Adventures in Attaining an Accurate Diagnosis and Why U.S. Healthcare is Garbage
I have been a victim of other people’s ignorance and assumptions my whole life. When I was a kid, my parents and relatives assumed I was just quiet and shy. My teachers assumed I was intentionally being disruptive with my tapping and other various physical tics. When I was in college, my professors assumed I was being lazy when I didn’t show up to class, and one even said so via snarky remark in passing once. When I entered the work world, coworkers assumed I just had some interesting quirks, because by then I had learned to mask and suppress just enough to pass as “normal,” albeit a bit odd.
When I finally sought a diagnosis my first doctor thought I had general anxiety because I was having panic attacks. My second doctor thought I had ADHD because I had trouble focusing. The third doctor thought ADHD and OCD. Fourth doctor concurred with Third. Fifth doctor (finally) recommended actual testing (rather than self-reports and trials of various medicinal concoctions), which has so far determined that I do not have ADHD. We’re still working on what I actually do have. This was all in a span of about five years.
Why so many doctors, you ask? Two left their practice, one stopped accepting my insurance, one was just incredibly disorganized and difficult to get in touch with (an…
