My ADHD Diagnosis Took Nearly 30 Years

The signs were there growing up, so why was it so difficult to spot my symptoms?

Photo by @khaparazzi from nappy.co

I knew something was desperately wrong with my memory the morning I forgot to attend the first day of classes in my second year of grad school.

I didn’t merely oversleep — my brain simply didn’t register that going to school that day was even an option. In my nearly 20-year educational history, I had never missed the first day of a new term. As I lay in my bed and thought through all of the options, I settled on setting up an appointment with my therapist. The morning’s rigamarole confirmed what I had suspected for the previous few years — that I had ADHD, and now it was affecting my life in ways that seemed beyond my control. It was time to get answers.

After graduating from college, I was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder. (ADHD is typically comorbid with various mood disorders.) Due to my previous diagnosis, doctors chalked up my increasing inability to concentrate as a symptom of bipolar depression. It took me a few years to admit to myself that while, yes, I suffer from bipolar depression, not being able to concentrate was depressing me further — it had become a feedback mechanism. I could take inventory of my life before the onset of my bipolar II disorder and the present, and I knew…