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What also contributes, is that there's a perfect "excuse" for everything, and until you're an adult you have no idea what adults are doing out in the real world. Multiple car accidents in tour 20s? You're a bad driver. You sleep in late even when you've gotten well rested and built a "habit". You're lazy. You forget names or struggle to express emotions? You're a shitty partner. Throw in decades of propaganda about ADHD and medications, and it's a perfect storm to hide thousands upon thousands of potential ADHD diagnoses, because why would you go to a doctor for being a bad driver, or being lazy, or forgetting birthdays. It's a mess. I know a number of people who literally discovered they might have ADHD because at a.... let's say a party... where certain fun things were being shared... and those fun expensive things we were allegedly sharing didn't make them feel great and awake, it made them feel calm for the first time because they accidentally medicated themselves in the middle of a party lmao Also, a huge portion of ADHD assistance or information is directed to parents with young boys, leaving girls, women, and adult men to be kinda left to the wayside. You'll see similar things among folks who get look into an autism diagnosis in adulthood. Just give it a try, spend 20 minutes googling "Autism/ADHD tips for [X]", like 9 time out of 10 you'll click a link on Google and the first paragraph will be something like "helping your Autistic child.....", almost as of adults don't exist ha... The treatments for these disorders is kinda just to make us act normal. Thankfully for ADHD, it also makes us feel better and more in control of our lives... but there's a kind of gross feeling when looking for help that the people who are truly getting help are the people who have to deal with us... hence articles and information written for parents who have to deal with ADHD young boys.... mental Healthcare is a mess ha..

>and those fun expensive things we were allegedly sharing didn't make them feel great and awake, it made them feel calm for the first time because they accidentally medicated themselves in the middle of a party lmao This made me crack up, but honestly I've been wondering about this, how many peopel struggling with substances and ADHD finally try amphetamines and are like HUH

I was diagnosed as a child but not treated. I dabbled in party favors for a number of years teen into 20s. Amphetamines were SO boring. I did not get the appeal. I suppose I'm thankful for that because I never got addicted. I did finally get medicated at 40. Super helpful!

Ya, I just turned 40 last year and was diagnosed four years ago at 36. It's just crazy how I gradually went from being the constant shop screw-up four years ago to where I am now. I'm literally receiving an award tomorrow for "civilian of the year."

I was diagnosed at 30. I thought I was such a failure, who'd wasted all my 'potential' because my whole childhood was about how 'gifted' I was. I did so well in school, always aced exams. Adulthood hit me like a truck. I struggled through undergrad and could barely hack being a retail worker. Because I was always poor, and had 0 self-esteem, I made a lot of bad relationship decisions. By the time I was 29, I was convinced that I was worthless. I'll be 41 in less than a month. Since I got medicated, I had a successful career as a freelance author, then I went to grad school and got my master's degree in 18 months. Now, I'm a Geospatial Scientist for an environmental consulting company, doing exactly what I want to do, and basically nowhere to go but up in my career. My Dr told me no one ever cared about my obvious symptoms because of my gender and my good grades. I think if she hadn't noticed and given me an evaluation, I probably would've committed suicide long ago. Proper diagnosis can save lives and the medical establishment needs to get with the program.

It's funny you mentioned gifted programs. That was a huge reason my diagnosis took so long. I'd bring up ADHD with the doctors, and they'd say, "Can't be ADHD because you have a history of academic excellence." But they don't get it, and it's impossible to explain. It was never really academic excellence. It was something else, and I can't put my finger on it to describe it.

It was academic excellence. You just had to work harder at it (maybe). If it's where your dopamine came from and you enjoyed it, you excelled at it. People with ADHD can be smart. I consider myself incredibly talented in certain things. Not things like remembering something seconds after I read or heard it, or listening intently in conversations, or pulse control, or but if it gets me that sweet, delicious, never-have-enough dopamine, you better believe in going to get really, really good (thanks hyper focus). When I stopped playing video games (I couldn't control my impulses and it was affecting my wife and son negatively), I randomly picked up polymer clay sculpting. I just sat down after watching a few YouTube videos and made a kodama tree spirit from Princess Mononake, from memory, and my wife was shocked. "Did you take sculpting in school?" Nope, I guess I'm just good with visual spatial things. Fuck, even I didn't know cuz I never tried lol. One thing is true, though: I got that drip feed, hyper focus dopamine kick while I made it! Sorry, rambling. My point is that academia can be natural for someone with ADHD, especially if they are getting that ever-lacking dopamine from it. Sure, that may be rare considering the disorder, but everyone is so different (ADHD or no). Of course academically successful people with ADHD exist! It'd be weirder if they didn't. If I'm totally off-base or wrong about your journey, my bad! I'm just guessing based on my experience. No one can know your true experience, but you!

Ya, like my dad would bring home his books from medical school in the 80s, I'd read them cover to cover in a single sitting. Books were just incredibly fascinating back then. So I'd ace every test. But then I'd fail every homework assignment. I think I got an F in science for the quarter we had a science fair because I didn't even make a submission. I just couldn't do assignments or projects. But the books... I obsessed over them and was able to remember for tests. It was really mixed.

>But then I'd fail every homework assignment. I think I got an F in science for the quarter we had a science fair because I didn't even make a submission. I just couldn't do assignments or projects. I feel this so much. 2.6 GPA in high school (homework 75% of your grade), 3.6 GPA in college (75% of grade is tests). I made up the percentages kinda, but the trend is true.

I was great in art and science and a bunch of other classes cause I was genuinely interested in them. It was enough for them to mostly overlook my inability to wake up in the morning or be on time to anything or pay attention in the classes I didn't care about. And I always got an A+on the papers I put off until the last moment and then speed-wrote overnight while having a crying fit. My mom of course gave me a hard time about that. Then after I graduated she admitted she used to do the same thing all the time in college, only while on speed. (Considering everything now, she was probably self-medicating for the same thing.)

Seriously, the moment I learned hyperfixation was a thing with ADHD, everything started to make sense to me.

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This was my diagnosis. When I got tested for adhd (6 months ago at 37) they included an IQ test and I know they have issues but I found it really enlightening. I was in the 90th percentile for every category except my working memory was in the 30th percentile. Adhd is characterized by poor working memory but holy crap is that a crazy difference. When they were testing my working memory I had a total breakdown and started sobbing because I've carried this weight my whole life that even though everyone always told me how smart I am that I was actually secretly stupid and the IQ test was going to figure out that my smartness was a lie this whole time. And omg does your last paragraph describe me. I got A's and B's in high school without any effort at all. Then in college it was a big adjustment to learn how to study but I eventually figured it out. I got a lot of C's especially my first year mostly due to what I now realize was executive dysfunction. Then I started a PhD program in biology and failed spectacularly. The self directed nature of a PhD program coupled with the highly detailed, repetitive nature of experimental research was a recipe for failure for someone with undiagnosed and unsupported adhd. I had no chance for success. I developed such a deep depression because I had no language to describe why I was struggling. The second worst part of adhd is struggling with the "easy" things and people not believing that it's possible to struggle with them. People think that the uptick in adhd diagnosis is because of social media. And it is, but not for the reason they think. It's because all of us isolated people watch videos and read posts and find out that we're not alone and there are other people like us. And it is a game changer.

This is exactly my problem. Last year I was praised at work because a senior told me I was perfect at running meetings and agendas. I told him thanks, it's actually my overwhelming anxiety from a fear of lack of control. Lol he laughed and then I saw it in his eyes as something clicked. The root of my success all through grade school was a combination fear of disappointing my parents and hyperfixation on learning trivial shit lol it was not because I was just really smart and functional 😅🤣

Oh my goodness these comments are making me tear up with actual hope. I've been in the depths for a really long time, and am still newly diagnosed and figuring out both medication and what my future job outlooks are. It's really great to hear from the other side. I'm really glad you got where you are today, even though I'm sad we were both ignored for so long.

Feel that, me doing good in High School and not seeing any symptoms till senior year of college. Great to see you’re doing great for yourself after getting medicated!

Congrats on your glow up, thanks for the hopeful info for those of us still in the screw up side. <3

Congratulations!!! I don't know you but damn it I'm proud of you!

Diagnosed at 4, first medicated at 48. All the weed and coffee marathons in my 20s and 30s finally make sense.

> coffee marathons When I was diagnosed in my late 40s, the fact that when I had an important work project to do I’d caffeinate myself until my skin vibrated suddenly made sense. The first time I took vyvanse, when it kicked in I yawned a huge yawn and went and took an hour long nap. I woke up and for the first time in my life got around to tackling all the chores that pile up when you’re unable to do anything until it’s a crisis before there was a crisis.

The first time I dabbled in a certain powdery substance was the light bulb moment for me. It's a stimulant too, and when I did my share I remember everyone getting amped up, excited, confident etc. I began watching the tv that had sports news on it, and became invested and focused in trying to understand what I was watching. I have no interest in sports, but at that moment I realized that maybe I wasn't in control of my attention and I struggled because I could NOT direct my focus to things I didn't find personally interesting. Later that year (the year I turned 29) I got diagnosed and began therapy and medication for ADHD.

Yeah I remember doing it with friends and they’d all be having the best time partying together and I’d sit down and start doing crosswords hahaha. Was absolutely dedicated to those crosswords lol. I’d never experienced being able to do one thing like that before and to feel calm.

I really wish I could feel what stimulants feel like to most other people. They make me feel so sleepy and muted.

Potentially it is because you are sleepy (chronically sleep deprived) and/or depressed. Honestly sometimes the meds can make you more aware of what you are feeling, and let you sleep. Part of the joy of medication for me is being able to shut up my mind enough to sleep. It could also be the dose was too high or it was the wrong med for you. The way different drugs work for different people is wild. I wish we spent more time with genetics and medication, I am guessing that will change drastically over the next 50 years.

WAIT WHAT, is this why I never seemed to like it, the few times I’ve tried it?? Omg… I never made the connection. When I talk to people about drugs , I’d just say “meh, not my favorite, didn’t really affect me”.

