ADHD Diagnosis: Where Do I Go From Here?
By Catherine Mutti-Driscoll
ADHD Coach, Hallowell Todaro Center Seattle
Getting an ADHD diagnosis may bring up a variety of feelings, and may be quite overwhelming to many individuals. Whether the diagnosis is for you, your child, or both, you may experience grief about what could have been if you’d known earlier, relief at understanding more fully the reason behind your experiences in life, and/or a deep desire to get to work on your areas of challenge. Here is some quick advice for you as you contemplate the next steps in your ADHD journey.
1). Stop and Breathe
My first piece of advice to you is to STOP and BREATHE. There is no need to rush. Even if you have a very long list of recommendations from your practitioner about yourself or your child, I recommend taking some time to process and to connect with yourself.
Ask yourself, what does this diagnosis mean to you? What do you want it to mean? What challenges or opportunities do you want to invest in as a result of this diagnosis? What are your goals for the future for yourself and/or your child? It’s okay if you are not ready to take action or if you don’t know the answers to these questions yet. Connecting with support groups such as those offered through CHADD or ADDA can be a great way to start to make sense of the diagnosis and begin to process what you’d like to do (or not) with it.
2). Assess Your Satisfaction
Everyone with ADHD is different and everyone has different goals. The key to ADHD management is to know what your goals are and what is important to you. To help with this, I often ask my ADHD coaching clients to rate their satisfaction in various areas of their life. This will enable you to take stock of how satisfied you are in a variety of areas of life. For adults, the categories would likely be: physical environment, fun and recreation, career, money, health, friends/family, significant other/romance, and personal growth (Dupar, 2019). For children, the categories might be home life, happiness, friends or social life, physical health, romance and dating (if relevant), schoolwork or plans for the future, and fun, hobbies, and interests (Giant, 2014).
3). Focus On Your Most Important Goals
After you rate these areas for yourself or your child, you will have a good sense of where you're most satisfied and where you're not. If you would like to take action on some of these areas, I recommend taking on only 2 or 3 at a time. As you’re identifying which areas to work on, it can be helpful to remember that the goal of treatment is not just to remedy our weaknesses. While it can be somewhat helpful to focus on managing challenge areas, it can also be very powerful to set a goal around one of your areas of strength. With just a little boost, these areas could be made even stronger. Once you identify your 2-3 areas, ask yourself: What is working well and not working well in these areas? What would I like to change in these areas? This will help you hone in on more specific goals for your treatment.
3). Explore Options As You Go, Staying Connected With Your Goals & Yourself
As you start to work on your goals, you’ll notice that there are a variety of ways to go about accomplishing them and a variety of services available to you (coaching, therapy, nutrition, organizational support, etc). Go ahead and try something that calls to you, trying not to take on too much and possibly overwhelming yourself. When you try something, keep in touch with your goals, periodically asking yourself how it is going and what you might want to tweak in the future. Try to have a growth mindset about where you’re at and where your heading, knowing that it will take time to get there.
Wherever you are at in terms of taking action or processing, it’s all okay. ADHD is known to be very treatable but there is also no cure. As a result, this journey will be a marathon and not a sprint. The beauty of this fact is that it means that you have time. Make sure to stop and care for yourself, even at the beginning of your journey. You can pause your efforts at any time and get tapped into what's most important to you.
Finally, if you need some help processing, be sure to reach out. There are many opportunities to connect with your new tribe in online groups and in support groups, etc. Welcome to the ADHD community! You are in good company :-)
We provide therapy and coaching for children and adults with ADHD and/or a range of other cognitive or emotional conditions.