I just had my first ever meeting with a psychiatrist to get diagnosed with ADHD.

Long story short, they said that I clearly exhibit ADHD symptoms.

But they’re not willing to go forward with a diagnosis because, according to them, I seem to be doing alright in my life, so the symptoms are hardly causing me enough problems to be eligible for a diagnosis. (And also because there’s no evidence of me having had such symptoms in childhood.)

And I was just sitting there thinking, do you really think I would be here if I didn’t think the symptoms were causing me problems in life?

Based on what they said, they expected me to have experienced things like getting warnings or being fired from jobs, ruining my relationships with people, and such. And they suggested the usual things, exercise, the Pomodoro method, etc. As if I haven’t tried them already.

My bad for masking so well, I guess.

Anyway, just wanted to vent a bit. I know it’s too common a story. I guess the next thing I need to do is to find a psychiatrist specializing in adult ADHD. Once my (still undiagnosed) ADHD lets me do that.

  • GormadtEnglish
    10•11 months ago

    Yeah when my doc asked me to talk about it I mentioned what a typical day was like for me.

    I didn’t hold back about it at all.

    My thinking was basically it took me 8 months to schedule this thing and had to wait a further 3 for the appointment, I wasn’t going to sugar coat it.

    And I basically described how my morning was basically a never ending string of attempting to do various things to the point where my coffee was usually room temp by the time I drank it.

    It probably didn’t hurt that I had forgotten to shave the previous couple days.

    I also talked her ear off for almost an hour and was unable to maintain specific topics on the main topic without a shit ton of detours.

    I also mentioned that it felt like I had very little to no control of my life due to being unable to actually get things done that I started.

    Basically the point I’ve flown right past is when going to a doc about something (anything really) it’s best to be perfectly honest about what you’re experiencing and to not mask at all.

    Which is pretty frickin hard to do in my experience because of that wonderful little thing known as RSD. Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria, a fairly common thing in people with ADHD.