How I Got Diagnosed With ADHD at 29

Let's talk diagnosis, assessments, symptoms, and memes - how to got my adult ADHD diagnosis...

___HIRE ME___

I deliver engaging and inspiring workshops and talks at events, businesses, and universities across the world (see below for more details).



___WORKSHOPS___

I facilitate tailor made workshops, designed to give participants a variety of discussion opportunities, interactive elements, and a final longer task individually or as part of a group.

The goal of my workshops is that participants come out of the them with actionable points to be put into practice afterwards, rather than feeling as if they had simply talked through the same old topics on that subject.

___TALKS & PANELS___

Talks, presentations, panels and Q&As allow for an in depth look at a topic or issue. I can deliver solo talks on a specific topic and/or moderate or sit on group panels. I have previously spoken on topics including:

- Building Inclusive Communities

- Using YouTube for social good and charitable efforts

- LGBTQ+ Representation on TV/Film

- LGBTQ+ History

- Pop culture and Feminism

- Writing Strong Female Characters

- Women on YouTube

- How to use YouTube/social media as a tool in your career.

- & many more.

[simont]

Fun ADHD example - I am so perpetually late for everything, that a friend recently invited me to stay at his the night before our mate's wedding, under the guise of a "catch-up"... It turned out this was a carefully planned operation to ensure that my friend would be the one driving me to the wedding the next day and thus I would be there on time 😅

[katrinamareen]

Im 38, my son was diagnosed with ADHD and autism this year, I told my parents who said "oh you were diagnosed with Autism at age 4, but its all made up. Its just your personality. You are just shy." They dont believe in it. I struggled all my life not knowing, and that really upsets me. I saw a psych, who said "yep you have Autism and ADHD as well." If only I knew, my life would have been so different.

[damascus]

My mom works in a hospital and it took FOREVER for doctors to honestly diagnose her with anything useful despite the fact that she, herself, is a MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL (who is capable of a licensed to diagnose). She told me something along the lines of: "The diagnosis of 'hysteria' never really went away....they just call it 'depression' and 'generalized anxiety' now." The older I get, the more I understand what she meant.

[UncleverCarapace]

Here's a "fun" ADHD thing: I was diagnosed at like 12, and my guardian at the time decided she knew better than the doctors and discontinued my medication really quickly after I got on it. Fast forward 18 years, one pandemic, associated unemployment, three attemots to get treated for ADHD, and a single semester at a university (rather than community college), and I'm literally in a psych hospital. The psychiatrist there FINALLY gives me something for ADHD and my mental health improves basically overnight.

[vividesu]

2:07 - what is ADHD
4:21 - why did i think i might have adhd?
16:22 - diagnosis process
20:25 - diva form :D
24:02 - medication
28:07 - dealing with adhd
30:24 - some potential ways to help/support partners or friends with adhd
31:26 - do i regret getting diagnosed?

time stamps for my video jumpers and attention losers! great video thank you so much!

[soapymargherita]

Huh. I've spent my life with 'abnormal' anxiety, where I don't consciously worry about things or have anxious thoughts, I just FEEL anxious, like my adrenaline tap is always open. This is the first time I've heard someone else describe the same thing.

[abi]

At 27 minutes in when you were talking about how it wasn't laziness and you were just finally able to do the task! And before you physically and mentally couldn't make yourself do it before. I'm crying. That is me. I have hated myself and lost so much self-worth over feeling that I'm useless and can't do basic things. The idea that it isn't myself and there is a way I can stop it is making me burst into tears. I really need to get a diagnosis.

[patriciacardona]

I was just diagnosed this year...at 32! And I must say, not having a diagnosis before has severely (and I do mean "severely") affected my development throughout adulthood. I've never been able to hold down a job, I've always been highly emotionally sensitive to pretty much everything (including but not limited to rejection and failure), and I was impulsive in partying and other excessive behaviors from a very young age (I'm talking early teens here), etc. All this to say that if anyone here believes they might have ADHD, please do seek out a mental health professional for an evaluation. Even more so if you are still in your 20s or younger. People tend to underestimate how much this can affect one's life. As I write this, I'm unemployed, and so far, because of my spotty resume, showing how much I jumped from job to job without knowing that I had ADHD, no company seems to want to hire me. So please, please, don't ignore the signs (including if you think a parent might have it, since it's proven how hereditary it is!) ... and thanks for coming to my Ted Talk :)

[tyrennosaur]

Oop, I’m literally in the process of trying to find a psychiatrist who can diagnose with me ADHD so the timing of this video is perfect for me

[dodoburnable]

I’m 36, my roommate was diagnosed with adhd a year ago. i had panic disorder and was treated, moved onto anxiety treatment, and I am now stuck there. I am currently unemployed, yet I still struggle to get up or shower or go out. Or make food. After learning about time blindness i googled, started watching this video. Asked my roommate (with adhd) and she said no she doesn’t think I have adhd. But she does say my conditions are bad. And she thinks it’s a miracle if I get a chore done before midnight. I thought I couldn’t take showers because I used to have panic attacks in there. But I actually enjoy it now and still need an appointment that forces me to go out and take off my mask and have social conversation to take a shower. I never did anything in time, I was always late or worried about arriving somewhere. I am always addicted to something, or if I am not, I just lay in bed with my phone. Finished your video finally (2 days!) going to call the doctors in the morning for an assessment, please wish me luck.