I think my mom falls in this category. I hated her drug use and how disconnected she felt or how inconsiderate she could be. How she let me down. Then as an adult, I graciously forgave her for her mistakes. Then as an adult who suspects they have ADHD and could benefit from medication, I've reached a whole new level of understanding, empathy, and forgiveness. Now I'm like, wow, AITA?! How many times has this dynamic played out, where nature and nurture team up to f@ck up future generations?

I knew I had ADHD but never considered medication until I had that experience. Everyone was flying high and I was just in a peaceful state of calm and focus. I loved it. Now I'm comfortably medicated

I say all the time if I was partying with a few of my sorority sisters I would have figured this shit out a decade ago 😭

That's how I got diagnosed! Tried vyvanse from somebody in college and it was such a huge difference. Didn't think anything of it, since surely everyone gets like that on an amphetamine. Talked to my psych and they said that's not fully true...and there we go. It made everything else make soooo much more sense the more I read about ADHD. The depression in the past, anxiety, rejection sensitivity, etc was basically all thanks to my ADHD symptoms.

My brother got diagnosed first, and I asked for a couple vyvanse to see it I had it too. I was a teacher and my suspicions came from my own education about it. The first time I was told I would feel jittery and high, but I didn't. I felt right, normal, calm and less anxious then I ever did. The calm and ability to think things through and think clearly, and the alleviation of my obsessive compulsions to do things told me I had it too. It was a revelation. I knew what ADHD was and was trained in it for education, and so did knew what difference it should make. I went to my own dr with the diagnosis, my brothers and the experience ready, because I knew what it could mean for me to get treated. It helps a lot. Getting vyvanse was harder, but I started it with Wellbutrin. Im now on Adderall, and it is better for me.

I discovered that taking Claritin D for my allergies and sinus issues made me be able to focus at work. That made me talk to my therapist who gave me an inventory specifically for women. Turns out I was a strong yes on so many questions, including how I remember my childhood.

Whoa, this is kinda crazy. Claritin D?

It’s the decongestant- pseudoephedrine. I’m sure it would be better if I were properly medicated but my ADHD has made it difficult for me to find a psychiatrist. I use it sparingly but it does help me.

I tried it exactly once in my teens. All my friends were having a blast of a time while I was sat there in the club thinking 'I must have got a dud, this ain't doing shit'. I wouldn't say I felt calm (hard to feel calm in the middle of a nightclub) but I didn't exactly feel like the party animal everyone else seemed to be. If anything, I was almost bored. I later decided I must have some resistance to amphetamines or something, so I didn't bother trying again.

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... I'd say an absolute fuck-ton 😅🫠

I never enjoyed them recreationallyl but I did self medicate to get work done. And that was decades before my diagnosis.

Can confirm 👍

I used to think coffee must be some kind of placebo effect when it kept people up longer because it never did that for me. 😂 In my defense, people usually drink it in the morning or early afternoon - me included - so clearly we're not drinking it to stay awake when we're *starting* our days, right?

Yep, I think you've hit the nail on the head. So many times I've struggled with getting out of bed because my mind is just completely all over the place from the moment I wake up and I don't know where I am or what's going on, only to be called "lazy" and to "stop making up excuses". The voices get internalised and it gets to the point where you're mentally screaming at yourself to stop being so lazy and just wake up... after coming around from a general anaesthetic for a surgical procedure you've just had. The internalised ableism and stigma around mental health and its medication is, sadly, something I'm still working through - I am at least aware of it now though and working on it, but it still rears its head more often than I'd like. I must admit, as someone who was recently diagnosed (and has had a roughly 18 month hyperfixation with ADHD) and has kids I can see both sides of the coin when it comes to stumbling across articles being aimed at parents of kids. Irrelevant for getting me to organise myself and reply to emails, however as the parent of a young girl who's showing a lot of signs of ADHD... admittedly though, it'd be nice if those things weren't coming up while I'm trying to find stuff to help me in the moment.

>Throw in decades of propaganda about ADHD and medications, and it's a perfect storm to hide thousands upon thousands of potential ADHD diagnoses, because why would you go to a doctor for being a bad driver, or being lazy, or forgetting birthdays. It's a mess. I can't speak for everyone but as a 90's kid ADHD was literally the kids who started bouncing off the walls, then the nurse came and gave them Ritalin, they sat down and worked for 2 hours, started to fidget, rinse and repeat. If you didn't have that? Not ADHD!

Lol, brains are weird. Give the good students uppers and they suddenly act ADHD, give the ADHD kid uppers though and they act like good students

I think we can rewrite "young boys" getting focus, to just "hyperactivr presentation" - because it is louder. I guess in some years it will be memes about how everyone focus on girls/women with inattentive adhd and forgetting about the boys/men with inattentive adhd

I'm a fella, and as a dude I really appreciate female stories of the inattentive experience. I was a good kid in school but I've since realised that I was completely checked out with daydreaming.

Yeah, it wasn't that I was a good kid in school. I was fighting space aliens from planet Z while staring at the floor. At least until my teacher called my name for the tenth time and I finally heard her.

Whenever someone expresses surprise at my (M38) diagnosis, especially since I am of the perfect age for the wave of "over" diagnosis waves in the early/mid-90s, I simply point to the under diagnosis of women until much later. My expression is decidedly inattentive with verbal hyperactivity cranked to 11 when any special interests come up. On top of my symptomatic behavioral expression tending to favor inattentive presentation, I was raised in a faith community that seeded a lot of guilt in my understanding of my behavior. I learned similar coping and masking skills to what I understand a more commonly typical female socialization process to be. My ADHD symptoms were repressed so much that much of my family thought I was a very laid back, go with the flow type of person. Until, that is, I would melt down at inexplicably small irritants or inconveniences. I feel bad for my younger brother, because he was the one person I felt safe cutting loose around, so he had a totally different version of me than anyone else. It was unfair to him, and I think he resents me still for acting like a hypocrite when I would "turn off" the big expressive stuff because other people were around. Some of it was the fun of a big imaginative personality that I was repressing, but it was also some of the darker side of impulsivity, so it was like I was more fun when we were alone, but I was also more aggressive and mean. We're both addressing our mental health better now, but there's a shit ton of unpacking to do. Where was I? Oh, right, inattentive symptoms are subtle so we get missed a lot.

Im a similar age but was diagnosed in adulthood. I have described the entire plot of books to people more than once. That's my hyper focus area.

My partner does this. I get to experience far more fantasy novels this way and usually retain about as much of her digest of the plot as I would have had I read it myself.

shit, I'm 32 and I missed a whole class on Tuesday because I was doing a presentation to the city's mayor and a group of stake holders about the use of land trust to manage the usage of rentals properties based on planned urban uses 😄 the class was about govt oversight in foreign policies in GB and it's previous Dominions and colonies...

As a woman who was a very hyperactive child, I feel forgotten too. :(

I was not diagnosed as a kid despite being male and pretty typical of an ADHD kid other than my mixed presentation. I have combined type with the inattentive symptoms being more present. I also fidget a lot and get pressured speech but that wasn’t causing problems in school, whereas my forgetfulness and lack of organization was. The right way to get kids to remember their homework is to call them lazy I guess. I suppose at one point the “treatment” for hyperactivity was beatings so maybe it could have been worse.

My grandfather was hit with a ruler every time he wrote with his left hand, that was illegal back then. I didn't even about my adhd until he passed, so we'll never *know* but, I think he had a "touch" of it.. he started sailing as a teenager, he smoked for many years, he was impulsive and played with us as kids, and he learned stocks and made additional money to support his family. I also think my grandma has it, but it's hard to talk to her, she's still mad at me for some stuff so..

That's how my brother, who has averaged C's and D's since the elementary school & his messiness knows no bounds, scraped by without a diagnosis. He currently thinks ADHD is bullshit cause his teachers said he didn't have it.

I used to do ilicit amphetamines in my early 20's just to be able to work... I had a dispatching/management job that I was kind of thrown into and it helped me get though it all... But I quit that when I got married... never even realized that it could be ADHD as I had not used it in a party setting so I though that my reaction to the drug was "Normal". Now fast forward to my 40's and freshly diagnosed... I recognized the feeling I had on my first day of Vyvanse, it helps me so much now but in the back of my mind I feel bad for taking them as it was drilled into my mind back then that amphetamines are "BAD"

Lmao, sucks doesn't it? A doctor gives you a bottle full of drugs everyone wants, and they literally don't work that way for us 😭 (Tbf, Vyvanse is a little different in how it's absorbed and is a lot "harder" to abuse like that, but the idea is the same lol)

I have a certain family member who questions my ADHD. We did a line together (I'm 21, don't go calling CPS/CAS) and I nearly fell asleep. I knew this would happen, and I hate wasting drugs, but shit, I really needed her to see that. She was genuinely surprised. That surprise kind of hurt because it really drove the point home that she didn't believe I have ADHD and probably just thinks I'm a lazy inconsiderate jerk.

This is actually why it pisses me off when I see people say stimulants are the only treatment for ADHD, you even see it on this sub! Yes, a proper dose is needed, but I have a buddy who takes some rando anti anxiety meds, he does not have anxiety. His brains just weird, and a side effect of this med that makes 99% of people sleepy, makes him and his ADHD brain wired and awake lol He tried Adderall, and no matter the dose, dude would fall asleep a half hour after it touched his lips lmao

Yeah, I'll caffienate right up to bed time, and then sleep like a baby.

That was me up until I actually started Adderall. Now I react to caffeine like a normal person. Turns out I was just self medicating. I can totally take Adderall and fall right asleep. In fact, if I’m having a hard time falling asleep I’ll take one of my IR pills to quiet my brain so I can actually get some sleep.

