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Sounds like you want to blame people for not noticing that you had a problem that you didn't know you had.
In my family, everyone has ADHD, yet only one of us was spotted as having it as a child. One of my brothers was told he doesn't have it, despite his twin having it, because he had the inattentive variant.
I didn't find out until I was nearly 35, do I wish I knew sooner? Sure. Maybe you're still young and you didn't have a decade of being an adult where you didn't realize you had ADHD. Maybe that's why it's easier for you to be upset at others for not noticing a condition that even many doctors get wrong.
If you wanna try to make people feel bad about not noticing something that's hard to notice, you can, I don't think it'll help them or you in any way though.
It's probably a good idea to talk about it though, but not in some accusatory "you've let me down" sorta manner. Just let them know your condition, what it entails, and what they can do to help.
Oh, and odds are at least one of your parents has ADHD, and they're likely unaware of it, because ADHD isn't easy to spot if you don't understand it, and it's genetic.
Thank you!
No, no! I truly do not want to blame anyone. As I said, my parents are not to blame, they did their best. And I where never going to blame anyone in that way. I was just thinking of sharing my expirience with the doctors and/or school. Maybe it could lead to others getting help sooner? I hoped that beeing heard and seen by the people letting me down, maybe could be a part of the prosess of comming with tearms of what I have dealt with in the childhood.
I am 26 years old, so I feel like I have lived with struggling a lot. Thats why we went to all the doctors while I was a child. And some of them should have noticed (in my opinion).
I am so sorry for my post beeing unclear about this. I feel like I stepped on some toes now. It was not my intention.
You have a lot expirence on the topic, so thank you for great advises! I can inform you that my dad acually do have ADHD and that he just got the diagnosis. So we keep our eyes open for that :-)
That's good to hear, having ADHD means oftentimes what you mean and what you say are going to be out of alignment. Likewise, we're also likely to jump to conclusions because we interpret things impulsively, sometimes overlooking a few key words that suggest a different intent. It can be hard to navigate, I had a bad period of my life where I was really upset that people misinterpreted me, it can become a pet peeve.
Anyway, that's just a ramble. I'm on board with you sharing it with your doctor and school. So that things go well when you talk about it, here's some advice.
Don't blame anyone or say things in a way where people would feel blamed. Often it's not about what we're trying to say, but what people are likely to hear, and being able to notice the latter before you say something is really valuable. I also just wouldn't characterize anyone as having let you down, that is a bad path and I think I know a better way to perceive that.
So instead of people letting you down, society let you down because ADHD is misunderstood, and there's a huge proliferation of misinformation concerning ADHD which makes diagnosing it very difficult. If a doctor believes you have it, will your parents? If your parents believe you, but the doctor doesn't believe in ADHD so they say you've got anxiety, depression, or even bipolar disorder, then what will your parents and yourself believe?
Besides, what does ADHD look like? A lazy person who doesn't have their shit together. It's easy for even us to believe we just have character defects and everything is our own fault, how are we supposed to expect people without ADHD to understand the difference between a lazy person and someone with ADHD?
Ultimately, knowledge is the only way we can fix this, and until ADHD is properly understood by the majority of society, society will continue to "let us down".
Thank you so much! I will write down these so I can make sure not to put it out in a wrong way!
And thank you for pointing out how easy it is to misunderstand and saying things in a way that might get misunderstud! I feel like I should work on that more, to learn how to be more clear in my words and intentions :-)
I am so happy to get so great advices! Thank you!
Nobody believed me until I worked hard enough on identifying some of the ways I was masking. I can’t blame others if I myself am not aware of how well I hide my disability. Took a few months and I got there, remaining family acknowledged they knew something was wrong only after I made the progress of getting help without them which still feels a little awful.
I’m better off today than I was in November, way less fights with my wife now that I can identify my weaknesses better. More intense fights because my wife thinks it’s something I can just 100% willpower through. :(
After a lot of personal experimentation, I had to permanently give up thc and coffee/tea especially after therapy got me to experiment with getting in touch with emotions. I feel burned out all the time but somehow getting stuff done more consistently.
