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Being diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 27 has been both a beautiful eye-opening journey, and a journey of confusion and shame.

I am going to share my experiences before the diagnosis, during the process of the diagnosis, and where I am today after being diagnosed for almost 8 months.  

So here it is – my ADHD journey. 

Ever since I was in junior high, I had a gut feeling I had something going on in my brain that made school very hard for me. In junior high I remember wondering if I had a learning disability because I was struggling to read, pay attention, and put any effort into anything that was school related. I didn’t tell anyone that I thought I was different because I didn’t want to be made fun of or have people not believe me. I cared way more about fitting in with my peers than I cared about my marks in school. I also wasn’t ready to accept that I might need extra help in classes when all of my other friends didn’t.  

Although I don’t remember a whole lot of junior high – I do remember struggling to focus in class. I remember teachers moving my seat because I talked too much to my friends. I remember getting a “green slip” (it meant you were in trouble in my school) because I blurted out an answer instead of raising my hand. I remember going into tests without studying for even five minutes because I couldn’t focus long enough without daydreaming.  

Now fast forward to high school from 2010-2012. When I was in grade 10, I was falling behind in quite a few of my courses. I was constantly being reminded by my teachers and parents that I had to start caring about school more if I wanted to graduate with my friends.  

Once the realization set in that I might have to stay in high school for an extra year I started to feel so much guilt and shame. I didn’t want to let my parents down, and I didn’t want my friends to think I was a failure. I wanted to be able to show everyone that I was capable of graduating with my friends. My parents and I also came to the conclusion that French immersion was one of the reasons I was struggling so much in school. I mean it makes sense – it isn’t my first language so at the time I can see where this idea came from. It was a lot easier to tell people I struggled learning a new language than it was to tell them that I struggled with the language I have been speaking my whole life. I dropped out of French immersion in grade 11 and I started to buckle down for the last two years of high school. 

I spent hours every single day re-writing notes after school and going over things that could possibly be on tests. I convinced myself that maybe people were right. Maybe I was just lazy and didn’t care about school enough. I was finally receiving good grades now that I was dedicating basically my whole life to school. I enjoyed getting compliments from teachers and my parents, which ended with me pushing to the back of my subconscious mind that there may be more to it than me just being lazy. 

Now fast forward a few months after graduating grade 12 and I’m on my way to the next chapter of my life. I was really excited to go to university and thought now that I wasn’t lazy, I would pass all my courses with flying colours. BOY, WAS I WRONG! Not only did the feelings of being stupid, not good enough, and isolated come back in university – so did that thought that maybe it was something else causing my struggles in school.  

Not only was I struggling with my courses in my first year of university, I was also away from home for the first time and had no sweet clue how to be a grown-up. My ability to focus was lost again. My priorities were strictly drinking for the first time in my life and making new friends. Because my attention was focused on all the things you do at university not relating to the school part, I was failing courses. And the ones that I wasn’t failing? I was just passing. I couldn’t hold my attention long enough to study for a test and was daydreaming during every lecture. 

I remember being in one of my psychology classes and talking about IQ. I instantly felt sick to my stomach. I felt a sense of, what I now know is, shame. I thought about how I didn’t belong in university and that my teachers that told me I wouldn’t go anywhere in life were right. Guilt quickly sunk in. As wild as this sounds now, I remember feeling grateful and a bit of relief knowing we didn’t have to take an IQ test. I remembered thinking that I knew something was off about my focus at school and because of that I would probably fail an IQ test if given one. I felt like a fraud sitting in the classroom next to people that deserved to be there. This guilt, shame, and sadness quickly took a downward spiral.  

It turns out if you don’t do well in university, they don’t make you get your failed tests signed by your parents like teachers used to when I was in junior high.

***THANK GOD: that did a lot of damage on my self-esteem and confidence, as I’m sure many others experienced as well***

Instead, they send you a letter telling you that you’re on academic probation. A month had passed since I moved home for the summer when I received a letter in the mail from STU (my university).  

I went into my room and opened it with a huge smile on my face because getting mail feels like Christmas to me. The excitement I was experiencing quickly switched gears into sadness and shame. All I remember reading is that my GPA was below a certain level and if I didn’t get it up by a certain point I would be kicked out of university. 

I instantly started to cry. I kept telling myself that my teachers from junior high and high school were right. I won’t amount to anything. I was stupid. I was lazy. I wasn’t smart enough to go to university. I started to blame myself for having fun in my first year and not focusing on school. Yes, I definitely should have focused more on school and a bit less on socialization, but it wasn’t the only reason behind my struggles in school. I didn’t tell a SOUL until years after I received that letter. Not my parents, not my friends, not anyone. The shame I felt from reading the words “academic probation” resulted in me getting my GPA above the level that you needed in order to stay enrolled in the school. I didn’t want everyone to realize I was a fraud and a failure so I tried as hard as I could to just get by. 

It wasn’t until my third or fourth year of university when the psychologist I was seeing mentioned me possibly having ADHD. The psychologist asked me if I was ever diagnosed with ADHD in my lifetime. All I could do at the time was laugh and think “okay doc, I know I talk a lot and have a lot of energy but there is no way I have ADHD.” I felt an instant protector mode come over me because I subconsciously still didn’t want to admit that I was different than my friends and classmates.  

