Getting diagnosed with ADHD! - (my diagnosis story)

it would change everything it would explain my whole life like you don't understand and i was like how the hell does a normal person live their life hey guys welcome back to my channel my name is candice and i help people who have adhd understand and manage their brain so today in this video i wanted to talk to you about my diagnosis story with adhd i am definitely procrastinating on editing one of my videos right now um why because it takes a lot of mental effort for me and right now i told myself you know what why don't i just film another video and talk about my diagnosis story because some of you guys asked for it in the comments and i thought it was a very good idea and i already went over it very quickly on my very first video um which was titled like diagnosed with initiate21 and in this video i just said you know how i found out about rishi and then really quickly went through you know where i did it when approximately and that's it i didn't go through you know what kind of information i was asked during the um the sessions etc so i just wanted to give you guys some more information about this i just wanted to add that i was actually diagnosed in 2019 september 2019 so now we're in february 2022 so two and a half years later i'm now 23 and i was diagnosed back when i had just turned 21 and um i think about a year and a half passed between the moment i learned about what adhd was and today i got officially diagnosed so yeah just to give you some more context that's what the video is going to be about i'm going to make it quiet you know natural and not going to do a ton of editing on this video i think so i hope i have it in one go right now i don't have a lot of battery on my phone and i'm really hoping it doesn't die before i'm done i started a timer on my ipad so that i don't over i don't go over like 20 minutes which which is already a lot but i'm gonna try to make it less and so if you guys want to hear me you know talk about this diagnosis story of mine then you're welcome to listen to me and watch me talk about this so let's start okay so first of all i already recorded one version of this video beforehand and i took a lot of time explaining like how i was in my like prior to my diagnosis who i was in my life and like what kind of signs were predicting i would get diagnosed with adc and i don't want to get actually too caught up into this so in this version i'm going to try to you know not talk too much about it i just want to say that obviously there were a lot of signs beforehand um especially in high school when i started to struggle a lot with my assignments and handing them back in time and people did notice that i was struggling because i was offered help and often i mean it never it was never sufficient because i would always fall back into my old habits and i started thinking something was very wrong with me and i was different but i didn't really know how to explain it and in my relationships i had a lot of ups and downs and i was very overall i was a very intense person and i still am but like before this i just thought you know i'm i'm just weird and i'm just really emotionally intense and i don't handle um teasing very well i don't handle rejection very well which is a whole subject that i'm going to talk about in the next video or that you might have already seen on my channel depending on when i post this one um but rsd rejection sensitive dysphoria is a whole thing for hd people and i was definitely experiencing this so yeah all those signs you know put together uh directed me towards this diagnosis but i was very i was completely unaware of what it usually meant at the time so you know i got my a levels or the equivalent of it in france so i was in an international school which is where i learned to speak english someone in the comments mentioned that they uh they figured out that it was french from my accent so well done i'm french um and yeah so i got my new levels i went up to university and this is when things got really really really hard for me because all of a sudden i had all those responsibilities um so you know taking classes without anyone you know watching over my shoulders to tell me when to you know write my report do this assignment learn my lessons and i was like completely free of doing what i wanted and this didn't really end well for me in first year because i went to bed whenever i wanted i ate whenever whatever i wanted and i hung out with my friends way too much because i was in a student hole so it was like you know living the life for the first year and for most people it's just limited to this like like uh the best year at university that they can have or at least you know it seems magical because you're away from your parents all of a sudden you can do whatever you want for me it took another turn because all my responsibility came piling up on me i had bills to pay i had um i remember my phone bill i needed to go to the agency to i needed to go to hsbc to pay it by cash for don't ask me for what reason it was like such a stupid arrangement but i needed to do this and i always always ended up doing it very very late i you know i missed a few months and then i went there and i had to pay two or three months at a time and i got you know letters telling me that i was in danger of having like some bad stuff on my credits up here i don't know like it was very um a difficult time for me and it was like always some kind of pressure in the back of my mind and i just kept pushing it away like it doesn't exist and it just came kept piling up and also my you know emotional disregulation issues like my relationship issues just me fitting in awkwardly socially um me having trouble organizing myself organizing my time managing my time planning ahead all those things came like crushing on me and i was like how the hell does a normal person live their life and um i had like a crisis like a identity crisis i didn't know who i was i had no self-esteem when i say no self-esteem i know this seems like very harsh but it seemed like it at the time that i was just completely lost and so trigger warning there i had some kind of i i think i yeah i could say i was depressed i was never officially diagnosed as depressed but i was definitely going through some deep stuff at the time and i remember being really desperate because i it was really hard for me um to live this life i felt like i was going nowhere um it's quite hard to talk about and i don't want to shock any of you and you know i'm just gonna keep talking because okay so after this episode i started to get help and i was in group therapy for a while but no one noticed my adhd so i kept going through university like this um and at some point i found a video of a coach like a female coach called male warwick mel robbins that i talked about in another of my videos and um she talked about focus focus in one of her videos and she mentioned that she had adhd and i was like what is adhd and she started talking about sentence like you know so i have hd so i really