[thenopedetective]

One tip - when they ask "why do you think you have ADHD" they're asking for examples form your daily life instead of what symptoms. I suggest leading with issues you notice in your daily life first, then going into possible ADHD if you can do that order. They take it more seriously if you say (as an example, everyone's symptoms looks different) "I always forget things, I have a really hard time with verbal instructions, I'm always behind on chores event hough it's just me, I feel like I can't get anything done even though I have the skills, I'm under performing even though I don't want to be..." Instead of "I have memory issues, difficulty with initiation, difficulty doing tasks I'm not interested in")

[autumnmycat]

It's really hard for me to conceptualize my symptoms as a child because I had such extreme anxiety since I was very young that it would never be apparent to anyone around me that I was struggling with ADHD, but in retrospect, the constant fear that I wasn't remembering something, or wasn't informed about an assignment, or was falling behind on something was probably a manifestation of trying to cope with my forgetful nature while also being very high strung. And, anyway, even though I was regimented and strict with myself, I was always forgetting binders, homework at home, homework on the printer, things to bring to class, would forget where I put my calculator, ect. It wasn't until I became depressed in college and my anxiety wasn't able to compensate that I started procrastinating and turning to alcohol and escapism to regulate my emotions.

[Braindouchedotnet]

One of my favorite adhd "symptoms": self-employment. There's an extremely high correlation between adhd and success in self-employment. It's been scienced and everything.

[cassidytaramusic]

In relation to the women getting overdiagnosed with anxiety and depression and undergdiagnosed with ADHD, I had an assessment and the refused to diagnose me because my base level cognitive skills were so high that most of the drastic dips that would signal ADHD were only a little under average. Instead of looking at the patterns, they just said oh you have anxiety and depression (I have anxiety but am not depressed) and said that my motivational issues were due to anxiety even though I repeatedly told them that one of the only things that could get me around the procrastination and motivational issues was extreme anxiety. My therapist eventually had to just go around the diagnosis and diagnose me with ADHD herself since she could obviously tell that I have it.

[cold_knees]

15:13 A similar situation with me, a doctor when I was 17 (who talked over me and seemed very flippant about how "girls are just shy") diagnosed me with depression and anxiety. After 8 years of therapists who did by-the-book CBT and didn't listen to me, on Monday I started seeing a new therapist who was a mental health nurse for 35 years, who listened to me explain my issues for all of 10 minutes, said "that sounds like autism", we went through one of those criteria questionnaire things & she has now referred me to the (18 month) waiting list to be officially assessed.
It took one therapist 1 session to see something that first doctor would have seen if he'd listened to me & not been rude about it because I'm a woman.

[morganking]

When you talked about the stereotypical adhd "type" I was so relieved to hear you say it. Nobody says it. I grew up thinking that's exactly what it was. I had younger family members who may potentially have been misdiagnosed because that is in fact how they act and so they were diagnosed and treated for adhd. It's taken me until 25 to understand adhd beyond the stigma.

[fantasticalfascination]

I am one of the few lucky women to be diagnosed as a kid, and it was as a direct result of a teacher trying to hold me back in KINDERGARTEN because I couldn't sit still - the district told her "no, her grades are too good to hold her back, sit down and shut up", and my first grade teacher Knew About It, kept an eye on me, and told my parents to bring me to a neurologist because there was Something Going On With That Child. I don't remember the appointment, but I was diagnosed basically immediately with A Whole Lot Of ADHD. And then the school district didn't give me educational support for all the same reasons they didn't let my kindergarten teacher hold me back 🙃

[messlife_]

My spouse adds in "Kat-time" to everything. I am perpetually 15-30 min late, so he tells me the time that accommodates for that. This used to upset me but now I see it as his way of helping me time manage, especially before I had a diagnosis and meds. And I was only diagnosed and started medication at 34, which was Dec 2020!! Feel this a lot!!!

[casperTheBird]

My one tip for people who are considering seeing someone about getting diagnosed is finding someone who is actually very interested in understanding YOU, how you live your life, and your challenges. I have a friend who tried seeing someone but the therapist did a very cursory glance at her symptoms and told her she didn’t have it because it clearly isn’t effecting her that much if she can get all As in school. The therapist didn’t care to hear that my friend was still struggling, even if on the outside she looks very functional. Whether my friend actually has it or maybe something else, I guess who knows, but if your doctor won’t listen and doesn’t seem to care, I’d say just try someone else.

[LOLquendoTV]

I watched this video like a year ago thinking "hey that kind of sounds like me" and flash forwards to today I got diagnosed at 23. The medication worked wonders and now so many things I found so hard are now a lot more manageable, Im a lot more confident and working on bettering myself. If theres anything I regret is saying no to getting tested at school for various things when I was a teenager. Oh well, no point in dwelling on the past