When I was 14, I wrote a journal entry about how I think I have ADHD, but blew it off in the same sentence. Fast forward 10 years, and I’m in graduate school for psychology. Each week in psychopathology, we took turns presenting a paper about a different disorder. My week, I was presenting on ADHD. I had forgotten that it was my turn to present until 2 hours before class. I printed out the article and rushed to read and take notes. As we opened the DSM in class to go over the symptoms, I was frantically messaging my fiancé about how much I related to each of the symptoms, especially the inattentive ones. They say not to read too far into symptoms, but this book was describing my life.
Then, it comes time for me to present. I impulsively abandon all of my notes and decide to wing it like every other presentation I’ve given in my life. I earned a C with the comments, “It was very disorganized, and I’m not sure where you were going with it.” 3 years later, I got diagnosed.
Meredith Knauer, MS, CACP