Well hello!! I am 30 years old and recently was diagnosed as having ADHD. It is kinda weird though having these symtoms all of these years and I just thought that it was part of my personality. I am a nurse so I did fairly well in school. I did do my homework but rarely studied and it took me longer to perform these tasks because I couldnt concentrate. I look back now and realize this is the reason I cant sit down long enough to watch a movie, why I have to get up and move around while in meetings and conferences and why I have a hard time sitting long enough to write papers.

I am always late and in fact it has became a joke that if you want me to be somewhere on time tell me I needed to be there 30 min earlier than what I really needed to be. I just always thought of something else I needed to do before I left. Losing things were/are a problem. I thought me being scatterbrained was normal. The other day appently I had taken my purse and placed it in my truck. When I was ready to leave about 10 minutes later I couldnt remember where my purse was. I looked about 15 min (making me late to work) before I found it. I still really dont remember putting it there but obviously I did!!

I used to work in a hospital and my symptoms were no big deal. Everyone just accepted that if they were working with me I would be doing 100 things at once in a fairly disorganized manner. I would however eventually get what I needed done. It wasnt until I started a new job (the job of my dreams)did I bein really noticing these symptoms as "not normal". My new job requires me, part of the time, to sit and write out papers for the state. The other part I am up interacting with patients. I found that the writing part for me is really difficult. People around me were engrossed in their work while I was always doing something else. It began to give a complex that maybe I am not cut out for this job. Things that took me days should have only taken a few hours.

Luckily my job is pretty flexible so I havent been reprimanded but I didnt want it to become that way so I made an appointment with my doctor and asked her if she would screen me for ADHD. I felt pretty weird about asking for a screening at my age but I did it. You see, being in the health care feild I have seen a lot of parents going from doctor to doctor trying to get their kids on medication when I really didnt think they needed it. I worked in child psych for a while and some of those children just needed good discipline.

So anyway, I asked her to screen me and sure enough she said she thought that I did have ADHD. I just started taking Adderall. We will see how that goes. You would think that taking a stimulant really makes you feel more relaxed. I feel more relaxed (not tired) than I have in a long time. Amazing...I just wrote all of this and didnt stop to get up!! Thanks for letting me vent. It's nice to know I am not the only adult out there that has just been diagnosed!!

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