u/sweetcornchickensoup

I am not active on this subreddit, but the last time I posted here was to share my experience with a psychiatrist which was very invalidating. After that I found a neuropsychologist from a reliable source, and reached out to her. She conducted my assessment across two different days, and it was a very task based test instead of just self report.

Today was my second appointment in which she explained to me that my guess of having AuDHD was bang on, and she'll be giving me a detailed report of my results mentioning that they indicate being on the spectrum and neurodivergence. I was so overwhelmed that I could cry in front of her. I finally feel validated after all this time of trying to understand myself. I have been waiting to have evidence so that I can explain to people what I'm going through is not just based on relating to some social media posts. I just wanted to share this here as I don't know whether anybody else could understand the same feeling.

TLDR.

Psychiatrist wants family to confirm childhood symptoms but I am not comfortable with that. I also felt invalidated when I shared my experience with internalized hyperactivity. Adult ADHD criteria has been met but childhood assessment is pending.

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I'm 25F and have been wanting to get tested for a while now. Had found a neuro psychiatrist and went to see him today. I want opinions on my experience.

The doctor had a long 45 minutes discussion with me about my symptoms, I was able to share what I had thought of, but I felt he was trying to prove me wrong? Or maybe he was trying to make sure that I know what I'm saying. He was convincing me that I might not have adhd because I am only qualifying for the inattentive part and he needs me to meet the criteria for hyperactivity too. I told him that I am not looking for a diagnosis for meds, but rather I just want to feel validated about my experience.

He also mentioned that it's necessary that my family comes and sees him, so that they can answer questions about my childhood. I told him that I'm not very comfortable with that idea, but he added that if I do self report for childhood, I'll only get a provisional diagnosis. He also tried to tell me that I might have ocpd or anxiety, but I don't think I have any personality disorder because I function in daily life normally, and my anxiety is already helped by my therapist.

After this, I filled out an assessment named diva, just for the adult part. It took me around 25 minutes. He saw my answers and completely changed his outlook. He said I meet all the criteria for inattention (9/9) and majority (7/9) for hyperactivity. He stated that he can give a provisional diagnosis of adhd even

now because of the high number of symptoms present. He did tell me again that it'd be great to have my family come and do the rest of the assessment, but he was now fine with me also giving the self report.

One thing that's bothering me is that he was not ready to accept that I could meet hyperactivity criteria because I said I don't remember whether I had it in childhood. And he was not open to the idea of hyperactivity being internalized as multiple streams of thoughts which I have been experiencing since childhood.

I need to go there again either to self report and get a provisional diagnosis, or take someone from my family to get a confirmed diagnosis.

I am feeling a bit confused. How should I make sense of this because his responses were inconsistent? Why do I feel the assessment should have been longer? Should I do the self report, or call my sister? Should I find another professional as well?