Still, if you can't control it, it's a telltale sign and if you know you have ADHD, you can control it better regardless of medication or other kinds of treatment. I didn't realise it was a classic symptom one until my doc (who also had late-diagnosis ADHD at ~50) told me. There are stacks of other signs as well that you'll have no idea are relevant until you talk to someone about it (who knows their shit).
Honestly, going to talk to a doctor/psych isn't going to hurt. It's like having a bump on your forehead checked out... it might not be anything serious, but you're going to feel pretty fucking stupid in a few years if it turns out it was cancer.
Essentially, this. Reading a list of symptoms, especially the ones laid out on that website doesn't say much about the real details, how they affect the life of the person suffering from the disorder and those around them.
The easiest one to look at is 'easily distracted'. Who does that describe? Pretty much everyone. There's a sudden noise or action or event, someone says something to you unrelated to what's currently occurring or any number of other things. Most people who would experience such a thing would be distracted by it, and it can happen many times throughout the day and in the majority of occasions they will be distracted. This appears as if it could be a definition of 'easily distracted', but it's unlikely that each person could tick the box as 'easily distracted' when asked about it in regards to ADHD.
The reason for this is simple, it's not whether you
are distracted, but
how you react to the distraction. Most people will experience the distraction and return to the task at hand soon after. The ADHD sufferer is likely to take the distraction and run with it, they might (and are likely to) run with it so far that they have forgotten what the task at hand is or have become so distracted by how far they have run with it, they are unable to return to that task.
The funny thing with diagnosing ADHD in adults is that it can more easily be seen by those around them. In children, the hyperactivity allows it to be more visible, as does the common co-morbidity with ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder); in adults the hyperactivity is no longer able to be seen by others around those with the disorder and the ODD often fades during adolescence. Fortunately, there are other indicators: number of friends; length and quality of relationships (both romantic and otherwise); number of jobs and how they ended; ability to handle money; ability to handle responsibilities; ability to control emotion; and the list goes on. These are things that are often looked at to assist in diagnosing someone with ADHD. Often the people who know you best are the people to ask, many SOs of those undergoing diagnosis may be asked things about what they are like, because if the person has ADHD, they are likely blind to a lot of the things they do.
ADHD is a serious disorder, trivialised by the name it has been given. It interferes with
every single aspect of your life not even the slightest exaggeration here. The earlier treatment begins, the better off the person is. Medication does a lot of the heavy lifting, but there are habits that need to be unlearned and let me tell you that doing so is incredibly difficult. There are some things that are incredibly difficult to control and some that are impossible, but they can be managed and somewhat eased with the help of those around you.
See a doc, Laf. The worst that could happen (if your are correct in your belief) is you waste your time and they say you don't have it. ADHD leaves a distinct wake of destruction behind it and the experienced professionals will know it when they see it.
One thing on video games: they
feed ADHD. They are the perfect distraction that is incredibly hard to tear yourself away from. Being able to complete video games is not indicative of anything. I have ADHD, wanna know what I did when I was young? Played and finished a whole bunch of games.
Other things I have done: studied for exams, attained HDs on assignments and achieved personal goals. I went to a selective high school and topped my class on a number of occasions, including a number of subjects within 4u Science. Was I consistent in these things? Not at all. And that's part of the story of ADHD - truanting, detention, suspension, fighting, etc all occurred around these great things I did at the time.
Also, not all of these above things are indicative of ADHD, but some of them are when ODD becomes apart of the personality before it fades in adolescence. The majority of the rest of them can be attributed to Conduct Disorder which is another co-morbidity and may arise when ODD is fed by poor home environment, among many other reasons. Conduct Disorder is
really bad and if you have it without treatment, you're kinda on your own at that point as to how you turn out. The bad path leads to a criminal life and perhaps sociopathy. The better path is neither of these things, but will often be via things such as theft, assault and drug use those three things I definitely did.
Lastly, the longer ADHD goes untreated, the more likely it will be that it finds another disorder to link up with. The most common of these (not including ODD, which is a given and has an expiry date) are a mood disorder, such as depression, and anxiety disorder. Most adults diagnosed with ADHD are found to have depression and anxiety. I was diagnosed with ADHD super early (it was still called ADD then), but my treatment ceased in early adolescence and so I got the trifecta of ADHD, depression and anxiety. Add those to ODD becoming apart of my personality and CD giving the possibility of a literal prison sentence.
I didn't mean this to turn into a life story, sorry for that, I'll leave it here anyway. It does serve to illustrate that I mean it when I say it's a serious disorder. Also, the things I've listed above? Tip of the iceberg. See a doctor.
How you travelling, BTW? (Feel free to let me know in a PM if you like, all good either way)