As I have ended up telling a lot of live-roleplayers this stuff at Empire I thought, you know what just write it all down so you can link people to it 
. Be aware that I am not a professional, this is just stuff I’ve picked up in the two and a bit years since I got diagnosed. It’s a bit of an infodump, but hey ADHD what can you do.
It’s estimated that ADHD affects between 3-5% of the adult population(1) and approximately 80% of those are not diagnosed(2), which in the UK is roughly 2 million people. And extremely anecdotally there is probably an above average number of neurodiverse people who do live-roleplaying (also anywhere where nerds gather).
Why? Well I shall go with a meme, but also it’s not wrong:
As more and more people have got diagnosed in the last few years and started talking about ADHD I’ve seen awareness of it spread out through people I know in the hobby. And that then drives more people to go “hang on a minute, so that’s an ADHD thing, not something everbody does?”
So how do I know if I have ADHD?
This is a set of questions that helped me decide to look into getting a diagnosis.
ADHD UK have this Adult ADHD Self Screening Tool.
They’re both a good place to start.
Some common signs are things like the classic “is easily distracted” but there also needing stimulants like coffee or cola to focus, cola making you fall asleep is another, losing stuff all the time , talking too much in social situations and much much more. Go check those questions out as they pretty much cover all the bases.
Ok so I have my suspicions, how do I get a diagnosis in the UK?
This is a handy guide that covers things in detail, but I shall summarise.
Ok so the bad news is that the official NHS pathway for diagnosis has something like a minimum two year waiting list and that can be as much as five years depending on where you live. That starts with you having a conversation with your GP and getting refferred. If your GP refuses to refer you (which does sometimes happen) you have options.
But if you’re in England, there’s something called The Right To Choose where the NHS will pay for a diagnosis from a number of private ADHD consultant groups. This still needs a GP to refer you but they would refer you to one of those groups by writing you a letter. I’ve seen waiting times of roughly a year for some of the big providers for whole process, the initial assessment and then going through titration to find the correct levels for your medication.
There’s also private ADHD consultants to which you can just self refer. The one I used has a waiting list of approximately 6 months at the moment. It cost about £1200 for the assessment and paying for the first few prescriptions while they sorted out the right level of medication.
Don’t worry about paying for your meds long term if you’ve gone private, once you’ve got your diagnosis and medication levels you can get something called a Shared Care Agreement between your consultant and GP where the NHS will pay for your prescription as long as you get a checkup with your consultant every so often. This is at the discretion of your GP and unfortunately this can vary, I’ve had good experiences with the 3 GPs I’ve been with since my diagnosis but others have not. So a good rule of thumb is to check if your GP does this first, then you can either escalate this or change GP if needed.
Is it worth getting diagnosed?
Personally I would say yes, the stimulants I take do help a small but significant amount with doing stuff. When it comes to keeping focus, starting things and that kind of stuff they help.
But the whole “oh there is a reason I’m like this, I’m not just a lazy fuck up of a person” is pretty powerful stuff. Everything makes a lot more sense now I know this pretty major thing about my brain.
The other thing is that, not feeling the need to be normal all the time aka “masking” means I’m little less exhausted generally. That’s still a thing but I can sometimes say stuff like “sorry I’ve got brain fog at the moment” and not have to struggle through.
What are resonable adjustments or accomodations when they’re at home?
One thing a diagnosis is useful for is that you can ask for Reasonable Ajustments aka accomodations at your work. This can be anything from paying for some noise cancelling headphones to reduce distractions in an open plan office, to ways to work with things like time blindness i.e. strategies and tools to help and one thing I got work to pay for and found incredibly useful, ADHD work coaching.
Yes it depends on how good your workplace is and you might need to push for this stuff, but the Equality Act 2010 does say they should provide this. So you might be suprised at what can be done.
My personal experience is that with a supportive manager my company did eventually sort out a bunch of stuff including work coaching for me, but they’ve taken a long time in actually getting proper policies and information in place. I got stuff because I knew what to ask for and effectively educated them as I went.
What else do you have on ADHD?
Big subject, lots to unpack, I’m still learning stuff now. But when I was first diagnosed I found videos by Catieosaurus to be super helpful (also short and easy to consume). So here’s ones that I found useful.
ADHD and time perception
ADHD & time/task management
ADHD and Memory
Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (there’s a bit of controversy about RSD as a concept, but there’s useful stuff in this video)
ADHD and Hormones (for folks with ADHD who get periods)
Emotional Permanency
ADHD & Emotions, object constancy (Emotional Permanance)
Depression and Neurodivergence: The uncommon signs
ADHD & Sexual Dysfunction
Noise/Distractions/Sensory Processing issues and ADHD
Not doing the thing/not finishing (Fun with Executive Dysfunction)
ADHD, Executive dysfunction and communication skills
Catieosaurus on YouTube (Look at the shorts as well as the longer videos, she’s copied a bunch of stuff over from TikTok as TikTok are assholes)
Catieosaurus on TikTok (check out her Greatest Hits playlist)
And that’s without even getting into comorbidities like chronic fatigue, hyper mobility, dyspraxia and a whole bunch of other fun stuff I might come back to with some links later as getting all this down has been exhausting 
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Footnotes, woo! (also in case I edit more stuff in later)
1 Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: How common is it? (NICE CKS)
2 ADHD Diagnosis Rate (ADHD UK)