Written by my lovely wife Megan:

I have some numbers for you…and that’s a big deal because I don’t like numbers. Like, I really hate them.

7

8

1997

9

Age 7 is the average age ADHD is diagnosed in boys.

Age 8 is the age Tommy was when he received his ADHD diagnosis.

1997 is the year data on girls being diagnosed with ADHD began to show up in the mainstream, but at the time was still 9 times as common in boys. 

Today’s diagnosis rate has narrowed to 2.5 boys diagnosed to every girl.

Okay, that’s enough with the numbers. 

I’m sweating now.

In November of 2023, my mommy gut gnawed at me. Having spent enough years in the classroom, observing, applying behavior plans, implementing 504’s…I knew what I was seeing: a kid who would forget what he walked into a room to do even when he’d been given the direction 3.4 seconds earlier…a kid who tested into the Gifted Program in 1st grade but couldn’t make his homework paper find the inside of his folder if his life depended on it. Instead, it found refuge crumbled into the bottom of his book bag because his time management was taking such a hit that despite being asked several times to pack up, he got around to it just as his bus was being called. His jacket would be left at school.  He’d flop out of school possibly having forgotten his head of it wasn’t screwed on.

I was seeing a boy with more questions to him than answers.

And while it’s easy to chalk this up to “8 year old boy” I wasn’t seeing this from Danny. In fact, Danny gave us the opposite. Loads of information. Details. A book bag without rogue papers and a carefully packed folder. He retained everything from throughout the day…and spat it back out to us when we asked. Would complete multistep directions both at home and at school, without difficulty. Forgot nothing. 

I made phone calls.

I researched.

I matched insurance.

I made the appointment.

And I buckled up because I was told at each and every turn, this process would be lengthy. 

Thorough but lengthy.

And worth it.

They weren’t kidding. A 3 hour, intense evaluation on December 15th yielded the results I predicted…on April 4th. Lengthy felt like an understatement.

PJ and I listened to the doctor detail her findings, tell us things he said throughout the testing process and explain observations she made while watching him solve problems, note his strategies, and listening to him create stories about arbitrary photos and use word association. 

I listened, nodded and wiped rapidly falling tears from my cheeks. Not because I was so sad, but because I was so happy that at age 8, my son was lucky enough to be figured out and understood.

I cried because I knew, even though we were talking about Tommy, I was listening to a doctor tell me about myself. And I ached for the 8 year old girl…the 12 year old girl…the 16 year old girl…the 18 year girl on the cusp of womanhood who would have given anything to be figured out and understood. I ached for myself…all the versions of myself that I’ve lived.

We thanked our doctor, ended the zoom call, and I dialed that doctor’s office and scheduled testing and evaluation for myself faster than my fingers could move and keep up.

I have another two numbers for you. Albeit, vague…but numbers nonetheless.

30’s

40

30’s is the average and rough age women receive their ADHD diagnosis.

40 (mere weeks from 41) is the age I received my ADHD diagnosis.

40 is the age someone figured me out and understood me, despite decades of screaming, and begging to be and feel figured out and understood.

40 is the age I learned that there isn’t anything wrong with me…there never was. THERE NEVER WAS. Do you know how hard that is to unlearn?

40 is the age I learned that I wasn’t wrongly diagnosed with a generalized anxiety disorder, but that it was truly accurate, but also missing an enormous piece.

ADHD.

ADHD looks in girls and women like anxiety. Like pressure for perfection…to appear perfect to all of those other women who truly are doing it perfectly (spoiler: they’re not) Like a sadness so deep that comes from having to try to quiet the dozens of thoughts all clamoring to be thought and processed at the same time, so you freeze. You’re so overstimulated and overwhelmed by the loudness of those thoughts and emotions and tasks that lay ahead of you, so instead you do nothing.  You freeze and you accomplish nothing. And when you lay down to go to bed at night, all of those loud thoughts fighting their way to your frontal lobe all day long, to be the most important are now laughing at you…and taunting you. They’re telling you you’re lazy…that your children are going to look back when they’re adults and remember what a mess you were. (Another spoiler: they won’t) They’ll tell you what a waste your day was, because you’re a waste. And you will lie there and promise yourself tomorrow will be different. You’ll overcome the mental chaos and you’ll accomplish something tomorrow. You promise.

