What are some symptoms as an adult woman that you didn’t realise were ADHD symptoms?

[Sunshine16994]

I suspect I have ADHD, for years I’ve been the unorganised or forgetful person, often people have said said I do things because I’m not paying attention. In hindsight for years I have probably had ADHD. I struggle to concentrate with background sounds, I am very academic and when I put my mind to it I can be very structured and organised but it takes what I feel a lot more work than the average person to be this.
Since having my son, I’ve found that I get overwhelmed even more so with the clutter that comes with it, if my house is a mess my brain feels a mess. Also I get extremely overstimulated with multiple sounds and things going on. It can lead me to needing to just leave the room. I appreciate this may actually be very normal but I’m not sure if it is?

In short - I lose everything frequently, I have had to put finders on my keys and phone because it’s such a regular occurrence. I could put my keys in specified place but after a few days I can’t seem to stick to it or still end up losing things.
I make a lot of mistakes in my work if my brain isn’t completely focused on it, as I said I am very

I am thinking of going to the doctors to start the process off to get an assessment. But I just wondered from women that have ADHD, what were your telling symptoms? Obvious, or less obvious

@Garroty

“Huge difficulty with routines. I remember being amazed when my husband told me he doesn't have to consciously remember to brush his teeth every day, it's something he just does automatically after his shower in the morning. Whereas I have to put measures in place to remind me every day (in my case an alarm on my phone), or it wouldn't happen.”

did the morning breath not give it away? Genuine question

Not to disagree with what you are saying, but rather to add an important point, which is that some children will be like this because of abuse and trauma. They are on hyper alert and don’t have any band-width left.

Less markedly, just any big change or difficulty at home could lead to symptoms commonly linked to ADHD.

My daughter is diagnosed with additional ie without the hyperactivity. But when she was assessed by an OT for an EHC plan, she noticed that she kicked her chair leg the entire time and chewed her sleeve.

I have always had to doodle in class/meetings or I can't concentrate.

As a child I craved swings, roundabouts, fairground rides. Utterly obsessed with playgrounds - and I wasn't remotely sporty. I just craved the sensations.

But these were all socially acceptable ways of expressing adhd. Parents and teachers didn't notice.

Back to my daughter. When school were given questionnaires to complete on her, they gave one to the class teacher, who scored her in the normal zone, and one to the TA who worked with her, who scored her off the chart.

There is so much room for people, especially compliant girls, to go under the radar.

I think you are right and I too have a great many of the symptoms being described on this thread.

I agree too about smartphones making everything worse.

Dr Gabor Main his brilliant book on ADHD, “Shattered Minds”, definitely sees the cause of the symptoms as being childhood trauma especially.

Dr Sami Timini who deals with children feels that what is often called ADHD is a cluster of symptoms with varying causes - not a condition in its own right.

As with many on here I am in my 50s and have started to consider this for me, since my mid 40s due to perimenopause symptoms starting with noise over stimulation that led me to consider adhd. There is A LOT of what is written here that resonates strongly across a variety of symptoms. Now that I am looking into it more I realise that it’s always been there, I’ve just been able to mask and mitigate. Peri is what has made this harder and now it is more obvious to me. I can see all the way back to my school days, clear signs. I would describe myself as highly capable chaotic disorganisation, with a high level of masking ability in that I always achieve but my route there is crazy and now I am older and peri I am utterly exhausted with the effort it takes to function “normally”.

A couple of things to add:

1 Stimming. A feature of my life always. I am a nail biter, skin chewer, leg bouncer, doodler, hummer. I can’t sit still without displaying these features some are stimulation to distract me from boredom such as doodling. I can’t be in any meeting without an A4 sheet which I cover in tiny hearts, squares, circles and swirls. Some are soothing such as trichotillomania - a habit I have learned to make less destructive after some scalp damage in my 20s. I still pull and twirl hair though.

2 Hypermobility. I’ve known since I was a teenager I had hypermobile tendencies. Again undiagnosed and not severe but I am particularly hypermobile in my hips and legs, wrists and shoulders. Recently found out there are links between hypermobile spectrum disorders and ADHD.

