Have you ever wondered how getting diagnosed with ADHD can change your life for the better? 

What are the key benefits of understanding your ADHD diagnosis? 

🔗 Read / Listen more: https://smartadhd.me/32 

In this episode of The Smart ADHD Podcast, we dive deep into the ten compelling reasons why getting diagnosed with ADHD is crucial. Dr. Tamara Rosier shares her wealth of knowledge on the importance of diagnosis, the misconceptions surrounding ADHD medication, and the powerful impact it can have on individuals and families. I’ll also share my own journey, revealing the tremendous relief and clarity that came with my diagnosis. 

Join us as we explore personal stories, generational differences in ADHD awareness, and the potential health risks associated with untreated ADHD. You’ll hear practical strategies to help navigate life with ADHD and how to embrace the journey ahead. 

🎙️ In this episode: 

00:00 Trailer

00:54 Introduction to the Podcast and Guest

01:28 Why Get Diagnosed with ADHD?

02:25 Ian's ADHD Journey

03:21 The Importance of Diagnosis

06:39 ADHD and Emotional Impact

09:59 Health Risks and ADHD

16:16 Challenges in Getting Diagnosed

20:00 Strategies and Hope for ADHD

22:59 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

🕺More about Dr. Tamara Rosier. 

Dr. Rosier has been a college administrator, a professor, a leadership consultant, a high school teacher, a business owner, and an ADHD coach. Through these varied experiences, she has gained invaluable insights into ADHD and its impact on individuals' lives. As the founder of the ADHD Center of West Michigan, Dr. Rosier guides a dedicated team of coaches, therapists, and speech pathologists in assisting individuals, parents, and families as they develop a deep understanding of themselves and acquire practical skills to navigate life with ADHD. Her books, "Your Brain's Not Broken" and "You, Me, and Our ADHD Family," offer practical strategies for addressing the potent emotional dimensions of living with ADHD. 

Connect with Dr. Tamara Rosier: 

Website: https://www.miadhd.com 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.tamararosier/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamara-rosier-phd/ 

What's your biggest challenge in navigating ADHD as a smart creative? Share your thoughts in the comments section below, and don't forget to subscribe and leave a review! 

—---------------------------- 

🎤 About the Smart ADHD Podcast 

The Smart ADHD Podcast is for smart creatives, entrepreneurs, and business owners who are navigating life with ADHD. We celebrate unique brilliance, whether we're intelligent, exceptionally talented, or both. Ian Anderson Gray interviews experts to uncover the real story of ADHD for smart creatives, busting myths and discovering effective strategies to improve our lives, unleash our creativity, and grow. 

—---------------------------- 

🕺More about Ian Anderson Gray 

Ian is the host of the Smart ADHD Podcast and a live-streaming video coach and consultant. He helps business owners and entrepreneurs broadcast live confidently, communicate better, and set up the right gear and tools. Ian runs Seriously Social, a business aimed at helping others be more productive and level up their impact online. He's also a professional singer, web developer, and an international speaker. Ian lives near Manchester in the UK with his family. 

—---------------------------- 

🤗 Connect with Ian 

Website: https://iag.me/ 

X/Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/iagdotme 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ianandersongray 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianandersongray/ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iagdotme 

Threads: https://threads.net/@ianandersongray  

I know that personally if I had been diagnosed younger I think I could

have parented better my kids have turned out great in spite of me and they're good

humans I'm grateful but I look back on parenting that I wish I had understood

that I had ADHD and I could have been walking with them better on this journey

We need to be paying attention to ADHD and take it seriously because

on average this group lives 13 years less than their cohorts no one has to

panic about this because you do have a lot of control but if you don't

know you have ADHD you're at risk

Gen Z and like millennials are getting really okay with their diagnosis but

I often work with people in their 40s 50s and 60s with late diagnoses and

they have a lot of grief and regret what could I have done in my life

if I had gotten diagnosed earlier?

Hello and welcome back to the smart ADHD podcast.

Today, we're diving into the benefits of understanding your

ADHD brain by discussing 10 reasons to get diagnosed with ADHD.

And I'm so happy to welcome back Dr.

Tamara Rosier to the show.

She's one of the biggest reasons why I started the show in the first place,

partly because, you She said I should.

She's an ADHD expert, the founder of the ADHD Center of West Michigan,

and the author of two impactful books, Your Brain's Not Broken,

and You, Me, and Our ADHD Family.

I highly recommend those books.

So maybe you've been on the fence.

