Might the ways I have learned to manage ADHD influence the ADHD test ?

POST RANT EDIT: This is a large nonsensical rant of which around 1% relates to the title of this post. This is my first post here. Even just to be able to write all this is of value to me, so if you only read this part, I'm grateful that this is somewhere to write something like this, and that you even saw the title and clicked on it. Peeeeace &

I have booked an assessment for ADHD in around 2 weeks time.

I'm 30 years old in January (hahah sounds like a kid saying, "I'm 8 and 3 quarters"....
"So you're 8 ?"...
"Yep. And 3 quarters".

(actually... it doesn't sound like that at all, what was I thinking lol)

From the UK, and currently living in China.

I have to travel to Hong Kong for the assessment for ADHD. Just a 2 hour train away.

I have only recently start to look into ADHD for the last 2 weeks. I have since watched many videos, read many articles and websites etc. All the pieces came together and connects dots with the story of my life. The symptoms I've read about, the stories I hear people talk about in videos, experiences people had growing up, in education, relationships, ways of functioning, thinking and so on... the more I look into info on ADHD, I'm ticking the boxes with so much from my life. Tick, tick, tick, tick, yep, yep, tick, check, check, yep, tick...

Assuming I have ADHD. I was thinking about how I've learned to manage, deal with and cope with ADHD. When I go and see this doctor, might the ways I've learned to function, in some way influence the assessment results. I don't know. Also, I'm feeling a sense of relief, hope, excitement... and because my mind is always racing with thinking about multiple alternative views... plus all the introspective thought I have done, looking at my life, I'm not sure how this will affect my results. I was "hopeless" at school... branded a long list of names all my life because of how I have thought and behaved. At the bottom of academic classes. After I finished school... well, I had to leave university, lucky to have even got that far (without going into life story)... I couldn't handle academic work... even though I have endless ideas to apply to pretty much any course I wanted to put my mind to. After education systems, I began exploring more myself. Exploring psychology, cognitive science, philosophy, physics, global events, human history, cultures, relationships, society, evolution, consciousness, religion.. considering how I think and reason, deconstructing conditioning, conformist thought, indoctrination, really looking at deconstructing what I have been conditioned with, and reconstructing using self developed tools, skills in rational thinking, reasoning, listening to my heart (which from everything I've done, probably looks like a little kid in a big room surrounded by a huge mess... i.e. I don't pretend to have really achieved anything great! haha).. explored so many subjects trying to piece together an understanding, a perspective, with more clarity. A clearer lens to see the world through. Don't even know where to begin with it all... and I have 1 hour with this doctor... when I need at least a week. Maybe an hour is all he needs, to assess me.

I guess that's it....... I have to trust that this doctor can see ADHD clearly enough from one hour of test results. If I don't have ADHD, honestly, I will feel disappointed, to say the least, after it making so much sense to me that this explains so much. It would be such a great relief if I do have ADHD. Not for something to blame... but to finally have a way of managing and treating something that has influenced my life...
How would I say it has influenced my life ? .... I nearly said tyrannical.. but although that word fits in many ways... it doesn't really describe in the best way how ADHD (may) have influenced my life. What I think has been tyrannical about it, is that.......... hmmm... as I think about that, and pondered on the word tyranny, I'm thinking more imprisoning. But then that could be related to emotional pain as well...... which in turn, could be related to a cognitive symptom
of ADHD.. e.g. holding onto things... or ways which mechanisms are constructed subconsciously.

Ok.... need to stop rambling.

I make music... I like what a music man said a few hundred years ago, "the function of music is to release us from the tyranny of conscious thought" (Thomas Beecham, British Conductor). Even if I don't have ADHD...... I still have music. On that note of conductors, a Chinese conductor also said, "With music, I am afraid of nothing" (Muhai Tang). I made some music for a documentary where he said those words... he's a really cool person.

Rambling again.... my question has turned into a rant.

I titled this "Might the ways I have learned to manage ADHD influence test results"

I'm not good at receiving peoples help. I'm not good at listening... if I am asked a question by a doctor or anyone for that matter, I have so many alternative answers to give, that what I end up saying doesn't give a person the information that benefits a discussion where everyone feels like "we're getting somewhere" LOL that sounded funny. I can see the doctor listening to me, then making a facial expression and gesture that says, "Ok, good"... but it's like a thin veil shrouding his real response of, "blank... what should I ask this person next... while looking professional and like I know what I'm talking about and that I understand what he's saying".

I saw a guy on a youtube video who was asked to draw a stick man and tell a story about what he drew. What if I have to do that... and I start thinking about what someone with ADHD would draw, because part of me really wants to hear that I have ADHD...

Why do I want to have ADHD ? .... I don't really.... I think I want an answer to how I think and function... how it's affected my entire life.. how I am burdened with all my effort to function well, but to people on the outside I've just been naughty, lazy, bad, and a long list of other names and other peoples descriptions of me that I can unravel.

Over the last couple of years... after searching for 10 years in religion, spirituality, science, all kinds of research... I'm finally like, "OK! SOMEONE SCAN MY BRAIN!" I want to see what's going on in my brain compared to what might scientifically be described as "normal".... because I function and think very differently to everyone around me (with those rare exceptions, where I connect and relate with some on a deeper level... even people who, in my limited understanding, I would say do not have ADHD)..

ADHD would be a real step of identifying something of a root cause which I could begin to resolve, manage, treat in (hopefully) effective ways... when people describe what the medication does... I can see dozens of situations that would make so much difference in my life.

I can't even write a simple forum post to ask a question, let alone talk to a doctor... I just hope I can do the test in a way that is honest, and I can do whatever it is that is asked.

