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@mpc – My story is quite similar to yours. 20 year old son – daughter 3 years older – different (academically) as night and day – slipped through all the ADHD recognition cracks for 20 years – knew something was amiss ( but being diagnosed as ADHD myself the year after my son, I was clueless) – son was first to realize he might have ADHD – found our life history in the pages of the ADHD literature (and the Rosetta Stone of how our mind works) – ticked off because of all the lost time (both for him and myself)
Yeah, I know where you are coming from. I know it real well.
The advice above is as good as I could give. I’ll just add or reiterate – learn all you can about ADHD and beware, there is a lot of bad and misinformation out there. Check this site’s store for books that have gotten Rick’s “seal of approval.” Some of us, me included, like the “you tube” videos of Russell Barkley. I find them quite informative.
If some caregiver is going to mess with your son’s head, you need to go somewhere else and find someone who “knows” about ADHD.
I think of the medication this way: When my son drinks beer, he makes bad decisions and it has bad “side effects”. When he takes Adderall, it helps him make good decisions and the benefits outweigh the adverse side effects. The effect of either lasts about the same. So perhaps your son can think of the meds as “smart pills.”
It’s probably best, if diagnosed, that you son not disclose his ADHD unnecessarily. People who have done so seem to meet with negative results.
Finally, about a year ago, my son expressed the sentiment that he wished he had been diagnosed and gotten meds long before it happened. It’s really caused him a lot of lost time, effort, and expense.
So if you want the bright side to my son’s story, about ten months ago, he met this incredibly beautiful outgoing coed who not only adores him, but so does her parents and grandparents. She’s two years younger and just graduated. Now he is highly motivated and is bustin’ his a$$ to finish up school and graduate. I sure hope it works out . . .
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