I was also recently diagnosed in my mid thirties, I’ve strongly assumed I’ve had adhd for the past 3-4 years but never went to get a diagnosis because I’m generally successful at work, have a bs and masters in sorts difficult fields, and did pretty okay in school (I was just “lazy” and didn’t do homework, but would ace tests). Over the past year though work has gotten extremely busy and we’ve been very short staffed and it’s all caught up with me. I had a couple of episodes of near burn out that made me realize I needed to do something. Hit a fairly quick appointment with a psychologist to do testing and learned that I have combined type adhd but it was likely not noticed because my general intelligence is above average so I wouldn’t have necessarily shown the same classic signs in school. I’ve talked to my parents about it and my mom honestly never considered adhd, but as I described typical symptoms she could name tons of times I showed most of them. My brother dies too, as does my dad and uncle (we’ve always joked that the family gene was our knack of starting a hobby, getting just good enough to prove we could do it then jumping to something else, also our habit of just putting down tools and such when a job is done and never putting them away, turns out that family gene is just adhd). I’m not mad at my parents, they aren’t doctors and in the 90s/2000s add/adhd had a stigma around it for kids that had it, so if I wasn’t running in circles in the corner then of course I didn’t have it. Recently started on atomoxetine and it’s taken a couple weeks but I for sure can tell a difference. I do wonder how things like my social anxiety and overall productivity would be different if I had been on meds for the past 5 years, 10 years, etc. I don’t think I’d be in the same place I am now, but I don’t know that I’d be better out worse, just maybe a bit more satisfied in a more regular basis. Our struggles and experiences are what mages us who we are. You have the friends you do, interests you enjoy, and hobbies (maybe too many) you do because of your past. Sure it wasn’t the most fun, and certainly not easy, but don’t look at it like a loss or a waste, look at now like a new chapter that you are entering.

Welcome friend! I hope your experience is as good as mine with taking meds and living with ADHD.

I never knew i had it until I was 23 and wadnt officially diagnosed until I was 26. I spent my whole life thinking I was lazy, stupid, and blamed all the other things that my ADHD created like anxiety and depression.

I went to 2 psychs, one said i had depression which yea no shit, you’d be depressed too if you couldn’t do anything and wanted to do everything all at the same time for over 20 years, but the second psych i went to immediately recommended ADHD meds given all the symptoms i told her about as well as all the things i had already tried or was currently doing and still do to this day.

Its been an experience learning to not only do what I love/need to do but also rest. Part of me wants to go forever but if I dont rest, ill burn out. Overall its beem very positive for me. My mood is better, I can focus, I dont hear bits of music on reapeat every day all the time, I CAN THINK.

Absolutely life changing. I feel like i got off easy, first med I tried (generic adderall) has worked very well for me. Only noticeble side effect is I’m less hungry which is fine because i like to intermittent fast anyways.

I wish my wife could have this experience. :-( She’s been cycling through different meds trying to find one that makes her feel the relief and joy that many people talk about when they get meds.

My Mom was a teacher. Her opinion was that bad teachers with poor classroom management skills were causing ADD hysteria. In a way she was right. I didn’t have discipline issues, so nobody at school pushed for me to get treatment. I had this story about myself. I was lazy and apathetic. That’s why I had trouble doing homework. That’s why I failed out of college. As an adult, realizing that I suffered from untreated ADHD, that my life could have been easier…its hard. Coming to terms with the injury that our parents inevitably cause is uncomfortable. I try to remember that fallibility is the human condition. I know I’m making mistakes with my son. I just hope that I’m getting more right than I get wrong.

I wasn’t diagnosed until my 30s, initially misdiagnosed as bipolar because hyperfocus was misdiagnosed as mania but after some med side effects and a better discussion with a new doc I got the right diagnosis and have been happy on ritalin for like a decade. Well, happy until it goes on back order every few years.

I completely relate to all the memes about being gifted and then crashing and burning in college when a lack of structure caught up with me. Doing really well now that I can keep it together for more complex tasks during the workday so I can put my creative way of seeing things to better use!

Still have to do the patterns because meds don’t work 24 hours, but I can at least plan to take care of most things that I don’t want to do before they wear off so my wandering mind doesn’t sabotage my efforts.

I only recently got diagnosed with ADHD as well and I 100% feel you.

