It looks like a pretty general overview but not a bad one. It’s nice they talk about some of the less known things about ADHD and don’t dismiss it outright as a disability. While my ADHD is often annoying (losing stuff, forgetting things, etc), it’s also a superpower sometimes, like when I wrote a program my boss’ boss thought would need a project and staff and at minimum several months to complete in one day of sublime hyperfocus. Took a few weeks to polish, mind you, but yeah that was a fun day.
Nice to see the distinction between typical presentation for male/female. One of my sources of gender euphoria is that my ADHD is inattentive type which is much more common in women and girls, and I also got the fun of not having it diagnosed until my 40s which really makes me feel like a woman
Some of the described symptoms of ADHD fit me so hard, even back when I was a kid. (Time blindness, keeping time with music or TV shows? Check. Hyperfocusing so hard I lose time, getting nearly obsessed with subjects or hobbies only to suddenly, mysteriously lose interest? Check. Inability to plan for the future? Big check. Executive dysfunction? Difficulty maintaining relationships? Check and check.)
It’s only in the last few years that I found out details about ADHD (through social media and listening to others decribe their experiences), and started to connect the dots… and I’m 52. I’m a woman, and was always a good student (an overachiever, really, once I realized “hey, I’m good at this and people like it”) and a hard worker, so I think it just kinda… slipped through the cracks. It’s been harder the last few years, since I went through menopause, which also checks. I’ve got at least one cousin with ADHD (and another who’s autistic), so the genetic potential’s there too.
I’m not sure what to do next, since I don’t currently have health insurance (I’m considering asking my local nurse-practitioner if she can recommend something)… but it’s a kind of comfort to know that there might be a reason why I am the way I am, and to know there are strategies that might help me get more things done.
And I’m honestly not sure if I can truly, reasonably claim to be neurodivergent because I’m not formally diagnosed… but the more I find out, the more it seems to fit me.
Most people (I believe) just look at the traits, and go “yeah, no. I’m not that.” and continue with their lives.
The rest of us tend to be more “I’m not like that. I’m not like that. I’m not like that, there are other, perfectly normal reasons why I am like I am, but it’s not that. It’s probably definitely not that. Definitely. Isn’t it? I mean, what if it were? What would it look like if it was? What if? It’s probably not. I don’t think it’s enough to get checked out. I mean, it’s probably normal. I’m sure it’s normal. Maybe I should get it checked. I should probably get it checked, even though it’s not really serious. … … … Wait, what do you mean ‘Level 2’? I… huh.”
A normal stage of the process is “I have suspicions, but I don’t think I can claim to be…”. People who definitely aren’t tend to get off that track long, long before that stage.
When I was first at the “what would it take to get looked at?” stage, the local official Autism support group had a page which stated “if you think you might be autistic, you probably are”, which struck me at the time as profoundly unhelpful.
Looking back on it, they just failed to put it in its correct context: Worrying about whether or not you are neurodivergent may as well be, of itself, a symptom of neurodivergence. People who definitely aren’t don’t tend to even ask the question, much less obsess over it.
I got that same kind of backhanded validation from finding out about that too. “Of course that child psychologist didn’t diagnose me, everyone thought i was a boy and I’ve always had the inattentive traits.”
Thank you, I needed to hear that.