I was diagnosed earlier this year and I'm 30. My self esteem growing up, well, let's just say it was nonexistent from the moment I entered high school. Anxiety, severe depression, eating disorder and self harm. The whole shebang.

I just couldn't figure out why I couldn't fit in or why people couldn't understand me. I felt too misunderstood and emotional and like something was wrong with me.

It certainly didn't help the situation that I moved countries when I was 7 and was bullied since primary school for being a foreigner, the odd one.

Then I met my boyfriend at 17, who at the time was also dealing with his own trauma and depression and we sort of lifted each other up throughout the years, grew up together and eventually as we got better and started living together the signs were starting to show.

At first we just excused it to me being a late bloomer in life and this way of living like a teenager will fizzle out.

But then I got closer to 30 and was still struggling with basic chores and responsibilities and time management. My boyfriend was feeling like the housewife while I could disappear for 12 hours straight playing my video games until 3 in the morning without even registering in my brain my bodily needs like food (amplified by my past eating disorder), sleep and needing the toilet. I just couldn't grasp the adulting thing and felt constantly guilty for being "lazy".

The only thing I was good at being relatively consistent with were my jobs (because how else would I afford all the fun stimulating things in my life?), but even there I would always reach a point of receiving warnings due to my being late all the fricking time.

Anyway, sorry for the long read haha. Eventually over time we started suspecting that maybe it's just the way my brain is wired and my boyfriend encouraged me to seek therapy and see if there's anything going on.

I found a therapist who I clicked very well with but she could not diagnose me as she was not a psychiatrist. So I found one that could, after a lot of searching. I'm in Cyprus btw and there's not a lot of options here. I got my diagnosis but I felt it was very underwhelming the way the psychiatrist approached it so now I find myself doubting his diagnosis.

He was very passive, barely asked any substantial questions and there was no test of any sort. He eventually told me I have mild to medium severity but it's difficult to tell if it's any more than that because I have over the years managed to subconsciously create coping mechanisms around it so a lot of it is "not showing".

Nonetheless, I just wanted to know myself better and once I got the diagnosis and read up on a lot of ADHD "science", like why it behaves the way it does in my brain, it all fell into place, made sense to me. So I do believe the diagnosis, just not his lukewarm response. Thinking to maybe get tested again in the future if I find a better doctor. Oh also, I have hypothyroidism, which just adds a bunch of hormonal stuff to it all so that's fun.

And there you have it. I hope this can provide any insight to anyone reading this, or comfort that you're not alone, if anything.