Curious about trying ADHD meds for first time in my 40's
I've only been recently diagnosed with ADHD after 40+ years of having no real clue about it. Honestly I think I'm more AuDHD but I'm still feeling out whether that's right. While I can look back and see how a LOT of my behaviors have been influenced by ADHD, especially as a kid, I've otherwise just been unwittingly coping with it.
My therapist has been very supportive in encouraging me to have self-compassion and come to terms with how ADHD has shaped me, but she also wasn't particularly eager to recommend I seek medication. Her basic reasoning is that if I could make it through law school (which I did) without medication, I've obviously developed the necessary coping mechanisms to survive.
On the other hand, I'm no longer a lawyer because I was so depressed and burnt out doing it that I basically had to change fields to avoid killing myself. And what I saw as being exclusively a depression issue at the time, I now look back on as me having lots of issues conforming to traditional legal/professional expectations.
I'm much happier doing other work now, but I recognize that I've also taken for granted the baseline agitation of having a restless mind. In my 20's I would often drink way too much because it shut down some of that, but of course had plenty of other consequences. And within a few years of becoming a lawyer I started becoming a regular ol' pothead because being stoned was basically the only way I could ever stop thinking about work.
Now I'm doing okay, but I'm wondering whether I should proactively discuss trying medication with my doctor or, as my therapist suggests, accept that I've been making it work and to kind of lean-in to my fun brain stuff.