Busy lives and continual distractions make effective time management and staying organized a tough task for anyone. While it’s fairly common to feel occasionally overwhelmed, a small but increasing number of adults are discovering they may be struggling with something else: Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). While educators and parents are familiar with ADHD symptoms presenting in children, adults who struggle with similar symptoms are often overlooked or misdiagnosed, and are therefore less likely to get assessed, diagnosed, or treated.
Jonathan Bastian talks with Anthony Rostain, Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at Cooper University Health Care, about how ADHD presents itself in adults and the difference between an inability to focus as opposed to an actual psychiatric disorder.
Can symptoms emerge as adults, or do they always begin in early childhood? Rostain explains that while “many of us have trouble, for example, getting started on things or managing time, people with ADHD really can't get to it without a lot of help.”
About 4% of adults in the US are estimated to have ADHD, and most struggle in silence. Only with an increasing awareness and acceptance of mental disorders are people beginning seeking help and getting treated. Getting a medical evaluation is “really important,” Rostain says, because there may be other causes of lack of attentiveness, including “trauma, anxiety, depression, substance use, some forms of early dementia … so if you think you might have ADHD, go get it evaluated.”
Rostain advises finding out as much about ADHD as possible before seeking treatment. “Speak to psychologists, especially those that practice cognitive behavioral therapy, because they are skilled at helping you gain insight into what makes it hard to stay focused and actually techniques to improve motivation and reduce procrastination,” he says.
The importance of cognitive behavioral therapy is the focus of Anthony Rostain’s book “The Adult ADHD Tool Kit: Using CBT to Facilitate Coping Inside and Out.” As co-author, Rostain explains that, “We all need a roadmap to get us where we're going, and cognitive therapy gives people ways to get around the barriers that are stopping them from getting where they want to go.” Anthony Rostain, pictured here, says that “most of the increase in the diagnosis is actually based in reducing stigma and gaining access to health care professionals.” Photo courtesy of Anthony Rostain.
“We spend most of our time, when we think of ADHD, talking about medications, but equally important, if not more, are things like environmental redesign, simplifying your schedule, and taking tasks and breaking them down into smaller pieces so you don't get so distracted.”
Medication also plays a vital role with people who struggle with ADHD.
“People taking stimulants for their ADHD report that they feel calmer. What's being stimulated by the stimulant is the part of the brain that allows us to focus, the frontal lobes; the noise dies down and people say, ‘Oh, I can finally think clearly,’” Rostain says.
Most adults who suffer from ADHD often don’t actually know what’s wrong with them – and assume that being disorganized or drifting off is just part of who they are. Adults with ADHD frequently also suffer from anxiety, depression, or mood swings. So when do we know then, that something just isn’t right? And how does that feel?
BCBA (board certified behavioral analyst) Moira O’Connell shares her story about how she struggled with attentiveness and organization, only to fairly recently discover she has ADHD. O’Connell explains that she had struggled to cope with her symptoms, but managed to continue her education. When she sought help, O’Connnell vividly recalls one doctor's response to her feelings of being overwhelmed and disorganized: “‘If you are a full time teacher in graduate school with a high GPA, there's nothing wrong with you.’”
O’Connell says she continued, as she had for so long as an adult, “suffering and managing and compensating.” Her two sons changed all that; both were diagnosed with ADHD in school, and both boys have very different profiles. Seeing her boys' symptoms made her realize that “these are things that I've struggled with. I can't sit still, I can't be organized. Someone might be talking to me, and then I get distracted.”
Women, especially mothers, says O’Connell, typically struggle in silence. “You don't want to believe you're different. No one wants to believe that, but I wish my younger self would have pushed a little bit more.”
Moira O’Connell, pictured here, describes her symptoms with ADHD as, “almost like an out of body experience, where I'm like, ‘What am I doing? Wait a minute, I just flew through that so fast. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what I just did.’”
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