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Feeling lazy, unmotivated, and ashamed of it? Doctor says it could be undiagnosed ADHD.

"75% of adults with anxiety actually have ADHD as the cause of their anxiety."

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Doctor breaks down how to recognize ADHD in adults.

If it seems that everyone is being diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), there may be a reason and it's likely not the reason people think. Diagnostic criteria were initially based off of how ADHD presented in white children who were mostly male, so if you fell outside of that box your diagnosis was often overlooked. This is especially true in girls who then turned into undiagnosed or misdiagnosed women.

But it's not just women who were undiagnosed since the criteria mostly included ways in which hyperactivity showed up—you know, the "H" in ADHD. But not everyone with ADHD presents with the stereotypical hyperactivity bit.

That means a lot of kids fell through the cracks and, as kids do, eventually became adults.

ADHD specialist Dr. Heather Brannon breaks down ways in which ADHD is missed and how to identify it in adults in a TEDx Talk in 2021.


adhd, adult adhd, adhd diagnosis, adhd treatment, doctors, ted talk, tedx, mental healthAdults with untreated ADHD may struggle with procrastination, being distracted, and end up feeling shame over their "laziness" Photo by Hiki App on Unsplash

In the first few minutes of the video, Brannon drops a statistic that feels mind-boggling:

"75% of adults with anxiety actually have ADHD as the cause of their anxiety." Even though I fit into that category, consider my mind completely boggled because I thought I was a rarity and my psychiatrist was a magician. Turns out, he was probably just up to date on his continuing education credits.

Brannon talks about how people who may express feelings of overwhelm, anxiousness, and tiredness and who are easily frustrated may actually have undiagnosed ADHD.

It's pretty easy to overlook ADHD that presents with more of the attention deficit part of the diagnosis than the hyperactivity part. When someone is having difficulty sitting still, talking so fast that you can barely keep up, and is constantly on the go, it's pretty easy to pinpoint there may be an issue.

But when the person is quiet, sits still but misses large chunks of conversations, or is chronically forgetful and sleepy, it's much easier to miss the signs, according to Brannon.

Brannon says many people feel bad about themselves without knowing why, so having an answer for why you're feeling this way can be helpful.

The video is really fascinating and may help others recognize signs within themselves or with loved ones. Give it a gander below:


- YouTubewww.youtube.com

In the clip, Brannon introduces us to a theoretical person named Sally.

Sally is successful, creative, and has a Masters degree. She's functioning at a high level by all indications, but Sally struggles with procrastination, getting sidetracked, and feeling unmotivated. She feels lazy and ashamed of it, but she just can't bring herself to change her behavior.

Brannon says that Sally is typical of adults with undiagnosed ADHD. These are people who feel and know something is not quite right with them, but they have no idea what.

As for a little happy ending, Sally eventually finds out that she has ADHD and receives treatment. Brannon says in the video that the right medication can make a world of difference.

"Now [Sally] can have creative thoughts without having that big swirl of ideas running around in her head. She can look at an email to see if she has time to answer or she needs to save it for later. Now Sally can be on time for her appointment, and that frees up the perfectionist that was trying so hard to be on time before and was failing every time."


adhd, adult adhd, adhd diagnosis, adhd treatment, doctors, ted talk, tedx, mental healthWith her ADHD under control, "Sally" is crushing it. Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

Brannon says that over the span of her career, she would estimate about 2 or 3 out of 10 adults have undiagnosed ADHD and are living a life of difficulty and shame.

"That's a lot of people who could be feeling a whole lot better," she says.

This article originally appeared two years ago. It has been updated.

via @5kids5catssomedogstoo/TikTok

Lynalice Bandy shares what her home looks like after working six 10-hour days and getting no help from her husband.

A viral TikTok video highlights an extreme version of inequality that many wives and mothers in heterosexual relationships face. However, the mom in this story hit her limit and won’t deal with it anymore. Lynalice Bandy, who goes by @5kids5catssomedogstoo on TikTok, posted a video that showed her home looking like a disaster after she worked six 10-hour days straight while her husband did nothing to help.

