Quizzical, I had a similar comment from my mum, a few years ago, when I was wondering if my son had ADHD. She told me that of course he didn’t, it was just genetics, my son was just like me, and having a son just like me was some form of cosmic payback! It’s rather ironic that he has now been diagnosed with ADHD and her comment was what made me start looking at myself when ADHD was brought up as a possibility for my son’s issues. So she was dead right in saying that my son is just like me lol!! Mum knows about my son’s diagnosis, and I recently found the right time and place to tell my Dad, but I have not discussed myself. I am just not ready.
Stash, I laughed so hard when I read your “get your own diagnosis” comment. I feel like that every time someone says “Oh, I do that too”, or “I think I might have that”. It doesn’t matter which medical condition it is (I have OA, RLS, and possible ADHD), it makes me selfishly want to be the “unusual” one and not want to “share” my disorders lol. It’s funny though, because I can cope with my son having ADHD without feeling that “I don’t want to share” feeling. It has made us closer, and he is the one person who I have talked to about many of my issues, fears, concerns, laughs, and anything else that relates to my possible ADHD, even though he is not an adult. We simply “get” each other in a way nobody else does (other than those here).
Wolfshades, your initial post was well said. It was infuriating not to be able to discuss my concerns about possibly having ADHD once my son was diagnosed. People were happy to discuss my son’s progress, but nobody gives credit to anything relating to me. Just because I am an adult, and ADHD is still not fully accepted as a bona fide medical condition in the broader community. The comments I get are all “Oh, I do that all the time”, or “You should see MY house!”, or similar. It’s interesting that most comments seem to fall back on their own behaviours, as opposed to commenting on mine, but they still diminish my issues by comparing themselves to me. I am lucky with one woman at work. She has been in rehab for gambling addiction, she has had to come to terms with an abusive childhood, and has walked out of a very unhappy marriage and, once she returned to work after time in rehab, she has been strong enough to talk about her problems with many of us at work, so I figured that if she could be open and honest with me, then I would be with her, though I still broached the topic of ADHD slowly. She was amazingly accepting and it was a relief to find someone adult to talk to, especially about the marriage issues I have been having. She doesn’t know my family, so it was easy to be brutally honest about my frustrations and fears. I wish for someone like her for all of you. Just having one person to open up to has really helped.
The one thing that has been the biggest help though has been these forums. You guys are all fantastic. These forums are what really started me off on my journey towards getting a diagnosis. I really don’t think I would have taken the first step if I hadn’t felt validated by what I read here. I felt so much at home that I knew I was not just trying to squash myself into the ADHD “box” simply as an excuse for what I have always thought of as just “character flaws”. So thank you 