CENTRE OF ATTENTION

With adult ADHD diagnoses on the rise, MF writer Nathan O'Hagan reflects on his own experience of recently being diagnosed with the disorder 

- Nathan O'Hagan

Those two hours were probably the longest I’d been sat in one place for as long as I can remember. ‘As long as I can remember’ isn’t necessarily that long, however, because the reason I had been sitting in that meeting over Microsoft Teams was to be assessed for the final time by a forensic psychologist for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

The diagnostic tool psychologists use is called DSM-5. This sets out two sets of symptoms: inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity. A patient has to score five out of nine on either one of these to meet the criteria of ADHD. I was told I scored seven out of nine on both sides. Pretty conclusive, then.

At 45, I am one of a growing number of people receiving this type of diagnosis in middle age rather than childhood.

“There has been a sharp increase in diagnoses of ADHD and ASD in middle-aged people,” a senior clinician in a mental health and neurodevelopmental service told me. This is largely due to a “general growth of awareness of neurodiversity, including public figures with diagnoses, internet communities and information sharing about neurodiverse conditions; and people’s kids being diagnosed in early childhood because of better awareness in schools, and then adult family members being diagnosed.”

How I got here