Trouble Affirming Myself

Hello all, I (31F) was recently diagnosed with ADHD. I’ve been working with my psychologist for years while I got my doctorate and was struggling with anxiety but also ADHD-like symptoms that we were trying to parse out from anxiety and OCD. Now that I’ve graduated and am in my career and not experiencing clinical levels of anxiety and my OCD has faded into the background, the inattentive symptoms still remain.

Since after high school, I always felt like I figured out ways to “game the system” and get good or good enough grades in almost anything (except math). I’ve definitely created systems for myself that work well for my brain like putting things in my Google cal immediately, setting reminders, grocery lists/to do lists. I have always had trouble focusing, but particularly during graduate school I never found myself able to focus in lectures or when talking to people/in meetings, significant challenges with working memory, forgetfulness, misplacing things, etc. Completing my dissertation took 4 years and I really could have locked in for several months to complete it but I procrastinated until I NEEDED to do it or I would not have graduated.

All that to say, I’m struggling to affirm my own experience and have second-guessed my diagnosis whenever I think about it. I haven’t started my medication (strattera) because the side effects probably would mess with my GI difficulties more than I already experience. I also didn’t feel heard by the prescriber and am looking to switch to a new practitioner so I can go over potential side effects and options, but there’s just been a part of me that’s questioning if “it’s really all that bad”. But then I remember that I will be talking to my partner about getting something at the store, go to said store, and not buy the thing that we needed. I was curious about how others overcame this experience, particularly late diagnosed or other people who have gone through higher ed 😅