struggle to focus on stuff so i do this and that and like wait a minute um she sounds just like me like what she says is very similar to my struggle and i was like i've never heard anyone say something like this and i've never heard anyone relate to my experience before so i went online i looked for adhd and i found all the symptoms i started taking tests online i started like involving my flatmate who was very dear who is still a very dear friend of mine and who used to know me before university so she took part and we did the test together and she was like yeah it sounds like you it's definitely like it definitely fits um the traits like the symptoms and your personality they definitely match and i was like wow this is so huge and i just learned more about it read a lot and um i started getting really interested in the subject and i was like you know this could explain everything and i had i remember having like a drink a few drinks actually um with one of my very good friends and we would just talk about it until like she would corner me and ask me like why do you think that's you like tell me more about it like tell me about your history why why do you think this could fit and like what would it change after all i was like it would change everything it would explain my whole life like you don't understand and i don't think she understood because she didn't have adhd so she didn't know how i felt this whole time but i was very grateful that you know she was around for me to tell her about my experience and stuff and so um she can afford me in the sense that um she told me you know if you need to get diagnosed and just go and do it and then you know you'll finally know if it's yes or no if it's not this then maybe you can look elsewhere for answers because i was definitely um desperate for an answer and like a meaning to my life at that point and um some kind of explanation for everything i've been through and so after this i um i went back to paris to do my master's so i was done with my degree i had a lot of ups and downs and struggled with my grades et cetera so that'll be a whole other video but after this i managed to you know get my degree uh get an upper second class degree in england which is like a two one which is not that bad um and i went to france to do a masters and then i started to look for a therapist and so my way of looking at it was i want to find someone who is specialized who is word for word specialized in edc so i only looked at those and i started looking in paris because obviously there's more people so i'm from paris and i live in the suburbs i started looking in the capital because i thought there would be more people uh obviously and this was the case so i found someone who is specialized in addictions in adhd because those two are closely related so she was specialized in adhd and um so i you know contacted her i i think i booked it online we have a platform in france called which allows you to book uh any appointment with a doctor like from you know remotely so i did this i think and i definitely it wasn't all paid back um by social insurance like i had to put some money in it from my own pockets and it was not that cheap but you know it is what i had to do because i really wanted to get this diagnosis and i know for most of you watching you probably don't live in france but this is one thing that is hard to accept when you want to get diagnosed with adhd you have to go through a lot of waiting you have to be persistent you have to really want it and wait for it and i know this is so hard and this can discourage you and i know in some countries for example in england if you go through any chess you have to wait for months until you get a diagnosis or even an appointment and it's it's so frustrating and i hope it's going to change in most countries but right now this is the way it is and i really guarantee you that it's worth it if you have adhd symptoms to go through this process even though it sucks you can do it you can go to the end of it and once you get the final answer whether it's a yes or no you'll be so happy um that you have done it so that was just a message of hope if you're going through this right now for me it took some time but not too long i think once i was back in france but ad actually already been a year and a half i think or a bit less maybe not even a year i think a year since i had known about aeg and i wanted to get diagnosed i tried doing this in um the uk i couldn't because it was too difficult any chest took too long and i was like you know what when i get back to france i'll do it and i'll get some more insurance as in like i'll get some of my money back um because i'm french and so i waited so in the end i waited quite a long time but once i got my um first appointment then i went through the process and so when i first met um the psychiatrist because she was a psychiatrist the first question she asked was you know why you're here um and i explained to her well i'm here because i want to get diagnosed with adhd and then like i want to know if i have an hd or not i've been pondering the question for so long i have this and this information on me and this proof that you know i might have adhd i'm pretty damn sure i have it i just want to check with you and like go through the official diagnosis with you and so she was like she was like okay i'm going to tell you how it's going to go first session she just asked me tons of questions to just i guess like assess my claim and you know see if i was legit i guess and then she was like okay so for the next session um can you please bring some like all of your records as far as you can find them from primary school middle school high school so i don't know how you call them like um records from the teachers you know where you have your grades and the comments of the teachers she told me to bring all these to her and she would review them with me and so it was quite actually it was quite funny to go through all of them and i know if you're getting older as in like if you're watching this video right now you have not been diagnosed yet and you're like 40 maybe you don't know where your records are and it's fine it's not a problem i think if you just tell your therapist that you don't have them it just helps them have like a second opinion on your past from external characters in your life so it's quite helpful for a therapist who wants to diagnose you so i got those records i showed them to her and going through them myself i was like whoa several stuff comes up a lot like talkative doesn't pay attention in class could do so much better if she just focused all those things that are very classic for someone with adhd were there and so she went through them with me and then i think that was like the second session and in the third session so she asked me actually end of second session we went through all the records together she asked me questions about you know all the symptoms that were in i guess the dsm-5 which is what every therapist uses to diagnose adhd um if you don't know about it i'll just put