How Identifying Adult ADHD Can Transform Your Life: 8 Key Insights

Elements of life that others take for granted are more difficult for those with adult ADHD – for example, recalling specific details, keeping focused, and not filtering your impulses. Each day it may feel like you are walking up a steep hill while others walk on flat ground, and making comparable progress takes more time and effort.

Interestingly, research has connected the dots between adult ADHD and general mental health, such as certain types of mood disorders, anxiety, and depression.

Adult ADHD is treatable

Because ADHD in adults is treatable with counseling and medication, securing the right treatment becomes a significant moment for many adults. Not only can it help you keep focused and be less controlled by your impulses, but it also aids with motivation, communication, and much more. Adults who have received treatment for ADHD say that it helps them meet their goals more easily.

This article will describe some of the challenges presented by undiagnosed and untreated ADHD in adults and how appropriate treatment can make a significant difference.

Research has established that fewer than 20% of adult ADHD sufferers get the appropriate treatment and support to properly manage their symptoms. Part of the reason for this is because ADHD in children has received such a strong focus, and the childhood ADHD symptoms that many of us are aware of present differently in adults.

Many adults also introduce workarounds for their ADHD to ensure they function well – and so their ADHD is disguised by their intellectual achievement.

8 Common Signs of Adult ADHD

Not treating adult ADHD affects your work, studies, relationships as well as your physical and mental well-being.

Irregular Focus

The acronym ADHD stands for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, but adult ADHD sufferers do not always have a deficit of attention. At times, they have too much attention. The challenge then is being able to direct and guide it. The types of tasks that are particularly challenging for those with adult ADHD require the following:

• Repetitive tasks and processes.
• Focused, singular attention.
• Receiving a delayed reward.

Instead of going through a focused, repetitive, and relatively unrewarding process, their jobs are characterized by tendencies to procrastinate, become more easily distracted, not hit targets, fail to complete work, miss particular instructions, and make careless mistakes.

To their advantage, though, the adult ADHD sufferer can focus intensely on one thing, having all surrounding distractions fade away. Known as “hyperfocus,” some adults can harness this as their superpower as it helps them concentrate on interesting work.

Long-Term and Working Memory Issues

Adult ADHD has a detrimental impact on long-term memory as well as recall of recently learned details held temporarily.

Forgetting important dates, missing meetings, events, or celebrations, frequently misplacing items or documents, are all typical behaviors of adult ADHD sufferers who struggle to remember details. Learning can also become more difficult due to the affected ability to retain and manipulate information.

It is important to remember that adult ADHD does not define a person’s intellectual level. It is simply that the adult ADHD brain has a different way to process and hold information. A therapist or counselor will be able to help you or those you know who struggle with adult ADHD to set up memory strategies that are individually personalized to aid the recall of important details more effectively.

Running late

Being disorganized and having poor time management, not just in personal appointments but also in professional deadlines, is a typical symptom of adult ADHD.

A person’s disorganization can reveal itself in several ways, including:

• Being unable to accurately estimate the time a task may take.
• Carelessly switching from one task to another.
• Having a messy workspace.
• Possessing an inability to easily divide big tasks into structured, smaller, bite-sized tasks.
• Talking in a non-sequential manner that appears incoherent.
• Misplacing items.
• Not remembering appointments.
• A seeming inability to hold to a routine.

Obviously, anyone with these symptoms will experience difficulties in keeping their to-do list manageable, being on time, missing their deadlines, and keeping track of their schedule.

However, several ways exist to answer an individual’s particular ADHD symptoms, improving organization and prioritization. These include asking a professional ADHD organizer to help as you tackle your clutter or switch between tasks by setting up a transition ritual.

Relationship Barriers

Relationship challenges are seen in ADHD sufferers in a variety of ways, including:

• Battling to complete chores and tasks around the house.
• Not filtering your insensitive comments.
• Struggling to stay focused during conversations.
• Not remembering important events.
• Often interrupting others.
• Having emotional outbursts.

In part due to these symptoms, conflict and misunderstanding between family members at home happen as something of a surprise to adult ADHD sufferers. Counselors say that building strategies to communicate effectively will help you meet responsibilities and commitments. Learning to keep healthy, happy relationships with those you care about is within your reach, and accelerated by receiving help.

Frustrated Professional Progress

Handling complex matters, working well with others, keeping a tight grip on instructions, and meeting deadlines are all capabilities that are rewarded in the workplace. However, these are all more difficult for adult ADHD sufferers to regularly accomplish.

The symptoms of ADHD may result in people discovering that they are not as focused, productive, or even as motivated as they would prefer to be at work. This is supported by findings showing that full-time employment of adults with ADHD hovered around 34 percent.

Keep in mind that adult ADHD sufferers who can find a role that ties in with their strong points will mostly experience career success – after all, creativity, quick thinking, and higher energy levels are often part and parcel of adult ADHD.

Mistakes With Personal Finances

Not only do those with ADHD find it more difficult to make financial decisions, but they spend more impulsively too. It is not uncommon to find that adult ADHD sufferers are more often in crippling debt and financially dependent on other people. While ADHD makes it more difficult to stick to a budget and save money, it does not automatically result in the person being irresponsible.

There are personal finance management tools as well as guidance available to help those with and without adult ADHD get back in the black.

Misuse and Addiction

Not too dissimilar from how people with various conditions self-medicate, so do those with adult ADHD. Alcohol, recreational drugs, nicotine, and pharmaceutical medication are sometimes used by those looking for some type of relief.

Here again, researchers find that those with adult ADHD have a much higher rate of addiction than those without. Keep in mind that while adult ADHD and substance misuse disorder can be treated at the same time, if there is early intervention and effective management of ADHD symptoms, then the temptation to self-medicate will not be as strong, and the requirement for treatment will be far less.

Challenging mental health

The ADHD brain is quick-paced, so researchers find that any problems, such as those typically found at home, work, or school, may encourage the person to become overly self-critical and to doubt themselves.

This low point may be premised by an emotional ping-pong between high and low self-esteem as the quick-paced nature of adult ADHD gets excited and discouraged more quickly than others. This rapidly changing mood may often be emotionally draining.

This commonly reached low point then links ADHD sufferers to mental health issues like mood disorders, depression, and anxiety. Techniques taught to help people displace these lows include those of self-care and self-compassion, and these can be repeated often by those living with adult ADHD.

Finding Help to Properly Understand and Treat Your Symptoms

Coming to a deeper understanding of ADHD is a significant journey, and one that you do not have to take alone. If you are looking for additional help to properly understand this condition and make a good decision regarding possible treatment, browse our online counselor directory or contact our office to schedule an appointment. We would be honored to walk with you on this journey.