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conflict seeking behavior
Holy fuck that's one giant bell to ring. I got to get diagnosed.
I went my whole childhood without a diagnosis cause all the adults in my life kept kicking the can down the road saying I'd grow out of it. Didn't get diagnosed till this year, and I am about to be in my mid twenties. It was very validating to get the diagnosis. Gonna get checked for autism too
Can you elaborate on the validation part please? I'm about twice your age, and my assessment comes from comics and memes like this. And it's scary how close some of these hit.
I found out I was neurodivergent cause I became friends with a lot of people who are, and when I would talk about my experiences they would basically tell me its related to this or that disability. So I realized I was neurodivergent from my friends basically telling me I was. I came to accept it but never felt comfortable identifying as neurodivergent. Always felt I needed to specify "probably have ADHD" or "I probably have autism." Always felt like I needed to add plausible deniability to avoid being accused of self-diagnosing. Basically I wasn't confident enough. When I got my diagnosis I didn't feel like I needed to do that anymore. I could say with confidence "I have ADHD." It made my experiences in school feel real, and took away a lot of the guilt I felt for failing. I realized I was not the problem, I just wasn't getting the treatment I needed to succeed.
I'm almost 30 and had basically every school counselor and social worker begging my parents to get me a diagnosis and they never did. I want to do it myself now, but I'm afraid that at my age it will just look like trying to get a prescription, what was the process like for you?
For ADHD, very quick and easy (however I have been told that is not normal). I met with my PCP and said I wanted an ADHD diagnosis to get accomodations and emphasized I didn't want a prescription, cause I take enough meds as it is and would prefer to learn how to cope without the use of meds. I also explained to him my history grappling with my ADHD especially in school. The important thing here was showing it is a long time and consistent problem, one that exists in multiple settings (not just school, but at home, and work too). All of this made my doctor feel comfortable giving me the diagnosis. For autism, I haven't started the process yet, waiting on a referral cause my doctor wasn't comfortable diagnosing it.
If you want meds to help manage ADHD it will probably be a little harder to get the diagnosis, but I think as long as you establish that it is a long patterned history in more than just one setting, establish clearly why you want the diagnosis, and give detailed examples and stories of the symptoms (and maybe a little bit of luck) I think you should be fine.
I hope this eases your worries a bit and I hope it helped. Rooting for you.
I got an adhd diagnosis last spring at 32. It took a telehealth appointment, and doing an electronic test on my laptop at home, with a followup appointment to go over the results and get the diagnosis. It mostly comes down to finding a decent provider. If you're in Minnesota I'd be happy to recommend one.