My ADHD assessment experience

I expected cold, clinical, questioning. What actually took place was completely unexpected

My ADHD assessment took place on Friday morning

I had expected more of a cross examination.

My assessor would look like a clever barrister and would be looking for inconsistencies in my story and gaps in my narrative.

My wife and I pressed “Join” on Teams and were presented with a kind, fairly young Spanish Doctor working from his home office. We will call him Jorge!

We realised pretty quickly that my wife wasn’t even supposed to be in the meeting and that this was an admin error by Dr Jorge’s office.

But he was kind and asked her to give a brief summary of how she she sees me and what she has observed over the 20 years she has known me.

Her answers, as they always are, were brutally honest.

She spoke of forgetting everything all the time, not listening or following instructions on how to fill the dishwasher, blurting out silly things (sometimes funny sometimes not), singing the same song over and over again and kicking her (by accident!) in bed most nights.

She told the Dr that when she came to my flat for the first time in 2006, she noticed that all the cupboard in the kitchen were wide open. The Dr smiled at this and I felt for the first time that this diagnosis wasn’t going to be as difficult as I thought it would be. She told him of how tired I am , how I sleep more than I should during the day. She told him how I never responded to any suggestions she made as to how to improve my business which was currently quiet.

At the end of her little speech , I felt incredibly loved rather than criticised or judged and hugely grateful that she had taken the time to prepare what she had to say.

When she left the room, I was already unexpectedly calm.

Juan told me that he had been diagnosed with ADHD two years ago. I asked him why, as he is such an expert, didn’t he get himself diagnosed earlier ( I didn’t ask that rudely!) and he explained that he is great at spotting patterns in others but it isn’t so easy to see it in yourself.

We then talked for at least an hour and a half about my traits, my life story and my family. Every time I said something that resonated with him (whether on a human or more diagnostic level ) he smiled warmly and I just know that he understood me and it felt warm and it felt safe.

At one stage, I felt brave enough to address the elephant in the room…

“I though Dr’s were supposed to be completely neutral in the assessment and that I was going to have to agonisingly wait for an email from you Clinic confirming diagnosis or otherwise . If you don’t mind me saying, your poker face wouldn’t win you much money in a night out in Vegas”

He laughed and said “Yes, but I feel in some situations that I can be more open without jeapordising the relationship and your forms and our assessment have already given me more than enough evidence”

We briefly talked about the next meeting we would have and I asked about the different routes for support including medication.

He wouldn’t discuss in any detail but he uttered four words that I think I will remember forever.

“I can help you”

And after everything I have been through - all the help and the self help, the hacks , the obsessions, the misdiagnoses and the false dawns, I believed him.

As the assessment came to a close, the physical anxiety that had been present in my chest for weeks and, on and off, for decades, took a break and I felt still.

I knew this wouldn’t last.

Uncertainty would return.

I will still be nervous pre-diagnosis and I will go through challenges of understanding, grief and practical struggles afterwards.

But at that moment, with that Dr, I was being me and was being seen as me.

And as I write this, and those bloody tears well up again, I know things will be better