Could you help to remember a movie with the musical phrase "Lady Luck finally learnt to bake?

Please help me not freak out about my first ever psych visit

• I've asked for a long, long-overdue assessment for ADHD and anxiety, which will be this week. I've never ever talked to a psychiatrist before and I'm getting really anxious about it. Help me know what to expect and how to prepare for it? This is way too long and I apologize. Feel free to head straight to the questions, skipping the backstory - it's really just there if you want the details of why I'm going in for the assessment (not really necessary), and extra-long since this is anon and I'm trying to anticipate possible questions. Backstory: -The ADHD is my major concern - the anxiety's just tacked on since I may as well go for broke if I'm seeing a shrink anyway. -female, late 20s, in grad school program (medical research) that I enjoy and find interesting -family history of ADHD (diagnosed in one immediate family member, suspected in several more), anxiety (diagnosed in 1, maybe 2 family members), depression (diagnosed in both parents and one sibling). -I get mostly-enough sleep (avg 7.5h) and a decent amount of exercise (2-3h running + 4-5h light exercise). My diet could be better but isn't awful. Overall I'm healthier than average, with a normal BMI and no health problems. -my insurance covers psychiatrist visit, some counselling (8 sessions/year I think), and 80% drugs, so no major issues there ADHD comments: 1) Habits - I was raised in a very chaotic, disorganized home environment. One parent is a hoarder, the other is easily overwhelmed/scattered (probable ADHD, went in for assessment but never followed up after). My parents never taught habit-forming for hygiene, cleaning, homework, etc. I moved out from my parents 6 years ago. I've gotten better at forming habits for hygiene and cleaning than I used to be (i.e. never) but it's still very, very difficult for me to form new habits. After years of smelling bad (I am active and sweat a lot), I was finally able to form the habit of showering daily about 2 years ago. About 4 years ago, I finally formed the habit of brushing my teeth once daily and 1 year ago I managed to up that to twice daily, after an extremely painful dentist visit. Those are the only daily habits I've managed to stick with, due to their obvious importance. Others I've tried and succeeded at briefly but then failed - daily cleaning/tidying of any kind, cleaning the litterbox daily, anything related to schoolwork (including pomodoro and just about every other system). 2) Deadlines - I have always been extremely (purely, actually) motivated by deadlines. If there isn't a deadline, it won't get done. If there is a deadline, it will get started at exactly the last minute possible. Examples: I have an upcoming minor presentation at work, known about for weeks in advance. 1 week before, I open powerpoint, play with slide designs for 3 hours, and slack off the rest of the day on the internet while pretending to work on my ppt. Do this a few more times throughout the week, usually not getting any further than opening the file before it gets so utterly boring or I'm distracted by something (a thought or a person or anything). Day before: I open the presentation, slack off on the internet all day, clicking back to stare at the ppt every hour or two, if I'm really luck managing to work on a slide or two for a few minutes before I get bored. Night before: Around 10 pm, think "oh yeah my presentation tomorrow, I almost forgot!". Open ppt. Switch to internet timewasting. Around midnight, think "oh crap, I need to get up in 8 hours!" Switch back. Crank out all the slides in about 1-2 hours of stressful, magically-acquired focus (knowing all along that it would be that short). Beat myself up for losing sleep pointlessly. Get 4-6 hours of sleep, which is my very minimum needed to function at ALL the next day. Present an OK presentation, stumble a bit because it wasn't practiced at all and I probably forgot to finish one slide. Never learn from mistakes and do the exact same thing next time. I realize everyone procrastinates, but on every project, to the point of losing sleep, for no reason? Even when I try to start earlier? Even when the work is genuinely interesting? 3) Forgetfulness - I'm practically an old lady. If I walk from one room to another, I'd better have something in my hand to remind me what I'm doing, or be repeating in my head "do X do X do X" and not get interrupted by anyone on my way there, or I will NOT remember what I was doing. At least 5-10 times a day I will arrive in a room, have no idea what I was doing, and return to the original room. Sometimes this will make me remember what I wanted (usually with a visual trigger), sometimes it's gone forever. I am actually fairly good at not losing things now, although I used to be absolutely awful at this as a kid. Now everything has a place or a very limited list of places it belongs, and I try very hard to put things in those places only. If they aren't in those places, I'm totally lost - I don't remember where I put things because I put them down absent-mindedly. I've left non-fridge things in the fridge and vice-versa, if I get distracted. I once flooded my work because I was filling up a big jug of water at the end of the day (takes 15-20 min) and wandered off and totally forgot about it, going home on a Friday. The next day the whole building was 2 inches deep in water. Many times, I've taken home the common key needed by everyone to open something in the lab because I put it in my