I had tried a variety of antidepressants and anxiety medications. Finally, a psychiatrist put my full history together with the observation that the only antidepressants that seemed to work for me were also used as ADHD alternatives to stimulants. And voila! After flunking out of university twice, I finally went back to school, and what had been a D average became three back to back semesters with an A average.
Hi – are you me? I was sitting here wondering because I am easily distracted and dreamy and hard to motivate and mostly it is because I am lazy but then I think that finding the pieces of an elaborate puzzle sounds amazing up until the last one. At which point I will lose interest and start a new project. And the laundry will remain undone.
So I read a similar article online in February which just struck me so intensely. Every little everyday difficulty described had me nodding my head and feeling this giant sense of “someone else understands!” And this article even more so. I’m currently an Engineering student (less memorisation required) and my housemates find my inability to wash dishes, iron clothes within a month of saying i’m going to, remember to turn the hob off etc etc by turns amusing and irritating. I went to an initial assessment in March and have been referred to a specialist adhd service but have literally no idea how long it will take to get an appointment or even if that will be further tests that i could fail.
School was fine because i never found any of it hard, but i bombed my oxford interview due to lack of prep and am struggling to work consistantly at university without constant deadlines. I’m also a fencer and my inability to maintain attention there is a big problem too.
I’m just frustrated and excited at the idea of help but terrified that if i can’t find my school reports or don’t seem broken enough they’ll tell me “oh you’re depressed” or “oh lots of people find university hard to adapt to” and I’ll just struggle on mentally berating myself as i sit in front of my work but continue to be incapable of actually focussing on it.
This article gives me hope that things can get better. I’m just terrified I won’t get the chance.
Btw Social, I am mixed race, half carribean, half cypriot and I think i was very lucky my teachers at school were so understanding. Tbh i think they felt sorry for me due to my rather disorganised mother and various home problems that they probably thought explained my bursts of anger, terrible handwriting, inability to spell and general emotional incontinence on…
Thank you so much for this. Your experiences hit close so close to home (especially the writing fanfiction in class, hah). I wish I had been diagnosed in my teens rather than my 20s and hadn’t internalised all the shaming and nastiness I endured from teachers who just thought I was lazy and arrogant and couldn’t see that I was tearing myself apart trying, unable to understand what focus was, what willpower was, and why other girls had those things and I didn’t.
Thank you so much for this–you’ve really captured ADHD from the trenches. As someone who has a daughter, an ex-partner (her father), and a current boyfriend who all struggle with ADD, I’ve done a ton of reading about it, and I highly recommend looking at CHADD (chadd.org), a national organization to raise awareness of, and help navigate through the difficulties and constant ups and downs of ADD. I hope your days of shame and bewilderment are gone forever.
In terms of executive functioning, I think that is a somewhat learned skill and you will probably see an improvement over time? I’m not ADHD or anything but I did struggle for a long time with all the executive function stuff and it’s been a gradual improvement curve as I learn little tricks. (The “always put your keys in the same spot” mentioned above is great, as is “having a mental checklist of things to take when leaving the house”, and “set an ironclad travel time for all activities so you don’t have to work it out for each event”. And autopaying bills, so great.) I’ve got better at keeping things tidy with practice. I don’t know, it may be different for you, but I wanted to add an optimistic personal note.
Anyway great article, I think the ability for the internet to connect people and share information is so valuable for these kinds of things.
That one tip about “figure out when to leave the house so it’s not a new question every time?” I’m 42 and realized I need to do that…not just tell myself X starts Y mi utes earlier, but, say, for my water exercise classes at the Y, since I need 5-10 minutes locker time to change, plus traffic can make the 12 minute trip take 20-30 minutes, iIsubtracted out 30 minutes from start times for daytime classes, 35 for evening ones, and wrote THOSE times on my calendar from the Y.
I’ve thought about pitching an essay about my own ADHD for ages, but this was much better than anything I could have written.
This echoes so much of my own experience that I could spend all day pasting in the paragraphs and saying “yes!! me too!!”
I knew I had ADHD starting in high school but my parents were convinced I was wrong because I wasn’t nearly as hyperactive as one of my brothers. I didn’t find a medication that worked for me until my mid-twenties, after I’d already failed out of college twice. I have spent far too many of my adult years unemployed or working shitty jobs. It’s still hard. It’s still hard every day.
