For those of you who weren’t diagnosed until adulthood (I’m in my late 40s), what was the diagnosis process like? Are you just given a written test, or does someone evaluate you more thoroughly? Do they try to understand your symptoms, or is it more of a checklist? If anyone has personal stories they’d be willing to share, I’d love to hear them. I’m also just curious about what to expect during the appointment. Who do I make it with? A psychiatrist?
I also wonder if there are other related conditions or learning disabilities that I might have, such as dyslexia. Do I need to be proactive in asking for multiple diagnoses? Or will they be able to evaluate me for anything/everything?
My experience is that psychiatrists have never just asked me “do you experience X”, going through those specific DSM symptoms, but instead they’ll administer some kind of questionnaire that asks a significantly larger number of more specific questions that give you some sort of score at the end. The score is then used to determine whether or not you rank highly in certain symptom areas, which can then help the psych better understand your symptoms and whether or not you qualify for a certain diagnosis.