And then you won’t. 

Or! You’ll accomplish it all. You’ll fuel up on self loathing and determination (a deadly combo for any task that lays before you) and you’ll do every single thing your mind taunted you and tortured you about the night before. And all the nights before that.

And then for the next three days, maybe more, that paralysis will hit you again because you burned out, girl. And you burned out hard. And the cycle will continue. It won’t stop.

But then one day, your own results will come to you. And you’ll sit down and have thirty minutes with the same doctor that understood and figured out your son…thirty minutes that you’ve only dreamed of. Thirty minutes with someone who figured you out, understands you, has answers to questions about you, and she’s got solutions too.

I wasn’t afraid to go the medication route. I have meticulously cared for my mental and emotional health in the most proactive and productive ways for over a decade. I talk to the people I need to talk to. I learn what I need to learn. And I apply what I need to apply. What’s a little more help? 

The best way I can describe what the inside of my mind has looked like (if I had to envision it), sounded like and felt like for my entire life is this: ya know those old news footage reels from the 80’s and 90’s that we used to see the weekend after Thanksgiving? Parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles lined up at the automatic doors of Toys R Us, KB Toys, or a K-Mart at like 4 am…”door buster sales”, they used to call them. And those automatic doors would open and people would run, trample, crawl, scratch, pull, yell, scream and climb over one another in order to reach their destination. Pure madness, all in the name of getting there first…to be the first and dominate their place. That’s what my mind was every morning from the moment I opened my eyes, until the moment I closed them. Thoughts racing and fighting and crawling and clawing to get to that executive function. To occupy that coveted spot. To be the thought that dominates the day in my mind. And no matter which one got there first, the others were yelling louder than the one that made it there, just trying to drown it out. All thoughts competing for my attention, but none actually being heard.

But now? Not only am I understood. Not only am I figured out (okay, maybe not totally) but there is also decency, decorum and manners in my mind. My thoughts take turns! I wake up in the morning, and they try. Believe me, they try to rush to the forefront. But, I stop ‘em. Now, they enter one by one, in a civilized manner, through a revolving door. One thought at a time gets out, presents itself, I give it the time, and attention it deserves. I hear it. I mean, I really listen to it, and consider it. And then, I put it to the side when I’m done with it. I leave it. 

I love you, Vyvanse. 

Is this what people have lived their lives like? I could have had 30 + years of not feeling everything on such a big level, because that emotion was trying to drown out all of the other thoughts? I could have learned the way I needed to learn, in a way that I could have been a successful student, and not the mediocre, just getting by student who sat there while my parents and I were told by my 9th grade math teacher “you’ll never get it…what’s the point?” And my favorite “she asks too many questions”. (Hmm. I wonder why I sweat about numbers)

Would I have wanted to know all of this back then? Would that 8…12…16…18 year old girl been any better off if she was figured out? If she was understood? No. The 90’s were not kind to the kids who were “different”. Remember earlier, I said in just 1997 (when I was 13/14 years old) it was 9 times more common for boys to be diagnosed with ADHD than girls. It was hard enough being a budding adolescent in the 90’s. I wanted to blend in, not stand out. Kids grow up to remember the kids who stood out…and for all the wrong reasons. ADHD in girls meant something back then, and it wasn’t good.

And in 1997, I can guarantee, I would have been improperly diagnosed. The data for ADHD and girls just wasn’t there because we weren’t bouncing off the walls, incapable of sitting in our chairs. No…our hyperactivity was in our minds. And you can’t see that. It’s not observable. Our brains told us too much at one time and we masked the hell out of ourselves to hide it. And now we’re surprised when we find out we have anxiety?! Well, gee whiz!

Look, this was a long read. I know it. And I have wanted to write about this for a really really long time. It’s just that this time, my thoughts have been too clear. I’ve wanted to say it all, because I can finally think it all. Go figure!

One more number for you. 

5.

5 minutes was the amount of time it took to set up an appointment to be evaluated. If you’re a 90’s kid like me, with Black Friday Door Buster thoughts…consider the revolving door.