ADHD or not ADHD, that is the question.

So, over the past few months my son has been going through an ADHD assessment. 

The appointment in person was great. Understanding staff, colourful building, covid safe, really great experience. They put both of us at ease straight away and it was just like having a conversation. 

The only thing that was weird was that we weren't expecting it. 

We didn't request the assessment and the school didn't know what was happening either, however treated it as a buy on get one free. Order one autism assessment, get an ADHD one on the house! 

With this being unexpected, it obviously caught all of us off guard. Then it got me to thinking, does my son have ADHD? Suddenly I was seeing things from the other side. 

The autism assessment was expected and we knew he was for a very long time, that's one of the perks of being a mum with autism (not an autism mom... slightly different) but the idea of ADHD was definitely different. It wasn't negative as we know that he always has been or never was, so nothing would change apart from a label but I felt so unprepared. 

What did I actually know about ADHD? 

Well, I've observed a fair amount, but as for reading, my knowledge was very thin. So I got to reading and googling! 

I have to admit, I did panic. My thoughts on my child were being challenged and what if I was wrong and he does have ADHD? 

Is this how it feels for NT's to have a child diagnosed as neuro-divergent? 

I hated these thoughts. It wasn't the idea of him having had ADHD all this time, it was the not knowing. I'm no psychiatrist, so we were in someone else's hands. 

And yesterday we got the call.

The psychiatrist had reviewed all the information and his opinion was that our boy is autistic and doesn't have ADHD. Our boy is happy with that assessment, saying that I think he would have been happy either way as a lot of this is just words to him at the moment. We're just happy to know one way or the other. The journey was the more important thing for us. As a family we started looking into ADHD a lot more. There are a lot of positive ADHD influencers out there that blew our minds. 

The main one for us is the Holderness Family. Their songs and positive message were amazing to hear and very informative as well.

We learned so much and it made us accept whatever we were told before it happened. 

We also have a lot of adult friends with ADHD who are wonderful examples of neuro divergent success.

Another example is Dav Pilky, the author of Captain Underpants and Dogman. The stories are family favourites and we love how open he has been about his ADHD and the experiences he has had over his life. 

For all of these reasons we weren't worried about either side of the result. 

Like I said before, a label doesn't change anything, they either always were or never were. It's not like they've been diagnosed with it so turns them into a completely different person, they're exactly the same as before. The only thing a label does for us is gives others a heads up, but that can sometimes cause preconceived prejudice to surface which is never helpful. 

But anyway, ADHD or not, it doesn't change a thing, he's our boy.