After moving to this new stage of life as an adult, you realize something feels off.
You’ve likely been told you are “too lazy or unmotivated to do something,” and sure, you might be trying your best, but there could be a reason why you feel this way.
Adult ADHD looks nothing like the hyperactive stereotype most envision.
Most adults are diagnosed with ADHD due to the symptoms being confused with plain personality traits, stress, or other mental illnesses.
The following blog post looks at the signs of adult ADHD.
Executive Dysfunction Beyond Simple Forgetfulness
The frustrating aspects of ADHD include executive dysfunction, or the inability to create a plan, manage it, and follow through. Most people associate ADHD with attention issues.
A person may experience:
- Time blindness – the inability to estimate the passage of time or the duration of a task. You are either way too early or way too late.
- Task initiation paralysis – knowing what to do is not a problem; the problem is that you feel stuck and can’t start it.
- Working memory deficits – that can mean forgetting things like what someone just told you while you’re still talking to them. It can mean losing your train of thought while moving between rooms. It can mean having to read the same paragraph over and over.
These are about executive dysfunction, a condition that affects cognitive control processes and leads to differences in prefrontal cortex activity.
Emotional Dysregulation
There is also emotional dysregulation. It’s rarely talked about and often gets overlooked during childhood screenings.
ADHD affects emotional regulation. An adult with ADHD tends to experience a lot of emotions at once. It can be difficult to control how they respond to those emotions.
Some effects of this are:
- RSD (Rejection sensitive dysphoria) – refers to the intense and painful feeling in the chest which can happen when a person thinks they are being rejected or talked badly about, even when it is not the case. This emotional pain can also be chronic.
- Mood lability – emotional responses that are excessive and shift rapidly, where a minute later, you are responding to something completely different.
- Frustration intolerance – a person experiences rapid changes in their emotional state and they are overly emotional to their environment, but then it can be completely different a minute later.
There are also other things, like the limbic system and dopamine, that control these emotions.
Your Coping Strategies
A lot of adults with undiagnosed ADHD develop coping strategies to avoid having their symptoms show. You may have become:
- Reliant on timers, apps, or chore lists.
- Being highly productive when you have tight deadlines.
- An expert at avoiding situations where your executive function weaknesses show.
While these adaptations can be seen as impressive, they are also exhausting.
Treating ADHD is not just about your mental energy. It is also about your chronic fatigue and burnout.
Adult Inattentive Presentation
Hyperactivity often decreases with age and so does the inattention. Adult inattentive ADHD looks like these symptoms:
- Attention gaps during discussions and meetings at work.
- Being under-stimulated.
- The inability to pay attention to work unless it is engaging.
- The inability to switch tasks due to stiffness during activities.
The inattentive presentation is often more common in women. It is often wrongly attributed to anxiety or depression.
Why Recognition is Important
It is not about the labels when it comes to understanding if someone has ADHD. It is about having tailored appropriate interventions.
Treatment can significantly improve executive function and overall quality of life:
- Medication management
- CBT
- Coaching
- Environmental changes
Adults finally getting diagnosed for conditions such as ADHD are finally able to turn years of emotional and moral struggles into a valid, neurodevelopmental concern.
Would you like to find out if you have ADHD? If so, try to track your symptoms and how they affect you.
You can also reach out to a board-certified PMHNP at Mind Glamour PLLC. We offer ADHD testing. Get clarity today.
FAQs
Can you develop ADHD as an adult?
No. ADHD is considered a neurodevelopmental disorder that usually begins in childhood.
Is it still a good Idea to get diagnosed when older?
Yes it is. Getting a diagnosis gives you access to a variety of different evidence-based treatments and gives you constructive ways to understand your thought processes.
Age does not matter.
Does ADHD come with anxiety or depression?
Yes, the comorbidity rates are high. Roughly 47% of adults are diagnosed with ADHD and have an anxiety disorder. The same is true for depression. See
