The Liminal Space of a Late ADHD Diagnosis

Like many people with ADHD, I was diagnosed later in life.

Getting a late ADHD diagnosis can be a strange feeling. Initially, there’s relief. 

You were right! 

But this can quickly turn to sadness for the time you’ve lost to not fully understanding who you were and why you made the choices you did.  

Finally, you find yourself piecing together the fragments of stories you were told or the moments you remember. You’re looking for clues that you dismissed at the time but that, in hindsight, feel like important markers of the ADHD that was there. 

Like many people with ADHD, I was diagnosed later in life.

 Although I frequently struggled with losing my books and papers or forgetting to read the last page of an exam sheet, I was not disruptive enough in class for anyone to suspect I had ADHD.

Instead, I was the quintessential spacey, talkative but still trying her best to behave student. 

Distracted? Yes, but in that quiet ‘reading a book under the table’ way, that didn’t interrupt the class. 

Forgetful? Yes, but very apologetic about it. 

Disruptive? Sometimes, but generally eager to please

Not ADHD. 

And yet here we are years later, and I’m definitely ADHD. In hindsight, so obviously ADHD. I can see it in hundreds of past moments (jobs I left, impulsive opportunities I grabbed, that time I lived in a commune).

So what about you? 

What were your "you can't have ADHD, you're too...” moments?

Hit reply and share them with me, 

Skye