I am one month into life after being diagnosed with ADD, and only a few months shy of my 40th birthday. 40 years.. its taken this long to get a diagnosis that I can dig my teeth into and quite honestly relate to in ways that blew me away. I am talking ” thats me !”, after reading Hallowell’s book Driven to distraction. I will keep the adjectives clean here,but if you only could have heard me…I sounded like a longshoreman with tourette’s. As a kid I always knew there was something wrong about me, I could never ever figure it out. Grades in school were up and down like a toilet seat, If I liked what I was doing; look out world, but if I didnt, the teachers insisted I take the “small bus ” home from school.
I managed to get by in school, learning coping strategies along the way. Cramming for exams, using charm and humour, or just feeling my way through courses was all that I had. I have been misdiagnosed twice along the way. Manic depression, and OCD along with general anxiety has been a mouthful for me to say the least. I could never quite relate to the two prior diagnosis`, again ;something just wasnt right about it.
After two visits to my shrink he just looked at me and said (drum roll please)…”I have a hunch that you have ADD”…..”huh” ?……the next week I did some homework at the request of my therapist. In that week I learned of this site and many others, I read a book, spoke with people close to me, went through denial, smoked a thousand cigarettes, and finally cried all bloody night realizing that in fact I do have ADD. Everything that I have ever done, well, ahem …tried but never finished, every relationship, every job, every -everything made so much sense to me.
I have been living in a parallel universe for almost 40 years. The spelling never counts here, alarm clocks, instruction manuals and all schedules are left out in the hall. Bankbooks, bank cheques, calendars are left in a pile beside another pile of everything. Forgive me, I cant help myself. This is more of a rant than a story. The one feeling that I Am left with that still prevails is anger . The frustration I had before the diagnosis is still with me, now I have a name for it. I cant change overnight, I wish I could, but I do know the anger is a part of the ” getting better” stage. With help from this site, voicing my opinion here and there and advocating ADD through education I will move on …but right now I am just a little upset. Hope you all understand, regards. G