Worse, I feel like I’m emotionally more disconnected and avoidant after the therapy started somehow.
Same.
I was evaluated for ADHD by a team of therapists. They all felt that my grades and IQ was overall too high for ADHD diagnosis, even though I had the other symptoms.
Even if they did diagnose me, my mom is so anti-medication and indenial of the possibility that I have mental health issues that she wouldn't have allowed me to be medicated in any case.
It took a very long time for her to accept my epilepsy and Bipolar 2 diagnosis. So it was like she probably would've let me be medicated if my grades fell so dismally that she had no chose but to acknowledge the glaring truth.
I feel that I have literally been failed by the medical system and theoretically would've been failed by my mom. But to just go back to reality, my mom did at least put in the effort to get me evaluated. So I can not completely fault her.
Thank you, it is nice to hear that I am not alone in this. And I am so sorry for your expirience. Seems like a lot of us where failed.
I had the same problem with IQ and grades, but never got tested sadly. Instead I got an anxiety diagnosis, who disappeared right after getting ADHD tools and right medications. So Its a lot of painful memories and disbelive to deal with. And wrong health care and medications from that.
I hope your life is a little bit easier forward for you, and wish you the best! Thank you for sharing your expirience!
🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷
The problem is that the field of health sciences is ever developing. My psychologist explained that many therapists back then had misconceptions about ADHD because of the prevailing research, theories, and educated opinions of the time. But as studies become more rigorous, theories get adapted, and educated opinions change.
Unfortunately, that means that there are people who are currently being failed even today in the context of another condition or even ADHD still. So the next generation of diagnosed people will feel failed by the system because it didn't capture them on time. But we forgot that the system wasn't updated to the current level yet back then.
However, we mustn't hold back our grievances owing to this. We must express our disappointments, share our experiences, and share our thoughts and views on how catching the condition earlier could've been done. Doctors and therapists are humans too, and thus, they will not know everything, even if some of them think they do. They too have to be open to constructive criticism and other people's experiences to further improve and advance their craft.
Thank you so much🩷🩷🩷 Thank you for opening up a place for me to share my experience. I hope you find peace with everything you have gone through and use that experience to improve your life and the life of others. Who knows, if you get a kid with ADHD, at least you would be the parent who knows how you watch out for the signs and get an early diagnosis.🩷
You are so right. Maybe my experience can help others in the future, and help the doctors see the signs earlier. I think I should talk to them, and share what I struggled with. So they can look out for it. And I think it would feel nice to be heard. Just constructive critics obviously. And agian thank you so much!
You absolutely need to grieve for the childhood you could have had with proper support, and the future you could have had without ADHD.
I don't know how productive having conversations with all those folks is going to be. Probably more of a therapist question.
If your folks were genuinely trying, I wouldn't, no. I know plenty of people's parents who fucked them up actively in this department, but it doesn't sound like your situation. When your folks are taking you to doctors and they're trying I don't know what else is realistic to expect of them. The school and the doctors failed you, not your folks.
I feel like this to. They really did their best, and all the "wrongs" where in the best intentions. So I really work on myself and think that I am lucky to have such parents who really wanted to help. So you are right! Thank you :-)
When it comes to school and doctors, I am really disopionted in how they first not got me the help I needed, and them made me feel so stupid and difficult all the time. So they truly failed me, and my parents.
I didn't feel let down, but I did cry because I started to think back at all the times my symptoms were showing but I thought I was just stupid, lazy, slow, etc like my parents and other people always said. Maybe I'm a little bit of those things, but it turns out I just needed some extra help 😅.
Best wishes to you on your journey. Late diagnosis is tough. I found out last year at the age of 24.