pocket and forgot about it. Countless times (more days than not), I've gone home at the end of the day, forgetting to do something important that needed to be done (sometimes after putting it off all day, sometimes after not thinking about it at all all day). I check my google calendar every few hours because if I check it in the morning, I'll have forgotten in a few hours anything that was there. If I remember to write things in there, I'm ok - if not, I will not usually remember it on my own. 4) Distraction - I'm very sensitive to noise and visual distractions, and also extremely easily bored. This means that during lectures and conversation, I zone off after 5-10 seconds usually. I'll either start thinking about something unrelated, look idly around the room, or just get really anxious and think about how trapped I am and fidget/doodle, trying to endure the painful boredom. That sounds very dramatic, but it's almost literally unbearable to sit through lectures sometimes. Even if the topic is interesting, but much more quickly if it's not. Conversations are painful too sometimes - people get upset with me because I zone off halfway through their sentence, respond with an unrelated thing I just thought of, or lose track of what I'm saying halfway through my own sentence. I often feel like I'm "in my own world" rather than directly interacting with the person I'm talking to, and I'm not sure how to fix that. The trigger that brought me to finally make the appointment was drifting through a red light on my bike because I wasn't paying attention to the road and was just following the guy ahead of me (who ran the light). This was a bit scary on a bike but also illustrates perfectly why I've been too nervous to get my drivers licence so far - I could all-too-easily imagine myself doing something similar in a car and killing someone, and I can't deal with that possibility. I just don't understand how anyone can drive and pay attention to all the things that are going on without paying too much attention to one of them and not enough attention to the road or the kid running in front of you. 5) School - I actually did OK during university because most professors had ppt slides to focus on, and that is far more attractive for my attention (although it only extends it from 5-10 seconds to 5-10 minutes or so). I also took extensive notes, which at least I could study later, even though I didn't remember the actual class. For most classes I ended up being lost all year, reading the textbook in a panic the day before the exam, and suddenly getting it and doing OK on the exam (A- to A+ for most classes). I was never able to motivate myself to read the textbook any earlier than the last possible minute, but once I was anxious enough about the exam, I could sit down and study for 6+ hours without getting up, and then it all came together in my mind. Because of this I got good grades in classes that were heavily exam-based (most of them, in university) but not very good at assignment-based classes (I'd either not do them, do them late, or do them poorly since I underestimated the time needed). In elementary school I never ever did assignments, but tested well. In high school I did homework exclusively during the lunch hour before the afternoon classes, and generally not at all for the morning classes. Again, I tested well and did well in-class so I got fairly decent grades. 6) Endlessly procrastinating when there's no deadline - I went 5 years between dentist appointments once, because I rarely thought about making an appointment, and when I did, I was nervous about talking on the phone so I'd put it off until "later". Ditto, vet appointments (going on 7 years now. Yes, I am a bad person). Ditto "yearly" physical - went in Jan for my first physical in 6 years and first STI test ever (>8 years of being sexually active). Have not done my taxes in 5-6 years, although the government owes me hundreds, perhaps thousands. No financial reasons for any of these, just a seemingly endless capacity to procrastinate mildly unpleasant things. It gets worse the longer I wait, too, because I'm afraid they'll judge me for taking so long. Yes, I realize this will not go away by procrastinating further. In addition, I relate to probably 95-99% of the "this is what it's like to have ADHD-PI" comments on here and elsewhere. I realize self-diagnosis is evil and "everyone's like that sometimes" but I seem to be kindof a textbook case, all the time, to a severe enough degree to cause me a lot of stress and impair my productivity. And yes, every one of these has been a problem for my entire life. I'm somewhat better now as I have developed some coping skills, but I still have a lot of problems with time management, prioritizing, remembering things, and just generally getting things done. Anxiety comments: -mostly just social anxiety and general anxiety, feeling overwhelmed all the time. -difficult to untangle from my shyness and introversion, but it seems worse than that because I avoid social situations and conversations out of fear -I have some strong skin-picking tendencies - no scabs left unturned, minor irritations picked until they become scabs, fingernails and skin around fingers chewed until bleeding, any loose skin anywhere has to come off -I used to self-injure when I was going through an especially rough time in high school (a decade ago), and it seemed more anxiety/stress-induced than depression -I'm kinda obsessive about having control over my environment and get anxious when this isn't possible -I endlessly turn things over in my head, worrying