It's a little irritating when you go to your GP and ask for an ADHD assessment because you've been pretty sure for years that this is what's behind the distractibility and executive dysfunction that has plagued your entire life and is now getting to the point where you're really struggling to get basic tasks done, and the GP listens to you describe how stressful the practice waiting room is with the radio blaring to cover the noise of any conversations the receptionists might be having, making it impossible to concentrate on the book you've brought to a) while away time and b) have something else to look at other than the orange seating which hurts your eyes, and says 'I think you should be assessed for autism too', and you say 'sensory sensitivity is also part of ADHD though, isn't it, and anyhow, I tick none of the boxes of the Triad of Impairments' (which is how they diagnosed your children with autism 30+ years ago) and she says 'oh that's very old school, we don't do it like that any more', and then when your ADHD assessment happens, the psychiatrist says 'the fact you obsessively check your work for mistakes despite having ADHD makes me think you might have autism too, so I think you need an autism assessment as well', so you apply for one and wait for months and when it comes along you have four days' notice and just beforehand the seagull of life does a massive shit on your head, but you press on anyway even though you don't feel you've prepared enough, and the psychiatrist doing the assessment, who is a different one from the first one, says 'you don't reach the threshold for a diagnosis of autism because you pick up on vibes and other people's feelings' (and this is true, you once spent an afternoon listening to a friend who was really stressed as she poured out her troubles and drove home with her migraine, despite not getting migraines yourself), and adds that sensory processing issues are also part of ADHD, don't you know, and there's nothing in my symptoms that can't be explained by a diagnosis of ADHD with hypersensitivity and anxiety.
Oh well, I can work with that. What I really want, though, is medication. I've been waiting ten months for titration to start. (Submitting my weight and blood pressure four months into this wait to comply with the legal requirement for providers of mental health and psychiatric services to start the process within that length of time hasn't really helped me at all.)
I do wonder, however, if these categories will wither away in the future, much like the Triad of Impairments has as a diagnostic tool, because this morning I completely missed my footing on my dog walk and fell down some steps, narrowly missing landing in the River Trym, and my ribs and hip are hurting badly. There's also a big black bruise on my forearm from where I misjudged the distance of the door handle while walking from the kitchen into the hall last week and banged right into it. This sort of happening, plus the fact I have nine pins and a plate in my leg from when I fell off the doorstep eleven years ago, speaks of dyspraxia to me. And though I'm good at spelling, I can't tell my left from my right and I gave up learning to play the piano after eight years because sight-reading musical notation is so laborious for me, both of which could be deficits related to dyslexia. (Not that I'm going to any more assessments. I'm done with that now.)
I prefer to think in terms of neurodivergence as an umbrella term, with a pick-n-mix of symptoms, the umbrella being dusty black and faded along the folds from being stored in a sunny place. It has various coloured patches, and other holes and tears, though it makes little difference whether the holes have been patched or not with regard to their ability to keep out the rain and sun; they let both through at the same time. And that's the beauty of it.
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