Reply To: Being diagnosed as a child doesn't make life a cake walk

[siege]

I don’t understand the @people thing …do you just write it? Then you actually have to remember people’s name to respond?! Maybe I’ll have to write the names down…I forget by the time I scroll up and back, or remember the name, but not the spelling.

ANYWAY. @the people who posted about being diagnosed as children. I’m sorry to hear what you’ve been through, but reading your stories really helped me.

I am 50 and only recently found out I have ADHD. Initially, I was angry about missing out on what could have been.

I have always been awkward; never lived up to my potential. I started drinking and using drugs at 13, which became a big problem by the time I got sober at 25: a DUI, a couple felony charges for cocaine and just general self loathing.

I finally got a BA, but never managed to get a ‘real’ job, only a slew of low-wage, take-it-or-leave-it kind of jobs. Lots of failed relationships; a marriage ending in divorce.

During the separation, I had a bipolar diagnosis and spent about 2 years on heavy, sickening medications that made me feel worse. Now, 10 years later it’s obvious that I’ve never had an actual manic episode and my depression isn’t the stay-in-bed-can’t-function kind– it’s the ughh-I’m-such-a-loser kind.

Reading your stories made me realize that a diagnosis isn’t much help if you don’t have a network of support and understanding. If it was so lacking for you guys 10 or 20 years ago, I’m sure it would have been that much more lacking 45 years ago. Without much information and knowledge of ADD in general, I would have probably lived the same life, just with a label.

Even the BP stuff still could have happened- I was highly emotional at the time, the two are similar, so who’s to say some Dr. wouldn’t have made the diagnosis and put me on those meds anyway.

So thanks for your sharing. It’s helped me to let go of the what-ifs and what-could-have-beens!

 

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