Lacy Estelle [00:00:00]:
Hey, guys. Welcome back to an ADD Woman podcast. So I recorded this episode, and then after I recorded it, I realized it's really long. So here is part 2 of Should I Get an ADHD Diagnosis?
Lacy Estelle [00:00:18]:
Welcome to an ADD Woman podcast. I'm your host, Lacy Estelle. This is the podcast where we talk about all things to do with ADHD from a Christian woman's perspective. I'm so glad you're here, and I can't wait for you to realize all the amazing things that God is doing in your life.
Lacy Estelle [00:00:40]:
Now, here's some really good things that you can do with it if you get it. If you decide you wanna go back to college and you have an actual full diagnosis, you can go to your counselors and you can tell them that you would like to get accommodations because you have ADHD or you have, you know, that depending on your diagnosis, maybe you have, maybe it will say in your neuropsychology testing that you seem to have an audio processing delay or you seem to have a visual processing delay. All of those things are things they can give you accommodation for. Now state by state education requirements for what's considered the Disabilities Act is different. In my state, which is Michigan, you have to submit your request in writing. And when you submit your request in writing, you say, this is like, let's say you're doing it for your child. You're gonna write dear, to whom it may concern or dear I think I address mine primarily to, like, the principal, and then I underneath it, I also put and the special education department and the school. And you write it up in a letter with the way we we we were taught to write letters in the elementary school, right, forever.
Lacy Estelle [00:01:51]:
You have the address at the top that it's at 4, and then you have the address for you that's over to the side. You have the dear, so and so. You have the date, all that stuff. The date's very important. You write out, my name is so and so. I am the parent of so and so. On this date, their doctor you write their doctor's name, diagnose them with blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. You write their diagnosis.
Lacy Estelle [00:02:11]:
Then after that, you write, I do believe that this is impacting their, ability to learn, and I am requesting that you do a full testing to see if they qualify for special accommodations through an IEP or a 504. I appreciate you taking the time to read this. Thank you so much, and then you sign your name. Why the date is important? At least in my state, they have 30 days from that date to look at the testing. Now college accommodations might be something slightly different, but my guess is you probably still have to submit something in writing. And you probably still have to submit something in writing with a date. What happens after you do it for a child is their their special education team has to go to work. They will let you know that they got your letter, that they are setting a date for an IEP meeting, and usually that date will be 30 days out.
Lacy Estelle [00:03:03]:
Now in my state, it is 30 school days. So it ends up being closer to almost, like, 6 weeks. But either way, 30 days. That's that's the cutoff. They'll have a social worker that will go sit in the classroom, watch the child learn. They won't tell the child what they're doing. They will pull the child out of class a few times to do specific testing. Here's the thing.
Lacy Estelle [00:03:23]:
A lot of times people will start, and this is where I mess up. You'll start with a a request to the school to do testing before you've gotten a diagnosis. When that happens, a lot of times, I had the misunderstanding that the school could test because they were gonna bring in psychologists. Right? And they were gonna test, and they were gonna say, like, what we were dealing with. But at that point, the school and the school psychologist, even if they're third party, they are not allowed to diagnose. They can't. You have to have a 3rd party, like, I guess, it's not only 4th party, but, you have to have a 4th party diagnosis from your primary care doctor, an outside doctor, somebody else stating that this is something that they have diagnostic wise, and that they are likely to continue to have it for throughout their lifetime or throughout their schooling. Because when you're qualifying for special education services, there are 2 roads or at least in my state, there are 2 roads.
Lacy Estelle [00:04:26]:
You can either get special services that are considered, specific learning disabilities. That has to do with math and reading. If the child is good at most everything, but they're struggling massively with math, then they put them under that qualification, and they work with them just in math. If they are good at math and they're struggling with reading, then they work with them just in reading, And that is their qual that is their IEP qualification. There's that. But what most people usually end up meeting is something called OHI, o h I, and it's call it's considered otherwise health impaired, which means that they have a diagnosis that is outside of just to relate to their education and just to relate to their learning. And, therefore, because of that diagnosis, they are going to struggle across the board. What can happen, in my case, did happen with my oldest son when I first sought him a diagnosis or I first sought him special services, was I did not have a diagnosis for him.
