Getting an ADHD Diagnosis or Not? My Journey & What to Consider

Feeling Unsure About Getting an ADHD Diagnosis

If you’ve ever wondered whether you might have ADHD but feel hesitant about getting a diagnosis, I totally understand. Taking that step can be intimidating. It’s easy to worry that a diagnosis might mean something is “wrong” with you, but I promise, that’s not the case at all.

If you suspect you might have ADHD but you’re happy with how things are going, that’s perfectly okay too. Not everyone needs or wants an official diagnosis.

For some people, a diagnosis can be beneficial. It can bring clarity and help you understand yourself better. You might start noticing patterns in your thoughts, reactions, or habits that finally make sense. That kind of insight can feel freeing. But for others (myself included), it can also open up a tough period of overanalyzing or self-doubt.

Questions to Ask Yourself Before Seeking a Diagnosis

Ultimately, the most important thing is how you feel day to day. Are you at peace with yourself, or do you feel like something’s holding you back? Do you feel like you could do so much more, but can’t quite figure out what’s in the way? Would having a diagnosis bring you comfort or a sense of direction?

What would a diagnosis change for me?

What do I hope to gain from it?

Whatever you decide, remember — a diagnosis doesn’t define you. It’s just one possible tool to help you understand yourself a little better.

So many questions were popping up in my head when I decided to ask for a diagnosis, so I am assuming that the same might be true for you. The decision to get diagnosed is a very personal one, and it can mean different things for different people. A late diagnosis, in particular, can have various impacts. For some, it’s a huge relief as things finally make sense. For others, it can stir up mixed feelings, which is why it’s worth asking yourself:

What are the upsides and downsides?

Does knowing outweigh not knowing?

I experienced ADHD during my childhood, teenage years, and university years without officially knowing, and only at the age of 27, my mom recommended that I get a diagnosis, as she had the visit of a patient who showed the same signs and symptoms she saw in me. In the past, one of my teachers recommended I get tested for ADHD, but as I was very young, the diagnosis was barely relevant, as inattention is frequent amongst kids aged 6.

How an ADHD Diagnosis Can Bring Clarity and Relief

At the age of 27, I decided to book an appointment with a neurologist. A bit nervous, I went to his practice so he could run some tests and ask a long list of questions about my lifestyle and day-to-day activities. After the results came in, the doctor assured me that from a medical perspective, everything seemed fine on the ECG. However, he said that from the answers I was giving him, I showed pretty clear signs of ADD with slight hyperactivity. I was then referred to a neuropsychologist to do some practical cognitive tests. I  sat at a desk and was given different exercises ranging from memorizing to visual pattern recognition, memory, reactivity, and drawing tasks. It was pretty fun, yet a little stressful because I felt like I was taking a pass/fail test at school, and I've never been good at handling such stress in the past. I received the test results with a favorable decision for ADD with slight hyperactivity from her as well. The first doctor did not want to prescribe me anything because I was about to leave for my studies, which meant he could not do a regular follow-up, so I was recommended to another neurologist who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD. He made me fill out numerous questionnaires about my health and behavior during childhood, along with personal questions about my day-to-day life.

He confirmed my ADHD diagnosis and was the first one to acknowledge the difficulties I had been dealing with so far, with a lot of reassurance and care. I was so very relieved to hear that I had not exaggerated how I felt during all these years. He was confirming how much ADHD can impact one’s life. He asked me a lot of personal questions about my lifestyle, sleep, addiction, work, relationship, and family to get the whole picture. At first, it felt a little bit intrusive, but I feel like he was right to do so because, in the end, all of these parts of my life were also influencing my ADHD.

Rubbing it in their faces

The first people I wanted to tell were my parents, as they had shown me enough signs of annoyance when I was either not listening to them, being forgetful, or being late. It had been going on for years, and during that time, they just thought I wasn't willing to put in more effort. I wanted to rub it into their faces so badly. I was not mad or anything, I just felt like saying: “HAAA! Told you so! I didn't ignore the teachers or disobey you on purpose for all these years. I knew it! “

Reactions of your loved ones

My parents both gave me very different reactions. My mom was very understanding and began reading everything about the subject to understand what I had been dealing with. She came to me a few weeks later, apologizing for grounding me or yelling at me on so many occasions. She seemed to show regret and was feeling bad about the lack of patience she had shown me over the years. She purchased the book Scattered Minds from Dr. Gabor Maté to understand the complexity and origins of ADD/ADHD and gifted me a copy. From then on, our relationship improved a lot and started to feel more gentle and less judgmental. She was checking in on my emotions more often, and it felt like she was trying to understand me on a deeper level. I had been feeling disconnected from her for an extended period. Still, I feel like this diagnosis brought us closer because we had not been communicating in the same language for all those years, and now that was changing.

