I just had my first ever meeting with a psychiatrist to get diagnosed with ADHD.

Long story short, they said that I clearly exhibit ADHD symptoms.

But they’re not willing to go forward with a diagnosis because, according to them, I seem to be doing alright in my life, so the symptoms are hardly causing me enough problems to be eligible for a diagnosis. (And also because there’s no evidence of me having had such symptoms in childhood.)

And I was just sitting there thinking, do you really think I would be here if I didn’t think the symptoms were causing me problems in life?

Based on what they said, they expected me to have experienced things like getting warnings or being fired from jobs, ruining my relationships with people, and such. And they suggested the usual things, exercise, the Pomodoro method, etc. As if I haven’t tried them already.

My bad for masking so well, I guess.

Anyway, just wanted to vent a bit. I know it’s too common a story. I guess the next thing I need to do is to find a psychiatrist specializing in adult ADHD. Once my (still undiagnosed) ADHD lets me do that.

  • Wolf Link 🐺
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    31 year ago

    Also still undiagnosed here, and that’s exactly the scenario I dread. It also doesn’t help that the only frigging doc in the area allowed to / able to make that diagnosis keeps telling me that they don’t have any capacity for new patients “at the moment” and that I should “call again a month or so later” as if those dang calls didn’t drain me completely for weeks in advance.

    And to be perfectly honest, I find it somewhat sick how some of these psychiatrists think that their job is not to help their patients cope better, but instead to make sure that their patients don’t make other people uncomfortable, as if silencing the symptoms would make the core issue go away.

    I wish you the best of luck and hope you’ll find an actually professional psychatrist soon.