Lacy Estelle [00:05:28]:
So they did all of the testing. They said he shows signs of having ADHD, but you don't have a diagnosis. Well, no. I realized I had to have one. You can clearly see he's struggling to learn. They could. They could clearly see that he was struggling in reading, and he was struggling in math, and he was struggling in science. But because he was struggling in all three, he didn't qualify.
Lacy Estelle [00:05:50]:
I know. It sounds ridiculous. Right? But that is how it works. So they said because it's not a specific learning disability and because you don't have a diagnosis, we can't give him under the under the 504 or the IEP. We can't qualify him without these things. Now that's the other thing. They the school that I was working with at that time were really wonderful. They did give him a lot of accommodations without the 504 or the IEP.
Lacy Estelle [00:06:18]:
And at that time, that was actually the year that he moved up 32 reading holes in 1 year. So sometimes you will be dealing with schools that are very welcoming and want to accommodate whatever is needed for your child. But then there's often a lot of times too where, you might be dealing with a school that already has their plate area full. And if your child is getting along well with everybody or they are, they're not disruptive and they're not causing behavioral issues or they're not having problems with staying in school, they may not really push you off, but you may feel a little bit of resistance as to what what they want to do and what they don't want to do. I know I talked about the good that can come from diagnosis. I talked a little bit about seeking an IEP or 504 if it's for your child. But maybe maybe you're an adult like I was, and you're asking yourself, like, what does this even do for me? Maybe you're not gonna change your career. Maybe you are maybe you're not thinking that you ever wanna take medication.
Lacy Estelle [00:07:29]:
Or maybe you're just thinking to yourself, like, why do I want a diagnosis? Maybe you're asking yourself that. Like, am I thinking that it would validate my thought process? Or I wanna tell you a little bit. And I know I talked about it in like, when you if you go back to my early episodes, and I gave my whole story and, like, my testimony of coming through, like, a really toxic relationship. But I I think that having clarity about what your brain is capable of and what your brain is not capable of can be critical to your stability in your relationships and also your stability in, like, your self esteem or even any sort of tendency to depression. So when you're in a toxic relationship or if I just wanna come out and say an abusive relationship, there is something that, abusers tend to do. It's called gaslighting. You've I'm sure you've heard of it. I'm sure that there's, like, a 1000000 TikToks out there talking about it.
Lacy Estelle [00:08:32]:
What gaslighting is is basically trying to make the other person think that they're crazy because you challenge their their version of reality. The name of it comes from a movie, old movie, where there was a gas lantern in a tower, And the wife kept saying that the light was on, and the husband kept telling her it wasn't. It was, but he was basically trying to make her go nuts. And so, hence, gaslighting. What what you see happen is in a toxic relationship, you start to get this inclination that maybe your spouse or your partner, whatever, that they're cheating on you. And and I would say this is probably not a good idea, but you look through your phone. Now you have text messages. You see the text messages from another woman to your husband talking about how they can't wait to see them, how they are, you know, excited, they miss them, all things that probably are not appropriate unless they're coming from, like, his long lost sister that you don't know.
Lacy Estelle [00:09:47]:
And so you ask, and you say, who's Jane? She is, you know, she's sending you text messages. She can't wait to see you. And sometimes they do it a couple different ways. Sometimes they'll start out very methodically, and they'll be like, oh, just a coworker. And you'll be like, oh, well, she says she misses you, so she's not seeing you at work? No. She works in a different department, and she she's just you know, she's kinda loose. You know? She's she's, like, she lives with everybody. She talks to everybody that way.