Someone might respond, "Yeah, sounds like you don't have ADHD... you just need to get more sleep and do more excercise, meditate 20 mins a day, 30 minutes of Yoga, stop eating wheet, get more fresh fruit, leafy greens and vegetables in your diet, drink 3 liters of water a day, learn some breathing techniques, EFT, join a public speaking class, spend more time outdoors, do what you love and dedicate yourself to it, less drinking, stop smoking, do an ayahausca ceremony in Peru, read the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle 4 times a year, play the piano every day, make yourself read (I CAN'T!!!..... well... sometimes I can read fantasy novels)...."... I ****ing suck at all of this kind of thing... Pro active ! didn't you hear ? All these things are good for you!... DIDN'T YOU HEAR?.... Yes, I heard... holy crap it's so simple... why can't I do anything... if I don't have ADHD, I'm just the laziest **** head in the world.. all these things that are good for me... that in THIS WORLD I am fortunate and privileged enough to have access to.. health, shelter, clothes, water, medical treatment... why aren't I doing everything that is the best thing for me, so that I can be in a strong and stronger position to help others who need help.... in a world where 40,000 children die of starvation, just under 50% of the worlds population earn less than $2 a day... 14 million tonnes of toxic chemicals released into the earths atmosphere every day... there's meaningful things to do in this life... things as meaningful as saving a child from being hurt. Hahaha... that probably popped out of my subconscious, because I feel like no one was there to stop me from being hurt. Better, stuff that back in where that's falling out of and move back to the point. Although, side note... the idea of saving a lost animal is pretty amazing too... all the little dogs out there now, living on the streets... having been domesticated over what is it ? 15,000 to 30,000 years living along side humans, bread from wolves to the big range of dogs of different shapes and sizes we have today... the wiring of their brains changed, raised states of consciousness, feeling emotions... the idea of saving a dog, even, from a life of experiencing a cold harsh world.. to a warm, loving friend... a wagging tail and excited woof instead of drooping ears and lonely eyes. Animals are so ****ing cool... so is space. I have a point though about doing things in life that are OBVIOUSLY GOOD FOR ME.... all the things that are painfully obviously good for me, and I don't do any of it. Well... I do some of it... I was able to focus on music. Which has always been my way of breathing. Somehow I managed to keep going with it, and I composer for film and tv and produce for acts and artists today... although it takes everything I have to do the most simple things in music... and the way I have to learn and function means that I have to be freelance... as I am not good functioning with people in business. There's too many things that mess with my ability to cope and function, to be able to create music. I have to create as much SPACE as I can.. in every sense of the word. If I could, I would have a small studio on the moon to make music in (provided that no one else was there! haha... actually that would be quite cool if people were there... in a Bladerunner type city........... hmmm.... I thought that sounded good before I typed it).

I'm not expecting an ADHD diagnosis and prescribed medication to be a magic wand... If I was diagnosed.. I recognise it doesn't make life sunshine and rainbows... that there are new challenges as well as new freedoms... and as well as old cyclical patterns of behavior ending, there may be new kinds of thinking and behavior which can't be controlled all the time, like moods going up and down and various symptoms like lack of sleep etc... stomach discomfort etc... at least that's what I've read and watched online.

If I have ADHD... then what I'm writing here ought to demonstrate ADHD type of thinking clearly ?.... If I have ADHD, then someone who knows about ADHD should be able to read what I'm writing here and say, "Hey, it's obvious you have ADHD".... BUT.... what if I'm writing all this in a way that I want to get that response from someone ? And in the same way what if I answer the doctors questions in a way that I want him to diagnose me with ADHD. It's very childish.. but I'm aware that this could be a level that a big part of me functions on.

kindness is great.. empathy, tolerance, grace, patience, love... I love these qualities... humane qualities coming out of self love and self respect.. I know I and each person has so much to give.. and this world, this life... human experience, whatever this is ! hahah we're these little evolved monkeys running around this spherical rock inside our 70 quarillion mile wide Milky Way galaxy moving at 361 miles per second towards the Andromeda galaxy... and I'm sat here, in what we call 2013, typing away about some way that my brain may or may not function. This point in time may just be a number that a boy in 5075 lands on after scrolling through a human history archive before our species migrated to other parts of this star system... a time where humans used a monetary system, wealth and power was extremely centralised, energy systems fueled by finite resources, progress in agricultural technology and medical capabilities withheld as a countermeasure to what was perceived as a threat of over population... society class: Uncivilised, Primitive, Barbaric.

I know I'm typing ******** here... but it's all little ideas which can go off into projects I'd love to do or be part of one day. Imagine building a small set of the inside of a space ship and filming a short film inside it about a person who is on a 2 year mission to survey planets........ hmmm... I started that sentence with "Imagine this"... as though it's something everyone would want to do...

Holy **** sticks, I have to stop writing... this is turning into a bottomless void of self indulgent mindless rambling across a desert of nonsense on a hysterically giggling 9 humped camel..

yep... stopping.. the only reason this isn't getting deleted, like I have learned to do in emails, messages, online discussions etc... is because this is a mental health forum in the ADHD section. So as much ****ery as this may be... someone might be able to pick sense out of my nonsense. I will write a message at the top, to warn.... so if you actually read this and you're now shaking your fist at me.. you were warned ! hahah

I've sort of breezed through your post, sorry for not reading into detail too much.

I just want to tell you that I really thought that I had done them same up until now. I was told I was ADD around the age of 7yrs old. I stopped taking medication when I was 19, I didn't a very bad way and that was just taking myself off. Anyways, off subject! I'm back on medication after 15 years now.

The test in the US are you are just asked questions but your childhood, teenage years and things like about how you felt about your family. They don't really look to much into what you day to day life is like today. They want to know if it has been aging since childhood and you aren't just coming to them because you think if you could change with medication or help your life would be better.