One Year of Being Diagnosed with ADHD

So, it’s been one year since I was diagnosed with ADHD, and I’ve learned a lot about myself in this past year, and how to deal with some of the issues that stem from the ADHD. While they haven’t all been resolved, I’m happy to say I’m in a better frame of mind than I was in 2024.

Why I Suspected ADHD

I never really thought I had ADHD per se. Looking back on my childhood, I wasn’t exactly the stereotypical hyper kid. I didn’t think much of my issues with memory, or focus. I just put my headphones on and listened to whatever music was available at the time because it instinctively helped me focus.

Oh, a sidenote: I saw an MP making a “no ifs, no buts” comment in regards to a phone ban in schools in the UK. This would’ve fucked me up, especially considering I needed music from my phone to help me focus, given that Spotify was blocked on the school computers. That MP can go fuck themselves.

Anyway, as I grew up and became an adult, some stuff started showing up. The initial thing was rejection sensitivity dysphoria, which is a symptom felt by an immense amount of pain and distress after feeling rejected for any reason, even from legitimate criticism. This is something I did in fact notice in childhood but didn’t realise was an ADHD thing, as I remembered asking my parents to ask other people about things because I didn’t want to deal with that pain of rejection. It sounds weird, and I know it’s weird, but it’s a gut punch I can’t train myself to deal with because of how low-level it is, and it fucking sucks. It’s worth pointing out that while it’s commonly reported in people with ADHD, rejection sensitivity is not criterion used for diagnosing ADHD. This should’ve been the trigger, in hindsight, but again – I wasn’t really the hyper kid.

However, when I left university, and as COVID spread and we were all forced to stay in our homes, the lockdowns fucked me up in a way that made me realise something was actually going wrong. I was having major focus problems, the noise from my OCD symptoms were much harder to stop, I was giving into perfectionism all the time, and the one telltale sign was that I was distro-hopping. I’m so damn happy to be on Windows 11 right now, and it’s because Linux was actually dangerous for my psyche. See, Linux operating systems work as “distributions” or “distros” which package the Linux kernel up with a bunch of software for a use case (desktop, server, embedded, etc.), and for me I kept looping between two tinkerer-oriented distros: Arch and Gentoo. Anyone who knows those two know they can be tedious, with Gentoo being the more tedious one back then as you needed to compile the software from readable code to something a computer can run. Maybe I should’ve used Fedora, but I kept letting good be the enemy of perfect, when it should be the other way around.

Now, this can just be OCD, but something was fuelling it, and I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t realise until recently, and it was all thanks to one YouTuber.

What made me push for a diagnosis

I’ve been subscribed to Jaiden Animations for a bit. It’s good teatime watching, innit. I found her through a now-disgraced YouTuber who collaborated with her (no points if you guess correctly) but stuck around because the videos were fun. In 2024, she released this video:

I didn’t take it as a surprise, but because of the memory problems I have, I didn’t realise that Jaiden even had ADHD. I just thought she was like that. Watching this was an eye-opener however, because Jaiden’s symptoms of ADHD – namely the focus problems and the hyperfixations – closely matched mine. Not in any vague sort of self-diagnosis way, like – literally. She also had a similar event to when my ADHD started getting worse – both when we had lost structure from someone or something (losing reliance on her mom vs. me graduating university). After watching I was like, okay – time to get a diagnosis.

Assessment process

I’m in the UK, so that means I’ll get a diagnosis for free under the NHS, right? Free healthcare!

Well. Kind of.

I feel like Americans don’t understand how bad the state of the NHS is. There are waiting lists up the ass across the country, and specifically for ADHD, some areas are either restricting ADHD assessments to under 25s or flat-out not accepting new patients. People are being treated in A&E in corridors in an undignified manner. The NHS is bleeding while the British government and NHS middle management line up their wallets and watch as people literally die from terminal cancer due to their incompetence. Things are so dire that British medical staff and trainees are simply moving away from the UK, to countries that have better pay. ABC reported on this in the case of Australia.

<div class="og-fallback-embed has-custom-css wp-custom-css-03daeeb1"> <div class="og-fallback-embed__image"><img decoding="async" src="https://live-production.wcms.abc-cdn.net.au/e39e645f15b2f94f04c8922731818c5e?impolicy=wcms_watermark_news&amp;cropH=522&amp;cropW=928&amp;xPos=0&amp;yPos=103&amp;width=862&amp;height=485&amp;imformat=generic" alt="British doctor leaving UK for better lifestyle triples his salary in Australia" loading="lazy" /></div> <div class="og-fallback-embed__content"> <p class="og-fallback-embed__provider">www.abc.net.au</p> <p class="og-fallback-embed__title"> <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-27/nhs-exodus-predicted-to-accelerate-as-doctors-head-down-under/103871994" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">British doctor leaving UK for better lifestyle triples his salary in Australia</a> </p> <p class="og-fallback-embed__description">After a decade of working in Britain&#039;s besieged NHS, Harshal Deshmukh had had enough. So he headed to Queensland and hasn&#039;t looked back.</p> </div> </div>

If you’re British and can afford it, just go private. For the rest of us – if you’re in England, there is one path you can take, called “Right to Choose”. This is essentially a sorta-hybrid of NHS & private care. The idea is that if you cannot find a timely way to get a diagnosis under the NHS, you can choose to be seen by another NHS provider. Some NHS trusts have started paying private care providers, and this has resulted in lower waiting times for some assessments, including ADHD. This is better explained by ADHDUK, whose resources I consulted for the process. You can check those here, if you want. I chose my provider, got an appointment, did the assessment, and eventually, I was diagnosed with combined-type ADHD.

