Just realizing at 31 that I likely have a learning disability, but it feels too late and overwhelming to do anything about it now.

31F.

This is so difficult to explain but ever since I was little I always knew there was something very “off” about my brain, and it was in fact VERY clear given my history in school and even just my behaviors from day 1 until now. But for some reason nobody at any of my schools, nor my parents, ever saw my cycles/patterns as anything concerning enough to even attempt to dig a little further??

For brief context ever since pre-kindergarten I struggled to keep up with the pace, always had such a difficult time memorizing things, never had any ounce of motivation or desire to do school work, and math was my kryptonite. I failed MOST of my years at school, I truly have no clue how or why I managed to pass ANY grade I passed. I did have to repeat 9th grade, and eventually got kicked out of high school in my 4th year (11th grade) because I was failing too many classes. I had to finish my senior year at this notorious charter school that had students do all their class work independently (that was the first time I had ever actually done well in school).

I graduated high school in 2013, and ever since then I have been in and out of 3 different colleges trying my best to get through it. 12 years trying to get through college and I still don’t even have an associates degree.

At 30 I was finally diagnosed with ADHD but have tried and failed every possible medication so far. My psychiatrist finally had me take this genetic psychotropic test and I’ll hear back about in in a few weeks, but this all just convinces me further that there is more this just ADHD at play.

I’m at a point in my life where I am extremely, unbelievably, severely depressed and burnt out and close to giving up. And because I’m already 31 I truly feel like I am not going to be taken seriously if I ever talked to a doctor or psychiatrist or therapist about assessing/confirming any of this. I don’t even know how to process or talk about WHY I believe I have some other kind of neurological/cognitive/whatever disorder. All I know is that from day one every single thing in life was always way harder for me than it is for everybody else in my world. Everybody just thought I was lazy and ignored me whenever I would desperately say otherwise. Neither one of my parents believe in stuff like this, and my boyfriend doesn’t either, so I cannot talk to him about this at all, without being criticized and ridiculed and dismissed. I have no friends that I can talk to about this, even if I didn’t feel so ashamed or embarrassed. I know that having a learning disability/developmental disability is not something I should be ashamed of. I think what I meant was that we have gone 31 years pretending that everything is okay while my whole life has been nothing but a testament to how badly my struggles were, all while being ignored and invalidated. I still feel like a little girl every single day of my life. I just don’t know where I am, who I am, where to go, what to do, etc.