I got through highschool with a C average because I aced all my tests and did no homework. I flunked out of college because I would frequently get to campus and then be stuck sitting in my vehicle unable to make myself actually get out and go to class. I got diagnosed with depression and spent the next decade cycling through various antidepressants that sometimes seemed to do something but never actually fixed what was wrong with me. I talked to my gen prac about if it could be ADHD and he shot me down immediately. I tried to get in to see a psych but everywhere was so booked up that I couldn’t even get on a waiting list. I went bankrupt, nearly lost my house, and only kept my job through some miracle because some years I missed more work days than I actually worked. I had no social life. I was a hermit and only refrained from serving myself the Kurt Cobain breakfast special because my mom would be sad.

Then one day about 3 months ago my only remaining friend said that their psychiatrist had openings and I got in there. I took one test and he said I definitely have ADHD. I got put on aderall and immediately everything clicked into place. I could think. My brain stopped perpetually screaming incoherently at me. I could actually make myself do things. If there was something I needed to do then I could just go and do it without sitting there locked up for hours telling myself that I need to do it and doing nothing. I could go to work. I could talk to people. I could begin organizing the disaster I had turned my life into, plan a way out, and actually follow through on that plan. I’m applying for new real jobs. I’m grooming myself. I’m paying my bills. I’m ~working on~ socializing. I’m losing weight. I’m eating healthier. I’m getting hobbies as my still limited income allows. I can actually live my life. It is exhilarating and depressing at the same time because like you said, where would I be if I had actually been treated a decade ago? Where would I be if I hadn’t spent the past 10 years sabotaging myself? There’s the exhilaration of finally being free but I’m also mourning the loss of what could have been.

Now I’m in the process of going off the antidepressants I had most recently been on to see how I do just on the adderall and even in the middle of withdrawls I feel far better than I ever had in close to a decade. Yes I was depressed but that depression was because I looked around me and saw people succeeding where for me even the simplest tasks felt like trying to drag myself through a pile of broken glass. As soon as I was able to actually function and meet my own expectations of myself that depression seems to have vanished.

Wow! Similar story here!

Was around 8 or 9 when I was diagnosed. They put me on Ritalin and it turned me into a zombie according to my mother. So… she took me off it.

Cut to 40 years later, I had all but forgotten about the diagnosis and had been being treated for depression and anxiety for decades.

New prescriber suggested we go after the ADHD aggressively, prescribed Vyvanse- and holy shit if my life isn’t different now.

So happy for you! The right meds make an actual world of difference.

Congrats!

This is SO insane. I wonder in my case how something could have been done sooner. The suffering has been going on undiagnosed and untreated for at least 35 years.

One thing that would have helped is if either a teacher or my parent who is a teacher would have been like: Ok, maybe 5 % chance of attention disorder, check it out please.

Sometimes, I suspect that a teacher got it and reported it to my parents, who angrily rejected it. There was a weird conflict between them and a teacher that made no sense, because I got along with that teacher, and what little I got was him “talking shit”, yet he was the most thoughtful and scientific of them.

Another option: Just do a “full checkup” on people starting early in life, even for things where no indication has been reported. The vicious cycle of doctor visits: Patient comes, reports symptom -> questions -> tests -> whatever going on in their minds -> diagnosis. It doesn’t work, at all. I feel like overall, a lot of money would be saved in the global economy (nobody cares for saved suffering anyway) if the procedure for things were: Doctor attempts treatment if it seems simple just once, if it fails, go full Doctor House. Might overall save money. All the negative findings from this would be a goldmine of information, and saved money, for 1 or 2 decades of doctor visits.

For ADHD, why doesn’t everybody do a multiple choice test, not wasting any trained professional’s time if it is clearly very negative? Further steps only if it is not very clearly negative.

And at some point, after decades of this, they pick up on what it caused, rather than the ADHD itself. The result of other people and yourself telling you that you are just an assclown who can’t handle your own household, appointments, education, job.

In hindsight, the earliest that I presented something to a doctor that should have lead to ADHD, if investigated with full force, were gut / digestion problems in the 90s. 2000s, I came to a doctor for a sick note as things at a crappy workplace got “too much”, got benzos, which helped through the worst. I often used the “too much” phrase over the next 2 decades, usually met with benzos or “can’t really do anything with that phrase”.

They study so long, shouldn’t there be question techniques that get to the bottom of things? Even with a psychiatrist, when I said really clearly what was going on from my perspective, they were like: Wow, that doesn’t help at all, can’t do anything with that information. The way things are, you have to self-diagnose, then find out how to nudge them in the right direction by saying the right things.