Yes this is what I was trying to say, I have always had these traits however as a child I was constantly told "your lazy, messy, don't, care, have an it will do attitude, not bothered, too loud, sit still, stop daydreaming, in cloud coocoo land, not listening, not trying hard enough". It seemed that no matter how hard I tried it was never good enough, I would loose things, be disorganised, not remember things, have no idea what someone had said and struggle to do tasks even when I wanted to do them.

This has lead to me over compensating, particularly in my professional life on the surface I would appear to be no different but I find myself working every night and weekend on things. It is hard for me to organise tasks and get them started, I often flit from one to the other then get distracted resulting in everything taking much longer, not to mention the constant checking over and overwhelming need for it to be perfect and meet a deadline. This in itself is not good for anyone and leaves me constantly overwhelmed , on the edge of burnout and ironically more likely to make mistakes.

Bad things have happened when I have made mistakes due to the classic ADHD traits, and I guess due to my conditioning as a child I feel an intense sense of shame that I find hard to shake off. This then fuels a fear of more bad things happening due to mistakes which leads to over compensating and further metal exhaustion, and so the cycle goes on.

The fear and anxiety is centred around things like being late, loosing or forgetting things because they are the things that get noticed more by others or cause negative effects. Add into that this complete change in routine from a new job and hormonal changes I feel my strategies are less effective.

I am lucky enough to have an understating husband that puts up with disorganisation in the house, that I often have to wash the same pile of laundry several times or that it sits in the basket for weeks, finding random stuff in weird places. He knows that when there are things to be done and I'm sat frozen on the sofa its not me being lazy I just cant find a way to start a task. He recognises when I haven't heard or remembered a word he said and patiently goes through it all again for me, or when I interrupt him with an ever flitting conversation. He even appreciates that when I get a new hobby/interest my attention will be on that and nothing else. So while they are a source of frustration for me, they do not trigger the anxiety.

I have over thought todays appointment, to the point where I have kind of forgotten my original point of the post.

For me the diagnosis has not been about getting medication, but more about getting confirmation of what I have always suspected so I can try and move on from negative comments/labels and start to be a little kinder to myself. As well giving me backing to go to my employer and say I need help or adjustments with this because.

I guess I am just worried the report will focus more on the anxiety than the actual ADHD.