how to talk to my doctor about ADD

Zespring

I'm 21, and I'm fairly certain I have ADD. I've had bad symptoms, but never could decide to do anything about it. When I was 7, my sister, who was 14, had been submitted to a mental hospital for multiple reasons for 2 years. In the process they drugged her up so bad she couldn't do anything but sit and mindlessly drool. I hated seeing her like that, and it made me want to avoid medications for myself. But I live on my own and am attending college right now and can tell that my problems are messing with my progress that I should be making. I'm nearly failing all of my courses, which I know I should be doing better. I comprehend everything full, I just cant make myself sit down and work on homework. Or when I'm stressed with homework piling on - I pretend like I don't have any. I try and make myself sit down to finish it, but my mind constantly wanders. I cant even hold a normal conversation at times, someone will speak to me, and I'll be having an adventure in my own head. Same could be said for my bills as my homework. I tend to end up with late fees, simply because I tell myself that I can take care of it later. There are tons of other instances, but I don't want to make this an essay.

Anyways, I first thought that I had depression, which I still think I do. I've had periods of extreme melancholy. I thought that I procrastinated so much, simply because I lacked the motivation. But recently I ended up getting Ritalin from my brother, who has ADHD, after talking to him he thought I should try it. It made me feel clear headed, and calm. After looking up all the symptoms for ADD, and how the Ritalin affected me, I feel like my brother was right.

That was about a year ago after I bombed my first semester of college. A few months ago I made a doc appointment for my depression, and wanted to talk to my doc about ADD as well to see what could be done about it, to see if I actually had it. I heard that there are non-stimulant meds that work on people with ADD/ADHD while doing nothing for others, so I thought I could try that out to know for sure. I was really nervous about it because I didn't know how to approach the subject without seeming like I was just planning on getting meds to abuse... and so I wasn't very bold about it. My doc breezed right through to prescribing me Lexapro and didn't really talk at all about ADD when I mentioned it.

The Lexapro has done well in raising my general mood, when I actually remember to take it consistently. I've given the antidepressants a few months to see how it changes my daily life, but I still have all those symptoms that I described before. My anxiety regarding this is getting worse, as I think its important to get this done and over with but I just can't make myself take care of it. How do I go about mentioning the fact that I think I have ADD to my doctor? should I state that that's why I'm seeing her when I make the appointment?