Hello! My name is Tamsyn, and I'm trying to get diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed medication.

I'm forty years old, I'm a carer for my disabled wife, and a parent to my nine year old, and we're reliant on benefits for our income. There's generally very little room for large expenditures (anything in the hundreds, let alone thousands of pounds).

Getting diagnosed with ADHD via the NHS in the UK is currently a deeply unpleasant process. Multiple year waits are common. Overly stringent criteria make getting diagnosed difficult, especially as an adult.

I'm struggling deeply in my day to day life to look after my family to the standard they need while also maintaining a house, and even more so to actually pursue anything for my ambitions outside of my family life. I have dreams of being a writer and editor, but....

It's already been a journey realising I probably have ADHD. Contrary to the popular image, it doesn't always show up clearly in childhood. I did well in my school years, tending to produce good work even when (as very often happened!) I did it all in a rush the night before it was due. Nobody picked up that there was anything I was struggling with, and in fairness neither did I.

The wheels came off at university, when absent the guide rails of life at home with my parents, and under a higher level of challenge that required longer term motivation and continuous work rather than bursts of panic, I fell apart. It ended up taking me five years to complete a three year degree.

After that I never really recovered from my sense of myself as a failure that burned out too soon. I spent the decade and a half since university in an office job I struggled to stay in, and then as a carer and a parent. I feel like I'm only just barely keeping my head above water every day. I worry about money every single month, my house is a wreck, and my prospects for the future seem nil.

In the past few years I've been trying to explore more to figure out what's wrong, and ADHD is the answer I've arrived at. I meet the basic diagnostic criteria. It would explain a lot about why I can only seen to find motivation for the most urgent and pressing tasks.

The amount I'm hoping to raise will pay for initial diagnosis appointments with a private clinic, plus subsequent appointment to titrate medication until I'm on an effective dose. The hope is that I can ten get my ongoing prescription transferred to the NHS to pay for my medication in an ongoing basis, a practice called shared care; this may or may not work, and my funding goals may have to shift if it doesn't.