spindizzy | Second verse, same as the first: SO IT TURNS OUT THAT I HAVE ADHD

I had the NHS version of my ADHD assessment! It was amazing!

... Okay, backing up:

jilliferium came over to visit yesterday, which was excellent; we had tasty Korean barbeque, traded Pokémon, figured out how to do raid battles, and got to pet a Stealth Staffie that liked hanging out at eye-level in the pub. This morning we both rolled out of bed at arse o'clock so that we could head into town and get dessert for breakfast at the café that does things like "here is a stack of four american pancakes with whipped cream and red velvet brownie/salted caramel brownie on top" before I had to head across town to my assessment.

captainraz and

hardlyaverage came with me as moral support (their view)/less biased witnesses (my view), and the doctor was SO NICE. Like, he was half an hour late but he apologised and explained! (He had an earlier appointment that ran over, it was fair.) The first thing he said in the interview was that he liked to observe patients in the waiting room to see how they act when they're not in an a pressured environment, and he was prepared to write me a scrip just based on that. Constantly in motion, yay!

(I know I mentioned most of this on twitter, but I try to write this stuff up long-form because I know a bunch of OTHER people who are trying to get diagnoses and it's sometimes useful for people to see what happened in other appointments?)

Apparently he was supposed to have a med student with him today to sit in on interviews (which I would've been 100% okay with!), and he was SO SAD that the student missed it because apparently I'm a textbook case???? Like, my GP (who is a STAR) sent him all of the information that I gave him when first trying to present my case, which included a copy of the DIVA screening test (Link goes to a PDF) that I uh... Printed out and annotated with answers? I really hope that he didn't think my doctor wrote all of those notes because I did NOT have a responsible adult supervising me when I wrote that. ... Honestly, the fact that the dude READ my nonsense warms my heart all the way through, because LOOK AT THAT, A DOCTOR WHO DOES THE PREP WORK! It didn't include the spider diagram that I drew to explain how much of a mess my brain was, but apparently it didn't need to!

So what he asked me to do was run through a typical day for me, which I did! And got horribly side-tracked on because ADHD story-telling is like that, and Tonks and Jameson kept suggesting things that I skip over like "And then I get distracted when I've only got one sock on so half an hour later I look up like "???? Why is only one foot cold?" or "And then I go to my dayjob and do my freelance work on the sly because the fuck is concentrating!"

I can't remember what the transition was (I think it was talking about how I cope with unstructured time, to which the answer was that I don't), but he asked me about what medication I was on, and I rattled through the list and mentioned how the anxiety and ADHD meds didn't work during shark week and he was like "???"

HE DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT THE PRIVATE DIAGNOSIS.

THE REFERRAL WENT THROUGH BEFORE I GOT THAT.

I WAS A TEXTBOOK CASE OF ADHD EVEN BEFORE HE KNEW THAT SOMEONE ELSE HAD ALREADY SAID I HAD IT!

So uh yeah, maybe I have ADHD. We went over what I'm on now (Equasym XL, which wasn't what he usually prescribed but when I said that I'm okay with trying something else he was like "NO DO NOT." Apparently the issue is "What can you actually get from the pharmacy?" rather than what they're comfortable with, so: cool!) and I mentioned that I hadn't taken my ADHD meds this morning because I didn't know if he wanted to see me in full flow or not! And he just sort of looked at me and said "Why Would You Do That To Yourself?" so I think I've found a good doctor! And he's letting me bump up my afternoon dose so that I'm taking 30ml in the morning AND the afternoon! And because I'm getting the prescription from an NHS doctor, it comes under the pre-paid thing I have that means I just pay £10.40 each month and that covers ALL OF MY MEDS. ALL OF IT. MWAHAHAHAHA!

So yes, I am VERY happy with this, this is GREAT news, and I need to send a bunch of emails to people and flail around a bit, but hi! I have ADHD! It's officially real, it's definitely not a doctor trying to scam me out of £345 every six weeks, and I can just... Ring up an office... And get my prescription... For free...? So this is PERFECT. I need to email a bunch of people to confirm, and I have an occupational health meeting to discuss some of the stuff that frazzles me ANYWAY, and just... Hi sweeties, I'm real. I actually have ADHD and people believe me and I don't need to feel bad about getting help anymore!

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kimboo_york

I am SO HAPPY for the diagnosis and the meds! WHOOP! Working with students who are newly diagnosed, I see such a turnaround in their lives...not just the meds and stuff doing their job, but the students realizing that there is a legitimate issue behind some of their frustrating behaviors. It's such a relief for them, and I think it is for you too? I hope! I'm so glad!