Talk to a psychiatrist who specializes in ADHD. They have a standard set of questions they ask and score your response, and that's pretty much the whole of diagnosis.
If you want to know for sure, your response to stimulant meds is really the best way of finding out, and typically an office would prescribe a week or two worth of meds after initial diagnosis, if you choose to go that route. If you do not have ADHD, the meds will make you high and hyperactive. If you do have ADHD, the stimulants will paradoxically make you calm, focused, and rational. This is called the 'paradoxical response' and is really the only medical differentiator between ADHD and non-ADHD folks. The explanation is that ADHD people have an understimulated prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for decision making and awareness. A stimulant medication boosts the prefrontal cortex, making you more present, aware of your surroundings, and in control of your thoughts and actions, but without putting you in hyperdrive as in the classic stimulant response. (If you don't respond well to meds, you might have bipolar or other issues which often present as executive disfunction and are misdiagnosed.)
I was diagnosed in my late 30's, and my only regret is not recognizing and getting help earlier. In retrospect it's caused me a huge amount of difficulty all throughout my life, and I used to blame myself for something I now know to be out of my control, yet fixed by medication.
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Talk to a psychiatrist who specializes in ADHD. They have a standard set of questions they ask and score your response, and that's pretty much the whole of diagnosis.
If you want to know for sure, your response to stimulant meds is really the best way of finding out, and typically an office would prescribe a week or two worth of meds after initial diagnosis, if you choose to go that route. If you do not have ADHD, the meds will make you high and hyperactive. If you do have ADHD, the stimulants will paradoxically make you calm, focused, and rational. This is called the 'paradoxical response' and is really the only medical differentiator between ADHD and non-ADHD folks. The explanation is that ADHD people have an understimulated prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for decision making and awareness. A stimulant medication boosts the prefrontal cortex, making you more present, aware of your surroundings, and in control of your thoughts and actions, but without putting you in hyperdrive as in the classic stimulant response. (If you don't respond well to meds, you might have bipolar or other issues which often present as executive disfunction and are misdiagnosed.)
I was diagnosed in my late 30's, and my only regret is not recognizing and getting help earlier. In retrospect it's caused me a huge amount of difficulty all throughout my life, and I used to blame myself for something I now know to be out of my control, yet fixed by medication.