How did you realize you had ADHD?

I found out when I was 5. In school i could never sit still, stay in my seat and I didn't listen to teacher one day I was sent to the principals office and went to antimem and after I was transferred and they told my mother I need to be put on meds so my mom took me to my doctor and found out I had ADHD

i never really thought about it until last year when i was diagnosed. i thought i just had problems related to my other diagnoses and was frustrated with myself for “failing” “never doing things right” “not being able to take care of myself” and “struggling with my memory.” when i was diagnosed i was angry and in denial at first, but then everything started to make sense. i have mixed-subtype, and i mask my hyperactive symptoms a lot, so my adhd looks super different than my sibling who is hyperactive-subtype and was diagnosed in middle school (i was diagnosed after graduated with bachelors degree). but now i can see the similarities and differences. so i never really wondered before the diagnosis, it just happened and now it all makes sense and i’m getting better by finding things that work for me

I was never able to pay attention. I thought there was something wrong with me and it was only me that went through this, I told people when I could, my parents didn't think I had adhd but in 2018 they started thinking I did and I was finally able to go to the doctor for it when I was 15.

i’ve been diagnosed since i was super young and never knew until i was watching a girl on tiktok speak about her experience. i was the “burnt out gifted kid” and then got to college and wondered why i couldn’t study or focus or why i procrastinated EVERYTHING and the tiktok made me ask my mom. she never had me medicated because the gifted program worked really well. at this point i just have lived with it so long i know how to deal with it

My psychiatrist actually started to speculate I have ADHD because she thought many of my ADHD symptoms were due to severe anxiety but wouldn’t go away with anxiety medication. It’s interesting how universal many symptoms can be!

An artist on Twitter talked about their experience with getting diagnosed through a comic. As an artist I could also relate to her daily struggles and saw myself a lot through her. It was like looking at myself through a mirror! It made me realize the importance of folks creating a dialogue and talking openly about it. I ended up looking into it soon after

I knew I had it since I was little- it just didn’t manifest in the stereotypical way. Finally in middle school i got my parents to talk to my dr about doing some testing to see if I had adhd (but it was weird I don’t feel like it was the proper way to diagnose adhd). Results came back that I wasn’t adhd or if I was it was only mildly. Convinced my mom when I was probably 19 to take me to a psychiatrist that specializes in adhd and she had me do actual tests and then I went back for the results and she was basically like “wow. How have you functioned this long without a diagnosis?” Because my adhd was that off the charts… my adhd looked like what they call adhd in girls so it’s less noticeable than what they call adhd in boys (think always moving and that kind of stuff) so it went undiagnosed for far too long. Idk how I knew I had it just knew that what I felt and how I felt in school was different than another students (and specifically other girl students)

not gonna lie when it became a huge community on tiktok i related a lot to people who were diagnosed and decided its probably time to get tested

I started to notice that I can't sit for a long period of time