You Don't Live Like I Do

(backstory: I asked the GP about an ADHD diagnosis in Spring 2023, got given some forms to fill in, sat on them for about a year, filled them in in March 2024, returned them in April, got rejected by the Adult ADHD service for not talking about my childhood symptoms enough; got given a different survey to fill out, returned that in April 2025, got accepted by the Adult ADHD service in September 2025 and put on a 7+ year waiting list)

Last October, cosmolinguist looked into getting a private ADHD diagnosis and compiled some notes for me. In January I managed to force myself to look through them and do some other research. I asked my GP to refer me to CareADHD for an assessment under NHS Right to Choose. The assessment will cost me about £400, which is a lot cheaper than some of the other providers. About a week ago I heard back from the GP saying that they'd done that. I haven't yet heard from CareADHD and obviously now it's not my turn to do something I'm really impatient about it! But I'll give it a little while longer before getting in touch to establish a timeline - it'll probably be another couple of months before I get the diagnosis appointment.

I'm having a lot of feelings about this. I know that getting ADHD meds has been a literal life saver for friends, and I'm hoping it'll help me with my current situation, where lack of concentration is making me suck at my day job and many other things in life. I'm hoping it'll help complement the therapy work I'm doing, where we've been talking about emotional dysregulation and my anhedonia - if I can't enjoy things, I'm significantly less motivated to do them and seek shiny dopamine diversions.

I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much. This won't be a magic bullet that'll solve everything overnight. It might not even help much at all, or it might be a painstaking process of adjusting medications and dosages (and dealing with ongoing meds shortages in the UK, particularly post-Brexit). In the short term it may even make things worse. But the possibility of breaking the decades-long cycle of overcommitment and burnout is so tantalising...