Photo by Tim Savage
What are the signs of ADHD in adults?
It was not so long ago that it was commonly considered "an excuse for naughty kids" or because of "bad parenting".
For a lot of you today, that's the environment that you were brought up in. So it's little surprise that your parents didn't get you assessed or get the right adjustments in place to understand and support you.
Over the decades the understanding of ADHD has changed dramatically.
Now, with years of excellent research and many destigmatisation and education campaigns, by organisations like ours, the general population is beginning to understand that ADHD:
You're an individual and in the same way, there are differences within others who have ADHD. Each person is likely to vary in the type, number, frequency and severity of their ADHD behaviour/symptoms but there are some definite commonalities.
We now know having ADHD has many benefits as well.
Despite this ADHD symptoms in adults frequently remains unrecognised or misdiagnosed.
Click on each heading or "+" to find out more.
For a lot of you today, that's the environment that you were brought up in. So it's little surprise that your parents didn't get you assessed or get the right adjustments in place to understand and support you.
Over the decades the understanding of ADHD has changed dramatically.
Now, with years of excellent research and many destigmatisation and education campaigns, by organisations like ours, the general population is beginning to understand that ADHD:
- is real
- is neurodevelopmental, and
- makes you different but not less.
You're an individual and in the same way, there are differences within others who have ADHD. Each person is likely to vary in the type, number, frequency and severity of their ADHD behaviour/symptoms but there are some definite commonalities.
We now know having ADHD has many benefits as well.
Despite this ADHD symptoms in adults frequently remains unrecognised or misdiagnosed.
Click on each heading or "+" to find out more.
Are you constantly faced with these challenges?
- makes little mistakes
- over-excited or angry
- forgetful of the little things
- often has a cluttering problem
- difficulty in getting organised
- fidgets, doodles and gets bored easily
- subject hops, many thoughts in mind at once
- reluctance to read, hard to focus and concentrate
- keeps drifting off, especially if the activity is boring
- it's hard to self-soothe and calm down in the moment
- easily bored, craves stimulation, takes unnecessary risks
- interrupts or talks over others (usually without meaning to)
- impulsive and not thinking about possible consequences until they happen
- reluctance to write, hard to express and sequence ideas, may be dyslexic
- raw and extremes of emotions that are as quick to come as they are to go away
- easily distracted or side-tracked by noise, people walking past, email flashing up...
- chronic procrastination, leaving activities (especially boring ones) to the last minute
- general sense of underachievement, that could do more if only could focus/be on task more
- impatient, tactless,, finishes other’s sentences without realising it's annoying to others
- prefer, in general, to live in the moment than have to plan or organise (often feels boring)
- don't notice when others are getting annoyed or upset until attention is drawn to it and then feel bad, or
- tend to have trouble making realist goals, often over-committing, multi-tasking and getting off track which can lead to non-completion of projects.
Do you often experience these behaviours that often coexist with adhd in adults?
- fatigue
- allergies
- addictions
- thyroid problems
- food or sugar cravings
- migraines or headaches
- twitching, tics, cramps
- nail biting, skin picking
- air hunger, such as sighing, yawning
- hypersensitivity to certain sounds, textures, pain
- poor sense of temperature (often don't know if feel hot or cold but it can quickly change), or
- sleep disturbance: difficulty settling to sleep, Restless Leg Syndrome, insomnia, Sleep Apnea.