and beating myself up for what I should have done -I do not want drugs for anxiety. I don't actually know what I do want. I wish I hadn't mentioned it at all. Everyone gets stressed out. -I don't really want to talk about any of this and am really regretting asking for the referral at all, although I've thought about it for literally my entire adult life. I'm really terrified about talking to anyone about any of this, let alone some random stranger. I don't want to admit weakness but even more, I'm afraid of being told "get over it, everyone has problems, there's nothing wrong with you, you're just whining". ------------------------------------------------------------- Specific concerns/questions (answers to any or all are very much appreciated!): 1) I'm worried they'll think I'm drug-seeking (either personal or to sell), because it's a university-run clinic. How can I avoid giving this impression while also conveying that I would actually like to try medication, assuming I am actually diagnosed? How do they decide what drugs to give you or if you need drugs at all? I'd kinda like to avoid the more scary ones like adderall if I can, both because they seem like a pain to acquire and because I'm afraid of getting addicted or changing my personality. Is there such a thing as a "mild" drug for ADD? 2) I'm really anxious about the possibility that they'll tell me I have nothing wrong with me and just need to work harder and be more disciplined. I realize I shouldn't and can't self-diagnose, and that drugs won't work if I'm not really ADHD anyway. I'm just not sure how to deal with this outcome if it occurs. I really feel like I've been trying my best for so long and it's so exhausting already, the idea of being told to just man up and work harder is so depressing. Is there a way I can prepare myself for this possibility so it's not so nerve-wracking? 3) I have a really hard time accessing vague memories like "tell me a time when you were forgetful" but can answer yes/no things like "do you tend to forget your keys a lot?" far more easily. If the questions they ask are of the first variety, I'm worried that I won't be able to remember specific examples, even though they literally occur dozens of times a day. It's just something that doesn't stand out in my memory. I tend to panic and blank and become incoherent when I'm put on the spot. When the referring GP asked me why I wanted an adhd referral, I was all "ummm...I'm really spaced out all the time...I dunno how to explain?!" but thankfully she asked me some more specific questions which I was able to answer. How can I convey my history accurately if the psych just wants me to spew out specific examples out of nowhere? I can do it in writing if I'm not on the spot (see above!) but not when I'm the centre of attention and panicking internally about why I can't remember already. I thought about bringing a written list of examples in but I am paranoid that this will give the impression that I'm way too organized to have ADHD or that I'm lying to get drugs? I am far, far more coherent in writing than speaking in person. 4) I've always gotten good grades and am most of the way through a doctoral program. I'm worried that this rules me out for an ADHD diagnosis even though it causes me extreme amounts of stress, interferes with my social life, and I'm certain that I could be far more successful if I didn't have these issues (as in, I have always been an A- to A student without good work habits - if I could manage to work properly I could easily be an A+ student). I'm doing well in my doctoral program and my supervisor is happy with me, but I'm also 4 years in and haven't published anything, mainly due to poor work habits. I (usually) achieve everything within the deadline but I do it by working 10+ hours in a row overnight hours before the deadline, which is highly stressful and lowers the quality of my work. It also keeps me at the level of "meets minimum requirements" rather than "excels". I'm a solidly average doctoral student, not a terrible or great one. All my life I've been told that I'm "not meeting my potential". I would like to do a better job of achieving this potential, even if compared to a lot of people I'm "successful" already just because I'm in grad school. How can I convey this to the psych? Again, would it be better to write this down? I don't know if I'll remember to mention it at all, let alone remember a detailed explanation, and I know I'll be incoherent and terrified in-person. Also I have read every single ADD-tagged question here over the years, including http://ask.metafilter.com/243245/What-should-I-expect-from-my-ADHD-assessment recent one which was very helpful, but if you want to point out some especially relevant ones for me to re-read, feel free.

• Answer:

  Drug-seekers for recreational sale don't actually work all that hard to get what they're looking for, they just go to doctors known to be accommodating. Significantly easier to pay an extra "office fee" than to put on an act. It's fine. Not a single one of your fears is unusual, and given that a lot of psychiatrists use questionnaire-type initial assessments, you'll probably find that most of your anxieties are on the assessments. You're not going to shock anyone. You're not going to get thrown out for not being sick enough or sick in the right way. The feelings you're having are actually part of the disorder. If the doctor who has been to medical school and has a lot of patients wants you to take Adderall, you should probably try it and then if it doesn't work you can try something else.