My dad, however, did not say much except: “You have ADHD? Who said that? A doctor? No, you don’t have an issue, my love.” Well... thanks, Dad, I guess I don’t. And btw, I am not dead sick, I have ADHD.

When I announced my diagnosis to my friends, some said that they were not surprised, while others did not say much. They did not change their behavior towards me, nor did they criticize me or make me feel bad.

I got my diagnosis just before I started a short degree at hospitality school, which I thought was helpful because I would finally get to experience a study period with new knowledge about myself. I was not prescribed meds by my first doctor, but my second doctor wrote me my first prescription approximately 2 months after my diagnosis, so I decided to give it a try. It was weird at first because I felt very antisocial. The first weeks, I felt nauseous and very low. After an adaptation period, I started feeling better, more focused, and sharper, but also more irritated in some ways. Looking back, I had a few variables in my life that were irritating and messing with my mood (hello, toxic relationship). However, I do look back on that time as one of the greatest of my life, as I was in my element. I was intensely focused, but not just because of the medication. Motivation doesn’t magically appear with the use of a pill; it comes from purpose. If you placed me in the finance department of a big company, no medication could make me care enough to do the work because I need to do something with meaning.

Whatever you do, do it with joy and passion. When your actions are driven by a sense of purpose, focus and motivation come naturally. No medication can replace that inner spark. The Truth About ADHD Medication: My Experience

The Challenges After a Diagnosis — My Honest Experience

The Unaccountability Trap

The months after my diagnosis were followed by an immense adaptation period. I was studying something I was passionate about, interacting with people who shared my interests, and it felt good. For the first time, I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be and doing what I was meant to do.

The Blame Game

However, things started to get tricky when I was confronted with situations that did not go as planned. I used to blame every little “failure” on my ADHD. I would forget to reply to a text, forget to insert an event I had been invited to into my agenda, get late to class, lose my keys, etc., and blame everything on my ADHD. But that was so wrong to do, and I’ll tell you why.

By blaming all my shortcomings and “flaws” on my ADHD, I was escaping accountability; it was not me, it was my ADHD. After all these years, I felt like it was easier to have a black sheep to blame for duties I failed at or tasks I did not complete, even the most insignificant ones. It got to a point where I would blame my ADHD for asking a friend the same question twice, and while that type of inattention was tied to ADHD in some way, I was probably just not interested in what that person was telling me. I have found myself wandering off many times during discussions that I didn't find particularly interesting.

ADHD or personality?

My ADHD had slowly become the center of my life; it was at the core of my personality, whereas it had been in the background of my mind all these years, even if always present in my day-to-day life, I had not let it rule my entire personality. My ADD traits felt like they had become my personality traits, and it felt like my personality traits had blended into ADHD traits. Easily said, I did not know where my ADHD stopped and my personality began, and vice versa, as it felt like both had melted into one another. This part of my diagnosis caused major internal chaos and uncertainty. Only later did I realize I had approached my diagnosis entirely wrong.

Even if it did help me understand where I was coming from and why I was the way I was, it broke the shield I had built for myself over the years. Even though I had struggled in the past, I had become good at it. I had developed my own ways of dealing with life's responsibilities. The fact that I did not officially know I had ADHD for all those years still made me feel like I belonged to the “normal” people, even if I did not feel normal, if that makes sense.

I remember my mom telling me, “Honey, you have been fine all those years and you did not know what was going on”, and she was right. Even though I had been struggling more on some levels but also excelling on other levels, all this time I had not been understanding why I had more difficulties compared to family members, friends, and the people around me at school.

Without knowing it, I had adapted my life around my ADHD. Yes, I was poor at time management, disorganized, and struggled to regulate my emotions and organize myself. Still, I went through high school and university like everybody else, except for some delays, nearly facing expulsion, a few biking accidents, and falling off 10 stairs at university.

I am convinced that my ADHD enhanced a lot of the things that happened to me during high school and university, but I made it through. Feeling reassured after a diagnosis is quite common because it validates the suffering you have been enduring and kind of invalidates the blame you may have received all those years. Still, it should not lead you to the path of inaccountability, like it did for me.

