A new diagnosis

No, this isn’t an update to my present lack of an MS diagnosis—I’m still waiting for referrals to go through to a new neurologist. Instead, this is about an additional diagnosis on top of the ones I already have.

I finally went back to my therapist and asked her, point blank, how she would diagnose me (even though master’s-level therapists can’t technically make diagnoses, I think.) After seeing her for more than six months, I figured she would know.

To my surprise, she didn’t say depression or anxiety, and in fact, she said that most people in my situation (with a spouse with cancer) would have a lot of anxiety. Instead, to my surprise, she said I seemed like textbook ADHD.

And then I remembered: oh yeah, the neuropsychologist I saw for the 8-hour test that finally qualified me for disability also said I seemed like I had ADHD and a pretty classic case for how it presents in women (which is not at all like the stereotype of the hyperactive little boy.)

I’m definitely the inattentive type of ADD/ADHD. But the thing is that I already take meds for ADHD, prescribed by my neurologist for fatigue, and I have to say that they offer some relief from the fatigue but absolutely none from the ADHD.

I don’t know how to feel about all this. On the one hand, knowing there’s a reason that I’m so indecisive and have such poor follow-through on my goals is somewhat helpful. On the other hand, I haven’t found any way around it, so I just feel like I have a severe handicap that I don’t know how to compensate for.

What’s the path forward that will enable me to be as successful as someone of my intellectual ability and education level should be? I know, a lot of those measures of “should be” are arbitrary. But I also know that I feel like everything is a fucking struggle for me, things that seem to come easily to others.

Will this be something that ever gets resolved in my lifetime, or will it always be a struggle? Will I always get bored with goals before I can see them through? I’ve been telling myself that maybe I don’t have to be doomed to a life of poverty when my husband’s gone, but what if I can’t follow through with any of the things that would ensure that isn’t my fate?