My psychiatrist is ‘on the fence about whether I have ADHD, but is prepared to diagnose me anyway…

Today I had an assessment with a psychiatrist I’ve waited months for. It felt a little superficial (although the doctor was very nice) and I was definitely expecting it to be a bit more in-depth. He told me at the outset that the informant report from my partner was quite different from my own report and that he rated my symptoms much lower than I did. I knew about this as I talked to my partner about it and he said it was so vague and very generic so he found it difficult to be specific with examples as he feels everyone does what was on the assessment.

At the end of the assessment, the doc says I’ve met all the diagnostic criteria but if we were to take my partners rating away from my own rating it would make me borderline for diagnosis. He’s on the fence as to whether I have ADHD, but he’s happy to give me the diagnosis or not, whatever I think will help me most going forward.

I’m sitting kinda uneasy about this as I was hoping he’d tell me that I do or don’t have ADHD and I don’t know how I feel about this ambivalence.

Has anyone had a similar experience or is this a strange turn of events?!

Edit: I spoke to one of my friends and showed her the informant assessment, incl. my partner’s responses. She laughed and was like yeah, you do all of those things…a lot. Is he walking round with his eyes closed 😂