discovering you are neurodivergent
would an early label have changed anything?
Misdiagnosed.
Misunderstood.
Missed.
We cannot change our past.
The truth is, if anyone spends too much time wondering what if and what could have been, that bitterness might just swallow you whole. Getting stuck obsessing over everything that could have been different is a recipe for a resentment.
If they’d only noticed my struggles, listened to my challenges, shown me compassion…
It’s natural to feel this way. All late-diagnosed adults have to grieve the child who spent years not knowing why. For her sake, try to rewrite the stories and beliefs that grew from every hurtful comment, correction, and criticism.
Just don’t linger too long.
“After a woman understands that she does have something called AD/HD and has had it for a long time, she begins to look back and see how deeply it has affected every area of her life. At this point she will often move into the next stage—anger. She often feels anger at lost opportunities, looking back at the paths that she didn’t take. She focuses on the point at which things started to go off course and begins to feel anger at a system that let her down as a child.”
Women with Attention Deficit Disorder: Embrace Your Differences, Transform Your Life, Sari Solden M.S
We cannot go back and point out all of the (now obvious telltale) signs that were missed by our teachers, parents, friends, and partners. We can only meet ourselves where we are at today. That’s a frustrating fact to accept.
For a moment, let’s focus on whether the early label would have changed everything if it were given back in the 80’s, 90’s, or early 00’s. Play a little devil’s advocate to comfort us.
If you had known about your ADHD in primary or high school, what do you imagine would be different? Without maturity and life-experience, could you have properly navigated the news? Without the (ridiculously) current adult ADHD education that is only being explored in recent decades, would you have seen your differences as nothing but deficits?
THE SIGNS THAT WERE MISSED
ADHD found the perfect hiding spot in our youth. Reckless and impulsive decisions were written off as rebellious behaviour. Lack of inhibition was expected, as this is the age of figuring out who you are and who you want to be. What we now see in hindsight as challenges with working memory, planning, prioritising, organisation was once dismissed with labels like: ‘irresponsible, inconsistent, and unreliable’.