ADHD is a paradoxical condition. One day you’re loving your life and able to superfocus, the next day your feeling burnt out and unable to focus.
Having ADHD can be a mental health rollercoasters so it’s important to understand the different treatment and emotional support options available.
Knowing other adults with ADHD can be very helpful for discussing your ADHD symptoms and gaining more insight into the condition. It can also be helpful to have an ADHD accountability partner that you meet with regularly.
ADHD doesn’t mean you have a damaged or defective nervous system. It is a nervous system that works well according to its own set of rules and you have to structure your life and the find the right environment that fits with your neurodivergence.
One of the best ways I’ve found to better understand my ADHD is through the lens of having an interest-based nervous system. With the right environment, doing meaningful work, being surrounded by supportive people who appreciate your quirks — ADHD can be an incredible creative gift.
Here are some eye-opening ADHD statistics about just how challenging mental health can be for adults with ADHD.
1. Almost 5% of adults have ADHD and it is estimated that 80% are untreated.
It is estimated 3.2% of American women are diagnosed with ADHD vs 5.4% of men in the United States but the gender gap is closing as more women are being diagnosed. It is estimate that fewer than 20% of adults with ADHD are accurately diagnosed and treated.
ADHD is characterized by a persistent pattern of inattention, hyperactivity, and/or impulsivity that interferes with and impacts work, home life, and relationships — especially if left untreated.
While stimulant drugs are a common treatment, there are lot of other forms of treatment that have been proven to be effective for some people that can be stacked together such as exercise, mindfulness, nature therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), neurofeedback and yoga.
2. There are key signs and symptoms of ADHD in adults that can impair life and work.
ADHD is not a deficit of attention, but rather a surplus of it and the most common struggle is with regulating and focusing that attention. Adults tend to internalize the hyperactive symptoms and have more issues with anxiety, impulsiveness and executive functioning.
ADHD can be tricky to nail down because about 60%-70% of adults with ADHD will have symptoms that wax and wane, particularly during times of increased stress or life change.
The most common issues that adults with ADHD struggle with include:
- Organizing and prioritizing tasks
- Difficulty focusing and completing tasks
- Starting tasks (especially if there is no pressure to do so)
- Remaining consistent with work performance
- Always running late
- Interrupting people in conversation
- Remembering daily tasks or items
- Maintaining relationships that are not seen daily
- Routinely completing tasks for daily living
- Remaining focused on tasks
- Attending to details of tasks
- Nervous energy or restlessness
- Frequently losing things
- Risky behaviors
- Misplacing things
3. The biggest challenge for adults with ADHD is usually inconsistent focus, energy and motivation.
Dr. Ned Hallowell brilliant captures the paradoxically nature of ADHD in his excellent book ADHD 2.0:
“It helps to think of ADHD as a complex set of contradictory or paradoxical tendencies: a lack of focus combined with an ability to superfocus; a lack of direction combined with highly directed entrepreneurialism; a tendency to procrastinate combined with a knack for getting a week’s worth of work done in two hours; impulsive, wrongheaded decision making combined with inventive, out-of-the-blue problem solving; interpersonal cluelessness combined with uncanny intuition and empathy; the list goes on.”
ADHD is ultimately a disorder of self-regulation and executive functioning. ADHD causes the brain to struggle to regulate attention, concentration, energy and emotion. Sometimes your ADHD brain gives too much, sometimes too little, and there is often little consistency.
Because of this lack of consistency, adults with ADHD often struggle with employment, relationships and self-care. They may also struggle with depression, anxiety and substance abuse disorders as a result of their ADHD symptoms.
4. Late-stage diagnoses of ADHD in adults have skyrocketed in the last decade.
Many adults with ADHD get late-stage diagnoses in their 30s and 40s, which can be life-changing when they finally recognize their neurodivergent cognition and perspective makes them different and they embrace that (and get treatment).
Since 2010, one study estimated that the rates of ADHD have tripled overall — but the share of patients taking prescribed medications for the disorder has remained consistent.
ADHD numbers are climbing dramatically in the United States, especially among women. The share of females between the ages of 23 and 49 years of age diagnosed with the disorder nearly doubled from 2020 to 2022.
Is it because of smartphones? Dr. Anna Lembke in her book Dopamine Nation notes that “The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation.” With average person in a highly-developed country like the United States or Canada using their smartphone 4-5 hours a day, it’s likely they will suffer from some attention issues but having ADHD is different.
The chronic attention issues that come with constantly scrolling social media apps that hack attention like Instagram, Tiktok and Facebook may be similar to some ADHD symptoms but they are usually grouped under what’s called Continuous Partial Attention or Attention Deficit Traits (ADT).
To get an adult ADHD diagnosis there usually has to be genetic basis for the disorder that can be traced throughout the lifespan.
5. 87% of adults stop taking prescribed stimulants in the first year.
