invisibleotter
Chatty Member
I'm a 26 year old woman & was diagnosed with ADHD at 22. I was diagnosed by a psychiatrist who specialised in Adult ADHD. I have noticed in previous posts that people mention about a lack of attention & would like to point out that although attention deficit is in the disorders name, this is only a same part of the disorder and to have ADHD there are quite a number of other behaviours you have to exhibit in childhood and as an adult. Also to be diagnosed, your life has to have been severely & negativity impacted as a child, teen & adult due to your behaviours.
First of all I would like to point out ADHD isn't actually an attention deficit. It is the inability to regulate attention. There will periods you won't concentrate at all & then periods of hyper focus where you will be completely engrossed in something to the point you forget to eat, drink & in general care for yourself. To have ADHD you need both the deficit and the hyper focus.
The second aspect of ADHD is emotional regulation, people both make & female like with attention have difficulty regulating emotions, meaning they feel & express the full extent of an emotion. This will be from childhood, So a child with ADHD's behaviour may look like a tantrum or over excitement, but it's because they feel the full force of an emotion all the time.
Another aspect of ADHD is depression, anxiety, addiction & social ineptness. One or more of these are aspects of ADHD in both men & women. Adults ADHD usually goes hand in hand with depression &/or anxiety. This is due to the inability to regulate emotions & due to the persons brain working much faster. There are also high levels of addictive,risk taking behaviour in people with ADHD such as cigarettes, alcohol, drugs & gambling are all highly to be used , but it can also involved behaviour such as driving at high speeds, having unprotected sex etc. The reason for this people with ADHD are highly impulsive & find it very difficult not become addicted once a behaviour is tried once, as this gives a rush of dopamine which which is a chemical in the brain that people with ADHD lack.
Another aspect of ADHD which also isn't mentioned above is difficulty in social situations. You don't need to be hyper kids with ADHD often tend to be quite introverted in social situations, but social behaviours of people with ADHD appear from the time they are young kids and these behaviours are actually very similar to that of autism or sensory processing disorder. Although people with ADHD are highly creative and tend to excel in the arts, they actually work best in a structured environment with clear set processes & targets, as this allows the ADHD brain to relax, as it does not need to run through scenarios as structure takes away the uncertainty of situations.
As a woman who suffered with mental illness since early teens and suffered with undiagnosed ADHD for the majority of my education, who knows just how difficult a life with ADHD is & to have people not believe it a real disorder or not understand it, I ask not to self diagnose yourself, only an expert in this field can diagnose you & assuming you have it & have coped with on your own without any mental illness, negative behaviour means you don't have it & saying this diminishes the effect this disorder has on the lives of people who actually have it.
First of all I would like to point out ADHD isn't actually an attention deficit. It is the inability to regulate attention. There will periods you won't concentrate at all & then periods of hyper focus where you will be completely engrossed in something to the point you forget to eat, drink & in general care for yourself. To have ADHD you need both the deficit and the hyper focus.
The second aspect of ADHD is emotional regulation, people both make & female like with attention have difficulty regulating emotions, meaning they feel & express the full extent of an emotion. This will be from childhood, So a child with ADHD's behaviour may look like a tantrum or over excitement, but it's because they feel the full force of an emotion all the time.
Another aspect of ADHD is depression, anxiety, addiction & social ineptness. One or more of these are aspects of ADHD in both men & women. Adults ADHD usually goes hand in hand with depression &/or anxiety. This is due to the inability to regulate emotions & due to the persons brain working much faster. There are also high levels of addictive,risk taking behaviour in people with ADHD such as cigarettes, alcohol, drugs & gambling are all highly to be used , but it can also involved behaviour such as driving at high speeds, having unprotected sex etc. The reason for this people with ADHD are highly impulsive & find it very difficult not become addicted once a behaviour is tried once, as this gives a rush of dopamine which which is a chemical in the brain that people with ADHD lack.
Another aspect of ADHD which also isn't mentioned above is difficulty in social situations. You don't need to be hyper kids with ADHD often tend to be quite introverted in social situations, but social behaviours of people with ADHD appear from the time they are young kids and these behaviours are actually very similar to that of autism or sensory processing disorder. Although people with ADHD are highly creative and tend to excel in the arts, they actually work best in a structured environment with clear set processes & targets, as this allows the ADHD brain to relax, as it does not need to run through scenarios as structure takes away the uncertainty of situations.
As a woman who suffered with mental illness since early teens and suffered with undiagnosed ADHD for the majority of my education, who knows just how difficult a life with ADHD is & to have people not believe it a real disorder or not understand it, I ask not to self diagnose yourself, only an expert in this field can diagnose you & assuming you have it & have coped with on your own without any mental illness, negative behaviour means you don't have it & saying this diminishes the effect this disorder has on the lives of people who actually have it.
