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Maybe it's Maybelline Maybe it's CPTSD that Looks Like ADHD

and maybe it's sometimes helpful to misdiagnose yourself

By Christine HollermannPublished 3 years ago 5 min read
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Maybe it's Maybelline Maybe it's CPTSD that Looks Like ADHD
Photo by Ron Smith on Unsplash

One of the greatest assets I had on my mental health journey was the access to free counseling on campus when I attended college from 2008-2012. That's about 144 free counseling sessions. I needed them. Actually I needed more than that, but it was an incredible foundation to build from that I couldn't have otherwise afforded.

Most of those sessions focused on processing and understanding shame, boundaries, my relationships with my family, and a lot of skill building around interpersonal conflict management.

Having built those skills I was able to be more successful in college and I went onto graduate school, once in graduate school, for, surprise surprise, counseling, I needed to find a counselor not at my school. I did, and that foundation led me to an affordable location near my school where I started doing some much deeper dive work from 2012-2015. This work was about understanding and processing my extensive trauma history as well as developing skills to manage my PTSD. Up to that point I didn't know I had PTSD. I knew I had a lot of 'quirks' I tried to hide like always needing to have the seat in the back so no one could be behind me but until my therapist shared my diagnosis of PTSD and co-dependent tendencies with me I never considered it. The examples often given in conversations are around military PTSD or a traumatic incident; car accident, natural disaster, school shooting etc. I hadn't experienced any of those.

Turns out I had (still have) C-PTSD which when the trauma was present chronically. Events like child neglect, emotional abuse, being around a lot of fighting frequently these could all cause someone to develop C-PTSD. As it happens I also had (have) PTSD from specific traumatic events. The details will not be disclosed here because, no thank you. I did three years of therapy specifically around my traumas and symptom management. That was, without a doubt, money exceptionally well spent. I have not had a flashback in nearly 3 years, same with panic attack, I have preferences for where I sit but I'm not living my life trying to avoid all the triggers I was before. I can manage any symptoms that come up and be gentle and loving with myself on higher symptom days.

Fast forward 2019. I download Tik-Tok. At first it's just fun dances and a lot of cats. Then over the course of a year I find myself on undiagnosed Tik-Tok where users, especially female users, share their journeys of getting appropriately diagnosed for predominately male diagnosis such as Autism and ADHD which manifest very differently in women. I find myself deeply relating to the ADHD in women content. For, oh, gosh, forever I had 'character flaws' of being disorganized and messy. I've been on work improvement plans for paperwork timeliness, and time management. I read the books, took the tips, bought every overpriced planner, talked with co-workers about their successful strategies and anything else I could think of or was asked of me. Yet, these issues persisted. I felt like such a failure. It stalled my career. I couldn't get to management positions because I kept chronically struggling on the organization component. Finally, here was a collection of women saying the same things! Explaining our executive functioning is a huge challenge and no amount of trying extra hard or planners was going to fix that but medication and strategies developed for ADHD could.

Bit of a hiccup though. At this juncture in my earning trajectory I was making less than I had since graduate school so I didn't want to seek a formal diagnosis and medicate right away. I could, though, for free, research ADHD executive functioning strategies. And I did. I then implemented them, and at first, it was unbelievably hard, but I trusted the process and the better part of a year later my brain feels literally different. I rarely miss or forget engagements, I actively use two planners, I'm organized, I organized my entire home, and maintain it. Cool right?

Very cool! But also, I probably don't have ADHD. ADHD is a neurological disorder meaning the brain itself is wired differently. What I had(have) as covered above, is extensive trauma history and C-PTSD and PTSD. Turns out trauma, especially any trauma in childhood, can derail executive function development which can manifest as a lot of ADHD symptoms. All those ADHD executive function strategies served as strategies for me to build my executive functioning skillset. As that set of skills developed I didn't need the strategies anymore. It appears, in essence, my past stunted the development of those skills. The way I masked and compensated for the lack of executive function skills was through severe anxiety which kept me hypervigilant at all times. About everything. I presented as functional though. Not having the knowledge or language to articulate to my counselors that 'hey - by the way, I think I could use some executive functioning skill development' it was never identified because on paper, I was functioning well.

All of this to say if you're diagnosing yourself off of Tik-Tok or articles you read online, that's quite possibly not a bad thing, especially if you're using it to find strategies that may help you achieve the goals and build skillsets you need to have the life you want.

Please understand though, if you're attempting to diagnosis yourself and then attempting to medicate yourself for it without consulting the appropriate professionals, that gets really dangerous really fast. Coping by self-medicating through drugs and alcohol also very dangerous, that's a soapbox for another day. For now, live on, Tik-Tok it up, and self-diagnosis responsibly!

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About the Creator

Christine Hollermann

Getting back into writing after a couple years break. Going to start my first book this year. Tips appreciated but never expected.

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