this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
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ADHD
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A casual community for people with ADHD
Values:
Acceptance, Openness, Understanding, Equality, Reciprocity.
Rules:
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- Do not request for donations.
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- Do not gatekeep or diagnose.
- Mark NSFW content accordingly.
- No racism, homophobia, sexism, ableism, or ageism.
- 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).
Encouraged:
- Funny memes.
- Welcoming and accepting attitudes.
- Questions on confusing situations.
- Seeking and sharing support.
- Engagement in our values.
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lemmy.world/c/adhd will happily promote other ND communities as long as said communities demonstrate that they share our values.
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I was officially diagnosed with ADHD three years ago.
There is no one test to get diagnosed and you can't self diagnose. Even your therapist can't if they don't have the training and experience to do so.
ADHD diagnosis involves interviews with people that knew you when you were a child, any mental health professionals youve worked with and a series of tests measuring intelligence, executive function, self questionaires and how you interact with the tests and the people testing you. i.e that indecisiveness would be taken into account in a professional screening. You aren't really being tested for ADHD or autism so much as trying to rule out alternative explanations.
And its also why you shouln't diagnose yourself with either of them despite what a lot of people think. Because sure it could be ADHD or autism but it could be a lot of other things that dont respond well to the same things that autism and ADHD do and you need people that actually know how to rule those things out or if it happens that you arent in the ADHD/autism tribes, figure out what tribe you actually belong to.
These words have been helpful to me. I kind of stopped worrying about it after reading this, and just started focusing on getting myself a referral and appointment. It's ridiculously slow getting any kind of appointment through my healthcare provider (and I still haven't seen them yet) but I appreciate not having to worry about "should I be preparing for this?" in the interim.
I am glad that helped. But yes it also took quite a bit of time for my own assessment (months) just hang in there and hopefully youll get some answers and whatever support you need.