ADHD

She got stressed by me clicking things constantly during the (remote) interviews.

What in the everloving fuck did she think was going to happen on a remote interview for an ADHD diagnosis!?

Don't feel any guilt for that. At all.

Look, ADHD is a constellation of symptoms that are statistically shared by people who generally benefit from similar treatment, given a name basically only for paperwork and insurance purposes. The DSM is a statistical manual, not a checklist. A diagnosis doesn't mean anything, other than maybe insurance coverage. You're still going to be who you are. Good news though is you can change who you are, and change how you think, regardless of whether you have a constellation of shared symptoms diagnosable as ADHD or not.

My advice is: get to know yourself and what you need each day to be mostly content, without any comparisons to what others are doing or want to be doing. If you don't know what you need you aren't going to get around to working toward what you want, and will likely find yourself searching for something and coming up short.

For me, anything I or anyone else ever blamed on ADHD has been a product of thought processes I learned as a child and which are no longer helpful as an adult. My reward center was all fucked up from generations of family members who used guilt, shame, harsh words, and loud voices, to motivate themselves and others. That's not violence, shame and guilt are no less traumatic. Maybe you relate, maybe not.

With effort you can change your thoughts processes. Tell yourself what you want to believe, and especially what you already know to be true. Make a list of your strengths and repeat them to yourself as often as you can. Make a list of things you want to be true and are working toward and repeat them to yourself as often as you can. Or listen to self affirmation videos on YouTube and use other people's power thoughts. It will change the way your brain makes connections and make t easier and easier to change the way you think until it becomes the only way you think. This is more or less the concept behind CBT.

You're on your way already; said you are recognizing behaviors and habits that you want to change. You can change them, even with a constellation of symptoms diagnosable as ADHD for insurance purposes.

The longer you go bearing the burdens of such symptoms--whether it's blowing deadlines, abandoning tasks, or annoying people by getting too excited sometimes--the more ingrained these unhelpful thoughts processes become; i.e., thoughts of helplessness and distrust in yourself, and you develop a limited mindset, or learned helplessness. The brain is a muscle, and any line of thinking, for better or worse, become easier with repetition. ** And I wouldn't wish a lifetime of stimulant use on my worst enemy.

E: Couple more thoughts.

Any problem I've ever had with procrastinating or impulsivity, hyper focus, inattention, anger, or sadness, has been a result of an inability in the moment to adequately manage my emotions. You do not procrastinate because you literally lack the willpower or motivation to get the task done. In fact, I bet you are using significant willpower to avoid feeling how you are afraid you may feel if your fears about the task come true, and what that may mean about you. Maybe you relate maybe not. If you do, know that you can retrain your reward center by reframing the nature of the tasks and what they mean to you; I found it empowering to realize that much of life is suffering and we can either suffer the discomfort of hard work or the discomfort of avoidance and shame. Start giving yourself prizes of like going to a nice restaurant or making ice cream sundaes, a cigar, a hike, or whatever, when you achieve small, measurable goals, and just keep doing it, trying to focus your mind on enjoying the rewards and reflecting on what actions you took to earn them.

Exercise, too, has been huge for me, for managing emotions, thinking clearly, regulating all the fight or flight and stress hormones that only exacerbate my least helpful thought processes.

Bapa, you can always get a second opinion.

I’m pretty bad at forgetting memories, like I can remember almost all of my life so far, I just can’t remember to do things on time.

When they did that test on me I remembered how often I would piss myself at school because I would wait last minute to go. That was a huge sign for the psychologist.

Oftentimes I was bullied. Got in trouble for not paying attention, etc. (Give the Wender Utah rating scale a try)

Adderall won’t change your life completely, it’ll make things easier, but it is ultimately up to you to implement small habits to make things easier.

You’re not annoying, you just like to talk. Find people who like to listen. It can be hard nowadays what with all the intricacies of life. But there are plenty of people out there.

Don’t lose hope. And most importantly love yourself. You’re a beacon of light for your community. More often than not the people with ADHD tendencies are the ones who fight against the things that bring others down. Yes we are seen as an inconvenience, but fuck if I care, I want to make the world a better place, no matter the cost.

You’ll run into bumps along the way. But eventually you’ll find yourself. Promise.

The boundaries of what is considered ADHD are arbitrary. You don't have what is generally considered to be ADHD (at least according to your therapist), but that doesn't really mean anything. Brains are complicated and they don't always work how naming conventions want them to.

You are experiencing ADHD symptoms to a point where it is materially impacting your ability to live your life normally. That, at least to me, is a disorder.

Any method of managing ADHD symptoms will probably help you. Of course without a diagnosis you won't have access to ADHD medication, although its very possible that wouldn't be the solution you're looking for in the first place.