Her time-lapse video shows every room in the house completely trashed, with toys, food, and laundry scattered everywhere. "Shampoo on the carpets in the girls' room, nail polish all over nugget covers, hair, and carpet. Scissors were used to cut hair, the down comforter, the mattress cover, and two nugget covers," wrote the mom. “I’ve worked six, ten-hour days in a row with only one day off being a sick day,” she captioned the video. “I’d like to pretend I’m not the only person who cleans here, but as you can see…These rooms don’t get much attention when I’m not here."


@5kids2catsandsomechaos

#divorce #parentingfail #messyhouse #whenwomen #depressionanxiety #clean #satifying

She says her husband’s excuse was that he was focused on doing his schoolwork and couldn’t pay attention to the kids. "Now, that school is out for a break, he doesn't have that excuse anymore," Bandy says, noting that all of his attention has been focused on “the four vehicles in our driveway that he wants to work on continuously.”

In a follow-up video, Bandy announced that she left her husband after the debacle. The original video received over 17,000 comments, many of which were from supportive women. "You deserve much better, and he deserves to be alone. Much love to you from someone that left that life behind almost 20 yrs ago. You'll get here, too," Angela LaRoche wrote.

"Ma’am, you are nothing short of amazing! Hang in there!" Japanese with Jenny wrote. "That home is beautiful because of YOU," Hillary added. "You put in so much work, and it is not unseen by me and so many others. But, you DO deserve better. Proud of you."

@5kids2catsandsomechaos

Sounds about right…

Even though Bandy’s experience with her husband is an extreme case of a couple whose domestic duties are way out of balance, it points to a problem that plagues many households. Even though it’s 2023 and families are becoming more equal, women still do significantly more housework than men.

A study utilizing data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' American Time Use Survey found that women 15 years and older spend 5.7 hours daily doing housework and looking after kids and elders. Men in the same age group do an average of 3.6 hours of daily domestic work. That’s a 37% difference in time spent on household responsibilities.

 domestic duties, marriage inequality, lazy husbands, messy houses, household chores, upset woman, tired womanA woman who is upset that she has to do chores again.via Canva/Photos

Further, women who work an average of 35 hours a week spend 4.9 hours a day on household chores and child care, while men who work the same amount spend an average of 3.8 hours.

The comments show that many women are frustrated with their husbands for not doing their fair share. Hopefully, this video will encourage more people to speak out about domestic inequality and for more men to step up and do their part.

Nearly two years after Lynalice left her husband, she and her five children are living together in a new home. Her recent videos show that she's having difficulty keeping it clean because she's been working 60-plus hours a week and suffers from ADHD. Being the single mother of five has to be tough, so she has developed a new motto: "Progress, not perfection." In November 2024, she shared a video of her and her family getting things together in their new home.

@5kids2catsandsomechaos

Can you spot how many times Winky sits in a box or plops for belly rubs? #cleaning #messyhouse #clean #timelapse #oddlysatisfying #grwm #carpetcleaning #cattok

This article originally appeared two years ago.

via BiancaMcIntyre.com and Canva/Photos

Brian a McIntyre and a man who doesn't understand women with autism.

It’s a common fact that good-looking people have a lot of advantages, whether it’s being seen as smarter and more capable or having a much easier time on dating apps. Good-looking people also have it easier in the workplace, where they are more likely to receive raises and promotions and be listened to in meetings.

It’s taboo for good-looking people to complain about the problems that come with being attractive. Still, Bianca McIntyre, a woman in Australia, says that when you’re “conventionally attractive” and have autism, it can cause potential romantic partners to have disturbing reactions. This can lead the autistic person to become hyper-fixated on their appearance out of fear that, if not for their looks, they’d be ostracized.

McIntyre is a borderline personality disorder specialist who has the disorder and was diagnosed with ADHD and autism later in life. She uses her lived experience to help people through one-on-one sessions, short-form content, educational talks, webinars, and videos. She explained the trouble that happens when you’re conventionally attractive and the person you're dating discovers you are “weird” in a viral TikTok video with over 1.4 million views.

