I’ve successfully been in law enforcement for 11 years next month. I will say with what I recently have had diagnosed as OCD/ADHD combo a couple of my psych evals were dodgy for me (not in the way that I’d be dangerous, but not an ideal candidate for employment due to the disorders; which if I had officially diagnosed people would have likely disqualified me from the job), but the Dr was impressed I had made it in the career for a decade without any major issues.

In retrospect this career has been great for my ADHD. If I’m having a day where I just can’t sit and focus on clerical work (SHIT LOADS OF PAPERWORK IN THIS FIELD) I can go drive around and patrol more that day. I have to be careful to not do only the chaotic parts of the job like that and at some point straight discipline comes into play to get the job done.

I have been promoted in both position as a Corporal in rank and a Detective in position which I did for 3 years. I successfully launched a program in our area that tracks child porn being shared over P2P networks and made a couple good cases from it.

So far I’m very proud of what I’ve accomplished, but the chaos of this career; while great for ADHD has also taken its toll on my OCD at times. There are careers where the chaos of ADHD can be harnessed and utilized but you’ve gotta figure out which they are from the outside which can be tough. I had no idea going in, but it makes sense now why this type of job drew me in.