Adult ADD / ADHD:

ADD / ADHD in adults

Many people have a stereotypical picture in their head of what someone with attention deficit disorder looks like: hyperactive, loud, a whirlwind of energy and unchecked impulses. And let’s face it: it’s probably a kid they’re picturing in their mind’s eye. However, ADD / ADHD is not just a childhood disorder. Kids don’t simply grow out of ADHD, as if it’s a phase. In fact, the symptoms of ADD / ADHD typically get worse as children grow into adulthood and face life’s increasing pressures and demands.

Adults with ADD / ADHD struggle daily with self-regulation: regulating their attention, regulating their impulses in talking and action, and regulating their emotions. If you have trouble staying focused, getting organized, starting and completing your work, managing your time and money, and remembering all the little things in your daily life, you may very well be one of these people.

The chaos of living with unrecognized and untreated ADD / ADHD can take its toll: never-ending to-do lists, the stress of missed deadlines and forgotten appointments, aggravated friends and family members who just don’t understand why you can’t pull it together and self-recrimination over your lack of accomplishments.

The good news: life doesn’t have to be this way. Treatment can go a long way toward getting ADD / ADHD in check. But before you can manage the problem, you have to be able to identify it, starting with a thorough understanding of what ADD / ADHD looks like in adults.

Adult ADD Myths: Fact or Fiction

MYTH: ADD is just a lack of willpower. Persons with ADD focus well on things that interest them; they could focus on any other tasks if they really wanted to.

FACT: ADD looks very much like a willpower problem, but it isn’t. It’s essentially a chemical problem in the management systems of the brain.

MYTH: Everybody has the symptoms of ADD, and anyone with adequate intelligence can overcome these difficulties.

FACT: ADD affects persons of all levels of intelligence. And although everyone sometimes has symptoms of ADD, only those with chronic impairments from these symptoms warrant an ADD diagnosis.

MYTH: Someone can’t have ADD and also have depression, anxiety, or other psychiatric problems.

FACT: A person with ADD is six times more likely to have another psychiatric or learning disorder than most other people. ADD usually overlaps with other disorders.

MYTH: ADD doesn’t really cause much damage to a person’s life.

FACT: Untreated or inadequately treated ADD syndrome often severely impairs learning, family life, education, work life, social interactions, and driving safely.

MYTH: Unless you have been diagnosed with ADD as a child, you can’t have it as an adult.

FACT: Many adults have struggled all their lives with unrecognized ADD impairments. They haven’t received help because they assumed that their chronic difficulties, like depression or anxiety, were caused by other impairments that did not respond to the usual treatments.

Source: Dr. Thomas E. Brown, Attention Deficit Disorder: The Unfocused Mind in Children and Adults

Adult vs. childhood ADD / ADHD

The symptoms of ADD / ADHD change as someone with ADD / ADHD develops from a child into a teenager and then into an adult.  While the core problems of hyperactivity, impulsiveness, and inattentiveness remain the same, the specific symptoms manifest differently. Typically, the symptoms of hyperactivity decrease and become more subtle, while problems related to concentration and organization become more dominant.

Hyperactivity in adults: inability to relax restlessness, nervous energy talking excessively

Impulsiveness in adults: volatile moods blurting out rude or insulting remarks interrupting others

Inattentiveness in adults: “tuning out” unintentionally inability to focus on mundane tasks constantly losing and forgetting things

Signs and symptoms of adult ADD / ADHD

According to Dr. Thomas E. Brown of the Yale University School of Medicine, "ADHD is essentially a name for developmental impairment of executive function." Executive functions are the skills involved in planning, selective attention, motivation, and impulse control. Adults with ADHD have problems in six major areas of executive functioning:

• Activation – Problems with organization, prioritizing, and starting tasks.
• Focus – Problems with sustaining focus and resisting distraction, especially with reading.
• Effort – Problems with motivation, sustained effort, and persistence.
• Emotion – Difficulty regulating emotions and managing stress.
• Memory – Problems with short-term memory and memory retrieval.
• Action – Problems with self-control and self-regulation.

Signs and Symptoms of ADD / ADHD
Activation	Focus	Effort
Procrastination; difficulty getting started on projects Excessive disorganization and messiness Inability to prioritize tasks Underestimating the time needed to finish a task	Inability to screen out distractions "Zoning out" when others are talking Randomly skipping from topic to topic in conversation Reading words over and over in order to grasp the meaning	Difficulty sustaining effort over long periods of time Starting multiple tasks, but never completing any of them Missing deadlines Trouble going to sleep at night and staying alert during the day.
Emotion	Memory	Action
Easily bored Low tolerance for frustration and stress Unstable, unpredictable moods Quick temper Constant worrying	Trouble remembering things, even for a short time Doesn’t recall conversations, things others said Forgetting appointments Constantly losing or misplacing things	Inability to delay gratification Speaking without thinking Acting impulsively (e.g. impulsive spending, sudden change of plans) without regard for consequences Jumping to conclusions

Effects of adult ADD / ADHD

Left untreated, ADD can wreak havoc in your life, disrupting everything from your career to your social life, love life, and financial stability.

