#looks like my insomnia was caused by constant anxiety that I didn't realize I had like I had bit episodes but didn't knew I had it all the

[eldritch-araneae]

Second day on Setralin.

I knows meds aren't supposed to work that fact ( esp when you start with small doses before moving to bigger) but the on second day I felt that the burn out that been plaguing me for months finally lose it's grip and I could draw without feeling exhausted. I'm excited for the treatment, hope I will feel better and full of energy, something I didn't have over a decade.

[voidwaren]

You said somewhere you got your ADHD diagnosed late in life. How is that going? I'm 25 and I think I have it but I don't know if it's too late to bother getting it checked.

anon, it is never too late, especially if you're a cis female or grew up female. you would not BELIEVE how under diagnosed ADHD is in females. I'm talking, like, they didn't believe girls had ADHD until the late 90s, if I'm remembering correctly, and didn’t even do a lengthy study until 2007 (I think? I was in high school when it happened, I know that much), because girls just apparently weren’t able to have it. (or, if they did, it was incredibly rare. which is total bullshit, but I digress.) AND they're still learning things about ADHD in females, unlike in males where certain things have just been known for years and years due to all the studies being only on males.

please get screened if you think you have it. mental breakdown and critical burnout are the tipping point you really don't want to reach if you can help it.

and now, too many words:

that being said, that's what caused me to get checked after realizing all that shit going on with me wasn't laziness and general life anxiety. I had a huge breakdown (one of quite a few, but I previously thought it was just stress) and, at 27, finally went and got checked. (I think actually you can see me coming to the realization on this blog, because that was around when I was writing WiS and realizing, hey, something's kinda fucky here. people keep talking about ADHD in my version of Warren, but *I* don’t have it.)

(... OR DO I?)

y’all. I did better scoring on that test than I ever did in school. 

turns out I had a bunch of symptoms that, because I am a 90s child, no one batted an eye at. terrible anxiety (not just a shy child and an awkward adult), poor learning skills (not just laziness with applying myself), depression and low self-esteem (from a life of thinking I was just too dumb to understand in school, no matter how hard I tried), rejection sensitive dysphoria (not just being “too sensitive” and needing “thicker skin”), constant stomach problems and insomnia due to hyperactivity.

(I will never stop complaining about the fact that my insomnia is so bad, my mom took me to the doctor as a young child because I would not sleep at nap time in preschool and had trouble falling asleep at night, and the doctor went, "oh yeah, she just doesn't need much sleep, it's fine." SIR. THAT'S NOT A THING.) 

(I could list all the things I have and do that were red flags, but I’d be here a while, and I also can’t remember all of them, SO.)

I literally never knew. I always brushed them off because they ran in the family and were just A Thing(TM) that I would have to deal with in life like everyone else. only one of my male cousins was diagnosed ADHD, so why would I have it? so I developed a way to deal with it, and I moved on with my life.

now I know that, no, I don't need to try harder, middle school math teacher that took me aside one day and said I really needed to start applying myself. I need DRUGS.

(and coping mechanisms. better ones, because some of the ones I use to mask and do daily things are, uh. not good. and caused a lot of problems I now have to have therapy to deal with.)

so, yeah. here I am now, almost 31, discovering things all the time. it's a learning process. it feels like I’m going, “oh, that’s an ADHD thing? okay...” constantly. I still tear up whenever I hear someone tell me they also have it and that they aren’t just “not trying hard enough”, and I am not a crier. that phrase has just stuck with me to the point where it’s a trigger, and I WILL start crying if the planets align and someone says it to me at the right moment.

I still get overstimulated and overwhelmed very easily. I still struggle to do a lot of things that other people will look at and go, “I did it, why can’t you?” I’m still trying to figure out better ways to handle my reaction to daily things, rather than allowing my anxiety to take over. I’m still trying to just get by in life, living in a world not made for me. 

but now that I know why I act the way I do, dealing with it is so much easier to stomach that, sometimes, I cannot believe it’s real. (sometimes I still go, “do I actually have ADHD or was everyone right? this can’t be real.”) a lifetime of “why do I act like this?” is finally solved, and holy shit. I do not have the words to explain how much better I feel.

please, please, please go get checked if you’re able to. try to find one that knows how to diagnose females if you are a cis female or previously identified as a cis female, because there are still problems with diagnosing and some doctors will write off symptoms if they don’t have a background in specifically female ADHD, not just ADHD in general. (I went to see a female ADHD specialist, for example, who had it herself.)

if you’re a cis male or previously identified as a cis male, you might have it a little easier, but it’s still more common to be undiagnosed than you’d think, so don’t let that stop you from getting checked. confirmation for or against it is a stepping stone towards figuring out why you do certain things that may be hindering you in life.

you might have to do a lot of calling around for prices if funds are an issue (there are some places that do it for cheap, if not free, but they’re VERY hard to find sometimes), and you may have to go to more than one place, but in the end it will be worth it. I promise.