u/Left-Star2240

TL,DR: Would seeking an ADHD diagnosis during mid-life be possible/worthwhile.

For age reference I am on the tail end of Gen X. My mother tried to convince my pediatrician that I was hyperactive when I was four years old. My pediatrician assured her I was a perfectly normal four year old. I always thought she was just impatient because she was.

It wasn’t until my late thirties that I considered I might have had such a condition. My father partially joked that, in these times, I probably would have been diagnosed with ADHD or ASD. He shared an anecdote in which a teacher called. I apparently had stared out the window during a test for a good portion of the time allowed, only to explain to the teacher asking why I wasn’t filling out the form that I didn’t have a pencil. I still aced the test, so my parents thought nothing of it.

I was the perfect student that was occasionally accused of daydreaming, that would find shortcuts to pass a test, and spent time in the front row of my algebra class finding a way to have a black background with white numbers using my eyeglass repair kit. (Texas Instruments solar calculator). Other students asked me to make theirs do the same. My favorite game on our first computer was Minesweeper, and I play it without flagging potential mines even now. I now trip over air, but used to descend or climb three floors and travel long hallways while reading a book.

Like my mother. I entered perimenopause younger than doctors found acceptable but had no word for it. I only knew that I suddenly had severe insomnia (waking every other hour despite being exhausted, consistently waking at 3am without the ability to return to sleep) hot flashes, developed digestive issues and hot flashes that made me think my head was going to simply explode.

I was “too young,” despite no longer having regular periods. When I reached my forties doctors were finally willing to acknowledge that having spotting for one day in one year didn’t qualify as a “period.” Now I’m officially menopausal (it’s been well over a year), and the symptoms have only gotten worse since.

I’m questioning my mental and physical health, but seeking a diagnosis for what’s considered a pediatrician’s job is not covered by insurance, and I don’t know that I can afford it. Would it even be worth the cost?

“Dr. Oz” is apparently concerned about declining birth rates. Rather than addressing the reasons people might not want to bring a child into the world, has coined a phrase called “under-babied.”

He claims it describes people with no children or fewer than they would like.

This is simply 🐂💩. I have the exact number of children I want: zero. If people who want children are instead choosing to use contraception (which is the next target) to prevent that possibility, they are doing so for rational reasons. That reason might simply be affordability, but there are many other reasons.

It angers me that US politicians pretending to be concerned about low birth rates aren’t concerned with supporting planned families. There’s an organization they constantly attack that actually supports family planning, and is a major source of women’s health. (Hint: it’s in the name) People like this don’t care that healthy women are required to create healthy babies. If healthcare is inaccessible, nothing is being done to reduce the maternal mortality rate, and programs to help children flourish, even if it’s simply giving them debt free food, are constantly underfunded.

Rather than addressing these problems, they want to ban a medical procedure or essential medication with poorly written laws that leave hospitals waiting on their legal team to determine if they can treat a pregnant patient that is in crisis. Under these laws, I wouldn’t have been born, because my mother might have died during a spontaneous miscarriage. If she’d survived, this administration might have charged her with a crime.

Yet, they seem worried about babies being born to become a part of their supply chain. That’s what their goal is.

This is the fourth Mother’s Day that I haven’t had a mother.

My spouse and I went to his mother’s for the first one. He wanted to see his mom, and I no longer had one. It made sense.

It’s the first Mother’s Day that I didn’t notice the day approaching. Last week my spouse wanted to go to the pharmacy to buy a card and I had to ask him why.