Diagnosis

Once I had a good idea that I should be taking some sort of action I had to figure out what action to take. I had seen counselors as a child through school, but didn't exactly have one on speed dial.

My workplace has an EAP (Employee Assistance Program) which will pay for a few sessions with a counselor, among other things such as legal help etc...

I was given a few names and phone numbers by the representative on the phone and made a few calls. I settled on Pathways for no specific reason other than they could get me in relatively soon and had some specialty in ADHD issues.

The Therapist I saw was very nice and respectful. She outlined the events and the order in which things would go. The first session would be a lot of question and answer, the second would be a computer test and the third would be going over results and forming an action plan.

During the first session she asked me a few questions to get to know me better and find out why I thought I was ADHD. After that we moved into a more structured set of questions to determine if and how severely I was affected. I didn't find the questions particularly difficult, but they were enlightening. Through the question and answer process I realized how often I am effected by this condition. It really made me think about how my life has been formed by what I've been going through.

The therapist gave me an identical set of questions to take home for my wife to fill out. I guess sometimes they want you to have several people fill out the questionare to get a more complete picture of where you're at. I being a relatively solitary person and not being interested in making my condition public only did one person. From the cues I was picking up on from the therapist I didn't think there was much possibility I wasn't ADHD.

The second appointment started off with reviewing my wife's survey with my own answers from the previous session. They were remarkably close to each other except for a few questions.

After the review she set up a computer with a test of sorts. I had to watch a white box in the middle of the screen. There was a small black box that would appear on either the top or bottom half of the white box. If it appeared on the top half of the white box I was to click a button. That's it, very simple. The test ran for like 20 or 25 minutes.

At the end of the test she took a look at my scores and told me that she would usually go over the results in the third session, but we had some time and could do it today.

Apparently I didn't do very well. As the test went on my error rate increased, and my response time decreased. This was symptomatic of ADHD, and that along with the two surveys showed that I scored as being very ADHD, I was in the top percentage for ADHD scores on both tests leaving little doubt in her mind that I needed help.

The therapist asked what kind of treatment I was interested in, medication, or some sort of skill building and counseling approach. I could tell by her wording that she really thought medication was the way to go and it was what I was seeking when I went to see her. I had some of these skill building exercises in school and they were worthless to me.

My therapist not being a Psychologist could not prescribe drugs so she gave me a recommendation and wished me luck.