Work

ADD / ADHD can be a big stumbling block on the road to career success. The symptoms of disorganization and inattention, in particular, pose problems in the workplace. If you have ADD / ADHD, you may:

• be chronically late to work,
• miss or forget deadlines and meetings,
• have a hard time organizing projects and delegating work,
• have difficulty completing projects on time,
• spend hours at work, but get very little done,
• get distracted by trivial tasks, while neglecting the most important ones, and
• have trouble paying attention in meetings or in conversations with your boss and colleagues.

Relationships

ADD / ADHD can put a strain on your relationships. The chaos that surrounds the disorder is particularly hard on romantic relationships. The spouse or partner without ADD may feel resentful if he or she is the one who has to take care of all the planning, organizing, cleaning, bill paying, and other household responsibilities. And you may resent your partner’s constant nagging to tidy up, get organized, and take care of business.

Friends and family members may also take it personally when you tune them out, forget conversations or commitments, speak a little too bluntly, or keep them waiting.

Finance

The ADD / ADHD symptoms of procrastination, disorganization, and impulsivity can interfere with good money management. If you have ADD / ADHD, you may find that you:

• forget to pay bills,
• run up huge balances on your credit cards,
• cannot save money,
• are unable to follow through on long-term financial goals,
• shop impulsively,
• have difficulty keeping financial paperwork in order, and
• fail at budgeting and recordkeeping.

Eating behaviors

The impulsivity of ADD / ADHD can extend to eating, and many adults with the condition also suffer from overeating, obesity, or disordered eating.  talks about the connection between ADHD (ADD) and disordered eating:
If you have ADD / ADHD, you may:

• eat snacks throughout the day, rather than eating at planned meals,
• be unable to stick with a diet,
• have intense cravings for carbohydrates and caffeine (in coffee and chocolate),
• eat a lot of fast food and “junk food” (cookies, chips, soda, fries, ice cream),
• ignore hunger signs, waiting until you’re too hungry to plan a healthy meal and then eating whatever you can find.

Positive characteristics of adults with ADD / ADHD

The symptoms of ADD / ADHD are not all negative. People with ADD / ADHD also have many positive traits that are directly tied to their active, impulsive minds:

• Creativity – People with ADD excel at thinking outside of the box, brainstorming, and finding creative solutions to problems. Because of their flexible way of thinking about things, they tend to be more open-minded, independent, and ready to improvise.
• Enthusiasm and spontaneity – People with ADD are free spirits with lively minds—qualities that makes for good company and engrossing conversation. Their enthusiasm and spontaneous approach to life can be infectious.
• A quick mind - People with ADD have the ability to think on their feet, quickly absorb new information (as long as it’s interesting), and multitask with ease. Their rapid-fire minds thrive on stimulation. They adapt well to change and are great in a crisis.
• High energy level – People with ADD have loads of energy. When their attention is captured by something that interests them, they can have virtually unlimited stamina and drive.

Getting help for adult ADD / ADHD

Related links for adult ADD / ADHD

ADD / ADHD in adults

ADHD and the Adult – Overview of ADHD’s symptoms and impact in adulthood. Includes diagnostic and treatment information. (Learning Disabilities Association of Canada)

ADDult ADD Criteria – List of ADD / ADHD criteria for adults, adapted from Hallowell and Ratey’s book, Driven to Distraction. (Greater Rochester Attention Deficit Disorder Association)

What's It Like To Have ADD? – The subjective experience of adult ADD / ADHD as described by author Edward M. Hallowell. (Advanced Communications and Business Resources)

Scattered - Read five chapters from the book Scattered: A New Look At The Origins And Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder by Gabor Maté. (ScatteredMinds.com)

Hunters, Explorers and Dreamers...Different Ways to View Your ADD Traits – Focuses on the positive traits of people with ADHD. (Teresa Gallagher, BornToExplore.org)

Diagnosing Adult ADD / ADHD

ADHD In Adults: Definition And Diagnosis (NeuroPsychiatric Review)

Adult ADHD: Evaluation and Treatment in Family Medicine (American Family Physician)

Jaelline Jaffe, Ph.D., Tina de Benedictis, Ph.D., Melinda Smith, M.A., and Robert Segal M.A contributed to this article. Last modified on: 12/14/07.