See, ADHD is divided into two halves: hyperactivity/impulsivity (which we know as ADHD) and inattentiveness (which some know as ADD, even though they’re the same disorder). I was concerned about the inattentiveness, but upon diagnosis, the psychiatrist found I fit the criteria on both. Hit the ADHD jackpot, I guess – although the NHS does say it’s common to exhibit signs of both.

Treatment

My provider never really did any therapy for me, I was essentially relying on self-help. But I still got drugs! I was prescribed with 20mg Elvanse (or Vyvanse for the Americans). It’s a particularly low dose, but when I was on 30mg, I was essentially OCD on steroids – it made me focus, yeah, but on the wrong things. This was expected, however, I was told that autistic people are more sensitive to higher doses of ADHD stimulants. All that said, the first few days on that were amazing. I could think clearly. My OCD had mostly shut up. I was also more confident. It was like my brain had finally switched on.

Unfortunately, I had to stop drinking caffeinated drinks. I was very loyal to Coca-Cola, but now I’m drinking caffeine-free Pepsi Max because the Pepsi taste of battery acid actually kind of exists there. I’m yet to try a good decaf though. On the flipside, because my medication is classed as an amphetamine, I can officially say that I’m on meth lol.

However, the medication is part of it. Remember, I was relying on self-help, which in fairness the medication does help with. Some of my self-help strategies included LeechBlock, a browser extension for blocking distractions, and large language models for when I’m programming and forgot to change a line of code. And despite leaving Linux for the time being, I also feel that Linux could genuinely get ahead of Windows here, with KDE and Niri implementing basic features that work with ADHD brains such as workspaces/virtual desktops. The scrollable tiling is something I absolutely love about Niri, and if I was given the choice I’d be on Niri right now.

Some things took a bit of time though. I am still prone to overthinking, but the Elvanse does help get me into a state where I can pull myself out quicker. It’s why I’ve moved from Linux to Windows, and from static site generators where I wasn’t really writing much of anything because of the friction, to WordPress where I’m now writing my bloody heart out. I’ve become more of a pragmatist, at the cost of being “allergic” to a lot of ideology and ideological behaviour.

Sidenote: This is why I have no time for anti-AI ideologues, nor do I have time for people who claim Linux is “the anti-AI OS”, especially when Linus Torvalds himself said it’s not. I have been sent homophobia on Bluesky because I said that LLMs can work for people with chronic illnesses. The worst thing is, I agree on a lot of the criticisms surrounding generative AI and specifically LLMs, but I simply will not associate with or call myself anti-AI because they’re simply just too toxic.

However, there is one major problem with treatment: shared care agreements. This is the key for most providers to provide NHS-funded treatment once you have been discharged. Unfortunately, thanks to the BBC’s Panorama documentary on CARE ADHD (one of the RTC providers), most GPs will not do a shared care agreement. Given that the BBC also reported on GPs thinking ADHD is being over-diagnosed and looking like they’re trying to manufacture consent for restricting ADHD assessments/treatments, and only started changing their tune recently, I don’t think I have much faith in the BBC. If you can afford private prescriptions, this won’t be an issue, but if you can’t, make sure to check your chosen provider actually does medication under the NHS (and explain to your pharmacist if they’re not sure about RTC).

Another problem I’m dealing with using herbal remedies is insomnia. I’ve been told the medication would work, but I find that it doesn’t for me due to my lifestyle. I meet up with friends late at night on VRChat, and the medication would’ve entirely worn off by the time I’ve finished. This means my ADHD behaviours kick back in and I don’t end up leaving until 2am. It’s… not great, and the meds are not as effective if your brain didn’t get the rest it needs. If you’re having similar issues for any reason, try Valerian root and/or push your psychiatrist for melatonin.

Looking back

Looking back on my younger years, I realised that a lot of my struggles were driven by ADHD. The rejection sensitivity, or rather my general emotional issues are apparently a telltale sign of ADHD. My short-term memory problems when I was younger turned out to also be ADHD. I thought the struggle in exams that I was dealing with was normal. No, it was not. I’ve also learned that hyperfixations are strongly fuelled by ADHD. It explains the attachments I got to Linux, as well as Eurovision. Of course, the autism is also coming into play.

The emotional irregularity associated with ADHD causes a lot of drive towards hyperfixation and a sense of identity. It made leaving Linux hard because, I won’t lie, I built an identity around Linux which I am now shedding. It was attaching me to an identity, rather than treating Linux like a tool.

I’ve learned a lot about myself thanks to the ADHD diagnosis, and the treatment has helped me become my own person, and I am absolutely happy about that.