Hey! I’m so sorry this is a rambling comment, honestly. My current therapist has suggested I look into developmental disorders. Some of the things in the article ring incredibly true for me, others not at all, and I’m confused and very anxious right now? I was always a ‘star student’ (still am, with stellar gpas and everything, but only bc my professors consistently allow me deadline extensions) with beautiful, colour-coded handwriting but I was remarkably disorganized (didn’t learn to pack my bag in school until about 9, was sent to a child psychologist at that age bc my teachers found my spiritual absence concerning, never knew when the test was or what the homework was – still don’t, tbh), I regularly forget to eat and I often can’t hear people. I don’t struggle with long-term planning (say, my supplies for a camping trip in a month) but it is extremely difficult to remember things like calling people or packing my lunch. I give an excellent illusion, though, and I am great at giving beautiful, structured answers to a question – often swerving off-topic, but I’ve never heard someone say my speech sounds scattered. I am constantly terrified of having forgotten something important (and often, I do), but I can give 45 minute presentations on a “special interest” without a problem. Does this sound like ADD? Or could it be something else? (I’ve been diagnosed with OCD and depression before.)
A lot of that seems like it could be ADHD, especially being able to concentrate on your interests for ages (hyperfocus?) and forgetting important things. And having learned to create an “excellent illusion,” as you said… yeah. Seems likely.
It definitely sounds to me like an ADHD diagnosis would be helpful to look into, if nothing else? A lot of what you’re saying sounds like my experience, and even if not every symptom sounds like you, just researching and having a look into things may well be helpful.
So much of this rings true, but also a lot of it doesn’t, I think it’s because I didnt have the chance to be the dreamy weird kid; my mother also has severe ADHD and a whole lot of other stuff, she was the dreamy weird one and from a young age I just had to have my shit together or everything fell apart. I could never manage school, I left completely at 16 after 4 school changes, not because of lack of intelligence (‘needs to apply herself’ appeared in my reports frequently) but because it requires organisation that I didn’t have and my mother couldn’t teach me, and I was so worried about keeping everything else together that school was just one thing too . . I was never on time for school once in the 10 years I went. I was also bored in a lot of my classes because they didn’t need move fast enough, or drowning in the others because I wasn’t there enough to keep up with the learning that builds on previous lessons (like maths or languages).
I really wasn’t dreamy, I was just hella impatient to get on with my life and school felt like a complete waste of my time to me. This place where i don’t want to be, where people don’t like me, teaching me nothing useful. Turns out I was completely right too, 3years doing my own thing before college did more for me that sitting in a class room ever would have. When I went back to education of my own free will my experience was completely different and I even enjoyed it at times.
I also wasn’t pretty enough to be a MPDG. I was a weird kid who would spout random facts at weird times (‘heres a cool thing I learned because I read constantly, everyone should know it too’), and got teased mercilessly by my, horrible, siblings.
Your sentence about going back to education on your own terms took me back. I don’t think most schools are set up to acknowledge how much of a difference that can make for some people.
“When I went back to education of my own free will my experience was completely different…”
So much of this rings true, but also a lot of it doesn't, I think it's because I didnt have the chance to be the dreamy weird kid; my mother also has severe ADHD and a whole lot of other stuff, she was the dreamy weird one and from a young age I just had to have my shit together or everything fell apart. I could never manage school, I left completely at 16 after 4 school changes, not because of lack of intelligence ('needs to apply herself' appeared in my reports frequently) but because it requires organisation that I didn't have and my mother couldn't teach me, and I was so worried about keeping everything else together that school was just one thing too . . I was never on time for school once in the 10 years I went. I was also bored in a lot of my classes because they didn't need move fast enough, or drowning in the others because I wasn't there enough to keep up with the learning that builds on previous lessons (like maths or languages).
I really wasn't dreamy, I was just hella impatient to get on with my life and school felt like a complete waste of my time to me. This place where i don't want to be, where people don't like me, teaching me nothing useful. Turns out I was completely right too, 3years doing my own thing before college did more for me that sitting in a class room ever would have. When I went back to education of my own free will my experience was completely different and I even enjoyed it at times.
I also wasn't pretty enough to be a MPDG. I was a weird kid who would spout random facts at weird times ('heres a cool thing I learned because I read constantly, everyone should know it too'), and got teased mercilessly by my, horrible, siblings.
