ADHD

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A casual community for people with ADHD

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Acceptance, Openness, Understanding, Equality, Reciprocity.

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Respectful venting, including dealing with oppressive neurotypical culture, is okay.
Discussing other neurological problems like autism, anxiety, ptsd, and brain injury are allowed.
Discussions regarding medication are allowed as long as you are describing your own situation and not telling others what to do (only qualified medical practitioners can prescribe medication).

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Questions on confusing situations.
Seeking and sharing support.
Engagement in our values.

Relevant Lemmy communities:

Neurodivergent Life Hacks

lemmy.world/c/adhd will happily promote other ND communities as long as said communities demonstrate that they share our values.

founded 2 years ago

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Should I get diagnosed? (self.adhd)

submitted 9 months ago by MTK to c/adhd

15 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I strongly suspect that I have ADHD, but I can't see the benifit of getting diagnosed.

I know that if I get diagnosed and offically have ADHD I can get some medicine but I don't think I want that in any case.

Can you share your experience and what benifit you got from getting offically diagnosed?

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[–] cobysev 15 points 9 months ago

I served in the US Air Force for 20 years. You aren't eligible for service with an ADHD diagnosis, but if you're diagnosed after serving - and it's not negatively affecting your job - you can contribute to serve.

I had suspected for many years that I had ADHD to some degree, and I decided to get an official diagnosis in my last year of service. The military doctors, of course, said there was no way I had it. After all, I had served almost 2 decades without any issues. But I insisted, so I got a referral to a civilian ADHD specialist for a diagnosis.

The specialist said I had one of the worst cases of ADHD she'd seen in her 11 years as a doctor.

It was recommended I get medication for it. But I have the hyperfocus type of ADHD and it actually made me very productive at work. While other people would get burnt out from staring at their computer screen all day, I could sit still and do menial, repetitive tasks without rest. I was highly efficient at work and rarely missed details.

I feel like medication would make me "normal," and then I wouldn't be very good at my job. So I've opted to stay unmedicated. But I'm glad I'm diagnosed, because it helps me to understand certain behaviors I have, and it's good for my medical history. When I stress out and bury myself in work instead of tackling my problems, I know it's because of ADHD and I could resolve it with medication if I needed to. It's not just a personality quirk for me to overcome.