Lacy Estelle [00:10:21]:
And so you tell yourself that you're overreacting, and you think, okay. You know, I'm just just being you know? They either say that or they'll say something along the lines of, like, of course, you went through my phone. What? Because you don't trust me? That's just that's just typical. That's just how you are. You just don't trust anybody. Right? And when you have ADHD and you have a struggle with short term memory and you struggle with your self esteem, you start to go, maybe I maybe I do have an interesting issue. Maybe this is something or maybe I shouldn't have done that. And you start to go, I'm you know, you're right.
Lacy Estelle [00:10:54]:
I'm sorry. Mind you, your spouse is cheating on you. They're lying to you, but the way that they're lying to you is extremely manipulative. So you start to question your own sanity, start to question your own ability to discern right from wrong. You start to question your own judgment. So in that aspect, a diagnosis can be extremely empowering. Because if you go through the diagnosis and they say, yeah. You have ADHD, you're gonna know right off the bat you struggle with short term memory.
Lacy Estelle [00:11:33]:
You're gonna know right off the bat that you're not crazy. You're gonna know right off the bat that, the things that you struggle with are not they're outside of your control. So if you have, you know, a partner who's telling you stuff like, well, you're just lazy, Well, now you can show them actually, I have a diagnosis. There is something in my brain lacking, and I'm gonna seek I'm gonna seek help to to adjust this. When you have when you are dealing with people like that, it is very easy to be like, well, I something's just wrong with me, and that's really hard. So my biggest encouragement to you is even if you're thinking to yourself you're not changing careers or anything along those lines, maybe and it doesn't even necessarily have to be your spouse that's causing you these questioning things in your mind. It can be a parent that you had for years that was really toxic to you. It can be a friendship.
Lacy Estelle [00:12:47]:
In my case, I ended up realizing after moving through my diagnosis and looking back on friendships that I'd lost, I realized there was a reason. I struggle with accountability, and I struggle with decision making because I have ADHD. So I always gravitated to codependent relationships because I needed somebody to commandeer and tell me what to do. Because if if they could just make the decision for me, my brain could function and do everything else. So that is one of the reasons, I would say, apart from everything else, education aside, career aside, the relationships that you will have in your life are worth knowing how you relate to yourself. And and then it's also a matter too of okay. Now I have this. I'm a Christian.
Lacy Estelle [00:13:37]:
How do I apply my Christian worldview to how to deal with this? And that's where I talk about everything else in this podcast. So, so, yeah, for me, getting diagnosed has allowed for me to release the shame that I had carried for years, thinking that there was just something wrong with me. And it also allowed for me to have confirmation. I could take to my doctor confidently and say, this is my brain. This is what I'm dealing with. It's not all in my head, kind of. But I want to try medication or I wanna try this for it. Can you please help me? You will come to find with mental health that doctors are hit or miss.
Lacy Estelle [00:14:26]:
Some of them will listen to you. I find that it's critical for them to listen to you, but some of them, I feel it. They're a little hardened. So you might go to them and say, I think I'm dealing with this, and they're so used to hearing everybody and their brother claim that they're dealing with this or they're dealing with that that they get kind of annoyed. And they figure, yeah, whatever. That's how you're dealing with. Or, yeah, you might have that, but you need to try this instead. I think it's critical critical that you seek a doctor that listens to you, that is willing to ask you the hard questions, and that is not just comfortable with doing 1 or 1 or 2 questionnaires with you and then saying, okay.
Lacy Estelle [00:15:17]:
Yeah. You probably have a diagnosis. Now maybe where you are, you're limited on doctors or you're limited on, your ability to seek a specialist. So then go with whoever you can, and, you know, pray about it, hope best, and if you have to drive a little further to get somewhere. I know I have a lot of listeners and people who are following me from Canada, and I apologize because from what I understand, the health care system in Canada is totally different, totally different than what it is here in America. As far as getting on a wait list to see a specialist or neuropsychiatrist or neuropsychologist, you're talking years. I will tell you that the autism diagnosis screening here in America is getting to be that way. Seeking and diagnosing for my son, it's I'm looking at waiting 1 to 2 years, and at that time, he'll be almost during high school.
