Do I Have ADHD? A Symptom Guide for Adults
Maybe you’ve felt “different” from your peers throughout your entire life. When your friends excelled in school, you struggled to keep up with basic assignments, even in classes that you enjoyed. As your classmates found their career paths after college, you hopped from job to job, wondering if you would ever find a workplace where you truly fit. At home, you feel like you can barely keep a single room organized, let alone declutter your whole house. Getting chores done on a weekly basis feels draining. You wonder how anyone manages to keep up with these routines without collapsing into exhaustion. You look around and question how your friends and coworkers seem to “do it all” while you’re spiraling. Adults with undiagnosed Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) tend to struggle with issues like these. Identifying the common symptoms of adult ADHD can help you get the help you need. At Newark Behavioral Health, we get it, we can help you to figure out if it’s ADHD, and provide support and treatment if it is.
Lack of Attention to Detail
Adults with ADHD may have trouble paying attention to detail. This can lead to frustrating consequences. They might frequently make mistakes at work, forget about plans with friends, have trouble tracking their spending, or get lost easily while driving, even in a familiar area. Because of this, they can end up losing jobs or missing out on promotions. They may even suffer from fallout in their relationships.
Difficulty Starting and Completing Tasks
ADHD can make it difficult to initiate a task or finish a task that you’ve managed to start. This doesn’t just apply to tough projects at work or tasks that aren’t so much fun, like taking out the trash or mowing the lawn. It also holds true for tasks that are enjoyable. You may like writing in a journal or reading, but you might also get distracted so easily that you can barely read a page or two in one sitting before your attention shifts to something else. It’s easy to see how this can cause problems for adults with ADHD in professional, academic, and domestic settings.
Poor Organizational Skills
You may feel embarrassed to offer people rides because your car is always messy. Maybe it takes you forever to find your keys before leaving the house. Your desk might look untidy compared to your coworkers’, and you may have lost your credit cards and license in the depths of your purse or backpack on many occasions. Adults with ADHD often feel ashamed because it’s hard for them to stay organized, even though it’s not a moral failing.
Impulsivity
Impulsivity can be a hallmark of adult ADHD. Maybe you have a tendency to book spontaneous flights only a week or two out. Or perhaps you like to go on shopping sprees, even when money is tight, and you’ve told yourself that you would keep your spending to a minimum. You might worry your friends and family when you make impulsive decisions, especially when these decisions put you into risky, precarious positions.
Low Tolerance for Stress
Even the slightest routine change at work can leave you struggling to adjust. One or two unexpected responsibilities put on your plate in any sphere of your life can tip you over the edge. Your low tolerance for stress might be connected to adult ADHD. When your stress levels rise, it can affect your executive functioning, which is already hard. Suddenly, you feel like you’re dropping the ball on everything, and you fall behind at work, in school, or in your relationships.
Do you suspect that you’re struggling with symptoms of ADHD in adulthood? At Newark Behavioral Health, we offer comprehensive evaluations for ADHD and other psychological conditions. We have a skilled nurse practitioner on staff who can help with a medication trial. We can also provide ADHD-specific coaching to help you develop strategies to thrive with ADHD. Furthermore, a therapist can also help you cope with the symptoms of ADHD and develop self-compassion. If you are ready to make an appointment, please call us at 302-319-5161. Or request an appointment by clicking the button below.