Here's an alternative title that's a little more positive: "I don't have diagnosed ADHD, science simply hasn't caught up to my brain yet."

Not sure whether this is useful to you, but I recognise a lot of what you are saying. For example, the being able to do a job until the newness wears off and it gets boring and the huge difficulty with doing household tasks, etc.

I was diagnosed with CPTSD en intellectual giftedness and this explains my symptoms. I do not seem to have ADHD as I get extra active if I take ADHD medication. Most intellectual gifted people do not believe that they are intellectually gifted. I am still sceptical about whether I am, because I feel far too dumb. So, even if you do not feel gifted, it might still be something to check out if you want.

flooppoolf mentioned you can get a second opinion, and I'd like validate that idea.

The diagnosis involved me and my mom answering questions about the presence of ADHD symptoms now and in my early childhood (5-12 yo).

So. My thinking is that you weren't tested for ADHD, you were given a survey to assess symptoms. Symptoms are important to recognize, but they don't always paint a complete picture of what's really going on.

For my diagnosis, I had to take a barrage of tests that took 3 hours to complete. The testing session was comprised of several timed tests on reflexes, short term memory retention, attention span, logic, vocabulary, math, and an IQ test. The last three might have been part of the IQ test, now that I think about it. This was a couple of years ago so I know I'm forgetting a lot of details, but it was intense. The report I got later with the diagnosis was huge and contained a ton of data and confirmed yes, I have ADHD. So yeah, ADHD (I have the inattentive, not the hyperactive type) is quantifiable.

For what it's worth, when I was a child I also didn't have the typical symptoms of ADHD. It is possible to have ADHD and exhibit no outward symptoms when you're a kid, it presents differently in people for a variety of reasons, I was told. It only became obvious when I was an adult. That's just my experience, anyway.

As I read other people's comments, my diagnosis experience seems somewhat unique. I may be misremembering the exact sequence of events, but I'll try my best.

As a young kid, I did okay in school. My report cards often noted that I did really well on the tests, but I often forgot to do my homework, and since homework was a large portion of the grade, I had lots of Bs and Cs. On the standardized testing we did each year, I'd score well above my grade level on everything except the listening portion, which was just average. In junior year of high school, I made it a point to have no missing assignments. Even if I didn't finish my homework, I'd still turn something in, and suddenly I had straight As.

Around the time I was 18, I began trying a variety of antidepressants, mostly SSRIs.

I was probably 20 years old when my parents suggested that I see "Dr. Feel Good". In their experience, he handed out prescriptions like candy, so he'd probably give me whatever I asked for. When I went to him and explained my struggles and how I felt they were indicative of ADHD, he told me that I couldn't possibly have ADHD since people with ADHD don't get depressed. I think he did end up giving me a 30 day prescription though, and suggested I find a more specialized doctor.

I think it was after that that I began seeing a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist again put me on an SSRI, I think Zoloft. I took it for a while, but eventually got fed up and just stopped taking it. I think it was when I told him that I stopped taking it that he finally gave me a prescription for Adderall. Or maybe my time with him overlapped with the next paragraph.

Somewhere around that same time, I had dropped out of university and decided to take classes at the local community college while I figured things out. Somehow, I learned that the community college offered learning disability testing, so I signed up. From what I remembered, I did really well on everything except (surprise, surprise) the listening portion. I was told that my results indicated that I have an "auditory processing deficit". I eventually wound up taking the test results to a new psychiatrist, and they put me on Adderall right away.

Honestly, I'm still not totally sure if I'm "officially" diagnosed as ADHD, but I've moved around a bit and changed doctors a few times, and 15ish years later, I'm still getting ADHD meds.

All this is to say that there's lots of doctors out there that won't take you seriously, and/or have outdated understanding of mental health, so whether or not you have ADHD or anything else, don't give up until you find a solution that works for you.

Try not faking ADHD you annoying degenerate. s/ If you discover you're unable to stop faking you can accept the measure of your symptoms. The wide scope of ADHD and the degree of any behavior impacted is gunna make it difficult to give a nice certain concise diagnosis. Getting any treatment or whatever isn't likely depriving the specialist from treating others, too.

Someone with a great support network constraining the negative impacts of the condition would probably do well just like you. I bet one'd find an equitably poor experience if that network was lost. Still the same person. If the treatment is of benefit for one it's justified for the other.

Watch some Russell Barkley YouTube videos, assuming you’re able to, and then think again about the opinion of that one psych.

What's your caffeine intake like?

There are lots of different ND things out there. Just because you didn't get the diagnosis you expected doesn't mean you don't have something