Saturday, October 05, 2024
“Your world is a living expression of how you are using—and have used—your mind.” - Earl Nightingale
Recently, I was diagnosed with ADHD at the ripe old age of 38. I am glad to know now although I have an array of emotions.
Mostly, I’m optimistic, and I am excited to see if ADHD medication can improve my effectiveness in the world. Yet, there is a huge amount of pain and regret around getting the diagnosis so late in life. This is apparently normal, via https://www.apa.org/monitor/2023/03/adult-adhd-diagnosis:
"Receiving a diagnosis as an adult can often bring up some complicated emotions, whether it’s grief over lost opportunities, relief at finally understanding certain struggles, or anger over symptoms having been overlooked for so long."
Looking back, a great deal of the struggles and challenges I’ve faced make a lot more sense with the diagnosis. But I cannot help but feel angry about the lost time, missed opportunities, and just the lack of truly knowing myself. And yet, as I deal with the grief, I’m confident things will improve:
“There is a lot of grief work that needs to be done to help work through the many years of struggling and not knowing why,” Matlen said. However, in her experience, “Once all those parts and pieces are looked at with this new understanding, people really take off, in a good way,” she said. Often, therapy is an important component of thriving after a diagnosis.
Indeed, the only two reasons I seriously started investigating whether I had ADHD were: (A) My private insurance through work started offering something called the “Neurodivergent Pathway” with ADHD being one path; and (B) A therapist I’ve been seeing here in London, when hearing how much caffeine and nicotine I consume on a daily basis, suggested that I look into whether I have ADHD or not. I am extremely proud of myself for being open-minded enough to take my therapist up on this suggestion, especially when for years I associated ADHD with many negative stereotypes and had decided long ago “that’s not me.” And I am aware of how privileged and fortunate I am to have such a benefit as the Neurodivergent Pathway where I can pursue such a diagnosis as an adult with next to zero cost.
Why am I publishing such personal and intimate details on the internet? Because I truly believe that the most significant thing I can give back to the world, and to humanity, at this stage in my life, is to be truly open about the struggles I’ve endured, and already have overcome or ideally will soon overcome, so that I might help others do the same. As melancholy moves to optimism, I am excited to see if I can “take off” myself both personally and professionally.