Keep going! You are absolutely doing the right thing! Academic success is not the only criterion for an ADHD diagnosis, and anyone who thinks so can take a long walk etc. For example: I was a valedictorian at my high school, got accepted to medical school on my first try, completed two bachelor's degrees with distinction in five years and had the highest graduating average in my faculty in my final year of university… all things you'd think would rule out ADHD, and yet my diagnosis at age 21 changed my life. Keep advocating for her. You could save her years of anxiety, depression and doubt.
Beautiful essay, and congrats for the bright moment time of your brain. I feel really connected with any part of details in your saying. it found me some comfort to reach some smilier people in the world. I was diagnosed ADHD when i was in kindergarten school, the teacher suggested my mum to take me to the therapist due to i not able to sleep in the lunch time and keep toddle and harass around. After the diagnosed it seem nothing following up on my symptom because it ‘s seem very much easy to understand maybe the younger boy likely to hyperactive. I got kick out of school and i still being a trouble. So it go along with to me with all the “mysterious” in society, life and habit i don’t really fit with others. Until i found my passionate on reading and dancing. I can over come more and more in starting read the book that what i like and interested me(but sometime it still hard to concentrate.) by dancing professionally to keep activate my brain in other to put my self in the art field to not being wired. All this make my understanding on my brain seem psychologically, cogitate and organise on daily life test efficiently. I just want to share this to people that you are not alone.
Thank you for writing this… I had a childhood diagnosis of ADHD. My mother kept me medicated for the sake of my education. But i couldn’t handle the meds. I crashed from them as soon as i got home. I felt horrible and it gave me a deep hate of taking pills. I started refusing to take them at around 9.
My step grandfather (a psychologist) told me when i was 11 that it seemed unlikely i had it after observing me for a while. I clung to that. I failed almost everything from intermidiate to highschool for various reasons spanning from depression to disinterest to pure spite(mostly for my mother, it might just sound like a teenager over reacting, but i had to move in with my grandparents because she couldn’t stand me. I wasn’t her doped up little passive girl anymore. She couldn’t stand me disagreeing with her). I’m now 23 and haven’t been able to hold a job for 2 years due to severe anxiety and depression. I still have my ingrained hated of pills and i do not think it’ll ever go away. I’m being cycled through antidepressants and when i tell the doctors they dont work, that i need to stop taking them, they say they need to up the dosage, just to be sure. I’ve been driven to the edge by some of these medications. The only thing that has saved me is what small support structure i have. I had put my childhood diagnosis behind me, my problem wasn’t ADHD, it was depression.
I’m crying my eyes out right now because you may have just forced me to face the truth. I have been called lazy my whole life. “You’re soo intelligent, you could do so much. Why aren’t you Doing anything with your life?!” I have cried in my boyfriends arms, apologizing over and over again, I’m sorry, I’m so afraid, i love you, but I’m so afraid I’ll lose interest in 6 months. I have hated myself for not being able to do things i know I’ve done before.
Thank you
Thank you so much
Lots of ADHD in my family although if I have it, it’s a relatively mild case. My son appreciates the focus he gets from pills (extended release Focalin) but sometimes does crash. My niece uses a patch and I believe this way of administering helps with crashes. So if you revisit your childhood diagnosis, consider patches, and also look into Focalin vs. Ritalin – the former has only one chirality of the methylphenidate molecule, and some find it better than Ritalin.
I have a sort of similar thing, with autism-spectrum disorders. As far as I know I’m fairly squarely at the “normal” end of that spectrum, and I don’t have enough of the symptoms to suggest otherwise — but I do have some of the things. And so I find that reading about the coping strategies that people with autism and Asperger’s use is helpful, because many of those apply to me as well. And to a certain extent it’s useful for me just knowing that, for instance, the aversion to loud sounds and the brain-lockup when asked to task-switch are things that happen to people, so I can say, “hey, this is that thing” rather than not knowing where it comes from and expecting myself to just deal with it like everyone else seems to.
On the other hand, there’s also the feeling that I had after a decade of therapy for depression, of being so very very tired of coping mechanisms and dealing with this stuff day in and day out rather than having it fixed somehow.
*And to a certain extent it’s useful for me just knowing that, for instance, the aversion to loud sounds and the brain-lockup when asked to task-switch are things that happen to people, so I can say, “hey, this is that thing” rather than not knowing where it comes from and expecting myself to just deal with it like everyone else seems to.*
Oh, wow. This.