You're pretty sure you probably have ADHD, but you've been reluctant

to seek diagnosis, and that could be due to a number of reasons.

Well, here In this episode, we're talking about why getting a diagnosis

might be a massive help to you and make a radical positive impact on your life.

So let's get on with it right now!

Hello, I'm Ian Anderson Gray, and this is the smart ADHD podcast.

Now if you're a smart, creative entrepreneur or business owner

navigating your life with ADHD, This is the podcast for you.

Now, I'm no ADHD expert, but I'm eager to share my story on what I've learned

by talking with experts, as well as digging into the personal ADHD stories of

successful creatives and entrepreneurs.

I was diagnosed at age 46, and it answered so many questions in my life.

But of course, that was in many ways, only the start of my journey.

So let's learn together.

Smart stories, smart strategies, smart ADHD.

Welcome back to Smart ADHD Tamara.

This is exciting.

We've actually, this is the second.

interview in the space of an hour.

So thank you for joining me for this marathon.

How are you doing?

I love it.

I, I love talking with you.

So

It's always fun.

And I learned so much from you.

And it's just, it's very, I don't know, just talking about all

of these things gives so much what's the word I'm looking for?

It just helps us understand ourselves more and I think that

helps other people as well.

You're talking about families last time, but in this episode,

I wanted to ask you about what's the point in getting diagnosed.

Does this actually help us?

So I'm just going to ask you that question straight off.

What's the point if.

If we think we have ADHD, maybe that's enough.

and it might be, but I'm hoping today that we can

actually maybe cause you to think a little bit differently about it.

So a lot of people are like, Hey, I'm not going to use medication.

So why even get diagnosed?

So how about you share your story first and then I'll fill it in.

So like I, was pretty sure I had ADHD.

I started to get a lot more kind of insight into this probably around

2019, maybe even earlier than that, but there's a lot of the questions

that I'm going to talk about today.

I'll bring up, for example, it was, maybe it was the fear of being labeled.

concerns about medication.

And that was a big one.

I didn't want, I had all these misconceptions about medication.

And so I thought if I go down that, if I go down the routes of getting a

diagnosed, they're going to want to start to pump me full of chemicals.

That's how I had it in my brain.

And so I had all of these things, and I didn't want to be labeled, but why

getting diagnosed was so important for me was because that it took away so

much guilt because I always felt that I was so lazy and I was good for nothing.

And I had a lot of this shame and guilt and self loathing.

And then when I realized that is, ah, there is something

neurologically different about me.

And it answered so many questions, the chronic procrastination, the

anxiety, all of these things.

And so it answered all of those questions.

It framed my life.

I look back on all those times in my life that I was struggling and it

made a lot of sense, but it also the flip side, there are some strengths.

There are some like my divergent thinking, my creativity my empathy,

which is not always a good thing, but it can be all of those things.

It, showed why those were my strengths as well.

And then, In the way that was only the start of my journey, because then

I realized, okay, now I need to put in to place strategies and for many

people that might include medication.

At the time for me, it, I wanted to go down a more holistic route, so

I went down looking at coaching and strategies and all that kind of stuff.

So that's how it helps me.

But of course, we're all different.

And so, you know, as we're discussing this, I want everyone

to know, you're responsible for your own journey on this.

But a lot of times those of us with ADHD, and I love what you said, Ian,

like you felt like a loser in life.

And I don't, I know Ian a bit and guys, he is so intelligent.

His family is so intelligent.

Like they're crazy smart people.

And so for Ian to go through life going, I'm a loser.

Like I know I'm smart, but, and so it was really chipping away

at his feeling of self worth.

And if you have that, then please get a diagnosis.

Because, not that you're going to use it as an excuse, it's going

to increase your self awareness.

So now Ian can go, Hey, wait a minute, I have these patterns.

has nothing to do with my intelligence or my character.

It's a neurological difference and I have to strategize differently because of that.

So I think that, right there, is the number one reason.

Other reasons are guys, like Ian said, there's some good things

about us, but we're also, we can be a handful to live with.

And what that means is we lead with big emotions.

We have feelings about everything.

And sometimes we don't understand how those feelings Affect other,

and spill on other people.

I'm working with a family of four right now.

And dad and one daughter has ADHD.

And the daughter's always telling me, Oh, my dad just

needs to really rein in his ADHD.

He was just screaming at me the other day.

And he, I told him he better get this dialed in.

