Later that evening, you remember a school report that said you needed to try harder. You remember how hard you were already trying.
An ADHD diagnosis in adulthood can bring relief. It can give you a way to understand why some everyday things have taken so much effort. It can also bring up sadness, anger or questions about what might have been different if you’d understood this sooner. You can feel both in the same day.
Looking back at how hard you were trying
Maybe you left assignments until the last minute, then stayed up most of the night to finish them. Maybe at work you spent Sunday evenings going through emails because you were worried you’d missed something important. Other people saw the finished assignment or the reply that arrived on time. You knew what it took to get there.
When you’ve spent years telling yourself you should be more organised or more consistent, it takes time to speak to yourself differently. One place to start is a situation you still feel embarrassed about. What were you trying to manage at the time? What did you do to get through it? What support would have made a difference?
Those questions can give you a fuller picture of what was happening. You may also begin to notice strengths you took for granted, such as how you solved problems or found a routine that worked for you.
If you were assessed as a child
For some people, this isn’t the first time ADHD has come up. You may have been assessed as a child, and the result was brushed aside. Perhaps your family didn’t think it was serious, or believed you’d grow out of it. Perhaps you decided it was an excuse, or that you should be able to manage without help.
Adulthood can change how that looks. Challenges that were easier to explain away at school can be harder to ignore with a job, a relationship or a family to look after. You might feel frustrated that the information was there years ago and nothing was done with it. You might feel guilty for not taking it seriously yourself, or confused about how to feel toward the people who dismissed it. Many families made decisions based on what they knew at the time, and that doesn’t cancel out what it cost you.
There’s no right way to feel about this. Counselling can be a place to talk about what you were told back then, what you believed about yourself as a result, and what you’d like to make of it now.
Making room for the grief
You may wish someone had asked why you kept losing track of instructions. You may think about a course you left, a job you found exhausting or a relationship where you often felt misunderstood. Some memories look different now that you have another way to make sense of them.
It’s okay to spend time with what you wish had been different. You can be glad to have an answer and still be sad about how much energy you spent trying to keep up. You can also take your time deciding who you want to tell about your diagnosis and what you want to share.
Building on your strengths and trying new ways of working
You might also want to build skills that make everyday life easier. A good starting point is something that already works for you. When is it easier to get started? What helps you keep track of an idea? How have you handled a task like this before?
Say you explain ideas clearly when you talk them through, but get stuck when you sit down to write a report. You could record a short voice note, pull out the main points and use them to sketch an outline. That’s a new way of approaching the task, and it draws on something you already do well.
Or say you’re good at seeing what a project could become, but find it hard to work out where to begin. You could practise turning the big idea into a first step you can picture yourself doing, such as opening the last report, copying the headings and adding a few notes under the easiest one. Once you’ve tried it, you can decide what helped and what to adjust.
The skills worth building depend on what matters to you. You might want to plan a busy week, notice when you’ve taken on too much, or find your place again after an interruption. Working on one situation at a time gives you the chance to find a way of doing things that fits your life.
Asking for what helps now
Sometimes the change you need is something another person can do with you.
At work, if a meeting ends with several people agreeing to different tasks, you could ask, “Can we write down what I’m responsible for and when it’s due?”
At home, if you keep forgetting things you and your partner discuss in passing, you could say, “Can we put that in the shared calendar now? I’d like us both to be able to see it.”
At an appointment, if you think of your questions after you’ve left, bring a short list and say, “I’ve written down two things I want to ask. Can we start with those?”
Ask for something specific and see how it works. A small change can make a task easier and leave you with more energy for the rest of your day.
What we can talk about in counselling
At Looking Up, we can talk through what the diagnosis has brought up and what you’d like help with now. You might want to revisit a time you’ve been hard on yourself, talk about an assessment from childhood that was never taken seriously, recognise strengths you’ve overlooked, or practise a new way of managing a task that keeps getting on top of you. We can start with one example from your week and work out what you’d like to try.
Read more about how counselling can support adults with ADHD
Book a free 15-minute introductory call