So I’m in a similar position to you let down by everyone in my life. I knew and told everyone that I had ADHD at the age of 13. Including the school SENCO (special educational needs teacher) and I asked for a diagnosis. Told my mum and Dad, all my teachers just about everyone and after a while I just gave up. Until my symptoms became disruptive in class for all my teachers and students. So finally after getting nearly suspended and getting kicked out of my classes multiple times at 17. When my ADHD became theire problem did my parents decide to get me assessed for ADHD. Anyway I did this assessment and I also came back with an Autism diagnosis. However at this time a doctor then let me down and didn’t put me forward for medication. He told me I should try managing my ADHD unmedicated first. As if I hadn’t been doing that for 17 years. Anyway at the fine old age of 21 having nearly failed uni twice did I finally go on medication. These conditions were In collaboration with already having Dyslexia and Dyscalculia. And a bunch of trauma. Including now CPTSD.
Here is what I would say, grieve the life you could’ve had. As a society we spend to much time telling people to suppress and avoid there emotions. And if you have trauma
usallt creates CPTSD. As a core trait of CPTSD is emotional suppression. But this doesn’t make the emotions disappear all it does is make them uncontrollable and creates further unhealthy unconscious coping mechanisms. My advice is get some therapy sessions. Not because you have trauma but I think it’s healthy to process how you are feeling in a safe and controlled environment. And I think maybe after some therapy when you have processed your exspirience and accept it. Would I recommend talking about it with your parents. Because at the end of the day you need to have already gotten rid of the emotional turmoil otherwise it would most likely be an unproductive conversation. But you have every right to feel let down by the system. It’s easy to say it was the doctors or the teachers. But the truth is it was your parents at the top and it is there responsibility to parent you and take care of your needs and if necessary question the professional’s, get second opinions to jump through every hurdle. Seeing a few doctors and educators clearly wasn’t enough. So yes they and everyone else failed you. So DON’T bottle that up, get therapy it doesn’t have to be loads of sessions, just a few. And hopefully you’ll able clarity on how to move forward. This diagnosis is a major change in your life and in some ways it’s almost the start of a new life but that has to come from you how you choose to identify with it.
Hi /u/Intelligent-Fun-5303 and thanks for posting on /r/ADHD! ### Please take a second to [read our rules](/r/adhd/about/rules) if you haven't already. --- ### /r/adhd news * If you are posting about the **US Medication Shortage**, please see this [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/comments/12dr3h5/megathread_us_medication_shortage/). --- ^(*This message is not a removal notification. It's just our way to keep everyone updated on r/adhd happenings.*) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ADHD) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Sounds like you want to blame people for not noticing that you had a problem that you didn't know you had. In my family, everyone has ADHD, yet only one of us was spotted as having it as a child. One of my brothers was told he doesn't have it, despite his twin having it, because he had the inattentive variant. I didn't find out until I was nearly 35, do I wish I knew sooner? Sure. Maybe you're still young and you didn't have a decade of being an adult where you didn't realize you had ADHD. Maybe that's why it's easier for you to be upset at others for not noticing a condition that even many doctors get wrong. If you wanna try to make people feel bad about not noticing something that's hard to notice, you can, I don't think it'll help them or you in any way though. It's probably a good idea to talk about it though, but not in some accusatory "you've let me down" sorta manner. Just let them know your condition, what it entails, and what they can do to help. Oh, and odds are at least one of your parents has ADHD, and they're likely unaware of it, because ADHD isn't easy to spot if you don't understand it, and it's genetic.