Just reading through all this thread but this struck me.

I have a theory that people with ADHD are more prone to Long Covid (I have it too) Nervous systems hammered for years through masking. I overdid the exercise (running). Then Covid damages our nervous system further….

Perimenopause/ADHD and long Covid all together are no fun. I’m barely functioning!

This is good to know. As my Mum said when DS was diagnosed ‘oh he doesn’t have that - he just needs to concentrate more!’

I don’t think parents of 80s kids have any idea how ADHD presents in girls so there’s no point in asking them. I’m convinced me, my brother and my Dad all have inattentive ADHD. My Mum says ‘oh you’re all just like your Dad - you have lazyitis!’

I think it is clouding things by blaming trauma for adhd symptoms. Gabor Mattes theories are unproven (as I discovered when I was blocked on Reddit for recommending him).

I don’t disagree that trauma can cause symptoms but if you go down that route, of trying to get evidence of trauma in childhood you risk alienating people. And the point I made earlier, that parents often have adhd themselves and possible addictions, ( self medicating) then it’s a combination which can’t really be easily separated.

It’s still early days relatively in getting to the root explanation of ND

I’m listening to Gabor Mate’s book on adhd which is a bit confronting.

I need the mediation. I was on wlvanse and it was amazing, but I had to make an appointment to get it again and didn’t - and that was a year ago…

I hate afhd

I have two adopted children who experienced what would be at the extreme end of early trauma. Both have adhd diagnoses (actually one has add). They also both have autism diagnoses.

No one can tell if they really have these conditions or if it is the early trauma.

This is a huge issue in the adoption world, where nearly all the children adopted in the UK from the care system have experienced early trauma.

Often it depends who you see. If you see an adoption- related specialist, they may see everything as trauma/attachment based. If you see a general therapist, they are more likely to go for one of the diagnoses like adhd.

The trouble is that things do overlap. And these children tend to come from families with significant challenges, which are possibly due to undiagnosed adhd or autism.

The Coventry grid tries to separate the early trauma out.

But certainly, you are going to get a lot more help if you get an adhd or asd diagnosis. Saying it's early trauma will get you absolutely nowhere.

I do believe that early trauma can cause adhd and asd type behaviour but the important point is that it's really early, developmental, not what happened to you later on.

Bruce Perry is, imo, the best source on early trauma. His book "The Boy WhovWas Raised as a Dog and Other Stories" is excellent.

My apologies, there was a typo. That should have said Dr Gabor Maté. This is the book.
www.amazon.co.uk/Scattered-Minds-Origins-Attention-Disorder/dp/1785042211

Indeed, but Jewish Gabor Mate and his mother being separated from each other when he was a baby in World War 11 war- torn Hungary was a trauma for him unrelated to his mother having taken drugs because she had undiagnosed ADHD. And I’d take more account of his ideas than Reddits!

The point is that is that trauma is one of the reasons there can be for ADHD symptoms.

I got diagnosed at 49 and started meds. My driving is much better, no more scrapes and minor accidents. I finished my PhD and realised how much more quickly and efficiently I could work - before everything was 3 steps forward, 2 steps back at I made so many little errors

I didn’t have childhood trauma, but I did have scatty signs that meant I never fulfilled my academic potential. Or any potential. I have really good, innovative, ideas. I was given awards in my profession for the, and other people made a lot of money from them. I never know what day of the week it is, never mind where my keys are. It was all manageable until menipause and now I am actually muddled. I am setting my potential because I need to be able to make appointments to manage my adhd but I can’t manage my adhd well enough to make appointments. So I am overdue for dentist, smear; eyes, mammogram, bowel and haircut.

I fucking hate it.

I too suspect that I have ADHD, particularly since perimenopause hit and all my ‘coping’ mechanisms stopped working. It’s clear to me now that I have been masking it for a very long time, looking back on my teen years and early childhood it was clear that something was going on, I was highly sensitive, impulsive, prone to meltdowns, rejection sensitivity etc.