Lacy Estelle [00:16:09]:
So I I get it. But I would tell you and I would encourage you if you're thinking of getting diagnosing for either yourself or your child, is worth getting on the list. It's totally worth getting on the list to know exactly what you're dealing with and to know how to help. So for us, when our diagnosing came back, we all struggled with processing delays. Some of us worse than others, but below the 25th percentile is considered hindered. And I think I was right at the 25th percentile. My oldest son was the 15th percentile. My youngest son was at the 5.
Lacy Estelle [00:16:48]:
I say my youngest. He's not my youngest, but my younger son at that time. But that's the great thing is that processing delays processing speed is something that you can work on. And I'd say with my he's now 12, going on 13, That is part of what he has worked on in vision therapy over the last 2 years, and his processing speed is getting much faster. So it's not a firm, you know, concrete thing. You get the diagnosis, you see what you're dealing with, and then you go from there. So yeah. So I hope that you can hear me well in this podcast, and I apologize for the few interruptions and some of the background noises and whatnot.
Lacy Estelle [00:17:31]:
But, but, yeah, I I would say that those are the 2 questions. So just to summarize, k, because I know I went all over the place here. Two questions you need to ask yourself if you were thinking you should seek a diagnosis, whether or not you should. How much does your ADHD impact your life and the quality of your life? And you need to look at everything from your career to your education to your relationships, which I would say your relationships are probably at the highest, and even to your relationship to yourself. How is it affecting your self esteem and your ability to to be able to accomplish your goals? And then the second thing is what good or what bad do you think would come from a diagnosis? And then you have to sit with the idea that maybe it's not ADHD. Maybe you get a diagnosis of something that in your mind sounds like that is, like, the worst thing you could get diagnosed with. I know that in my head, that was one thing that was really worrying me. I was worried that maybe I had a personality disorder or something else that in my mind I'm not saying that any of these are good or bad, but in my mind, that was like that was like being diagnosed with terminal illness.
Lacy Estelle [00:18:38]:
You know? Like, I just I was never gonna get better. I had to sit with that and had to get comfortable with the idea that that that could be a possibility. And when it was all said and done, my neuropsychologist actually said that he had to give me a throwaway personality quiz because he knew based on my history that I was going to skew it for myself. Based on that, I was in my head going to think that I was the worst of the worst. So they're really good at their jobs. Very good at their jobs. So, what good or bad could come from a diagnosis? And, and then at the end of the day, for me, I I like to know what I'm dealing with. I you know, you get in a relationship with somebody, whether that's yourself not yourself.
Lacy Estelle [00:19:24]:
Sorry. You get in a relationship with somebody. What is one of the first things you guys usually do? You play 20 questions or make it 50 questions, a 100 questions, but you ask them everything you can possible and how they are going to deal with certain things, how they would react to this, how they were. And then you watch and you observe and you learn. And when it's you and it's been you your whole life, it's not as easy to do. So get to know yourself. Getting a diagnosis will help you do that. What if you don't want to? What if after you listen to this whole podcast, you think to yourself, like, you see, I just I just don't think I need it.
Lacy Estelle [00:20:00]:
I know I have it, and I don't think I need it. Well, guess what? That's great. I'm really happy for you, and you may never need it. So you just know that you have it and you go about your life. I wish I kinda wish that I was capable of that, but I I was crying over my keys, guys. So, so, anyways, that's gonna wrap this episode up. I think I went a little longer than I anticipated going, but I had a lot of interruptions. So, but, yeah, I will talk to you guys really soon.
Lacy Estelle [00:20:33]:
God bless, and have a great rest of your week.
Lacy Estelle [00:20:38]:
Thank you so much for listening. What would really help me more than anything, if you feel inclined, is please leave me a 5 star review wherever you listen to podcasts, whether that's Spotify, Podbean, Apple Podcasts, all the like. It really helps for the show to show up for other people that maybe they need to hear it. Thanks again for being here. I appreciate you so much.