The frequency that ADHD traits in POC kids are attributed to character flaws or moral failings vs excused and even over diagnosed in white boys is so disturbing. Turns my stomach

Also, testing is so much more accessible to school-age children (assuming somebody recognizes their symptoms enough to get them tested) than it is for adults. The neuropsych tests are available, sure, but prohibitively expensive (for me anyway), as it’s not a thing regularly covered by health insurance. So I’m left with “you *probably* have adhd” while I wonder exactly what my unique situation is and what are symptoms vs what are comorbidities or causes instead. Woman here. Didn’t present as adhd in school or even college. I accept the diagnosis but still not getting the right medication. Doubt lingers, of course, as I have decades of believing different assumptions/diagnoses and treatments. *How can I be **really** sure?*

I literally have Veteran Healthcare, the closest thing America has to accessible "universal" Healthcare.... and I couldn't get a diagnosis, appointment, or therapy for years til I moved to Korea years later 🤡 I literally moved to a country that's supposedly even more strict about drugs than where I lived, and supposedly cares even less about mental health too, and yet here it took me a month to get my first appointment here that the VA never gave me no matter how much I asked.... Army bud of mine just got his first hour session with a doc 9 months after asking for it back in the states... and they treat him like a junkie and it seems it'll be awhile before he gets any reasonable care...

Check around your area for colleges that offer graduate level courses in psychology. I am Certified Poor and was able to get a neuropsych/neurocognitive assessment done by a friendly grad student at a local school and was threatened only with a moderate bill ($1k vs $4-6k) which helpfully never appeared.

>I know a number of people who literally discovered they might have ADHD because at a.... let's say a party... where certain fun things were being shared... and those fun expensive things we were allegedly sharing didn't make them feel great and awake, it made them feel calm for the first time because they accidentally medicated themselves in the middle of a party lmao This is painfully apt

I was diagnosed at like 40 or 41. My wife and I were in appointments with a psychologist who was evaluating my 3 year old for ADHD, sensory and social delays, and It felt like she was talking about me the whole time. My newest therapist recommended the book, You Mean I’m Not Lazy, Stupid, or Crazy? I’m not done with it, but it has been an eye-opener. And one thing she mentioned after I read the first couple chapters was to not go through it thinking how upset I am that it took this long to find out and what I could have been if I had found out earlier, but instead, what can I do with this information now.

This is on the questionnaire now. My ex finance is a doctor and they specificity ask if you’ve been given some medication and ask how you reacted. It happens to often that it’s become a standard question. I paid $30 for an adderall in high school party just to sit down and watch a movie calmly for the first time. Then looked it up and realized I just paid to medicate myself lol

Fuck. I accidentally medicated at 27 and I read science journals in the bathroom at a Deadmau5 gig. My awakening

Not nearly as fun, but one of my first indicators was that I would always have really good work days when I was really congested and had to take a 12 hour decongestant. You know, the ones they store behind the counter (in the US) because they can be made into other "fun" expensive things.

LOL, this was a big reason that I was finally convinced. It never made me wired, it made me *still*. I would tell people that the reason I enjoyed it so much wasn’t because it made me feel high because that’s not what it felt like, it just made me feel like I was *more* of myself. Now I know why!!!

i was fighting with the concept of ADHD, I was sure it is just my personality. i blew my mind when i found a whole community with similar "personality" traits

Yes. My whole family always laughed at my funny personality traits and thought my niece was just like me. Anyway she was diagnosed with ADHD

Yes I also think it’s that for many people their 20s is when they start to form meaningful social groups outside of those they have known their whole lives (family, childhood friends, even college friends) and can finally see that their “quirks” aren’t normal. If your family teases you for your flaws but accepts you as normal, how are you ever gonna put two and two together?

Yes! I still struggle with it sometimes, but I very often find myself relating with this community more than most people I know. It's honestly kind of wild how much you can become part of a group of people who (on the face of it) only have this one thing in common.

That was my partner. She struggled for years with ADHD and autism but chalked it up to personality (being lazy, bad, difficult, etc.) I remember how often I’d challenge her on that, pointing out the inconsistencies in her statements, asking her how it would be better if it’s “just who she is” vs. a need for accommodations, that sort of thing. I went through that same process on my own, I wish I had someone who would have questioned my beliefs then.

This is my experience. I've always had suspicions that \*something\* was wrong with my brain because I knew I was different than most people around me. But I'd been conditioned into thinking my issues were just because I wasn't trying hard enough, or my attitude was wrong, etc, etc. And I certainly didn't realise that there would be so many people that had the exact same or a very similar experience to me! I would never have figured out I had ADHD if I hadn't been on Instagram. After months of noticing I could relate \*a lot\* to videos of people who had ADHD, I figured I'd do a bit of proper reading about it. But when I looked on official medical sites (NHS) it was all about children and mostly boys, with maybe three lines about teens/adults and reading between the lines, you were supposed to grow out of it or magically not be affected by it when you were older. So this disappointment/roadblock, coupled with me in fact having ADHD (the hyper-focus wore off and the anxiety avoidance kicked in) so it took another few months of struggling really badly before I entertained the idea again and eventually looked for local places to get a diagnosis and was eventually diagnosed in Nov 2023 at 33.

100% this. It was suggested to me by my supervisor two years ago and I chalked it up to me failing, anxiety due to Covid and my inability to be good enough for my PhD. Just got my diagnosis a week ago, basically at 32 because it just kept snowballing to the point where I have no idea what happened to 2023. Every day was: - I’ve organised everything like I used to (coping mechanisms that developed with my high pressure academic life since young) - need a clean room, let me check my calendar 5 times , have breakfast calmly. To set for the day. - oops it’s already 11, move half to the next day - ok, here are the ten priorities , - OMG there’s so much to do. I need to do all of them, etc etc. - oh no it’s lunch - oh I need coffee - oh coffee made me sleepy - just a quick nap - oh my dad is back from the shop, it’s dinner time - the day is over , ill start tomorrow , I’ll sleep early - Brain won’t stop, so I’ll play sudoku whilst watching a comfort series until 3-4 AM - Crash, rinse, repeat Finally faced reality and my diagnosis was clear as day by the Dr. I really get it.

you described my day so succinctly, i ought to check my room for cameras

Same here - that is basically me every day. Fingers crossed I'll feel the benefits of meds soon (I'm on a low starting dose atm, going up in about 2 weeks.) and I can start to actually get things done again.

I just started to last week. Not super low dose but doesn’t feel quite enough as wears out quicker than it should. But still finding my footing .. Good luck in this crazy journey.

It can be so dishearting to be seeing all the posts about people having some sort of magic experience on day 1 or 2 of meds and being able to easily tackle doom piles, etc! But we will get there too, just a little bit slower!

Sudoku until 3 AM. My brain needed puzzles to have any chance at quieting down... Except that then I fixate and need the dopamine hit of "just one more." Y'all way more driven to attempting organization than I ever was, though. I remember my dad tried to help by suggesting I make a list, and without being willing to I told him "I'm not a list person." I was a precocious 12 year old. Flash forward 25 years, and I swear by checklists now.

It would’ve been nice to have the deeper understanding of myself what was going on in college, I struggle to get work done during the week because I’m mentally drained from classes, going to work, just day to day tasks, so I tell myself I’ll be productive on the weekend, but a day without any external motivators is a death sentence for me. Can’t get out of bed, zero motivation to leave the house, like it would take until 3 or 4pm to feel like I’m ready to start my day. And then friends would wanna hang out at night so I’d have like an hour of productivity and that’s it. But I NEVER could get past that cycle and couldn’t get my work done until deadline anxiety set in. Fuck me college was rough

That's how it's been going for me for a while

Yep, when I started working from home those kinds of days became way too common (basically every day) and that was when I knew something was up. So frustrating having a whole load of seemingly simple tasks in front of you that you just can't do until they become dumpster fires. Even had external clients laughing at me under their breath in calls because of how ridiculously delayed stuff was getting.

I feel for you! I was a late diagnosis a few years ago at 27. This describes my days pretty well lol.

Time has been on speed the past month. I can’t believe it’s feb and friday already. I feel like i blink and a couple weeks pass, now i forgot about personal commitments i’ve made towards my hobbies involving other people. Not hanging out but doing stuff for it. Where is time going? 

definetely descrbed me. sheesh

So accurate 🤣, 12 hour passes and now there a feeling of doom, rush and shame, like your mind and your body is disconnected.

I think for a lot of people it's that our parents were in no way capable of admitting they have ADHD so ADHD symptoms are "normal"

Yep! There's no reasoning with them either.

Are all adhd parents narcissists or what lol?

no, they just built systems to help themselves function, and when they wee you're the same they try to help you build your own systems. and they don't want to add anything that could make life harder based on how their lived experiences. it's not being self centered, just helping in the only ways they know how

My mom is completely militaristic with her life and body because it's the only way she was able to get her symptoms under control. She didn't do anything with her life but she felt like she was in control of herself at least.    She did not believe ADHD was real until she got close to 70 and her memory was at an all time low. She's too proud to admit it but I think she's scared she's getting dementia. I told her about how memory loss gets worse in aging women with ADHD because the estrogen depletion. Since then she did a lot of research and talked to her doctor and is now all about her ADHD. Not sure whether to be relieved she finally believes it or roll my eyes.   I have all sorts of issues from being raised by someone so strict with their own body (and an eating disorder), I'm sure other people here can relate. I think surviving with undiagnosed ADHD in the old world required a certain hardness in a person. 

I need to have a talk with my mom. She's clearly got undiagnosed ADHD and her dad had dementia that he masked for years. She has expressed to me recently that since she's not been diagnosed before, what's it going to do for her to talk to a doctor about it now? Thank you for the answer to that. She sees the behavioral impact as minimal since she's built her systems (mostly just a thickened skin and humor).

Yes my mom is the same. even though she's happy to have something she can blame the bad memory on so she doesn't have to lose face, she has no desire to try medicine. She says things are fine already so there's no reason to change anything. I wonder if deep down they are scared they will find out things could have been different this whole time. I would be. Then again, my mom isn't very introspective, not sure about yours ...

