45 and recently diagnosed with ADHD. Hope my story helps someone else.

I was just recently diagnosed with ADHD. I am 45 years old and have struggled to accept it. I did the whole Google thing and ended frustrating myself because I hoped I would find something from someone that I could relate with. The only thing I accomplished was finding articles saying that it is just dumb excuse to justify the need for medications. But for some reason I did not give up. I ordered and just finished reading Odd One Out. I’m not a writer, nor have I ever had the notion to write. By the time I was done reading the book I felt the need to jot down some notes and it turned into what follows. I felt like I needed to share my story with someone. I would just hope someone with a similar story might see it and help give them validation they are looking for.

Where do I begin. I was recently diagnosed ADD just after my 45th birthday. I was diagnosed with depression in my late 20s. I had managed to control it with minimal medication. After I graduated high school, I had changed my occupation many times. Always being an impulse decision. I went from an EMT, welder, machinist to an estimator for a steel fabricator.
I was always driven to be a business owner. In my late 20s my wife who is a hairdresser and I decided to buy a hair salon. Impulsively I decided to pursue becoming a licensed cosmetologist finishing at the top of my class. I had always been very creative so it was a perfect fit. In seven years I became a very successful hairdresser and had many opportunities to travel around the US as a stage artist. There was a local male hairdresser who had made a huge name for himself. I wanted to be better than him. Although I had made myself an accomplished hair dresser I always felt that I could never be as good he was.
Even with the praises that came from clients, fellow hairdressers and most importantly my wife. At the height of my hairdressing career I picked up a camera. I’ll bet you can probably what happened next. I ended up quitting the hair business. Photography was a huge success for me. Again I went through the same process of having people that I wanted to be better than, but never feeling like I was ever good enough. So I went on to looking for something else.
Somehow I ended up at the same same steel company that I left as an estimator. In March of 2014, 3 years after started I was promoted to the manager of the estimating department. My team is 12 people responsible to sell over 95 million dollars of work per year. I forgot to mention that I had never attended a day of college. When I applied for the position I was up against many others. Others that had any where from bachelors to masters degrees in business. After being awarded the position I was completely taken by surprise.
Here I am 10 months later feeling that I don’t deserve the position. That other people at the same capacity are so much more intelligent than I am or will ever be. I keep telling myself that I am in this position only due to a fluke or that someone felt sorry for me for some reason.
With this pressure I put on myself to try to be smarter and better, I enrolled myself in some business courses. As I began these courses along with running my department, having a wife and three kids the stress really hit. The first thing I noticed is I could not get anything accomplished at work or at home. As I would read my class work, I could not concentrate or remember what I had just read. I would be in the middle of a conversation looking right at the person not hearing a thing they were saying. During this time I was being recognized and atta-boyed for the improvements that had been made in my department. I was told that the estimating department had never run better for as long as people could remember.
The cycle started all over. I wasn’t living up to what I perceived as perfection or good enough. I couldn’t read, concentrate or remember a damn thing which started to create a lot of stress at work and at home. During this time I almost lost my dad due to illness and a good friend of mine had lost his 17 year old daughter to an overdose. That was it! I spiraled into the deepest depression ever. I would come home sit on my couch, my weight went through the roof. I would ignore my family and think of excuses to quit my job or as embarrassed as I am to admit it, commit suicide.
Fortunately my wife did not give up on me. At the time I was not thinking clearly and felt that I deserved to feel this way because I was too old, stupid or that maybe I had some type of brain damage. She talked me into going to a general physician. Now like many men I don’t believe in doctors. At the doctor appointment I went through a timeline of my life and what was currently going on. There was a moment of silence. To my disbelief he had the nerve to ask if I had been diagnosed with ADHD. Well after more discussion and a multiple choice questionnaire he suggested that I try a couple of new meds for my depression and ADHD.
WHAT THE HELL! I can’t be ADHD. Im 45. If I had this issue why wasn’t I diagnosed long ago? I have always been extremely organized. so organized I thought I was OCD at one point in my life (that changed after having children). I don’t have issues sitting down for long meetings. In fact I am the one that when people in the company need to the find the root cause of problems or when there is a need for process improvement, I am the one they come to (Keep in mind that I could get the ball rolling but when it was time to finish it off I would lose interest and struggle to finalize the project).
I have what I consider to be a fault. I’m an analyzer. I felt I needed to analyze the diagnosis. There has been many aha and no-way moments during the process.
It has been about three weeks since my diagnosis. I sat down this morning and read a 162 page book in about 4 hours and I even remember what I read. I have never completely read an entire book since elementary school.
I fought against the medication route. Today I have no doubt that the meds saved my life and are currently making my life more bearable. And the book I read? Knowledge is power. It taught me that to be ADHD you won’t fit the stereotypical mold. In fact you don’t have to have every known symptom and that most people won’t. It taught me that I’m ok. That I need to focus on what I am good at and that I can and will be successful the way I am.
I’m no author and this is the first time I have ever sat down and written anything like this. After reading Jennifer’s book I felt inspired to share what I have dealt with most of my adult life. My hope is that maybe this  story might help someone, somewhere understand that they could of been dealing with ADHD their whole life and just found out about it as an adult. No matter what age, race or gender this could be a challenge that can be diagnosed and dealt with.
This whole ADHD thing is still new to me. And I know I still have a lot of work to do. But knowing what I know now has completely changed my outlook on life.
I look forward to continually learning and sharing with anyone just finding out that they too are unique.