I argued with the psychiatrist who diagnosed me with ADHD

When I was first diagnosed with ADHD, I argued with the psychiatrist who diagnosed me. I told them they had made a mistake.

I prepared a detailed letter (an essay may be more accurate), laying out all the reasons why I couldn't possibly have ADHD. I was too organised and tidy. I was hardly ever late. I had been able to do well at work. Surely these things disqualified me?

I hadn't gone to see the psychiatrist to seek an ADHD assessment. I had gone because 11 months after quitting my job following a burnout, I still wasn't feeling right.

I had travelled around the world. I had rested, found new energy, and reconnected with myself. And yet, the idea of returning to work made me nauseous. My anxiety and overwhelm had not eased. Something wasn't adding up.

So I made an appointment. And a follow-up one. And then another one.

The assessment was thorough, and the psychiatrist was highly skilled. ADHD themselves, they had developed a knack for getting to the root cause of struggles — even when those struggles were covered up by high performance, compensating behaviours, and years of striving and pushing through.

"The proof is in the pudding," he said, with a knowing twinkle in his eyes, while prescribing ADHD stimulant medication.

They were right.

What happened next

Within the first few days, I began to understand what he meant. It was like everything had come into sharper focus: my head was clearer, my thoughts less tangled. My brain was suddenly quieter. There was an unforeseen calm.

The rotating thoughts that had always been there, running in the background like a programme I couldn't close, stepped back. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I was able to choose what I focused on. It felt like visiting someone else's head.

At a party, it felt like someone had switched the subtitles on — so clear and easy to follow was the conversation. I was no longer getting lost in my own head while someone was talking to me.

The months that followed were nothing short of astonishing. New realisations arrived daily. I found myself re-living my whole life through this new understanding — revisiting old memories and seeing them differently, with curiosity rather than shame. I read every book I could get my hands on. I started coaching. My self-compassion grew. I came to understand how my brain works: its strengths, and where it needed a different approach, new systems, and more patience.

Why I had argued in the first place

I've thought a lot about why I wrote that letter to my psychiatrist. Why I was so certain he was wrong.

The honest answer is: I didn't know what ADHD actually looked like in someone like me. The diagnostic criteria I had unconsciously absorbed were based largely on research conducted on young boys, not adult professionals, not women, not people who had spent decades developing strategies to cope and compensate and keep up appearances. I had assumed my struggles needed to look a certain way, that they be visible enough, disruptive enough, obvious enough to count.

The thing is: they didn't. They just looked like exhaustion. Like never quite being able to rest. Like succeeding at things and still feeling like it was never enough, like I was always just one step away from falling apart.

Where I am now

A few years on, I work with others who are just beginning to find out about their own neurodivergence. People who are sitting where I sat: the ADHD late diagnosis adult who achieved on the outside while quietly struggling within.

I'm glad the landscape is shifting and that there are more real conversations and support now. There is more awareness, more nuance, and less stigma around the 'label' than there was when I first started my late diagnosis journey. But I also know that for someone newly going through this, it can still feel enormous and isolating. It can be hard to make sense of it all.

If you're reading this and something in it sounds familiar, whether you've just received a diagnosis, are self-diagnosed, or are simply wondering, I hope it helps, even a little, to know that the confusion is part of it. And that it doesn't stay this complicated forever.