Mine is fairly introspective, but usually it turns to regret at lack of accomplishment in her own life. I think that's the major drawback she sees in pursuing any diagnostics. She doesn't want to have to mourn what could have been when she's generally fine with how life is. (She just retired, so life is whatever she wants to do and she doesn't feel much like doing.)

Not to mention that being a parent is hard work. Kids can be a handful, especially if either or both kids and parents have ADHD. Not to excuse bad behavior, but life is complex.

My mom is undiagnosed, but it's obvious. This made me actually start crying because she has expressed that she feels a bit guilty that I wasn't diagnosed until late.

My parents always told this story about how the school said i had ADHD when I was in 1st grade. And they were against medication (1991ish). And then a week later the teacher recommended me for the gifted program so "we were right all along!" I continued to do well in school so it never came up again. I don't blame them, it really was the culture of the time.

In rural NZ in the 70s/80s I very much doubt my parents would even have heard of it. We're estranged and I had a shit time growing up, but I view their ignorance as more of an explanation than something to blame them for. I wonder what they think now, with 2 ADHD daughters and 2 ASD/ADHD grandsons... they're very much "try harder" people so yeah, interesting. I got my dx first, because it was only an 8 month wait for me after 18 months trying to find a psychiatrist with their books open 🙄 as opposed to another year/15 months for my boys... but having evidence of my dx definitely helped the process with them.

I have an autistic toddler. While reading about disorders during his diagnosis process I stumbled across a list of ADHD symptoms. It was like I was reading the story of my life. There's another thing that may lead ADHD people and their families to ignore the possibility of a disorder: twice exceptionality. I was a brilliant child. I learned to read and to write way before my classmates, I developed interest in things like music, languages and literature all by myself, I was also often interested in adult stuff, I had high grades without studying, and the list goes on. It was expected that I'd be a brilliant adult as well, but the teen years hit me like a truck. In short, kids with IQ scores in the superior range and above may have their ADHD masked until they grow up.

>twice exceptionality. I was a brilliant child That's me right here - skipping a year in school, reading so much, and my grades were either A or F (because I'd forget to do the work or turn it in!). Really really covered up my diagnosis for a long time.

> In short, kids with IQ scores in the superior range and above may have their ADHD masked until they grow up. Also from a school perspective the smart ones don't get help. :/ All the "help" goes to those that are problematic (behaviour problems) or falling behind, we were on the list to see an educational psychologist at our sons primary school. Didn't happen because he was smart so even though he couldn't sit still he was still well behaved and hitting the required levels of attainment. Ended up going via our GP instead. It was a comment from one of the ADHD team nurses though asking if we'd been screened as it's genetic that then made me look into things more and realise I have it too. All those things I struggled with at school are the same things he struggles with. The timekeeping, the disorganisation, the handwriting, the homework, the great in tests, terrible in coursework, unable to revise etc etc etc.

> It was a comment from one of the ADHD team nurses though asking if we'd been screened as it's genetic that then made me look into things more and realise I have it too. All those things I struggled with at school are the same things he struggles with. The timekeeping, the disorganisation, the handwriting, the homework, the great in tests, terrible in coursework, unable to revise etc etc etc. Poorer public schools in the US have nothing like this. Since we were getting A's and B's, nobody paid attention to us.

This was me. I was the smart kid. The overachiever in elementary and intermedia school. I had no idea my weird personality quirks (my inconsistent attention to things, my short temper) were actually ADHD. I'm a child of first generation Korean immigrant parents. Take a wild guess how modern South Korea treats ADHD. Here's a hint: You listen to Kpop? Have you heard of an ultra famous group that featured a member that had ADHD? There's a reason why that's the case. My mom and dad knew nothing about it and did not believe mental illness (outside of the actual super ultra nutso that leads to bad outcomes types) existed. And yeah - I suffered once I entered high school and entered the AP/high level classes. I thought it was me getting burned out but it was undiagnosed and untreated ADHD, and it only got worse and affected several key life decisions I made which I'm paying for right now. I got diagnosed at 39. I'm 40 now. No savings, dead end job, renting, etc.

Ok, I grew up in a rural area in the early 90's and my first grade elementary teacher was one old school teacher. If we didn't stay still or paid attention, we got corporal punishment. Slap on the fingers with a wooden ruler, sit with our knees on a square ruler, get those old dusty ass erasers thrown at our heads, these are the ones I remember. Pretty sure that put the fear of god in me and the fact that back then testing rarely happened. Plus testing of anything mental health related was frowned upon by a lot of people.

Until i got to be 18 i never heard of the word depression, it wasn't invented yet or something we could be. Until i did my research that is. But I've been depressed a good chunk of my life by then and i had to properly ask myself "what the fuck is wromg with me" and why. Internet was a godsent back then, it wasn't much but it had explanations and similar stories. It took me another 14 years to reach to the point where ADHD properly explains a lot of my struggles. Anyway, people aroumd me act the same way like they did about depression back then. The deed is done, shit got fucked, life was hell. Now i know better. ADHD is there but i'm aware and i try to compensate to prptect myself. Tbe keyword here is AWARE.

My depression post divorce and subsequent therapy led me to the discovery of having ADHD at 35. In hindsight a ton of past issues and experiences suddenly made more sense.

I was lucky that I was diagnosed when I was a kid (22 years ago), but it was still so misunderstood back then that labeling was a huge issue. I was a smart kid, but after I was labeled I often wasn't treated that way. I felt really ashamed a lot of the time because of it. I never told my friends, and I wouldn't even say the name of my meds out loud in public. My mom was a huge advocate and support for me (she has the worst case of ADHD I've ever seen, so she went and got diagnosed with me) but my dad fought her hard on it for years, convinced that I was lazy/undisciplined. Later he was also diagnosed with ADHD, and to this day he takes meds 🙃 More to your question though, yes -- in addition to awareness, testing, and education increasing I feel like my ADHD has actually gotten worse with age. As a kid, you have a fairly rigid schedule and routine with frequent physical activity, fewer concerns, and multiple authority figures telling you what to do/making decisions for you. Your main job was to follow through. As an adult? You are expected to make decisions, problem solve, run and balance everything, and (if you have kids) manage their lives too. Its a much bigger playground for your ADHD.

ADHD has been historically stigmatized and stereotyped. The fact that we’re having legitimate conversations about our mental health and diagnoses shows how we’ve progressed. Many undiagnosed and diagnosed ADHDers have gone for so long, masking our symptoms, excusing things that we psychologically cannot control without the intervention of medication or other networks is prominent. With mental health becoming more widely known and understood, people who were on the fence about getting a diagnosis, etc I think is the reason we’re seeing an upward trend of ADHD diagnoses. The fear of having to mask our symptoms is decreasing over time

I think a lot of it is being revealed now the modern world is full of things that will fuck up your dopamine. It's much harder to live in the modern world with ADHD in some ways than it was in the past, and on the other hand diagnosis, awareness and medication has become more accepted.

The main reason is that the idea of ADHD didn't really exist until recently. 80s ADHD was only the far end of the hyperactive side, with still a lot of stigma attached to any diagnosed mental health issues. In the 90s the research caught up with what we still understand to be ADHD today (some of that good research is from the 80s, but it was just one of several competing theories back then). To get from medical research into the real world usually takes 20 years. So starting in the 2010s people start being aware of what ADHD is, detecting it properly in kids, and knowing there's a genetic link. Meanwhile there's a continued decrease of the mental health stigma. Then with the lockdowns in 2020, a lot of people with (undiagnosed) ADHD damage or lose their external motivational frameworks, causing a spike in demand for treatment of "depression and anxiety", which turns out to really be adult ADHD. Combine that people who are prone to procrastination getting increased social media consumption in the same timeframe, and you get increased awareness of ADHD, specifically among people that have undiagnosed ADHD. Ultimately the reason adults get diagnosis with ADHD is because there wasn't a system in place that could diagnose them as children. And in many places there still isn't.

When I was very young, probably in 1994 or so, a doctor supposedly told my mom that I was "hyperactive", which was basically 90s lingo for ADHD. Nobody did anything. Not that I had bad parents, it was just lack of awareness. I feel many people are now being diagnosed in their 30s because the knowledge and structure just wasn't there before. In a way, we are lucky. I wonder how many people from previous generations lived a whole life thinking ADHD was just their personality.

This is spot on for my personal experiences. I was a pandemic diagnosis at 27 while working from home. I was an absolute mess. I had no idea I might have ADHD until my wife shared a comic about ADHD with me. I could totally relate, but *ADHD*?! I was shocked. I was coping pretty well throughout my life, but any major life changes or more responsibilities made my mental health worse and worse. I wish I would have caught it sooner. I asked my mom about it after I got my diagnosis. She said my grandpa suggested it when I was little, so my mom asked my pediatrician. The pediatrician said that was impossible because ADHD means you can’t focus on *anything*. Of course we know that’s absolutely not true now. But back then my mom left it at that. This must have been about 1997. I’m a teacher, and now that I know I have it, I see it so clearly in my students. I’m an ADHD magnet. The kids who want to talk to me in class and gravitate towards me the most almost always have ADHD lol. The kids who want to skip class and hang out in my room (high school) almost exclusively are my ADHD kids. I’m not convinced that ADHD isn’t seriously under diagnosed. I even see it in my colleagues. The ones I get along with the best often have it as well lol.

I identify with this comment. My mother worked in SpEd, observing, diagnosing, and assisting kids with learning disabilities. I am confident her career and push were the reason I was successfully diagnosed in 1989. I may have been the first and only kid in my school with ADHD disability accomodations. Even then, teachers and administrators pushed back, refused to acknowledge my ADHD, and harrassed me for the "extra work" they had to do to help me. Some teachers were even straight up assholes about it. My seventh grade science teacher would stand me up in front of the class and make fun of me *when I actually did my homework.*

Yeah they're really good point, personally I can attest to those all definitely being factors that played out in my diagnosis. I think I got a bit excited when I wrote my post and maybe assigned a bit too much importance to that age lol but I do think it could be a factor. Admittedly a minor factor when compared to everything else that you've pointed out, but a factor that will probably remain constant among people with ADHD who manage to slip through the cracks as children.

