Better late than never: ADHD treatment was worth the try
Dr. Kojo Sarfo played life on “hard mode’’ before he got a late ADHD diagnosis. In grad school, a friend introduced him to a world of possibility that was hiding in plain sight: ADHD treatment.
Now, the mental health nurse practitioner, psychotherapist, and content creator is using his learnings to connect with over 2 million followers on TikTok, offering uplifting conversations about ADHD and mental health.
On an episode of our “ADHD Aha!” podcast, he recalls the two pivotal and unexpected moments that changed his life.
Here’s Dr. Kojo…
Back in seventh grade, I was watching a game between the Atlanta Braves and the Washington Nationals. The batter on the Nationals had hit a ground ball to first base. Adam LaRoche — the first baseman for the Braves — should have just scooped up the ball and jogged over to first base.
But as I was watching, Adam kind of froze and lackadaisically went over to the first base bag. By the time he got there, the base runner had beat him to it. The Braves lost, and I was upset.
Later, Adam announced that he had ADHD. I went from being upset that he didn’t make the play to connecting with him on a different level. That was the moment where I realized that I probably had that same thing too. But it would be years before I got the help I needed.
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“He’s such a bright student. If only he paid attention, he could do better.” That was often the feedback my parents received during parent-teacher conferences.
It was so frustrating. I knew I had trouble focusing, but I didn’t know what to do about it. So, I found other ways to kind of build my self-esteem up from those comments. I’d be the class clown and goof off.
I’m the child of an immigrant family, and it wasn’t something I could really talk about. We came from a mentality you see in a lot of foreign families — where there are no excuses. You have to be tenacious and you have to work hard, because nobody’s coming to save you. To complain that I couldn’t focus was a silly thing to a family that’s working their butts off to put food on the table.
So, I completely wrote off the option of getting evaluated and put all of my energy into doing my best to compensate for what was happening. But while my mom didn’t really understand ADHD or mental health, she would always say things like, “You are going to be great.”
She got me to the point where I believed in myself, even when I was failing. She made me feel like things were going to be OK.
Then, when I was in grad school, I failed a test. And I knew exactly why. I had put things off to the last minute and the information was difficult to comprehend.
I had stress coming from everywhere. So I decided to speak to a good friend of mine who was a medical student. I described what I was going through, and he asked me, “Has anybody ever told you that you have ADHD?”
He then started telling me about his struggles with ADHD and how his doctor prescribed him medication for it. Right then and there, I decided to take the plunge and look further into it. And that was a pivotal moment in my life.
That conversation gave me the confidence I needed to book an appointment with my doctor. The first time I took ADHD medication, I went over to my friend’s house to study.
Normally I was late to whatever we agreed to do. But not this time. I set up my desk, opened the laptop, and started to do my work. I got my work done and I had some free time left.
That’s when I realized that I had been playing life on hard mode for about 25 years. Treatment was something that was hiding in plain sight that whole time. But there was so much relief finding it now.
I’m grateful that things happened the way they did. I know that sometimes people who are diagnosed late in life feel like, “If I would’ve gotten the help beforehand, would I have tapped into a higher potential of myself sooner?” But for me, I’m just thankful that I got the help when I did.
The path I took forced me to lean in to how I was coping. I had found so many different ways to cope that once I got the medication, everything started coming together. And I really felt like I could do anything that I wanted to do.
