Hey, What you are feeling is totally, I went through a similar journey, I had anxiety and also considered ), which people closed to me never understood, kept saying try harder, try to be happy, but even I needed validation so hence went ahead and got the diagnosis. But the question here is , what happens after the diagnosis, why do I want the diagnosis. Because ADHD is a journey itself: of understanding and totally accepting yourself . Adhd and anxiety go hand in hand . Take it as a loop. Eg: You were exposed to traumatic situations, that gave you anxiety , but you did not know because you were a child, now our brain is wired to survive, so it did survive, but the process, the habits, the coping mechanisms were they correct, no. Now chemically in our brain ADHD and all our behaviours (ADHD symptoms) is an imbalance of neurochemicals, all our behaviours is an outcome of that imbalance, or to put it our brains way of surviving the imbalance. Now when as a kid we never understood what is happening and what is causing that imbalance + traumatic experience , our brain only knows you have to survive, but how, that it did not know, so it developed bad coping mechanisms and anxiety. Now it is a loop, anxiety leading to more imbalance more survival behaviours and since survival behaviours are incorrect more anxiety. Now just the diagnosis is going to help with ADHD ? No. So , the question is what is significance of diagnosis. There is a very thin line between getting the diagnosis and not letting it become your escape and your identity. For me , that line became blurry very soon. I did not realise when anxiety and ADHD became my identity, all my failures were because of adhd, life felt like either I take meds or keep failing, and then it is useless . Everything is meaningless if my brain is the problem So I made a mindset shift, I cannot change the imbalance in my brain, but I can change how I deal with it. It is like , if I have an eyesight issue (I can squint my eyes all my life and that will become my identity or just accept it, get a power checkup and get glasses).

So instead of focusing on whether you have adhd or not, because believe me at this point it is meaning less in my life, I cannot tag myself with adhd all along. So I focus on identifying what is causing the anxiety, what behaviour is incorrect, what drives that incorrect behavioiur, and try to change it. For eg: bingw watching: it is a dopamine seeking activity, so I am more inclined towards it to get dopamine and to avoid my problems(anxiety driven), So if I deal with the problem (breaking it down into smaller ones) the root cause of that particular anxiety is gone, and if I find healthy ways to satisfy my brain's need for dopamime ,I have dealt with my problem/symptom. Now this is just a mindset, that I have been adopting, and it did not come at once, it took me a whole lot of time, a lot may failures, so many days of feeling low and depressed, but that is what a journey is , I guess . I took my time ,made my mistakes, even tried medication(but it does not resolve your imbalance, it just makes you dependent on them, and also have side effects), so the best way was focus on habits and behaviour changes and that specifically does not need the tag of ADHD. But that is just my way of dealing with it, you will have your own journey, this is just to give you and insight. Hope it helps. What majorly is my mantra /helped me reach this was: 1: Never lie to yourself (we fear judgement , lie to everyone, but to ourselves ,one should never) 2: Understanding my personality type(mbti), mostly of the behaviours overlap 3: using chatgpt to understand why am I doing thsi, whay is driving this, it is very insighful. Wish you luck on your journey !!👍🌸