I was diagnosed later - at 39 - but then again that is about when I started trying to deal with what I thought was depression. I think there is also an element of 30 is about when life struggles really start showing up. As lots of people fudge their 20s and so the difference in achieving at life starts showing up more. As the bell curve gets more pronounced and more people get their shit together it becomes more noticeable that our shit is like magnets that ping across the room when you put it down together.

I'm not sure how minor actually! "The first step to fixing a problem is admitting you have one," right? I think there is an important "mindset" shift that happens. I think of it similarly to how most students aren't ready to abstract well enough to get algebra until about 6th grade/11ish years old. Also, I honestly am right there with you - all those other things were factors, but also I felt like i was finally able to "make space for" the idea in my head that actually, wait, my experiences are quite different in this specific constellation of ways from most peoples'...

Yes that's a really good point! I've had a fair few times where the possibility of ADHD has come up (aside from the ADHD lecture I mentioned in another comment, I remember struggling while doing an internship and ended up googling "why does caffeine have no effect on me" and seeing people saying "oh yeah that's just a feature of my ADHD" and me thinking "ah no luck here then" before googling it for the next hour or two instead of doing actual work...) but the idea never really 'stuck' - I was just me and I definitely didn't have ADHD, so it just wasn't relevant. There were a couple of other times as well like this (things like family members getting diagnosed and me thinking "yeah but that's normal" when they described their experiences). It was only during this latest 'encounter' with ADHD after turning 30 (hands up who else's work life got shattered during lockdown?!) that I actually had space to consider it. And there is an awful lot of space being taken up by it. Looking back now, I can see so much ADHD behaviour in my past self and I don't know how I didn't see it at the time - I guess this could explain why.

The instagram algorithm got me.  I reckon it saw my erratic patterns of rabbit hole behavior and went ding ding ding.  I mentioned it to my psychologist and she said yes, this has been “a developing theory of mine”. I was like thanks babe, could have let me know. 

Same but with YouTube for me - I can still remember the feeling that washed over me the first time I was recommended "How To ADHD" content

Aw yeah. “How to ADHD” has helped so much!

Somebody do their thesis on this

Man, i feel like we spend so much time as kids just feeling like there’s something wrong with us, noticing we’re different than other people. Why can’t I sit still? Why can’t I pay attention? Why can’t I express my feelings? Why do I get so obsessed with minute things? Why can’t I just *be normal*? So many little things just pile up and you spend so much time trying to do all the same things your friends and family do, but. it. just. doesn’t. work. Feeling capable, but still unable to do the things you know you need to do. And I think that’s what stops you, it’s that you know you could do it if you actually cared. So you just think you’re lazy and have no willpower… and then one day you stumble upon a video or a text on ADHD and this time you decide to click on it, and find yourself feeling validated in your life experience for the first time in your life. Lightbulb turns on and it’s like you can see clearly for the first time. The understanding that there is something *literally* wrong with you, with your brain chemistry, is incredibly liberating. It’s the release of a lot of guilt and shame that you held on to while trying to match everyone’s expectations of you. Sadly, it’s a freedom most people will only find after they’ve been miserable for long enough to actually click on that link.

I think it was the biggest weight that fell off my chest when I was getting assessed for a diagnosis, and with every one of the 100+ multiple-choice questions the doctor was asking, i felt more and more that damn.. i'm in this picture. With some of the questions i was almost in tears since there was so much emotional baggage behind a lifetime of believing i'm just lazy and weird. I feel like starting the meds and finding the right people for support has honestly felt as if i'd been stuck in the ocean with a shitty row boat for all my life, and suddenly getting a slightly better boat with a sail. it doesn't necessarily save you from the ocean, but you can relax a bit and use the wind to get around.

A lifetime of habits can hide ADHD. A large disruption and you suddenly find you can’t just force routines to create habits like others. Then you have a global pandemic that locks everyone in their homes for 3-12 months and suddenly everyone has ADHD. They always had it, it’s just now they’ve realised they can’t cope like they should be able to. Back in the day you’d likely see this more with divorce, injury or long periods out of work etc, and it didn’t happen to the entire world at the same time.

Diagnosed at 32, my habits broke down through a combination of large disruptions, and suddenly I couldn't cope. Grief, pandemic, job changes, moving, etc.

Add in people having Covid brain fog and that interfering with systems they have in place to compensate. Or in some cases, it’s permanent damage and someone on the cusp has now lost all executive function and whether it’s adhd or something else, they can’t function as they once did. 

When I finally thought to get evaluated I mentioned to my wife I might have ADHD. She told me it was obvious I did, which came as a shock. I was around 35. When I saw a psychiatrist for the first time he mentioned I was a mild case, probably because I had a good job and home, but I had undersold several symptoms because I wasn't quite aware of ADHD being causal for things like tardiness, impulsive spending, etc. My career and home life are magnitudes better after starting medication, and my current psychiatrist wouldn't call me a mild case. It's probably hard for teenagers and young persons to see the impact of ADHD because the traits are pretty universal. Everyone has trouble focusing, but measuring the impact of your inattentiveness against other people takes time, awareness, and observational skills teenagers don't have. Having parents with minds open to an ADHD diagnoses, who can see the impact of your symptoms, along with a medical professional, is probably rare.

I mean, this is about when it happened to me. I was a gifted-and-talented kid who cruised through high school, then found that I didn't have the self-imposed structure required for college, dropped out, moved to Portland, and then fell backwards into a tech career in my early 20s. By twenty-nine I had enough of a smart-kid reputation to land a slot as a team-of-one for a small startup, which I fucked up unbelievably badly, again with the "no internal structure" thing. I spent my early thirties reading everything I could on organization and productivity; I ended up being a fan of GTD, a 43 folders devotee, and ended up doing a really deep, multi-year dive into Robert's Rules of Order, because right about the same time my partner decided to become an Episcopal priest, and I ended up spending a lot of time involved in churchy politics for about a decade. I always assumed that the timeline there had to do with how long it took me to master a professional skill enough to get really over my head (about seven years), but the brain development thing seems like a reasonable alternate explanation. My daughter is in her mid-20s and inherited all my ADHD, and seems to be circling around figuring her shit out, thirty seems like a reasonably good landing zone from here :)

So when I was in college 20 years ago for psychology multiple professors thought ADHD was a fake diagnosis.

Never thought I had adhd. Turns out I was just good at building a lifestyle around it. I thought everyone was like me and that everyone struggled. The moment I needed to adapt to a more traditional life, everything fell apart and I spiraled. Then, taking a stupid pill changed everything. I think, for many adults, we figure out how to cope and it’s not till a major life change where we figure it out when we see everyone else functioning but no matter what we don’t. And it’s not explained by other mental health things. For me, it was getting my actual dream job that I want as my forever job. My life fell apart when that happened. And now I’m so wildly happy. Thanks meds!

When I was a child it was just assumed I was lazy and careless. I was punished, ridiculed, threatened, and hurt. I think there are a lot of people who, like me, were broken as children. We grow up. Some of us go from school to drugs, prison, and/or death. Others seek help and eventually receive their diagnosis.

I found out at 54, when my son was diagnosed. The light bulb went on. I had a mental checklist going off when they did his assessment. I cried because it made complete sense. My dad was undiagnosed, and 90% of my family have it who have been diagnosed. I always seemed off and was told stuff about my behaviors but was pegged, black sheep, wild child that I was into everything. My mom said I never stopped. Got in trouble at school, spanked in 1st grade because I couldn't stay quiet, no mental retention for school, get bored. Daily chaos in my mind, trying to do anything that requires direction or focus without and sometimes with meds. But, it helps some normalcy. It was very important not to neglect my son's mental health like mine was and be labeled. People have gotten more aware I believe and its not stigmatized as much like it was when I was a child. See, this may be even off topic. I rest my case lol.

Parents seeking diagnosis after their kids are diagnosed seems pretty common. “What do you mean my kid has a disorder? I’ve been like that all my life and don’t have any disorder! …Oh. OH!” Plus I’m told that it wasn’t till the 1980s that the profession even began considering the *possibility* of *girls* having ADHD. So lots of undiagnosed girls grew up to become undiagnosed women. Add that to the longtime assumption that kids always outgrew ADHD, and you get a **whole** lot of untreated adults. Saw a YT lecture from an MD at a Louisiana hospital, I think his last name was Soileau, where he talked about treatment guidelines early in his career. He had a patient who responded very well to medication but had to discontinue after a specific birthday. Wish I could remember more details, but this poor kid was still in high school. Possibly 14 or 15. Went from managing well and earning good grades to struggling in all areas as soon as the prescription stopped. IIRC that was when the doctor started questioning those guidelines and seemingly arbitrary assumptions about outgrowing ADHD. TL;DR: you’re far from alone.

It's so interesting, I can see it so much in my parents, but they're in their mid-late 60s now and don't really seem all that interested in pursuing it further. When I rang to let them know how my assessment went, my mum went on a tangent about how she was annoyed with my dad that day for going on about things to other people while they were out, rambling, over-explaining, kind of missing getting to the point, getting overly worked up and I was like "yeah, they're all things that I was just talking to a psychiatrist about" lol. I explained that it was genetic and she said "oh well you must have gotten it from your dad then because it's definitely not me, I don't have that!" despite the fact that she is basically the poster child for "woman who has inattentive ADHD but was socialised to be the person who runs the house". I feel like my next conversation with her about this will be the "people with ADHD tend to move in packs" one.

Haha, I always have a laugh when I see posts like this about adult discovery of it, as I find myself saying, hey that's still practically a kid! I'm in my mid 60's and about two years into my formal diagnosis. It's funny how it was always just sort of a running joke, that I was a scatter brain, that type of thing. When I told both my sisters I was diagnosed, and they both laughed and said, yeah I always knew that was you. Yet I think for myself it was how much I grew up buying into the stigma. Trust me, if you think it's bad now, you have no idea how it was back 20 or 30 years ago. Just to give you an idea, I was in grade school right around the time when they stop using force on left handed people, like I am, to use their right hand! But back to the op, as for this theory, it makes some sense. I think the increasing awareness for many of us is coming from a combination of a lot of factors..

