Life With A Late Diagnosis: The Reality of Mental Health
Medication spilling out of a jar. Picture credit: Cover Photo by iStock
By Jay Soto
Now that I’ve started antidepressants and ADHD medication, I started to look back and realize common signs with people who have ADHD. During reading time, I’d glance up to see the rest of my classmates deeply immersed into their novels; while I’m still struggling to read, rereading the same page or line hundreds of times. It’s hard to stay focused, to stay still, you fidget your pen and bounce your leg under the seat just in order to focus half as well. Even if you thought you had ADHD, you feel way behind the game as everyone else in school who has ADHD was diagnosed when they were still basically in diapers and you’re reaching adulthood. Over 75% of adults who were diagnosed with ADHD hadn't been diagnosed in their childhood. Growing up with undiagnosed disorders is just as damaging, if not more damaging, than an early diagnosis. However, it is still extremely beneficial to find out and get tested.
ADHD, or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, is a mental disorder that affects the attention and focus of a person; similar to ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) but with a hyperactive sense that leaves it harder to focus. ADHD is often difficult to diagnose in teens because of the developmental phase, and it’s even harder to diagnose in women because they tend to “mask” (concealing/ covering the challenges caused by their disorder in a stereotypical format to fit in) their disorder more efficiently.
This is the case for so many people, including myself. I have always been interested in mental health and diagnoses popular in my age group, but I was always disregarded when bringing it up to my parents. Now that I’m 17, I’ve just been diagnosed with ADHD and have begun my medication journey.
I always felt different from the others in my classroom, as if I was learning a different subject in a foreign language. Sitting in my chair for what felt like 14 hours straight was a complete nightmare. I felt like that was just my life and I was stuck living my life in hard mode and an alien language. During peak quarantine in 2020; it was a trend to talk about mental health in a “if you have these symptoms and feel like this, you might have this disorder!” format. Before finding out about ADHD, I felt alone. After hearing about it and researching more about it, I felt like I had finally felt seen. It was difficult to diagnose earlier on because people believed I was attention seeking and self diagnosing, I had already begun to maneuver through life without proper medication, and it is generally harder to diagnose women.
Trying to communicate to my parents or friends about how deeply ADHD resonated with me and how I thought about it, they all thought I was just seeking attention. Many believe that self-diagnosing is ignorant and disregarding to people with those disorders, but it’s actually incredibly helpful if done properly. In many households, mental health is ignored and often kept a secret, like it’s Voldemort. When properly researching the diagnosis you’re looking for, it helps give closure to the people who can’t get tested or talk about it to a trusted adult or psychiatrist. Social media and the digital world is vastly more accepting of different disorders and lifestyles, and it gives people a sense of security having a term and community they believe they’re a part of and associate with.
Without a diagnosis or a term, you might feel ostracized from the rest of the world. Finding a way to maneuver life and joining a group you might not completely understand just not to feel alone is often the experience of many late or never diagnosed people. This is often labeled as “masking”. Masking is made to conform to social norms and hide true emotions for people with disorders like depression and bipolar disorder. It affects people who struggle with mental health because it is difficult to feel accepted; both socially and internally. It takes a big toll on the social battery; feeling exhausted and burnt out.
Masking affected me getting diagnosed because my family thought I fit in and I was fine; but I was struggling deeply, often trying to find other ways to cope with my mental health. With the burnout from masking all day at school and even at home with my family members; I had no time for school work and would just lay in my bed for what felt like decades.
Masking is one of the key reasons many people go undiagnosed with disorders. However, personality disorders like ADHD go especially unnoticed in women because of gender bias and ADHD looks extremely different between men and women. For boys, they tend to fall more into the hyperactivity aspect of ADHD, being loud and eccentric. This leads to boys at a younger age getting tested and getting diagnosed quicker. Women, however, mask more effectively. This leads to younger men getting tested and studied more; and women go unnoticed. When expressing this concern, girls often get ignored because of things like periods and puberty.
When I began to seek therapy and counseling with my doctors, they insisted that I should begin medication after several paper tests that were all along the lines of “on a scale of 1-5, how often did you feel this in the past 2 weeks”, all of which indicated extreme symptoms of ADHD, depression, and generalized anxiety disorder. I refrained for months because I had doubts of starting medication because of the misconceptions and experiences I’ve heard regarding medication. It was hard starting medication; and it is not for everyone; but it is trial and error. I was scared to start medication because I didn’t want to feel like a zombie, and how my parents said they’d prefer me “being myself.” The reason I began medication was because I had the ability to talk to trusted adults and friends that both agreed and disagreed with medication and told me their stories. Without these stories and support, I might’ve never begun the difficult path.
The symptoms of different medications are the reason so many people stop or may never even start. Stomach aches, eating too much or never eating enough, and the “zombie” feelings are the things people get scared of and try to avoid. The hard part of medication is that you can't avoid it. There’s symptoms and side effects in any medication and some can affect you more than others.
The secret to it is trial and error. I’ve changed my prescription around 5 times now, and it will most likely keep changing. From Vyvanse to Adderall, from 5 mgs to 20, and long lasting to fast acting; it feels like I’ve had it all. Having mood swings and crying or getting mad for seemingly no reason was frustrating. I felt like I had to stop or I had to take more to numb the feeling. No matter how little or how much I slept; I’d be exhausted.
Friends would tell me that taking medication was one of the worst decisions they ever made, how they’d never eat and when they did; they’d feel ill. In an article written by an adult ADHD specialist, the doctor writes about popular misconceptions and the facts around it. One of the biggest misconceptions that steers people away from going on medication is the fact that there's side effects. The truth is, there is; but all medicine does. This can be either changed by the dosage, the time you take the medicine, and even just changing the medication.
I was terrified to start because I thought I would be babied and not taken seriously with a diagnosis on my record; and while it may be the case for some – it is so rare. I have friends, teachers, and managers with similar experiences that I have had as of lately. It makes me feel listened to and feel like I can keep going with my journey.
Now that I’ve been medicated for around 5 months with different doses and brands, I’ve been able to comprehend and grasp the things I couldn’t understand before because of my focus disorder. It was hard to begin because of the side effects I didn’t realize. There would be days where it was harder to mask and people would point out that it’s obvious I’m on medication. There are days where it’s harder to get up and some days where life feels like a breeze. I’m glad that I began my mental health journey, and I feel more reassured.
If you feel like you may have a disorder that’s hindering your functionality or mental health, reach out to your doctor and get tested. It doesn’t hurt to get tested, and there’s no age cap to get diagnosed.