I already knew I had ADD, was diagnosed while still in college in the ’90s, but they left so much information out that I really could have used. All this time I just thought I was broken.
Thank you.
YAAAAAAAAS so much of my own life reflected here. Though I was able to get taken seriously much quicker than it sounds like you were (thanks, male privilege? you’re still garbage though) , I still flew under the radar until my late twenties because I only had ADD; without that telltale “H” annoying my teachers and parents, I was able to fail my way through dozens of college courses for no reason and spend months and even years un/underemployed before I had a counselor that put the idea into my head.
The experience you describe of forgiving yourself for a lifetime of what you had always been told was lazyness or just being an unreliable person is completely spot on, and just as life changing as you write. I’m so glad that you were able to persevere and get diagnosed. The more visibility for women and girls with ADHD the better; it’s truly troubling that anyone would go through life without knowing why their brain works the way it does, and especially so when it’s for such a terrible reason as our culture’s bullshit gender roles and expectations.
I’m a new toastie. As in, I’m the psychic who went running after the Titanic, asked it to come back to port, and hopped on. :'(
I wanted to add that sometimes women get railroaded into Borderline Personality Disorder diagnoses when they actually have ADHD. BPD has some symptom overlap with ADHD: sometimes hourly mood lability (mood swings used to be one of the required symptoms for ADHD diagnosis and for some reason they took them out — they are most def part of the ADHD parcel), difficulty concentrating, difficulty in relationships, difficulty performing classically female tasks (e.g. emotional labour, sending birthday cards, enjoying vanilla sex), intrusive thoughts, and tendencies towards eating and self-harm disorders.
Women with ADHD who have experienced trauma/poor attachment in childhood (and really, if you were raised by people with untreated ADHD, you are more likely to have experienced this) are frequently diagnosed with BPD. Which sucks because it’s wrong, it’s extra-stigmatizing, and the treatments are different and less effective. Long story, but it almost happened to me.
And I have a question: Has anyone here taken medication and found that it made them less able to concentrate? I’m a little paranoid and my attention flits more when I’m on Ritalin. I take Wellbutrin and that helps plenty (it’s no coincidence that I met my now-husband when I’d been on it for 6 months and was able to actually engage with the partner of my dreams instead of being a tempestuous drama queen) but I know there is so much more. I want that feeling you’ve all been talking about. Not being afraid I’m forgetting to pick my kid up from school every five minutes, ya know?
I recommend trying other ADHD medications – something else might work better for you. Ritalin wasn’t that great for me, but Vyvanse is WONDERFUL.
I was diagnosed at AGE 50, after a lifetime of “not performing up to abilities” as the report cards said. I was smart, 99th percentile in everything, but was hardly ever able to apply it to anything useful. I don’t think anybody in the 60s, in FLORIDA, had ever heard of ADHD!
I’ve been getting meds for depression and anxiety forever, and when I asked my shrink about it, he REFUSED to believe I could have any such thing as ADHD. I actually went behind his back and got tested by a neuropsychologist, and I’m so glad I did! Taking my Vyvanse in the morning is like putting on my glasses. I also found out I have Asperger’s, which runs in my family. (My old shrink said if I had that, I’d be in an institution.) (My old shrink is SO FIRED.)
I am SO GLAD you, and so many others, are finding out about this stuff earlier in life! I feel like I wasted a lot of time – fortunately, my immaturity keeps me youthful. 🙂
Can I ask who the neuropsychologist was who tested you?
(If you can believe it, you get a fair amount of “never heard of it / of course you’re bright and you don’t have it” in NY – in NYC, even. We’re supposed to be a sophisticated place, but sometimes that purported sophistication can break down in the face of racial & gender bias in medicine — which even doctors will admit is there but seem reluctant to take any steps to do anything about. 🙁 )
I’ll gladly give you her name, but she (like me) is in Seattle.
Layna Andersen
[email protected]
Thank you so so much.
I have friends from/in Seattle, but if I can get even a recommendation or referral from her, it will be worth it. Because then when I contact the office, my request for an eval will be coming from a credible source, in their minds, instead of just little old me, who couldn’t possibly be trusted to know anything, let alone the workings of her own mind or how to spell ‘neuroscience’.
Thanks again so much; I’m very very grateful.
(Also your username is just The Awesome.)
This is SO my experience. Thanks so much for writing this!