And then I hear from mom and dad, Oh, our daughter couldn't

find her car keys and lost it.

And she screamed at us and said so many bad things to us.

And it's funny because, it's not funny, it's sad.

But it's interesting because the ADHD people don't understand

how intense Their emotions are coming off because guess what?

We respond just like that.

And we flip back and we're like, yeah, I found my keys.

Nothing's wrong.

Meanwhile, other family members are going, what do you mean?

Nothing's wrong.

You called me names.

You said this and they're like, yeah, I was just trying to find my keys.

So get diagnosed because it might be affecting your relationships.

And, I know that personally if I had been diagnosed younger, I

think I could have parented better.

I think my kids have turned out great.

They're all in their twenties.

They're doing great in spite of me.

And they're good humans.

I'm grateful.

But I look back on parenting that I wish.

I had got, just understood that I had ADHD and I could have been walking

with them better on this journey.

In fact, I mentioned that in my new book, like that's, I just, I

didn't know enough to walk with my kids on their ADHD journeys.

It helps you understand and give you strategies and.

I think just before you go on, I just wanted to say one of the things that

I realize we're not always that self observant we're observant of other

people, but like you just said that, I might've lost my keys and then flipped

and shouted at everyone and then I find them and then, Oh, everything's fine.

And I've completely forgotten that I just had this emotional outburst.

I think it could be easy for us to say I know I have ADHD,

but I don't need a diagnosis.

And then just to be happy with the status quo and not do anything about it.

exactly it.

So we're running in a time in our society where I hope this

is going to go well for us.

So there was a time when, back in the olden days, as my kids will say, when I

was a child, only naughty boys had ADHD.

Those weird kids who ate the paste, right?

Who couldn't sit in a chair, they kept falling out.

Certainly not good girls like me would have ADHD.

I just grew up thinking I was stupid.

And I literally believed that.

In fact, if someone would say you're very smart, I'd be like,

oh, what did I do to fake them out?

Because I always felt like a fake.

Okay.

Having ADHD would have helped me understand, yes, I have a different

neurological bend than you do.

But I think we're starting to take ADHD seriously, and a researcher who's helping

us do this, he says he's retired, but he doesn't retire very well is Russ Barkley.

He has done research that says, hey listen, we need to be paying attention

to ADHD and take it seriously, because on average, this group lives

13 years less than their cohorts.

Now, let's just take this apart.

No one has to panic about this because you do have a lot of control.

But if you don't know you have ADHD, you're at risk.

So here's what this could look like.

Obviously, we have the young bucks driving wildly, getting into car accidents.

Okay, and they bring down the age.

We have a lot of risky behavior.

In fact, the general rule is whatever neurotypical people have more

of, the good things in life, ADHD people have less Whatever kind of

negative things neurotypical people have less than, we have more of.

And this, I'm talking about as we age now, cardiovascular disease.

All kinds of like a, like fibromyalgia, allergies, diabetes.

And see, if we don't know that we're ADHD, and we have type 2 diabetes, and

we're not controlling the ADHD, we're playing fast and loose with our insulin.

And we're writing checks our body can't cash.

And you understanding that you have ADHD gives you a seriousness of,

Hey, listen, I know my tendencies.

I know I'm not going to want to do that.

And so I've got to set alarms.

I've got to take this seriously.

Those are scary statistics, which I've heard before.

And they are very alarming, but there is, this is why.

Getting it assessed and potentially getting diagnosed is so important

because then you can then do something about these things.

And I get the reluctance to do, to go down that path because

there are so many concerns.

There's, depending on where you are in the world, the waiting lists can be as,

I've heard it may be different now, but in the UK, I've heard it's like up to three

years for adults and 18 months for kids.

And then there's potentially the expense of it.

There's, if you go down the medication route there, they can be expensive.

Then there's, there's potentially cultural or family pressures.

Particularly, I think older generations, and this is not

always the case, older generations.

Don't always see this as a thing.

And you could be overwhelmed by the process as, as well.

Then there's the, we, I think we talked about this on a previous episode, but

it, I keep hearing this and I kind of get it because I thought this too, but

I'm also frustrated by and it's the old thing of the fear of being labeled.

And, you may have, it might have been you that came up with

this analogy or somebody else.

I can't remember, but there's the analogy, if you are struggling at school to see

what the teacher is writing on the wall.

What do you do about it?

Well, You think, oh well, maybe I have short sightedness and

you speak to your parents.

I think I'm short sighted and they say, oh no, no, we don't believe in labels and

then you just have to keep struggling.