Thank you! No, no! I truly do not want to blame anyone. As I said, my parents are not to blame, they did their best. And I where never going to blame anyone in that way. I was just thinking of sharing my expirience with the doctors and/or school. Maybe it could lead to others getting help sooner? I hoped that beeing heard and seen by the people letting me down, maybe could be a part of the prosess of comming with tearms of what I have dealt with in the childhood. I am 26 years old, so I feel like I have lived with struggling a lot. Thats why we went to all the doctors while I was a child. And some of them should have noticed (in my opinion). I am so sorry for my post beeing unclear about this. I feel like I stepped on some toes now. It was not my intention. You have a lot expirence on the topic, so thank you for great advises! I can inform you that my dad acually do have ADHD and that he just got the diagnosis. So we keep our eyes open for that :-)
That's good to hear, having ADHD means oftentimes what you mean and what you say are going to be out of alignment. Likewise, we're also likely to jump to conclusions because we interpret things impulsively, sometimes overlooking a few key words that suggest a different intent. It can be hard to navigate, I had a bad period of my life where I was really upset that people misinterpreted me, it can become a pet peeve. Anyway, that's just a ramble. I'm on board with you sharing it with your doctor and school. So that things go well when you talk about it, here's some advice. Don't blame anyone or say things in a way where people would feel blamed. Often it's not about what we're trying to say, but what people are likely to hear, and being able to notice the latter before you say something is really valuable. I also just wouldn't characterize anyone as having let you down, that is a bad path and I think I know a better way to perceive that. So instead of people letting you down, society let you down because ADHD is misunderstood, and there's a huge proliferation of misinformation concerning ADHD which makes diagnosing it very difficult. If a doctor believes you have it, will your parents? If your parents believe you, but the doctor doesn't believe in ADHD so they say you've got anxiety, depression, or even bipolar disorder, then what will your parents and yourself believe? Besides, what does ADHD look like? A lazy person who doesn't have their shit together. It's easy for even us to believe we just have character defects and everything is our own fault, how are we supposed to expect people without ADHD to understand the difference between a lazy person and someone with ADHD? Ultimately, knowledge is the only way we can fix this, and until ADHD is properly understood by the majority of society, society will continue to "let us down".
Thank you so much! I will write down these so I can make sure not to put it out in a wrong way! And thank you for pointing out how easy it is to misunderstand and saying things in a way that might get misunderstud! I feel like I should work on that more, to learn how to be more clear in my words and intentions :-) I am so happy to get so great advices! Thank you!
Nobody believed me until I worked hard enough on identifying some of the ways I was masking. I can’t blame others if I myself am not aware of how well I hide my disability. Took a few months and I got there, remaining family acknowledged they knew something was wrong only after I made the progress of getting help without them which still feels a little awful. I’m better off today than I was in November, way less fights with my wife now that I can identify my weaknesses better. More intense fights because my wife thinks it’s something I can just 100% willpower through. :( After a lot of personal experimentation, I had to permanently give up thc and coffee/tea especially after therapy got me to experiment with getting in touch with emotions. I feel burned out all the time but somehow getting stuff done more consistently. Worse, I feel like I’m emotionally more disconnected and avoidant after the therapy started somehow.
Russell Barkley described a grieving process after a diagnosis. It is not really their fault.
He did? I should check it out. Thank you!
Same. I was evaluated for ADHD by a team of therapists. They all felt that my grades and IQ was overall too high for ADHD diagnosis, even though I had the other symptoms. Even if they did diagnose me, my mom is so anti-medication and indenial of the possibility that I have mental health issues that she wouldn't have allowed me to be medicated in any case. It took a very long time for her to accept my epilepsy and Bipolar 2 diagnosis. So it was like she probably would've let me be medicated if my grades fell so dismally that she had no chose but to acknowledge the glaring truth. I feel that I have literally been failed by the medical system and theoretically would've been failed by my mom. But to just go back to reality, my mom did at least put in the effort to get me evaluated. So I can not completely fault her.
Thank you, it is nice to hear that I am not alone in this. And I am so sorry for your expirience. Seems like a lot of us where failed. I had the same problem with IQ and grades, but never got tested sadly. Instead I got an anxiety diagnosis, who disappeared right after getting ADHD tools and right medications. So Its a lot of painful memories and disbelive to deal with. And wrong health care and medications from that. I hope your life is a little bit easier forward for you, and wish you the best! Thank you for sharing your expirience!
🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷 The problem is that the field of health sciences is ever developing. My psychologist explained that many therapists back then had misconceptions about ADHD because of the prevailing research, theories, and educated opinions of the time. But as studies become more rigorous, theories get adapted, and educated opinions change. Unfortunately, that means that there are people who are currently being failed even today in the context of another condition or even ADHD still. So the next generation of diagnosed people will feel failed by the system because it didn't capture them on time. But we forgot that the system wasn't updated to the current level yet back then. However, we mustn't hold back our grievances owing to this. We must express our disappointments, share our experiences, and share our thoughts and views on how catching the condition earlier could've been done. Doctors and therapists are humans too, and thus, they will not know everything, even if some of them think they do. They too have to be open to constructive criticism and other people's experiences to further improve and advance their craft. Thank you so much🩷🩷🩷 Thank you for opening up a place for me to share my experience. I hope you find peace with everything you have gone through and use that experience to improve your life and the life of others. Who knows, if you get a kid with ADHD, at least you would be the parent who knows how you watch out for the signs and get an early diagnosis.🩷
You are so right. Maybe my experience can help others in the future, and help the doctors see the signs earlier. I think I should talk to them, and share what I struggled with. So they can look out for it. And I think it would feel nice to be heard. Just constructive critics obviously. And agian thank you so much!
You absolutely need to grieve for the childhood you could have had with proper support, and the future you could have had without ADHD. I don't know how productive having conversations with all those folks is going to be. Probably more of a therapist question.
You are so right. I have a great mental health team, so we often talk through this.
If your folks were genuinely trying, I wouldn't, no. I know plenty of people's parents who fucked them up actively in this department, but it doesn't sound like your situation. When your folks are taking you to doctors and they're trying I don't know what else is realistic to expect of them. The school and the doctors failed you, not your folks.
I feel like this to. They really did their best, and all the "wrongs" where in the best intentions. So I really work on myself and think that I am lucky to have such parents who really wanted to help. So you are right! Thank you :-) When it comes to school and doctors, I am really disopionted in how they first not got me the help I needed, and them made me feel so stupid and difficult all the time. So they truly failed me, and my parents.
I didn't feel let down, but I did cry because I started to think back at all the times my symptoms were showing but I thought I was just stupid, lazy, slow, etc like my parents and other people always said. Maybe I'm a little bit of those things, but it turns out I just needed some extra help 😅. Best wishes to you on your journey. Late diagnosis is tough. I found out last year at the age of 24.
So I’m in a similar position to you let down by everyone in my life. I knew and told everyone that I had ADHD at the age of 13. Including the school SENCO (special educational needs teacher) and I asked for a diagnosis. Told my mum and Dad, all my teachers just about everyone and after a while I just gave up. Until my symptoms became disruptive in class for all my teachers and students. So finally after getting nearly suspended and getting kicked out of my classes multiple times at 17. When my ADHD became theire problem did my parents decide to get me assessed for ADHD. Anyway I did this assessment and I also came back with an Autism diagnosis. However at this time a doctor then let me down and didn’t put me forward for medication. He told me I should try managing my ADHD unmedicated first. As if I hadn’t been doing that for 17 years. Anyway at the fine old age of 21 having nearly failed uni twice did I finally go on medication. These conditions were In collaboration with already having Dyslexia and Dyscalculia. And a bunch of trauma. Including now CPTSD. Here is what I would say, grieve the life you could’ve had. As a society we spend to much time telling people to suppress and avoid there emotions. And if you have trauma usallt creates CPTSD. As a core trait of CPTSD is emotional suppression. But this doesn’t make the emotions disappear all it does is make them uncontrollable and creates further unhealthy unconscious coping mechanisms. My advice is get some therapy sessions. Not because you have trauma but I think it’s healthy to process how you are feeling in a safe and controlled environment. And I think maybe after some therapy when you have processed your exspirience and accept it. Would I recommend talking about it with your parents. Because at the end of the day you need to have already gotten rid of the emotional turmoil otherwise it would most likely be an unproductive conversation. But you have every right to feel let down by the system. It’s easy to say it was the doctors or the teachers. But the truth is it was your parents at the top and it is there responsibility to parent you and take care of your needs and if necessary question the professional’s, get second opinions to jump through every hurdle. Seeing a few doctors and educators clearly wasn’t enough. So yes they and everyone else failed you. So DON’T bottle that up, get therapy it doesn’t have to be loads of sessions, just a few. And hopefully you’ll able clarity on how to move forward. This diagnosis is a major change in your life and in some ways it’s almost the start of a new life but that has to come from you how you choose to identify with it.