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“I talked with my general practitioner, and he would tend to rule out ADHD mainsly because I never had any problem at school”
I had to restate this posted by Dithl.
DO NOT rely on a GP’s opinion on Adult ADD/ADHD “because you never had a problem in school.” See a psychiatrist or psychologist, preferably the former. For many of us with Adult ADD/ADHD, there was no such thing when we were in our early school years. Technically, I didn’t get in “trouble” in the conventional sense. I would often finish early, get out of my seat and go help someone who was having trouble with the assignment or talk too much to others, trying to help them–all against the teacher’s rules and despite the consequences. But because I was bored, wanted to help someone else and just couldn’t set still my report cards simply noted that I failed to follow directions, talked too much, wouldn’t stay in seat, etc. that in other words I was just a “hyper” kid. But since I made good grades, all of that was overlooked. Year after year (until the suspensions started in high school from skipping, fighting, etc.–but, I still made good grades. And with the mountain of evidence and new medical findings, clinicians are told not to rely on whether a person got in trouble in school often at an early age as an ADD/ADHD indicator. Its still clear that those of us that have it also had it as a child–no question. But its the boredom, the disinterest (and sometimes acting out because you’re so bored) that you look for. And, as has been said here by many, look at how well a person does and focuses on things they do find interesting. But this issue is huge.
I was ruled disable by a judge from “performing the work that I had trained (8yrs) for” and both the government and my own psychiatrist agreed (which is unheard of in the States) about the disabling nature of Adult ADD (and Bipolar 1) but at the last minute, based on a comment from a counselor I had never seen, the Judge said “but you could get a sedentary job that requires no thinking on a canning line, tapping the cans with a wooden stick to see if there is any air in them.” Now what is the worst job in the world you could give to an ADD’er? Mindlessly sitting on his/her rear-end, tapping cans with a stick?! The only reason the judge did this, when he was supposed to only rely on the experts (the gov’t and my doctors)? The counselor whom I’d never seen made the ever-so-common comment: “I just don’t think anyone could get so far in life and be successful if he had ADD.” That’s the old way of thinking but is still prevalent, especially with GP’s because ADD/ADHD always involves other mental issues that they’re not proficient at diagnosing. So, they resort to the now pretty much dismissed rule that you can only have adult ADD/ADHD if you were a troublemaker and underachiever in your early school years. Its convenient for a GP, so he can “rule it out or in”, but with what is known medically today, that “test” has been discredited. Get a second opinion, take the tests and preferably with a psychiatrist or at least a psychologist.