anyone else??

[Anonymous]

im 17 years old and i think i have adhd. every test i take online for adhd i pass with flying colors, even this test on this website….they say i’m the combined type. Is anyone else afraid to get diagnosed by a doctor?…because i am… I want to know if i have it but I don’t want to take medication. and I dont want a diagnosis saying that im limited to do stuff. yes things that are usually easy for other ppl i have to do twice has hard but still… does anyone else have this dilema?

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[kc5jck]

There are people on this site that would give their eye teeth to have known at 17 that they had ADHD, had the opportunity to get on medication, and avoid all the problems the meds correct. If it’s your dream to join the US military, wait until after you join to get tested and you will get free meds. Otherwise, go get tested and don’t be afraid of the meds if you need them.

You probably can’t become a fighter pilot on meds, but if you are a fighter pilot, you probably don’t need the meds. My daughter says her brain really wakes up holding the brakes on at full power right before going into afterburners for take off.

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[Anonymous]

Are you concerned about having ADHD or about being labelled as defective ?

Seriously, read some of the books mentioned in the forums here, and see the

webinars … learn what it is, You need to have a professional examine you, if you

really want to know … these tests are meant to get people to go for testing .. thats all.

If you have made it to 17 without serious problems, both social and academic, then you

have missed the mess that some of us had to go through. You may not need meds.

Find out if your doctor knows anything about ADHD, some don’t, find out if you can be

tested by a psychologist … they are the pros .. that way, you know .. and it may not be ADHD.

I would rather know than not know, you don’t have to if you don’t think it is important to you.

ADHD, he may not. Then see if there are ADD groups or testing available and find out what it is

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[Anonymous]

I echo what kc5jck said. Please get yourself tested

I am 30 years older than you and i wish i was diagnosed at 17. (I was diagnosed in Nov 2011)

It would have saved me a lot of pain and avoided a lot of personal , school and work issues over my lifetime.

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[Anonymous]

“I want to know if i have it but I don’t want to take medication. and I dont want a diagnosis saying that im limited to do stuff”.

Right now I would say you have limitations – that prevent you from moving forward in recognizing and possibly treating a bonafide disorder. Get a diagnosis and learn some more about ADHD, and you’ll have more knowlege and options. That’s a lot more powerful than reacting from a fearful place.

How do you know you wouldn’t benefit from medication or other treatment options? Maybe you have friends that have taken meds for ADHD and didn’t like them, stopped using them? My nephew was diagnosed years ago, tried meds, didn’t like them, stopped taking them. But he had one eye on his ADHD friends who stayed on their meds and who finished school and went on to college, etc. Personally, I never studied in school (was always distracted), dropped out of university to do more “fun” stuff, have had 26 jobs in my lifetime – most less than 2 years in length. Out of this messy life and a difficult relationship, I finally figured out (after being told) that I might have ADHD, and more importantly, that there was something I could do about it.

A good specialist will thoroughly investigate you and work with you to find what works best. There is no one-size-fits-all treatment plan since the disorder itself can be quite different for each individual. After 56 years, I was relieved, in a way, to find out that I had ADHD, and to try meds. Nobody forced them on me, but after reading enough about how dangerous ADHD is in some areas of life if you are not medicated, I was willing to try. Big change, now I am making progress in areas of my life I had always struggled with.

My therapist says that the good thing about having a formal diagnosis is that it lets you know what your limitations are. For example, I am a dangerous driver unmedicated. I have ADHD and a sleep disorder, so either I drive fast and recklessly to stay alert, or I am very drowsy, can hardly keep my eyes open, am slow to react, and shouldn’t be driving. If I’m not on medication, I shouldn’t drive if I’m at all sleepy, and I should drive very cautiously, since my impulse is to do the opposite. Meds are quite effective for me in this respect. So knowing the limitations can help you to understand yourself, and possibly modify aspects of your symptoms without medication. Meds, if they work (and they don’t work for everyone), just support and make change possible.

Driving and ADHD is apparently one of the most studied aspects of ADHD. Studies show that a person with ADHD that drives unmedicated is the equivalent of a person who’s had several alcoholic drinks. Add alcohol to the mix, and they are even more dangerous on the road. That alone should be a good enough reason to look more closely at your situation.

