Hello brains! As most of you know I was
diagnosed when I was 12. But a lot of
people don't find out about their ADHD
until later in life as adults. and that
can come with some unique challenges.
Since I don't have experience with that
myself, I wanted to give you the
opportunity to hear from somebody who
does. Bret Thornhill is an ADHD coach and
a fellow brain. I asked Brett everything
that I could think of about what the
process, including the emotional process,
of being diagnosed as an adult is like. I
think a lot of you might be able to
relate. Interview starting in 3,2,1.
-ADHD is not a failed version of
normal it's just a different way of being.
-Thank you so much Bret. Thank you for
coming I've been really excited to talk
to you for a long time. Say hi to the
brains. -Hi brains uh yeah no I've been
looking forward to this. I'm really
thrilled to be here. -Well first of all
when were you diagnosed? -I was diagnosed
when I was 43 which is seven years ago. I
am gonna be 50 very,very soon. -Happy
birthday. -Thank you very much. It's funny
when you say you're diagnosed at 12, I,
you know, the very first thing I
thought when I was diagnosed was, "Damn, I
wish I was diagnosed when I was 12!" You
know, so as it was 43, which is, you know,
relatively late. There are people who are
getting diagnosed now much later than
that. There are senior citizens who are
getting diagnosed, yeah and it's becoming,
more and more common for adults, to get
diagnosed. Typically what happens is that
kids get diagnosed and then through that
process the parent kind of goes, "wait now,
little Junior's exactly like I was." Right,
so they end up getting diagnosed that
way. Myself and my daughter we did it the
other way around. I actually got my
diagnosis first, and then we kind of went,
"hey she's just like me," and she ended up
getting her diagnosis after me. -So what
made you seek a diagnosis? -I had always
experienced. you know, what I know now are
pretty common,
I guess, feelings that are associated
with ADHD, you know, the imposter syndrome.
I had a great deal of difficulty with
academics. It's like I'm channel surfing
through 30 different TV stations, but
someone else is holding the remote control. I
don't have control over which channel
I'm watching and when, and so there was always,
there were always things, that kind of
didn't feel, it's tough to describe but
it's like this inner itch.
I was never content, you know, those kinds
of things. So I found out afterwards that
those are quite common, but really the
breaking point was
when I received a promotion into
management, and I was responsible for a
team and by all accounts, you know, my
life had been pretty good. Things were
going great, outwardly. Inwardly there was
a tremendous amount of anxiety, even mild
depression and just dissatisfaction and
so that led me to just see a counsellor,
just see a therapist. -As an adult once
you made it to the psychiatrist office,
what was the actual diagnostic process
like for you? -It was mainly just a Q&A,
she took a lot of notes, she asked me a
lot of questions, and it fit like a glove
I mean, it was, there was no doubt in her
mind after a few visits. But what I give
her credit for, is that she took her time
and make sure that it was ADHD, that was
the primary cause of my issues. I
remember telling her, "But I can't have
ADHD, because I hold down a job and I
have a house, and a family, and, you know, I
pay my bills," and that sort of thing. She
goes, "Yeah but how hard is it?" I mean it's
tough, it's tough, you know. It feels like
I'm walking through three feet of water
most of the time. -Did you feel like you
were lazy? -Yeah. Yeah I did. -Why is that? I
think because, so many of my
contemporaries so many people that I
knew, so many people I grew up with were
able to do things that, I wasn't able to
do and I always put it to work ethic. I
know now that it was interest. I spent
most of my life feeling like I was
either lazy or I had to be the stupidest
person in the room, because when you're
surrounded by people who think
differently than you, and this is the
thing about ADHD, is I try to get my
clients to embrace their divergent
thinking, because it can be really lonely,
if you're a divergent thinker, you know.
It can be very isolating, you know. We
don't grow up wanting to be different
than everybody else and if you don't fit
in with everything else, then
automatically there's an assumption that
well there's something wrong. So it was
actually quite relieving to know that
there was something that I have, that
explains all of the crap, that I never
had an explanation for. And there's a
real roller coaster of emotions, that
I've since found out, are very similar to
the same sort of emotions that you
experience, when you're going through a
mourning process you know where you have
that shock, you have that disbelief, you
have acceptance, you have anger,
you have all of those sorts of things.
And, what I equated it to afterwards was
I realized that I was kind of mourning
the person that I thought, I might have
been, had I known earlier, so I was a
little ticked off that I'm 43 years old.
And you know there there's always two
ways to look at something, and on the one
hand it was like, "Yeah I had a family
that loved me, I had good friends, I had a
good career, life had been pretty good."