I can’t hold a routine long term unless it’s enforced upon me, so I was great in school but once I left and became responsible for my own time I began to really struggle. I procrastinate terribly, I forget about the washing machine for example and have to re wash loads then I’ll leave it on the line for days and don’t get me started on putting washing away, I am queen of the ‘bagdrobe’. And doom piles.

I can’t stand the big light, harsh sunlight, being too hot is a sensory nightmare, I skin pick suffer from brain fog. I’m ok with noise, unless I’m trying to actively do something and then I literally cannot hear myself think.

I get hyper focused, mostly on stuff that is unproductive to actual life like crafts etc. Currently I am having trouble sleeping, I don’t nod off till nearly 2am, no matter how good my sleep hygiene is.

Interestingly, I do suffer from PTSD and underwent compassionate therapy for it last year.

Cutting out the label of every top because it irritated me. Real sensory issues with things like wool. I vividly remember a really itchy wool dress I wore at about 4/5.

I need to TRY to sleep now, but want to read the thread properly tomorrow & will
lide the thread if I just book mark it.

Definitely wondering if trying to get a dx woukd help me

Years ago it would be called scatty and disorganised. Today it’s called ADHD

Hoarding. Not being able to see my floor due to mess. I just can’t bring myself to tidy or throw out. Then suddenly one day I get a burst of energy, spend the whole day shoving crap into bin liners and taking multiples trips to the recycling centre. Deep clean. Love the new clean fresh house, then a week later it’s trashed again. It’s an awful cycle.

Not being able to sleep. Hence posting at 4:30am. I don’t think I’ve properly slept a whole night since I was a child. I’m in my 30’s now.

Not feeling like I belong anywhere or that I’m good at anything. Especially in work. I’m just not happy doing any job. I don’t have a passion. I get burnt out so easily, despite my job not being physically or mentally challenging or tough.

Being incredibly emotional. (Even though I hate showing my emotions to others and I try my best not to) I can’t help but cry in certain situations. A lot of situations I feel pathetic like a ‘normal’ person would think “get a grip” or “toughen up”.

I have a lot of sensory issues too which makes me feel I may be Autistic also. (Can’t cope with spicy foods or fizzy drinks, I am repulsed by certain shapes of cutlery and I would prefer to eat with my hands, don’t like affection or physical touch, can
notice noises that others around me can’t like little beeps or alarms).

It’s hard to navigate life a lot of the time, but I try and push through.

@Garroty
I'm flabbergasted- everything you've written sounds very much like my 30year old daughter, scarily so!
How does one go about getting assessed, is it just a question of going to your GP and making enquiries?
I would love to put it to her but I think she would be so offended if I even suggested that she should!

Until a few years ago I didn't really question my 'quirks' as life like this is all ive ever known but...
Inability to concentrate on one task without having a compulsion to get up and do something else halfway through...whether it's writing an email, cleaning the kitchen (I can't clean one room at a time and will stop half way through and start cleaning the bedroom for example) watching a film or, getting ready to go out. Once I was aware of my behavior I started noticing it more...sometimes I can't even focus on cleaning my teeth without wandering away from the bathroom, still cleaning them to put the kettle on.
Does that sound like ADHD? I thought I was just a 'multi tasker' but thinking about it, my quirks have made life much for difficult than it should be.

Found driving really difficult and never passed my test.

Weird compulsion to do manual work (for example building garden wall) manual work feels like an outlet to me.

I hop from topic to topic when talking to people and change the subject half way through explaining something or telling a story...something else pops into my head and I feel the need to mention that before I forget.

@Netcurtainnelly yes! I failed my test spectacularly three times in my late teens. Gears were my biggest issue. It was awful not being "good" at it. I eventually passed at 35 and now drive an automatic as it requires less of my limited ADHD attention.

DD also has ADHD and did her test in an automatic as she struggled in the exact same way as me with a manual.

Perhaps the evacuation of thousands of kids to the countryside in the U.K. during WWII, horrible events in Eastern Europe is contributing to the surge in cases of adhd and autism now as a second generation is affected.

Apparently bruixism and hypermobility are also common in people with ADHD.