I was diagnosed at 13 but it was hidden from me, my father let everything out shortly before he died in 2013 and told me what the doctors had said. At that time I really didn’t know what to do with that information and basically forgot about it.

Fast forward to 3 years ago. My husband and I moved and bought a home and my mental health took a nose dive. I was a total mess. I switched insurance and got to pick my pcp and I chose a family doctor who had experience treating women in mental health.

She has helped me with various health issues and I have worked hard to improve my health but my mental state was still deteriorating. She treated me for anxiety and depression but something was still wrong. My entire life has been nothing but impulsive bad decisions, forgetfulness, and trauma. I dropped out of school back in 1997, I was homeless for a while. My husband saved me and he loved me enough to stay with me through all of my episodes but even he had a limit.

We have been married for nearly 15 years, now my life was starting to ruin my marriage. I went to my doctor for help. I cried and begged her, I told her how I was brushed off by numerous other doctors and it was hard for me to trust them. I felt ignored and that I had fallen through the cracks.

After 3 years of trials with medication for anxiety and depression. Nothing was helping. During one of our visits we were talking when I remembered what my Dad had told me all those years ago. She ran some tests on me and asked me about my history and spoke to my husband. She said she felt very confident diagnosing me with inattentive type and started me on medication shortly after.

My god. When I first took my meds, the first couple of days were spent crying and mourning the person I might have been if I got help as a kid. Then I felt anger and depression over so much lost time. I was mad at my parents for hiding it and not getting me help. I went through all of it. My mind instantly quieted down and I became so relaxed. I could focus and concentrate.

My only saving grace is that I have adapted so much while being unmedicated that now that I am, I am able to just do what I need to do. I don’t have to sit and fight with myself. It’s easy to get up now. I am not as sad and depressed over my job and dreading it. I have become a more involved mother to my kids. I also asked for my daughter to be tested and we got help from her teachers, she was diagnosed with combined type. Now she’s also getting help and we are learning this together.

I am shocked and sad that I have wasted so much of my life but I am happy now that I am finally getting help. It shouldn’t have been this hard to get it. So many doctors blamed my symptoms on my kids, or my age. The meds they gave me never helped for that, I never felt depressed. I just felt overwhelmed with everything all of the time. No one listened.

I am happy I can live now though, and hello to the group.

I’ve been on 25 MG adderall XR since I was 16 I am now 23(f) and just started my first big girl job in sales. I’ve noticed I get much more emotional and sensitive about things even when I’m mad, but my memory is much worse than others and I feel like my brain on adderal is comparable to theirs on a average day. My family suggested I consider stop taking my adderall which scares me because I don’t want to do worse at work / get depressed and honestly seems like a lot of work lol but I also am scared to rely on this for the rest of my life and not to mention all the negative effects it has on me. Also what is the best way to quit without going cold turkey? Do I open my pills and start to take some of the balls out to slowly ween myself off ? Any one have any advice at all?

Forgive me if this rambles all over the place, but I feel like I'm spinning out more than I ever have. My father was a major part of how I functioned. Grief aside I need to get it together and I don't know what to do. I have to get the house cleaned and ready to sell, I have to deal with family members asking me to give them access to his accounts, and I'm barely able to get up and dressed and do anything. I'm sitting here staring at my vitamins wondering if I took them (also wondering if I take take extra would that make me feel sick). I keep screaming in my head that I have to do... Something or anything productive. I keep trying to distract myself but nothing can hold my attention.

I'm trying to sort it all out but I know I'm spinning and every single person I know keeps asking me if I'm ok with that look pity in their eye and that concerned stance like I might fall and shatter into a million pieces, and it makes more angry then I've ever been. All my tricks and coping starts/mechanisms are failing me. And I just don't know.

I don't know if I'm ok. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to start. So I'm spinning out, and I'm trying harder than I ever have to not self-destruct. Life is changing and I hate it, I don't want to be this way, but I am. I don't want to deal with those looks people give me that are more pity than sympathy. I don't want to deal with the legal crap-chute that I know that I'm going to have to do. I don't want to deal with grubygreddy relatives. I just want to feel normal enough to function, even if it's just enough to get through today.

I don't feel like I can talk to family members that I like because they have never understood what I have to deal with on the day to day anyway, and now that it feels a bazillion times more, I don't think they could help and I also feel that I would be a burden to them for even trying. That's another thing I feel like a such a burden all the freaking time, like some cancerous growth that you just can't get rid of.

I will be trying to get some grief counseling through my work and I will be seeing a doctor and try once again to get back on medication later this month (I hate that appointments take months to get here). But I do feel that I need help today. I'm hoping that someone out there in the aether can have some basic concepts of what I'm saying and not judge me for my situation. Maybe I need a body double so I can do stuff, I don't know, but I know I need to function. And the more I scream at myself to do something the harder I shut down.

Ok rereading this, I feel that this came out more of a rant than intended. That aside I'm gonna leave as is.

In the past week I have tried listening to music, podcasts, audiobooks, white noise, nature sounds, as well as having nothing playing and it all makes me various levels of grumpy while I try to get going on cleaning the house. Doing five minutes of busy work and walking away while trying to distract myself for ten minutes doesn't work. Trying to make a game of it, doesn't work. Holding the cat with one hand and trying to clean doesn't work (also upsets the cat somewhat, though she usually doesn't mind when I do this may be because I am stressed). I tried leaving the house for a bit and coming back doesn't help (had a small road rage incident and I screamed in the car for 10mins, not looking to vent on a random person). Tried making a list, I sat and stared at the paper for 20min.

So here I am, stuck in a rut, trying to pass a buck, and hoping that life would give me less suck. I know some of it is my ADHD and some of it is grief. But I need to get stuff done and I feel like a failure, more so tgan i ever have. And even asking for this level of help hurts and I don't know why. But I'm asking, so please, if you are out there.