This thread made me think. Some of the symptoms of ADD seem to describe much of my behavior to a shocking precision, mostly lack of executive function. But I wasn't hyperactive so I wasn't sure it applied to me. Still, I lose track of time when working on projects I enjoy. That doesn't even invalidate the progress I make on them, but the act of me deciding to work on them on a whim and forgetting everything else until I'm too tired to go on is a very common occurrence for me.

At a young age my parents were told by someone I did not have AD(H)D. I believed them. But later when I was living on my own I felt his methodology lacked credibility. (He was a person who called his treatment "turbo-drive psychotherapy" and dismissed questions about its effectiveness, calling them "pooh-poohing the next generation of technology". Not really someone who would want to hold an intellectual dialogue).

Looking back on it in the present I realized that if my parents were going to tell me I was or wasn't X or Y at that age, I was going to believe them - for as long as they were physically around to assert it. It had always felt wrong to disagree. For various reasons I had internalized that argument was not a means to find truth but instead an unreasonable risk when you could be locked in a closet for it.

I'm not sure what being diagnosed today would do for me since it wouldn't change any of that. Though it could give some more clarity to my past.