Today, I am labeled

It was August 2023 and I had an appointment with the psychiatrist due to having burn out aka a mental breakdown the month before. Apart from my husband, sister and 2 friends, no one knows that I went through that and was sectioned under the mental health team. I still feel a lot of shame around this and I'm hoping on my journey I can open up and finally tell my family what happened.

My community mental health service stepped up really fast and I was thankful considering the mental health crisis in our country. I waited only approx. 3 weeks for the appointment. 

I remember sitting down with this doctor and thinking, so you're the one who is going to tell me how crazy I am and the floods of emotions and self-doubt, telling myself I should just get over myself, pick yourself up and carry on, but i had done this for so long I couldn't mentally or physically hide it any longer.

The psychiatrist began asking tones of questions. she asked questions about my childhood right up to the day before I was sitting Infront of her. 

The appointment lasted about an hour and shortly after I got a call from the nurse saying they were needing my husband and I to come back in later that week to fill out a questionnaire assessment for possible ADHD.

A few days later they called to say they didn't need any further reports that the doctor had a diagnosis that was evident 👀 ya'll it took the doctor 4 days to diagnose me with multiple conditions. I was silently struggling over the years and did everything I could to suppress and hide it to the point the psychiatrist saw everything immediately, I could no longer hide what i called for so many years, my demons. 

I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder due to extreme anxiety around the health of my children and overwhelming fear of death.

I was diagnosed with sever PTSD, anxiety and depressive episode. 

I was diagnosed with - in remission of alcohol addiction (I did not agree with this one as she is referring to my teenage years of drinking and partying)

I was also diagnosed with Combined ADHD - This was the important one as ADHD can be the actual diagnosis setting everything else off appearing to be anxiety etc. when in fact its ADHD.

It was hard to accept when you hear that diagnosis, well it was for me for approximately 5 minutes, then I was relieved. So much made sense now, so many things I can think of was due to having untreated ADHD.

I remember standing outside my work after the call thinking. "That explains talking over people and not being able to focus and sit still for long" "talking fast" "not sleeping properly." So much just came to my mind. 

But then the battle ahead was living life with ADHD untreated...