I'm going to find out in ~2 weeks at my next meeting whether they want to try medicine or not and I will just do whatever they tell me to do. I mean I'm not a psychologist, I'm paying them for their expertise on this and it would be foolish for me not to take their advice.
And that really sucked.
But it was worth it.
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Whether or not you do have ADHD, the most important thing to know about is executive dysfunction.
ADHD isn't people who can't pay attention: it's people who can't choose where their attention goes. ADHD isn't hyperactivity, it's a vacuum of understimulation that - for some - is most easily filled with activity. For others, that void is filled with mental/introverted activity.
My friend, I truly feel your pain. I have been there, and I promise you it gets better.
>I'm going to find out in ~2 weeks at my next meeting whether they want to try medicine or not.
They're going to ask you if you want to try medication. I would encourage you to be actively engaged in your therapy. You can start by thinking about how you would answer the question, "would you like to try medication?" I suspect you have conflicting feelings about it; being able to articulate them clearly is a good way to start.
Writing out things into a journal is good because you can write things that wouldn’t make sense to someone else and therefore you can see reality more clearly.
They cover what it is that ADHD meds actually do and why certain meds work for some people but not for others.
One data point from me - ADHD medication (Elvanse specifically) has some gnarly side effects which meant my wife had a very rough time with it. I won't go in to detail other than to say we nearly ended up in the A&E a couple of times. By all means try medication but be prepared to switch to another or abandon it altogether if the side effects are overwhelming. Listen to your body.
I went through a 1.5 year long process to ADHD diagnosis and being prescribed first methylphenidate and later LDX (Elvanse) in the lowest available doses. It did what it was supposed to do and helped me focus better but the side-effects were to unpleasant for me, so much that I preferred to not take the medication at all. Seeing how my life spirals toward rock-bottom, every once in a while I give it another try but it always ends up in me regretting that I've taken the meds, as it ruins that day and worsens my insomnia. The doctor has no advice on what to do about it except for toughing it out.
Psychologists have a tendency to overprescribe drugs and you have no idea how that will screw up who you are and what you think.
Even if you don't have to pay for those drugs thanks to some healtcare insurance (whether public or private), some money will still flow towards the maker of drugs and that means they have an interest in doctors overprescribing medicines.
Instead of drugs, why not try to change something else in your life? Change job, increase your autonomy, find another way to live?
The reality is that the effects of medication have been thoroughly studied, and prescriptions are obsessively managed.
Meds don't work for everyone, but they work reality well for most of us.
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No lifestyle choice is going to help me manage the chemical imbalance of my brain as effectively as medication does.
Even deeper than that, making an active lifestyle choice, or even any choice at all, is literally the thing my brain is bad at. It's called executive dysfunction, and it's the main symptom of ADHD.
If I have to overcome my ADHD in order to treat my ADHD, then I will never satisfy the circular dependency. Just like I literally cannot pick myself up by my own bootstraps.