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The ADHD Centre 2024-01-04 Person 4 5 0

I had my assessment a few months ago but upon introspection have realized how my life has completely changed because of the positive validation, guidance and resources by my doctor. I was lucky that I managed to get an appointment with Dr Rawala, had been following him on Twitter since hearing one of his talks on women with ADHD and hormonal changes which he did in 2021 or 2022 during the ADHD awareness month for a European ADHD charity. I did have to take a short flight to London, UK to see him and understood that prescription of medications can only happen for UK based patients as per rules, do not think it was due to UK leaving us in Brexit, think related with general medical rules for all doctors or something. I was like most days, very anxious about the assessment, and thinking if i do not have ADHD, maybe I was just imagining it or am just lazy. Within ten minutes of seeing him, and even before we started the formal assessment, I felt heard. He validated my emotions and anxiety, took time to explain how the appointment would happen and that his role is not to say yes or no to just ADHD diagnosis, but if not ADHD, then to help guide me to what else could be the reason for my symptoms. That is why I wanted to see him, during the meeting, he explored my symptoms related with other medical problems, hormonal changes and some immune condition which I forget the name of. He was thorough and after the diagnosis, spent an extra 30 mins after the meeting ended explaining me non-medical options, talking to me about my emotions being always raw and brutal , talking that it actually is around rejection sensitivity seen in ADHD females and how it could be helped to better quality of life, relationship stressors and I cried when he talked about imposter syndrome. I left the meeting - (and apologies that he ended up speaking to me for 2 hours and a bit even though the appointment was 90 mins) validated and not feeling like i have a problem or illness, since he emphasized around evolutionary biology and anethropoelogy of adult ADHD etc. He also sent me along with his very detailed report a document filled with so many topics as part of patient acceptance, education and walking the ADHD journey one step at a time and the whole 32 pages of this document was very useful for me to absorb and i still use some bits of it for reassurance, isnt it great he took time to put it together this resource and told me little helpful bits around why he made it with a pastel orange gradient as background and the font that he had for this resource - apparently some theory around this font and the colour gradient helping with focus, and pragmatic to laugh with me that at least worth a try since a font or background colour cant harm if not benefit. The reason I wrote this now after so many months is becuase he also included a resource for how ADHD indivuduals could better manage the festive period and emotions during this time, at that time in summer of 2023, i thought surely that might be too prescriptive but after feeling like my world is collapsing and emotionally charged during the last two weeks, I picked up the resources he sent me and put some techniques in place and do not know how, they worked for me and from another crap Christmas week like always, I actually managed to feel relaxed, controlled some of my problems because of ADHD and felt validated to not take the guilt trip bait. Thank you for the service.