Damage Control

My diagnosis seemed to be very much like most things in life that can be shown through the stages of the Kubler-Ross model of change. When I first got the news of my ADHD diagnosis I was in shock. I approached some of my colleagues at work, who already have the diagnosis and are part of a network support group there, of which I am a Co-chair. I remember them saying you don’t need to look like someone’s died. But I kinda had.

Suddenly needing to understand myself in a different way to what I had expected –  the autism scale – and to be coming out with ADHD, knowing that within my family there were also those that had this diagnosis and presented in a very different way to myself.
I went searching for any evidence to see if this was true or not. And I also got frustrated at the fact that I was thrown a curveball by not expecting this diagnosis at all. From what I understood of ADHD and what I had looked into whilst I was researching the autism I did not present in this way at all and therefore believed it was not an option and that it was something that was just to be ruled out whilst I was being assessed. I went through the usual; being sad at the fact that I have gone through life in a particular way, in the misunderstanding that I am wrong, thinking I shouldn’t be the way I am, that I have constantly needed to change and chip away at myself and eventually crash because this never worked.