@putting_the_b_in_bpd

Have you had this experience? Have you taken time to unpack the shame that may have come from this type of environment? 💜 #asd #autism #austisminwomen #audhd #puttingthebinbpd #bipittyfriends #nd #neurodivergent #attractiveness

“When you grow up, and you find out that people consider you conventionally attractive, you have an ability to attract people. But then you get to see in real-time as they viscerally find out how weird you are,” she says in the video. “I used the word viscerally because it's this almost cognitive dissonance that happens in real-time, in physical distance, where they can't comprehend how you look a certain way, but you don't behave the way that a person who looks like that should behave.”

She adds that when potential romantic partners go through this experience, they get very angry because they feel like they have been fooled. This can lead to disturbing behavior, such as bullying, and eventually, they leave her. After repeatedly suffering this treatment, McIntyre became fixated on her looks to compensate for her unique personality. “You place all of your value as a human being on what you look like. That's a really difficult thing. That's a really exhausting mindset,” she continues.

adhd and autism, autistic women, attractive women, pretty privilege, depression, shameA woman is upset in her car.via Canva/Photos

Another problem that women McIntyre works with often face is a cycle of hypersexualization, where autistic women find themselves in compromising situations they wouldn’t have entered if they had a stronger sense of self. This dangerous cycle can lead to bouts of shame and depression and lead to sexual victimization.

Some may have a problem with McIntyre explaining the drawbacks of being “conventionally attractive,” but she isn’t denying the advantages. In the video, she understands that speaking about being good-looking is taboo and that there are “inherent positives” to being attractive. But ultimately, she made the video to open a dialog with other women who have struggled with the same issue, especially those who are young.

adhd and autism, autistic women, attractive women, pretty privilege, depression, shameA woman upset on her bed.via Canva/Photos

“I want you to know that you're not alone, and more importantly, if you are a younger autistic woman and you find yourself in this situation, in this headspace, that ‘I am pretty and that is worth more than my personality. My personality is weird, I'm a weird person, but at least I'm conventionally attractive,’” she said. “I really want you to understand that your inherent value does not revolve around whether you can attract, entertain or arouse those around you. Your inherent value comes from being a human being.”

Health

Doctor breaks down how to recognize ADHD in adults. The symptoms may be surprising.

"75% of adults with anxiety actually have ADHD as the cause of their anxiety."

Doctor breaks down how to recognize ADHD in adults.

If it seems that everyone is being diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), there may be a reason and it's likely not the reason people think. Diagnostic criteria were initially based off of how ADHD presented in white children who were mostly male, so if you fell outside of that box your diagnosis was often overlooked. This is especially true in girls who then turned into undiagnosed or misdiagnosed women.

But it's not just women who were undiagnosed since the criteria mostly included ways in which hyperactivity showed up—you know, the "H" in ADHD. But not everyone with ADHD presents with the stereotypical hyperactivity bit. ADHD specialist Dr. Heather Brannon breaks down ways in which ADHD is missed and how to identify it in adults in a TEDx Talk in 2021.

In the first few minutes of the video, Brannon drops a statistic that feels mind-boggling: "75% of adults with anxiety actually have ADHD as the cause of their anxiety." Even though I fit into that category, consider my mind completely boggled because I thought I was a rarity and my psychiatrist was a magician. Turns out, he was probably just up to date on his continuing education credits.

Brannon talks about how people who may express feelings of overwhelm, anxiousness, and tiredness and who are easily frustrated may actually have undiagnosed ADHD.

It's pretty easy to overlook ADHD that presents with more of the attention deficit part of the diagnosis than the hyperactivity part. When someone is having difficulty sitting still, talking so fast that you can barely keep up, and is constantly on the go, it's pretty easy to pinpoint there may be an issue.

But when the person is quiet, sits still but misses large chunks of conversations, or is chronically forgetful and sleepy, it's much easier to miss the signs, according to Brannon.

Brannon says many people feel bad about themselves without knowing why, so having an answer for why you're feeling this way can be helpful.

The video is really fascinating and may help others recognize signs within themselves or with loved ones.

Give it a gander below:

This article originally appeared two years ago.