Women Diagnosed With ADHD As Adults

Adult ADHD can be absolutely debilitating. Most people hear ADHD and think, hyperactive, high strung person. In most cases, it has nothing to do with being physically hyper. The medical based definition of “Adult ADHD” is a brain disorder that affects a persons ability to focus. There is a little bit more to the definition than that, but that is the summed up version. I am in no way a medical professional. Just a women who was diagnosed with ADHD not too long ago sharing my experiences so far.

Like a lot of women, I was diagnosed with ADHD in my late 20’s. My psychiatrist whom I see for depression and anxiety helped me come to the realization that I was suffering from more than just your typical emotional issues. Here are some of the symptoms I myself and many other women with ADHD experience.

• Inability to focus or concentrate on one specific task.
• Impulsive activity such as extreme spending sprees.
• Binge Eating.
• Insomnia (due to your brain never shutting up!)
• Lack of motivation. Things like cleaning become completely overwhelming because you have no idea where to start. When you do start, you find it hard to stick to one area. For example, if I am cleaning my bedroom and need to take a cup into the kitchen, while in the kitchen I will notice the dishwasher needs to be loaded and completely forget I was trying to clean my bedroom in the first place.
• Overstimulation from loud noises, multiple people talking at once, physical touch etc…
• Anxiety which leads to depression which leads back to anxiety. (It’s a vicious cycle.)
• Inability to let someone finish their sentence! I constantly find myself interrupting people simply because I had a thought pop up in my head and can’t handle not saying it as soon as I think it.

There are so many other symptoms associated with this disorder. These are just examples of some of the things I struggle with daily. The positive side to this mess, once you have this diagnoses and can learn how your brain is wired, you are then able to start coming up with different ways of doing things that work for you! I will definitely share some of the things I have come up with that have helped me. 

I have still not completely mastered this whole scatter brained thing and probably never will. The good news is there are tactics and life hacks that can help us deal with this! 

I would love to hear some ideas others have come up with. What are your favorite ADHD hacks?