Adhd or social anxiety?

[Firefly45]

My ds18 has terrible social anxiety. Never fitted in. No friends.

He also says he can't concentrate at college and struggles with studying.

He thinks he had adhd.

I'm wondering how do you know if it's adhd or social anxiety ? He has zero problems concentrating on complex gaming online, designing Minecraft worlds, board games.

Don't lots of teenagers struggle to concentrate on studies?

I am worried about him and want to help but how do I know which road to go down?

Concentrating on stuff you like is easier - people with ADHD have been described as having an "interest based nervous system".

Games, especially video games have lots of little dopamine boosts built in (won a round/level up etc etc) which can be very stimulating to the ADHD brain.

Conversely, doing stuff you have to do, but it's a bit boring is often really hard - we can struggle to get started and also struggle to complete longer tasks.

I had (well have) massive social anxiety which was helped a bit by diagnosis and medication. For me it's a combination of the fear of blurting something out or otherwise messing up and the internal shame of remembering all the times I already did that. 😢

So in summary, it could be?

Some kids can wing it through most of school or into further education, but as the work gets harder and the individual responsibility increases, their ability to stay organised and on task can fall apart - especially once they're away from home. 😳

I'll try to post you some links to good resources about it. 🙂

I like this very comprehensive video for a start.

Essentially though, people will only be diagnosed if it's shown to be at a level that impairs them I think also in at least one setting, e.g. home and work/home and school.

Plus the psychiatrist looks at your history (for example school reports that say you're a massive day dreamer who talks too much and is slow to finish work.) They look for evidence from when you were a child, I think before age 12.