ADHD
With adult ADHD diagnoses on the rise, MF writer Nathan O’Hagan reflects on his own experience of recently being diagnosed with the disorder
Those two hours were probably the longest I’d been sat in one place for as long as I can remember. ‘As long as I can remember’ isn’t necessarily that long, however, because the reason I had been sitting in that meeting over Microsoft Teams was to be assessed for the final time by a forensic psychologist for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
The diagnostic tool psychologists use is called DSM-5. This sets out two sets of symptoms: inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity. A patient has to score five out of nine on either one of these to meet the criteria of ADHD. I was told I scored seven out of nine on both sides. Pretty conclusive, then.
At 45, I am one of a growing number of people receiving this type of diagnosis in middle age rather than childhood.
“There has been a sharp increase in diagnoses of ADHD and ASD in middle-aged people,” a senior clinician in a mental health and neurodevelopmental service told me. This is largely due to a “general growth of awareness of neurodiversity, including public figures with diagnoses, internet communities and information sharing about neurodiverse conditions; and people’s kids being diagnosed in early childhood because of better awareness in schools, and then adult family members being diagnosed.”
How I got here
About ten years ago, during a lengthy episode of depression and anxiety, I was referred to my local community mental health team. During conversations with a psychiatrist and a mental health nurse, it was suggested that I displayed many traits of both autism and ADHD, and I was referred to be assessed, while the psychiatrist and nurse focused on treating my depression. I never heard back from anyone regarding the referral but, with my mental health pretty stable, it didn’t seem that important. Then came lockdown.
No pub, no football, no gigs and no chance to see my mates certainly brought about the kind of introspection and self-reflection that many felt. I didn’t experience any serious crisis during that time, but I don’t think any of us survived those dark days with our mental health entirely unscathed, and I decided this was as good a time as any to finally pursue the referral that was now about seven years overdue. Following a visit to my GP, a wait that felt interminable followed, before I finally sat through my first online assessment.
Barely halfway through the appointment, I was told that I clearly had traits of both autism and ADHD. Due to the vagaries of the assessment systems, I was also told that at this time I would only be assessed for one condition or the other. I found this frustrating and difficult to understand, but a clinical decision was made that the ADHD symptoms were the mo
