Your ADHD diagnosis presents a major transition and new exploration phase in your life. 

In choosing to work with a coach as part of your plan to get on top of things, be sure that the coach has specialised training in ADHD. Strategies that work for clients without ADHD/ADD, often do not work for ADDers.

For newly diagnosed adults (and officially undiagnosed but suspecting adults) diagnoses rarely comes as a complete surprise since the feeling of being out of step with the rest of society goes  back as far as they can remember and was reinforced by others’ negative or discouraging responses. However, their ADHD impairments became less problematic with age, due to the development of coping strategies, brain maturation and access to supportive resources.

ADHD persists into adulthood and a diagnosis even later in life is not uncommon. Bodily changes (for woman during and after menopause; for both men and women as their bodies age) may cause late onset of ADHD like functional impairments which can persist well into middle age and beyond.

Changing environmental demands (e.g. job changes, situations where previous support is lost) suddenly leave the person who could cope well with his/her ADHD, with multiple new, daily and difficult demands to attend to, making their ADHD difficulties become much more conspicuous.

An ADHD diagnosis tend to throw many adults off balance as it carries with it a heavy bag of potentially additional mixed emotions to handle which commonly include

  • anger, sadness and regret for past struggles and missed opportunities
  • relief for being able to give their experience a name and knowing why they experience what they do
  • unwillingness to make needed changes
  • overwhelm from new bodily/environmental demands
  • uncertainty about what and how to make needed changes
  • fear of how others will respond if they know your struggles
  • surprise and disappointment for the failure of old coping strategies
  • confusion about the next step to take
  • frustration for the time it takes to find the best professional support and resources
  • impatience for lack of seeing quick, major changes
  • discouragement when “making the same old mistakes” and lasting improvements elude them
  • excitement and hope for new possibilities
  • acceptance of and compassion for self and others
  • doubt and resistance regarding taking medication
  • demands on patience for  fine-tuning the medication dose/time and other resources

Starting on a medication regimen alone, may not give you the results you’re looking for. Simple and small lifestyle changes, learning and continued practice of tailored behaviours, skills and strategies will enhance your quality of life.

You may need support in finding ways to re-evaluate and diversify your support systems and to improve your job performance by identifying and asking for accommodations at work.

ADHD Coaching offers you an invaluable resource for regaining clarity and balance around what it means to do things in your best way and how you can utilise the important information gained through working with all these emotions.