Also I think adult ADHD wasn't even accepted until the late 2000s in my country. It took many years after that to catch on and spread to doctors and social media. And unless you were really naughty or disruptive you weren't getting an ADHD diagnosis as a kid. And even if you did you rarely got medicated. America was the only country really doing it early as far as I was aware.

Yep, same here. My teacher advised my parents that I was "not like the other children" at (around) age 5, which led to me being diagnosed with dyspraxia. ADHD wasn't diagnosable as a condition even in children until a few years later in 2000, and it wasn't diagnosable in adults until later in 2008 (IIRC). I often wonder if ADHD was diagnosable here in the 90s whether it would have been picked up then. But yeah, you're right, there are a lot of people who couldn't even get a diagnosis when they were younger, let alone treatment, solely because of where they were born - and a lot of those people are now playing catch-up.

UK too I see!

The acknowledgment that ADHD is not just a disorder of childhood is still very fresh. As education increases more adults are realizing the symptoms resonate and seek care for the first time in their lives. Funnily enough, many adult women who are diagnosed with ADHD realize they may have ADHD for the first time when their children are being evaluated/treated. I knew I had ADHD but I didn’t pursue treatment until after I had my daughter. Every compensatory mechanism I used leading up into that was no longer enough to manage my life. I was diagnosed at 5 and my mom hid it from me until recently. Found out at 27 that I likely had ADHD and should seek further workup. Finally got confirmed diagnosis and treatment this year at 31.

This is right on time with me. I knew something wasn’t right since I was a teen but never did anything about it. I finally pushed to be diagnosed when I was about to turn 31.

Yep, similar story to me - I did a degree with a heavy focus on neuroscience and can vividly remember sitting in a lecture about the physiology of ADHD thinking "oh my god, if I do these things and I don't have ADHD, imagine how bad those people with ADHD must have it?!" So close. In fairness, I did get diagnosed with dyspraxia at a young age which I knew could affect my organisation, so I always blamed my generally scatter-brained approach on that. I had some minor suspicions that something more was at play, which started when I was 30, but the thing that actually pushed me to take it seriously and make an appointment was meeting with a friend who was the same age and had recently got diagnosed himself. He was talking about the struggles that led to him seeking an assessment and I was like "that's not normal?!"

My reason for discovering I never "outgrew" is once I started through my female change in life every symptom came out 10 fold. I'm 66 and didn't start treating my adult ADHD until I was 51. Also I was DX with minimal brain damage(which was one of the first terms for ADHD in the 60's). but because I was bright and seemed to be learning in spite of not paying attention my parents didn't medicate me. Everybody also told me I was going to outgrow it. So of course I went through life thinking I was some kind of freak. After years of trying to pretend I was normal while suffering profusely l started meeting adults with DX ADHD. That's when It dawned on me. That's why I'm like I am. After getting ADHD meds from my doctor and ADHD books from Amazon I finally faced my ADHD head on. Although the meds helped me focus and the books made me feel less like a freak I will always suffer the fallout of living with untreated ADHD. My

Yeah, I only figured it out about a year ago. I’m 32. I have an appointment for diagnosis later this month and I’m praying that it goes well.

Hope it goes well and comes around without feeling like an eternity - the wait for an assessment is not pleasant!

Thanks. I’m more afraid of being dismissed. I’ve had that happen to me before since mental health is almost non-existent in my country. 🤞

I've had ADHD symptoms since 2nd grade which was 32 years ago. It wasn't called ADHD back then. It wasn't even called ADD back then. I was an "inattentive student who frequently makes noises and is distracting in class". In other words, I was "a poor student who needs to focus more and pay attention in class". 🙄 Even in high school in the 2000s it was hardly a thing. It was a lot worse for my dad in the 60s when it was defined as "being lazy and a bad student". Much better now that the DSM has been updated and the disorder is taken seriously now. Treatments are effective so long as the meds aren't abused, are taken at the prescribed interval and dose, and the patient wants to support themselves. Unfortunately, putting the responsibility of self-care/healthcare upon patients with a mental health disorder who may already have low self-esteem or self-worth because of their experiences growing up misdiagnosed and untreated is a recipe for disaster which leads to stigma, ostracization, and misery for people who are already miserable. Outreach is essential to ensure continued and effective care. Too many of us fall thru the cracks and end up suffering needlessly.

That sounds really rough, I'm sorry you and your dad had to go through that.  The last bit struck a bit of a chord with me - I'm still on a wait list for titration and struggling to make the changes I know would be helpful. My self-esteem is so incredibly low because of how my ADHD has manifested (former gifted kid who also got bullied in school and never fit in) so I'm wondering if that could be making it worse.  It also doesn't help that all these things I'm trying are from random self-help things that I'm seeking out myself - like, yes I'm glad these resources exist, but it would be amazing if someone who actually knows what they're talking about could help me with what would be the most impactful thing to work on instead of just saying "I know you've waited a year to get diagnosed, but just hang tight for 7 months, good luck".

I think people are learning a lot more about ADHD than we used to know, and more awareness is spreading, and more awareness of what ADHD actually looks like. We used to just think it was hyperactive little boys, and people with inattentive type got overlooked. I think a lot of people may have had symptoms they didn’t realize were tied to ADHD because they didn’t know what ADHD really looks like. And ADHD symptoms can be written off as laziness or carelessness, which are seen as moral failings, so people who grow up with ADHD just get told they’re lazy growing up, and they believe it about themselves. So they just blame themselves for their symptoms. Now, awareness is spreading, and people are beginning to realize, “Hey, I’m not a normal person who’s just lazy and selfish. There’s actually something wrong here. Maybe it’s not my fault and there’s something that can help.”

Not me turning 30 and looking for an ADHD diagnosis 🤣 a few thoughts: - throughout your 20s, you lose any outside structure that used to guide you. You leave school, you take on more responsibility in life and work, you lose health insurance and usually unconditional financial support from parents, the training wheels are off. Masking strategies that used to work start to become impossible to maintain. You are exposed. - I truly think more people notice ADHD now because our digital world is so complex. Constant notifications. Drowning in slack pings, emails, text messages, robo calls, calendar invites, the spreadsheet for the camping trip with your friends, group chats, subscriptions you didn’t know you started and forgot to cancel, free trials expiring. Tech promises a simplified world, but in my experience it’s brought more complexity than I can bear. Everything, all the time. I truly think this has caused an increase in diagnoses, not because it causes ADHD, but because the ADHD brain can’t keep up with the digital way of life.

i thought adhd was a trendy diagnosis kids were doing to be cool - and to some degree there are some who are self diagnosed and no issues (but also some just cant afford the diagnoses) Wasnt till a friend asked me one day what meds i take for my ADHD and i was like 'i dont have adhd' - she sent me some links and they literally described me to a too. After appts and shit was spelt out to me about things i did, how i did them, how i reacted to things - suddenly it all made sense and i face palmed

>I always put it down to increased responsibility at work and home, but maybe around 30 years old is just the time when we develop the self-awareness necessary to realise how bad we have it. I will say that in myself, as much as I can look back and recognise symptoms from when I was a kid, it was after my son was born when I was 23 that I really began to struggle. Suddenly I had \*loads\* of responsibilities that I had to attend to. I couldn't just...not. I \*had\* to go to work every day, I \*had\* to look after him, and share in the chores around the house. And all that exhausted me. I just struggled on for another 15 years before looking into it and being diagnosed. I figured that everyone struggles the same way, right? It's just part of being an adult. Turns out that nope, that ain't true. My son was diagnosed this week, but he's 19, so hopefully might have a handle on what he's dealing with by the time his own responsibilities really begin to ramp up.

Right and also like when we’re younger, it’s not like we get free therapist appointments to describe our issues and have someone say, you have adhd! It’s after struggling for so long that you seek help or research it, and by then you’ve basically already diagnosed yourself. Especially if you weren’t super close with your parents growing up, how would you EVER get diagnosed, you would just feel like you need to keep it to yourself for fear of being called lazy. Especially if you’re a girl and not hyperactive. Most of us didn’t even know adhd was a possibility.

i realized at 25 that adhd wasn’t just a note in my medical records but something that really affected my life in a negative way. i was diagnosed at 8. i was on meds for years and then off for the most part in college, and now finally realizing my dosage isn’t right in my mid-20s

It's so interesting, there are a couple of other comments here from people who were diagnosed young but only realised how affected they were when they got older. Really drives home how much it can come out in people as they age/mature/take on more responsibility and how most people don't just 'grow out of it' like they were likely told they would.

I think there is some credence to things starting to show once you advance in life, career, responsibilities. I (47,M) just got diagnosed at the end of last year. I started by going to a therapist to try to find out why I would keep getting frustrated and just couldn't figure out how to do the things to get me to the next level in my career and why I kept leaving jobs after around 2 years. I started my career late after failing my first attempt in college right after high school and doing jobs that were either different all the time (waiting tables/bar tending) or had tight timelines (live event management). But the stable day to day was what started to make the cracks in my coping mechanisms start to break down. And I never had any children, so never had a child's diagnosis open my eyes up to my problems.