Letting bad habits take over

It is very easy to fall into the role of the victim because, like any diagnosis, your doctor will announce to you that yes, you “suffer” from ADD/ADHD and might suggest that you take some meds, like most of them do when a disease is diagnosed. Don’t get me wrong, meds can help you. It helped me, but meds alone won’t do anything for you if you don’t start making tweaks to your daily life. Back then, I was not sleeping enough (around 6 hours per night), I was smoking every day, was drinking on the weekends, was occasionally doing sports, and was not taking any time for myself. Even though I was eating healthy, I was an emotional eater; I did not know how to say no to social obligations and had no clue how to listen to the signals my body was giving me. All in all, I was a victim of the trap I had set for myself.

I felt totally out of control, addicted to other things that were giving me a sense of “pleasure”, whether that was smoking, eating, or drinking. I managed to convince myself that I was listening to my needs, but I absolutely was not.

It’s almost like the diagnosis triggered a kind of passiveness in me. It felt like one of those moments when you tell yourself "well, my phone is already broken, so who cares if I drop it on the floor a few more times? ” but that's not how it works. Having ADHD doesn’t mean we’re broken. It just means our brain works differently, and that deserves respect, not neglect. We need to acknowledge it, care for it, and make space for it in our lives, without letting it completely define who we are

Turning Point — Reclaiming Control and Building Healthy Habits

Only after reaching a low point in my life did I truly realize  I was not acting in my best interest at all. Even though I felt like I still had a healthy lifestyle compared to some of the people who surrounded me because they were either drinking more, smoking more, or partying more, I compared myself with the wrong people to begin with.

What should I have done instead?

Compare myself to a better version of myself, not to someone else who has a different mind, different body, different goals, different routine, different life, and no ADHD.

This got me thinking: Is there no way I can feel better than this? Is there no way I can try to improve my relationship with myself?

After a few unfruitful therapy attempts, I started coaching, which drastically improved my relationship with myself. I started doing more sports, and I quit smoking, which is something I never thought I would manage. I focused on getting more sleep, even if that meant going to bed 15 minutes earlier. Over time, these 15 minutes turned into an hour, and the results were there. I was now getting 7 hours of sleep, and I felt less cranky during the day. I managed to get up early and started working out in the morning, which is something I could have never even dreamed of before. I was a candidate who slept through 5 alarms because I either did not hear them or hit the snooze button and fell back asleep. This may seem like something totally normal to a lot of people, but to me, this was huge progress. I stopped overplanning my weekends and really focused on resting and taking it slow, whether that meant reading, walking, taking a bath, doing sports, or simply enjoying time doing nothing, because let’s face it: many of us don't know how to sit still and REST. It’s something that takes a lot of practice. It's very uncomfortable at first because when you are not feeling good, sitting alone with your thoughts can be scary, but once you get comfortable doing it, you will wonder how you lived without it for so long.

More on how I reached that shift and adjusted my routine on here.

Final Thoughts — You Are More Than Any Label

Deciding whether to get a diagnosis is important, and only you can determine if you should take that step. To make that decision, ask yourself what goal you have in mind when it comes to getting a diagnosis. What is the desired outcome? Do you need help, or do you need to know?

I think that for my part, I should have figured that getting a positive diagnosis would likely get to my head and make me see everything black & white, because I am already like that by nature.

What I suggest: Join ADD/ ADHD forums and follow pages, exchange with different people about how they felt after getting a diagnosis, and discuss what led them to the decision of getting a diagnosis, and then see for yourself.

• Make a list of the pros and cons of getting a diagnosis.

• Then, try writing down your strengths and weaknesses — and ask a few people you trust (friends, family, whoever knows you well) to add their thoughts too.

Seeing yourself through the eyes of others can help soften the impact a diagnosis might have and remind you that you’re so much more than any label.

Your ADHD is that spark within you. Stop blaming yourself, start being curious, be gentle and understanding, and don't measure yourself through others. You are you & they are they, basta.

I am confident you’ll realize that ADD/ ADHD, even if annoying, can be your superpower.

It’s how you developed in the world you live in, with the experiences that came with it. I am by no means disregarding trauma and saying that ADHD is not causing any suffering, but I do believe that there is beauty in every one of us, no matter our history and difficulties.

I see it as our own creation of a world for which we found alternative ways to exist, let's embrace it!

Here’s to you!

Love,

Alix