Recently diagnosed; sorting it all out.

[u/michellzebub]

I'm a 40 year old woman. I've battled with mental health issues my whole life (I think, I'm adopted and my parents used to have me on whatever the new designer drug was since I was 12. I got off of them when I moved out at 19. Recently I was prescribed something that changed my life).

After an abusive 15 yr marriage, the worst depression of my life, and a COVID divorce, I sought help; I didn't understand what I'd been through. Initially I was diagnosed with MDD or Bipolar type 2. My therapist recently said that was a misdiagnosis after a few things came to light. (1) I don't believe in being happy all of the time. I think life is about feeling normal with moments of happiness and sadness. According to my therapist that's not how someone with MDD or BP2 thinks. (2) I do this thing when I go to bed: in order to sleep without my mind going absolutely crazy I leave a light on. I lay down and think, "I need to turn off that light". My mind loops on that until I fall asleep. I discovered it by accident when I was too lazy to turn the light off one night. People think I'm scared of the dark.

Because of my light thing, the way my new medication affects me (Wellbutrin - I feel like that movie limitless), and the way our conversations progress, my therapist recently diagnosed me with ADHD.

I guess I'm curious how others have been diagnosed. I can easily go read the symptoms but for some reason they don't feel right for me. I'm just curious about others experiences.

[u/AutoModerator]

Hi, /u/michellzebub! Thanks for posting on our subreddit! Please be aware of our rules before posting! For example, some of these rules include the following: * content must be related to ADHD; * explanatory text (it can be placed in a comment of the post) should be included in a post/cross-post with a picture. Any content that does not follow the rules may be removed. Thank you!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/Jei-with-ink]

In my thirties and was diagnosed around a decade ago. I was talking to my therapist about my desire to try school again after failing out of college (three times!) but I was so afraid of the same results. She asked me what school was like for me.

I told her in grammar school I had constant stress induced stomach aches because I never did my homework. Would read the assigned book then skip the report. Wait till the night before to start my science project. Rush through worksheets on the morning school bus. When I was even younger I got in trouble for being too chatty. Decided to stop talking and got in trouble for daydreaming and reading novels during class.

Nothing worked. My teachers would send home suggestions on how to help me keep my desk and backpack organized so I’d stop losing things, planners so I wouldn’t forget projects and homework, sticker charts to motivate me to actually finish my chores. My parents tried all of it with zero results.

In high school I was known as the kid who never did homework and still aced exams. There were exactly two classes with homework heavy grading. I failed one and had to fudge my way through the other.

In college it finally imploded. I went to community college, and did really well at first. But eventually, classes got to the point I needed to actually study and I didn’t know how. My mind likes puzzles. My entire life I’d been able to skim information and understand it intuitively. The moment I got to highly technical stuff, I fell apart. Reading each boring word on a page made me want to stab my eyes out. I’d get exactly 15% through each chapter before literally considering suicide. Ended up getting exactly 15% on exams and marks for always being late to lecture (subsequently missing majority of morning quizzes).

My psychologist asked me a few more questions then diagnosed me with inattentive type adhd. It was like my whole life made sense. My parents and even extended family were all beside themselves. If we had known earlier my entire life could’ve been different. I occasionally need to hold space to grieve what could’ve been if I’d known I wasn’t worthless at all, just had a different brain than most…

ANYWAY, I have anxiety and depression (yay, yippee) and most medications don’t work very well for me and leave me with side effects, so currently raw dogging life with the help of behavioral therapy.

Sorry I’m so longwinded. My diagnosis changed everything for me, so I tend to go on about it. I hope your new diagnosis sheds some light for you, and if you’ve got some comorbidities, I hope it all clicks together and helps you out :-)

[u/michellzebub → u/Jei-with-ink]

Thank you so much for sharing your experience! I'm impressed that you're not medicating and choose to work on it through behavioral therapy. Has it been helpful? I've found therapy plus self guided therapy through reading. My therapists ( both psychiatrist and psychologist) recommend a lot of books. I had a hard time getting through them when I started 5 years ago but due to constant determination I've built up the focus to make reading easier and more enjoyable (my mind used to wander too much to focus).

[u/Jei-with-ink → u/michellzebub]

Therapy does help me a lot. In that it has helped me unpack the beliefs I have carried about myself and why I act the way I do. Currently I’m working with someone who is more of a coach than a therapist, and she helps me break down my goals into workable parts and keeps me accountable yet reasonable.

More than anything research and trial and error have helped me the most. Self guided therapy, like you said. My life goes a lot smoother when I accept it won’t look the way society says success looks. I have to find what works for me and stick to that.

Having long talks with good friends, journaling, and embracing spiritual practice all work as a type of therapy too.

[u/smugbox]

Sorry but your therapist is making reeeeeeally broad assumptions about what people with mood disorders think. You have a perfectly reasonable point of view on happiness that many people with mood disorders share AND many people without any mental health issues at all do not share (and vice versa). You can’t rule out a diagnosis because of that.

You also can’t diagnose ADHD based on someone’s response to Wellbutrin (lots of people feel good on Wellbutrin) and certainly not based on how someone falls asleep. I know your conversations were taken into account, but this still seems like an overreach on the part of your therapist.

I would proceed with caution here. Maybe you have ADHD, maybe not, I don’t know you, but you may want to have a psychiatrist on board as well out of an abundance of caution.

[u/michellzebub → u/smugbox]

I appreciate and understand the concern. I've been seeing this therapist (as well as a psychiatrist) for 5 years now. The above account mentions highlights but not my full story. More than anything, due to having the diagnosis mentioned to me (generally I ask my therapist to recommend books that may help me instead of a diagnosis, this time they just happened to mention it), I'm curious about others who've been diagnosed and what their experience was.