IS ADULT ADHD A THING???

I read a post the other day on Facebook that stated that someone's doctor told them that Adult ADHD wasn't real. I had never heard of adult ADHD until I was diagnosed late last year and to hear someone state that a medical doctor didn't believe in the diagnosis left me incredulous. Incredulous that an educated doctor would deny the existence of something I was just diagnosed with, and incredulous that I had ADHD after all. Is ADHD a real thing in Adults or was I just part of growing statistic of whiny-ass Americans who need an excuse for their mediocrity?

I had to find out.

I went to my trusty Google and asked "IS ADHD REAL?" The answer came back stating that ADHD in kids is an accepted diagnosis for pretty much the entire medical and psychiatric community but it didn't say a thing about adults. I then asked, "IS ADHD IN ADULTS A REAL THING" and that's when the picture got fuzzy.

Keith Connors, the guy who supposedly published the first studies in Adult ADHD was quoted by Duke University Psychiatry Professor Allen Frances in a 2016 article he wrote for Huffington Post called Stopping the False Epidemic of Adult ADHD. In it, Connors says,"a longitudinal study lasting several decades found that a large group of children once diagnosed as ADHD in early childhood showed entirely normal behavior as adults,while another group once diagnosed as normal is now diagnosed as adult ADHD. This proves that adult ADHD is being overdiagnosed- since by definition its onset must be in childhood." and is agreed to by Frances saying, "ADHD is such a great, and such a dangerous, fad diagnosis."

Now they are not saying that Adult ADHD is all hooey, but that a great many diagnosis are entirely BS. From my cursory observation of the  Adult ADHD community, which is to say the comments I read online, there seems to be an inordinate number of ADHD adults out there. But am I one of them?

I find the best bench mark for judging anything I read online to be the reality test, or how does a statement compare with my personal experience in reality. And in reality I didn't have ADHD to start.

My first diagnosis was depression which I took all kinds of meds for and spent at least a dozen years in therapy to try and treat without success. Sure I felt better, but my life never really actually got better. The medical industry suggested that all I needed was more drugs to cure my problems, but the pills gave me dry mouth and didn't really cure my problem. I then tried Alanon which also made me feel better and helped me deal with my problems a little more effectively, but it meant I had to go to meetings for the rest of my life and again didn't really cure the problem, just made it feel better.

It took getting married to really understand that there even really was a problem, because ultimately as a grown male in modern America, I didn't have enough human interaction to even see the issue until my wife told me what I was doing. If you don't talk to anyone, can anyone really tell you your not listening? Its not like the girl on the phone at Capital One is gonna tell you your not paying attention. Its when your sitting on the couch, looking at her family photos and she starts crying because you turn on the TV while she is showing you photos of her grandparents that you realize something is wrong. Its the accusations of ignoring and the social miscues that make you feel like your the most insensitive bastard ever who is completely incapable of loving anyone but yourself that you realize, "I have a problem".

About the 4000th time I picked up my phone in the middle of a conversation I was having with my wife, I figured out that I needed to get some answers. She would get pissed at me out of nowhere, or so I thought, and I felt that she was ambushing me when I was the most vulnerable. We would be sitting quietly on the couch next to each other and I would drift off into a TV show or into my Facebook feed, feeling it was safe. I loved that I could finally pick up my phone with out a huge argument, after years of being berated by my mom for not paying attention while we sat and watched her programs together. But soon enough, my wife had the same reaction that my Mom had when I picked up my phone and I had no idea why they both got so mad at me and ambushed me when I was sitting peacefully in my own world. What I didn't see, was that they were talking to me when I drifted off and in the middle of a thought.

Men are naturally deaf to women's voices I think. Its a resentment that is programmed into their DNA. For centuries women have been calling to men in the next room, and men have been failing to hear their voices. But when you're not in the next room, but in fact sitting six inches from them on the couch and while they are talking to you, you go "deaf" and start playing Candy Crush, you send that women, any woman, into another orbit of pissed off. And when your supposed to care about that woman and are newly married to said woman, and do that, that extra-orbit of pissed off looks more like stabbing them directly in their soul. And I am told you should feel bad.

It took me doing that 4000 times before it actually registered in my mind that I was hurting her and that I was not in fact the grieved party.

We began to think I was on the autism spectrum because it took so freaking long for me to see what I did was wrong. I am not a bad guy, and she loves me. But even the strongest love is tested after 3999th incident. Thank God I figured it out on 4000th time and went to my Doctor to get tested for Asperger or something like it last June.

It wasn't until October that I actually sat down with a Neurologist and got the battery of mental acuity tests. And it wasn't until December that I finally got the report. And it wasn't until January that I finally started the medication and therapy and even that was a shot in the dark, because my tests indicated I was either Bipolar or ADHD and if I took the meds for ADHD and was bipolar, I ran the risk of going manic. So really a month into taking the meds, I now can confirm I have ADHD because I didn't flip out and go manic. This is not an exact science apparently.

I can tell you, I really think I have ADHD because my relationship is better than it has ever been and I can write a coherent article that is more than 90 words now. But that's my only evidence because I really don't feel any different. So is ADHD in adults a real thing? I think so.

They say adults can't develop ADHD and that you have to have it as a kid to have it as an adult. But prior to getting married, no one paid enough attention to me to see that I was ADHD so I don't know if I had it as a kid. I suspect I did though. The messy over-stuffed back pack, the difficulty completing tasks, the social isolation and malpractice. These defined my youth. The self medication and alcohol use as an adult, the spotty work history and the failed relationships. These defined me as an adult. So do I have a history? Yes I think so. And for the first time in my life, I can say I have my shit together.

So is Adult ADHD real? No. You can't develop it as an adult. But you can be an adult who was never diagnosed as a kid with ADHD. Neuro testing, behavioral patterns and input from your loved ones are the only true ways to tell if you have it, but once you figure it out, life can begin again.