Adult ADHD Myth #1: “ADHD is for Kids!”

Many of us banged our head against the wall for years, never knowing that we were even dealing with Adult ADHD. The problem wasn’t just our ignorance. No, worse than that, the problem was that we believed the myths — totally wrong ideas about what Adult ADHD is and isn’t.

Respondents to the ADHD Partner Survey explain why they missed the signs of ADHD in their relationships (sometimes for decades) at my other blog, ADHDRollerCoaster.org:

In the next few posts here, I’ll excerpt a chapter from Is It You, Me, or Adult A.D.D.? so we can bust common myths about Adult ADHD one by one.

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“Never in a million years would I have suspected ADHD!” Jennifer explains to the support-group for the partners of adults with ADHD. “I thought ADHD was a hyperactive little boy’s disorder. My husband is 38, six-foot-five, and fairly listless when he’s not engaged in something that really captures his interest.”

Sure, Jennifer knew something was out of kilter, especially with her husband’s unpredictable temper. Yet, because he always maintained his cool outside the home, she was the one who looked unstable. “I wasn’t unstable,” she says. “I was de-stabilized—by his making plans, changing plans, forgetting plans, and expecting me to read his mind about all of it and never be upset that I wasn’t consulted. Now I am stunned to learn how much ADHD has affected everything, and how common it is.”

Throughout history, whenever we haven’t clearly understood a phenomenon, myths have substituted and passed for knowledge. As more of us learn about ADHD—and share our knowledge with the rest of the world—the common misconceptions we explore in this chapter may disappear entirely.

Myth #1:

“…ADHD Is for Children”
Until the 1990s, most medical professionals viewed ADHD as a diagnosis only for children, specifically physically hyperactive children. (A few in the healthcare industry—thankfully, very few—still mistakenly believe that.) One explanation: They thought that children outgrow ADHD because physical hyperactivity, long considered an ADHD hallmark, tends to lessen with age.

This misperception started changing in the 1970s when a few pediatric physicians experienced in treating ADHD connected the dots—observing “little apples” falling suspiciously close to the tree. That is, their young patients’ parents often shared many of the same behaviors, albeit in adult form. For example, they might self-medicate not with candy or boisterous activity but with alcohol or cigarettes.

“In treating children with ADHD, I started asking parents if they used to have problems like this as children, and the spouse would say, ‘What do you mean, used to have?’” says psychiatrist Paul Wender, who has been called the “Dean of ADHD.” Wender is a lecturer in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He began studying ADHD four decades ago, establishing himself as a pioneer in its diagnosis and treatment, both in children and adults.

Here’s another important point: Most of today’s adults who actually have ADHD were never diagnosed as children. In fact, 88 percent of ADHD Partner Survey respondents say their partners were first evaluated and diagnosed as adults, during this relationship.

Given modern awareness and diagnostic methods, if your partner were a youngster today, his or her symptoms would stand a better chance of being recognized. Even today, however, many bright children challenged by ADHD fly under the radar screen for years because their intelligence lets
them compensate, they have strong parental support, they are in highly structured schools, or no one is paying attention to the problems and connecting the dots. It’s only later in life—perhaps college, that first job, that first serious relationship, or that first baby—that they “hit the wall.”

In fact, according to ADHD authority Russell Barkley, ADHD is “far more apparent and even more impairing in adults than in children because adults have more domains of responsibility.” That is, adults are expected to hold a job, run a household, manage money, look after their health, and, in some cases, provide daily structure for children.

TagsADHD is for kids, ADHD Partner survey, Myths about Adult ADHD