[BabyRose]

Some backstory for me, sorry in advance for the mini novel, and I'm sorry for any mistakes since proofreading is kind of difficult for me.

I'm almost a hundred percent certain that I've got some severe adult ADHD. I actually cannot even read a full page of text any more without my brain overloading. External stimuli is extremely distracting and sometimes painful for me to process. I zone out of conversations or immediately forget them as soon as we're done talking. I get stressed out very easily. My brain is always on 22 different trains of thought, and I never finish any of them. I'm always multitasking but I can't finish anything. I can't fill out forms.

I've had issues with school and anxiety as early as 6. In the first couple grades, I had to be held back a few years because no matter how much tutoring I received or how much I studied, math and large chunks of information-dense reading immediately overloaded my brain and I couldn't process it. I always had to get up and do other things to keep myself from physically hurting from the stress.

I would often get so distracted in the beginning of my teenage years that I would often completely forget to bathe for up to two weeks, and I still struggle with maintaining my self-care. I was severely behind everyone else my age in the self-care department, too. I always knew where everything was in my room, but my floor was always knee deep in things and in piles. The concept of cleaning it up felt overloading and stressful. My mind was always racing and I could never sleep because of it. My mom wanted to check me for ADD/ADHD when I was 8 or so, but her family therapist (not a psychiatrist or psychologist) said it didn't fit because I wasn't fidgety enough, so it would be a waste of time.

Some time passes, and I start developing other symptoms of different things- Anxiety, Depression, Phobias, Schizotypal symptoms, and clear signs of Borderline Personality Disorder stemming from some traumatic childhood things. First time I see a psychologist is when I'm 14. I'm diagnosed with Bipolar and Generalized Anxiety Disorder and was put on Celexa, which immediately made all my symptoms worse. I started getting more spacey, less motivated, less clean, I couldn't remember anything at all. I stopped it, and when I was 16, I saw a new doctor which gave me the Diagnosis I still go by these days which is;

• Impulse Control Disorder NOS With BPD and OCD traits (I was under 18 and my psych didn't want to pre-emptively DX me with any PDs for obvious reasons)
• Panic Disorder without Agoraphobia
• Severe Generalized Anxiety Disorder
• Major Depressive Disorder
• Specific phobia of Darkness, Staircases, and Long Hallways

My sleeping schedule has gotten worse and worse and worse over time, and I'm at the point where my thoughts race so much and I stress out about how much stuff I have to do. I actually cannot sleep no matter how hard I try. I briefly took Lorazepam, and then later Temazepam to help me sleep, but they actually didn't help all that much. Even when I'm tired, I get so stressed out about everything I'm not doing that I end up staying up for days on end, but I never actually get anything done in that time.

I've taken Lexapro, Celexa, Buspirone, Trazodone, Remeron, and they've all made all of my symptoms worse. I ended up dropping out of high school because of mental health issues, and now am actually unable to hold a job or properly take care of myself. It's so frustrating because I'm actually a really smart person who wants to be productive, I just can't focus on anything for the life of me. It's so bad that I actually qualified in my old state for the state disability program and legally qualify as being disabled under anxiety alone, which is kind of hard unless you're really inhibited.

My mom thinks that I couldn't have ADHD because I was on the honor roll in middle school, but that's just because I could only ever get things done in class the same day when under extreme pressure. That's the only way I could get anything done. I've always survived off of coffee and Pepsi, which made me feel relatively level headed and never hyper-jittery. It's the only reason I was able to focus on anything at all ever. Even listening to people talk slowly stresses me out.

I found out in my research today that a lot of people with undiagnosed ADHD use coffee to self-medicate since it's a stimulant. It actually calms me down and makes me feel some level of normal, but not enough.

I know that I have BPD, and I've been doing therapy for that which has helped, but I can't shake the feeling like the anxiety and high amounts of stress and inability to stay focused even without stress is an extremely untreated case of comorbid adult ADHD.

I'm seeing a new psychiatrist in a place that's kind of shady/one-star-reviewy because they're the only place I could find that accepts medi-cal. I recently moved, and I want to be re-diagnosed so that I can get the proper medications and stop being disabled.

BUT, since I do have anxiety issues and my medical record has some questionable things in it, (Like hydrocodone prescriptions multiple months in a row after back-to-back surgeries, Benzodiazepines like Temazepam and Lorazepam, and some other scheduled drugs that were prescribed under legitimate reasons and used legitimately), and the fact that I have BPD which has a high medicine abuse rate, I'm just scared he'll think I'm a teenager who's looking to abuse adderall or ritalin. It doesn't help that I've been treating insomnia with medical marijuana since it's the only thing that shuts my ability to think off pretty much completely. I would love to see a specialist that would really listen deeply to my issues, but I have no money at all

I have no medical history of prescription drug abuse, and I don't have any desire to abuse anything. I don't even like the feeling of intoxication because it takes away the 0.01% of control I have over myself away. I just want to be able to get a job and finish my GED and live my life with some focus in it.

Would it be a good idea to not tell him about my previous diagnosis and just have a completely fresh start, or what way should I go about this? I haven't used medical marijuana in over a week and if ADHD meds or treatment help me, there's no reason for me to use it again. Should I tell him about it or just stop completely? Should I request for a complete re-evaluation? What's the likelihood I'll actually be diagnosed and get the help I need for it? Does it even seem like ADHD, or am I reading too far into things?

[CANDC]

Baby Rose, Welcome to Psych Central (PC). Adult ADHD is not a common diagnosis. Here are some links that discuss adult ADHD.
Psych Central - Search results for Adult adhd

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