And you would never do that.

But I wonder with ADHD.

Now, I think it's important to say ADHD in of itself is

not a mental health condition.

It's a neurological difference, but it's still almost a bit of a taboo subject.

And.

I don't know.

You tell me.

What's going on there?

Think about it.

And Ian, I think you said this.

So we're saying what we've said to each other now.

But you said, Sometimes when I have ADHD, I feel like I'm looking in.

A big glass window into a shop, and I'm just not allowed in there.

In other words, I'm always feeling like I'm the outside.

Do you remember saying that?

I think so, yeah.

Yeah, that rings a bell.

And a feeling that we have is we already are outsiders.

Why do I want to get a label that really declares it as an outsider?

And I have to tell you, I just felt like this yesterday.

I'm just like, am I missing stuff?

Sometimes I miss the stuff that isn't being said, right?

And by the way, that's not autism and that's ADHD.

We tend to be very direct communicators or we tend to make up

stories that aren't even accurate.

Ooh, I bet they're thinking this.

And so if I'm feeling like an outsider to neurotypicals, why do

I want to identify myself as ADHD?

And so then we have imposter syndrome.

We already feel the pain and the weight of it.

Now there is an exception to this.

I have to tell you, Gen Z, and like millennials are getting

really okay with their diagnosis.

And so now I work with younger lawyers, 30 something and below.

And they show up, they're lawyers.

They're like, Hey, listen, guys I'll tell you what, I've got ADHD.

And you're going to need to help me accommodate in these ways.

And I think to myself, wow, I am so proud of you because I've

written two books on the subject.

I run the ADHD Center in West Michigan.

And there's times I'm like well, I'm still kind of embarrassed I have ADHD.

And so I do see younger generations be more okay with saying, yeah,

I have a neurological difference.

We all do.

And so I do think this is changing a bit.

But I often work with people in their 40s, 50s and 60s with late diagnoses.

And they have a lot of grief and regret.

what could I have done in my life if I had gotten diagnosed earlier?

So another reason to get diagnosed is, then you can start to

grieve what you know, but then also move on from that grief.

That is a common thing.

I think I dwelt on that a little bit, but just maybe a quirk of my character.

I don't tend to focus too much on the past.

Do I try and avoid so, but I know some people can get.

Get angry.

What, why didn't I know earlier and all that kind of stuff.

And it is a.

Kind of a grieving process you have to go through.

So, hopefully we've, Persuaded people that not to necessarily get diagnosed

because as you say, everyone's different, But we've at least answered the question

why it's, it could be a good idea.

There are definite reasons to so we get diagnosed and Thankfully, when

I got diagnosed, I was still, I was probably one of those monkeys from the

previous episode who was saying to me but what if they say you haven't got

ADHD and actually you're just lazy.

That was the monkey.

So that's, maybe we could talk about that and then talk about what is the

next steps once we've got diagnosed.

So what about those monkeys at the time of diagnosis?

Yeah.

so I do want to say this very clearly, we're still not great at diagnosing ADHD.

Now I heard, I, I just heard some listeners who actually can diagnose

and treat go, no, I'm pretty darn good.

Yes, but as a society, we're not terribly good at at catching, like

you Ian very intelligent people who've made it through life this far.

And according to the DSM, you look pretty good and it's not hampering your life.

And I do think the DSM will change that.

I think in the next 10 years ADHD will have a different name

because it's not attention deficit.

It would be like, Too much attention disorder, if I could

name it it's not attention deficit.

It's, it, the hyperactivity is.

Actually they're both either, there's a lot going on in your head, or it's quiet.

Neurotypical people tend to have more quiet heads than we do.

Knowing is better, and if you've decided that knowing is better, you

may go for your diagnosis, but let me tell you, if you're a female with

a high IQ, someone may look at you and go, yeah, I just don't think so.

And that's, because look at you, you're a lawyer.

You're fine.

And the person doesn't know enough to go, Yeah, look at my academic record.

It's a perfect record, and I did that through perfectionism.

You should be asking other questions.

And you should be asking why I have four degrees, not just Two degrees.

Look at my history.

I have an ADHD history.

And the higher functioning you are sometimes the more difficult it

is to get an accurate diagnosis.

I just want to say that out there as a caveat, just so that people I remember

one young woman I worked with, she prepared, she went to her psychiatrist

she was so nervous, she actually read things, and her psychiatrist

treated her like she was drug seeking And that just, oh, it hurt my heart.

