I have ADHD (Part one)

To be clear, I have late diagnosed ADHD. I don’t have Adult ADHD. There’s no such thing. You can’t suddenly develop this mental health condition as a grown-up. I’ve always been like this. I just didn’t know ‘all my things’ were actually ‘a thing’ 😕

I’ve decided to share my story in order to increase awareness, and to generate accurate information.  

This will be a three-part article on how I came to be diagnosed — during my 49th year on the planet.

I was diagnosed on Friday 15 November during a 1.5 hour assessment by a Mental Health Nurse Practitioner who specialises in this type of neurodivergence.

What does this mean? Basically my brain processes information in a way that is not typical of most individuals.

And what’s more? I’m actually in the 99th percentile for ADHD — meaning that I scored higher than 99% of other adults on the number of symptoms I experience, and the severity to which I experience them 🤓

This diagnosis didn’t come as a surprise to me or DMF (my long-term partner of 25 years). More, it came as a relief to us both. We were already 99% convinced that I had ADHD long before we found it necessary to shell out the $1200 (including GST) to be told something that we already knew. 

But I was in a bad way, and in order for me to take it seriously, I needed someone else to ‘say so’ for a change ☝️

(I’ll explain exactly what was going on for me in my next article.)

I’d been saying for years that the males in my family have (undiagnosed) ADHD. Ever since I knew it was a thing.

And that’s because it was so bloody obvious!  They were the epitome of what everyone thinks ADHD is.

Growing up, I would observe them…

They were always losing things e.g they would leave their lunch, and wallet on top of the car roof and drive off.

They would talk excessively about things that interested them, and then completely zone out, or dismiss themselves from the conversation when you started talking about something that wasn’t interesting to them… you know, like yourself!🤦🏼‍♀️

They would act before they thought, they weren’t academic in the slightest, they would work from dawn to dusk, and they sucked at downtime. And interestingly enough, they were also very caring, and quite easy to upset.

I thought I had a mild version of what they had.

Later though, I would discover that when I compared myself to non-family members, my brain operated quite differently to theirs.

Back in 2022 I noticed the first ‘Adult’ ADHD diagnoses starting to trickle into my practice — both male and female. These clients presented more like the males in my family — as in, they were clearly hyperactive (very talkative, and fidget-y), impulsive (saying whatever popped into their brain), fixated (hyper-focused on what they wanted to talk about), and conversely inattentive (not interested in discussing anything other than what they wanted to discuss).

Note: The most obvious type of ADHD is actually the least common type. Click here to read more about this in an article that I wrote last year.

It wasn’t until I started learning more about ADHD — to try to help my clients — that I realised I didn’t have a mild version of ADHD after all…

While ADHD is ADHD, it’s humans that differ! So how this neurodevelopment condition presents will be dependent on the individual – their intelligence, their personality, their sex, their stage of life, their life situation, etc

It turns out there’s a ‘disorder’ that sums up your Naturopath/author to a bloody tee.🤷‍♀️

In part-two of this article
I’ll over-share some more!

Yes, I’ll tell you even more highly personal sh!t about myself in an effort to help anyone who may be going through or witnessing someone going through the same thing.

In part-three of this article I’ll discuss
1) What even is ADHD?!

2) Female ADHD — how we’re able to fly under the radar for so long.

3) Why Menopause forces us out of incognito 🥸

4) I’ll provide recommendations on how to support the ADHD brain including advice on diet, supplements, medication (!), and positive coping strategies (ADHD hacks), and

5)  I’ll let you know how I’m getting on with the big decisions that I’ve made to support myself, now that I finally understand what, and more importantly who, I’m actually dealing with.

(Darling clients of mine: please be prepared — ‘a change is gonna come’ to the way I approach your treatment plans. I simply can’t keep doing things the same now that I know different 😬☝️)

So! Until next time — I’m off to sort my sorry-Menopausal-ADHD-arse-out x