About 50% of people prescribed stimulants for ADHD don’t fill the third prescription. At 9 months, only 13% of people are still fulfilling stimulant prescriptions, according to data provided by William W. Dodson in Why Adults with ADHD Abandon Medication.
Paradoxically, studies show that stimulant drugs improve ADHD symptoms in about 70% of adults and up to 80% of children. They tend to reduce interruptive behaviour, fidgeting, and other hyperactive symptoms that are particularly difficult to deal with in highly neurotypical environments like school or bureaucracies.
This makes you wonder why so many adults with an ADHD diagnosis drop out of treatment with stimulants. From my experience, they change aspects of how we relate to ourselves and others that many people struggle to adjust to.
The main function of stimulant medication is once you are engaged in a task, they can extend your focus for longer and keep you from getting distracted. However, pills don’t teach skills and without the right environment, routines and accountability found in an ADHD-oriented treatment program, it is common to hyperfocus on the wrong things.
6. Untreated ADHD can significantly reduce life expectancy.
ADHD can reduce life expectancy by as much as 13 years, but the risk is reversible. This shocking revelation comes from a new study by Russell Barkley, Ph.D.
ADHD may drastically shorten a patient’s life expectancy. In fact, its impact may be larger than any other single health threat including:
- Weight
- Nutrition
- Exercise
- Sleep duration
- Smoking
- Alcohol use
- Risky driving
7. If you have ADHD, you’re likely to experience other mental health challenges.
Approximately 80% of adults with ADHD will also have another mental health condition or comorbidity:
- Up to 35% of adults with ADHD have bipolar disorder.
- Over 20% have major depressive disorder or chronic dysthymia
- Nearly 50% of adults with ADHD have some type of anxiety problems
- Up to 50% of adults with ADHD have regular sleep problems
Adults with ADHD tend to internalize (and hide) anxiety and depression so it’s important to have a good support network of people you feel comfortable talking with.
Many late-stage diagnosed adults with ADHD have been misdiagnosed much of their life as the root cause of ADHD wasn’t identified properly. Dr. David Feifel explains how anxiety and depression are worsened by poorly managed ADHD:
“In my experience, depression and anxiety manifesting in adults can be a direct result of the ADHD symptoms they have been struggling with since childhood. The problem is that many adults with undiagnosed ADHD seek help for depression or anxiety, and neither they nor their psychiatrists recognize that ADHD is underlying and driving those conditions, in part, because ADHD in adults is hard to recognize and diagnose unless a doctor knows what to look for.”
8. Adults with ADHD have nearly triple the risk of becoming addicted to drugs.
Research indicates that impulsive and reckless behaviour as well as high novelty seeking traits, which are common with ADHD, are important risk factors for substance abuse disorders.
Adults with ADHD have a higher prevalence of substance abuse disorder at 15.2% compared to those without ADHD at 5.6%.
Research has shown that about 21% of boys and men with ADHD and 13% of women and girls with ADHD abuse drugs or alcohol. Studies suggest that 25%-40% percent of adults with substance use disorder also have ADHD.
70% of young adults with ADHD and a substance abuse disorder report they used substances as a form of “self-medication” rather than to “get high”. The most common drugs that adults with ADHD use to self-medicate are caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, marijuana and cocaine (is coffee self-medication?!).
9. ADHD also has high comorbidity with dyslexia and autism.
If you have ADHD you are also much more likely to have dyslexia or autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
The dyslexia-ADHD overlap is well-documented in the scientific literature. It is estimated that between 15% and 50% of individuals with ADHD have dyslexic problems of varying degrees and probably up to 30% would qualify for a dyslexia diagnosis.
There is also a well-documented overlap with autism and ADHD known informally today as AuADHD. According to the CDC 14% of people with ADHD are also autistic while 50% – 70% of individuals with spectrum disorder (ASD) also present with comorbid with ADHD.
10. ADHD is likely as ancient as humanity itself.
ADHD is not a new condition as ADHD symptoms were first documented in 1902. The condition was described as ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) in the 1980’s and then changed to ADHD.
Tom Hartman, an American author and popular talk show host (who has ADHD) makes the argument that the ADHD gene is crucial to the survival of hunter gathering populations in his Hunter Versus Farmer Hypothesis.
He argues that ADHD has not only a significant survival advantage in hunter gatherer societies, but that it also confers powerful advantages in today’s societies. Hartman advocates for a reconceptualization of ADHD from being simply a “disorder” to being viewed as a mode of thought and perception characterized by many strengths, such as enhanced creativity, high energy and divergent thinking.
Deficit and disorder? Labelling people by their weaknesses rather than their strengths is counterproductive says comedian and novelist with ADHD Alison Larkin.
While some ADHD traits can be weaknesses, there are also a lot of strengths that come with ADHD. Don’t forget that next time you’re struggling with your mental health.