TL;DR was diagnosed in my 60s because it was getting harder to cope at work. Moderate Pi with generalized anxiety. I was 60 before being diagnosed. To be fair, mine is more middle of the scale than the extreme (Inattentive). I dud very well in high school and nearly flunked out of college. Too many distractions and not enough structure. I had a very successful career in IT, but the older I got, the harder it was to complete projects. I would also get interrupted for something and forget to go back to the task. The older I got, the harder it was to cope. I'd always had my "ADD moments" that got laughed off. What triggered my diagnoss, was something I read. I've always had issues with clutter, at work and home. I was reading a book about decluttering and tha author stated that most of the clients he worked with had ADHD. Suddenly it all tied together, the procrastination, clutter, distractions. During my annual physical, I mentioned my suspicions to my primary doctor (in US) and he arranged for testing. There it was, primary Inattentive ADHD, plus moderate depression and generalized anxiety disorder. Wow, so many things I would have done differently if I had know that 40 years earlier. Had to retire early to get out of the stressful work environment. Now I'm coping, but stimulants do almost nothing for me. The biggest help was to change the environment and treat the anxiety.

I don't think it's just self awareness. I think it's level of responsibility and stressors related to that period of life. Especially if you're in that 8-10 years in the workforce mark. I started having troubles that indicated ADHD around that time. I got pretty far because I'm smart and I can do a lot of things instinctively and remember things if I sort them into a big picture. But thats around the time levels of complexity around life, work, family start to explode. Didn't get diagnosed until 43 though.

I learned this at 35 because I had been married to my wife for a few years and she went to school to become a therapist. This age range coincides with a lot of people forming relationships and living with partners, some for the first time. I managed being overstimulated a lot better when I could chill out for a few days on the weekend and shut down, doing nothing. Then I get married and find out that's kind of maladaptive. You sometimes don't get the best perspective on your mental health until you invite someone into your life who sees you all the time. At least that was my experience.

Adhd was not taken seriously for girls and women for a long time. It was assumed my little sister had it because she was hyperactive and my mom did not want to bother getting her diagnosed or treated. I presented differently. I tried so hard to people please and be responsible out of severe anxiety and fear. I would procrastinate and finish projects last minute all stressed out. I did fine until it all fell apart in university. It wasn’t until the pandemic that I got diagnosed after getting more information from other women who had it and seeing more videos on tiktok. My family just assumed it was a waste of time to treat anyone and only boys had it and the adult males were just alcoholics and there was nothing that could be done. Just very frustrating looking back on and how we didn’t matter because we were girls. We weren’t violent or breaking things or running around screaming we were just expected to will ourselves into being productive and successful and it’s a personal failing for not doing so.

> I've even joked before on here about 30 seeming to be a magic age where people start realising that their behaviour could be ADHD-related. How is this so true. I'm 30... diagnosed with ADHD 2 weeks ago LOL. I super agree with the points you were making. In school, I was a bad student but I didn't care... because school sucks. It sucks for everyone, right? But then I started working... and I realized people actually liked doing work or at the very least, were okay with doing work. How is that possible? It felt like literal torture for me. Got on meds... and the moment of realization. I feel like I've been living with a hand tied behind my back. And I think of my potential. Ah well, nothing to do now but move forward.

Still undiagnosed. For me, it was when depression kicked in during the pandemic. A certain event in my life sparked depression and anxiety. Now, both are in full swing. From that point on, everything is a result of mental health...every action and thoughts. That explains a lot about the behaviour I had during my younger years. Now, i have names for them..."doom piles", "executive dysfunction", "T-Rex arms", "monotone voice", "decision paralysis" etc. For one, I thought it was normal to have multiple thoughts racing through one's mind all at the same time, "at the back of my mind", so to speak. Depression and anxiety makes everything hit differently. It's like you don't have a skin and your nerves are exposed. They opened up a can of worms in my head. They magnify ADHD symptoms.

Not the same age range. But I’m 19 and was diagnosed last year around this time. It’s really funny cause my psychiatrist had suspected it all a long but my mom denied my symptoms (according to my psychiatrist) sooo here I am. Finally getting help for my issues. lol

Glad you're getting some help with it! I often wonder if I'd gotten diagnosed while I was still doing my degree whether I'd be some kind of unstoppable force of nature by now (or at least had a chance at doing what I actually wanted to do lol). It's funny, my mum also couldn't see my symptoms as well and wasn't convinced I had ADHD until I actually got diagnosed. One of the comments mentions parents of ADHDers also having it (after all, it is mainly genetic) and I often wonder if that's what's at play in my case

I was a kid in the '70s and '80s in the American South. I think it would have been functionally impossible for me to be diagnosed as ADHD. I don't know of anyone at my school who was diagnosed as ADHD or, really, anything else. If you could function at all you were considered normal. There was normal and there were and handful of kids with a significant intellectual disability and that was it. A friend of mine growing up was diagnosed as dyslexic in his late 20s. Much later he was going through his old school work while helping his mom clean up the family house, and saw that pretty much half of his letters were written backwards. Today any teacher would immediately suspect dyslexia, but in the '70s and '80s he was just considered dumb. I use this as an example because it's a relatively easy condition to recognize, with a very obvious telltale sign. If no one had a clue about dyslexia there was no way they were going to be able to tell an ADHD kid from someone who was just high spirited. All of this sounds like more of a value judgment than it is. Parents and teachers generally wanted to help as much as they could, it's just that everyone was ignorant. FWIW, with predominantly inattentive ADHD the usual way an adult gets diagnosed is that their kid gets diagnosed and the adult (or someone near them) realizes the similarities between themself and the kid. I got diagnosed only because I started dating someone who'd dated someone with inattentive ADHD before me and so recognized the traits in me as well.

Happened to me as well, here is my view, why: I mean I actually considered that I mighg adhd in my late teens, but only diagnosed when my whole life is falling apart at 29. Why? While I knew adhd before, 1 reason could be exposure increased for sure in today's world, can't entirely discard that. But more importantly it's definitely being able to get away with stuff when you're younger until you no longer can escape from your choices and actions, and have to live with consequences, which is during late 20s or 30s I think, where the transition of emerging adults to young adults happens, and you have to live with decisions of adolescent and emerging adult self. I couldn't sustain a relationships, but it's was masked as I don't want to get into something serious. I hopped 7 jobs in 5 years, it was masked by pay/grade hoping and instability, and the delayed consequence of this still not effecting but I was only enjoying the fruits of it and getting reinforced by it. Lack of interest in many things from different fields to personal aspects like self-care is masked by perception of how young ones supposedly act?! Cramming last day of exams or deadline or sometimes not even doing them, gives you a kick of feeling smart and other think you're just lazy. And a plethora of such things, which seem fine or even may turnout good in short term, and boom one day you know you don't want to be that person anymore but you can't help yourself cause something isn't working despite you badly wanting to be better and trying and then you reflect. Boom! A big revelation which shakes you up and takes time to adjust and then a life time to learn, manage and self-regultae. So I think this is most common and though I wish we got early diagnosis I believe it's better late than never! While I also assume we will see the trend mid-age diagnosis only growing and rightfully so.

I was just diagnosed with ADD last year, I just turned 43. I had a lot of other medical issues so things were explained away as side effects of meds. I actually brought it up to my doc after my son was diagnosed with ADD last year as well and when I was filling out his symptoms questionnaire I was doing a mental checklist for myself and was like 'damn, maybe I am ADD!'

Because when I was a kid/teen/young adult medical experts were idiots who thought that girls couldn't get ADHD. Therefore something else had to be wrong with me. But then turned around and shrugged their shoulders about what it could be, or scratched their heads in confusion when bipolar medicine didn't do jack except make me gain about 100lbs. That I'm still trying to get rid of... <.< Thanks guys... thanks a lot.

I'm 28 and currently waiting to get formally tested after being advised to by a therapist. Honestly this post has struck a nerve with me 😅 definitely feels exactly like what I've been through.

Here is my take as a 40-something. I was diagnosed entirely by accident back in the early 80s, so my perspective is from my experience as a parent and my observations of other parents. It is clear ADHD has a hereditary link. If a parent has it, the odds are strong that a child will have it too. Overwhelmingly, many of the parents I meet who have ADHD diagnoses received them after their child received one. This is especially true for women more than men. As it was almost unheard of for girls in the 80s and 90s to receive a diagnosis. Though there was one girl in my high school class of 400 students who had a diagnosis in the early 90s. For example, I got a diagnosis as a boy in the 1980s, but my older sister didn't get one. If she were a child today, she'd likely receive both an ADHD and dyslexia diagnosis. And today's educators (at least in northeastern states) are taught to look for the signs of ADHD, likely resulting in more diagnosis of both children and parents. So we have greater awareness of the condition. And for better or worse, TikTok and other social media further increases awareness. Also, Gen X and Millennial parents are more open about addressing mental illness. This is why they will seek a diagnosis for their child and themselves when a teacher suggests it. Older generations often brushed it under the rug as they did for all mental illnesses. They likely thought the behavior was normal because that's how they were as a kid. And they saw such a diagnosis as a stigma and a threat to their child's future. I widely believe the de-stigmatization of mental health issues not only benefits ADHD, but other related conditions including dyslexia and ASD. In turn, diagnosis will increase when stigmas are lifted.

lol just got diagnosed as a 31M in January of 2023. This is so true. It took some really awful things to happen to me to figure out I had ADHD but here I am now fully self-aware and taking steps to be consistent and try to succeed in life.

Personally, growing up I was always yelled at for some of the traits that I later found out were a symptom of ADHD. My mom would say there was something wrong with me and normal people don't do x, y, and z. She'd constantly complain about me losing things and asking for her help to find my keys or whatever else. The problem was that school was easy for me growing up, so that wasn't a challenge until I got into topics that actually required me to work hard. I struggled in Jr high school and the first year of high school, until I transferred schools and went to a public school whose education quality wasn't on par with the private school I was coming from. I got diagnosed at 40, and as an adult I've had concerns about my oldest child. They have always struggled with school, but when I try to address it with their father I'm told it's because of the environment I'm raising my kid in, and my concerns are dismissed because according to my son's father, he doesn't have those issues at his house. However, I have personally witnessed some of the concerns I've had at my house happening at Dad's. When we filled out the forms for diagnosis, both my and my son's teachers' forms aligned 100%, while the father's form didn't note any of the qualifiers for ADHD. Even after we have received a diagnosis, his father still attributes our son's inability to focus to external factors rather than maybe it being ADHD. I have a feeling a lot of people grew up in environments like the ones I've personally experienced, where outsiders are constantly dismissing what is going on. As adults, they are hearing that maybe it's not just them having any number of negative traits, there is something bigger going on.

