Why I Self Diagnosed My Mental Illness

I watched some videos on ADHD on TikTok; I think I have an attention deficit.

Did you cringe? Did you want to shout at me about how only a doctor can diagnose this incredibly rare disorder?

Is self diagnosis valid?

Why are so many self diagnosing?

"Hey Asrai. What's the answer to the question on the board?"

I looked up from doodling on my worksheet. Quickly scanning the question, I pull the answer out of my ass. The teacher stumbles, looking from me to the board. My answer is correct, so she has to conclude I was paying attention.

Spoiler: I wasn't, but I'm smart enough to read the board quickly and answer correctly.

How many girls are missed

I enjoyed reading, writing, and school. My behavior didn't disrupt class. Sure, I daydreamed and doodled all over my pages, but I generally finished, the answers correct and the work done. Except, fourth-grade science test about how bees communicate. I remember my answer to being disorganized from gaps in my memory, causing me to ramble.

But my teachers loved how I would write twice as much as any other student on a creative writing assignment. Teachers applauded me and students were jealous.

Life all Fell Apart

School gave me structure. I fell apart at university. Study three hours for each hour of class? No word count in the assignment? I spent more hours alone than in class or asleep.

I passed at most of my classes with 70+%. The only one I failed was English, as an English major. Sad trombone effect.

Honestly, quitting was better. Getting an English degree would have gotten me heaps of debt and no job prospects.

Instead, I floundered around for a few years. Worked in a Tim Horton's (Canada's much better version of Dunkin' Donuts). Intended to move for a guy who made it clear he wasn't interested in me. Ended up back at home and worked at a pig barn, of all places. That's another story for another day.

I became pregnant and married and 20 years passed.

20 years where I couldn't get my life together. I had motivation to run a freecycle group, to write, to game. Anything but keep the house clean.

The messy, cluttered house was a constant source of friction.

Until I started using ADHD techniques to keep me organized.

The Pandemic

This is when routines fell apart. Employees either worked remotely or not at all. All and any structure disappeared.

School and office closures left many adrift and struggling.

TikTok rose and so did sharing diagnosis and symptoms.

People saw themselves in those symptoms and started self diagnosing.

Professionals and parents and the media became concerned. This is dangerous. Don't they know they require a professional to really understand if they suffer from this disorder?

Maybe that's true. Diagnostic mistakes happen, even among experts. I could only find one study on this in a psychiatry hospital in Ethiopia. 39% of patients with serious mental health disorders had a wrong diagnosis.

We are struggling out here, alone.

Lack of Access

I've heard the wait list here for an autism assessment is like years. For school kids.

Private assessments, adult or child, prove too expensive for many. Unless it's causing you to lose your job or be checked into a psychiatry care facility, you probably will not get diagnosed.

We can't afford it.

And for many young people, their symptoms aren't severe enough to warrant help from the school system. Their parents can't afford it. Or their parents may not even believe the disorder exists or that their perfect child has symptoms.

Trying Strategies

Diagnosis and medication are unavailable, our focus remains solely on relief.

I discovered help in KC Davis's pandemic era advice for keeping house. Five things in every room. Make care tasks accessible for ME. It doesn't matter if they differ from anyone else on the planet.

My mother was strict about this. Women get this way. I'm right, you're wrong. I once confessed I stopped folding clothes. Horrified, she said, "your kids have wrinkled clothing?"

Once they started caring, they folded clothes.

**Just use a notebook**

Fuck you. I have 50 notebooks, 25 of them are too pretty to write in. And 25 are half used, scattered around my world.

Watching Jessica McCabe's How to ADHD channel has useable advice for me. Once I started carrying fidgets, my life became easier.

Stop judging, start helping

If experts and mental health professionals are so worried about TikTok diagnosis, then they must offer more help.

They must improve diagnosis, affordability and accessibility. If you know ADHD, then make your process ADHD friendly. A lot of paperwork? It's gonna get lost. Or spilled on. Give me a digital copy, because if I have to mail something, the post office trip will be delayed for six months. About the time I drop off the donations I have in my trunk.

Figure this shit out. Otherwise, I'll be watching YouTube and TikTok for my coping strategies. Cause ya'll not gonna help.

Actually, I'm not allowed to watch Tiktok. it's widely overstimulating and makes me feel like I'm on drugs.