The truth is my perception of ADHD was probably one that most of us have: a little boy bouncing off the walls and having a shit ton of energy. I ended up ignoring this suggestion and stopped going to see the psychologist. I told myself it was too much out of my way to go to my appointments once a month. I convinced myself that taking that one hour, once a month, to go see the psychologist was time spent away from studying and I needed to focus on school. 

I ended up graduating from St. Thomas University in 2016 with a major in Criminology and two minors in Human Rights and Sociology. This is a part of my life that I never used to be proud of because I barely passed most of my courses and didn’t feel like I deserved the degree. I’ve come to realize there was a lot to be proud of in those four years, including getting through unofficially diagnosed with ADHD.  

Flash forward to the fall of 2021 when I am seeing a counsellor at NSHA. Who, on a side note, has made a drastic positive impact on my life that I will be forever grateful for. 

I mentioned to my counsellor that in 2015/2016 I was asked by a psychologist if I was ever diagnosed with ADHD. As a counsellor, he wasn’t able to diagnose me but he made the suggestion that I get a referral done from my family doctor to get into an ADHD specialist.  

This is where my true ADHD journey began. 

I was referred to the ADHD specialist in September 2021, and in January 2022 I was sitting across from him at my appointment getting a proper diagnosis of ADHD. I quickly booked an appointment with my family doctor to go over medication and started Vyvanse right away. I’ve been on anxiety medication and anti-depressants. Nothing has quite made me feel more myself than my ADHD medication.  

In a Ted Talk called “Failing at Normal: An ADHD Success Story,” Jessica McCabe talks briefly about taking medication for the first time. This is how she describes her first-time taking medication: “The first time I took my medication, it was like putting on glasses and realizing I could see without squinting. I could focus.” I remember taking the medication and realizing I could actually think one thought at a time. I didn’t realize that for 27 years I was having way too many thoughts going on at once inside of my head. I thought that the way my mind worked was how everyone else’s worked. I didn’t realize how busy and overworked my brain was for the past 27 years. After taking my ADHD medication I could actually sit down and write again. It honestly blew my mind how much more in control of my mind I felt. 

The first bit after the diagnosis of ADHD I was exhilarated. I was researching everything there is to know about ADHD. I was making connections from my past behaviours to this new diagnosis. Things in my life were starting to make sense and it was so relieving. I felt like I finally had the answer as to why I was always misplacing my keys and phone. I understood why I couldn’t listen to music with too much bass or have too many different sounds going on at once. It turns out I get overstimulated, which is something that’s super common in people with ADHD. I understood why certain fabrics of bed sheets and clothes bothered my skin to a point where I couldn’t have it touching me anymore. I understood why I struggled doing chores my whole life and why I always found myself daydreaming instead.  

I was really happy and felt so free for the first bit of this journey. Making connections of my new diagnosis to experiences from my past for the most part was really interesting. At one point though my excitement and happiness started to change directions. I felt a lot of shame, guilt, anger, frustration and sadness come in. I was so hurt at the fact that people thought I was lazy, loud, annoying, and impulsive instead of seeing me as someone that was struggling and needed help. I was struggling with my self-esteem and built up a lot of resentment because I didn’t understand how I went 27 years undiagnosed. I found myself lashing out at people I love, and I lost a lot of interest in the things I loved most. 

It wouldn’t be helpful to anyone if I lied about me struggling sometimes. Through this journey, negative emotions still come up. There are days, I am angry that people don’t understand why too many sounds at once sends me into an instant state of panic because I’m over stimulated. There are days I fear that my ADHD will get in the way of having true meaningful relationships (both friends and romantic). There are days I feel resentment towards people that didn’t realize I was struggling my whole life. There are days I still feel as if no one understands me. There are days that I get frustrated about having ADHD and wish I could be neurotypical.  

But, as I grow, and as I learn to love myself on this journey, those days become less often, less intense, and less scary. 

And in those times, when I struggle to see the light, I start to remind myself how far I’ve come. I remind myself that my regular meditation practices help me become more aware and less reactive to situations I feel overstimulated by. I remind myself that I am constantly working towards the best version of myself and that those who love me unconditionally will accept me as who I am. I remind myself that my perception of ADHD used to be a little boy bouncing off the walls with non-stop energy, which helps me have compassion towards the people that didn’t realize I was struggling. Because they too, like me, weren’t educated. I remind myself that it’s hard for people to understand what you are going through if they don’t understand the situation itself. I remind myself that because of my non neurotypical brain, I am more empathetic, compassionate, creative, passionate and many more traits that people with ADHD seem to have. 

Most of all I remind myself to be compassionate towards myself. I remind myself that all my feelings are valid that come up. I read positive affirmations and practice gratitude to help me stay more level headed. I remind myself that every day is another chance to grow and learn something new. Every day is another chance to be kinder to myself and find new ways to love myself. 

I wanted to share my story for a bit and I am glad that I am getting the chance to do so now. To anyone that reads this and is going through the same thing, something similar, or even something completely different –you are never alone, and you are always enough. 

Cheers,

K