But how much better could it have been
if I had only known, right? That's a bad
place to go. That's not a good place to
go. But you go there and you start
wondering, you have all these questions,
and you, you really start to imagine this
other life that doesn't exist, but you
start imagining this other life, and how
it might have been. That was tough. It was
hard not to look back. So I did a lot of
research, and I found out a lot about
ADHD, and I found out a lot about the
strengths that are attached to ADHD as
well, and eventually I just got tired. I
got tired of looking back wondering
about what might have been. I thought,
"Okay you've gained all this great new
insight about yourself, there's got to be
a way you can use this. Maybe it's time
to look forward. Maybe this is your
opportunity to take chances you've never
taken before. Maybe now you, you know you
have reasons to take leaps of faith that.
you never would have taken before. -Did
you get treatment right away?
Pretty much. My psychiatrist was, was
pretty good in that she sent me a way to
kind of digest, you know. It's really easy
to kind of go, "Okay fix it, you know.
Whatever it is now you know what it is.
fix it." And as of course, as you know I
mean, medication is not about fixing and
ADHD treatment is not about fixing, but
in short order, I did, I went the
medication route, I was quite open to
that, and it made a huge difference in my
life. You know the very first day I took
my medication, I completed a project that
had been sitting on my desk for a month
and a half. I was in a meeting and had
sat through an hour and a half meeting
and realized as I walked out, I listened to
everything that was happening in that
meeting. I didn't get lost my mind didn't
wander. I'm not walking out of that
meeting going, "What the hell just
happened?" Which is how I felt most of the
time when I walk out of meetings. So the
changes were profound but subtle, if that
makes sense. Like it wasn't like, take the
pill then suddenly, you know, you're
wearing a red cape, it was more you know
take the pill and just you're no longer
walking in 3 feet of water.
-How did you tell people and how did you
decide who to tell and how did they
respond? -Yeah so that was interesting.
When you're diagnosed it's really
profound for you, but you don't change in
the eyes of others and if they don't
have an understanding of ADHD and you
make this announcement, you suddenly you
feel like you've rediscovered yourself.
You better be content with that
internally, because externally it's not
going to make a whole lot of difference,
to other people. It feels like it should.
"I've made this huge discovery about
myself and I know myself now, and I'm you
know, I know so much more about why I am
the way I am," and everybody else is just
like, "Yeah you're the same person, though
you're the same as you always were." And,
because they didn't have all the
internal thoughts going on in the first
place, right, there was that, there was a
lot of disbelief, misunderstanding. People
don't understand what it is. I shared
with my family with some of my family
some of whom, decided to try to convince
me that I was wrong. (Chuckles). And I remember
having this one conversation where, I'm like,
"I'm informing you that I have ADHD. I'm
not here to debate this I have ADHD." -Did
you attempt to educate the people who,
didn't believe you?
-Yes I still try to educate them. I used
to get pissed off. It used to irritate me.
And I would engage in arguments. The
American Psychiatric Association calls
ADHD, the most well researched
psychiatric condition in existence. It's
also one of the most treatable. It's also
one of the most ignored. It's also one of
the most denied, but it's an opportunity
so for every misunderstanding or
misconception that they throw at you,
bust down the myth. Do some myth-busting
If you engage in someone by saying, "Yeah
I used to think the same thing but you
know here's what I know now."
"ADHD is not genetic." "Well yeah and I
didn't even think it was either. I had no
idea. But you know what. ADHD is as
genetic as height and they've actually
isolated this gene, that's, that's
associated with ADHD." Now so if you can
engage people in those conversations,
then I think that's a great opportunity.
So now I do that more. I don't get upset
with people anymore. I tend to get
irritated more by people who allow their
ignorance to impact the lives of others.
So parents of kids who will not accept
their ADHD bothers me, and what I say to
those parents is, "Look you know what I
have a very clear memory, and
appreciation for life before ADHD, and I
don't consider
ADHD, in and of itself a gift. It comes with
tremendous challenges, and it can cause
tremendous difficulties. But I absolutely
consider the diagnosis a gift."
Brett actually had a lot more insights
to share. What the coaching process is
like? How to find the coach that works
for you? His three pillars for ADHD
success. He had so much in fact, that we
decided to do a bonus episode with him
next week. If you can't wait till next
week, check out his website, 'Embrace your
ADHD.ca.' Link in the description, and
of course, interviews like this would not
be possible without the help of my
patreon supporters, like these brains.
Thank you so much for believing in me.
We've got a lot of exciting things
coming for the channel, and none of this
would be happening without you. Let us
know what getting diagnosed was like for
you. Leave a comment below. Hit me up on
Facebook or Twitter and in the meantime,
I'll be researching the next topic. See
you next week.
Bye brains! -I think we start out life as
individuals, and I think that sometimes I
think we're, we're taught how to kind of,
fit in with everything else, and as we
get older, I think as we get more
comfortable with ourselves, and I guess a
little more confident. Um then that
difference is something that we can
embrace again,
you know.