TL;DR: I have ADHD and it sparked an interest into symptomatology. Thus, I started a blog so that you can be interested, too.
Recently I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) (Combined-Type) at the age of 31. This was added to my already present mental health diagnoses: Major Depressive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. For some reason, this new diagnosis of ADHD gave me a galaxy brain moment. It explained so much to me about so many things, including my own depression and anxiety. My therapist enjoyed using this as a moment to help me process things.
I joined a group on Facebook of other adults with ADHD where we share memes, support each other, and generally ask things like: “DAE zone out while driving?” One thing that really came to my attention while sharing memes with this group is that there’s a massive misconception of ADHD, even among those who know a lot about it. Of course, I had already had an idea of the misconceptions of ADHD as someone with an extensive background in special education and early childhood development, however even my sense of the misconceptions were the tip of the iceberg.
Realizing that there was so much more, that ADHD ran so much deeper than just getting distracted by the squirrel climbing the wall outside the window right now, started me down a rabbit hole of other mental health disorders and their lesser known symptoms. You could say that I have an invested interest in symptomatology. A classic ADHD symptom of diving head first into a new interest and swimming around in it, then regurgitating everything you learn on anyone who will listen.
Well, reader, welcome to the regurgitation of my brain.
Each week on Wednesdays, I intend to dive into different symptoms of different disorders. I will connect the symptom to the disorders it is associated with, review the research on that symptom, and discuss ways to cope and crush it based on that research. Sometimes the symptoms will be related to my own diagnoses and other symptoms will be related to other disorders. But I want to take my knowledge and interest in symptoms and research to turn it into something good and useful. Something that can help other people.
Symptoms Simplified 
Wait… “zoning out while driving” and doing things like… going under a light and glancing in the mirror to make sure others are also going so you’re sure it was green since you don’t actually *remember* seeing the green colored light… that doesn’t happen to everyone?
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See my post titled “zoning out.” But generally speaking, yes! Everyone zones out! Dissociation isn’t ALWAYS a symptom of mental illness. Like most symptoms of mental illness, these things happen to everyone. It’s when they begin to significantly impact your life that they are related to mental illness. That’s why people with high incidence disorders like OCD, ADHD, and Depression hate hearing things like “everyone has a little bit of (insert disorder here).” Because yes… WE KNOW but we specifically have a disorder that significantly impacts our lives and this is symptom of that disorder.
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