Diagnosing ADHD in Adulthood

Ok. I am pretty sure I have undiagnosed and untreated ADHD and I am wondering what I could do about it. My 4 year old goes for his assessment in March for ODD and ADHD and I feel like I finally need to address it in myself. I can focus, I’m impulsive, disorganized, and I’m exhausted at the end of the day from my lack of executive functioning skills and the way my brain has learned to cope. I know that this is not addiction specific, but really hoping anyone has advice on assessment procedures with adults, meds or lack there of… etc. Thanks all :heart:

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Can I ask how long you’ve been sober

106 glorious days :slight_smile:

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The reason why I asked this question is because it’s really hard to diagnose somebody who is a heavy drinker or has a drug use disorder if they haven’t had at least 2 years of sustained abstinence. Reason being is because it takes about two years for your brain to get back to normal from before you started abusing whatever your doc was. So in the meantime from stopping whatever your recreational habit was there are a lot of changes that are going on inside your brain which could exhibit the signs that you would see as ADHD. I’m not discrediting the fact that you may have ADHD I’m just letting you know how a doctor sees and diagnosis it when somebody who has a drug or alcohol problem walks into their office. It’s really hard to diagnose when somebody legitimately is a drug addict or alcoholic. That being said I am currently being treated for ADD and I waited two years into my recovery until I presented my symptoms to a doctor. At that point in time my doctor felt confident that what I was experiencing wasn’t just part of the normal phase of cleansing my brain and body of alcohol, I was previously diagnosed as a child and I was diagnosed again while I was on active duty in the military but I was abusing alcohol during that time so my medication didn’t really work. My doctor started me on an non stimulant and I was on that for about a year and on the max dose and it stopped working and since then have been put on a controlled substance which I take as prescribed and it affects me the way the medication should it… Meaning it doesn’t make me run around like I’m on cocaine it makes me feel focused and that’s really about it. My suggestion is wait it out a little bit longer and try to have a little bit more sobriety in the meantime in order to like keep things in line sometimes it helps to write lists to keep focused meditating helps and prayer if you have any questions seriously hit me up I have a lot of experience in this area

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Thank you so much!! This totally makes sense. I will send you a message for sure :heart:

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You’re welcome girl!! Your body is just going through a lot of changes so give it time to recover and drink a lot of water and take vitamins

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PMing you since I am sending you my info on it with province-specific details that don’t apply to most users here.

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Have you tried re-train your brain for the task your speaking about? I know it’s a broad statement, but for example when I was in the Military we literally had a checklist for everything!

Personally, I’ll sit down and make a checklist for the task exactly the way I want to do it. I’ll follow the checklist until I don’t need it anymore. It becomes ingrained in me to do it that way. I’m not sure that will help you, but it worked for me.

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Sounds like me too. I never thought I might have ADHD until my daughter was tested. I’m not sure yet if it’s worth it for me to get tested. But that’s just me…

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Checklists overwhelm me. I can have a list of 5 things to do and after 3 hours I won’t be able to check any of them off on full because I get so distracted. I have tried everything!

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I actually do best with check lists…it can force me to stay on track. The trick is to break things down into mini tasks. At least I can feel like things are getting ticked off even if the full project is not complete.

Actually that’s how my daughter’s teacher said to do it. Instead of “clean room” (which is overwhelming) break it down into a list of “make bed”, “put dirty clothes in hamper”, “put toys in bin”…each task is less overwhelming.

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Yes I’m a special ed teacher I know all about checklists! For me the work of making a check list chunked into smaller parts just would never happen. Unlike a child, no one is going to make a list for me haha. I live in Canada so I can just get a free assessment. I’ll see what the doc says :slight_smile:

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CHUNKING!! I forgot the term.

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When I make lists I end up getting either distracted from the list or impulsively decide to do something not on the list, or the smallest item on the list can derail me (“put books on bookshelf” ends up with me spending an hour reading the third book). I write the list, check off one or two things, and then I’m gone… ADHD fail sigh

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Yep this is exactly my experience. I could have wrote this lol

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And that’s if I can finish writing the list haha

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I looked at a list on my desk I started yesterday and it had a title with no items lol. Then I wrote all over the “list” various other information that I wanted to remember, none of if related. The most inefficient system in the world but it’s what I’m working with at the moment

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If it’s made of paper I’ll use a pencil on it before I forget what’s in my head, no matter what else is written on it! Not knocking organized lists, that sounds helpful, but I haven’t been able to make them work since I quit taking my Ritalin in university so I could be pill free.

I might ask my doctor about going back on meds but that’s a long way in the future, my other meds need to be sorted first!

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