ADHD affects millions around the world but is still surrounded by misconceptions. Photo / 123rf
ADHD affects millions around the world but is still surrounded by misconceptions. Photo / 123rf
ADHD affects millions around the world but is still surrounded by misconceptions. This collection of stories offers information, solidarity, help and support.
‘It’s not easy’: Doctors are still figuring out adult ADHD
ADHD is one of the most common psychiatric disorders in adults. Yet many healthcare providers have uneven trainingon how to evaluate it, and there are no United States clinical practice guidelines for diagnosing and treating patients beyond childhood.
Without clear rules, some providers, while well-intentioned, are just “making it up as they go along”, said Dr David W. Goodman, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
This lack of clarity leaves providers and adult patients in a bind.
‘I love it now’: Sonia Gray on why ADHD is the best part of her
Having ADHD has meant a lifetime of challenges for Sonia Gray and her daughter Inez. Now, she tells Joanna Wane, they’re celebrating the wins
Sonia Gray, who has had her own battles with anxiety and depression, was diagnosed with ADHD after a psychologist working with Inez suggested she and her husband, Simon, get tested. Her mother told her it explained Gray’s entire childhood.
“My big thing was that I couldn’t trust my brain, so I had to be hypervigilant and would get into absolute panics if things weren’t exactly right,” says Gray, who knew from an early age that there was something different about her.
Medication has helped calm the chaos in her mind – “not completely, but just enough so it’s not 15 voices all speaking at the time and at the same volume”.
Sonia Gray and her daughter, Inez, who have both been diagnosed with ADHD. Photo / Michael Craig
What are the core ADHD symptoms?
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental condition. It affects the way the brain functions. Symptoms exist on a spectrum of severity ranging from mild to severe and affect millions of adults and children around the world.
Dr Max Davie is the co-founder of ADHD UK, and a consultant paediatrician who specialises in ADHD. He also has the condition.
“People who have it talk a lot about restlessness; about being easily bored and finding boredom physically unpleasant, and sometimes unbearable. They talk about being under-stimulated and about their emotions feeling out of control.”
This is what it feels like to have ADHD (brace yourself)
Finding out I had the neurological condition helped to explain so much of my behaviour and enabled me to live happily, writes The Telegraph’s Annabel Fenwick Elliott
It was a crisp winter day in Zurich six years ago and I was in rehab, following a bender in Budapest. No less than 10 minutes into my first session with the eminent psychiatrist Dr Thilo Beck, he asked me a fleeting question that was about to change my life. “You do know,” he said, head cocked to one side, “that it is highly likely you have ADHD?”.
My formal diagnosis back in the UK shortly thereafter confirmed it - I scored a near-perfect score on the test – “9/9 for attention-deficit and 8/9 for hyperactivity,” Dr Frances Klemperer wrote in my report to the GP, “reflecting a life-long pattern of symptoms and impairment in multiple domains of functioning”. It explained everything from my dismal school reports and dropping out of two university courses to my self-loathing and heavy drinking.
ADHD in women and girls: Signs, symptoms and treatment
The growing number of high-profile women who have gone public about their ADHD – the former Spice Girl Mel B, TV presenter Sue Perkins and the actress Sheridan Smith to name a few – coupled with a plethora of ADHD content across social media platforms, especially TikTok, have all prompted more women and girls to see it in themselves and seek help.
Women are now being diagnosed at unprecedented rates. So what does ADHD look like in women – and why are we only recognising it now?
‘My lovely ADHD’: Newstalk ZB host shares the positive impact of a diagnosis
D’Arcy Waldegrave shares his experiences of living with ADHD.
I was first diagnosed five years ago. I had sailed downhill mentally again with alarming pace and, at the insistence of a good friend, I booked an appointment to address it. I was diagnosed but resisted medication until late last year after another intense depressive episode. I went back, got assessed again and acquiesced to the wants of the professionals.
The shrinks couldn’t believe that I didn’t know, I’m a cookie cutter case apparently. Go figure. I’m very impatient. I build multiple outcomes in my head for even the simplest issue. I start many projects, get bored quickly, then walk away. I’ve made choices without knowing or caring about what they may result in. Reckless. I have excessive energy and enthusiasm. I’m quite exhausting to be around!
The inability to focus fully on a task required a lot of mental horsepower to overcome. The impatience meant I lost my cool too often and too quickly.
Radio host D'Arcy Waldegrave says his ADHD leads him to 'build multiple outcomes in my head for even the simplest issue'. Photo / Alex Burton
ADHD paralysis: How to recognise the symptoms and ways to manage it
Cognitive overload can cause overwhelm in those with ADHD. Here’s how to recognise the symptoms of ADHD paralysis and ways to manage it
What is ADHD paralysis? While it’s not a medical diagnosis, nor the physical paralysis we associate with the term, people with ADHD increasingly use paralysis to describe the very real experience of cognitive overload.
It’s the brain freeze that happens when they become completely stuck, unable to make a choice, complete a task, or do anything at all.
It comes from being overwhelmed, whether that’s by a to-do list, a complicated project, mood disorders or exhaustion, and the resulting ‘paralysis’ can make their symptoms even worse.
‘I was diagnosed with ADHD at 37. If only it had been earlier’
Depression, heavy drinking, binge eating, insomnia, compulsive shopping — by her thirties, Kat Brown had accumulated a list of mental health problems. It was only when she began treatment for ADHD that life began to make sense.
Shortly before I turned 30, and while in a period of depression I seemed to cycle through every few years, I started seeing a new therapist who appeared only to wear cargo shorts. After one session, I wrote in my Notes app on my phone, “Today I suspect we got to the crux of the matter with Doctor Steve: “It sounds as though you think you are defective”. It was a testament to this man’s gentle competence that I minded neither the shorts nor his conclusions. I had spent my life trying to control how people perceived me and it was a relief to drop the act. But as much as I had started opening up about my constant sense of dread, and generally feeling more like an avatar in a meat suit than a person, I didn’t know how much time was still to go before I would get the answer to why I felt defective.
Up to 75% of people with ADHD suffer from significant sleep issues. Photo / 123rf
ADHD and sleep problems: The complete guide
Many people with ADHD have ‘delayed sleep phase disorder’, meaning falling – and staying – asleep can be difficult. Here’s how to treat it.
With minds that whir away at night as soon as their heads hit the pillow, people with ADHD often struggle to get to sleep, and when they do their sleep is restless and disturbed.
Clinicians estimate that between 50-75 per cent of people with ADHD will suffer from debilitating sleep disorders.
“Sufferers often call it “perverse sleep” — when they want to be asleep, they are awake; when they want to be awake, they are asleep,” says Dr William Dodson, a US-based psychiatrist and leading specialist in ADHD in adults.