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[Anonymous]

BTW, many people, including myself, get anxious as they get closer to the diagnostic phases, it’s easy to question whether or not you have it. But according to the specialist I saw, most people who get as far as going to the clinic for a diagnosis have ADHD. It’s usually a question of figuring out if there’s anything else going on, like depression, sleep disorders, anxiety, etc. that complicate or mimic ADHD symptoms. So it can be a process similar to peeling an onion, dealing with other co-morbidities until you get down to any residual ADHD (or the opposite, start with ADHD, and then deal with co-morbidities). It’s not so easy to say “I have ADHD” – the tests online are only a start, print them off and take them to your GP to start a discussion.

Both psychiatrists I saw (ADHD and sleep medicine) said that treatment (in my case, medication) could give me a better quality of life. They were right.

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[Anonymous]

I would add that you know your limitations with a diagnosis…… but also know where your strengths are and the areas you can develop.

I didn’t get diagnosed until this past year. However if I had been diagnosed 30 years ago back when I was in high school and university my path in life would have changed. I would have had more options.

One thing I knew was that I wanted to succeed. For me it was getting an education. I was a mediocre student in high school. My lack of achievement was not due to lack of ability. The reason for low performance was procrastination and limited attention span. (ADHD)

Despite the mediocre grades I pushed on to university. My initial attempt was not successful for the same reasons (as in high school)

After two years of doing some very undesirable jobs I decided to take another crack at university. This time I was going to use herculean effort to get through school. Nothing changed in terms of procrastination and limited concentration. The difference was sheer determination and lots of time and hard work. I did this for 7 years and along the way I finished my undergraduate and graduate degrees.

The personal health costs of doing university my way was large. I suffered frequent periods of major depression and anxiety during those 7 years . I grew to think I was not very bright because it took such effort and time. (in actual fact I made straight A’s through graduate school…. but i thought I was slow and not very smart) The other cost is I had a very limited social life and had little fun along the way.

The lesson for me was I did what i had to, to get through school. If I had been diagnosed at 17 or even earlier I believe that my experience might have been a little easier and would not have jeopardized my mental emotional health

Today I have had varying degrees of success. I have gone through many jobs with the greatest time at any one job being 5 years.

When you get to the work force and real life…… procrastination and limited concentration impacts all aspects of your life. (job, personal life, relationships) BTW the recurrent bouts of depression, insomnia and anxiety followed me ….not as often as university.

In the two months since being diagnosed ADD I have been working hard to change. I am starting an exciting new job in February. However I am worried about my ability to cope even with the diagnosis. I need to take one day a at a time and apply what I am learning

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[Anonymous]

Dude…get tested…I am 50…and finally 6 months I ago, I decided to deal with it. How did I know I had it…my son…We was in a very bad place..he was not able to develop coping mechanisms. Medicine is saving his life.

I was able to struggle along for these 50 years…I am one of the smartest people you would meet, but I have felt I was my own worst enemy preventing me from achieving my potential. I hit bottom twice. Pretty ugly times. Stress of attempting to compensate for work demands I was not equipped to handle simply overwhelmed me. I essentially had mental break downs twice…I don’t recommend it…

Deal with your issue now. There is no shame. There is only upside. My medicine is makes me more focused, and who knows…I may decide to jump back on a faster track again.

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[Anonymous]

i really do want to get checked but I guess i sort of get scared because when I was 15 i brought it up to my mom that I think I had adhd and she just told me “no you don’t its all in your head, we all have add sometimes. Plus if you go they just make you take pills.” brought it up again when i was 16 sort of the same response just adding “you should eat more fruit and have a better diet its probably that.” So i guess i just have to wait when i’m 18, when i can go to the doctor without a parent..

I appreciate everyone who has commented thanks

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[Tiddler]

“Dude…get tested”

What michaelq said!

If only I’d known at 17. I wouldn’t have spent that year having dropped out of school sitting falling asleep at my desk in a boring bank job and all that followed for the 23 years after that!

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[Tiddler]

No-one makes you take pills, diet MAY help a little but doesn’t cure adhd and if your mum thinks that ‘everyone is a bit ADHD sometimes’ maybe that’s because lots of your family have similar symptoms? Most people here have family who also have it, some who face up to it and others who don’t believe in it or don’t know about it.

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[Anonymous]

Hi Taylor55

I have ADHD and do not take any medications.

My whole family has ADHD so I was never thought to be ‘the odd man out’. It’s been my ‘normal’.

I’ve been successful in my life and business without too much of a struggle.

Part of this is from accepting who you are, evaluating your strengths and using them to guide you.

A lot of people talk about the downside of ADHD but there are many strengths that we have, unique to us!

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[Author]

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