some links in the description below of like how ac is supposed to be diagnosed normally the test that you have to go through and what you have to explain to the therapist but basically at the end of the second session i think she had all my files like she kept them or like she did copies of them and um and then she was like okay the next session will be me asking you questions and asking for um stories basically so she would ask me about one symptom and then tell me to give her an example of when i was smaller and when like right now as an in my adult life so why did she do this is because when you diagnose adhd the symptoms must be present at least from the age of six or twelve i don't really remember and that changes and that's not like scientifically correct um right now i think because research evolves very quickly in terms of adhd and like how child adhd evolved through adulthood but basically she asked me if i could give her an example of this symptom in my childhood and in my adulthood and so every time i would say okay i remember this for example let's say emotional dysregulation be like yeah i remember this specific story one time where my mom told me i couldn't go outside because i wanted to play um you know with a friend and then i got super mad at her for no reason and you know i'm giving a like stupid example but i would tell her this story and then it would be like in adulthood this happened like three days ago um someone asked me this and then i did that or whatever and so she would just keep on going and she had her list and she was like writing stuff down as i was going so it was literally like an interview like an exam almost and um yeah so we went through all of this and then she you know marked everything and she said okay so next time we see each other i'm gonna have an answer for you so i need to go through all the details and i was like do you think i might have it because we've seen each other already like three times so i was very impatient and i was like do you think that that might be it and um and she was like yeah like to me it sounds like you know from what you've you've been telling me so far it does look like you might have hd and we'll see from your answers whether you have more of the inattentive type the combined type or the high fraction type and i'm sorry about this one right now it's coming back it's annoying but um the next session which i think was the fourth one i should have written this down because i'm just basing myself on my memories right there but i'm pretty sure it was the fourth one so it took a few months i think it took like two months i probably got diagnosed in october 2020 if i'm not saying that wrong or 2019 i think it was 2019 i'm sorry i forget um but i think it was like two years ago and basically uh at the first session session she had the final answer and she diagnosed me she went through the whole report she showed me my score um because it's very simple and the dsm-5 they test you for i think inattention impulsivity hyperactivity symptoms and they just take you know happens often not often or you know i don't remember i don't want to say something wrong uh but it just had literally like boxes ticks and she would and at the end she said you have the combined types so you're more or less equally inattentive and hyperactive impulsive and so that literally changed my life at that moment i was like okay like i said as in like i was expecting it at the same time i didn't necessarily want it to be true because i knew i knew this would involve so many this would mean that i would have to you know get help and actually change things about my life to get better and uh so it was a shock i thought i would be happy but i was really sad at the same time and i remember actually meeting a friend afterwards and being like i haven't like what does this mean like what is my life and she was really supportive and we talked through it and then you know i just had to go in with my life i uh straight after getting diagnosed during the session i talked to the therapist about wanting to try medication i just wanted to try it uh for the sake of it because i i had read and learned that you know medication was the first line of help in adhd therapy in adhd therapy what am i saying yeah to treat adhd and adc treatment so i wanted to try it and so i went through a whole medication journey which will be a whole other video but yeah i guess that's my diagnosis story i was expecting this i guess i was expecting for it to take time and the fact that it took a few sessions reassured me in the sense that i felt it was a legit um diagnosis if it had been done in one session i think i would have thought that it wasn't very thorough because the most important thing to look for in someone who diagnoses your hd is that they take the time to understand your history because everything resides in the history they need to understand who you were as a child how you behaved as a child and compared to how you behaved now the second most important thing is how it affects your life i think one of the criteria of being diagnosed with adhd is that it affects at least two major areas of your life so for example let's say school and at home or for someone at work work and at home or relationships and at home or something like this i think it's like it must affect you in a very negative and debilitating way for it to be considered abc because if you have some of those symptoms you know sometimes in your life but it doesn't really affect my life then it's not necessarily adhd and can be related to something else so i'm done for this video i'm gonna you know wrap it up before my phone turns off thank you so much for watching i hope you got something out of it i hope uh for those of you who are looking to hear my story i hope i satisfied your questions and your uh curiosity if you have more questions on this please let me know in the comments and i'll try to answer them as much as i can i also i will also try to put links that you know will guide you towards um tests that you can take online online tests don't diagnose you you need to go see like a professional to get diagnosed and what online tests did for me was just you know confirm what i thought and um guide me to an answer but you know take them with a grain of salt obviously i don't want to say that they're perfect and there are a lot of them out there so i don't even know which one is the best so you know take everything i said with a grain of salt i'm no professional so please you know be careful um but yeah i hope you enjoyed thank you so much for watching again and i'll see you in the next one [Music] you

Channel: yourADHDgirl

Views: 18,958

Keywords: adhd diagnosis, adhd management, adhd, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, adhd organization, adhd paralysis, adhd assessment, how to get an ADHD diagnosis, diagnosed with adhd, adult adhd, hyperactive, focus, inattention, impulsivity, dsm5, how to manage your adhd

Id: Mlp6Ow5oM2U

Length: 23min 25sec (1405 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 19 2022