i had a very similar experience as well... who knew that you can't have ADHD if you do well in school, even if school (even college) was easy enough to not ever need to dig deep in the way that you have to do every day in real life (if you're ambitious, anyway).
I constantly read people that have experiences like this, then on the other hand, I know countless people that lied about having ADHD and received treatment with virtually no issues at all.
I do not advocate for drug-seeking behaviors, but I find it wild how there are such contrasting diagnostic experiences.
I wonder if professionals would be less adverse to treatment administration if patients were more willing to trial non-stimulants first?
it’s true. i have a friend who got prescribed via “knowing the right answer”… and honestly i didn’t know myself whether my honest answers were “honest” or not. i vowed to never tell a lie throughout the diagnostic experience, but a lot of it is super ambiguous… i feel confident in my self-understanding now, but i certainly didn’t then, and i was absolutely an adderall enjoyer at the time (now i portion out my pills fastidiously, because days without them suck ass, and i didn’t want to self-inculcate any sort of adverse relationship with the medicine that unambiguously makes my life better… but i absolutely was not as mature on the whole concept at the start.).