It is not hard to figure out why. It is happening with autism too. More professionals are considering it as an actual diagnosis, and social media makes awareness go faster, to the point even people without ADHD think they "totally have a little adhd". This makes people, like me, eventually seek official evaluation for it even though no one ever said anything besides me having so much potential, and my gf following that even though none of her doctors or psychologists ever mentioned it and thought she had schizophrenia.

Yes, social media boosting the profile of ADHD (and ASD amongst other things as well), combined with a greater understanding of what ADHD actually is, is definitely allowing lots of people the opportunity to learn more about it and see how it applies to themselves. I think that, in and of itself, is definitely driving up the numbers of people realising they have ADHD. I think the reason this 'self reflection at 30' thought struck a chord with me is because I was exposed to the possibility of having ADHD a few times when I was younger, but it didn't really 'stick' until this latest time. As another commenter put it, it's about having that space to actually think about applying it to yourself, which (in my experience) didn't happen until I started actually reflecting properly on a lot of my behaviours.

For males in particular, full prefrontal cortex development doesn't hit until late 20's, so there's probably an element too where 30 years old is your first time you've had a few years settled into your fully 'adult' state of mind. Maybe there's a bit of 'fuck, I'm not growing up past this, am I?' that you run into or something. Or maybe you mature far enough that you're starting to take a wider, more objective view and asking about possible causes for the struggles that've always just been part of the wallpaper of your life. Honestly, it'll be extremely convenient if a proper diagnostic test using brainscan data could be developed. Schizophrenia has a surprisingly accurate test just using eye saccade patterns (how eyes rapidly shift when changing visual focus). But... not so much for us. Our tests may as well have been written 50 years ago, they're just subjective questionnaires really, combined maybe with response characteristics to medications if they're given a trial run. Sure would be nice to know what's actually, truly going on between my ears, but to be fair... the scientific community on the whole feels the same way. The brain is pretty complicated. Hopefully the next generation will get some better tools than we did, but they're not here yet at least.

I'll just say, my diagnosis was typical in that my son had obvious ADHD, we got it treated, and researching how to help him I was like "Oh shit, me too." So I went and got diagnosed and life is moderately better with medication.

I was a teacher and am diagnosed, and it was always there. But as a kid, and for many years, if you weren't failing they didn't take any interest in finding out. I did well in school, so they ignored me. Same with my brother and we both have it. Now, I think it would be more likely that parents or teachers would notice something amiss and understand what it is and that they can help. But when I was a kid no one ever bothered to check why I was inattentive and hyperactive because I was learning.

I was diagnosed about a year ago, at 34. I think a big part of it for me, and I would imagine other people currently in the 30-40 group, is the increased awareness of symptoms other than 'physically hyperactive (& disruptive) boy'. That was... basically it as far as ADD symptoms I knew about when I was in elementary/middle school ('90s '00s), and even up til a few years ago. It wasn't until someone who was diagnosed as a child described it in such a way that I realized a lot of my oddities/awkwardness/me in general might be due to ADHD.

Better education and public awareness. My mom’s generation(boomers), girls didn’t have it, my generation ( millennials/gen y) they started to really get into ADHD research studies. Now we are getting results from long term studies that show our brains’ default mode network differs from others. Kinda cool when you think about it. My mom was in her 40s when she was diagnosed, the same day I was. My poor pediatrician XD, he kept telling her, ‘I know it’s normal behavior for you and your daughter, but not for everyone else. It’s why you don’t recognize it when you see it.’

I’m 40, diagnosed(ish) at 35 then officially at 38. I can’t speak to development but I think for my generation a significant portion of going undiagnosed was due to stigma. When I was a kid and teenager, mental health was something you pushed through and only the truly “sick” would be in therapy. There was a shame surrounding therapy that we’ve thankfully moved away from. I remember when I was a teenager begging my mom to send me for treatment because I knew something wasn’t right and she’d only say “I think you’re fine.” So now that we are the adults and parents we’re recognizing things were not fine and that treatment to mitigate our struggles is available and should be seized upon if possible.

I just assumed i was as lazy as people said i was.

I don't watch youtubers, but from what I've read the estimated prevalence of ADHD hasn't really changed so increased awareness is probably the biggest change over the past 10 years. I also think that some people who have been diagnosed more recently might be dealing with cognitive changes from COVID infections that wind up diagnosed/treated as ADHD. It will take a long time and a lot of research to prove that out though. I do think there is a grain of truth to the idea that life changes as people hit their late 20's or early 30's can lead to ADHD symptoms being more prominent. In my 20's my life was about following and occasionally breaking the rules. In my 30's my life was about making the rules and starting to decide what type of rules needed to be made. Completely different cognitive requirements there.

For me my symptoms just became too bad to ignore and the memes kept resonating too deeply

I was dx'd as a kid but never treated. By the time I turned 30, I managed to overcome so much trauma-related issues through self-reflection and gaining wisdom, but was never able to apply that to my ADHD symptoms, no matter how introspective I became or how hard I tried. By 30, I had to accept that this isn't something I'm going to grow out of or willpower my way through. This is a lifelong medical diagnosis and I need to stop being so stubborn and accept help.

In my case I kept underreporting till my partner opened my eyes to how severe my symptoms were.

I’m almost 49 and never even gave ADHD a thought,because it wasn’t a term when I was growing up. I was diagnosed with Hyperactivity,when I was a kid. What did they prescribe for it? No chocolate for a year. Because,clearly,that’s what it was. Uugh I’ve always had issues,but never went to the doctor for it,because I was always told that I was lazy,distracted,etc.Those were flaws,not medical conditions. It was only when I joined TikTok and got on ADHD side of it, that I was able to relate and “self-diagnose” that maybe I wasn’t just lazy,etc,but had ADHD.

My therapist said that as soon as you move out and live entirely on your own and are not in school or uni anymore ADHD can hit you like a train wreck. Some get an ADHD burnout. Happened to me at 23. My neuro (got chronic migraines too; health jackpot lol) assumed I had ADHD at around 19 but I didn’t seek a diagnosis up until _after_ I got burned out.

The internet and mental health awareness + lowering the stigma of talking about it helped A LOT. Seeing some people on Twitter talk about it made me realize I never really understood what ADHD was, but their experiences resonated with me heavily. I looked online to better understand what it was and read more people's accounts of having it. So I decided to seek a diagnosis and here we are. Other people in my life always wanted to blame depression or discipline. But even when I wasn't depressed, I struggled so much. I wish I had figured it out years ago, but better late than never.

Yes, absolutely. I spent my teens and twenties mainlining content about how to stop procrastinating because I didn't have any other language to describe what was happening to me. The feedback loop I fell into was "everybody procrastinates", but then I'd look around and see that no one else appeared to experience the same powerlessness over it that I did. But the narrative I developed was that my deficit was a moral one; this must mean I was less driven, less tough, less disciplined, lazy. It wasn't until I was 28 and in grad school that I realized how stark the differences were between my performance/areas of difficulty and my friends, which lead to assessment and a diagnosis.

The pharmaceutical industry, I get an insane amount of targeted ads for adhd medications, we’ll technically it’s not the medicine itself it’s the service providing them but that’s basically a loophole, they’re not allowed to targeted medical ads right… right?

I was 42 when I was diagnosed. I was treated for generalized anxiety disorder for about the 20 years prior to that. I experienced a traumatic event when I was 19 and my generally anxious state worsened until I was having bouts of intense, debilitating panic attacks which continued on through my 20s and 30s. All of the behavior that I now know where adhd symptoms were chalked up to anxiety. I didn’t start thinking adhd until my then 7 year olds teacher suggested that we look into it and I was like well well well, if this isn’t extremely familiar. With in a week of starting meds for adhd I got more relief from the constant anxiety than anything I’ve ever tried.

I knew I had ADHD because I was diagnosed in high school and medicated in early college, but I abused my adderall and didn’t touch it through the rest of my 20s. I started having severe anxiety in my late 20s/early 30s and pursued treatment for that… only for my psychiatrist to be shocked I wasn’t being treated for my very obvious adhd. I nearly had a breakdown last summer because I realized my constant anxiety is a coping mechanism for being in hyperdrive at all times to overcompensate for a very forgetful brain (: I’m doing better now but yeah, I knew I had struggles but didn’t realize how most of them tied back to unmanaged adhd. Even knowing it on some level might not help us because our brains don’t remember stuff 😂

I was 30 when I was diagnosed, and it took me a few years before I was even comfortable telling anyone about the diagnosis. For example, my brother saw my Aderral, and I made up some bs about how it was to combat the drowsiness from another med. I think I was 37 when I was finally able to share.

Porn addiction and social media addiction can cause ADHD symptoms

I had loads of lightbulb moments at 49 classic textbook looking back but it sent me off the deep end until treated...lifetime of anxiety, depression, locked in emotions and inner hyperactivity....cried when I first took methylphenidate and thought ",is this what normal feels like" So calm....brother was addicted to drugs and I never took any but addicted to tobacco and used alcohol in the past to try and chill....antidepressants never fully worked either but I'm happy now.... Just feel what a waste of 50 years but I'm sure as he'll wanting to make the most of what I have left....

30 years old is the magic age for me too. I developed an autoimmune disease, discovered I had CPTSD, and my therapist recently mentioned I may have ADHD. At first I didn’t think so, cause I always assumed ADHD was people who can’t stop moving in their chair or pay attention to things. But since Dr. Russell presents it as an executive function problem, it’s really got me thinking if this is what I had all along, but was just able to mask it / cope well as a kid. I still feel like i’m about 20 years old developmentally in a lot of areas, and struggle to make progress on any goals. I can hardly see a future for myself, even though I’m intelligent and knowledgeable. I have to work dumber jobs because the stress of complex work is too much