I have ADHD, and my therapist has confirmed it, just like the results of ADHD tests. He isn’t bad, he greatly helps me with my depression. However, he doesn’t provide an official diagnosis nor prescribe pills.
He says it’s my trait and that I should learn to live with it. Like, take more breaks, find a motivation. Easy to say, hard to do. I can’t keep up with the strategies he suggests, and I feel like I’m not trying hard enough.
The world doesn’t wait for me. This trait is ruining my work and my routine, and it’s stealing my money and my time. I can’t start tasks, I can’t concentrate, and I can’t do anything boring or unpleasant.
For example, I can stare at a wall in the middle of a work task, with my hand over the keyboard, and lose myself in thoughts about my hobby. And I don’t give a damn at this moment about all my reminders, the absence of irritants, and so on.
Of course, sometimes I can force myself “just to do it”, but it costs a ton of energy (btw, because of my depression, I have a tiny amount of energy). It often requires a ton of luck, too.
Is this normal? Am I just complaining?
Teaching self-acceptance is generally fine, but I feel like in this case, this is a cop-out and the person isn’t able to provide the help and support you require.
My related experience (trigger warning):
I’ve run into this issue myself with my adult autism diagnosis - providers refused to provide a diagnosis or provide me a pathway to receive an evaluation from somebody qualified to do so (the vast majority of providers do not have the expertise to diagnose autism in adults and I was never tested by them in any way). Even when I needed accommodations for college, they just sat silent, refused to address my concerns, and quickly changed subjects.
Turns out I do have autism, and they were just barriers to me accessing diagnosis and all the benefits that come with it. I likely have ADHD as well, but none of these providers gave a shit. They just focused on my anxiety and tried to reason me out of my state, focused on having me change my behaviors and reactions (mask even harder), gaslit me into accepting that I’m causing people to traumatize me and letting myself be traumatized, and so forth. I was already high-masking, but I desperately needed supports and they had nothing to offer. They acted as if my high-masking appearance was my baseline and the anxiety was the inhibitor - which caused me an immense amount of harm. They also refused to address my significant trauma history and PTSD.
Find someone else who is qualified in ADHD and don’t get fucked around like I did.
I understand. I was once refused a diagnosis of pneumonia because “people don’t breathe like that with pneumonia.” It turned out that I had pneumonia, and I spent a month in the hospital
Yeah, it’s pretty crazy what can happen.
Also related, as a young child, I had very severe breathing problems - but no wheezing. Turns out I have an atypical presentation of asthma (like cough-variant asthma or silent asthma) and I was nearly dying for over a year before the doctor referred me to an asthma and allergy specialist and admitted they couldn’t help me to my parents.
I get it, going through all that education, training, and practice is worthy of recognition, but the best doctor knows their limits and passes you along to someone who is equipped and specialized.
I think that it’s great that you posted here and I hope things get better for you!