My 23andMe+ ADHD Report (March 20, 2023)

One year ago today, I received an email from 23andMe that changed my life. Timing is everything. I have been back in the US for nearly six months now. If I had remained in Vietnam, this email would have been disregarded since I would never have subscribed to 23andMe+.

By this time, I had sensed something had been "not right" with me all my adult life. Since moving back to Vietnam in late 2017, I have started to address the issues that had "held me back" in my life.

Why was I so naive?

Why could I not make the best of every opportunity thrown at me?

Why did I let people I thought were friends take advantage of me?

The list of questions goes on and on. I was burnt out when I returned to the US in late September 2023. I decided to have a stable life again and return to teaching. My purpose in coming home was to prepare all the documents for my teaching credentials.

It fell through since the accrediting authority refused to accept several of my IT courses as "IT courses!" This was in late November. I was wondering what I was going to do. I decided to look for an IT job within my network. By January, 2023, I was offered an IT position within a charter school system in Texas referred by several of my friends.

Late February, 2023. Something I experienced at least three times in my life since leaving home when I was 18.

A panic attack. I could not sleep. My anxiety, which I recognized as being anxiety, took over my mind. I was supposed to leave for Texas in 5 days. I ended up canceling the trip and finally sought out professional help. Something was not right inside me.

A month later, no improvement. I was seeing an online therapist weekly. Nothing seemed to work, I ended up lying to my therapist to make him feel better. Then this email arrived:

When I opened the report, I got the following, similar, report:

I mentioned this report to my online therapist thinking he could give me an ADHD assessment. Yes, though I got this report, I was not really convinced. Yes, I did take those online tests, but they are really easy to get a "You have ADHD" result.

He could not give me the assessment, but he pointed me on the right direction. By early April, I was able to make an appointment to get an assessment at a local mental health facility. Even better, it was all covered by my medical insurance.

The ADHD assessment lasted two and a half hours for me. On that day, I was diagnosed with mild ADHD, a pseudo term in ADHD that pretty much means that I may have it, but my therapist was not entirely sure it was ADHD. The diagnosis was pulled a couple days later so my therapist can focus on my "diagnosed" anxiety and depression.

At my next appointment in late April, another therapist saw me (my current therapist was on vacation). She decided to give me an ADHD assessment though it would not be official. She was diagnosed with ADHD so she sensed I had it as well. So I got my second diagnosis of ADHD.

Finally, my Psych Nurse Practioner did an assessment and officially gave me a diagnosis in early June, 2023. She had experience with ADHD so she knew I had it. Then she prescribed me with Strattera since I did not want to take a stimulant. Well, I chickened out, I did not want to take another SSRI, so by the end of June, she changed my prescription to Methyphenidate, generic Ritalin.

On June 29, 2023, I took my first dose of Methyphenidate. Just 5 mg. Within the first 30 minutes, I fell asleep. Yes, the stimulant put me to sleep. The same thing happened with the second dose before lunch. After 30 minutes, I fell asleep.

The next meeting with my Psych NP, I told her what happened. Amazing, this is one clue that a person "really" had ADHD. Now I understood why, back in Vietnam, when I drank black coffee in the morning, I always wanted to take a nap afterwards. I thought the caffeine content was very weak or even that the coffee beans were poor quality.

This will bring up a future post where I will discuss if ADHD is overdiagnosed, or not. Personally, I do feel it is overdiagnosed. My ADHD Psychologist would disagree using me as proof. Lets leave that subject for later.

So, in the last year a big major change in my life. I have a great "dream" job in IT. I am working on several IT projects and "completing" them. Yes, I can always start projects, I just can't complete them. ADHD. I will talk about several of these projects within this blog in the future.

Drupal. Dockers. Containers. Kubernetes. AI. LLMs. All new technology areas that I am focusing on and understanding that will be applied to all my projects. I can now better understand them after realizing I have ADHD.

It has not all be positive though, but I will leave that story for a later post. I just wanted to post this at the one year anniversary of of the 23andMe+ ADHD Report which will be in 3 days.

I never intended to focus on ADHD with this blog, but after seeing all the other sources of ADHD online, I decided that something like this is needed. Especially if I can related it to my work and life.

So if you find this post online trying to learn more about ADHD, I am glad. I am always here to answer your questions.