It was a clear family history case.

Her dad has ADHD.

I have been working with her enough to go, Oh, it's here.

And yet when she went for the formal diagnosis, she's treated

as a kid looking for Adderall.

By the way, quick word about stimulants.

Stimulants don't get us high.

Those of us with ADHD, they actually normalize, our patterns.

They give us access to our prefrontal cortex, and our

executive functions can turn on.

So if we're accurately medicated, appropriately medicated.

It just makes us look a little bit more functioning with a daily boring task that

otherwise we would have difficulty doing.

Yeah, that makes sense.

And that reminds me of, I think another thing, another reason to

get diagnosed is that you might see, it might seem that you are coping.

You might, yeah, as you say, you might have four degrees, you might have all

of these things, but at what cost has it taken you to get to that point?

And it may be that you've coped so far, but if you keep going at this

pace, maybe you'll hit burnout.

There may be some other issue that hits you in the face as if out of nowhere,

and that can be a common issue, I think.

And you might not even realize it until it's almost too late.

I wish, a question I wish therapists or practitioners would

ask when they're diagnosing is, Oh, I see you were on time today.

Can you tell me why you were on time?

Because an ADHD person is likely to be on time.

But when you hear the story of what they had to do to be on

time, it's not neurotypical.

Yeah.

That's that's such a good point.

We're almost out of time Tamara.

I'm just aware of that, but I do want to end on a Not that we haven't been

positive but I want to, I want to think about like we've been diagnosed.

That is, as I said, the start of our journey.

Really.

There's, there is so much hope.

Yes.

All those problems are not going to necessarily go away, but there's hope.

What are the strategies?

What are the things that we can do?

We, you've mentioned medication, that's one thing, but there are other

things as well that we can look at.

Yes I always recommend ADHD coaching.

It's not therapy.

ADHD coaches look for a highly trained ADHD coach who can walk beside you and

go, Hey, I've climbed this mountain called ADHD once or twice, and I

can walk with you as you climb it.

And coaches don't give you the answers.

They walk with you and help you discover the trail.

And I love ADHD coaching.

I also, if you're, if you have any trauma in your background, ADHD

people, really encode trauma more readily than our neurotypical peers.

And so if you have any trauma, please seek therapy to deal with the trauma.

That could be holding you back and could be actually making

your symptoms much worse.

If you have anxiety seek treatment therapy.

It depends how intense your anxiety is, whether you need therapy or ADHD coaching,

but there are many things you can do.

And here's the other thing.

I just really want to leave here.

Clients with, yeah, having ADHD in a modern world, it stinks.

I'm not going to lie.

Because the modern world wants us to use our prefrontal cortexes all the time.

Those executive functions.

Do this, do that, blah, blah, blah.

What, where, and when.

And how.

We just don't figure those out.

Do you know what?

We also have, I don't know about you, but I love life.

And a lot of ADHD people, when they can get past the feelings of

overwhelm, we see life in great ways and things just entertain us.

Let's face it, a talking dog video can just make us laugh like nothing else.

And so we have this intense capacity for joy.

That I really want your listeners just to tap into, that we do have

that ability to love life and to have fun and seek adventure.

And if we can get appropriate support, we can open up that part of our lives.

Yeah don't try and do this alone.

We, we need people.

We need, professionals, whether it's coaches, therapists and people around you.

We, in the last episode, we talked about families, friends, so important.

And speaking about, yeah, laughter and humor is so important.

Just before we recorded this, I heard this burst of laughter

from downstairs from my daughter.

And I went down to see what, she was just looking at a a YouTube video of

somebody playing an accordion in a very kind of, over the top way and yeah, her

laughter made me start laughing and it was just very random, but yeah, and if

you're going through a difficult time at the moment, if you're looking at life

and thinking it's all, it's tough, it's all depressing, there is always hope.

There is always hope.

I've been through those times as well.

There's always hope.

And that's part of what we do.

This podcast for thank you, Tamara.

We are out of time, but I really appreciate you so much.

Thank you so much for coming onto the podcast.

Thank you for having me here.

thank you at all.

If you want to connect with Tamara, of course, there's her books.

Your brain's not broken.

You, me, and is it your or our ADHD family?

Get it right.

You, me, and our ADHD family.

Yep.

family.

Yeah, all of those will be in the show notes at smartadhd.

me.

Thank you so much.

And until next time, I encourage you to be smart with your ADHD.

Toodaloo.